DISQUS

I look at things the same way, I don't always reciprocate mostly out of a desire to tame the firehose. And since I don't, I can hardly expect the same from folks I sub to. And hey, you're doing great! Louis hasn't subscribed to me! Of course that's the great thing about it all, he doesn't need to.

I like how the knife, sort of inexplicably, is an illegal in most states punch dagger. I guess it gives the image that much more tactical oomph!

I really like the new beta, a lot. I miss the share with note - but hopefully that's just because it was developed on the main site while this beta was being developed, so it should make an appearance soon. fingers crossed. But the app itself is noticeably faster for me with all the ajaxing instead of page loads.

But, on the full website, I can't share an article until I open it up and can see the body. It seems to me that this beta works the same way - when you only see the title you can only star a piece, not share it.

Yeah, I was bummed losing BSG, too. But Hulu's really not bad. Free is always nice and the quality's good, even the commercials are not too bad. Would still prefer iTunes but not by much. At least scifi.com is streaming BSG each friday at noon - so I've got two chances to catch it early each week. :)

Colonel Tigh's definitely become one of the best parts of the show - I think he came into his own last season. I agree that this episode was really great, I almost peed my pants during the opening and was disappointed and relieved at the same time moments later.

As for Tory, I agree she's been a strange addition to the cast - sometimes a strong player, but generally coasting along. I'll be curious to see how she steps it up.

You aren't alone. :) My cat likes to lick on occasion, she used to do it more till I started giving her a little poke when she did.

I could almost see it working for google - they always at least indirectly benefit from having more content on the web. But still, this is potentially a big whammo on their servers and they already can't keep up with demand (see the hours long delay on google analytics) and with their google ad manager coming up for the masses, I wonder if they really want to tack on a new revenueless cpu sink.

I've heard of these places that aren't the United States... I always thought they were a legend, though... I'll have to look into this. ;)

I agree with you on the one hand that there will always be A-list bloggers - but I'm not so sure there can't be a consolidation, the number could easily expand or contract. If engadget ate gizmodo (shudder) would there have to, more or less, be a new gizmodo? I'd guess the A-list bloggers fill a niche in readership demand - as long as that content continues to be produced by someone, consolidation would not necessarily open a space for new A-listers to come in...

They're daddybloggers as I understand it... :)

I agree with engtech - storage is always getting cheaper, really a lot cheaper. And all the costs of maintaining these huge scale sites are valid, but people and services are learning to deal with exactly this problem as efficiently as possible. So now rather than having to reinvent every wheel, for example, you can now load your stuff up onto EC2/S3 and let Amazon worry about how to handle scale.

But I think the core of his premise is this quote:

"More of any product or service means less revenue for that product or service. A current example: more housing on the market means a lower price for housing. Same thing applies in any market."

But that implies constant demand - sadly for me, look at the NYC real estate market for proof that that is not a simple truth. More to the point with broadband still making inroads, especially in the US and with mobile broadband just starting to gain acceptance my guess is that the market still has awhile to go before demand comes anywhere near peaking.

Which is certainly not to say that all long tail plays are destined for success. :) But I'm guessing his scenario isn't any more valid now than it has been since long tail businesses began.

Huh, I don't use Windows enough to have seen that. :) Doesn't iTunes, though, require QT? At least for mac I think I remember that there was some requirement... But if it's just another hanger on then I'd agree that that was pretty awful, too, and my panties would twist.

I totally agree with you that community has become to much of a buzzword these days - the infallible wisdom of the crowds. It can be a really valuable resource, but is just as likely to be an echo chamber magnifyting the opinions of a few. Although I disagree with you a little in the case of the iTunes/Safari thing - I think it was pretty shady of Apple to put an install quietly into an "Updater" - the majority of people simply click update without looking into the specifics - and if it works the way it does on a mac, if you don't want it you will be forever more having to unclick that option everytime updater checks.

But ultimately, I'm with you... the community is not always right. :)

I started displaying my feedburner number a little bit ago when the daily feedburner dance stopped dropping it below 100. I did it partially because that was a milestone I set for myself and partially as an indicator of "importance" and I use the quotes advisedly. :)

I agree with Paul that it ultimately it doesn't matter - having 100000 users doesn't make your content better or worse and good content will ultimately win. But when people come to a site they look for clues as to the authority of the site - some clues come from how they found it, was it a link from someone they respect? A top link in the search results? Clean and nice site design? All these things are tiny but they add up to how much attention they're going to pay. I expect that the RSS sub number is a part of that equation. I don't know when it starts to have a positive effect - probably for everyone it's different, but I believe it does have an effect, even if it's a small one.

I think he has an interesting point - but for most sites the problem isn't a discussion involving millions. If you have a huge site and an abundance of conversation well then perhaps fragmentation is good or at least not bad. On the other hand if you are like most sites and struggle to get a converstation started the analogy would be, wouldn't you rather have conversation be you in a forum with a few people wandering in or you talking to one guy and another guy off in some cul de sac talking to himself unless you remember to head over there. Conversation begets conversation, so in a low talk situation, you want to make sure that as much of it is in one place as possible. At least how I see it. :)

Thanks for the link! I think FriendFeed does a good job on a lot of things but my conversations are so limited, I want to maximize it and concentrate it all in one place, you know?

I love this thing - I wish the tags were smaller, but my life could definitely use something like these.

Heh, that piece was mildly crazy talk. An argument could be made that Facebook's past prime, unfortunately, Lance didn't make it. I didn't realize that he's Editor in Chief... that makes it even more sad.

Hey there, Gaurav! I'm making slow process on my goals. Pageviews and subscribers are both up more than I expected, so I'm not complaining. Sadly, my avg pageviews have remained rock solid and I haven't even given a thought to any redesign directions - need to do that. Sigh.

Thanks for the wakeup. :)

felix

Hey, nice find! I was thinking about making some non-trivial changes to my theme and was wondering the easiest way to do that without screwing it up for everyone - this looks like just the thing. :)

Wait, did you just yell at Apple for not offering to give you free stuff that you wouldn't accept anyway? And then complain that you actually had to buy a computer, as though that were unusual for you?

I'm sorry that you're having computer issues, I've had some too - but in my experience I've had far fewer with osx than I do when I'm running windows. I guess your mileage has already varied. :)

It is possible, the biggest partners have the option. But, I'd argue that in general people are with AdSense not because they like Google but simply because AdSense pays the most. Switching off Google would have a financial impact on the switchers. And companies short of Ebay and AOL don't have the clout to push Google around. I'd be surprised if companies took a financial hit simply in protest of this. Surpised, but interested to see what would happen if it did.

It's an interesting piece, but I'm curious if you genuinely believe that engadget losing 2 from it's toolbar pr is going to have an effect on Google's stock valuation?

Glad you're on board with Qwantz, was beginning to think that somehow I was the only person I knew that saw the genius! :) That's a must see in the ol' Google Reader.

I'm looking forward to this one! I think I'm one of the few people who loved the third season of BSG more than the first two.

I don't have a pc so haven't been able to watch the pilot yet, but I plan on it. Thanks for the spoiler free review. :)