While Technorati tells us what bloggers are blogging about, the site doesn't provide much feedback about which blogs are providing the best content.
Blogs.com is taking the bold step of rating blogs. Blogs.com is part of the company that produces MovableType and TypePad, and they are now employing an editorial staff to rate blogs by topic.
Need to know the Top 10 best blogs about Obama or music or economics? The editors at Blogs.com are hard at work finding them for you.
To get you started, I would have offered my Top 10 Blogs.com Top 10 Lists of Blogs (in no order), but there are just too many Top 10 Lists of Blogs to choose from. Check them out for yourself here.
Interestingly, there are no lists of book publishing or triathlon blogs and only one list of cycling blogs. Oh yeah, and Blogs.com offers user-generated lists. Opportunity, anyone?
Sunday, November 23, 2008
Wednesday, November 19, 2008
Endsheet Blog Review: Lifehacker.com
On July 25th, Google announced via its blog that the world’s most popular search engine has identified at least 1 trillion unique pages on the web.
That is a lot of websites. And with the explosion of free and easy-to-use web services, how’s a person to know which ones are most useful?
For this purpose, I turn to my favorite blog, Lifehacker.com. Run by a software programmer and a small team of contributing editors, Lifehacker is an award-winning blog devoted to online and offline productivity. Lifehacker reviews fascinatingly named web services—like Hulu, Remember the Milk, Jott, and Sandy—explaining their benefits and providing easy walkthroughs. Lifehacker’s clarity and ease of use has made it one of Technorati’s top-linked blogs on the web.
A sampling of stories on Lifehacker.com:
VM-what? Okay, so Lifehacker isn’t for everyone. It is for people who like finding clever ways to do things better, faster, or cheaper. It’s especially for those who get stoked about hacking their wireless router’s firmware with a Linux-based OS to boost their sign—oops! Sorry.
Lifehacker has made my life better, or at least more productive. The blog keeps me up to date on the newest and most useful web services, like Syncplicity, a simple way to my work files updated on my home computer—no emailing, DVD-Rs, thumb drives, or external hard drives required. Or like Jott, which will email me a text transcript of the voicemail I leave when I call from a cellphone. With 1 trillion pages to choose from and web services becoming increasingly powerful, Lifehacker’s insight is invaluable.
As a product of Web 2.0, Lifehacker is free and requires no registration. Just point your favorite browser to Lifehacker.com and enjoy a more productive life! Technophiles will appreciate Lifehacker's many RSS feed options: all stories or top stories, full text with ads or just ledes sans ads. Luddites, fear not. The wisdom of Lifehacker is also available in print. Gina Trapani, editor of Lifehacker, just published a book of life hacks called Upgrade Your Life (Wiley, 2008), available in bookstores and, naturally, online.
This article was originally published in the fall 2008 issue of The Endsheet, the newsletter of the Publishers Association of the West.
That is a lot of websites. And with the explosion of free and easy-to-use web services, how’s a person to know which ones are most useful?
For this purpose, I turn to my favorite blog, Lifehacker.com. Run by a software programmer and a small team of contributing editors, Lifehacker is an award-winning blog devoted to online and offline productivity. Lifehacker reviews fascinatingly named web services—like Hulu, Remember the Milk, Jott, and Sandy—explaining their benefits and providing easy walkthroughs. Lifehacker’s clarity and ease of use has made it one of Technorati’s top-linked blogs on the web.
A sampling of stories on Lifehacker.com:
- Use Facebook as a Marketing Tool
- Repair Your Own Books
- Track web site stats with Google Analytics
- Zoomii Browses Amazon Books Shelf by Shelf
- Top 10 Computer Annoyances and How to Fix them
- Rent Books Netflix-Style with BookSwim
- Five Best Note-Taking Tools (yes, pencil and paper made the list!)
- VMware Fusion 2.0 Beta 2 Now Available
VM-what? Okay, so Lifehacker isn’t for everyone. It is for people who like finding clever ways to do things better, faster, or cheaper. It’s especially for those who get stoked about hacking their wireless router’s firmware with a Linux-based OS to boost their sign—oops! Sorry.
Lifehacker has made my life better, or at least more productive. The blog keeps me up to date on the newest and most useful web services, like Syncplicity, a simple way to my work files updated on my home computer—no emailing, DVD-Rs, thumb drives, or external hard drives required. Or like Jott, which will email me a text transcript of the voicemail I leave when I call from a cellphone. With 1 trillion pages to choose from and web services becoming increasingly powerful, Lifehacker’s insight is invaluable.
As a product of Web 2.0, Lifehacker is free and requires no registration. Just point your favorite browser to Lifehacker.com and enjoy a more productive life! Technophiles will appreciate Lifehacker's many RSS feed options: all stories or top stories, full text with ads or just ledes sans ads. Luddites, fear not. The wisdom of Lifehacker is also available in print. Gina Trapani, editor of Lifehacker, just published a book of life hacks called Upgrade Your Life (Wiley, 2008), available in bookstores and, naturally, online.
This article was originally published in the fall 2008 issue of The Endsheet, the newsletter of the Publishers Association of the West.
Follow the Reader: How publishers and booksellers can reach new readers
Americans are reading fewer books each year, a fact confronting publishers big and small. Even as publishers continue to ratchet up production, they know that a digital frontier of publishing has arrived, and in order to remain a relevant among the iPhone and Web 2.0 users, they must find new ways to reach their audience. Or as I like to think of it, they have to follow the reader.
Formal and informal, the studies indicating fewer readers are many. Last November, for example, the National Endowment for the Arts released "To Read or Not To Read: A Question of National Consequence," which concluded that our country is experiencing "a general decline in reading among teenage and adult Americans," and that "both reading ability and the habit of regular reading have greatly declined among college graduates." Though this study built on the NEA's 2004 report, "Reading at Risk: A Survey of Literary Reading in America," the challenge to publishers remains clear: How do they sell books to people who don't read books?
Or are publishers interpreting the data correctly? At O'Reilly Tools of Change conference in February, Stephen Abram delivered a keynote address entitled "Information 3.0: Will Publishers Matter?" and pointed out a crucial distinction: Americans are not reading less, they're reading differently. To the point, they're reading online, a shift that explains MIT's estimated 25 percent annual growth rate in the number of websites. Abram explained that for today's reader, the Web's authority not only rivals that for printed material-it's beating it. If online information is reliable, convenient, and free, the real question to ask is, how can the printed book compete?
In his closing keynote at the 2007 PubWest Annual Conference, Andrew Savikas spoke to this issue and maintained that the Internet is "rapidly superseding the function of print publishing." Information that, up until recently, could be found only in print is now available online for free, 24/7. Entire categories of books, for instance cookbooks and travel guides, are under seige from websites like Epicurious and TripAdvisor. According to Savikas, book publishers must expand their model of publishing into one that supports and interfaces with digital media, enabling houses of all sizes to divide and repurpose book content into formats that accommodate readers' new reading patterns. Here are a few steps to consider when following the reader:
However, publishers should not move to the Web without care, WIRED magazine's Chris Anderson, best known in publishing for his "long tail" concept, describes the pressures facing digital content in the March 2008 issue in this way: "Anything that becomes digital becomes free."
Many in the industry believe that the printed book will continue to hold value for readers long after publishing has transitioned into the digital era. They also believe there will continue to be a need for distribution, and for the bookstore. Arsen Kashkashian, buyer for the Boulder Book Store in Boulder, CO, is a believer but says that reaching or creating new readers poses a "vexing problem" for independent bookstores. Kashkashian follows his readers by focusing his efforts on retaining his best customers and rewarding frequent buyers for their repeat business. He has also designed the store to be welcoming and comfortable, like "a living room and not a library". To encourage reading, the Boulder Book Store donates pallets of children's books to local schools and schedules a wide range of events intended to appeal to nontraditional book readers.
Kashkashian believes the decline in reading is simply a cultural phenomenon, and feels the problem is exaggerated. "We didn't run around in 1957 fretting about how many people were reading," he says. "Some people were reading and passionate about books, and the publishing industry catered to them. Today, the problems facing bookstores and publishers are ones of competition, with websites and stores both offering an endless array of titles being published in an already cluttered marketplace. Perhaps the anomaly is the explosion of mega-stores, the number of published titles, and the commoditization of books, and not how many people are reading.
The Web is both threat and opportunity. Traditional print-only publishing faces an inevitable decline as the supply of information overwhelms the demand of a book-averse public. Yet the Web offers publishers an opportunity to serve (and follow) readers in new ways. While the Web's short history has shown that digital content eventually becomes free (think Google), the Web brings readers closer to publishers than ever before-and at close quarters, it promises to teach us how to stay connected to our readers.
This article was originally published in the fall 2007 issue of The Endsheet, the newsletter of the Publishers Association of the West.
Formal and informal, the studies indicating fewer readers are many. Last November, for example, the National Endowment for the Arts released "To Read or Not To Read: A Question of National Consequence," which concluded that our country is experiencing "a general decline in reading among teenage and adult Americans," and that "both reading ability and the habit of regular reading have greatly declined among college graduates." Though this study built on the NEA's 2004 report, "Reading at Risk: A Survey of Literary Reading in America," the challenge to publishers remains clear: How do they sell books to people who don't read books?
Or are publishers interpreting the data correctly? At O'Reilly Tools of Change conference in February, Stephen Abram delivered a keynote address entitled "Information 3.0: Will Publishers Matter?" and pointed out a crucial distinction: Americans are not reading less, they're reading differently. To the point, they're reading online, a shift that explains MIT's estimated 25 percent annual growth rate in the number of websites. Abram explained that for today's reader, the Web's authority not only rivals that for printed material-it's beating it. If online information is reliable, convenient, and free, the real question to ask is, how can the printed book compete?
In his closing keynote at the 2007 PubWest Annual Conference, Andrew Savikas spoke to this issue and maintained that the Internet is "rapidly superseding the function of print publishing." Information that, up until recently, could be found only in print is now available online for free, 24/7. Entire categories of books, for instance cookbooks and travel guides, are under seige from websites like Epicurious and TripAdvisor. According to Savikas, book publishers must expand their model of publishing into one that supports and interfaces with digital media, enabling houses of all sizes to divide and repurpose book content into formats that accommodate readers' new reading patterns. Here are a few steps to consider when following the reader:
- Every book should be available in multiple formats: print, digital, and online subscription.
- Publishers should sell chapters individually.
- Book content should be divisible into articles available online for free, both as separately usable content and as teaser for the complete electronic or printed book.
However, publishers should not move to the Web without care, WIRED magazine's Chris Anderson, best known in publishing for his "long tail" concept, describes the pressures facing digital content in the March 2008 issue in this way: "Anything that becomes digital becomes free."
Many in the industry believe that the printed book will continue to hold value for readers long after publishing has transitioned into the digital era. They also believe there will continue to be a need for distribution, and for the bookstore. Arsen Kashkashian, buyer for the Boulder Book Store in Boulder, CO, is a believer but says that reaching or creating new readers poses a "vexing problem" for independent bookstores. Kashkashian follows his readers by focusing his efforts on retaining his best customers and rewarding frequent buyers for their repeat business. He has also designed the store to be welcoming and comfortable, like "a living room and not a library". To encourage reading, the Boulder Book Store donates pallets of children's books to local schools and schedules a wide range of events intended to appeal to nontraditional book readers.
Kashkashian believes the decline in reading is simply a cultural phenomenon, and feels the problem is exaggerated. "We didn't run around in 1957 fretting about how many people were reading," he says. "Some people were reading and passionate about books, and the publishing industry catered to them. Today, the problems facing bookstores and publishers are ones of competition, with websites and stores both offering an endless array of titles being published in an already cluttered marketplace. Perhaps the anomaly is the explosion of mega-stores, the number of published titles, and the commoditization of books, and not how many people are reading.
The Web is both threat and opportunity. Traditional print-only publishing faces an inevitable decline as the supply of information overwhelms the demand of a book-averse public. Yet the Web offers publishers an opportunity to serve (and follow) readers in new ways. While the Web's short history has shown that digital content eventually becomes free (think Google), the Web brings readers closer to publishers than ever before-and at close quarters, it promises to teach us how to stay connected to our readers.
This article was originally published in the fall 2007 issue of The Endsheet, the newsletter of the Publishers Association of the West.
Friday, November 14, 2008
Noticing Less Spam Email This Week?
That's because you're receiving only 112 billion spam emails per day instead of the usual 190 billion.
The Washington Post reports (with some cool graphics) that several internet security firms took a major Northern California spam host offline on Tuesday and that the number of spam emails sent immediately plummeted by two-thirds. McColo Corp. was apparently the host and coordinator of nearly 75% of the world's spam email.
Don't get too excited, though: spammers are expected to have found a new host and to be back to business as usual within a few days.
Interestingly, the San Jose-based company has not yet been charged with any crimes, and the Post is unsure if there is any evidence of unlawful activity. Surely sending 75% of the world's emails about discount pharmaceuticals, designer goods, and porn is a crime.
The creepy thing to think is that you and I and nearly everyone you know is extremely likely to have gotten email from this company and its clients.
UPDATE: The botnets, networks of computers that have been hijacked to send spam without their owners knowing it, have adjusted to McColo's shutdown.
The Washington Post reports (with some cool graphics) that several internet security firms took a major Northern California spam host offline on Tuesday and that the number of spam emails sent immediately plummeted by two-thirds. McColo Corp. was apparently the host and coordinator of nearly 75% of the world's spam email.
Don't get too excited, though: spammers are expected to have found a new host and to be back to business as usual within a few days.
Interestingly, the San Jose-based company has not yet been charged with any crimes, and the Post is unsure if there is any evidence of unlawful activity. Surely sending 75% of the world's emails about discount pharmaceuticals, designer goods, and porn is a crime.
The creepy thing to think is that you and I and nearly everyone you know is extremely likely to have gotten email from this company and its clients.
UPDATE: The botnets, networks of computers that have been hijacked to send spam without their owners knowing it, have adjusted to McColo's shutdown.
Monday, November 10, 2008
REI Wants You to "Bike Your Drive"
REI, which quietly sells a ton of bikes and cycling gear each year, wants drivers to start riding to work. To help them get started, REI offers this article, "Getting Into Biking".
And you know what? It's really a pretty good article. I even enjoyed reading the "12 Cycling Myths", even though it didn't refute my two bike commuting pet peeves: "freezy face" and "helmet hair".
Saturday, November 8, 2008
I'm on Lifehacker.com!
On Friday around noon, Lifehacker.com, one of my favorite blogs and one of Technorati's top 10 most-read blogs, posted my email about how much Windows networking sucks!
It's been read 9,500 times so far. Now to read through all the replies.
It's been read 9,500 times so far. Now to read through all the replies.
Friday, November 7, 2008
Google Phone May Morph Into Kindle-Killer
As Medialoper hints in its analysis of the recent Google Book Search agreement with publishers and authors, Google's Android mobile phone OS might become a Kindle-killer.
Android is more than a phone operating system, it's an OS for mobile devices. With Google soon to have exclusive access to its long tail of over 7 million scanned books, Google will have a strong incentive to monetize that content. The book search agreement includes several ways for Google to profit:
Since Android phones will continue to add usefulness beyond mere mobile voice calls (including zero-charge access to the entire web and all its blogs and newspapers), who will want to pay $300 something to own a separate device that charges for some of that functionality? Only those who care about readability. The Kindle is remarkably readable. Still, what's to stop a mobile device manufacturer from creating a larger format, eye-friendly device that will compete more directly with the Kindle?
Amazon's 190K books won't compare to Google's 7 million and counting. Google may not yet have Amazon's access to best-sellers or Amazon's considerable leverage over print-focused publishers, yet publishers maintain their ability to choose which books to include in both Google's and Amazon's programs.
The Google Book Search agreement offers a way for publishers and authors to get paid to cooperate with Google. With this little sticking point resolved, have no doubt that Google will continue to tear down barriers to information, including Amazon's closed-loop Kindle program.
Android is more than a phone operating system, it's an OS for mobile devices. With Google soon to have exclusive access to its long tail of over 7 million scanned books, Google will have a strong incentive to monetize that content. The book search agreement includes several ways for Google to profit:
- academia will pay for unlimited access to all the content in all of the scanned books
- consumers can pay to see or print an entire book
- once Google integrates the book search program more fully into its current web search program, Google will apply its usual search advertising model
Since Android phones will continue to add usefulness beyond mere mobile voice calls (including zero-charge access to the entire web and all its blogs and newspapers), who will want to pay $300 something to own a separate device that charges for some of that functionality? Only those who care about readability. The Kindle is remarkably readable. Still, what's to stop a mobile device manufacturer from creating a larger format, eye-friendly device that will compete more directly with the Kindle?
Amazon's 190K books won't compare to Google's 7 million and counting. Google may not yet have Amazon's access to best-sellers or Amazon's considerable leverage over print-focused publishers, yet publishers maintain their ability to choose which books to include in both Google's and Amazon's programs.
The Google Book Search agreement offers a way for publishers and authors to get paid to cooperate with Google. With this little sticking point resolved, have no doubt that Google will continue to tear down barriers to information, including Amazon's closed-loop Kindle program.
Thursday, November 6, 2008
We All Suspected McCain and Palin Didn't Get Along
From their awkward interactions during the few televised moments they were together, it was obvious that McCain and Palin made an odd couple. He could barely look at her, and they didn't seem ever to be on the same wavelength, prepared with the same sound bites or with any kind of coherent response to the media.
From this New York Times article:
"The disputes between the campaigns centered in large part on the Republican National Committee’s $150,000 wardrobe for Ms. Palin and her family, but also on what McCain advisers considered Ms. Palin’s lack of preparation for her disastrous interview with Katie Couric of CBS News and her refusal to take advice from Mr. McCain’s campaign.
From this New York Times article:
"The disputes between the campaigns centered in large part on the Republican National Committee’s $150,000 wardrobe for Ms. Palin and her family, but also on what McCain advisers considered Ms. Palin’s lack of preparation for her disastrous interview with Katie Couric of CBS News and her refusal to take advice from Mr. McCain’s campaign.
But behind those episodes may be a greater subtext: anger within the McCain camp that Ms. Palin harbored political ambitions beyond 2008."
Tina Fey joked about Palin "going rogue" at the end of McCain's appearance on Saturday Night Live...
...but the Times reports that Palin wanted to make her own speech before McCain's concession speech on Tuesday evening. Now that's one ambitious pitbull with lipstick. As disgusting as that experience would have been, I'm happy McCain's advisers shot Palin's idea down, like a hunter from a helicopter.
Saturday, November 1, 2008
Netbooks: Do You Really Need a Laptop?
Back in July, Michael Arrington and his friends at TechCrunchIT launched an effort to build a "web tablet". Arrington wants a "dead simple and dirt cheap touch screen web tablet to surf the web" for $200 or less. Here's the announcement. His spec list is:
- as thin as possible
- single button for powering on and off
- headphone jacks, built-in camera, speakers, microphone
- wifi, one USB port, battery
- 512 meg RAM, 4 gig solid state hard drive
- touchscreen for browsing and keyboard
- Linux for OS and Firefox for browsing
Here's Arrington's list of updates on the project's progress, including this working prototype.
But Arrington's web tablet has already got some competition, a new kind of slimmed-down laptop called a "netbook". Many companies are selling these things. From the name, I'm assuming netbooks are primarily intended to be used the way most full-on laptops are used now: for checking email, surfing the web, maybe watching videos and listening to music.
As one example, the Dell Inspiron Mini 9 runs Ubuntu Linux using a 1.6 Ghz chip, 512m RAM, 4 gig solid state drive, and wifi for $350. Of all these machines, the Asustek EeePC sounds like the best value at $200 (release expected 2009).
Personally, I'm still pretty happy with the netbook I already own. I use it for email, websurfing, watching online TV and movies, and some light photo-editing. It's got very familiar specs: a 1.7 ghz Intel P4, 1 gig RAM, two USB ports, and Wifi. Oh, and it's got a 20 gig hard drive and a DVD burner.
That's 'cuz it's a used HP Compaq NC6000 laptop that I got on eBay for $275.
FDA agrees its August statement on BPA was wrong
From this Washington Post article (10/31/08):
"A U.S. Food and Drug Administration advisory panel agreed Friday that the agency had erred in August when it said that a chemical widely used in baby bottles and other plastic packaging for foods and beverages posed no health risks."
"On Wednesday, a panel of toxicology experts said the FDA hadn't properly assessed the potential health risks posed by the chemical bisphenol A (BPA), which some studies have linked to cancer, diabetes, heart disease and developmental delays in children. The toxicologists said the FDA had relied too heavily on studies funded by the chemical industry to make its decision."
"On Friday, the FDA's Science Board, which consists of scientists from academia, government and industry and advises the FDA commissioner, seconded the toxicologists' concerns about the FDA's August ruling."
"The FDA's position on BPA has been controversial because it contradicted more than 100 studies, as well as a finding by the U.S. National Toxicology Program, that there was "some concern" that BPA may affect the brain and behavioral development in fetuses, infants and small children."
"A U.S. Food and Drug Administration advisory panel agreed Friday that the agency had erred in August when it said that a chemical widely used in baby bottles and other plastic packaging for foods and beverages posed no health risks."
"On Wednesday, a panel of toxicology experts said the FDA hadn't properly assessed the potential health risks posed by the chemical bisphenol A (BPA), which some studies have linked to cancer, diabetes, heart disease and developmental delays in children. The toxicologists said the FDA had relied too heavily on studies funded by the chemical industry to make its decision."
"On Friday, the FDA's Science Board, which consists of scientists from academia, government and industry and advises the FDA commissioner, seconded the toxicologists' concerns about the FDA's August ruling."
"The FDA's position on BPA has been controversial because it contradicted more than 100 studies, as well as a finding by the U.S. National Toxicology Program, that there was "some concern" that BPA may affect the brain and behavioral development in fetuses, infants and small children."
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