Disqus - Latest Comments for Tony Hung

Re: A List Bloggers | A List Twitters

Tony Hung — Wed, 21 Mar 2007 21:14:03 -0000

Great pick up, Andy ... great pick up. ;)

t @ dji

Re: A List Bloggers | A List Twitters

Tony Hung — Wed, 21 Mar 2007 21:14:03 -0000

Great pick up, Andy ... great pick up. ;)

t @ dji

Re: Plausible Deniability Just Doesn't Cut It Mr Arrington

Tony Hung — Sat, 10 Nov 2007 13:38:17 -0000

Plausible deniability is one thing -- but to think that this was premeditated as a rationale to drive up traffic? As in, he was never planning to come, but did this as a stunt to increase controversy and therefore links?

I'm not sure if I buy that. This is Techcrunch, not John Chow (all due respect to JC). I don't think Mike cares nor wants nor needs the links in this way.

Otherwise, good break down of the events. I suspect we'll see more evidence from both sides before the weekend is over.

Re: Plausible Deniability Just Doesn't Cut It Mr Arrington

Tony Hung — Sat, 10 Nov 2007 13:38:17 -0000

Re: Why isn’t this on Techmeme?

Tony Hung — Sun, 15 Oct 2006 10:34:26 -0000

Well, maybe it'll pick up since its anotherwise slow weekend as far as blogging news go.But, the whole thing is pretty damn shocking otherwise.
The PR community has picked up on it, thankfully -- but who else has?
http://www.deepjiveinterests.com/2006/10/15/ede...

And where's Steve Rubel on all of this? Praying that because no one in the tech side of the blogosphere has commented on it he's absolved of any commentary?

Re: Why isn’t this on Techmeme?

Tony Hung — Sun, 15 Oct 2006 14:57:56 -0000

Glad to see its finally getting some press on Techmeme ... thanks Gabe! :)

Re: Why isn’t this on Techmeme?

Tony Hung — Sun, 15 Oct 2006 15:52:16 -0000

Shucks, Gabe -- I thought it was a well trained team of monkeys!
Like I said to the wife yesterday "there's no way Techmeme runs on fancy pants (waves fingers around) AL-gore-ithisms ... its gotta be Monkees!"

Re: Did Edelman drop the ball on Wal-Mart?

Tony Hung — Mon, 16 Oct 2006 12:22:07 -0000

Funny thing Mathew?
Edelman COULD have denied it all away -- there's certianly enough loose ends for plausible deniability. Or maybe just mentioned something. ANYTHING.

My humble opinion (and really, what's that worth? :) is that the story is now LESS about Wal-Mart, and more about Edelman, and by extension Steve Rubel.

I mean, if there really wasn't anything going on -- if Working Families for Walmart did this on its own without Edelman's ok, well why not just say so?

How about saying anything?
Isn't that what PR firms do?

I have a thought. Maybe Steve Rubel was hypnotized into blogging about Google Maps this morning. ;)

... hmmm ... maybe not. :)

Re: Does being transparent ruin a PR blog?

Tony Hung — Fri, 20 Oct 2006 16:00:57 -0000

I prefer "blogging buddy", or should the situation warrant it, "bloggiferous comrade". Of course I kid ... but thanks all the same ;)

What a bloody fiasco.
Has any PR firm actually used blogs in an ethical way?

Re: Does being transparent ruin a PR blog?

Tony Hung — Fri, 20 Oct 2006 17:00:01 -0000

Well, they've gotten a whole lot of BAD publicity in the realm where there were trying to elicit GOOD.

So, its like they've gotten negative value for their money. Which is surprising -- how often do you *pay* PR firms to get BAD publicity?

Re: Does being transparent ruin a PR blog?

Tony Hung — Fri, 20 Oct 2006 21:07:06 -0000

Wow -- what a great reply. I should have remembered the fast lane blog; its mentioned in Naked Conversations. I love the references! :)

Let me rephrase the question:

Has any PR firm had success with using blogs when the client was swirling in controversy, and may actually have something to hide? (perhaps Scoble's own blog is an example ... hmmm .... )

Re: Scrybe looks pretty good — so far

Tony Hung — Sun, 22 Oct 2006 21:04:49 -0000

I agree -- I can't believe the hype this got yesterday when all we're going on is not even a demo, but a video clip!

I say, send out an alpha release like those Paint.NET guys so we can really sink our teeth into it.

Re: Back in the saddle for mesh 2007

Tony Hung — Mon, 23 Oct 2006 10:53:47 -0000

What are the details of the Nov 15 hookup? :)

Re: Rollyo and Swicki feel the giant’s breath

Tony Hung — Tue, 24 Oct 2006 01:20:51 -0000

I've heard that other than search, Google has never attained number one status in any of the forays its journeyed into.

Maybe that's not their goal -- but I think it says something for the survivability of the rollyo and its pals.

Re: Mommy bloggers marketing pile-on

Tony Hung — Sun, 29 Oct 2006 14:47:33 -0000

Wow -- great pickup.
Makes me wonder whether I should start reading newspapers more often! :)

Re: Reddit gets to Digg-ify Conde Nast

Tony Hung — Tue, 31 Oct 2006 15:23:55 -0000

Nice -- although I do remember reading something from somewhere about the problem with popularity-inspired journalism. Most stories ended up being about sex scandals, explosions, or gratuitous sexy explosions.

Not that much different than today's news ... but, more so, I suppose ;)

Re: No, Mike — TechCrunch is not different

Tony Hung — Wed, 01 Nov 2006 16:09:59 -0000

Sure we can be held to accountability -- but its only as much as we're willing to earn. Mike Arrington's blog is hugely mega popular, but its only as accurate and credible as he's willing to be accurate and credible.

Sounds wishy washy -- but I'm not trying to be. For the most part, bloggers are not journalists, and as such, need to be read with a grain of salt. It just happens to be that on the way up to raising Mr. Arrington as the high priest of all things Web2.0 we all forgot about that.

The issue of accountability as bloggers is only as much as the community is willing to enforce. If everyone wants TechCrunch to be "better" or "different" I suspect that we're all going to have to lump it, because TechCrunch is a private concern.

ALternatives? Someone (s) can create competitors
We can stop reading TC (yeah right)
Or, we can start removing links.

Accountability is a community concern here -- as the community built up TC, its up to the community to "decide" what to do next.

Re: No, Mike — TechCrunch is not different

Tony Hung — Wed, 01 Nov 2006 17:21:33 -0000

Bloggsers != reporters, but == columnists.
Mat -- very succinct, and I think we can agree on that one. :)

Re: Hey — who you callin’ frantic?

Tony Hung — Sat, 04 Nov 2006 01:30:49 -0000

You've got to admit mat -- sometimes Hyperbole can be fun ;)

Re: Get your virtual billboards here!

Tony Hung — Mon, 06 Nov 2006 23:12:06 -0000

Wait -- are you saying that you've played Half-Life 2? :)

Re: Get your virtual billboards here!

Tony Hung — Mon, 06 Nov 2006 23:53:16 -0000

You dawg! And I bet you play counter-strike as well!

Re: Me on a “future of media” panel

Tony Hung — Tue, 07 Nov 2006 12:22:22 -0000

Man, if only I can find a babysitter ... :)

Re: Jason Calacanis has left the building

Tony Hung — Fri, 17 Nov 2006 00:23:30 -0000

Yeah, I'm not convinced the NYT got the scoop there -- Calacanis isn't yet, apparently, confirming anything. Anyone IM's him gets the same response. There's nothing on his blog either.

While its all but certain what will happen, I'm not sure where the evidence is to be announcing it as fact.

Re: Jason Calacanis has left the building

Tony Hung — Fri, 17 Nov 2006 01:45:15 -0000

UPDATE: Jason Calacanis has admitted on his blog that he is in fact leaving Netscape.
calacanis.com

-- and that the NYT had the right of it.

If you will excuse me, its time for me to eat some crow ;)

Re: Jason Calacanis escapes from AOHell

Tony Hung — Fri, 17 Nov 2006 11:14:06 -0000

Although Mike Arrington is as much of an "insider" as anyone else, the way the NYT scooped the story has as much to do with connections as anything else.

Apparently the author of the story, Saul, I think his name is, is tight with J-Cal, and that's how he got the scoop before even Mr. calacanis blogged about it.

t

Re: Jason Calacanis escapes from AOHell

Tony Hung — Fri, 17 Nov 2006 12:00:03 -0000

That *is* pretty interesting! :)

All smarminess aside, I basically got on the horn (and by horn, I mean instant message) with someone close to the situation.

I should actually post about it, since the NYT got it right (contrary to my original post)

FYI: Cnet picked up our comments on the whole situation (can I get a "yay Canada?")
http://usatoday.com.com/2061-11199_3-6136493.ht...

[Yes, I already emailed them about how they mispelled your name ;) ]

Re: Calacanis and Denton — Envy 2.0

Tony Hung — Tue, 21 Nov 2006 17:28:02 -0000

Heh heh ... I like the term "au pissoir"

Re: Diggers will find a way to get paid

Tony Hung — Fri, 08 Dec 2006 01:54:25 -0000

I didn't want to use the word "bribe", but I'm glad you did Jason ;)

Netscape's situation kind of reminds me of what goes on in certain cities with dirty cops; the reason why you pay them a good salary is so they're not as tempted to go crooked.

When you don't pay them anything, and you don't respect what they do for you -- well, you've made your own bed.

Time to lay in it, I think.

Re: Diggers will find a way to get paid

Tony Hung — Fri, 08 Dec 2006 03:08:41 -0000

#1) he's got no names
#2) a mass deletion of accounts would only lead to another group of 20 or 30 to rise to those positions and potentially do the very same thing.

The issue isn't one of security, but a sense of fairness and compensation -- in how the digging community has been treated, and how a competitor is willing to pay real money for the time spent in this hobby.

Re: Digg — worthless, or just misunderstood?

Tony Hung — Mon, 11 Dec 2006 17:17:44 -0000

Hey Mat,

I think the article was dead on with its insights -- but incorrect in that the weight of its own internal corruption will doom it. People will continue to carry on with Digg -- I would say the majority of Diggers pay no attention to the comments, and only a tiny percentage even submit articles. People will often digg up articles based on the title alone without reading the articles. I suspecct they use Digg the way people use Techmeme ... to scan interesting stuff which has the weight of thousands of registered users.

Of course "interesting" is relative -- but they have an incredible amount of inertia right now ... for it to fail, people would have to stop going to Digg outright and posts about Digg's corruption will do little to the current readership, particularly when its something none of them want to hear i

For example, downloadsquad.com's post was submitted ... then buried.
The prosecution rests, your honor ;)

Re: Craig and Wall Street — universes apart

Tony Hung — Wed, 13 Dec 2006 10:31:38 -0000

5 billion page views a month?

OMG.

Re: Sure, I’d love a free Ferrari, but…

Tony Hung — Thu, 28 Dec 2006 20:30:11 -0000

Well said, Mat -- well said.

Re: Tony Hung fills in at Problogger

Tony Hung — Mon, 08 Jan 2007 17:28:03 -0000

Hey Mat,

Thanks for the kind words.
I can't tell you how serendipitous that pre-mesh meeting was. ;)

Cheers
t @ dji / tbh / bts / *pb*

Re: Okay, I want one — are you happy now?

Tony Hung — Wed, 10 Jan 2007 01:26:04 -0000

Actually, what i'm interested in is what tying on it will actually feel like as there are no keys and its all touch screen and gestures. Will it be sensitive enough? Will it be too sensitive? Will getting the keys to recognize key strokes be accurate enough if you have large meaty paws?

Hey, its probably going to be fine, but I think there will be just a little bit of schadenfreude if it turns out that all of the juicy deliciousness is an ergonomic and user-interface nightmare.

Cheers
t

Re: Vene, vidi, Venice — the TV killer

Tony Hung — Fri, 12 Jan 2007 22:39:13 -0000

Not so sure about "crashing" the internet ... with the Taiwan earthquake crisis, we learned that al that extra redundancy by pre bubble telco's came in handy. I suspect that we probably have some of that around North America, and I wonder therefore, if the crash will come this year at all.

Re: Vene, vidi, Venice — the TV killer

Tony Hung — Fri, 12 Jan 2007 23:05:07 -0000

Well, its sympatico for me ... at least they don't throttle traffic (yet). ;)

Re: Vene, vidi, Venice — the TV killer

Tony Hung — Fri, 12 Jan 2007 23:10:02 -0000

yeah, they had bandwidth caps for a while a few years ago, then lifted them -- thank god. I was going over *all* the time and it was costing me cash money.

Not looking forward to the day if they do that again, nor shaping -- in my opinion its a big lead over Rogers in that respect

Re: Blog payola, round three (or four)

Tony Hung — Mon, 15 Jan 2007 16:18:39 -0000

Dude, I *DO* sleep ... just not very much. ;)

Re: Digg, Stumble and the madness of crowds

Tony Hung — Thu, 25 Jan 2007 17:55:10 -0000

Mat -- you can call me "just" Tony. Everyone else needs written permission though. ;)

t

Re: Where does community end and “gaming” start?

Tony Hung — Fri, 02 Feb 2007 12:54:23 -0000

Hey Mat,

Nice move to cutline ... your blog moves a lot faster now! :D

Cheers
t

Re: Robert: Disclose that bag of pretzels too

Tony Hung — Sun, 04 Feb 2007 22:17:00 -0000

Amen, seth ... Amen. ;)

t

Re: Yahoo team is teh l33t haxx0rs

Tony Hung — Thu, 15 Feb 2007 16:39:29 -0000

Did you JUST say Chillax?

;)

Re: Yahoo team is teh l33t haxx0rs

Tony Hung — Thu, 15 Feb 2007 17:09:20 -0000

oh, JEEBUS you did NOT say that!

:)

t

Re: Can a newspaper be a social network?

Tony Hung — Sun, 04 Mar 2007 19:02:51 -0000

Question for you, Mat -- did adding social elements to the Globe and Mail do anything for its bottom line? Traffic? Ad Revenue? Actual subscribership?

Cheers
t @ dji / bh

Re: Can a newspaper be a social network?

Tony Hung — Sun, 04 Mar 2007 21:33:10 -0000

Great to hear it Mat -- since I don't want you to kill me, can you point to any other enterprises which have published this kind of information? Or, are they holding that close to their chest ... ?

Cheers
t

Re: Bloggers are parasites — so what?

Tony Hung — Tue, 06 Mar 2007 19:29:58 -0000

Never mind that mainstream media of all stripes have been leeching off of each other for years -- I find it enormously hypocritical that they label bloggers for something they've been doing for a long time.

After all, (some) bloggers are just as good following a piece of news published (or "broke") by some media giants as some journalists [present company excluded of course]-- and almost all are a great deal faster.

Cheers
t

Re: Me on a panel at U of T tonight

Tony Hung — Fri, 06 Apr 2007 01:58:45 -0000

Damnation! Why do i always miss these things?!

Was it as good as the one at York University? :)

Cheers
t @ dji

Re: Me on a panel at U of T tonight

Tony Hung — Fri, 06 Apr 2007 11:29:03 -0000

DOUBLE damnation! :P

Is there a mailing list for this kind of stuff? (if not, maybe you / i / we / someone else should create one)

t

Re: Hey, I’m on Techmeme — cha-ching!

Tony Hung — Sat, 07 Apr 2007 14:27:15 -0000

I'd love to know what kind of regulations these writers cum bloggers have, if any.

I wonder, for example, if there are any guidelines towards writing cheap link baiting posts to garner traffic (Apple is stupid! The hottest girls in Tech! Microsoft is Dead! -- oh, wait ...)

Cheers
t @ dji

Re: Hey Google — stop linking to us

Tony Hung — Sat, 07 Apr 2007 16:08:35 -0000

Truly and utterly ridiculous.

Getting newspapers de-indexed from Google News is only smart if you presume that people are using Google News INSTEAD of finding you directly.

Rather, I'm sure the reality is that its NOT a zero-sum game, and therefore, because people use both, newspapers should view Google News as a traffic generator, not a traffic sink hole.

t @ dji

Re: Rubel vs. PC Mag — bizarre

Tony Hung — Tue, 17 Apr 2007 23:38:46 -0000

Why not put it on his blog? Probably because no one will notice and he wanted to take a stand on the issue.

You can debate whether its something he ought to have took a stand on, but putting it up on Strumpette did the trick.

It got him some cheap publicity, and it got an apology out of Steve Rubel.

Cheers
t @ dji

Re: What exactly do we mean by TV?

Tony Hung — Thu, 26 Apr 2007 00:22:40 -0000

Interesting debate about the evolving lexicon of new media. Having said that, and being the total arm chair quarterback / backseat driver here, I think you would have done well to stand your ground.

True, "Internet TV" has nothing to do with TV as a medium, but for many who are conversant in "new media topics", there is a shared understanding that the "TV" in "InternetTV" goes beyond the medium itself to characterize a type of content format.

For many people it is actually ripped television shows that are broadcast / streamed across the Internet.

For others, and for the purpose of your article, it is, as you say, short, episodic videos that have a lot in common with the content that is actually on television.

Then again, what do I know? Maybe that's what you actually said anyway. ;)

t @ dji

Re: Doc Searls is dead wrong on newspapers

Tony Hung — Fri, 25 May 2007 16:33:18 -0000

If I had the time today I would go on an awesome rant about exactly what you blogged about -- but since I don't, a comment will have to suffice.

Doc Searls, bless his soul, makes some valid points, but they are the opinion of a clear and shrinking minority.

Yes, newspapers won't go away. And yes, there is a visceral pleasure of having something in your hand that can't be matched by reading it on the screen.

But that doesn't mean that it represents the opinion of the majority. And because, it in fact, represents the opinion of a shrinking *minority*, it would be absolutely disaster to court them instead of the growing majority of people -- who, like Rob Hyndman -- haven't touched a newspaper in years.

Newspapers *will* always exist in some form or another, but they'll be forced to change like every other media has when something new is introduced.

Radio is still with us, for example, but it serves a very different purpose than when it originally started, and will never ever have the same reach it once did.

Cheers
t @ dji

Re: Jim Buckmaster: craigslist CEO/comedian

Tony Hung — Thu, 31 May 2007 22:04:14 -0000

Without hijacking anything, if anyone's interested they can check out my partial "transcripts" of Mesh over at DJI

Part 1 is over here
Part 2 is over here

Cheers
Tony.

Re: As Homer said: “Stupid like a fox”

Tony Hung — Thu, 07 Jun 2007 01:44:09 -0000

I guess that's where you and I differ. ;)

Where one might see nuance to explain non-action, I see them succeeding in spite of it. I mean, I'd love to see some further case studies on the matter, but do you really think that people would use it less if there was one or two ads on it?

I think you can also look of it as a case of the few dominating the perception of the whole: there might be a few hardcore vocal users that might stop.

But I don't think for a second that most would. In fact, I think there's almost an expectation that all web concerns need to have some method of sustaining itself -- and having one or two ads surely meets this reasonableness standard, doesn't it?

Re: Google wants newsmakers to write the news

Tony Hung — Thu, 09 Aug 2007 00:51:38 -0000

Glad to hear that I'm not the only one who can see beyond all of the details for what this might represent about the future. ;)

Re: Hammer to Arrington: Please touch this

Tony Hung — Tue, 18 Sep 2007 17:51:17 -0000

Yeah, with all due respect to Mike -- if he *wasn't* already an investor, did that mean he picked MC Hammer's name out of hat?

Of all the people in the world -- of all current and former pop/rap/dance/anything-stars in the world, why him and why *now* for TC40?

Its doth smack a little too much of a coincidence ... :)

t @ dji

Re: Looking a Google gift horse in the mouth

Tony Hung — Fri, 02 Nov 2007 15:05:56 -0000

Ha ha -- on a totally unrelated note, Marshall's comment almost sounds like blogspam like “Hey! Nice blog posting about *insert of your post here* I would have to agree with you on this one. I am going to look more into . This Thursday I have time.”

Not that it is, of course, but ... well, I guess I've been reading too much spam these days. :)

Re: Reminder: Think before you blog

Tony Hung — Sun, 11 Nov 2007 16:00:21 -0000

Mark -- that's the blogosphere, man. ;)

Luckily, in this case, the questions *did* get answered fairly quick.

Re: Amazon’s Kindle: pay to read blogs? WTF?

Tony Hung — Sun, 18 Nov 2007 19:21:18 -0000

It is truly and utterly fugly. I don't care what anyone says about holding it, or "people called the Nano fugly", or what have you. That thing was dropped out of the fugly tree and was hit numerous times on the way down. I mean jaysus, with all that beige and the hard edges, it practically *screams* beige-box PC, circa 1995. (Where's the Gateway logo, man?)

Re: Snapshot: comments on Google News

Tony Hung — Thu, 29 Nov 2007 18:27:26 -0000

Actually I've seen them loads of times (therefore I guess its not just a US thing) ... they're actually pretty cool, and do add another dimension to the story sometimes. At other times, they allow people who only got a one-sentence sound-byte to expound on their positions. I've seen quite a few examples of this related to medical news, for example

Re: I hate to say it, but he has a point

Tony Hung — Fri, 30 Nov 2007 07:37:07 -0000

The milk from my cereal nearly came out of my nose when I read this piece. ;)

Thanks for the tip, Mat. You know my hero is Sanjay Gupta , right?

<KIDDING>

<well, not so much> :)

Re: I hate to say it, but he has a point

Tony Hung — Sat, 01 Dec 2007 12:04:09 -0000

I am not telling. :)

Re: Closure

Tony Hung — Thu, 02 Nov 2006 21:48:49 -0000

I'll give Mike Arrington this -- he created something out of nothing that earns him a helluva lot of coin every month.

But, because he's the only story in town, he gets to write whatever the heck he wants, treat everyone how he wants, and parties with who he wants (Miss Universe contestants? Oh yeah).

Is it fair? Of course not.

But something tells me he's always been one of those guys you love or hate -- or love to hate, or maybe always hated -- in a love-hate way.

I'm not making any sense any more -- sorry.

Anyway, thought I would chime in with my nonsensical 3c. -- keep up the great work!

Cheers
t @ dji

Re: http://www.onemanandhisblog.com/archives/2006/12/the_naked_blogg.html

Tony Hung — Thu, 21 Dec 2006 15:05:00 -0000

Hey Adam,

We're trying our damndest to bring some of the best available bloggers into the fold -- and with Liz, we sure filled that criteria.

Thanks for noticing. ;)

Cheers

t @ tbh/dji

Re: Top 10 Reasons Why I’m Twittering Again

Tony Hung — Mon, 12 Nov 2007 11:59:13 -0000

Not to be an ass (more so, rather) but any further comments on the reason why you left Twitter in the first place?

That is, what happened to your concerns about people being confused about TWiT and Twitter?

Cheers
Tony Hung.

Re: In Defense Of Craigslist: Humility, And Everyone is Lucky

Tony Hung — Thu, 07 Jun 2007 16:50:45 -0000

To remain staunchly anti-commercial and not sell out when people are handing you cash - well, I see that as fortitude, not laziness or even stupidity. Craigslist remains focused on purpose, determination, and not fixing what isnâ€™t broken.

Not maximizing efficiencies is what seems lazy to me -- and surely adding a few ads here and there in a tasteful way would not seem unreasonable, even for the Craigslist community. Its one thing to plaster pop ups and flashing ads for spyware software, and its another to add in a few unobtrusive text link ads or even Adwords.

Furthermore, who knows how much good all that extra wasted and unrealized capital could do? Sure, I know that what they do is their business, but actively deciding *not* to do anything about all that inefficiency doesn't seem smart.

It seems lazy.

As for your other analogies about luck's role in other ventures -- you're right in some respects, and I think that all successful ventures have a strong dash of luck to them.

On the other hand, once the ball got rolling, well, classifieds is something that runs its self. Where are the smarts in getting out of the way of a successfully running operation?

As for your thoughts on outlasting all the other Web2/3.o concerns, that makes sense. On the other hand, I have a hard time seeing how a purely classified's company *wouldn't* have a hard time outlasting all others. Put another way, I would expect *all* classified companies -- like blogs -- to do just fine in a downturn, because their overhead is low. Asked about the same issue (by me, at Mesh), Mike Arrington gave the same commentary. He's going to do just fine because it costs almost nothing to run TC.

Anyway, it looks like I *am* the only who thinks that Craigslist is a product of luck than anything else.

Thanks for contributing to the conversation ... ;)

t @ dji

Re: In Defense Of Craigslist: Humility, And Everyone is Lucky

Tony Hung — Thu, 07 Jun 2007 17:05:41 -0000

Well, I guess we'll have to politely agree to disagree (or agree?). It takes a lot of balls to leave a whole whack of cash on the metaphorical table, "just because" -- and I think that, as your link eloquently describes, there is almost something ethically wrong with doing so if you have a tremendous potential for Good.

And for what? A few tastefully placed links?

Cheers
tony.

Re: Writing For The Blog Herald

Tony Hung — Wed, 11 Jul 2007 16:53:08 -0000

Always a pleasure to work with someone who produces such great and earnest work! ... and quite frankly I'm surprised you weren't snapped up already. ;)

Cheers
tony @ dji/tbh

Re: Scoble Taking A Break

Tony Hung — Mon, 13 Aug 2007 16:26:50 -0000

Techmaiming -- heh, heh, dude, that's *me* :)

As for Scoble wanting to take a break, I'm not sure I'm entirely sympathetic. There's very little of we all do online that "makes a difference" -- not to say it doesn't exist, but for most of us its just fun. For someone in the business for so long its a bit surprising that Scoble hasn't had this epiphany yet. Or, perhaps, like most of us, he requires a bit of reminding every now and again.

I know I blog to blow off steam and to have a laugh -- because I *know* I don't take it too *too* seriously. But imagine if it was your life? Yeah, I'd have angst too.

Cheers
t @ dji

Re: Link Sharing: 2/21/08

Tony Hung — Thu, 21 Feb 2008 18:02:56 -0000

Well, its one aspect of things -- if you freak out, and you have trouble doing work, having a normal relationship with your friends and family ... then yeah. Getting help might not be such a bad thing.

:)

Cheers
t @ dji
ps love your new design

Re: Your Blog Might Be Hacked

Tony Hung — Tue, 08 Apr 2008 14:14:00 -0000

Thanks for the kind compliments, Jason. :D

Re: The Conversation is Evolving

Tony Hung — Mon, 14 Apr 2008 14:36:33 -0000

Actually, I have no problem with comments not belonging to me.

In fact, if you read my post carefully (which -- don't worry -- not many people did) I called bloggers that don't understand this fact (comments not being on-blog) as being both hypocritical and stupid, as this element of non-control is a vital part of understanding what social media is.

The problem is that Scoble tried to compare two different things: Comments being hosted off-blog (Louis Gray) and Sites which are rehosting all of bloggers content (Me) and a great deal of people ewre getting the two confused (including Scoble).

Cheers
tony.

Tony Hung's last blog post..I Love Techmeme But … (Part II)

Re: Online Marketing Tip: If It Feels Wrong, Don’t Do It

Tony Hung — Wed, 13 Dec 2006 00:44:17 -0000

Hey Jim,

Word of mouth is exactly how Amazon conceived its Associates affiliate program; and as you well know, there are hundreds of thousands of sites that are written with good content, some are even reviews, but seeded with tons of affiliate links. Heck, you know Rosalind Gardiner's story probably better than most as well.

Check out Bryan Clark's thoughts as a (former?) lawyer who has gone up against the FTC once or thrice: Affiliate marketing is a potential target for this kind of FTC opinion (http://www.copyblogger.com/affiliate-marketing-...)

Perhaps the more practical issue is -- does the FTC have the resources to police the web on this issue? Probably not.

Does this translate into the smaller fish not having to worry? Probably -- but if it ever does translate into actual law / legislation, it might put enough of a fear into smaller affiliates to make a real dent in the affiliate marketing industry.

Cheers
tony

Re: Online Marketing Tip: If It Feels Wrong, Don’t Do It

Tony Hung — Wed, 13 Dec 2006 00:50:33 -0000

Actually, I see that you've already commented on this at Darren's blog.

I just wanted to come here and point out to all the probloggers out there that the need for alarm is in my opinion not warranted. Unless youâ€™re writing content that is made to fool people, keep doing what youâ€™re doing and letâ€™s let this play out. Nobody is going to jail for affiliate marketing is what Iâ€™m trying to say. :)

Perhaps theissue is for people, or blogs, who do it unintentionally -- and don't disclose who or what they're doing, but merely act like another "informative site".

For those cases, its probably very easy to stick a disclaimer on the top of things ... but again, I wonder if it will make a difference at all to the bottom line.

I know you're opinion of "its better" ... and I hope its better, but I've yet to see any "marketing experiments" on this (and I hope to, one day, at marketingexperiments.com) to establish anything one way or the other.

Cheers
t

Re: The Blogging A-List Is The Matrix, It Does, & Doesn’t Exist

Tony Hung — Sat, 17 Mar 2007 22:59:38 -0000

You're right Jim ... its a tiresome conversation that I wasn't expecting to be dug up on a cold (Toronto, anyway) March weekend. I wrote the post sometime in February.

Having said that, does the A-list only exist in the minds of those who know about it or care about it? Of course not.

Its a functional definition, not an existential one -- and you can define it with any number of functional metrics you want. Practically, of course, A-list guys are heavy weights who have an enormous amount of clout with their blogs and their opinions.

And they are not just opinion makers, they are *news* makers. Jason Calacanis reformats Netscape into a social bookmarking / news site. That's actually news.

Steve Rubel *not* commenting on the Wal-mart fakeblog fiasco -- that's actually news (debatable as news, but news).

Dave Winer talking about a theoretically open source iPod killer (with Jason Calacanis, no less) -- that's news too.

These are all tech-oriented examples, but I'll stand by my assertion that it *does* exist, and it is far and away removed from most bloggers -- no matter what their best efforts are to break into it (if they so wanted to).

Cheers
t @ dji

Re: Dear CopyBlogger, How Did Your Blog Become So Successful, So Fast?

Tony Hung — Thu, 22 Mar 2007 20:08:43 -0000

I think he mentioned it somewhere on his blog. He published an ebook or something like that which was given away with, or bundled with a Joe Vitale product that did bongo-bongo business -- naturally it had his blog's URL in there too.

Joint Ventures are awesome ;)
(and if I have the details wrong, perhaps Brian can correct me).

Cheers
t @ dji

Re: Search Engine Marketing Firms Are Stupid

Tony Hung — Thu, 29 Mar 2007 16:47:31 -0000

Wait a second.

Are you saying that clients should demand that SEO's deliver on conversion as well?

I agree that the most important metric is what gets taken home at the end of the day -- but there are lots of ways to get there. Traffic and conversion are two related, but largely independent factors.

High traffic + poor conversion can equal poor traffic + high conversion.

Clients can demand SEO's deliver on conversion, but really, then they're also asking that SEO's act as conversion experts. Traffic generation, lead conversion, and customer retention are three separate arms. If clients are willing to pay, that's fine.

But since they're two different functions, they'll probably expect to pay much more.

t

Re: Search Engine Marketing Firms Are Stupid

Tony Hung — Thu, 29 Mar 2007 17:12:43 -0000

Well, I think you and I are on the same page here. Traffic in and of itself is insufficient for the bottom line; but on the other hand, it is necessary prerequisite. After all 100% conversion of zero traffic is still zero.

Re: Wikinomics » Blog Archive » Comments: valuable contributions or ramblings of the inebriated homeless?

Tony Hung — Tue, 15 Jul 2008 10:26:52 -0000

Nice post -- I like your idea that comments can be nuanced, and it may be a function of the topic or niche at hand.

My feeling is that comments are what you make of it, and in turn proportional to the kind of community that the blog owner has fostered.

Plus, there's nothing wrong with moderating them as you see fit; moderation encourages the interesting and noteworthy contributions, while discouraging the ones that sound like they're from the inebriated mouth-breathing masses.

cheers
t @ dji

Re: 10 Things You Must Do When Changing WordPress Themes

Tony Hung — Mon, 15 Jan 2007 23:40:09 -0000

Great tips ... congratulations on getting dugg ;)

Cheers
t

Re: The Blogging A-List Is Far From Dead

Tony Hung — Thu, 05 Jul 2007 21:48:51 -0000

Ben,

Good angle in the final paragraph. A-listers -- or whatever you want to call them -- can be tremendously influential in generating buzz that can drive signups.

For some web2.0 outfits, getting the network effect in is absolutely critical for it to work ... and the benefit of having Guy Kawasaki or Jason Calacanis front your outfit can't be measured in dollars. Or, rather, it can, but you know what I mean. ;)

Cheers
t @ dji

Re: 2007/04/15/women-write-blogs-too/

Tony Hung — Sun, 15 Apr 2007 23:20:34 -0000

Well, it also looks like it was put together by folks who don't understand English either.

The main tag line is "weblogs for only woman"

Other precious bits of copy include:
"Intuitive simple control panel" and "multitude themes to select"

And yes, it does look like a WP-MU installation. ;)

Laughable all around. Thanks for the jokes. ;)

t @ dji

Re: 2007/05/08/sitemeter/

Tony Hung — Tue, 08 May 2007 22:12:12 -0000

Thank god. The layout, style, color scheme of it before was utterly nauseating. ;)

t @ dji

Re: 2007/06/30/pownce-invites/

Tony Hung — Sun, 01 Jul 2007 06:46:10 -0000

Hit me up!

Tony Hung
aAF0kytSTimooIvh@spambox.us

Cheers
tony @ dji

Re: 2008/04/07/elite-tech-news-3-cranky-bitchmemes/

Tony Hung — Mon, 07 Apr 2008 18:17:40 -0000

@2:50 -- not to be an ass, but that's *TONY* Hung, not William Hung. Yes, we often get confused, but the other Hung don't blog. :)

Re: 2008/04/07/elite-tech-news-3-cranky-bitchmemes/

Tony Hung — Tue, 08 Apr 2008 14:05:14 -0000

@Webomatica -- yeah, I just caught that.

To be honest, the first time listening to the podcast, I was also doing some hardcore studying, and I didn't listen to the rest.

Thanks. :)

{and ... oddly enough, I was thinking of writing a post about confused identities thereafter, using this very podcast -- and the infrequent confusing of my own name -- as a launching point. Then I got distracted with the whole WP vulnerabilities thing. Well, the week is still early, I guess :) }

Re: Blog integrity is important

Tony Hung — Sun, 15 Oct 2006 16:23:39 -0000

Well, i was wondering when you'd weigh in on the entire thing Rob! :)

Of course, let's not forget Richard Edelman's pointed pontificating about how important it is to disclose:

http://www.edelman.com/speak_up/blog/archives/2...
Bloggers can take care of themselves in this evolving world. They should be careful to disclose receipt of product samples, membership on advisory boards or any other financial consideration that might affect their impartiality.

Another interesting point: Edelman is a member of the Word-of-Mouth Marketing Association, and the goings on seem to violate its code of ethics. Wonder what the fall of from THAT will be.
http://blog.basturea.com/archives/2006/10/13/ed...

Cheers
t @ dji

Re: Blog integrity is important

Tony Hung — Sun, 15 Oct 2006 17:16:36 -0000

I agree rob.

Something stinks in Denmark.

Funny thing about Steve "VP at Edelman" Rubel -- he's also been caught in the dark before. After all, in March of this year there was a bit of a hubaloo with the NYT breaking the Wal-Mart / Edelman union, to which Mr. Rubel was caught flat footed.

Some of you might think I was lying low or that I didn't care about the story. That's not the case it all. Yesterday I did not have a moment to craft a thoughtful post with the quality that you have come to expect from me. Was this wrong? Perhaps. I felt that this situation, perhaps more than any other in the two years I have been writing blog, required deeper reflection. I recognize that I need to speak out on this story. I also understand that no matter which direction I fall on this story, there is a sword waiting to catch me. Already some are calling me a hatchet man for the company. This comes with the territory of my new gig and I embrace it.
http://www.micropersuasion.com/2006/03/silence_...

Well ... perhaps he's *reflecting* to create a more suitable response.

And if that's so -- fantastic.
I can't wait to see how a blogging evangelist explain away Edelman's (apparent) efforts to manipulate a blog (creating a flog?).

Cheers
t @ dji

Re: Another Stanford University Startup coming September 2007

Tony Hung — Mon, 05 Mar 2007 17:31:12 -0000

Many congratulations!

As a recently new dad myself, something I've learned:

1. when your wife is pregnant, she is always right -- just, don't bother arguing. Just don't. ;)

2. after the baby is born, use both parents to help babysit -- they'll enjoy it, and you'll get much needed sleep.

Cheers
tony @ dji

Re: Google to penalize bloggers selling links?

Tony Hung — Sun, 15 Apr 2007 02:26:00 -0000

Well, Robert, I think the issue is obvious if paid links are disclosed as being done in a semi-public fashion as you've clearly stated here.

The point I was trying to make is "what if it wasn't?" And if its not, then it casts doubt on the veracity of *all* inbound / outbound links.

Matt Cutts left a remark on my blog saying that Google *does* have a means of detecting paid links, but I presume that he means this is done algorithmically and not by hand (which, I also presume at Google, is probably regarded as anti-thetical and primitive).

And I would *love* to know how Google's able to do this, as I just don't see how it could if links are sold on the sly, and not done in public.

I mean, how could anyone know if any old-fashioned link is sold either before or after the fact?

Cheers
t @ dji

Re: Google to penalize bloggers selling links?

Tony Hung — Sun, 15 Apr 2007 02:45:35 -0000

Well, I think Techmeme and Google are different in many, many ways -- least of all is scale. Gabe has a single page that's updated many times per day vs. thousands pages for thousands of search terms

I see what you mean by monitoring link behaviour, which is pretty fascinating; however, how could you prove that a link was bought and sold?

Obviously the ones that stick out will be easy to spot; however, what about the ones that are done intelligently and on the sly?

How does Google know, for example, that I didn't pay you for the link in this blog? (which I didn't -- do you hear my Google! -- and probably could never afford anyway?)

But I go back to the burden of proof -- how could they ever prove that a link was bought and sold? And if they can't, how can they penalize sites for those links with any integrity?

Or, would they merely discount those links altogether?

Just some food for thought, I guess.

Cheers
t @ dji

Re: Google to penalize bloggers selling links?

Tony Hung — Sun, 15 Apr 2007 03:00:32 -0000

The way that a url ranks for a given term is relatively transparent. That Mr. Redford or Mr. Kennedy (or parties who are associated thereof) choose not to stick to these rules, or even be aware of them, makes it hard to say that they're being "penalized".

With paid links, the issue would be a knowing violation of the rules that have been set out by Google; rather, that paid links are fine for traffic, but not fine for page rank, and that individuals who engage in this activity would be unlikely to be doing it unknowingly.

I guess what I mean by "penalize" isn't necessarily poor rankings for SERPs, but the range of consequences all the way up to and including the possibility of being dropped from the index altogether.

Cheers
t @ dji

Re: Celebrity won’t save you

Tony Hung — Tue, 15 May 2007 23:07:52 -0000

No question that it looks like beaten with the ugly stick -- repeatedly.

Celebrity will help it off the ground.

What it does to cultivate that community, encourage useful content, and filter out the spam / crap / gaming, however, is an altogether different issue.

Welcome to Web2.0, Guy. Time to walk the walk. ;)

Cheers
t @ dji

Re: Zooomr’s longest week

Tony Hung — Mon, 28 May 2007 16:12:33 -0000

Yeah, well I'd just as well tell Kristopher to just clam up and deliver when it comes out. No disrespect intended, but it does no one any good to tell everyone another date for release and have something potentially get in the way.

Not that it will, of course -- but if it does, is all. ;)

Re: Zooomr’s longest week

Tony Hung — Tue, 29 May 2007 07:56:20 -0000

UPDATE: Kristopher just said he’ll probably have his new version up later tonight. Me? I’m keeping my fingers crossed for him.

... and sure enough, "later tonight passes" and ... ?

no dice.

Re: Flickr down, so is Zooomr

Tony Hung — Wed, 30 May 2007 01:27:48 -0000

Yeah, I don't know what it is, but being able to interact with Thomas Hawk and Kris Tate in real time is actually kind of cool.

No substitute for a roll out on software that was supposed to be out a week ago (and then again, last night according to this blog) -- but you get what I mean. ;)

Re: Why can Leo Laporte and Disney do it, but Mike Arrington and TechCrunch can’t?

Tony Hung — Sun, 24 Jun 2007 02:57:32 -0000

Ok -- I'll go first.

You're wondering why the ad with Leo Laporte's different?

1. I don't think he is different -- he should be brought to task when the situation calls for it (hey, I did it: http://www.deepjiveinterests.com/2007/04/07/why...)

2. Its a function of the medium -- there are different expectations on traditional media. People already have a certain amount of savvy, or jadedness if you will. When you hear an ad on TV or radio, most people have enough media literacy to know that ... well, its an ad. It was paid for. And more importantly, celebrities "do" that kind of thing on TV and radio. Its accepted. In the blogosphere and amongst bloggers, its not. At least, not yet. The standards are different principally because of the *last* post you did. People view blogs as being a credible source of information -- more credible than other media because, for some reason, people think that bloggers are honest. Go figure, huh! :)

3. Its also a function of endorsement -- Leo Laporte endorsing GoToMyPc is pretty benign stuff. GoToMyPC doesn't have a terrible reputation. They're not recalcitrant spammers. They don't sell laptops that go on fire. They don't have a history of being the company everyone loves to hate. More importantly, Leo Laporte hasn't gone on record to previously say that he *doesn't* like GoToMyPc. If Leo Laporte were to endorse a company that he obviously had railed against? If he was endorsing a company that *everyone* took an exception to (thereby, implicltly making him also taking an exception to it if he had never said anything prior) -- that kind of endorsement would go over badly.

And the latter point is *exactly* what is wrong with Federated Media and *exactly* why the ad you heard on the radio is *not* the same as the "conversational marketing" hubaloo.

It has to do with the honest of the conversation or the sponsorship. Leo Laporte is being pretty plain and upfront about the commercial. And him doing it, given his track record about things like GoToMyPc is pretty bland. It doesn't impugn his integrity (that much), or more than any other product all things being equal. Its pretty benign stuff.

As for your assertion that bloggers are doing it to get links? Hey, I'm partly guilty as charged.

Having said that, I'll also say that it is an important conversation that I'dlike to chime in on -- conversational marketing as it applies to bloggers is an important topic.

And that's one thing that John Batelle got right -- its an evolving medium. And the level of discourse, if anything, should be more -- not less.

Cheers
Tony @ DJI

Re: Era of blogger’s control is over

Tony Hung — Sat, 12 Apr 2008 07:34:19 -0000

@Robert -- actually, what I wrote was that if a service which is going to exist soley on and directly profit from the content of others, it should have the courtesy to ask the permission to repurpose and recopy that content.

Surely content owners deserve that courtesy at least -- particularly when they've thrown up a creative commons license? (as I have)

{And it was Frederic over at the LastPodcast
http://www.lastpodcast.net/2008/04/11/go-ahead-...
... who said "steal my content".}

Cheers
tony @ dji

Re: Era of blogger’s control is over

Tony Hung — Sat, 12 Apr 2008 09:29:07 -0000

@Greywulf -- sir, you cannot have it both ways.

Either you allow your content to roam wild and free, or you don't, and place restrictions, albeit how mild, on it because (I presume that) you care how the content you created is being disseminated, you care about the company it keeps, and perhaps, you care about whose pockets its gilding.

And that's really no different than what other people who care about their content want.

So if you don't want your stuff being republished on spam sites, then yes sir.

That "counts". :)

cheers
t @ dji

Re: Era of blogger’s control is over

Tony Hung — Sat, 12 Apr 2008 09:33:02 -0000

@JDavey -- wow. I am going to try really hard not to sound patronizing (I'm failing I know) when I say that monetization is only part of it.

I'm quite familiar with the "give it away and reap the later rewards" idea; on the other hand, I can tell you first hand that Twitter (and I have been Twitted by a few popular people) and Friendfeed *AND* Shyftr traffic (from people who I know who have been "shyfted") amount to a hill of beans compared to ...

... well, almost anything. Including a Scoble link. :)

Furthermore, since we're talking broadly, if the person taking your content *doesn't* provide a link back to your site or attribute the fact that you even wrote it, there will be *no* way your blog gets return traffic.

{note: shyftr actually does both, however}

Cheers
t @ dji

Re: Era of blogger’s control is over

Tony Hung — Sat, 12 Apr 2008 20:24:53 -0000

@Hugh -- thanks. :)

... but my original post wasn't going off on where conversations are happening. They happen where they happen and this isn't the place where I'm going to crow about that specifically.

My beef was that a service was using my content -- all of it -- and was building a service around that. I almost feel obliged to describe an analogous situation where someone decided to create an online comics site with 100% pilfered comics, but that would be ham handed, inelegant and far too obvious. :)

I contend that if you're ok with "content" being free, you also have to be free with sploggers stealing your content, i.e the "real" content scrapers, and the wholesale "theft" (if you believe in such things) of your work and have it claimed by others.

Cheers
tony.

Re: Mark Cuban, You Are Free to Leave the Blogosphere

Tony Hung — Fri, 10 Nov 2006 12:35:27 -0000

Of course, the great irony is that his post is the very essence of link-bait and blog pimping (albeit unintentional).

Cheers
t @ dji

Re: CNET Gets it Wrong about Digg Optimization

Tony Hung — Mon, 04 Dec 2006 12:06:48 -0000

The word "spam" is often tossed it around pretty loosely these days; however, I think you can agree that Nial Kennedy's walk through of how a Dental Site was using a post about Geek Weight Loss tips was clearly designed with nothing in mind BUT to be link/Digg bait.

No one would argue with the legitimacy of getting on-blog topics onto Digg, I think, but I don't think that's what she's talking about.

As for your last quote, I think her suggestion is even more malicious than "spamming", because its done from the inside the system.

I'm sure anyone who knows Digg knows that higher ranked Diggers --> people who have lots of friends / influential friends --> easier to promote stories to the frontpage.

All she's suggesting is that people are making their way to the top -- not because they want to contribute to Digg, but because they may be stealthily be selling their submissions for bongo bucks.

It might not be unsolicited email -- the tradition of spam -- but its certainly subverting a system not designed for commercial submissions for commercial purposes.

Maybe its time for a new definition?

Cheers
t @ dji

Re: Edelman, Wal-Mart and the Loss of Control in Media

Tony Hung — Sun, 15 Oct 2006 21:39:38 -0000

Well written!

I think it certainly does speak to using blogs as a marketing medium -- and a strong caveat to the mantra "every business should have a blog".

Re: The Delicate Balance of Participatory Media

Tony Hung — Sat, 04 Nov 2006 23:18:46 -0000

Hey Scott -- thanks for the quote. ;)

I don't know if KRo has ever polled the community about what they think; with their command/control attitude towards communications, their completely opaque process at deciding what is spam, deletion of accounts (Remember AliWood!) and rejigging of the algorithm is the opposite of what "social media" is all about.

Hypocrisy? Yeah ... that's what it sounds, like doesn't it?

Cheers
t @ dji

Re: Brands As Media

Tony Hung — Mon, 04 Dec 2006 12:36:41 -0000

I think the real find with this article is how important established and trusted off-line brands are -- compared to sites and services that are trying to start from ground zero, they have tons of online and offline momentum, although much of it is tremendously un-sexy. The Internet has a huge "dark" population -- the equivalent of "fly-over" country -- that uses the Internet in ways the geekosphere doesn't acknowledge or want to acknowledge. In plain language, they're ordinary folks.

Ordinary folks may eventually follow early adopters, but as the article shows, they have a huge amount of influence in established and traditional brands; the key for these brands is not how to monetize, but how to monetize *further*.

Great pickup.
t @ dji

Re: I Don’t Understand Or Have Much Reason To Trust Daylife’s News Judgment

Tony Hung — Thu, 04 Jan 2007 23:48:25 -0000

I have to agree.
And furthermore, I don't really know *why* I'd use daylife for anything at all; there's nothing it does better than anything else with the exception that it tracks "old" news pretty well. Search "Digg", and you get a chronological listing of news -- that's something that you don't get with Techmeme or Google News.

I love Techmeme like everyone else, but I'd love it even MORE (gabe, are you watching?) if there was some way of searching the archives in a meaningful way.

Cheers
t @ dji

Re: Should Google Subsidize Journalism?

Tony Hung — Wed, 30 May 2007 00:21:06 -0000

I think that's "Google Didnâ€™t *Destroy* The Newspaper Business, The Web Did" ;)

Re: Does Kevin Rose have the Next Big Thing in Social Networking?

Tony Hung — Tue, 31 Jul 2007 20:44:55 -0000

So, how is this any different than people sharing files privately either through instant messaging, or through shared accounts such as Box.net?

The answer is "nothing".

And if that's the case, then I don't see how its a convincing argument for Pownce == next big RIAA headache, because there have been, and continue to be many examples of technologies that allow private file sharing between friends and family.

Re: YouTube’s New InVideo Ad Format Is Not Google AdWords

Tony Hung — Wed, 22 Aug 2007 09:45:40 -0000

Hey Scott,

No question that direct marketing will clash with madison avenue types who will want splashiness over conversion and click throughs.

It sounds like Google is trying to do what it can to improve relevancy in this manner, and it is touched upon in the NYtimes article, with statements like "Viewers click on them [invideo ads]at a rate roughly five times higher than banner ads", and "advertisers would be able to take aim at specific channels and genres, as well as demographic profiles, geography and hour of the day".

Being able to actually target content in ads is technically very tricky; I suspect that Google is doing what it can to improve the relevancy and matching beyond mere tags and descriptions, but this is a technology that I think many companies are racing towards.

Cheers
t @ dji

Re: Email Is NOT Dead

Tony Hung — Thu, 15 Nov 2007 20:56:45 -0000

Wait -- *who* has email?

;)

Re: Email Is NOT Dead

Tony Hung — Thu, 15 Nov 2007 21:14:08 -0000

@Scott -- ha ha! You are preaching to the _CONVERTED_, Scott!

Re: Forget Disintermediation, Focus On Open Data Exchange

Tony Hung — Sat, 12 Apr 2008 23:33:43 -0000

... Just got back from meditating.

I love to think about the end user or reader; where would bloggers be without them, right?

On the other hand, its all well and good to think about services and some vague wish that someone would just create a plugin to magically solve the problem of missing conversations, but if as you put "The winners won’t be those that control the most data — the winners will be those that channel the most data — and those that create the most value on top of the data flow."

... then by default, if bloggers are those that are "creating" content, and services are the ones adding it, then bloggers will *never* be the ones creating the most value, unless they will, by necessity, have to evolve beyond mere blogging to creating services as you suggest, to complement their blogging.

publish2 dot com :)

No, seriously, the post is very services-centric, but I'd love to hear any suggestions about how bloggers should tackle it (I mean besides linking out to generously to every post that is relevant or interesting, which is what most bloggers ought to be doing anyway).

Because I'll be honest, Scott. I am not developing a service and have no plans to do so -- and I *know* you're not necessarily suggesting that bloggers start doing that.

... or are you? :)

Cheers
tony.

Re: The Blog Herald is Absorbing My Reading List

Tony Hung — Tue, 23 Jan 2007 07:00:39 -0000

Well, we're aiming for quality first; the authors bring the fresh -- which I think they're doing pretty darn well.

Time will tell though -- thanks for keeping us honest. ;)

t

Re: The hypocrisy of digg and spam

Tony Hung — Thu, 21 Dec 2006 00:57:49 -0000

I'm not at all surprised about this.
John Chow, earlier last month, discovered the hard way that "spam" is relative on Digg, and quite frankly, that Digg has an absolute lazy "web2.0" way of determining this.
Hope you don't mind, but I chronicled the whole event over here --> http://www.deepjiveinterests.com/2006/11/26/joh...>

They let their users determine it for them.

More than getting people to complain a site is "spam", there is potential way to get it done automatically -- and that is to submit a certain # of submissions for a URL, let's say NYTimes.com, and then create sockpuppet accounts to bury them.

Bury enough of them, and it will trigger an automatic ban of a URL ... and as you've already figured out, trying to unban is very difficult.

Because 'banning' and 'spamming' is entirely relative, and open up to extreme abuse to people with agendas, I would say its even more dangerous than "gaming" to the FP -- as it looks like its a way for people to 'censor' certain sites they just don't like.

But you've already talked bout that. ;)

Cheers,
t @ dji

Re: digg Spam Policy Roundup

Tony Hung — Fri, 22 Dec 2006 17:45:29 -0000

Pete -- often times its nothing that a URL does that gets it banned; quite often it is probably small cadre sof diggers who have a pre-existing prejudices against different things. People who don't like blogs. People who don't like SEO. People who find "web2.0" design "annoying". People who don't like marketers.

If you're looking for a way to make sure a URL isn't banned, the only absolute way is to make sure its never submitted to Digg. I think as long as the banning and "spamming" process works the way it does, there will always be a risk that you will be offending someone even if your intentions are pure.

That is to say, even if your blog is about potatoes, and say, you did a post about "top 10 awesome things to do with Potatoes AFTER Xmas", you might get buried NOT because people hate potatoes (who hates potatoes?), but because people don't like blogs, they might view your submission as "spam", or overly commercial etc etc.

Cheers
t

Re: Asian Culture related research – what are you interested in?

Tony Hung — Wed, 04 Oct 2006 16:03:19 -0000

Two questions for you:

1) What is with the obsession with luck and gambling? Chinese are so pragmatic in some things, and in others, inexplicably obsessed with superstition. As a Chinese diaspora myself, I find it maddening sometimes that Chinese who are educated and intelligent still find themselves caught up in what I find extremely primitive behaviour.

2) What is it about "Chinese" culture which makes it acceptable to allow intellectual property theft writ large? There's something practically indiginous about the shameless copying and knock off goods that you just don't see in the same scale and care in other cultures -- and its clearly acceptable. The maddening thing here? That it is utterly shameless. For a culture which is often preoccupied with Confuscian notions of "face" isn't anyone concerned with how other cultures view this aspect of China?

Two things that I've grappled with myself. Wondering what your own thoughts were -- or if there is existing work in these areas.

Thanks very much
Tony.