Disqus - Latest Comments for Mark 'Rizzn' Hopkins

Re: Techmeme: A Cautionary Tale

Mark 'Rizzn' Hopkins — Mon, 19 Nov 2007 22:06:46 -0000

To go along with what Dasher is saying (if anyone is still reading the comments on this post) -

When insight providers move towards news providers, they get a broader readerbase, and therefore more money. This is a relatively simple transition to make, and we've seen it happen several times in the blogosphere.

On the other hand moving from news provider to insight provider proves more difficult, as author's insight tends to be far more limited in scope than what he can casually provide news about.

Re: Today's impulse purchase (Scripting News)

Mark 'Rizzn' Hopkins — Fri, 23 Nov 2007 16:28:18 -0000

Yar, that's exactly what it does.

Re: A flashconf on fair use? (Scripting News)

Mark 'Rizzn' Hopkins — Mon, 17 Dec 2007 23:57:39 -0000

Quite interesting!

I'd be very interested to cover this and contribute on such a project. I'm not an IP expert, but it is an area I enjoy reading and learning about, and I've followed many IP related stories over the years (not to mention being a content producer since adolescence). definitely keep me/us/everyone in the loop on this.

Re: Why bloggers relying on Google may not be a good idea

Mark 'Rizzn' Hopkins — Mon, 28 Jan 2008 14:40:09 -0000

For some reason, I just caught this post. I will say this, though - bloggers of small traffic size relying on Google for revenue is a poor idea, simply because of the money involved.

Of all the monetization solutions I've tried, they're one of the lowest payers.

A great alternative is project wonderful. I made, on average, 4x revenue I made with AdSense on Project Wonderful.

Re: A Flickr-powered screensaver? Incredible

Mark 'Rizzn' Hopkins — Fri, 28 Dec 2007 03:54:20 -0000

I don't buy the platform is the gem thing, either.

PVR/DVR/Media Center software has been doing the same thing for years, attempting to become the platform. I love Dave Winer, I think he's a genius, but I think this is a miss.

Re: Pay for traffic: Incentive or distortion?

Mark 'Rizzn' Hopkins — Wed, 02 Jan 2008 00:27:43 -0000

In the end, it'll come down to the editors. They're the one that has final say. There are times when I want to go off on a political riff over at Mash, but if the tech angle isn't significant enough, one of the other editors will reign me in. If a Gawker blog (or any other blog that adopts this philosophy/incentive program) slips into sensational oblivion, blame the editors, not the writers.

Re: Is Joost headed for the deadpool?

Mark 'Rizzn' Hopkins — Sat, 19 Jan 2008 01:04:33 -0000

Heya.

I actually subscribe to the Joost blog. They add tons of content on a near-daily basis. Most of it is nominally interesting (most of it should have been added at launch, most of it isn't yet on Hulu), but very few shows have much geek cred (at least that I've seen), or if they have it, they haven't come out on slow news days.

That said, I'm not a Joost user. I'd love to be, because I much prefer a standalone utility I could run on a box made for my TV than something in a web page. Unfortunately, I can't cheaply make a box that fits the dumb system requirements of Joost. Even my brand spankin' new Dell laptop is lacking something minor in the graphics card department preventing Joost from running properly.

I want it to succeed. I don't think it will.

Re: Could Google Launch the gPhone November 5?

Mark 'Rizzn' Hopkins — Fri, 12 Oct 2007 01:10:42 -0000

I definitely think that the two things will be tied together in a serious way - however I think that since the gPhone has been in the works a whole lot longer than the initiative for this social network that they are, in fact, two separate initiatives.

Re: I Need Your Blogs!

Mark 'Rizzn' Hopkins — Mon, 21 Jan 2008 22:20:47 -0000

http://feeds.feedburner.com/RizznNewsFeed - my link blog. it's an efficient way to evaluate a bunch of different blogs without subscribing to each and every one. medium volume - 5-30 posts a day.

Re: 2007/10/08/gphone-2/

Mark 'Rizzn' Hopkins — Mon, 08 Oct 2007 14:35:29 -0000

NYT's report covers no new ground, and IMO is a thinly veiled hit piece against Google, where the underlying message is "Why go gPhone when you go to Google.com from a phone already?" The guy just doesn't seem to get it.

Re: 2007/10/17/10questions/

Mark 'Rizzn' Hopkins — Wed, 17 Oct 2007 21:09:07 -0000

The correction has been made on the spin-off bit. I mis-read the masthead on that, and my apologies.

I'm looking through the FAQ now, as I did before I wrote the article, located on 10Questions, and I'm not seeing anything in relationship to what major party candidates qualifications must be to participate, although now I see the question now about Third Party Candidates.

Early on in the primary and polling process, several folks were discounting so-called second-tier and third-tier major party candidates from participating in debates and polls, and I didn't see information specifically addressing that issue, when I scanned the FAQ.

I'm happy to hear that you're including as many candidates as is feasible.

Re: 2007/10/20/on-betting-your-house-to-win-a-lawnmower/

Mark 'Rizzn' Hopkins — Sun, 21 Oct 2007 02:19:37 -0000

haha..

that filter's gonna come in mighty handy.

Re: 2007/10/22/apml/

Mark 'Rizzn' Hopkins — Mon, 22 Oct 2007 19:20:10 -0000

@Jason Grunstra: I read somewhere in my research that one of the needs for APML was increased user control of what's in your profile, essentially, because groups like Google are monitoring your browsing history ad infinitum. It was suggested that either through browser plugin or Google becoming APML aware that APML also be generated off browsing history. This is where the root of my concerns arose.

Re: 2007/10/22/apml/

Mark 'Rizzn' Hopkins — Mon, 22 Oct 2007 19:22:11 -0000

@Chris Saad: First, thanks for your help in putting this journey together for me. But for you and Marj, I would have been completely negative on APML.

I still have reservations about APML, but as I discussed on my podcast today with my cohost, there will still be a strong contingent of folks that feel that APML and the contents there-of are absolutely no-one's business, and will not comply at any nudging or cajoling.

Re: 2007/10/22/apml/

Mark 'Rizzn' Hopkins — Mon, 22 Oct 2007 20:09:54 -0000

Hah - thanks. Adam just pointed that out to me too.

Re: 2007/10/22/acebucks-2/

Mark 'Rizzn' Hopkins — Tue, 23 Oct 2007 00:25:51 -0000

Thanks muchly! It's been mandated that I do more of these types of posts, so look forward to more pontificating and judgmental pieces by me in the future! :)

You make a good point on the userbase, though. Their actives are lower than I'd expect them to be, which I didn't exactly go into when analyzing their valuation, but having such a large number of folks to use as a viral marketing platform is something to count in the assets table, for sure. I've already received five notifications since installing the app yesterday to install other applications.

Re: 2007/10/24/google-page-rank/

Mark 'Rizzn' Hopkins — Wed, 24 Oct 2007 09:54:13 -0000

I knew at one point or another, Google used to change the ranking level and/or the price of the click based upon the quality of the site (which they determined not so much by the quality of the page behind the link but more by how compelling the ad copy is and what sort of clickthru ratio it had).

Perhaps it's time Google made some modifications to their policy!

Re: 2007/10/24/online-video-success/

Mark 'Rizzn' Hopkins — Thu, 25 Oct 2007 10:01:38 -0000

I'm not sure what format you call this expression, but .5 represents 50%, .15 represents 15%, etc.

It's a little odd to look at, at first.

Re: 2007/10/25/web2-value/

Mark 'Rizzn' Hopkins — Fri, 26 Oct 2007 08:47:06 -0000

TalentShow: I think you might be missing the larger picture of what I'm trying to say. That could be failure on my part, or perhaps you aren't reading me in context.

I'm not saying that Twitter is not the only example of seamless integration in the entire wilds of the web. I'm not even saying that in this article: I specifically mentioned Google reader, and the way it and Tumblr seamlessly integrate.

Seamless integration of data organising itself in the background is what I'm really trying to get at here. Facebook creates more extraneous data. Twitter and GReader filter it, without losing important information. That's my point.

Re: 2007/10/26/comcast-isnt-net-neutral-are-they-liars-too/

Mark 'Rizzn' Hopkins — Sun, 28 Oct 2007 08:35:54 -0000

I don't think that I claimed that the memo's stated they weren't net neutral. In fact, what I described the memo's as stating were lies about what bandwidth throttling and packet shaping they *do* engage in at Comcast.

Re-read the article, and I think you'll find the assertions I've made to be congruent with the content of the memo, and what we know about Comcast from AP's research.

Re: 2007/10/28/the-user-generated-content-reality/

Mark 'Rizzn' Hopkins — Sun, 28 Oct 2007 09:26:00 -0000

No, and I probably should have explained this a bit better, the 1% rule states that approximately 1% of active users will submit content to a system.

To further illustrate the point, a single twitter about the San Diego fire isn't that interesting on it's own, and probably not interesting at all taken in the context of the thousands of tweets from that person's history.

That same tweet, in context of that twitterer's and all the other twitterers words in context to the fires is valuable and interesting.

Re: 2007/10/28/the-user-generated-content-reality/

Mark 'Rizzn' Hopkins — Sun, 28 Oct 2007 11:44:34 -0000

I think you may be missing the applications I am speaking of, such as TwitterWhere that I reviewed last week, or the track features within Twitter, or RSS feeds.

These have very little to do with statistics. Depending on who you're following, also very little to do with sewage.

Re: 2007/10/29/comcast-leak/

Mark 'Rizzn' Hopkins — Tue, 30 Oct 2007 01:43:17 -0000

Not sure if you're trying to win the Troll contest or what here...

... but exactly what use is it, even for non-business use, to initiate only PARTIAL downloads of files via BitTorrent.

Is there a big market for only half the KJV, or half of Office 2003?

Re: 2007/10/30/current-2-billion-or-bust/

Mark 'Rizzn' Hopkins — Tue, 30 Oct 2007 13:38:51 -0000

You're right, Danny. It's an editorial that views something negatively, but it's less about Al Gore, and more about Current.

I've never really hidden my feelings about Current or Gore, but I realize as I'm writing this comment that lot of that is on my own site, not here. So you may not know that.

I never asserted that Al Gore made the statement, though. My indictment of Gore has to do with the ego-induced delusions of grandeur that he clearly has bled over into his corporate culture.

Re: 2007/10/29/breaking-google-to-announce-gphone-plans/

Mark 'Rizzn' Hopkins — Tue, 30 Oct 2007 16:07:35 -0000

Actually, details were released two weeks from that article's release. A private demo was done in Boston, which then got leaked to the press.

I covered that on my personal blog. Woulda covered it here, but I hadn't been hired yet. :)

Re: 2007/11/02/why-google-gets-a-free-ride/

Mark 'Rizzn' Hopkins — Sun, 04 Nov 2007 13:15:29 -0000

I use the term "alleged monopoly" because my intention wasn't to focus on the debate of a Microsoft Monopoly, but to focus on the idea that's been raised regarding a Google monopoly.

Re: 2007/11/03/tech-reality-has-a-well-known-liberal-bias/

Mark 'Rizzn' Hopkins — Sun, 04 Nov 2007 13:35:39 -0000

Well, I appreciate, and could probably entertain a fairly lively debate on the topic of media bias.

I'm actually, in the editorial, attempting to comment on the idea of the web 2.0 crowd (perhaps falsely) assuming that we're dominated by what's considered modern liberal (i.e. democrat) thinking.

The article grew out of personal experience in dealing with a wide variety of tech executives drawn to my conservative politics and technology punditry, and thus felt comfortable admitting in confidence that they were in fact conservatives themselves.

@alexmerced: I am a Ron Paul fan, but unfortunately, I think his mainstream PR lacks direction, which will ultimately prevent him from winning the primary.

@alan: I try to shy away from accusing folks of group-think or herd mentality. It may be true, but the last time I used those terms, I wound up getting flamed out of a community.

@countrob: I will be, of course, commenting on stories like this here at Mashable where applicable, but you're also welcome to click on my bio here at Mashable or the link here on the comment to find my daily podcast that centers around these types of ideas.

@peter: I think that definition of conservative isn't very applicable to American politics. The way I've always viewed American conservatism is a slight variation with a significantly different meaning: "to preserve existing values and morals." Thus, the message is important, yet the medium isn't. There are plenty of conservatives in technology, this much I know.

Re: 2007/11/03/tech-reality-has-a-well-known-liberal-bias/

Mark 'Rizzn' Hopkins — Sun, 04 Nov 2007 15:36:39 -0000

Josh: It isn't that I'm not used to it. I am very used to it, having lived all over the country in blue counties and red counties.

It's just that it sort-of blows. And I wish it were different.

And it is different in tech, because morality has very little to do with the science of Web 2.0. What my morals and resulting political beliefs are should have very little to do with the driving philosophy behind my technology viewpoints and resulting actions.

Furthermore, I don't mind civil political discourse, even from within the context of technology discussion. What I do mind are viewpoints like Marc Canter's, which are increasingly frequent, and also based in absolutely no logic or technology grounding whatsoever (brought up in the midst of a discussion on net neutrality, by the way).

Re: 2007/11/04/kyliekonnect-the-next-generation-minogue-based-technology/

Mark 'Rizzn' Hopkins — Sun, 04 Nov 2007 17:41:07 -0000

You're right, though I think that one of the few niches that would support independent, small sized social networks are fan communities (in certain cases).

One of the main reasons I wrote this up, though, is that I think it's funny that this is what filters through to the MSM regarding social networks despite one of the more monumental weeks in social networking news with the release of OpenSocial.

Re: 2007/11/04/feedburner-glitched-numbers-fixed/

Mark 'Rizzn' Hopkins — Mon, 05 Nov 2007 00:07:41 -0000

Well, since this was one of the few times in my life when I actually had better things to do than check my server logs, I figured I'd better flaunt it while I could. :-p

Re: 2007/11/04/feedburner-glitched-numbers-fixed/

Mark 'Rizzn' Hopkins — Mon, 05 Nov 2007 01:34:42 -0000

You're right, Andy. I think Pete did an article about this a few weeks ago.

Re: 2007/11/07/google-reader-blogroll/

Mark 'Rizzn' Hopkins — Wed, 07 Nov 2007 13:43:22 -0000

Adam, while you were right about the posting error about my sentence (it's fixed now), the post isn't factually wrong. GReader generates a javascript river of posts for the tag you create. perhaps Steve's using a different script, but the one available using the instructions steve gives only provides a river.

Re: 2007/11/08/facebook-bacn-and-spam/

Mark 'Rizzn' Hopkins — Thu, 08 Nov 2007 11:01:08 -0000

I guess I wasn't clear enough in my editorial to describe the issue.

It isn't one or two folks. This is becoming a trend, in much the same tradition of spammy myspace, in which people feel that because you've become their "friend" on Facebook, you've asked them to hook you up to their mailing list.

The replies I'm seeing here about "just tell them" and "remove them from your list" remind me of the arguments against those of us who complained about spam in the late 90s: "just hit the delete button."

Re: 2007/11/08/trent-reznor-pulls-a-radiohead/

Mark 'Rizzn' Hopkins — Fri, 09 Nov 2007 00:45:13 -0000

You're right Matthew. Thanks for the tip. Corrected.

Re: 2007/11/09/facebook-asks-can-we-see-your-id/

Mark 'Rizzn' Hopkins — Sat, 10 Nov 2007 00:28:31 -0000

James,

Wow. I don't mean to demean your response, but one of the duties I'm enlisted to do here is to call it like I see it when reviewing the various services out there.

You address a lot of broad points that I think may miss what I'm trying to say here. I'm obviously not anti-advertising or anti-social network. I write for a social networking blog that's advertiser supported (and therefore that is what pays my bills).

I think my problem comes in when companies that are proving time and time again to be irresponsible with the privacy of my personal data continue to ask for more and more of my personal data, and hope that I'll accept this without qualm.

I've said this before in other forums, but I'll say it here... The reason that when Google goes off in left field when it comes to privacy and seems to get a pass is that they've been very very careful about what the do and don't disclose in the way of user's data. If for some reason Google was asking me for private data of the nature that Facebook is asking for, I'd be more likely to give it to them.

Facebook is grasping at straws in terms of monetization and attempting to justify their over-valuation. They've sold out their user base, and turned their entire system into a spam factory in terms of what the users do and don't buy.

If Facebook gave me a discount on purchases at eBay because they're using that purchase to advertise to all my social circle, perhaps I'd like project beacon a bit more.

If Facebook actually did something far reaching with social ads beyond pattern matching (and actually dig deep into behavioral targetting and allow non-facebook sites to benefit ala adsense), I'd consider it a bit more innovative.

But because they're willing to mortgage their userbase at every turn, and resell every bit of data they can, I see them as little better than shady downtown used car salesman, not as responsible, innovative members of the tech community.

Re: 2007/11/09/facebook-asks-can-we-see-your-id/

Mark 'Rizzn' Hopkins — Sat, 10 Nov 2007 01:38:05 -0000

James,

It's relatively easy to go turn off the features now (or at least I assume it is). You can't turn them off at a central location (i.e. Facebook). You must go out to the individual 12 initial partners and hunt through their settings to find the button that turns off sending of data to Facebook. I wrote a post on this problem a couple days ago (and that the solution one blogger found - blocking FB's access to the browser's javascript).

What makes the problem even further compounded is that they will be adding future partners to this list as well. I'm sure we, who follow the tech blogosphere, might know fairly quickly. Those that just *use* these systems instead of read about them daily might not know for quite a while.

I, myself, keep a lot of myself out in front of the public eye. Most of what I do and say and buy, I don't mind the world knowing about.

But if, for instance, eBay notes and sends to the mini-feed every purchase I make in it's advertising partnership with Facebook, the next time my wife logs in, she'll know exactly what I bought her for our Anniversary or Christmas.

My point being, it's not always about some high-minded privacy ideal (although in the case of asking for my ID it is), it's about being able to pick and choose what it is I want the world to know about my purchasing and browsing habits.

Re: 2007/10/22/apml/

Mark 'Rizzn' Hopkins — Sat, 10 Nov 2007 02:06:53 -0000

I'm not sure I'm the best person to ask about this... I think OpenSocial has some capabilities in this direction, but not quite all inclusive enough to qualify to serve the purposes of APML.

I've not completely gone over all the public specs of OpenSocial as muc h as I'd like... so I'm not sure if my answer is entirely accurate.

Re: 2007/11/09/facebook-asks-can-we-see-your-id/

Mark 'Rizzn' Hopkins — Sat, 10 Nov 2007 02:17:36 -0000

Actually, James, sounds like a good idea for another post. Look for it this weekend.

Not right now, though. I'm headed to bed.

Re: 2007/11/12/2500-marvel-comics-come-online-today/

Mark 'Rizzn' Hopkins — Tue, 13 Nov 2007 15:55:32 -0000

Where did I suggest that Batman was a Marvel character?

Re: 2007/11/12/2500-marvel-comics-come-online-today/

Mark 'Rizzn' Hopkins — Tue, 13 Nov 2007 16:25:06 -0000

Appreciated! I'd like to get a bit further into the intersections of New Media, Web 2.0, Social Media and the comic world. Hopefully some good opportunities will arise in the near future for me to do that.

Re: 2007/11/13/daily-kos-founder-to-join-newsweek/

Mark 'Rizzn' Hopkins — Tue, 13 Nov 2007 20:20:18 -0000

If the conservative guy is as crass, muckraking, and consistently wrong as Markos, I will say the same thing.

I never said I didn't have opinions.

Re: 2007/11/13/daily-kos-founder-to-join-newsweek/

Mark 'Rizzn' Hopkins — Wed, 14 Nov 2007 21:25:49 -0000

Are you kidding me, Cal? Muckraking has suffered a decline?

You must be either willfully ignorant, or cherry-picking your facts. Do you remember the Clinton Impeachment? What about the Scooter Libby trial? How about Memo-gate? What about Iran-Contra's arms-for-hostages scandal? What about Watergate?

Muckraking is alive and well, and generally does little but polarize the country and distract from actual policy-making. I'm not saying bad deeds should go unpunished, but let's get real here, Moulitas and company has never engaged in muckraking for positive results, only for profit.

That's a social crime - distracting from the issues that matter.

Re: 2007/11/15/amazon-to-announce-the-kindle-ebook/

Mark 'Rizzn' Hopkins — Fri, 16 Nov 2007 10:08:55 -0000

I think you answer your question from the first half of the comment in the second half, Tragically Hip.

Additionally, the device appears to be one of those that only works with certain proprietary formats. If this was a device shown to work with open technologies, like PDF and RSS, and not tied to one particular reseller, my tune might change.

The last thing we need is another entrenched business model like the US mobile market, where we pay money to enter a contract.

Re: 2007/11/16/online-video-strike-while-the-iron-is-hot/

Mark 'Rizzn' Hopkins — Fri, 16 Nov 2007 20:10:46 -0000

Perhaps, given the context of the story Kristen just published before me, my meaning is somewhat muddled. Adoption rates of viewing internet entertainment online means not that shows will get picked up by the networks, but that folks will turn to the internet for their entertainment.

Re: 2007/11/16/online-video-strike-while-the-iron-is-hot/

Mark 'Rizzn' Hopkins — Fri, 16 Nov 2007 20:21:37 -0000

@patricia: So you're telling me that you don't consider TV entertainment to in any way be competition for online entertainment? You don't believe that in the absence of Old Media entertainment that people will seek it in greater numbers online?

Re: 2007/11/17/will-a-myspace-re-design-fix-it/

Mark 'Rizzn' Hopkins — Sat, 17 Nov 2007 23:49:15 -0000

I actually didn't know that. I know this: if Vimeo had the momentum that YouTube has, I'd much prefer it to be my platform of choice.

Despite the superiority of its design, people will go where the content is, though, I suppose (another advantage of MySpace, incidentally).

Re: 2007/11/17/ecolect-more-than-a-catalog-a-social-network/

Mark 'Rizzn' Hopkins — Sun, 18 Nov 2007 07:17:41 -0000

I assure you that I didn't get paid. There is in fact a social network in there. You gotta look real hard for it, though.

Re: 2007/11/17/will-a-myspace-re-design-fix-it/

Mark 'Rizzn' Hopkins — Sun, 18 Nov 2007 12:55:31 -0000

No, JP. You're way off.

It isn't elitist to like my pages to load in under twenty minutes.

It isn't elitist to like being able to read what's on a page or have unobscured by glitter.

It isn't elitist to detest spam.

In fact, I question whether your read the article at all, since I actually played *down* the importance of aesthetics in favor of a business plan that favored usability and functionality over form.

Re: 2007/11/17/will-a-myspace-re-design-fix-it/

Mark 'Rizzn' Hopkins — Sun, 18 Nov 2007 15:42:21 -0000

I hate to take you to school, JP, but I'm afraid you leave me little choice.

From the Wikipedia:
"Aesthetics is the study of sensory or sensori-emotional values, sometimes called judgments of sentiment and taste. Aesthetics is a subdiscipline of axiology, a branch of philosophy, and is closely associated with the philosophy of art."

Functionality and usability, as opposed to emotional reactions to a design, are not subjective. If a site functions poorly, such as being overloaded with spam and advertising, or taking too long to load so as to induce possible browser crashes: these are not issues of aesthetics. They are, at that point, considered bugs. Show-stoppers. Problems. Issues.

In short, things that do not work.

It is not elitist to want things to work. I'm not sure what sort of mixed-up, liberal, hippy-happy, everything is relative world you come from, but in the real world, broken things need fixing. It may not be a financial problem for MySpace today, and it may not be tomorrow.

Eventually, though, folks that were adolescent and thought that mal-formed HTML, CSS, and twenty slow loading flash slide shows on a page were awesome will eventually grow tired of not being able to load more than a page an hour. JP, they will eventually grow up.

To be sustainable in the market and to remain relevant, MySpace will too have to grow up. That is all I'm suggesting.

Re: 2007/11/21/stumbleupon-selling-targeted-traffic-for-50-cpm/

Mark 'Rizzn' Hopkins — Wed, 21 Nov 2007 21:26:57 -0000

I saw the page, but I've not seen the service written up nor announced from eBay.

Well kept secret = stealth launch.

I've used StumbleUpon for months now, and never been introduced with a help or tips screen indicating when a page is being shown to me as advertising, unless it is for StumbleUpon feature-sets I've not yet utilized.

Additionally, in the gamut of targeted page-hits you can purchase from various vendors, $.05 is *very steep* in comparison with the rest of the business. This isn't CPC traffic, either. CPC is an active movement to a page, where the visitor knows they're going into paid placement territory. In the case of StumbleUpon, it is foisted upon you.

Two very different situations.

Re: 2007/11/21/facebook-were-more-annoying-than-myspace/

Mark 'Rizzn' Hopkins — Fri, 23 Nov 2007 08:49:10 -0000

It is a baffling strategy, if you can call it that. Methinks behind the scenes they are just a bit more disorganized and disheveled than their corporate veneer would lead us to believe.

Re: 2007/11/23/is-the-microsoft-zune-still-failing/

Mark 'Rizzn' Hopkins — Fri, 23 Nov 2007 13:26:24 -0000

Not sure whether to complement you or correct you. On the one hand, you've made an impression on me and are for sure in the running for the Troll contest.

On the other hand, you're wrong.

Re: 2007/11/23/is-the-microsoft-zune-still-failing/

Mark 'Rizzn' Hopkins — Fri, 23 Nov 2007 13:51:23 -0000

I should have figured all the various platform fan-boys would come out of the woodwork on this one.

My point is, what limited data there is on the new Zune is, to date, shows that it isn't failing. Or perhaps more importantly, doesn't prove that it is failing..

The thing came out a few weeks ago. Prime shopping time of the year is right now. A bit pre-mature to call it a failure. All I'm trying to do show a littler reason in this all out lynch mob of the Zune. And, in case you didn't read the article I linked and responded to, my "cherry picked facts" are more than what was used in the other article or any of the comments on the SlashDot forum.

Did you even read my article, VJM?

Re: 2007/11/25/is-infringement-avoidable/

Mark 'Rizzn' Hopkins — Sun, 25 Nov 2007 13:50:48 -0000

Oops... forgot to link it in the article.

http://torrentfreak.com/open-letter-from-torren...

Re: 2007/11/27/why-facebooks-modus-operandi-matters/

Mark 'Rizzn' Hopkins — Tue, 27 Nov 2007 13:29:52 -0000

@Kyle: I like to think so. It's called "establishing my authority on the subject."

Re: 2007/11/27/net-neutrality-coming-to-congress/

Mark 'Rizzn' Hopkins — Wed, 28 Nov 2007 14:20:44 -0000

Look, it's real simple, Conor...

Right now, the customers are clamoring for net neutrality. If they could leave their current broadband provider and go towards one who would allow them a net neutral service, they would.

Because of lack of competition, that is impossible.

In a world where actual competition exists, market pressures could force net neutrality back into existence.

I'm all for network neutrality. I'm just not for unnecessary regulation that acts as a barrier for to entry for other potential competitors that could actually fix the original problem.

Re: 2007/11/28/can-anime-reach-version-20/

Mark 'Rizzn' Hopkins — Wed, 28 Nov 2007 15:17:10 -0000

I have not... tell me some about it.

Re: 2007/11/28/democrats-launch-large-republican-video-archive/

Mark 'Rizzn' Hopkins — Wed, 28 Nov 2007 21:16:40 -0000

@advicenetwork: While you're right in general, I think it's clear that the president actually flip-flops a bit too much. There have been immeasurable promises the President has put forth that he later backed away from, as they weren't as important as the war on terror.

The problem of the Democrats isn't that they change their mind, it is that they attempt to argue that they don't change their mind and message, when they plainly do.

If they were to simply say "hey, I changed my mind due to [some compelling reason]," I think it would diffuse the whole situation.

Unfortunately, they play directly into the Republican strategy when they attempt to fight fire with fire, as with FlipperTV.

Re: 2007/11/28/democrats-launch-large-republican-video-archive/

Mark 'Rizzn' Hopkins — Wed, 28 Nov 2007 22:13:05 -0000

Interesting how those that have been sending hate mail and commenting here on this piece since it's been posted have all seized upon a few bits of the piece and mis-interpreted or just plain skipped over the facts.

In the comment just above you, @B, I mentioned Bush's several flip-flops. I also *never* stated that Republicans were free of flip-flopping. I said it was rare. It is. Certainly more rare that Obama's or Hilary's oft-documented recent flip-flops.

Everything in my post is factually correct. Certainly, the thrust of my post's analysis is spot on, as well: This is a dumb idea from the DNC, sure to have major blow-back.

Re: 2007/11/28/democrats-launch-large-republican-video-archive/

Mark 'Rizzn' Hopkins — Wed, 28 Nov 2007 23:45:51 -0000

@N-Noid: Is B. Hussein Obama not his name? If this is incorrect, I'll change it.

With respect to other Republican *candidates*, there has been much less flip-flopping on the issues than on the Democrat side. When a candidate changes his position over a 10 year period as opposed to a 4 minute period, you can hardly call these two things the same.

@PB: I didn't think my agenda was all that hidden, to be truthful. I've been very open and honest about my political positions since I've begun my tenure here at Mashable.

Re: 2007/11/28/democrats-launch-large-republican-video-archive/

Mark 'Rizzn' Hopkins — Thu, 29 Nov 2007 21:01:16 -0000

Tim: Actually, yeah. Most people who read the polls (not just of conservative persuasion) are of the opinion that the Republicans are doing well this cycle.

http://www.memeorandum.com/071127/p164#a071127p164

Just about anyone on the Republican side polls better than just about anyone on the Democrat side. Even Huckabee and Ron Paul

Re: 2007/11/28/democrats-launch-large-republican-video-archive/

Mark 'Rizzn' Hopkins — Thu, 29 Nov 2007 21:10:00 -0000

Clinton's answer was not complex. It was convoluted.

Romney's position changed over the course of the better part of a decade, and throughout the campaign has been fairly consistent.

I'm not here to debate illegal immigration with you. I'm actually on your side of the debate on that one. As I'm married into a hispanic family and live in Texas, I'm likely in a much better position to comment intelligently than others.

Speaking to consistency, honesty, and strategy of the parties (which I was in the above article), the Republicans have the Democrats beat hands down. I'm sorry if you're unwilling to face that, but its the sad, sorry truth.

Re: 2007/11/28/democrats-launch-large-republican-video-archive/

Mark 'Rizzn' Hopkins — Thu, 29 Nov 2007 22:26:11 -0000

Again, I don't see my agenda as "hidden" so much as "out in the open."

It's called analysis.

Re: 2007/11/29/the-current-state-of-podcasting-hippie/

Mark 'Rizzn' Hopkins — Fri, 30 Nov 2007 12:37:13 -0000

Keep in mind, I'm running on a PC... I have a feeling that not as much effort was put into the PC as the Mac version. Granted, the desktop machine I'm referring to isn't exactly a powerhouse, but, as I said, it's a heck of a lot more powerful than the machine years ago that could effectively load winamp in under a second.

Re: 2007/11/30/youtube-cnn-republican-debate-reflects-poorly-on-new-media/

Mark 'Rizzn' Hopkins — Fri, 30 Nov 2007 12:41:44 -0000

thanks for the support, rob. I'm just attempting to inject a little life and variety into the community. There's only so many times a day I can post about Project Beacon.

Michelle Malkin has actually severed her relationship with O'Reilly and Fox. Not sure exactly why, but if memory serves, it has something to do with Geraldo.

Ron Paul did a decent job over all, but I'm not sure that his strategy of harping on the war positions will win him major support from the Republican base. At least, that wouldn't be my winning strategy.

I hope I'm wrong on that, because I'd like to see him the nominee.

Re: 2007/11/29/the-current-state-of-podcasting-hippie/

Mark 'Rizzn' Hopkins — Fri, 30 Nov 2007 13:59:16 -0000

Mignon: you bring up some very excellent points. For a lot of podcasters, with more of an entertainment focus than a utilitarian one, selling swag is a great way to bring in revenue on a show.

Using podcasting as an attention tool to supplement a business is a great idea, as well.

My focus is both intentionally and unintentionally limited in this article. I'm a news and politics man, and it's difficult to get the groundswell support for shows in our genre that can easily be attained by folks such as Keith and the Girl or Daily Affirmations. Hence, my scope is a bit more limited in how I see the podcasting world.

Additionally, Winer, I think touched on these topics fairly well. I could have gone on another 2000 words or so and mentioned these things, but I real wanted to really come down on what I think were the really important failings of podcasting at the moment.

You're aboslutely right about the ADM, though. Hopefully they'll bring more ability for the podcasting business to pull themselves up by their bootstraps. I'm watching them very closely and expect great things from them.

Re: 2007/11/30/youtube-cnn-republican-debate-reflects-poorly-on-new-media/

Mark 'Rizzn' Hopkins — Fri, 30 Nov 2007 15:09:47 -0000

Because this is what's called a Primary Debate, Carolyn. 100% of the questions should come from the undecided or the base. Not opposition party plants.

Re: 2007/11/30/youtube-cnn-republican-debate-reflects-poorly-on-new-media/

Mark 'Rizzn' Hopkins — Fri, 30 Nov 2007 15:11:47 -0000

Kyle... when I say known connections, I mean known connections.

Do a Google search. Or try any of these links:
http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?A...
http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2007/07/the...
http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/Printable....

Re: 2007/11/30/youtube-cnn-republican-debate-reflects-poorly-on-new-media/

Mark 'Rizzn' Hopkins — Fri, 30 Nov 2007 15:13:48 -0000

The argument is that supporters and workers for opposition campaigns shouldn't be allowed to insert questions into the debate.

A primary debate is designed so that members of the base can determine which candidate they'll nominate. It is not supposed to be an opportunity for folks of the opposition party to embarrass or create PR disasters for them.

Re: 2007/11/30/youtube-cnn-republican-debate-reflects-poorly-on-new-media/

Mark 'Rizzn' Hopkins — Fri, 30 Nov 2007 15:16:10 -0000

While CAIR may be trying to backpeddle on their terrorist links now, many members of the organization in the past have *actually been arrested* for terrorist ties. They've funnelled money to HAMAS and the PLO (before they were a governmental entity), and even Nancy Pelosi has backed away from the group, acknowledging their terrorist ties.

That anyone is left thinking that CAIR isn't affiliated with terrorism baffles me.

Re: 2007/11/30/youtube-cnn-republican-debate-reflects-poorly-on-new-media/

Mark 'Rizzn' Hopkins — Fri, 30 Nov 2007 15:19:11 -0000

You should actually follow the organization and do a bit of cursory research, instead of spouting the PR they publish on the CAIR website. Members of the organization have be actually been arrested for terroristic activities and ties.

I'm not about to call terrorism mainstream for Muslim Americans. To do so would be prejudiced and racist. There is a reason that even the Democrats and prominent Muslims distance themselves from CAIR, and that is it.

Re: 2007/11/30/youtube-cnn-republican-debate-reflects-poorly-on-new-media/

Mark 'Rizzn' Hopkins — Fri, 30 Nov 2007 15:27:26 -0000

Bill, it isn't what was asked, it was who asked them. Any single question on these topics (which are topics, incidentally, more central to a Dem's platform than a Repub's) would be more or less acceptable.

If one or maybe at best two of the questioners got past the screeners, you could chalk it up to bad luck or accident.

When one third of the Questioners can be shown to be plants from opposition party, several things happen:

YouTube gets a reputation for being a liberal haven, and nothing else (an unfair assumption).

CNN ends up looking like they were trying to entrap the Republicans.

Republicans candidates end up feeling they can't trust CNN or more importantly, Social Media forums to be receptive to their message.

Resultingly, they'll end up engaging social media less, and thus, engaging the public less. As a result, they'll end up speaking to issues that matter to our demographic less.

I can't believe that I have to spell it out so explicitly for some of you. So many of you are hung up on the fact that there are Democrat and Republican labels involved here that you can't see the bigger picture.

Re: 2007/11/30/youtube-cnn-republican-debate-reflects-poorly-on-new-media/

Mark 'Rizzn' Hopkins — Fri, 30 Nov 2007 15:31:16 -0000

Actually, carlo, if you read my articles, you'd know I'm a Libertarian.

These topics are very germaine to social media.

Unfortunately for you, I'm not leaving.

I'm a bit unsure on what Ann Coulter has to do with it. Could you explain?

Re: 2007/11/30/youtube-cnn-republican-debate-reflects-poorly-on-new-media/

Mark 'Rizzn' Hopkins — Fri, 30 Nov 2007 15:35:36 -0000

Supporting an opposition candidate is one thing. I've covered my position on that elsewhere in the comments. Feel free to scroll around.

Being employed by opposition party candidates is quite another.

If we wanted to have a small group of insiders sling mud and try to entrap each other, why didn't the democrat candidates themselves post YouTube videos of themselves asking these questions?

Because it served the agenda of the Democrats to make it look like these were issues that mattered to the Republican base, when in fact it only matters to the strongest supporters of the Democrat candidates. CNN (and by proxy, YouTube) were willing participants in this scam.

Re: 2007/11/19/trent-reznor-ponders-musics-downward-spiral/

Mark 'Rizzn' Hopkins — Fri, 30 Nov 2007 18:42:35 -0000

Good try on the troll contest, man. Its actually the other way around. I've been doing technology based music before Trent was even a blip on the radar. And journalism.

But I was an industrious highschooler.

What else ya got?

Re: 2007/11/30/youtube-cnn-republican-debate-reflects-poorly-on-new-media/

Mark 'Rizzn' Hopkins — Fri, 30 Nov 2007 18:50:54 -0000

Obviously, Johnny, you are a product of our outcome-based-education school system.

Here were the *actual* headlines from the links I posted in the comments.

* A Bad Day for CAIR: an article describing a host of Democratic legislators announcing their discovery of CAIR's terrorist links.

* The curious links of a CAIR doctor who doesn't support terror: an article describing a CAIR member who also happened to be the spiritual leader of HAMAS and the international Muslim Brotherhood terrorist organizations.

I'm not sure where you're getting your information from, Johnny. I will say this: that an illiterate person ascribes me no credibility couldn't make me happier.

Re: 2007/11/30/youtube-cnn-republican-debate-reflects-poorly-on-new-media/

Mark 'Rizzn' Hopkins — Fri, 30 Nov 2007 21:59:58 -0000

I actually would have made the same argument, Margalis, if three conditions were met in the Dem debate:

A) I was a writer here at Mashable at the time. I made commentary similar to this on my podcast after the dem debate....
B) If the Republican questioners were actually employed by Republican candidates, were masquerading as something they weren't, or were actual plants. They weren't, and these were.
C) If the bulk of the questions catered to the Republican base as opposed to the Democrat base at the Dem Primary debate. They didn't. In fact, most were the same or similar question asked at the Republican debate.

Re: 2007/11/30/youtube-cnn-republican-debate-reflects-poorly-on-new-media/

Mark 'Rizzn' Hopkins — Fri, 30 Nov 2007 22:30:16 -0000

Margalis, Margalis, Margalis. So intentionally obtuse (or at least I'm hoping so)... I wouldn't argue that there would be a liberal bias in the Democrat Debate example. It would be the same exact problem this debate had. A vetting problem.

A plant, in this context, means someone who was put in the running and selected by a favorable vetting system employed by the opposition party. I don't care if they came from the Green, Reform or Communist party. It would still be unethical for an opponent to place employees in the race to shape the debate. And it would still be unethical for the vetting process to seek out and select those same individuals.

Instead of answering your irrelevant questions, I'll refer you back to your local community college's courses on ethics and journalism. They should be able to provide the answers you seek.

Re: 2007/11/30/youtube-cnn-republican-debate-reflects-poorly-on-new-media/

Mark 'Rizzn' Hopkins — Fri, 30 Nov 2007 22:44:12 -0000

Anonymous (if that is your real name)... I've yet to see any evidence that my point has been discredited.

Re: 2007/11/30/youtube-cnn-republican-debate-reflects-poorly-on-new-media/

Mark 'Rizzn' Hopkins — Fri, 30 Nov 2007 23:12:02 -0000

Margalis, I've defined "plant" a number of times in the discussions here. I've defined "screening appropriately" as not allowing employees of opponents into the questioning phase.

Do you work for CNN or YouTube? I have to wonder. The only reason you could be this intentionally obtuse is if you couldn't read what I wrote, or you worked for the PR departments of CNN or YouTube.

I'm curious, which is the only reason I continue to respond, exactly how functionally illiterate you can pretend to be.

Re: 2007/11/30/mashable-christmas-wish-list/

Mark 'Rizzn' Hopkins — Sat, 01 Dec 2007 03:45:18 -0000

Some of Google's moves make sense in terms of organizing the worlds info. Some of them, while I think are awesome, go a bit ... beyond that.

Not that I mind. I think that Google is a fairly benevolent overlord, as far as corporations go. I trust them with a significant amount of private data.

I just think that knowing the real motivations inside the company like I do (anything goes, as long as it is cool), and seeing some of their outlying but still not insignificant ventures, its time to open up that mission statement a bit.

Re: 2007/11/30/mashable-christmas-wish-list/

Mark 'Rizzn' Hopkins — Sat, 01 Dec 2007 17:50:45 -0000

Careful what you say about Web Candle + a Monkey. The ninjas will get you.

Re: 2007/11/30/mashable-christmas-wish-list/

Mark 'Rizzn' Hopkins — Sat, 01 Dec 2007 17:54:22 -0000

Read the link mentioned in that paragraph, and it should become clear.

Re: 2007/11/30/mashable-christmas-wish-list/

Mark 'Rizzn' Hopkins — Sat, 01 Dec 2007 18:06:03 -0000

Kyle, I've actually read the patents. I'm not the fool you take me for.

The patents are slightly more convoluted than the two password thing I mentioned, but I wouldn't say more complicated or involved.

My belief about the patent system is indeed based on facts. Is this your patent, Kyle? Why are you defending it so much?

The patent in question is still overly broad, there is a lot of prior art, and it isn't original technology, even if there is more words in the patent than simply the two password thing I mentioned. Furthermore, Z4 never implemented the technology, they simply wrote (or bought) the patent and sat on it till they found a deep pocket to sue.

The case went through Marshall, TX. That should be proof enough that it was a patent troll situation.

Re: 2007/12/03/facebook-15-billion/

Mark 'Rizzn' Hopkins — Mon, 03 Dec 2007 23:52:25 -0000

Nahh, Chad. We've been anti-Facebook since before it was cool: http://mashable.com/2007/11/08/facebook-bacn-an...

Re: 2007/12/04/studies-say-33-will-care-hulus-in-hd/

Mark 'Rizzn' Hopkins — Tue, 04 Dec 2007 13:13:16 -0000

I'll be first to admit that I'm my own biggest fan. :)

Re: 2007/12/04/studies-say-33-will-care-hulus-in-hd/

Mark 'Rizzn' Hopkins — Tue, 04 Dec 2007 13:20:54 -0000

Sure. We'll go with that.

Re: 2007/12/05/secureworks-ron-paul-probably-not-a-spammer/

Mark 'Rizzn' Hopkins — Wed, 05 Dec 2007 22:41:40 -0000

The interface for the botnet was in the CIS... that doesn't mean the user was there...

Hence, my original conclusion probably stands. I'm not trying to impugne Paul, just reporting the facts.

Re: 2007/12/05/twitter-giveth-twitter-taketh-away/

Mark 'Rizzn' Hopkins — Wed, 05 Dec 2007 23:28:06 -0000

Hrm.

Perhaps you're right. I read the help documentation, and it didn't really enumerate that clearly. I'm looking at the way I ran my test with it, too, and it could go either way.

I'll put a message in to Twitter and see if I'm on target or if you're right. Thanks for bringing it to my attention.

Re: 2007/12/05/twitter-giveth-twitter-taketh-away/

Mark 'Rizzn' Hopkins — Wed, 05 Dec 2007 23:29:10 -0000

Tracking has been broken on me and several others for a number of weeks now. Gabe alerted me a few days ago with his tweet. I went thru my logs, and haven't recieved a track alert for at least a couple weeks.

Re: 2007/12/05/secureworks-ron-paul-probably-not-a-spammer/

Mark 'Rizzn' Hopkins — Wed, 05 Dec 2007 23:53:21 -0000

You're probably not. I've been running at Red Alert since I did the YouTube debate post. Several folks (around 83 at last count) that don't like my political coverage. :)

the way I read the original report, you're close.

"spm" wrote the commonly used botnet software. An instance of the web-client was installed on a server in the ukraine. jobs for spammers were then run from the web client. one of the jobs was run for a fellow(?) named nenastnyj - that was the Ron Paul job.

Re: Twitter is Banned in the United Arab Emirates

Mark 'Rizzn' Hopkins — Thu, 06 Dec 2007 15:18:59 -0000

I know how to spell "smart" properly, each and every time.

Re: 2007/12/06/playfair-socrates-google-charts/

Mark 'Rizzn' Hopkins — Thu, 06 Dec 2007 21:32:30 -0000

Hey. You think it's bad that I got paid to write about it, think about the Googler getting paid top dollar to develop... a pie chart.

Re: 2007/12/06/rudy-giuliani-launches-a-social-network-it-doesnt-suck/

Mark 'Rizzn' Hopkins — Fri, 07 Dec 2007 01:18:43 -0000

Haha.

I'm not making comments on his policies.. just his social presence.

His blog and other social media presences are *still* extremely lacking. There isn't a place anywhere on his website where you can find something that was actually written or even dictated by Giuliani... much less a place where you can interact with the candidate.

I'm not saying he needs to answer all his emails all the time. On the other hand, it wouldn't hurt to actually talk to the people you want to vote for you.

Re: 2007/12/06/mitt-romneys-speech-breaks-online-video-views-records/

Mark 'Rizzn' Hopkins — Fri, 07 Dec 2007 01:28:56 -0000

Carlo,

I need no disclosure. The only pertinent employer I need mention is Mashable. No one else involved in the story in any way pays me money.

You clearly missed the point of the story... as I've pointed out both by example and by illustration here in past writings, most of Web 2.0 leans left (or has the perception of such). That UStream has an open environment receptive to both the left and right is news-worthy.

Also note that Obama's recorded videos on UStream rank far below just about anything else there.

I'm sorry it upsets you that Romney's speech was a major news event. At the end of the day, though, what I wrote had to do with things that mattered, and what you wrote was a bunch of childish insults.

Re: 2007/12/06/blog-council-a-thinly-veiled-department-meeting/

Mark 'Rizzn' Hopkins — Fri, 07 Dec 2007 16:50:55 -0000

No...

... Those doing it right should be the ones teaching the ones who aren't.

It shouldn't be a blind-leading-the-blind situation. Nothing ever gets accomplished by that.

Re: 2007/12/06/blog-council-a-thinly-veiled-department-meeting/

Mark 'Rizzn' Hopkins — Fri, 07 Dec 2007 16:51:23 -0000

I haven't, but I'll check it out now.

Re: 2007/12/10/study-shows-ron-paul-brigade-is-actually-effective/

Mark 'Rizzn' Hopkins — Mon, 10 Dec 2007 21:12:13 -0000

Which jokes, Cameron? This is a serious piece.

I did spell "Qaeda" without the U. Not sure where you're getting that from, chief.

And I'm not making fun of him. I'm making fun of his obnoxious fans. The ones that still to this day email me five times a day asking for a donation.

I'm probably gonna vote for him in the primary. I'm a bit tired of his groupies annoying the crap out of me, though.

Despite that, it seems the annoying efforts of his supporters work to his benefit.

Re: 2007/12/12/american-politicians-get-more-engaged/

Mark 'Rizzn' Hopkins — Wed, 12 Dec 2007 16:17:35 -0000

Absolutely.

Ah, the impossible, sweet, democratic dream that it is.

Would be nice.

Re: 2007/12/12/is-spam-coming-to-an-end/

Mark 'Rizzn' Hopkins — Wed, 12 Dec 2007 19:57:27 -0000

Point well taken, Morgan.

That has to be one of the most backhanded compliments I've had in recent memory. Thanks none the less, though. :)

Re: 2007/12/12/ipkarma-blog-commenting-reputation-system/

Mark 'Rizzn' Hopkins — Wed, 12 Dec 2007 20:33:42 -0000

If you follow the link to ip/karma, you can see it in action on their blog.

Re: 2007/12/12/is-spam-coming-to-an-end/

Mark 'Rizzn' Hopkins — Wed, 12 Dec 2007 22:41:45 -0000

Hey, you do what you do and I'll do what I do.

I swear, the peanut gallery's getting cheekier every day.

Re: 2007/12/12/ipkarma-blog-commenting-reputation-system/

Mark 'Rizzn' Hopkins — Thu, 13 Dec 2007 13:00:58 -0000

Wait, are you kidding?

It tracks by email address, not IP address. In terms of a tracking system, don't you think that leaving a comment indexable by a search engine is a trail enough to not require disclosure?

I mean, opting out, in my mind, would mean not leaving a comment.

Re: 2007/12/13/google-introduces-the-knol/

Mark 'Rizzn' Hopkins — Fri, 14 Dec 2007 01:01:50 -0000

Hrm. Interesting.

When I originally read that (or the paragraph around it), I took it to mean you could sign up for an ad program and put it on there if you want.

Still, though, why would you share a fraction of adsense revenue with Google (which is meager to begin with, in most cases), when you can easily throw up pages elsewhere and monetize through more lucrative means?

Re: 2007/12/13/citizen-journalism-dangerous-and-irresponsible/

Mark 'Rizzn' Hopkins — Fri, 14 Dec 2007 02:16:19 -0000

Here's the difference you and the rest of those uneducated in the ways of new media completely miss: Old Media (i.e. the media that Thomas loves so darn much) has no self-correcting features (like the ones described in my piece and the process in which we are now engaged).

Next?

Re: 2007/12/13/citizen-journalism-dangerous-and-irresponsible/

Mark 'Rizzn' Hopkins — Fri, 14 Dec 2007 02:19:39 -0000

But they do have a loud megaphone. Don't underestimate the ability of the old guard to continue to influence and shape the opinion of the public. Despite the fact that the sub-prime economic downfall America is currently experiencing is relegated to only a few geographic areas, the mainstream press has whipped the American public into a recession-panic.

That's only one example of many in which the MSM continues to shape public policy. In a world where their "facts" aren't subject to scrutiny, what is said by still-respected journalistic institutions carries weight.

Re: 2007/12/13/citizen-journalism-dangerous-and-irresponsible/

Mark 'Rizzn' Hopkins — Fri, 14 Dec 2007 03:18:43 -0000

You are right that the lead-up to the Iraq War(S!) are media failures, but that issue is highly muddled with politics, and the blame goes much further than the media.

The Rather-gate scandal is a nice and clean example of New Media's clear superiority over Old. Dan Rather didn't fact check, the blogosphere did. Not one man, not one organization, but a cluster of conversing folks going "hey, that's not exactly right" came to the correct conclusion that Rather's facts were all made up.

Incidentally, LonelyCEO, I don't remember the President suing Rather over that one. He lost his job because he was publicly shamed, and the New Media did theirs, not because of your example of the Old Media "check and/or balance."

Re: 2007/12/13/citizen-journalism-dangerous-and-irresponsible/

Mark 'Rizzn' Hopkins — Fri, 14 Dec 2007 03:23:11 -0000

Clearly you cling to the old school definitions of what journalism is. It's no longer time of publication and pre-fact checking.

It's conversation starting, and distilling the truth.

Often, the blog post is just the catalyst for the discussion that ends up getting to the bottom of things.

I agree that blogging, as a journalistic medium, isn't perfect. I disagree that it is in any way inferior to the old system. Furthermore, I don't think it's the logical conclusion of what New Media should be - it's just the stopping point where we currently reside.

Re: 2007/12/13/citizen-journalism-dangerous-and-irresponsible/

Mark 'Rizzn' Hopkins — Fri, 14 Dec 2007 14:47:36 -0000

Sorry, Carolyn. I don't accept any argument that starts and ends with MediaMatters. That isn't exactly a place where truth comes from.

Rathergate was less about Bush's record, and more about the fact that the msm was so anxious to discredit Bush at the time, they'd allow anything through what LonelyCEO, Thomas, and Hazinski seems intent on calling a "superior form of journalism."

Re: 2007/12/13/citizen-journalism-dangerous-and-irresponsible/

Mark 'Rizzn' Hopkins — Fri, 14 Dec 2007 14:49:27 -0000

If all you read in this piece were the photo captions, then you probably miss a lot more points than mine.

Re: 2007/12/13/citizen-journalism-dangerous-and-irresponsible/

Mark 'Rizzn' Hopkins — Fri, 14 Dec 2007 14:55:33 -0000

You make some good points, Chad. (especially your last one. gotta love any argument that ends with a quote from an insult comic dog!).

Four years ago, I was a blogger during rathergate thing, high-minded and consummately serious with my newfound responsibility.

Over the years, I've mellowed, and realized that the new journalism is about the conversation and not being the most definitive word on everything. As such, its okay to be jovial and a bit goofy at times - just because the subject matters are important, doesn't mean they have to be boring.

I mean, we aren't running laugh factory or anything, but that's no reason it needs to read like a stereo instructions manual.

Re: 2007/12/14/social-media-crime-blotter-a-moose-a-severe-beating-and-a-death-threat/

Mark 'Rizzn' Hopkins — Fri, 14 Dec 2007 16:57:39 -0000

haha... That comes after checking the crime blotter. :)

Re: 2007/12/13/citizen-journalism-dangerous-and-irresponsible/

Mark 'Rizzn' Hopkins — Fri, 14 Dec 2007 17:32:45 -0000

No, Kyle, I'm actually aware of her history. I agree with her on *some* of her points regarding her biggest criticism of President Bush.

The problem is, the very thing I quoted her on in this piece she is guilty of in her questioning of the administration: that is making accusations without absolute proof. While she may remember journalism's unwritten rules, she certainly no longer adheres to them.

During Bush Sr., Clinton, and Reagan, I noted the obvious value she had as a perennial presidential critic. Now, she comes off as wing-batty in the way she can't move on from certain factually incorrect or at least shakey lines of questioning.

In essence, I think she should have quit while she was ahead.

Re: 2007/12/13/citizen-journalism-dangerous-and-irresponsible/

Mark 'Rizzn' Hopkins — Fri, 14 Dec 2007 17:37:25 -0000

Simply because I tend to take the side of New Media doesn't mean I think everything said by folks in the New Media is infallible.

I get three or four press release style emails from MediaMatters a day, on average. They're all anti-Republican propaganda, almost without fail. They're bankrolled by partisan politicians. They have an unmasked agenda, and it isn't truth.

Therefore, I do not trust what they say. In my mind, all they say is suspect. They may be right occasionally, but so is a stopped watch twice a day.

Your blame of right-wing blogs pushing the matter out of American's memory is a bit biased, too. I think the blame falls with Rather and Mapes. If they hadn't been so gung-ho to character-assasinate the president, they would have collected better evidence, and the controversy would have never arisen.

Re: 2007/12/14/t-mobile-blocking-twitter/

Mark 'Rizzn' Hopkins — Fri, 14 Dec 2007 21:14:30 -0000

haha! thanks. is this a free service?

Re: 2007/12/14/analysis-new-media-pwned-old-media/

Mark 'Rizzn' Hopkins — Sat, 15 Dec 2007 12:11:27 -0000

Sorry? Can't say I can change me. I, like most people, have an ego.

Re: 2007/12/14/analysis-new-media-pwned-old-media/

Mark 'Rizzn' Hopkins — Sat, 15 Dec 2007 12:16:53 -0000

You have a point, Rob. Things are changing. I don't have percentage points on our own daily coverage, but mental calculations off what I see roll through here, Old Media wire stories count for less than 5% of our news sources.

That changes from news niche to news niche, but more and more bloggers and podcasters are becoming primary sources for work, these days.

Keep in mind that each year, online buying counts for more and more percentage of the total amount of shopping here in America - I don't have world-wide figures for wired countries, but hype or no, both predictions are coming to pass.

Re: 2007/12/14/analysis-new-media-pwned-old-media/

Mark 'Rizzn' Hopkins — Sat, 15 Dec 2007 12:18:53 -0000

Bob, rather than rehash the difference here, I'd encourage you to read not only my previous articles but the article responses to mine and Hazinski's that outline the difference between Old Media and New. The difference is far greater than paper vs. pixels. It's communication vs. info-pipe.

Re: 2007/12/14/analysis-new-media-pwned-old-media/

Mark 'Rizzn' Hopkins — Sat, 15 Dec 2007 12:39:52 -0000

Not to be contrarian, but that's exactly the opposite from what's happening, at least for successful bloggers and journalists. Om Malik came from Old Media (Company 2.0), but is far more successful with the GigaOM network as a business than his old magazine is. In fact, the old magazine is gone, and Om's network is growing.

Certainly there are examples of what you speak of. Amanda Congdon left podcasting to go to ABC ... no wait.

You are almost right with your "real difference" between the media types. The barrier to entry is another contributing factor to New Media's superiority. Bias, any type of bias (be it liberal, conservative or sensationalistic or what have you), is cumulative in Old Media groups. It filters down from the owner to the editors and writers. Even with the growth of teamblogs and group New Media organizations, if structured correctly, that effect is mitigated to much smaller (and identifiable) groups of bias.

Don't forget, the watershed event for the whole NM v OM debate was the Rathergate scandal. Bias is inevitable. A whole, multi-nationional organization the size of the traditional news networks containing largely the same bias is inevitable. The whole of NM containing the same exact bias, on the other hand, is not, as the consumers of the media play as big a role in the process as the content creators.

Re: 2007/12/14/rightsagent/

Mark 'Rizzn' Hopkins — Mon, 17 Dec 2007 19:56:45 -0000

This is entirely different from the IZEA business model. IZEA has sponsored posts where the blogger is compensated to say something about them - like a sponsored commercial read in radio.

In this case, work published under creative commons can be licensed by other content aggregators for commercial use, and the author of the original work can be paid for it. Write first, get paid later, not get a topic, write, then get paid.

Re: 2007/12/22/mashables-2008-predictions-marks-list/

Mark 'Rizzn' Hopkins — Mon, 24 Dec 2007 15:02:24 -0000

Kyle:

It's not troll week any longer, so you can turn off the invective. You won't win anything except scorn from everyone seeing how you missed the point.

I called out GE not because I think there is no reason to improve the environment. First of all, their marketing encouraging "Green Tech" are misled and based on bogus research. Secondly, I call them out because they do not in any way practice what they preach.

I'm all for better energy efficiency. Unfortunately, that's not the aim of the green movement. The Green Tech movement is about carving out a manufactured need to buy and create useless technology.

You can print this article out for your children, showing them how I warned that going down the wrong path now actually harmed not only our ecology but our economy, as we went around trying to fix things that weren't broken as the real problems festered around us.

Your attitude is exactly what's leading us down the primrose path of ultimate destruction. Keep it up, genius.

Re: 2007/12/22/mashables-2008-predictions-marks-list/

Mark 'Rizzn' Hopkins — Mon, 24 Dec 2007 15:16:43 -0000

Problem is with Green Tech is too many pseudo-sciences get wrapped up in the same flag. Even your disagreement is a shotgun blast that spreads many different issues:

1) Clean Tech - better energy effiency is an admirable goal. Focusing on recycling materials is a net energy sink. Recycling reduces waste, but increases energy consumption by far too much to be considered a net positive for the environment.

2) Global Warming - the good consensus is that the Earth is on a short term warming trend presently. There is no consensus that this is human influence, or that it is ultimately harmful to human existence (see www.junkscience.com).

3) Economic Motive - the whole global warming movement was invented by scientists conscripted by Margaret Thatcher to distract from an at the time disappointing political career record (see http://www.john-daly.com/history.htm).

4) US Reliance on Oil - this is a dicey issue almost completely divorced from issues of ecology. There is very little benefit from being a country independent on foreign oil, from an economic standpoint. Prices and costs inevitably go up, as the country in question no longer forces suppliers to compete on a global scale. Standard free market economy factors at work (see Great Britain's economy and oil prices for more information).

Ultimately, the whole issue of global warming, the central point used to argue for Green Tech, has been repeatedly shown to have been exaggerated greatly by the likes of Thatcher and Gore. The problem is that we continually trust those with political and economic gain with our scientific trust. That's wrongheaded, and I think, a recipe for disaster.

Re: 2007/12/22/mashables-2008-predictions-marks-list/

Mark 'Rizzn' Hopkins — Mon, 24 Dec 2007 15:20:49 -0000

Johnny99: I'm not writing off an entire field yet. The current track the entire field is on presently is shaky. Given the momentum it currently has and the lack of self-introspection (and the fact that known eco-liar Gore sits on a VC board that plans to invest in Green Tech), it doesn't bode well.

Yes, it doesn't bode well for the entire industry. I'd prefer not to throw out the baby with the bathwater, but with all the junk science floating around, I am seriously predicting catastrophic investing on a scale of the Dot Com period.

When no one cares to actually refute the claims (or it is considered heresy to try to debunk the claims), then nothing good can come from it.

Re: 2007/12/22/mashables-2008-predictions-marks-list/

Mark 'Rizzn' Hopkins — Wed, 26 Dec 2007 17:47:55 -0000

Pete: Bah humbug! :-p

Re: 2007/12/23/the-dumbest-startups-of-2007/

Mark 'Rizzn' Hopkins — Wed, 26 Dec 2007 19:22:10 -0000

Hey man, gotta disagree with you on Mahalo.

Despite the over-zealous marketing, I like the concept, and it is fairly useful. And you're completely off on Veronica's show.

Re: 2007/12/27/walmart-introduces-search-engine-marketing/

Mark 'Rizzn' Hopkins — Thu, 27 Dec 2007 18:13:34 -0000

I didn't see anything on the Sam's website that indicated who was offering the services other than Sam's. The page for the services wasn't particularly specific.

Re: 2007/12/27/flickrfan/

Mark 'Rizzn' Hopkins — Fri, 28 Dec 2007 01:44:26 -0000

@Bentram: I do indeed know the initials JWZ. Always been a great admirer of his. One of the inspirations for me to get into coding for the internet when I was knee-high to a web server.

@Jerrod, the reason we're talking about it here, quite honestly, is the same reason everyone else is talking about it. There is simply very little else to talk about.

The truth is that this program is a glorified screen saver, despite the fact that it may execute it on the desktop or not. The function present in Yahoo Go isn't technically a screen saver, but an option from the main menu.

When you're using the platform as an interface for your TV, it effectively becomes a screen saver. As Om, Scoble, and others are pointing out, the yippee! seems to be that it turns the TV into a platform, to which I say: Bah! Humbug. DVR/PVR/Media Center PC makers have been attempting this for 4+ years now to varying degrees of success.

Every pundit in the blogosphere is praising this as if it were sliced bread. I comment on it because someone needs to be the voice of reason.

Re: 2007/12/28/web-browser-poll/

Mark 'Rizzn' Hopkins — Fri, 28 Dec 2007 16:27:00 -0000

I may have used lynx a few times, but my first regularly used browser was definitely Mosaic.

Re: 2007/12/29/death-of-riaa/

Mark 'Rizzn' Hopkins — Sun, 30 Dec 2007 01:58:44 -0000

Are you daft? Did you not read the article? First of all, it is a prediction. Secondly, the 'proof' (or more accurately, evidence) is cited in the article.

I'm pretty easy to criticize, most of the time. This isn't one of those times.

Re: 2008/01/01/battelles-2008-no-time-for-hippie-advertisers/

Mark 'Rizzn' Hopkins — Tue, 01 Jan 2008 18:22:08 -0000

Yeah, I'm actually agreeing with him, I think... and providing a bit of background why I agree with his assessment.

I'm not 100% on the fact that we're headed for recession, although I acknowlege that a lot of folks seem to think we're headed for that.

Re: 2008/01/01/battelles-2008-no-time-for-hippie-advertisers/

Mark 'Rizzn' Hopkins — Tue, 01 Jan 2008 20:50:21 -0000

@Mike: You make a good point, but I think that a more measurable system will fare better *when measured against* the less measurable systems during a recession, thus having a better chance of survival.

IE, branding is a great form of marketing. I love it, and it actually is probably the form of advertising most responsible for paying my salary. That said, during the hard times, it's the first form of advertising to hit the chopping block. Look back to the dot-com era recession, which lasted really until Google started making the internet cool again by monetizing through measurable advertising forms.

Aside from having an outstanding (search) product, I think it is the factor most responsible for bringing back the industry from the brink.

Re: 2008/01/02/throwaway-email-the-pirate-bays-slopsbox/

Mark 'Rizzn' Hopkins — Wed, 02 Jan 2008 21:52:46 -0000

@spiderpig: well, as I haven't had a chance to use TemporaryInbox before, I'd have to say the fact that I've heard of TPB and slopsbox, and not TemporaryInbox.

Aside from that, given the dedication (and location) of TPB, some of the more identity and crumbtrail-sensitive applications of this utility might better be trusted to slopsbox than other alternatives.

Re: 2008/01/02/can-internet-statistics-predict-poll-results/

Mark 'Rizzn' Hopkins — Thu, 03 Jan 2008 22:30:30 -0000

@BillTempleton: that America would have to face a real presidential race in which actual relevant issues would be debated and decided. Sorry, given the last 20 years or so of politics, i find that prospect a little scary (not that I wouldn't welcome the joy ride).

Re: 2008/01/10/the-problem-with-podcasting-isnt-downloads/

Mark 'Rizzn' Hopkins — Thu, 10 Jan 2008 15:54:12 -0000

@Jeffr0: probably not. That's another thing with podcast representation (in my experience) - the contracts are almost non-existent, and are structured in such a way that the rep can change or dictate the terms as they see fit. The only exception to that amongst the firms I've used is Podango, as they've been very kind to us in terms of things that were under their control.

@Andrew: We're currently exploring other options, at the moment. The final chapter hasn't been written on audio podcasting, or even audio podcasting at Mashable. Enough of it has been written, though, for us to make a commentary on a significant portion of the industry.

Re: 2008/01/10/the-problem-with-podcasting-isnt-downloads/

Mark 'Rizzn' Hopkins — Thu, 10 Jan 2008 22:45:31 -0000

@todd: It isn't slander, when it is true. We went round and round on the TechPodcast mailing list (as your archives will show) as to why your stats engine didn't record the proper number of downloads. Your response was to have Angelo call someone who doesn't even work in an appropriate department over at Podango. Not surprisingly, nothing came from that.

We can hash it out privately, or publicly. The problem is that the facts don't support you. Maybe other podcasters have had positive experiences with your organization. Art and I, though, have not. Waiting nearly six months to be paid such a measly amount of money for what should have been thousands of dollars isn't exactly the grease for the wheels of podcasting commerce.

I didn't even go into the other details of the piss-poor experience we've had with your organization, such as the fact that it took you nearly six months to pay out on something that was promised (or at least indicated) would be paid in 30 days. The fact that your organization has had lackluster response to legitimate complaints that Art and I have raised as well as issues of of statistic tracking that never came to resolution despite repeated emails both personal and on public lists shows to me that I can't trust your organization to self-correct.

Furthermore, I didn't disclose details in violation of our agreement, you just did. The agreement was to protect total numbers of downloads and internal CPMs. The only thing I disclosed were in general terms a few day's downloads and the fact that your stats engine was broken, and you refused to properly acknowledge that.

If you prefer, Todd, I can remove both your comment and my comment from this discussion board, and we can both agree to move on in separate directions. I stand, though, by everything I said in the original article as truth.

Re: 2008/01/10/the-problem-with-podcasting-isnt-downloads/

Mark 'Rizzn' Hopkins — Thu, 10 Jan 2008 23:33:42 -0000

@angelo: I'm really not interested, at this point, in trying to repair our relationship with TechPodcast/RawVoice. We went round and round on the TechPodcast mailing list trying to explain how there were *significant* discrepancies between how you guys and Podango (or even you guys and PodTrac) were recording downloads.

Re-hashing what happened six months ago in an effort to get paid for something you guys are going to explain away as insignificant differences between two stats recorders doesn't interest me. I want to move forward with organizations that will deliver on what they promise. I'm in the new media business, not the new media hobby.

It is significant, though, in how I feel the business as a whole views the content producers - we're a commodity. I can see, from a network perspective, how you can view it that way. But when a quality show amasses a significant audience, and then is under contract to be paid for advertising services rendered, one would imagine he has a reasonable expectation for payment.

All I'm searching for is the company that thinks the same as me on that.

Re: 2008/01/10/the-problem-with-podcasting-isnt-downloads/

Mark 'Rizzn' Hopkins — Fri, 11 Jan 2008 00:39:16 -0000

@todd: if you recall, yes, we spoke on the phone, we exchanged emails, we traded raw stats, and we discussed publicly (on a group mailing list) the discrepancies.

I don't make allegations like this lightly. If I felt like there was something worth repairing or working with moving forward, I would not burn this bridge publicly. Getting defensive on this, Todd, instead of handling your business properly in the past, only makes you look bad.

To clarify, RawVoice is the only organization that has so vastly under-estimated our statistics. PodTrac, Podango, TalkShoe, Google Analytics and FeedBurner all provided statistics that were in line with each other, to a predictable degree of error. RawVoice was always the odd man out. We tried to point this out to you, but the answer we got from you and Angelo was that the engine favored the advertisers, not the podcasters, so as to maintain a good relationship with them.

At the time, I warned you on the list that maintaining a good relationship with the podcasters was just as important. This is the type of thing I was talking about.

Re: 2008/01/10/the-problem-with-podcasting-isnt-downloads/

Mark 'Rizzn' Hopkins — Fri, 11 Jan 2008 08:53:52 -0000

@angelo: I'm not sure how you can call it a lack of discrepancy, especially since you don't have my log files as a basis for comparison (or claim not to have them).

I told you that I wasn't interested in re-hashing your mistakes (and, let's face it, my mistake for choosing you guys) of the past. You and Todd have continued to drag this out, and pulled other blogging friends in on the conversation as well to attempt to orchestrate hits on my character and the quality of Mashable as a whole.

This is bush-league. Stop. Nothing you say will be able to convince me that I can trust your company again with my content.

A song lyric comes to mind, too: "You're so vain, you probably think this song is about you." The article isn't really about RawVoice specifically, nor was it really about the reputation of RawVoice. It was about the consistent inability for audio podcasting networks in general to sell ads *in my experience.* In my first comment to Todd, I even mentioned that other podcasters may have had good experiences with your company, but I have not.

In my communications with you in the past (when audits were refused to me), I mentioned the importance of keeping podcasters happy. That it takes a mention in a high profile blog like Mashable to get you guys on your toes and acting on something that began six months ago says something.

This detailed dirty laundry of your company's ineptitude would not be in open air if it weren't for Todd's combative responses on the message board.

This will be my last comment on the blog post about this. I have the records buried deep in my email and in other stat tracking accounts refuting your claims, but I don't really care to go through with a forensic accounting when the widely differing payments from two firms on simultaneous timelines speak for themselves.

I'm tired of it already. I was tired of this problem four months ago, when I figured my payments were never going to come, and I got further sick of it when I realized how shabby my payments were once I got them.

Feel free to have the last word. I'm done.

Re: 2008/01/14/mediadefender-defender-hacker-ethan-speaks-out/

Mark 'Rizzn' Hopkins — Mon, 14 Jan 2008 17:15:52 -0000

@rob I haven't heard that turn of phrase for a very long time, but it's exactly what they're doing.

Re: 2008/01/15/scobles-new-show/

Mark 'Rizzn' Hopkins — Tue, 15 Jan 2008 19:18:46 -0000

Louis, sorry for the slight. I did link to that story earlier in the article in the sentence: "Details were said to be announced late this evening, and though I havenâ€™t seen much from Scoble on it, Beet.TV seems to have found a few details theyâ€™ve posted on their blog," under the "details...." text, making it the first link of the story. I considered it only fair to make it the first link since it was the first mention since the TC hint of things to come two weeks ago.

Re: 2007/12/17/a-brief-history-of-the-universe-of-blogging/

Mark 'Rizzn' Hopkins — Wed, 16 Jan 2008 18:19:18 -0000

@bonnie: Wow! you read my article. I can honestly say you're one of my earliest online influences, especially in terms of creating web presences. :)

Re: 2008/01/17/myspace-bug-gives-free-reign-to-pedophiles/

Mark 'Rizzn' Hopkins — Thu, 17 Jan 2008 17:41:53 -0000

I don't know any folks under-age for me to try it on, but I did give it a shot on several of my own friend's profiles, and it seemed to work as described. Are you sure you entered the URL in as instructed, as opposed to simply clicking the link?

Re: 2008/01/18/pedophiles-no-longer-reign-myspace-just-the-regular-perverts/

Mark 'Rizzn' Hopkins — Sat, 19 Jan 2008 12:09:43 -0000

It's pretty simple, really. (or at least it was).

You needed two bits of information for it to work.

First, you head to your profile pictures, and grab the standard URL for that. Then you head to the intended target's link of any kind. Within the URL is contained their Friend ID. You then replace your Friend ID in your profile pic URL with the Friend ID of the target.

That was exlained in both the initial article as well as the referenced Wired article, and tested before we posted. It worked yesterday. Now it doesn't.

Any questions?

Re: 2008/01/25/pay-per-play/

Mark 'Rizzn' Hopkins — Fri, 25 Jan 2008 18:15:40 -0000

@hapless, @bob: I hear what you're saying - but running an extended test of the concept on my sites proved otherwise statistically.

Re: 2007/12/29/how-fat-is-online-videos-long-tail/

Mark 'Rizzn' Hopkins — Fri, 25 Jan 2008 19:19:37 -0000

@daniel: it is my turn for me to question your understanding of the term long tail.

For you to say that it costs nothing to creat an additional blog or posts shows a shocking lack of understanding for what goes into content creation.

Furthermore, with video and audio content, the amount of energy and time expended is much higher. The term long tail can have more applications than your limited understanding of an industry-wide definition.

Re: 2008/01/25/social-media-crime-blotter-suicide-edition/

Mark 'Rizzn' Hopkins — Fri, 25 Jan 2008 23:11:54 -0000

You're absolutely right. Reminds me of a Sean Kennedy rant

Re: 2008/01/25/social-media-crime-blotter-suicide-edition/

Mark 'Rizzn' Hopkins — Sat, 26 Jan 2008 11:46:28 -0000

I'd say I know teens pretty well. I used to be one, after all. I don't deny that they'll go far for their self image. Is Bebo to blame, or is it a myriad of other psychological and sociological effects that should be examined in every kid in the area by their families and/or grief counselors to find the kids who are at risk?

Which is a more intelligent move? Kill bebo, or address the root problems? That's what I'm driving at.

Re: 2008/01/26/meg-whitman-not-running-for-governor-after-all/

Mark 'Rizzn' Hopkins — Sat, 26 Jan 2008 19:29:35 -0000

he's actually the front runner in the RP, right now, isn't he (by delegate votes)? i wouldn't say his chances are all that slim.

Re: 2008/01/26/blogger-tells-bloggers-to-quit-ranting-about-bad-finance/

Mark 'Rizzn' Hopkins — Mon, 28 Jan 2008 03:00:29 -0000

I will say this - bloggers, by and large, talk about that which they do not know when it comes to the economy. There's a big reason why I haven't really broached the topic of the economy on these pages. I'm not an economist.

I've actually been seeking out folks who *are* experts in the economy to get a diverse and well-rounded image of what the problems actually are.

People *you've* actually called out in the past here, Paul, fall into the category of bloggers behind the bullhorn bringing out the bears. I won't name names, but they are definitely found periodically in TechMeme's index, so it isn't like they aren't going unheard.

Once - just once - someone who's a blogger predicting recession and doom and gloom, I'd like to see their predictions backed up by hard fact, thought through and consistent analysis, and maybe some qualifications (if not their own, then at least *someone* who knows something about economics).

So far, I've not seen anything fitting that description. Until that happens, I'll remain skeptical that our economy is soon doomed to fail.

Re: 2008/01/29/google-barcode-ads/

Mark 'Rizzn' Hopkins — Tue, 29 Jan 2008 13:54:50 -0000

doomed to fail. CueCat/Digital Convergence anyone?

Re: 2008/02/05/democrat-primary-ron-paul/

Mark 'Rizzn' Hopkins — Tue, 05 Feb 2008 14:01:39 -0000

I know what party Ron is in, guys. It's a joke. Ron wins every poll on the 'net, regardless of whether he's in it... that's the joke anyways.

Re: 2008/02/06/google-700mhz-auction-update/

Mark 'Rizzn' Hopkins — Wed, 06 Feb 2008 13:32:09 -0000

this greatly saddens me.

Re: 2008/02/08/aviary-hillary-clinton/

Mark 'Rizzn' Hopkins — Fri, 08 Feb 2008 23:14:46 -0000

Hah.

I always had my suspicions.

Neat tool, though. Been looking for something like this a while.

Re: 2008/02/08/lifecasting-poll/

Mark 'Rizzn' Hopkins — Sat, 09 Feb 2008 03:01:07 -0000

I do find it odd that so many folks flock to these lifecasting sites, yet so few in the poll are admitting to watching them.

Re: 2008/02/07/alertle/

Mark 'Rizzn' Hopkins — Sun, 10 Feb 2008 12:40:42 -0000

@varun: The main reason Alertle doesn't give GReader a run for its money, IMO? It didn't even load in Firefox, the first time I went to the site. This is why I passed on reviewing it the first time around.

Your product must work, and it must scale (another thing it doesn't do very well, even when it does load). I can read thousands of blogs an hour in GReader. I don't see that same time savings using Alertle.

Re: 2008/02/23/dropio/

Mark 'Rizzn' Hopkins — Sat, 23 Feb 2008 03:08:54 -0000

I need to come out to NYC. hanging out with louis black at a web 2.0 party must be the most surreal experience known to man. Like hanging out with Cliff Stoll at a Fashion Week Miami event, or something.

Re: 2008/02/24/surveillancesaver-screensaver-cameras/

Mark 'Rizzn' Hopkins — Sun, 24 Feb 2008 17:23:18 -0000

I tried this out. Really friggin' cool. My new screensaver - displaced Chirp for a while.

Re: 2008/02/27/ustream-veoh/

Mark 'Rizzn' Hopkins — Fri, 29 Feb 2008 23:27:28 -0000

I suggest you recheck your numbers, yoyo. Compete shows them in very close competition on all the numbers with some pretty close parity going on.

But for quite some time, UStream has had decidedly more traffic than Justin.

Re: 2008/03/11/eliot-spitzer/

Mark 'Rizzn' Hopkins — Tue, 11 Mar 2008 18:25:59 -0000

Yikes. Thanks for the ping on that. I knew he was a Dem, just a slip of the fingers. Must have been some sort of Freudian slip. Seems like most scandals these days involve the Republicans (DeLay, Craig, take your pick of those in the White House), it just seemed natural I suppose.

Re: 2008/03/13/aol-bought-bebo/

Mark 'Rizzn' Hopkins — Fri, 14 Mar 2008 14:30:17 -0000

@A Proud European: you obviously missed the point of my story. I was trying to drill down as to why there weren't many heated stories or write-ups of the acquisition.

Take a look back in our archives to when MySpace was acquired or try to imagine the fervent analysis that would occur should Twitter or Facebook get bought by AOL.

None of that happened here.

I took a look at the facts and tried to determine why I think this is. That Tech bloggers are US-Centric is one of the best reasons that I could find.

I'm sorry that you find this a good reason not to reference Mashable in the future.

Re: 2008/03/20/kidzui-review/

Mark 'Rizzn' Hopkins — Thu, 20 Mar 2008 21:31:21 -0000

I'll get him to do one tomorrow. Already past bed time!

Re: 2008/03/20/kidzui-review/

Mark 'Rizzn' Hopkins — Thu, 20 Mar 2008 21:45:42 -0000

By the way, I had to negotiate a fee with AJ to do this review. He originally wanted "$15,000" to do a review, but I shrewdly negotiated him down to $13. Do I bill it to Pete or is this coming out of my pay (subcontracted?)? :-p

Re: 2008/03/24/huffington-post-profitable/

Mark 'Rizzn' Hopkins — Tue, 25 Mar 2008 00:26:16 -0000

@ali I don't doubt your claim, as I've had a chance to talk briefly about this topic with Mary Katherine Ham before, and they seem like a solid group of capitalists with their heads screwed on right. On the other, I don't hear a lot of news regarding the company's financials, and I've looked around a bit for it.

Re: 2008/03/29/wordcamp-and-mashmeet-la-observations/

Mark 'Rizzn' Hopkins — Mon, 31 Mar 2008 00:31:27 -0000

Andrew - we had, ironically, a small glitch that ended up eating my comments on this. The gist of my reply was this:

You are right to assume that it isn't outside the echo chamber. WP fans are a different echo chamber, this is true. I expected them to be cut of the same jib of the SV/Social Media blogosphere, and they're not.

These are a more utilitarian bunch, they don't have time to waste on everything we write about here daily. They are looking to grab technologies that are entertaining, yes, but also efficient with their time. Many of them begrudgingly use Twitter, some wholeheartedly, and many not at all. This is because they recognize that every tool that we write about is not a one-size-fits-all. Twitter, like most stuff we write about, isn't meant for everyone.

These are my impressions from the weekend. I could be wrong, and if I am, I hope one of them corrects me.

Re: 2008/04/02/firefox-3-beta-5/

Mark 'Rizzn' Hopkins — Wed, 02 Apr 2008 13:48:44 -0000

I haven't been super pleased with FF3b4 so far, but I've tried a lot of other browsers and keep ending up stuck with Firefox as the lesser of all the evils. Maybe a new upgrade will help.

Re: 2008/06/03/barack-hussein-obama/

Mark 'Rizzn' Hopkins — Wed, 04 Jun 2008 01:14:56 -0000

Your grasp of the facts, Luigi, is almost completely based in fiction. <strike>I'll let the other commenters tear you apart, rather than correcting you myself.</strike> I've got nothing else to do at the moment, it is a slow news night, I'll take it apart myself.

As to the semantics of using Democrat vs. Democratic - I think you're splitting hairs. The two terms are nominally interchangable. I'm not reading of a Republican playbook in my punditry.

As for the campaign blog (at least the blog prominently linked from the main web site front page), for a significant portion its existence, it was made up of supporter posts from the blogging community. It later was switched to words from the staffers. My main, salient point remains unchallenged: It has never contained words from Barack Obama.

The MySpace profile *was indeed* wrenched thru legal means. Cease and Desist orders are legal means. I won't let you re-write history on this. It was a bad PR move, was actually *not* allowed to keep the 140k friends originally, as the profile was deleted and Obama was forced to start again. That was his first media splash, not the 1 million strong for Obama Facebook group (which wasn't started by the campaign, hence why I didn't mention it. context clues will keep you from looking silly in the future, Luigi).

I'll let the Paul supporters tear you apart on your Ron Paul ad hominem attacks.

Re: 2008/06/20/mainstream-online-video/

Mark 'Rizzn' Hopkins — Sun, 22 Jun 2008 04:26:01 -0000

I plan on getting one of the NetFlix players (the Roku, right?). I'm a huge fan of their online content.

With Hulu, you're right. Netflix's streamer has the same problem. Old content.

Re: 2008/06/20/mainstream-online-video/

Mark 'Rizzn' Hopkins — Sun, 22 Jun 2008 04:28:55 -0000

You're right. There's a place for interactivity, and there's a place for vegging.

I think that for the true crossover (or even replacement) to happen, it has to be available, though.

You're right - I'm very open to looking at existing solutions that may have this functionality. I've done exhaustive searches for this, but given the explosive growth of this space, I may have missed a few things.

Re: 2008/08/21/mormon-facebook/

Mark 'Rizzn' Hopkins — Fri, 22 Aug 2008 15:00:47 -0000

Thanks for the information. I couldn't find a good summary of the Hawaiian involvement that didn't involve me chasing rabbits in my research - I knew someone would come up with a decent explanation in the comments.

Thanks for coming through!

Re: 2008/09/08/heycosmo-demofall08/

Mark 'Rizzn' Hopkins — Mon, 08 Sep 2008 13:15:59 -0000

This was one of the offerings I was looking forward to - personal assistant automation apps are always cool. Based off some quick spot tests I put them through this morning, it actually works as advertised, too.

Re: 2008/09/10/internet-politics/

Mark 'Rizzn' Hopkins — Thu, 11 Sep 2008 02:54:14 -0000

The Mises article I think very accurately and exhaustively pointed towards the conclusion that increasing production would lower prices (and that there is enough oil theoretically in the reserve to make a significant dent). The debate in question wasn't about anything else other than that - so to that end, I think Dr. Murphey's piece (which rested very heavily on another author, economist and doctor who has nothing to do with a think tank of any kind) proved the point quite decisively.

In the larger picture, I believe that we do need a more sustainable energy strategy than just oil, but for purely economic reasons, I think it makes sense to drill in ANWR for the reasons outlayed in the artide and the academic papers he cites.

To the larger point here, I think a debate on this is proving impossible in 99% of the cases I'm seeing in most of the politics centric discussions I'm seeing. The general tone of the debate almost always devolves into partisan buzzwords, personality attacks, and largely unqualified (and unsubstantiated) opinion. We're all behaving like Matt Damon, spouting out questions and "facts" as if we don't have the means to find out the answers.

We're literally surrounded by the answers on the Internet, and instead of pursuing them, we're polluting the info-stream with misinformation and disinformation.

Re: 2008/09/10/internet-politics/

Mark 'Rizzn' Hopkins — Fri, 12 Sep 2008 01:20:57 -0000

Bratton: Way to latch on an example and completely go the wrong way with it (as well as completely demonstrate my point). You've ignored everything I've said, and the very explicit reasons as to why I used the Mises article as an example. I didn't look up the article and post it in the first place, but it was used as a counter to the original point in the feed.

All of that is irrelevant, because the greater point was about newer social media tools as a way to convey a political debate versus some of the older ones. The fact that you use invective and ad hominem (and unsupported fact) very adeptly demonstrates an outgrowth of the point I'm speaking to.

In other words: I, like about 99% of the Mashable readers, am completely unfamiliar with the greater body of work of Dr. Murphey. He was an example I used from a debate I witnessed yesterday. Anything I agree or disagree with was based purely on the article I read and the references he cited.

Re: 2008/09/10/internet-politics/

Mark 'Rizzn' Hopkins — Fri, 12 Sep 2008 01:27:41 -0000

Richard: I have to wonder if you're not a holdover from the Alex Jones article I published a while back. Jones fans are the only ones around here that bandy the word "fascist" around as if they know what it means.

Re: 2008/09/12/youtube-terrorism/

Mark 'Rizzn' Hopkins — Sat, 13 Sep 2008 04:46:29 -0000

You yourself contradict your very standards here in the same comment. On the one hand, Michelle Malkin is an example of illegal speech to you, while terrorist organizations are fair game to remain online.

Most of the terrorist organizations in question brand their videos, and will generally call for "Death to Americans" or some other sort of jihad-ish call for death in all of them (if it isn't a video, itself, of them killing Americans).

In one of the previous posts I did on this topic, I actually posted videos of them killing Americans - though I haven't had checked to see if they've since been pulled, I think this is an area where common sense can be a determining factor. While I may share O'reilly's belief that much of what comes from the Daily Kos is repugnant, they to date haven't killed anyone in a terrorist attack. All the terror groups Lieberman calls out have.

Re: 2008/09/12/youtube-terrorism/

Mark 'Rizzn' Hopkins — Sat, 13 Sep 2008 04:48:15 -0000

I chose Malkin for two reasons...

1) it's the earliest example, chronologically, of YouTube's censorship in this genre.

2) i've watched the video, and there's nothing offensive or nut-jobby about it.

I'm only passingly familiar with the examples you cite, and I'll likely use them in the future after I familiarize myself more with the facts.

Re: 2008/09/15/wisdom-of-the-crowds-isnt-the-answer-for-everything/

Mark 'Rizzn' Hopkins — Tue, 16 Sep 2008 02:03:02 -0000

I wouldn't call Digg a failure by any means - except if you're telling me it's a success story of Wisdom of Crowds in the context of New Media.

New Media is defined, at least in part, by the fact that there's a discussion instead of a one way broadcast. Digg as a discussion platform has made positive moves in recent months, but still represents one of the more unpleasant place on the internet to have a discussion. The unpleasentness arises from the fact that usually conservative viewpoints are shouted down, buried or otherwise not heard. In that, I think it fails at the WoC test.

Re: 2008/09/15/wisdom-of-the-crowds-isnt-the-answer-for-everything/

Mark 'Rizzn' Hopkins — Tue, 16 Sep 2008 05:58:10 -0000

Benedikt, I don't think I could point to more than anecdotal evidence, offhand at least - http://mashable.com/2008/09/10/internet-politics/ contains a few examples.

Based on the sum of my experience in this digital world (which is just about as valid as the next online addict), whenever you get a group of folks together that think alike, there's a lot of intellectual bullying that can take place. I don't know for sure if the prediliction to that on Twitter and FriendFeed is a virtue of early adoption by the Valley (and thus primarily Democrat) crowd, or if it takes place on a broad array of issues.

It is my experience that when it comes to most issues of a non-emotional nature (what sort of business plan best suits Web 2.0, what the best monetization strategy is for a podcast, etc), folks of all political stripe are pretty openminded and are able to debate without devolving to personal attacks. Even on a wide variety of political topics (in a non-election year), you can get a good fact based debate going.

Once emotion enters the equation (on issues of race, gender, sexual preference, reproductive rights, or even puppetry), all bets come off, and seperating fact from opinion in a crowd wisdom fueled system becomes impossible.

In terms of FriendFeed, I don't know if it was designed to be an example of WoC in action, but blogging itself is an oft-cited example of it in action, and I assumed that by virtue of that so was micro-blogging.

Re: 2008/09/17/microsoft-says-no-seinfeld-for-you/

Mark 'Rizzn' Hopkins — Thu, 18 Sep 2008 06:51:53 -0000

Well, to go by Surowieki's guidelines, the crowd (in this case) was too homogeneous. Everyone who panned the ads did so from an Apple laptop.

Re: 2008/09/18/facebook-beacon-returns/

Mark 'Rizzn' Hopkins — Thu, 18 Sep 2008 15:28:38 -0000

You should petition Adam O to do some stories on that - I think he's running a fantasy football round this year.

Re: 2008/09/17/microsoft-says-no-seinfeld-for-you/

Mark 'Rizzn' Hopkins — Thu, 18 Sep 2008 15:41:48 -0000

It's interesting you say that, since both ads from BK and these MS ads were done by the same company.

Microsoft is one of the few companies to be in the position to put out an ad and not need a clear call to action. Look at the GE advertisements for their GreenTech. You know, the ones that have that little CGI frog jumping from the airplane to the nuclear power plant and all that - Are they trying to sell airplane engines? Nuke plants?

No, it's called branding. MS took this one step further and said "why can't we just put out an ad that's entertaining?"

Re: 2008/09/17/microsoft-says-no-seinfeld-for-you/

Mark 'Rizzn' Hopkins — Thu, 18 Sep 2008 15:43:30 -0000

Sorry dude. Like totally sorry. Fully man. Fully.

Re: 2008/09/23/tom-foremski-is-wrong/

Mark 'Rizzn' Hopkins — Tue, 23 Sep 2008 05:59:40 -0000

I didn't say blogs will replace newspapers.

I did say that online news organizations and blogs have a much more efficient business model, and heritage media would do well to emulate that or be phased out.

Re: 2008/09/23/tom-foremski-is-wrong/

Mark 'Rizzn' Hopkins — Tue, 23 Sep 2008 06:03:25 -0000

The failure points you mention there are not monopolized by the blogosphere.

Fox News.

Need I say more?

If you need more proof, check out the stellar accuracy records of the LA Times, NY Post, and Air America (just to pick some random organizations out of a hat).

Re: 2008/09/23/revision3beta/

Mark 'Rizzn' Hopkins — Tue, 23 Sep 2008 23:30:42 -0000

How does the Office Evil Network audience compare to Rev3? :)

Re: 2008/09/24/g1-iphone-linux-macos/

Mark 'Rizzn' Hopkins — Wed, 24 Sep 2008 13:25:29 -0000

I think this would be an issue - if we were talking about a desktop user. I sincerely doubt most of my album downloading is going to take place on my phone.

Re: 2008/09/24/umbrella-today/

Mark 'Rizzn' Hopkins — Thu, 25 Sep 2008 02:44:07 -0000

I love mixergy, too. I apologize about the scheduling mishap today. It's been completely non-stop for me the last couple weeks.

We'll get the interview!

Re: siliconANGLE.com Project - A Collaborative Hub of Peers and Colleagues

Mark 'Rizzn' Hopkins — Mon, 23 Feb 2009 12:08:03 -0000

@Bob - It's interesting that you mention discussion lists. For a long time, I've maintained a "super secret" (as I call it) discussion list that parallells my blog. I actually added a community of bloggers to it, so that their posts auto post to the group. The discussions that take place there in response are almost 100% of the time more intimate as well as in depth, with multi-page responses.

Comments on those same posts are typically only a few sentences.

Perhaps there ought to be some thought given here at the Angle on how to encourage more in-depth discussion in the web format - or perhaps there ought to be a companion email discussion group?

Good thoughts!

Re: Mr. Youth’s 5 Rules for the Consumer 2.0

Mark 'Rizzn' Hopkins — Tue, 24 Feb 2009 14:59:13 -0000

An interesting example of these principals in action: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/marketing-pilgri...

Re: The Financial Crisis Explained, Visually [video]

Mark 'Rizzn' Hopkins — Tue, 24 Feb 2009 16:45:04 -0000

Thanks! Excited to be here.

Re: Confirmed Twitter Turned Down 1/2 Billion Dollars From Facebook

Mark 'Rizzn' Hopkins — Tue, 24 Feb 2009 19:20:34 -0000

I absolutely loved the Pointcast concept and implementation. Nothing has really risen to fill the ranks since then - not even close.

Re: MySpace Webmail Could Work

Mark 'Rizzn' Hopkins — Wed, 25 Feb 2009 11:40:33 -0000

MySpace still has a mountain of momentum, even though they've been recently surpassed by Facebook. They need to do something to rejuvinate the base. They attempted to do that with games and apps, but I think that was only a stoploss maneuvre.

They need this as a shot in the arm. I can think of a lot of folks that'd give up their regular mail accounts for a MySpace based mail system.

Re: Confirmed Twitter Turned Down 1/2 Billion Dollars From Facebook

Mark 'Rizzn' Hopkins — Wed, 25 Feb 2009 14:09:40 -0000

@Brandon - I'd say that twitter is a conversation, though it's not a universal tool for conversation. That is to say it's a useful generic tool for broad and short conversations - there are better tools for different styles of conversation.

Re: Twitter Nation This Morning

Mark 'Rizzn' Hopkins — Thu, 05 Mar 2009 13:27:12 -0000

@Rex - Have you seen Techmeme today? it's all over the place. There's almost nothing else being talked about aside from it.

Re: Breaking News: Google to Release GrandCentral Out of Beta as Google Voice - Hello Google Voice

Mark 'Rizzn' Hopkins — Wed, 11 Mar 2009 19:00:31 -0000

I had noticed that in the last three months, the ability to invite friends to use the service had been disable, hidden, or otherwise removed. I figured one of two things was on the horizon - death or open. Glad it's the latter.

Re: Breaking News: Google to Release GrandCentral Out of Beta as Google Voice - Hello Google Voice

Mark 'Rizzn' Hopkins — Wed, 11 Mar 2009 21:13:07 -0000

@alex:
Under the current configuration, GrandCentral is about as close as it can be to unified messaging. One assumes that once it's introduced to the non-beta fold of Google, it will be truly unified into Google/GTalk.

Re: Broadband Stimulus Receives Positive Review - Of Course We’ve Been Waiting for This for 10 years

Mark 'Rizzn' Hopkins — Thu, 12 Mar 2009 14:08:49 -0000

I'm particularly interested in hearing from folks who have some close knowlege of how South Korea and Japan got to where they are, and what role government investment and oversight played.

The US really needs to duplicate their success here, IMO.

Re: Step Back and Look Around

Mark 'Rizzn' Hopkins — Wed, 21 Nov 2007 23:25:58 -0000

That's a good question, one I've been asking myself lately. To be real honest, my specialty is podcasting and blogging - those are my first loves in the social media space. I see social networks as something to augment that to me - the different tools to varying degrees of success. I'm most disappointed with Facebook (as you may note as of late). I joined at the behest of Ken Rutkowski and Robert Scoble. Their evangelizing worked. I wanted to connect up with more folks like them. In the end, though, I think my presence there has benefited Facebook far more than it has benefited me. Twitter, on the other hand, is something that has been of great success in networking, connecting and expanding my spheres of influence and communication.

So I guess, to answer your question, I view social networks as a way to amplify my social media presences and turn them into communication avenues instead of broadcast avenues.

Re: 5 Starter Moves - Audio and Video

Mark 'Rizzn' Hopkins — Sun, 13 Jan 2008 20:43:40 -0000

Would you really not reccomend straight audio podcasting within this list of audio starter moves? I realize that video podcasting has a much higher barrier to entry, but audio podcasting is one of the simplest things to master out of the gate, and generally pretty effective in spreading the word when used in tandem with other new media tools you've mentioned elsewhere.

Re: Utterz: like Twitter but with audio/video

Mark 'Rizzn' Hopkins — Fri, 21 Sep 2007 23:29:20 -0000

I spoke with Michael Bayer and and Randy Cork, both executives at the company, for the podcast last week (see the website link). I am impressed and am going to keep an eye on the company for a couple of reason:
1) they are going to have threaded audio commenting for podcasts.
2) easy (and free and non ad-supported) mobile blogging/vlogging/podcasting
3) they're looking to be a supplement to, not a replacement for, your current social networks. it just makes sense.

Re: Do I read all Twitters?

Mark 'Rizzn' Hopkins — Mon, 08 Oct 2007 14:38:46 -0000

Speaking of the track feature, one of my disappointments with the Twitter API is that you can't 'track' keywords via the API or an RSS. I put together a Yahoo Pipe for it while I work on a better solution in PHP.

(howto here: www.rizzn.com/2007/10/yahoo-pipes-twitter.asp)

Re: GPhone: Low Cost, Low Tech?

Mark 'Rizzn' Hopkins — Tue, 16 Oct 2007 01:01:06 -0000

I've spoken quite extensively with some inside folks at Google re: the gPhone. I can tell you that the market is not really the younger segment (at least not any more so than any new phone is aimed at the younger segment).

Also, take it for what it's worth, but the cel-phone carrier deals (at least for America) have all been worked out already.

I've posted most of this stuff to my blog already. If you're curious on other details, twist my arm and I'll send you the URL. :-)

Re: GPhone: Low Cost, Low Tech?

Mark 'Rizzn' Hopkins — Tue, 16 Oct 2007 16:47:24 -0000

A Phone, manufactured by a *taiwanese* company (HTC), with an OS designed by Google. That's what the 'rumor' has always been, or at least what I've been saying since the beginning. As the game of telephone progresses in iterations away from my blog, where I originally posted the information, the information has become diluted somewhat.

Re: Paypal Introduces Virtual Credit Card

Mark 'Rizzn' Hopkins — Mon, 19 Nov 2007 14:34:03 -0000

Hey... thanks for reading. To answer your questions:
There are no reward points, percentages, or other incentives to use it, as far as I can tell.

@Jonathan Dingman: This is the same thing you and I already have. It's news because tomorrow is the "official launch day."

Re: Win Copies of Dan Schawbel’s “Me 2.0″ Book

Mark 'Rizzn' Hopkins — Tue, 12 May 2009 22:12:51 -0000

Sounds very interesting - haven't followed Dan specifically, but I'm always interested in hearing more about personal branding best practices.

Re: Nice Job Revision 3 – Look At These Numbers

Mark 'Rizzn' Hopkins — Thu, 03 Jan 2008 04:20:36 -0000

I can tell you why the blogosphere wasn't talking about Rev3 today... because instead of contacting the A-List, they issue a press release instead.

It's part of the reason that Rev3 baffles me so much. On the one hand, some folks over there really seem to get it. And then they miss the boat so widely on other things.

Ah well, we're all works in progress. It is really good work over there. Hope they continue to lead the way for the rest of us.