Facebook movie closer to reality? Lots of info hitting the airwaves right now. This isn't exactly a breaking story, since Aaron Sorkin's official Facebook Movie group went up in August of 2008. For some of the latest gossip, check this CNET article
The new Firefox 3.5 is due out sometime around the start of July 2009. Watch the video overview on the Firefox YouTube channel
The new Opera 10 will incorporated some built-in applications, plus the concept of "client-based serving" right inside the browser, a very ambitious feature. There's a video overview of the Opera 10 beta on the CNET Blog
Google has begun a series of tips to help online business webmasters stay on top of their site analytics, and maximize traffic, revenue, and AdSense income in these poor economic times. Go to the Google AdSense Blog
Wednesday, June 24, 2009
Saturday, June 20, 2009
Project Natal, HTML books, Yahoo ranking...
If you haven’t seen demo videos of the Xbox 360 Project Natal controller, here’s a YouTube link - Project Natal/Milo demo
Is this thing practical? How many similar devices have come and gone since the eighties? Sure, the graphics are better than ever before, but why is this different than all the other really cool gadgets that never caught on? They're going to have to innovate games unlike anything we've seen before. Personally, I think the gaming industry needs to evolve past shooters and driving games anyway.
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If you happen to be new to web design, forget online tutorials, start with an HTML book by Elizabeth Castro. Look for the "Visual Quick Start" series. You’ll have a great understanding of the basics in no time, and be ready to move on to intermediate stuff after a week or two of playing around with what she shows you. It's excellent foundation material, and the books are handy references.
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We hear enough from Google, so here's a candid interview with Laura Lippay of Yahoo - on WebProNews
Is this thing practical? How many similar devices have come and gone since the eighties? Sure, the graphics are better than ever before, but why is this different than all the other really cool gadgets that never caught on? They're going to have to innovate games unlike anything we've seen before. Personally, I think the gaming industry needs to evolve past shooters and driving games anyway.
___________________________________________________
If you happen to be new to web design, forget online tutorials, start with an HTML book by Elizabeth Castro. Look for the "Visual Quick Start" series. You’ll have a great understanding of the basics in no time, and be ready to move on to intermediate stuff after a week or two of playing around with what she shows you. It's excellent foundation material, and the books are handy references.
___________________________________________________
We hear enough from Google, so here's a candid interview with Laura Lippay of Yahoo - on WebProNews
Sunday, June 14, 2009
Windows 7 Test Version
What Microsoft calls the "release candidate" of the new operating system is available to download for free "at least through July 2009", according to their web site. So if you want a copy, get it now.
This is intended to be a fully-functioning trial version of the successor to XP, but remember this is a test version only. This isn't something to be using for important work, or if you have concerns about privacy. This software is designed specifically to be in constant contact with Microsoft, and send tons of information directly to them about what you are doing with your computer, exactly how and when you are using it, other installed software, errors it encounters, and how well it's working in general. It will also update and modify itself as the engineers see fit. This is the sole reason it's being given away for free - to monitor people using it. This should be installed on a spare drive as a play toy and nothing more.
The software should function until July of 2010, then will start shutting down every 2 hours on purpose. This is a warning that it will completely stop functioning soon, as it's designed to, so you don't get caught off guard.
If you do try it out, be sure to share your thoughts.
This is intended to be a fully-functioning trial version of the successor to XP, but remember this is a test version only. This isn't something to be using for important work, or if you have concerns about privacy. This software is designed specifically to be in constant contact with Microsoft, and send tons of information directly to them about what you are doing with your computer, exactly how and when you are using it, other installed software, errors it encounters, and how well it's working in general. It will also update and modify itself as the engineers see fit. This is the sole reason it's being given away for free - to monitor people using it. This should be installed on a spare drive as a play toy and nothing more.
The software should function until July of 2010, then will start shutting down every 2 hours on purpose. This is a warning that it will completely stop functioning soon, as it's designed to, so you don't get caught off guard.
If you do try it out, be sure to share your thoughts.
Saturday, June 6, 2009
Facebook, E-Commerce, Twitter ads...
Grady Burnett has now joined Sheryl Sandberg working at Facebook. They both had been senior employees in the Adwords/AdSense units at Google. This is big news as Facebook continues to work on more targeted ways to nail members with advertising. These two people will likely be valuable in helping develop a better interface for the advertisers as well.
Here's a good, concise interview about e-commerce and conversion rates from Web Pro News.
I get the feeling that Microsoft may begin serving ads on Twitter soon. They've been testing for some time in markets outside North America. There's also a company called Federated Media that runs a site called www.exectweets.com, which extracts the tweets of business executives from Twitter. This is just one of the many "powered by Twitter" sites, but is noteworthy due to a partnership with Microsoft, which runs ads on the site.
Here's a good, concise interview about e-commerce and conversion rates from Web Pro News.
I get the feeling that Microsoft may begin serving ads on Twitter soon. They've been testing for some time in markets outside North America. There's also a company called Federated Media that runs a site called www.exectweets.com, which extracts the tweets of business executives from Twitter. This is just one of the many "powered by Twitter" sites, but is noteworthy due to a partnership with Microsoft, which runs ads on the site.
Friday, June 5, 2009
Twitter Is A Search Engine?
Recently, a couple of tech industry types have suggested that Twitter isn't a microblogging site, but is a search engine. Huh? And they're being serious. So the next time you're looking for a website that sells computer parts, or a video to show you how to make fishing lures, I guess all you need to do is search Twitter.
Let's think about this for a second. CNN is a news site, I'm sure we can agree on that. But wait... all of the content on the site, both articles and videos, can be searched. So doesn't that make it a search engine, rather than a news site? Hardly. The only thing it means is their content is searchable, which is no different than any other site with lots of content. Hundreds of thousands of sites have a search feature. Likewise, the fact that I can search for "skateboarding" videos on YouTube, or "hockey" news on my local newspaper site doesn't make them search engines. All it means is the webmaster was smart enough to put a search box on the site so people can find what they came for.
If I need to know what time a movie starts downtown tonight, I'll want to find the movie theater website. Which means I'll do a search on Yahoo or Google and find it in 15 seconds. Alternately, I could search Yahoo or Google for a mortgage calculator, or pictures of David Letterman, or information about turtles, or anything else I could possibly think of. What kind of idiot would search for those things on Twitter? The results, if any, would be nothing more than telling you who recently said the word "turtle" in a message. Wow, that's some search engine.
Twitter lets people post comments and communications. And it happens to have an internal search tool, the same as any other site. It isn't a search engine.
Google/Yahoo/Bing/Ask will search the entire landscape of the internet with the sole purpose of finding what you've asked for. Articles, pictures, videos, whatever. Which is why they are called search engines.
Let's think about this for a second. CNN is a news site, I'm sure we can agree on that. But wait... all of the content on the site, both articles and videos, can be searched. So doesn't that make it a search engine, rather than a news site? Hardly. The only thing it means is their content is searchable, which is no different than any other site with lots of content. Hundreds of thousands of sites have a search feature. Likewise, the fact that I can search for "skateboarding" videos on YouTube, or "hockey" news on my local newspaper site doesn't make them search engines. All it means is the webmaster was smart enough to put a search box on the site so people can find what they came for.
If I need to know what time a movie starts downtown tonight, I'll want to find the movie theater website. Which means I'll do a search on Yahoo or Google and find it in 15 seconds. Alternately, I could search Yahoo or Google for a mortgage calculator, or pictures of David Letterman, or information about turtles, or anything else I could possibly think of. What kind of idiot would search for those things on Twitter? The results, if any, would be nothing more than telling you who recently said the word "turtle" in a message. Wow, that's some search engine.
Twitter lets people post comments and communications. And it happens to have an internal search tool, the same as any other site. It isn't a search engine.
Google/Yahoo/Bing/Ask will search the entire landscape of the internet with the sole purpose of finding what you've asked for. Articles, pictures, videos, whatever. Which is why they are called search engines.
Sunday, May 31, 2009
How Many Social Network Sites Do We Need?
I keep discovering "social networking" sites that hardly have any members, even those that have been around for several years. And I don't mean industry-specific or niche sites, but wide open networks. Are they not marketing them, or are they just truly lame?
Another thing I've learned is that most social networking sites have a majority of fly-by visitors, and generally less than 40% regular users. So it would appear that many people are curious about the current social networking hype and go check out these sites, yet few of them find reasons to come back. Look at it this way, if a site claims a million visitors a month, you can bet that at least 60% of those are one-time visitors who will never return. Facebook and MySpace are solid, with 55-60% regular users, and 25-35% fly-by visitors. The remaining percentages are hard-core users who are on every single day.
I'm assuming in the next year or two there will be a purging of these sites, where a few of the successful ones will buy the decent smaller ones, and the others will simply disappear because they never worked. Just like tech companies in 2000, and banks in 2009.
Another thing I've learned is that most social networking sites have a majority of fly-by visitors, and generally less than 40% regular users. So it would appear that many people are curious about the current social networking hype and go check out these sites, yet few of them find reasons to come back. Look at it this way, if a site claims a million visitors a month, you can bet that at least 60% of those are one-time visitors who will never return. Facebook and MySpace are solid, with 55-60% regular users, and 25-35% fly-by visitors. The remaining percentages are hard-core users who are on every single day.
I'm assuming in the next year or two there will be a purging of these sites, where a few of the successful ones will buy the decent smaller ones, and the others will simply disappear because they never worked. Just like tech companies in 2000, and banks in 2009.
Wednesday, May 27, 2009
FTP software: FileZilla is free and works great
If you need a great ftp program, FileZilla is working for me just fine. I'd heard of it years ago, but was already using Ipswitch with no problems. Since then, I've changed hard drives a few times, rebuilt a few computers, and long story short, I needed some ftp software for my newest computer.
After a predictable search for free stuff on CNET, I learned that FileZilla was still king of the hill in that category. After downloading it and using it on my main computer, I also installed it on my secondary computer where I do most of my graphic design. This saves me from having to transfer those files to my main computer to upload to my sites.
Frequently it seems ftp programs are described as useful for uploads to YouTube and other sites, which I honestly don't understand, since those sites have their own systems for uploading. Regardless, I only use ftp to upload files into directories of sites I've built on my server. FileZilla is free, yet has all the elements found in other programs costing $49. I definitely recommend it.
After a predictable search for free stuff on CNET, I learned that FileZilla was still king of the hill in that category. After downloading it and using it on my main computer, I also installed it on my secondary computer where I do most of my graphic design. This saves me from having to transfer those files to my main computer to upload to my sites.
Frequently it seems ftp programs are described as useful for uploads to YouTube and other sites, which I honestly don't understand, since those sites have their own systems for uploading. Regardless, I only use ftp to upload files into directories of sites I've built on my server. FileZilla is free, yet has all the elements found in other programs costing $49. I definitely recommend it.
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