DISQUS

If I have to choose just one, it would be my account of how the free service, WordPress.com, makes money.
http://changingway.org/2008/03/12/making-money-...
As well as being my choice, it was "the people's choice," in that it got more views (and I think, more comments) than anything else I posted this year.

Dave,
This looks good. As a fan of the theme it's based on, I'm wondering why you felt the need for a new theme, and what the most important differences are?
Thanks, Andrew

Stan, thanks for the advice. You'll hear from me tomorrow!

Quotiki is about quotations, and so its use of the speech bubble in web design is appropriate. Here's a link to the Quotiki page for my favorite quote:
http://quotiki.com/quote.aspx?id=3845
BTW, I know that there is some disagreement about the attribution of this quote.

The reason OnSugar "might appeal more to women" is that it's from the people who run PopSugar and a bunch of other sites for women:
http://changingway.org/2008/10/10/on-onsugar/

For those perplexed by the question, "Is it possible to knock out a zombie?" Adam just provided the answer.

Monster:
http://pleasedress.me/?q=monster

I agree with Brandon, though I would put it more strongly. A theme shouldn't "stun" users, it should show them the content in an unobtrusive manner. There's nothing wrong with attractive themes, but most of these themes are more distracting than useful.

This reminds me of commentary on how the Nintendo Wii wouldn't stand up to the power of the new Xbox and PS. History suggests that Nintendo will continue to deliver gaming systems that people enjoy, and that they are particularly successful when it comes to portable systems.

Thanks, Ben. I might give that a try. Or I might learn to love the navbar. Either way, it's good to know that there's an easy way of disabling it.

It's being able to use the custom URL at mofuse that's free. You need to own the URL, which probably means that you need to pay for it.

This is bad news. It takes away one of the disincentives to using Flash. There's too much Flash on the web already.

I'm not sure whether R is "converting its entire catalog to DRM-free music." When looking for an album to download as my intro offer, the first three artists I looked for weren't at the store, despite each of the three being available via R's streaming service.
Thanks for the heads up about the 100,000 album giveaway launch. I saw it here first. I don't know why there is, so far, no post about the launch at R's own blog.

"He who controls the defaults controls the web."

WordPress, mainly .com these days
Rhapsody Streaming Music
Flickr
Canon PowerShot A540 6MP Digital Camera
Sandisk Sansa Clip 1GB MP3 player

I use many other products, but the above are the five I'd miss if I had to use a substitute.

No,desktop images do not need a social network. Very few things do, but this will not be widely recognized until 2009.
Andrew the prescient curmudgeon.

"Yahoo is only down 18 percent so far" because we've yet to see the shareholder lawsuits.

Kristen, you "think SUP has done a good job of being open about its plans."
Maybe so, but it did manage to provoke a content strike:
http://changingway.org/2008/03/22/livejournal-s...

Stan,
Congrats on getting through the whole post without resorting to jokes about the Edge's sidekick or about "pro Bono."

I like the combination of FoxyTunes and Rhapsody - although it works with many other players. The FoxyTunes Firefox addon gives you a bar at the bottom of the browser, from which you can fire up the FoxyTunes Planet page on the music you're currently listening to.
By the way, FoxyTunes was acquired by Yahoo, and so it joins the list of services I fear for: flickr, delicious, foxytunes, the yahoo media player,...

Stan, thanks for the recap in the first para. But I'm not sure I believe that Google doesn't want the Microsoft-Yahoo deal to happen. I think that Google wants as many distractions as possible for its rivals. And it's getting what it wants...

Thanks for clarifying. When I saw the Ars article, my first thought was that I'd fallen in to some alternative webiverse in which there was no Amazon. It's comforting to see the more mundane explanation that the data are simply old.

Mark,
I'm not sure that a WordCamp - an event for people keenly interested in a specific blogging tool - can be considered outside the echo chamber. Then again, perhaps there are nested echo chambers, and you've moved out a layer or two. It must still be pretty small and loud in there, though.

The poll is about which will be #1. I took the #1 to refer to market share. Without an early mover advantage or a bigco behind it, aviary will have an uphill struggle - however good it is.

You mean I can only vote for one of these? Isn't the interviewer the organizers' choice?