Disqus - Latest Comments for ontarioemperor

Re: Why it's time to break out of Twitter (Scripting News)

ontarioemperor — Thu, 12 Mar 2009 15:11:12 -0000

Jason, I was hoping that you'd weigh in on this conversation, because your offer puts a possible monetary value on Twitter's "suggested users" feature.

The question arises - if you don't allocate the spaces by buying them, is there a "fair" way to allocate them - especially when Twitter's base is converting from a tech-oriented community to a much more broader-based community? Is Jason "interesting"? Is Shaq "interesting"?

From the perspective of the company, Twitter needs to choose suggested users that most benefit the company, either via revenue (as Jason proposes) or by choosing suggested users that will encourage people to stay on the service and not drop it (e.g. Ashton).

The one thing that scares me about thinking of Twitter as a utility is that such a mindset could eventually lead to government intervention and regulation of the service, which would not be desirable.

Re: AP fights back, sues Shepard Fairey

ontarioemperor — Wed, 11 Mar 2009 20:07:37 -0000

I wonder if an AP photographer has visited Boston's Institute of Contemporary Art yet.

Re: CNBC's Jim Cramer tried to fight back against Jon Stewart. All he did was give Stewart more fodder.

ontarioemperor — Wed, 11 Mar 2009 15:17:02 -0000

The Dora the Explorer bit was hilarious. So will Disney get into the battle? Don't know if Kimmel is following this.

Re: Law Enforcement 2.0 – cops going social

ontarioemperor — Tue, 10 Mar 2009 23:12:07 -0000

Disclosure - I provide computer software to law enforcement agencies. However, I believe that some of the speculation of law enforcement agencies ganging up on innocent citizens is overblown - primarily because there is little incentive for law enforcement agencies to work with each other. For example, while it is technically feasible for agencies to exchange information, the completion of an inter-agency agreement to share information is often a stumbling block. I know nothing of CrimeDex, but I would suspect that agency restrictions on sharing information would apply for stuff placed on CrimeDex in the same way that it would apply for stuff placed on U.S. or Canadian government-owned networks.

Re: The power of comments

ontarioemperor — Tue, 10 Mar 2009 20:12:51 -0000

It should be noted that Steven continued the conversation in the comments at this David Risley post.

Re: A photowalk in Chinatown

ontarioemperor — Tue, 10 Mar 2009 20:08:49 -0000

This is a case where the memories definitely lasted longer than the pictures. I'm sorry that so many of the pictures were corrupted, but happy that you all had a good time.

Re: First Look: Burger King’s New ‘Whopper Bar’

ontarioemperor — Tue, 10 Mar 2009 20:06:39 -0000

Well, you wonder where a person would wear the Burger King body spray that was previously discussed in the Inquisitr. I guess the Whopper Bar would be the place to wear it.

Re: Think long and hard before starting that second or third blog

ontarioemperor — Tue, 10 Mar 2009 16:19:45 -0000

Steven, inasmuch as I've currently maintaining several blogs in addition to my most semi-popular blog, I've been meaning to respond to this post. But it took me eight days to get around to writing a response. While my situation is unusual, inasmuch as my main blog isn't devoted to a specific topic, and I've effectively carved content out of the main blog to populate the other blogs, your warning about spreading oneself too thin certainly has merit. I'll have to revisit this in a few months and see if I'm keeping up all of the blogs, or if I've given up blogging altogether and have resorted to poking people in Facebook.

Re: Poll: Pay For Post Concept Is Radioactive

ontarioemperor — Tue, 10 Mar 2009 11:30:13 -0000

Stowe, thanks for sharing your thoughts. I've come to the debate several years too late, and by this time most of the conversion about pay per post is of the level "pay per post is bad, end of subject." Your explanation was most helpful.

Re: Poll: Pay For Post Concept Is Radioactive

ontarioemperor — Mon, 09 Mar 2009 20:29:45 -0000

What do you see as the difference between pay per post and tradeshow sponsorships? Is it a difference of expectation (i.e. people expect trade show giveaways to be sponsored, but expect blog posts to be non-sponsored)?

I explored this issue in a post that I wrote later in the day, but I'd like to hear reasons why the two SHOULD be differentiated.

Re: rizzn's personal blog: Preparing for SXSW [Apologies]

ontarioemperor — Mon, 09 Mar 2009 15:33:53 -0000

I'm sure that a number of bloggers are adjusting their routine due to SXSW. I read a LinkedIn status update from one blogger; the blogger was in the process of writing some posts in advance to appear during SXSW.

Look forward to the "not insignificant amount of information" that you will be providing.

Re: Poll: Pay For Post Concept Is Radioactive

ontarioemperor — Mon, 09 Mar 2009 15:27:49 -0000

Are you saying that the TERM is radioactive, or that the CONCEPT is radioactive?

As Steven Hodson notes in an Inquisitr post, the concept can be found in several industries. He names PayForPost as an example, but also notes the old payola scandal from 1950s radio and the modern Artist Airplay variant on Jango. There are a number of other examples, which extend to product placement on movies and TV, the height of the shelf on which your favorite grocery item can be found, the helpful carrying bags that you get at trade shows, and so forth.

In the general sense, I do not object to paid placement, provided that the payment is disclosed. The problem occurs when there is inadequate disclosure of the sponsorship.

Re: Will slow broadband stall the streaming revolution?

ontarioemperor — Mon, 09 Mar 2009 15:15:22 -0000

Excellent post re the bandwidth (and the RAM) limiting our move to the cloud.

Perhaps I'm a Luddite, but another issue is portability; tangible solutions such as CDs and DVDs are actually more portable than cloud-based services. I still tend to buy CDs rather than download music, especially since the last time I downloaded music, it was from MSN Music (which no longer exists). Perhaps the technical rules are changing, but if you're dependent upon a service to house your data, you have to deal with the risk of the service disappearing one day.

Re: Payola making a comeback

ontarioemperor — Mon, 09 Mar 2009 15:10:02 -0000

It is well known that some bands will pay to appear in clubs on the Sunset Strip. Even bands that don't pay to appear are often required to guarantee that a certain number of fans will show up to the club date; if they don't, your minutes on stage could very well be reduced.

Whatever you call it, the payola model is alive and well in many industries, as you note. One can debate the moral issues involved, but for me the only thing that would be wrong would be if payments were made and not disclosed.

Re: Identification Simplified - An Introduction to Biometrics

ontarioemperor — Mon, 09 Mar 2009 14:01:25 -0000

Excellent introduction to biometrics. Obviously you can delve a lot deeper into the various topics (Daubert challenges, the recent U.S. National Academy of Sciences report), and you can include other biometrics (vein), but this presentation is an excellent introduction to the topic. Very readable. Obviously the group wasn't watching "Friends" ALL the time... :)

Re: Maybe if my name was Fred Wilson or Louis Gray

ontarioemperor — Fri, 06 Mar 2009 09:31:51 -0000

I had a little fun today when writing a post in my business blog:

I have sent an email to Robert Safian at Fast Company asking him that very question about the future plans for FastCompany.tv. No guarantee that he'll respond - it's not like I'm a Steven Hodson or anything like that...

Everything's relative.

P.S. The post also mentions my 8-bit rotary phone. Hey, at least I didn't try to contact Safian with a telegram...

Re: Bus driver paid students to attack kid with snowballs

ontarioemperor — Thu, 05 Mar 2009 20:42:12 -0000

I'm in the Washington DC area on business, and this was covered in the local news this (Thursday) evening. The news didn't mention that the bus driver had gotten involved in an argument between two students, but it did include several man/woman on the street interviews that elicited responses such as "we need to check out our bus drivers more carefully." The family of the kid who was attacked now has a lawyer, so I bet that a civil suit (or threat of one) results from this.

Re: Another Facebook User Revolt is Coming

ontarioemperor — Thu, 05 Mar 2009 07:46:35 -0000

I have the rare perspective of joining Facebook within the last week, after spending extensive time on FriendFeed. From my perspective, the changes appear to be a good thing, although we'll see what happens as the number of my Facebook friends increases. Perhaps at that point Facebook will steal - I mean implement lists.

Re: Maybe if my name was Fred Wilson or Louis Gray

ontarioemperor — Thu, 05 Mar 2009 07:21:59 -0000

When I saw that both Fred Wilson and Louis Gray had commented on a post entitled "Maybe if my name was Fred Wilson or Louis Gray," I was reminded that some people are more accessible than others.

Of course, when you approach anyone, you need to remember how that person prefers to be contacted (don't DM Robert Scoble, for example).

Re: Likaholix might be likable but is it memorable?

ontarioemperor — Thu, 05 Mar 2009 07:18:14 -0000

I think that there are two things that Likaholix has that the competition hasn't:

(1) The "tastemaker" feature. After you have liked a certain number of items in a particular category, you can declare yourself a "tastemaker," or expert, in the category. For example, I am the self-proclaimed tastemaker for items pertaining to California's Inland Empire. While this "tastemaker" capability can be used in many ways (including some silly ones), it does allow people with a certain amount of vertical expertise to claim that expertise.

(2) Now of course Facebook and FriendFeed and whoever can duplicate this particular Likaholix feature, but there's one feature that by definition the other services cannot duplicate - Likaholix's dedication to liking stuff. So if your favorite feature of FriendFeed (or Facebook) is liking things, then Likaholix will be extremely attractive to you.

In my view, those are the two things that Likaholix has going for it. Whether that's enough to make Likaholix a "must go" destination is another matter entirely.

Re: The future of online conversations is NOT Twitter

ontarioemperor — Thu, 05 Mar 2009 07:10:44 -0000

While I agree with you that Twitter is not a conversation tool, there is one area in which Twitter excels - conversations regarding a major event or catastrophe. If you want to discuss the Super Bowl during the Super Bowl, or talk about a major technologist's speech as it happens, or (in the case of a Californian like myself) ask whether that shaking you just felt was an earthquake, Twitter is a very good place to do this. Of course, if this results in a more detailed, engaging conversation, you're better off taking it to a (FriendFeed) room.

Re: Why Twitter Matters To Me

ontarioemperor — Wed, 04 Mar 2009 22:34:08 -0000

I think your reason number 6 ("If you like to do watch events like the Grammys or presidential speeches, you’ll never get a more spirited discussion of this than on Twitter...") was the one that resonated with me the most. For me, the three best live discussions that I have attended on Twitter were the 2009 and 2008 Super Bowl commercial discussions and Larry Ellison's keynote at 2007 Oracle OpenWorld.

Re: rizzn's socnets: To Abandon Twitter, You’d Have to Actually Use It [Presidential Tweets]

ontarioemperor — Thu, 26 Feb 2009 16:23:40 -0000

To be fair, however, there's no way that a single person can have a bidirectional engagement with everyone in a 300 million person country. A member of the House of Representatives might be able to carry on two-way conversations with interested parties, but even that is problematic.

The problem was best illustrated in a Saturday Night Live sketch from the 1970s. Dan Aykroyd was playing Jimmy Carter on a call-in show, and in the sketch he talked an individual caller down from a bad drug trip. The humor of the sketch was mostly in its ridiculous nature - what President would have the time to interact with an individual in this way?

I'll grant that Obama could have been a bit more interactive, but he never would have been able to tweet to every individual that addressed him. And his performance was better than Ron Paul's who didn't follow anyone. Of course, one could ask whether Obama was truly following his followers, but that's a whole other topic.

Re: Robert Scoble is Fake Following

ontarioemperor — Thu, 26 Feb 2009 16:16:05 -0000

It's interesting how some services have gradations of following - Flickr comes to mind here with its contacts, friends, family model.

Re: Robert Scoble is Fake Following

ontarioemperor — Thu, 26 Feb 2009 16:13:01 -0000

I approach the whole subscriber/subscribee thing differently. I don't pretend to read every item written by the people that I follow on FriendFeed and Twitter, but I will occasionally dive into the feed and find interesting nuggets from there. In addition, I am not upset if someone chooses not to follow me back.

I guess you could say I'm more interested in the thoughts than in the people. Just because I'm interested in some things that Jesse says doesn't mean that I'm interested in everything that Jesse says. And even if I'm on Robert Scoble's list (I was at one point), that doesn't necessarily mean that he's interested in every single thing that I write.

What we need are improvements in our filtering mechanisms. I know some people are trying to improve these, but I think we have a way to go before we get a service that can predict, at any given time, what you would like to see and what you wouldn't like to see.