On The Margins

Friday February 09, 2007

[ Web ] Other Blogs

I have started a number of other blogs on blogger.com.

My purpose has been to experiment with other blogging services and learn about user experience.

Originally, I had a few and now there are a dozen or more. They were and are all experimental. Managing the layouts of these blogs had become a headache. I was trying to figure out how to add hosted material and feeds and each had their own model. So, currently, I'm experimenting with the layout management tools that the new blogger.com service provides.

Recently, Google consolidated blogger.com's access management with access management for other Google services. Furthermore, blogger.com has taken a large step in rationalizing its templates and layout managers. Now, after choosing a template, the user can upgrade to the new layout manager which provides a simple GUI interface to handle widgets on the page. Blogger carries guidelines on how to define new widgets.

Since I had not made a huge investment in developing my own templates and layouts in the original experimental blogs, I decided to migrate them to the new layout and template formats and to create some new ones. I then used the guidelines to create some new widgets of my own, including a couple for Google's adsense for content. The scripting language for widgets, "includables," and page layout management proved quite simple to use, and defined properly, the widgets can be manipulated in the simple, graphic layout manager.

2007-02-09 18:38:33.0 -- ; Permalink ; Trackback.
blogger blogs

Sunday February 04, 2007

[ Web ] Another Web 2.0 Application

Check out Netvibes. It is a highly-interactive, personalized content and messaging portal brought to us by French Internet entrepreneurs (with one, a Sun Microsystems' alumni).

2007-02-04 12:29:37.0 -- Comments [2] ; Permalink ; Trackback.
web

Monday January 29, 2007

[ Web ] Growth Path

Financial Times on video and film downloads: (a) Growth from now until 2012: 10 folds. (b) Worth in 2012: $6.3 billion. Chad Hurley at Davos: YouTube will share advertising revenue with video uploaders.

2007-01-29 22:46:30.0 -- ; Permalink ; Trackback.
business film video web

Saturday January 20, 2007

[ Web ] Google's Capital Spending

Google's capital spending more than doubled to $800m in 2005. Expansion has continued, and capital spending numbers for 2006 will be released next month. It will be interesting to watch.

2007-01-20 16:05:17.0 -- ; Permalink ; Trackback.
assets capital computing

Friday January 12, 2007

[ Web ] Web Software

The best web software blog around I know is right here on blogs.sun.com: Aquarium.

Aquarium is not only a great example of a collaboatively produced blog but also full of new information about software for web applications.

Frequent and attentive enough visits to the Aquarium will turn you into fast fish in the sea of Web applications.

2007-01-12 16:26:34.0 -- ; Permalink ; Trackback.
applications platforms web

Sunday January 07, 2007

[ Web ] Classifying Content

Lawrence Lessig classifies content on the web according to their participation and sharing characteristics.

2007-01-07 00:34:03.0 -- ; Permalink ; Trackback.
access content web

Thursday December 07, 2006

[ Web ] Net Neutrality

Josh Silver who regularly posts on Net Neutrality debate, reviews Bill Moyer's PBS program on the same.

2006-12-07 10:08:36.0 -- ; Permalink ; Trackback.
net neurality web

Saturday December 02, 2006

[ Web ] Fake vs. True Sharing

Lawrence Lessig writes about fake vs. true sharing.

The fact that Lessig has to use an adjective to qualify sharing may be another proof of how little words have come to mean in common usage. You cannot be said to be sharing your bread unless the party you're sharing it with can also eat from the part that has been shared. Otherwise, you're only sharing the right to watch the bread, not any rights to eat from it. 

Much of the videos posted on YouTube are posted with an intention to share them completely. Users should be able to copy and mix such video quite freely. As Lessig has noted, disputes regarding this model continue.

A sharing that doesn't grant any independent use rights can hardly be called sharing.
 

2006-12-02 07:54:16.0 -- ; Permalink ; Trackback.
file law music sharing stanford video web youtube

Tuesday November 14, 2006

[ Web ] Reuters Plucks Pluck

Reuters, the innovative newswire service famous for its bylaws and independent board, "plucks" Pluck, a blog syndicator for news outlets, through a $7 million investment. 

2006-11-14 15:30:16.0 -- ; Permalink ; Trackback.
acquisitions blogs business news wireservice

Wednesday November 08, 2006

[ Web ] The Archeology Of The First Internet Bubble

In his Wall Street Journal "Portals" column ("The Dot-Com Bubble Is Reconsidered," Nov. 8, 2006), Lee Gomes points us to an archeological study of the Internet bubble, some of whose findings contrast with conventional wisdom regarding the boom which is "normally dated from the Netscape IPO in August 1995 to March 2000, when Nasdaq peaked at above 5100": 

A recent paper suggests that rather than having too many entrants, the period of the Web bubble may have had too few; at least, too few of the right kind. And while most people recall the colossal flops of the period (Webvan, pets.com, etoys and the rest) the survival rates of the era's companies turns out to be on a par, if not slightly higher, than those in several other major industries in their formative years.

The paper is being published in a coming issue of the Journal of Financial Economics. As noteworthy as the findings are, even more interesting is the process that led to them. The work is an outgrowth of the Business Plan Archive at the University of Maryland. Its goal is to become a kind of Smithsonian Institution of the Internet bubble, saving for posterity every business plan, PowerPoint presentation and venture-capital term sheet -- the more frothy and half-baked, the better -- that it can get its hands on.

2006-11-08 17:56:09.0 -- ; Permalink ; Trackback.
economics finance ipo web

Thursday November 02, 2006

[ Web ] Content and Control

Victorial Shannon, web and technology writer for International Herald Tribune, has an interesting story on content and control on the web.

2006-11-02 15:57:39.0 -- Comments [3] ; Permalink ; Trackback.

Thursday October 26, 2006

[ Web ] Web Bombardment

Cyber"life" has taken new turns and, in this election season, a web phrase seems to be gaining currency: "google bombing."

2006-10-26 23:01:09.0 -- ; Permalink ; Trackback.

Monday October 23, 2006

[ Web ] Upgrading to Firefox 1.5 on Mac OS-X (PowerPC)

I just upgraded to Firefox 1.5 on Mac OS-X (10.4) running on a Power PC iMac. The upgrade was quite painless. I only needed to change permission on the existing Firefox app. Since app data is under "~/Library/..." little else needed to be done to preserve bookmarks and other user data.  The new app seems much more stable.

2006-10-23 09:20:02.0 -- Comments [1] ; Permalink ; Trackback.

Saturday September 09, 2006

[ Web ] Why Web 2.0 Has Come to Exist?

Web 2.0 is hardly just a set of technologies clobbered together, or some specific way to interact on the web in order to be restful in mind, in protocol and in body. It is also a rather strange, modern way of living to express. However, for all those who live to express that which lies within them as talent, skill, artfulness, love, creativity and imagination, there will continue to be a boundless scope in means, even after Web 2.0 goes and something else comes in its place, as technology, as a way of cyber-being and as a way of noting ones own existence in the thin ether of what is the web of our surroundings.

There is a simple reason why Web 2.0 companies are taking off so fast.

They all focus on one important social issue: The deep need for social expression. Consumerist society based on physical belongings and ownerships has cut the space for expression so hard and so sharply from people's lives that they are now taking refuge in the cyberspace of Web 2.0. There, the basic necessity is an action other than consumption. It is about pouring out something, a photograph, a voice, a video, a link, a piece of writing, some bit of news. The pressure of consumerist society has greatly exaggerated the release mechanism of social networking, and in its turn, consumerist models of advertising and ownership have taken up new domicile in the cyber-social, with acquisitions to bring together enough cyberproperty to build new malls and shopping lanes. However, social pressure towards pure self-expression knows no bounds. It cannot be bottled up, and all constraints lead to new ways of being its effusive self in the wonders of new paths that the new consumerist constraints insist on making available by closing the existing paths. All eliminated paths are sign-posts to new paths to take because paths to expression are infinite and cannot be bounded by shackles of one form or another no matter how invisible we try to make them.

What is the lesson to be learned? Find new ways to allow self-expression and communal expression and you have found a way to assist people to carry the burden of their imagination which has been bottled in well-labled boxes and containers. You will not liberate them but you will assist them to rediscover what it means to create, to be imaginative and to leave behind a valuable trace of their everyday experience. But beware of the duration of the digital, and yes, the durability of the paper made of mere pulp!

Business success becomes a corollary that will follow those who are intelligent to their emotional antennas, and because our emotional world has a complex geography---vast and impossible to explore in fullness---opportunities abound for us to learn more, to create through arts of all kinds what gives expression to its limitless terrain.

  

2006-09-09 00:14:49.0 -- ; Permalink ; Trackback.

[ Web ] The Breadth of Web 2.0 Apps

Financial Times has published a very interesting article on the breadth of Web 2.0 applications. I chose some fragments of this and will choose other Web 2.0 and general Web news fragments for posting here.

A paragraph from the FT article reads thus:

2006-09-09 00:04:13.0 -- ; Permalink ; Trackback.

Wednesday September 06, 2006

[ Web ] First Anti-Spamming Conviction

Virginia Court of Appeals upholds the first conviction under a state anti-spamming law.

2006-09-06 18:27:19.0 -- ; Permalink ; Trackback.

Monday September 04, 2006

[ Web ] Waking Technorati Up

2006-09-04 17:12:46.0 -- ; Permalink ; Trackback.

Friday September 01, 2006

[ Web ] Another YouTube Video

 I pointed to some YouTube videos before.

Here's one about the reason behind Sun's share gains.

It goes a bit fast. So, pay close attention.

I took the pointer from Jonathan Schwartz weblog.

2006-09-01 16:32:08.0 -- ; Permalink ; Trackback.

[ Web ] Hours of Internet Video Watched

Financial Times reports that there are not enough ways and experts to dispatch and attach ads on video service web sites, and a Wall Street Journal columnist and others scrub YouTube for data that can help size the viewers and hours of use.

Last May, FT published a story on the three largest video distribution services on the web. The story reminds readers of Yahoo's acquisition of "Web 2.0" services such as Flickr, del.icio.us and upcoming.org. (The latter is posting an upcoming "web 2.0 conference" also sponsored by Sun Microsystems Inc.) These are simple services that do something specific very well. 

An earlier FT report published in April explores YouTube's early growth and a later report on branded channels, while noting the challenges with advertising:

Lee Gomes, WSJ Internet columnist, has scrubbed YouTube and produced an interesting report this Wednesday drawing on his own data as well as those of others including academicians' and industry watchers'. Gomes reports that the number of videos has grown by 20% in the last month alone, from 5 to 6 million pieces. Gomes quotes Johan Pouwelse, a Delft University professor, saying that 70% of YouTube's registered users are American and roughly half are under 20 years of age.

The oldest active viewer apparently is geriatric1927, a 79-year old U.K. resident who sits at his PC in his study with headphones on and narrates memories of World War II. Ernie Rogers, a 23-year old from Colton, Calif., whose handle is "lamo1234," has watched more YouTube videos than anyone. Mr. Rogers claims he is on the site 24/7. And as "the YouTube rockstar," he has shared his original songs, including one called "Waste of Time."

"The total time the people of the world spent watching YouTube since it started last year. The figure is -- drum roll, please -- 9,305 years!" writes Gomes in his column.

In the meantime, here's a couple of strange videos one could probably only watch on YouTube from here in the U.S.:

1. Sham-e Aroosi ("Wedding Dinner"). This Persian one uses a Michael Jackson tune as the background music for an Iranian movie commercial about that repeating movie story about the father of the bride.
2. Revayat ("Story"). This is an Azeri song which seems to have been produced in Azerbijan Republic. It should have been song in the background of Azeri instruments that the famous Ashig musicians play, i.e. the tar string instrument held horizontally at the chest level, and played with intensity and a beat identical to the beat of this particular song. Instead we here some strange electronic instrument repeating a very boring tune in the background of this classically styled song.

2006-09-01 10:43:36.0 -- ; Permalink ; Trackback.

Wednesday August 30, 2006

[ Web ] I'm feeling lucky

Charles Arthur of The Guardian has written an interesting analysis of search engine optimizers (SEOs), "Im' feeling lucky," and the appearance of Wikipedia on the top of the search pile.

2006-08-30 19:09:55.0 -- Comments [3] ; Permalink ; Trackback.