Disqus - Latest Comments for Anders Conbere

Re: How Advertising Works, and Why It Won’t For Facebook

Anders Conbere — Fri, 09 May 2008 12:36:27 -0000

This also neglects to understand the complex dynamics of advertising. If a user searches for “buy Ford Focus” in google, what has google done here for ford? In fact a user has already been sold on buying a Focus, which means that somewhere down the line the user was likely compelled to believe that they wanted a Ford Focus from somewhere else.

The big question in online advertising today is not, Social Networks versus Search advertising, it's figuring out what the grander scope of a persons advertising history is. Today's market only recognizes a single source as bringing in a customer. In this world Google (or search advertising in general) ALWAYS wins, it's the link between a users previous advertising history and the content/store/site they want to get to to buy that product.

This unfortunantly is NOT how advertising works, there is a huge body of history in that user. They've seen TV ads, print ads, adds on facebook, recommendations from friends, consumer reports articles, etc. Last click wins denies this history, the people who are going to win in this market are those that enable companies like Ford to discover a users history of interaction with the companies advertising and get real numbers about what caused them to search for that product in the first place.

Re: How Advertising Works, and Why It Won’t For Facebook

Anders Conbere — Fri, 09 May 2008 14:19:30 -0000

But if you look at the research, /that/ kind of advertising doesn't end up being particularly effective. Nowhere near as effective as recommendation based ads, associative advertising or brand affinity.

I'm not denying that Google has some massive advertising might, and that it's very effective at linking users to places to buy products. I'm simply arguing that our current methods of measuring the effectiveness of advertising give enormous bias to search providers because of the prevalence of last click wins.

Re: A Pownce Jabber bot with Django backend

Anders Conbere — Thu, 28 Feb 2008 15:49:00 -0000

When I was writing similar libraries I found that the amount of code and the clarity of code was dramatically improved using the sleekxmpp library. That being said... it's got some shortcoming and needs some work (something I was hoping to get some traction on at pycon). Anyway take a look at it :)

Re: Open Social Networks

Anders Conbere — Wed, 05 Sep 2007 23:50:45 -0000

So my solution to this problem is to use the built in buddy list manager that comes as part of the xmpp protocol to manage my trust relations in social networks. You can read about it on anders.conbere.org, and I've got most of a webservice written in django to handle this (I would rather it was written in something more light weight like twisted, but I've been struggling there.) essentially it gives you a set of simplified web api's for authenticating and managing an xmpp roster via http.

Re: Open Social Networks

Anders Conbere — Thu, 06 Sep 2007 16:40:06 -0000

YES!! see http://anders.conbere.org/journal/post/portable...

I'm actually most of the way through writing a little web service that allows you to use xmpp to manage your trust relations in a social networking tool. This would let you wander into any social network have it request your "roster" or buddy list and instantly connect you with the people on that list (since xmpp also provides for resources you can safely and easily keep different friends on different lists)

Re: Open Social Networks

Anders Conbere — Thu, 06 Sep 2007 16:45:37 -0000

haha... this is what I get for only reading my feeds and having stuff come up again. Looks like I already posted that comment :)

Re: Jabber support in the Mozilla Platform

Anders Conbere — Tue, 18 Sep 2007 19:00:35 -0000

(I've tried to no avail but can not really figure out what I want to say about this)

Basically I want to put out that we shouldn't necessarily be lured by desktop software to think that these sorts of things can be handled well there.

Clearly messaging and email have done well on the desktop, but the way in which users interact with their buddy lists / friends lists /etc. seems to be much better suited for the web. The availability of customization, sharing vast amounts of data, and the simple navigation all seem to be huge winning points for web based management of trust relationships.

This isn't to say that I wouldn't like to see jabber enabled devices all over the place, because I would; and I think we're just starting to see applications of jabber that are showing the true power of what it has on the plate already and it's extensibility. But I think that the right way to approach this from the desktop application point of view is an application that interoperates with jabber, but makes it's domain specific function fluid with the way users are creating dialog and interaction on the web.

That is... I don't think we should be looking at Thunderbird as the new way to manage your buddy list, but I would LOVE to be able to email people on my jabber roster, and have that message come to them to be digested in whatever way the desire.

bleh.. rambling

~ Anders

Re: Jabber support in the Mozilla Platform

Anders Conbere — Wed, 19 Sep 2007 16:46:24 -0000

Al, I absolutely agree, which is what I love about jabber being the glue that bind social networking applications together. The idea that I'm no longer at the mercy of a social networking service to provide me with the tools that I want. I could hypothetically build a desktop client that tied into jabber in the same way as my little web service does and could do social networking on the desktop, the only requirement is that I be able to access a jabber server.

As for this "new application" where do you see it going, doing, and what kind of space would it be filling. I'm intrigued to hear your ideas on it (as my mind is kind of playing in this world at the moment).

Re: Jabber support in the Mozilla Platform

Anders Conbere — Wed, 19 Sep 2007 23:40:44 -0000

I think that XEP - 0154 might go a long way towards opening up a kind of unified front for XMPP to attack this problem. It provides for storing a user profile on the jabber servers.

That kind of addition to xmpp would make creating a desktop social networking / messaging service almost trivial. At which point the only service you're missing from the bunch of email (though this is non trivial)

Re: The Book Buyer’s Dilemma

Anders Conbere — Sun, 28 Oct 2007 03:53:42 -0000

you could try bookmooch :-D

http://bookmooch.com/

Re: Vegetarianism

Anders Conbere — Tue, 24 Jun 2008 12:09:15 -0000

Mad props from a lifelong vegetarian.

I just wanted to comment on what I've seen going through life and watching certain people excel at vegetarianism and certain people fail. That what appears to be the most difficult part for people is relearning how to eat. When you've spent your life eating meat there's a set of foods you've come to depend on as being, healthy, filling, etc. When you move to vegetarianism you throw those things away, because of this I think it's critical that early vegetarians listen to their bodies. Are you hungry too often? Inject a little fat into your diet. Are you finding yourself sluggish by mid day? Protein and iron!

Many people fail to find these new staple meals and end up eating a lot of crap. And the reality is, vegetarian of not, crappy food is terrible for you.

So it may sound like common sense, but find a set of easy recipes that you find satisfy your bodys needs, learn to make them quickly and easily. Keep them around, and eat them :)

Some that I've come to depend on are.

* Muslei - whole grains in the morning, protein and fiber keep me full

* Beans and Quinoa - Cooking up vegitables and beans together and layering it over quinoa is not only delicious but packed full of nutrients.

* Smoothies - Fresh fruit, and tofu for added protein.

* Seitan stirfry - Garlic, ginger, greans (broccoli, bok choy, etc), seitan and more. Because just eating soy isn't good for you either.

* Lentil stew or Brown rice - either a classic indian Dal, or a simple Tomatoes, garlic and onions dish. Can be made in minutes and is great.

* Vegitable Stew - kidney beans, cabbage, potatoes, carrots, onions, garlic and more. Easy to make at the end of a couple weeks with left over veggies.

Anyway... hope it works for you :-D

Re: Thoughts On Scalable XMPP Bots

Anders Conbere — Mon, 04 Aug 2008 08:56:00 -0000

My understanding is that at least in Ejabberd the current implementation round-robins components. Providing at least some degree of protection for availability.

~ Anders