BlogSat

GigaOm post on TipJoy . Me likey: two powerful ideas I've always been bullish about, and sad no one's done them quite right (or got them to work) yet: Micropayments and Voluntary Payments on the Internet I like their UI and will try their widget if I ever get around to re-doing my blog like I once planned to. :) Do you think this works?

"YouTube, will you marry me?" :)

The University of Virginia newspaper seems to have pre-announced (if it was supposed to announce at all?) the faculty "unconference" that Google is having at Mountain View tomorrow. So I guess that means I'm allowed to talk about it. I'm excited to have wangled an invite for the all-day do tomorrow. I just got back from dinner with some of the faculty that's visiting and I'm feeling on such a high from the topics, quality and passion of the discussions...and this was just over dinner!:) The topic list is great (lots of stuff I can get excited about!), and I'm not feeling in the mood to be timid tomorrow....now I just need to avoid the temptation to look at work email.

I'm a fan of the FX show " Rescue Me " I was lukewarm when Dennis Leary mentioned the mini-sodes on his Daily Show visit. But, for the Rescue Me's particular situation it works really well. First the mini-sodes are actually good! they use characters from the story and tell a little anecdote they were clearly pretty cheap to produce through what seems like a little bit of complicated mess, they're distributing like crazy: YouTube , Crackle (Sony's site), the FX site (powered by Brightcove), Hulu These do exactly what they're supposed to do new episodes aren't coming till Spring 2009 , the fans need something to tide them over and keep the show in their memory: done potentially rope in new fans (short episodes, lower commitment to start watching the show) without freaking out old school media which is loathe to risk potential DVD sales by putting older episodes/clips online: done Its not completely clear to me how much this is by their own design, and...

I ended up spending half a day at Facebook's f8 developer conference . First the completely unnecessary random, rambling thoughts as I walked in just in time to attended the keynote Huh, its got a cool feel to it; dark lighting; couches, bold (but not Googley) colors marking the different areas; might be fun mascot in a gorilla suit blocks my way (seriously!) I smile awkwardly till he moves out of the way; he's dancing now and does the same thing to someone who looks genuinely panic-stricken by the simian.....I wonder if anyone will punch him by the end of the day. looks like the entire Facebook staff turned out here; I'm wondering if the ratio of attendees:employees is in the 2:1 or 3:1 range. The keynote is about to start: its kinda hot and I'm feeling drowsy at 1:30 in the afternoon Zuckerberg is about to speak: he seems to be kinda nervous: he starts with a cheesy opening line...hmmmm; this could be bad. He seems a little over-coached and nervous: the writing is spo...

I used to crack these jokes all the time before B-School. Thanks for the pointer, Chris Looks like the dilbert site has been completely re-designed since I've visited. Umm...some good, some not so good. They've tried to look very "Web 2.0", but site interaction and usability isn't quite there yet.

It looks like I'm in the mood to complain today. I had to a pay a bill online and I was confronted with this! It escapes me why you wouldn't just label the textbox "Email ID:" instead of having the annoying little text underneath.

So here's what happened. Maybe because its set in Chicago, or maybe just because the writing is so good, I really like My Boys. So its on my DVR list. I get home excepting to watch the show a few Thrusdays ago, except that something funky happened and the recording got messed up. My options: wait a few days and record the re-run, or catch it online right away. I decided I wanted to watch it right then, and went to TBS' website. Here's what the th ought-stream went like after that Click. Woohoo, they have full episodes on the sites Click . Huh? Ok. the show isn't online yet; maybe in a few hours? Click . The new episode will be online on the 19th; exactly 8 days from now! Argh! WTF? Click . Fine, I still want to watch the show now, so twenty minutes later I did watch it on my laptop, but TBS didn't get a chance to serve me ads in the middle of the show and severely reduced the probability of my visiting TBS.com ever again. Using windowing strategies (i.e. making thi...

Most products/services either  save you time help you kill it Its been a way I've amused myself and thought it was pretty obivous. But someone got a kick out of it when I explained it to them a couple of days ago, so here goes...  The argument is broad enough so that with some mental and verbal gymnastics it can be made to apply to anything. Think about it: almost any product or business you use either helps you do things more efficiently or helps you kill time. Cars: save you time TV: helps you kill it Google: saves you time YouTube: helps you kill it In essence, you're job is one of these things: its that simple: you're saving people time or helping them kill it (which is just as important, because life is hard!:)) Of course, its no fun unless you unnecessarily complicate the thought experiment!   Everything that helps you save time can be used to help you waste it Cars:  save you time, except when you're driving to the movies to waste it Google: saves you time, e...