Disqus - Latest Comments for postzavtra

Re: I Want a Twitter Domain .twt

timoreitnauer — Thu, 13 Aug 2009 21:44:58 -0000

Very interesting thoughts and I think you're spot on.

We're going exactly into this direction with our iWantMyName domain management service. Instead of forcing customers to use in-house email and blog hosting, we offer easy configuration for hosted services such as Google Apps, Zoho Business, Blogger, Tumblr, Posterous, Wikis, Shops, etc.

Same goes for URL shorteners: we are mostly using our own short domain for sharing links. And if you're looking for some hosted short URL services we've written about it earlier this week:

http://iwantmyname.com/blog/2009/08/10-tools-to...

Re: I Want a Twitter Domain .twt

postzavtra — Wed, 12 Aug 2009 22:04:55 -0000

Henri, I'd love to chat with you about OAuth and .tel. Drop me a direct message at Twitter and let me know when's the best time to reach you.

Re: I Want a Twitter Domain .twt

twitter-6959952 — Wed, 12 Aug 2009 06:40:41 -0000

Hi Timothy,
I really like the way you're going with the OAuth thinking. Let's discuss OAuth options beyond 3rd-party app authentication when you've got time. There are a few .tel features you're missing that could make the opportunity even more interesting. I'm of course at henri.tel...

Speaking of Card.ly, it's a web-based service that displays your contact info. It's got a nice UI but doesn't solve the problems of speed of access (http is slow), consistency (what if they change their html?), resilience (centralized web service) and persistence (what if Card.ly goes under?).

Re: Enough with shortened URLs (Scripting News)

postzavtra — Tue, 11 Aug 2009 02:39:59 -0000

Su.pr allows you to use your own domain to shorten URLs from your own blog. While this is an excellent first step, Dave is right, the time has come for short URL companies to enable users to create a CNAME for a sub-domain, which they already own and then use that sub-domain as the base domain in the short URL. While this would obviously increase the number of characters for most "custom short URLs" it would provide a measure of safety.

Additionally, I would like to see short URL companies give users the opportunity to export/import a simple file which lists all the short URLs and all the external destination URLs. Dave, I'm sure that you know how this export/import option can be implemented technically.

Re: I Want a Twitter Domain .twt

postzavtra — Mon, 10 Aug 2009 15:20:01 -0000

Andy:

While I am most certainly a "layman" when it comes to understanding domains, DNS, top level domains, etc., I can give some perspective from the average "power user's" viewpoint.

Couple thoughts:

1. Are you aware of Card.ly? It's an analogous service which let's users aggregate their personal information, web affiliations, and contact info in one place. They're using the "freeium" model. You can host your profile as on card.ly top level domain for free. For $25 a year a user can host their profile on their own domain and they have access to "premium" skins.

The option to skin your profile (you can customize it with your own CSS) is a very powerful selling point, imo. I would like to see .tel offer, if it doesn't already, the option of skinning one's profile. As we have seen with Wordpress and Rapidweaver, such an option encourages 3rd party developers to quickly offer the public a lot of great options.

What I don't know for sure is whether you can create a CNAME so that you could create a sub-domain that points to your card.ly profile. I assume its possible but I'm not sure.

2. I would argue that OpenID delegation should be the #1 on the .tel roadmap. Currently, there is a huge opportunity for an OpenID provider to offer DNS verification for sub-domains. The mistake that the current group of OpenID Providers are making is that they view OpenID as an opportunity to drive traffic to their own domains and they hope to monetize that traffic in the future.

Therefore, they have all made the classic mistake of trying to "tie down" people's account to their own domains. While they all say that you can create an OpenID domain on one which you already own, I have not seen how this is possible and trust me, I have looked long and hard.

Basically, these guys don't get the new "open web" and they are basically cutting off their noses to spite their faces.

Almost all the attention of OpenID has been focused on the universal login capability. That's a mistake. Google and Facebook has effectively killed OpenID's universal login growth by offering the same service for their users.

Therefore, telnic should seize the opportunity to become an OpenID Provider itself and enable folks to create their "social web hub" on their own .tel domains. This window of opportunity will probably close, in my opinion, shortly as Google "marries Google Apps, Google Profile, and Google Connect.

The key take-away from the OpenID environment is that people "in the know" do not want to be beholden to a web service, as Robert Scoble detailed with tr.im The other point is that people primary domain is not a good location for their social web hub because in most cases that domain is already being used for other purposes (e.g blog, website, etc.).

Telnic is uniquely positioned because it is already offering folks a top level domain as their social web hub. People will, I suspect, not be opposed to having a .com (or whatever top level domain) for their main website and a .tel top level domain for their single point of contact.

What .tel, imho, should focus on is not redirecting the primary .tel domain to external URLs but rather, redirecting people's .tel sub-domain to external URLs. This solution, of leaving the users primary .tel domain (say http://bobsmith.tel) alone and only letting users redirect SUB-DOMAINS would therefore, mean that you would not "lose the predictability of the HTTP TelProxy always returning a uniform representation of records."

I should note that currently I know of only a couple web services who offer this option of redirect and masking. Wordpress.com, Squarespace, and Google Apps. I have to admit that I was frankly very surprised that Facebook didn't offer this option to its users. The current FB username option is still weak because your username lives on FB's domain.

Facebook should have given people the option of redirecting and masking either their primary domain (i.e. timothypost.com) or a sub-domain (facebook.timothypost.com).

If Telnic moves quickly and smartly it could partner with dozens and dozens of web services to offer sub-domain redirects to the user account pages and masking with the user's own domain.

Ultimately, I think we will begin to see a service like Google Apps but for many, many web services. I have set-up my Google Apps account so that I can access my email account at http://email.timothypost.com, my calendar at http://calendar.timothypost.com, etc.

I want to do this for ALL my web services. One twist would be for me, the user, to name the sub-domain for the service, not the company providing the service. For instance, instead of http://linkedin.timothypost.com, I would name this sub-domain http://resume.timothypost.com. This would give me, the user, ultimate flexibility if, in the future, another better "resume" service came around.

Telnic could start by offering its users the option of redirecting only. It's my understanding that to truly mask the external URL one needs the cooperation of that company. Telnic could promote its developer API so new web services, say competing with LinkedIn, would offer masking as a competitive advantage.

This sub-domain redirect and masking topic is very important for two reasons:

1. User fatigue. One of the biggest hurdles facing web servcies today is that users are absolutely sick and tired of creating new accounts and then having to, once again, fill in their data.

Telnic could be the central place for people to enter all their personal, work, hobby, interests, etc. information with industry standardized Fields and when a user linked their .tel account with a new web service it would auto populate that information. People could "curate" their information at their .tel account accounts instead of in 37 different places.

A new technology from Google Pub Sub Hubbub would mean that when folks update their information at .tel it would immediately disseminate to their other accounts.

2. "Walled Gardens" not only are people sick of having to reenter data over and over but they are frustrated when that data is hard to export out of a web service. This solution with .tel would solve this issue because people's data would live in their .tel accounts.

This point raises another pertinent topic of today, namely where people's data is stored. This point was also raised in Robert Scoble's blog post.

Ideally, what I would love to see .tel do is a partnership with one of the companies offering a front-end interface to Amazon's S3 storage. In a perfect world, I would upload files, photos, etc. into my .tel account account and they would be stored at Amazon S3. Then, when I sign-up for a web service, such as Flickr.com, the web service company would access them at my S3 server. I already serve some photos to my blog using the S3 "Copy Path" option.

Obviously, many users would not want this option because they would have to pay for the storage. Nonetheless, Telnic should be offering this service to its power users who are also the thought leaders on the internet. Guys like Dave Winer would love this option and so would many corporations and organizations.

Telnic could actually create a revenue stream by doing a partnerhsip agreement with Amazon where it gets a commission for folks who access S3 storage through through .tel accounts.

Here's the URL for the su.pr set-up instructions for custom domains:

http://www.stumbleupon.com/developers/Supr:Shor...

I have a suspicion that su.pr may be saving the custom domain short URL to ALL external URLs as a paid premium offering. They are not saying yet but in their Help Forums there's been some speculation able this possiblity.

So, to wrap up, I am excited for .tel and the possibilities before it to truly reshape the web and to give the power back to the people.

PS: I'm curious, I left Network Solutions and shifted all my domains over to GoDaddy but I read that GoDaddy is not one of the registrars able to offer .tel. Do you have any idea on why that is so. I would think that .tel would want to establish itself as the ultimate personal domain and thus, GoDaddy scale and reach would be very important?

Great to chat with you. I have been meaning to put my thoughts down as a blog post and thanks to you, I've just done that.

Re: I Want a Twitter Domain .twt

postzavtra — Mon, 10 Aug 2009 12:50:31 -0000

Andy, Thanks for the comment.

I'm not necessarily "married" to the .tel doman itself. Rather, what I'd like to see is that web users have the opportunity to connect a domain, which they own to the various web services.

For example, I would much rather have the opportunity to create a CNAME for my Facebook account so that my account at FB could be accessed at http://facebook.timothypost rather than at http://facebook.com/timothypost.

I have written in the past about OpenID and how it's my opinion that the service will realy catch fire when OpenID Providers offers users the opportunity to create a sub-domain for their central OpenID social hub, as well as, use that sub-domain for their universal login.

I thought of the .tel domain because it does seek to be a domain, which people can use as their central web hub and, I believe, it offers some additional add-on features.

Regarding short URLs, I should point-out that su.pr (StumbleUpon's entrant in the short URL world) has enabled a feature, which enables users to create a short URL using their websites domain for links that point to that website, itself.

What this means is that instead on me pasting:

http://www.timothypost.com/2009/08/10/i-want-a-...

into Twitter, I could, with su.pr short URL service, paste something like:

htpp://timothypost.com/hsrn instead.

While this su.pr feature is nice it doesn't, imo, go far enough. I would like to see su.pr enable users to shorten ANY website's URL with their own domain.

Do you know of any technical issues, which would make this new "custom" short URL impossible?

Re: Twitter’s platform shortcomings

postzavtra — Mon, 10 Aug 2009 10:20:09 -0000

Here's 2 potential solutions:

A.) What if the short URL companies offered two additional features:

1. As a premium feature let customers use domains, which they already own as the base domain for the short URL. For example, instead of bit.ly producing a short URL such as:

http://bit.ly/hksl

you were able to substitue the based domain (bit.ly) with your own domain (scobleizer.com)?

http://scobleizer.com/hksl

2. Short URL companies opened up "the walled garden" by offering an export option. The export would include the short URL with your domain, which wouldn't need to change even if it were imported into another service and the destination URL, which should also remain the same.

You already own your domain and with a simple export file you then own the data. It shouldn't be too hard for a new company to create an import feature which would "relink" the short URL with the destination URL.

Now you have peace of mind. As with most of these issues, the key variable is the the web services is built using a domain which you already own.

The short URL companies could partner with domain registrar's and create a new revenue stream by selling domains to people.

B.) Twitter, itself, were to create a new domain, such as .twt. Based on what Jason Calacanis said on TWiT, I would not be surprised to see Twitter try to either create or buy a domain for itself.

Were this to happen, users would have the option of keeping their standard http://twitter.com/scobleizer username or they could purchase their very own domain, such as http://scobleizer.twt

As Jason hypothesized, Twitter wants to become the phone book of the internet. In order to do that each users needs to have a unique identifier. Your telephone number served that function, obviously, in the "old world."

However, users of Twitter are going to be very suspect and reticent to use Twitter's own domain as their unique identifier. For the very reasons Robert highlights in this post, such trust by users would be foolish.

Therefore, the only true solution would be for user's to own their unique identifier (i.e. domain). Twitter would be smart to become a registrar as soon as possible or at least do a deal with the folks that own the .tel domain.

Re: Video contest: Win a Russian bride

postzavtra — Wed, 05 Aug 2009 11:52:05 -0000

Since I'm such a nice guy and actually live here in Krasnodar (aka the Russian Riviera), I volunteer to meet them here. Tell them that I'll be at the Piotr Bar (Krasnix Partizan Street) this Friday.

удачи!!!

Re: Last day in Ljubljana

gothamgal — Mon, 27 Jul 2009 03:45:13 -0000

Ha!

Re: Last day in Ljubljana

postzavtra — Sun, 26 Jul 2009 15:22:39 -0000

So that's where all the bees have gone. Who knew? )))

Re: About Me

postzavtra — Fri, 24 Jul 2009 08:14:54 -0000

Andrewa:

Please feel free to contact me directly by Skype or email and I'd be glad to help you evaluate job opportunities here in Krasnodar Krai.

Bottom-line is that the jobs for expats will be down in Krasnaya Polyana and Rosa Khutor over the next couple of years before the Olympics start. There is no comparison between St. Petersburg and Krasnodar Krai. Krasnodar Krai is to St. Pete as San Diego is to Chicago. Different "animals' completely.

Anyhow, I look forward to speaking with you.

Re: Google Reader Gets a Social Makeover, Adds Likes and Followers

postzavtra — Wed, 15 Jul 2009 23:40:27 -0000

I "live" in Google Reader every morning. However, the lack of one social media feature is bugging me. Specifically, Google Reader should enhance its "Share" feature to let users direct the item to various social media websites like Twitter, Facebook, blogs, etc.

In order to currently share an item in Google Reader to Twitter, I need to set-up a RSS redirect through TwitterFeed.com. The problem is that I am limited to one Twitter account. I have a couple Twitter accounts and would really like the ability to choose to which account an item is sent.

Such a feature would make Google Reader much more relevant in the conversions taking placing every day online.

Re: Windows to Russia: Comment Demons! | Windows to Russia!

postzavtra — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 11:03:33 -0000

Hey, I use Disqus and like it a lot.

@WB No, just sign-up for Disqus and you're set.

Re: Why 140 chars is like 48K (Scripting News)

postzavtra — Tue, 23 Jun 2009 13:27:43 -0000

In Russia we are not limited to 140 characters per text message. Rather, you are charged for 2 texts messages but it is delivered as one. My point is that I do not believe there is any inherent reason why a text should be limited to 140.

Re: http://www.gothamgal.com/gotham_gal/2009/02/mind-over-matter.html

gothamgal — Wed, 18 Feb 2009 07:32:34 -0000

Great advice. I will be skiing in March. I had skiing on the short skis
last year and really had fun. I too were skiing on 185's at one point and
now I am skiing on 150's.

My biggest issue is that I love the long blue/black cruising trails on a
board and hate that on skis. On skis, I am all about the moguls. Sort of
hard to balance the act.

Re: http://www.gothamgal.com/gotham_gal/2009/02/mind-over-matter.html

postzavtra — Wed, 18 Feb 2009 01:12:38 -0000

I used to snowboard back when they were wood and Jake Burton, himself, competed in the snowboard championships on The Face at Suicide Six in Vermont ($25 entry fee, open to all). Long time ago. But I eventually went back to skiiing. More freedom and control, I feel. So, like you I know both.

As I get "older" I find it harder and harder to imagine snowboarding with all the requisite physical punishment one's body takes.

What changed my experience with skiing, itself, was the introduction of parabolic skis. Since the edges are curved a shorter ski has the same edge length as a longer straight ski. Edge length is the key determinate in speed.

I recommend highly that you try and ski a pair of slalom skis with the smallest radius possible. I demo'ed a bunch of skis last Winter and absolutely fell in love with Stockli's Laser. I also use a binding plate ("riser") to give myself more angulation (i.e. edge control). The new skis are to my old 203 Giant Slalom Rossignol's like a Porsche is a Chevy Suburban.

In the old days I'd ski 203's cm but today I ski 175's cm with the same performance (i.e. speed) but with sooo much more control. I'm 6' tall.

These skis have actually made skiing "joyful" again. Completely changed the experience for me.

The best skiers are now skiing the shortest skis and having oh so much more fun. Fun is why we ski in the first place, right?

Re: Fred Wilson Dot VC

fredwilson — Tue, 17 Feb 2009 12:23:29 -0000

Very cool

There is a tumblr theme like that too

Re: Fred Wilson Dot VC

paulgiacherio — Tue, 17 Feb 2009 11:26:01 -0000

I agree that there's a lot of room for progressive thinking when it comes to theme development. What's interesting is that all these examples (and some of my own themes) give equal weight to content, which isn't ideal for every situation. Lately I've been fascinated with a layout technique from Suprb. It properly tiles variable length content to a grid, which in my mind would be more appropriate for the type of content you'd find in a typical sweetcron installation, for example. I've adapted the layout on my own tumblr and while it can seem cluttered at times, the layout generally feels more efficient to me.

Re: Fred Wilson Dot VC

postzavtra — Tue, 17 Feb 2009 10:10:25 -0000

Fred:

Take a look at this Wordpress theme which I recently started using for my blog. It looks very similar to the NYT prototype.

http://maxisnow.com/2009/02/threat-to-creativit...

Here's a demo from the creator's website:

http://maxisnow.com/

Also, take a look at this "Lifestream" blog software called Sweetcron:

http://www.sweetcron.com/

Here's Yongfook's Sweetcron website:

http://www.yongfook.com/

Both a experimenting with new formats as is NYT. I'd love to see some of the more progressive Wordpress theme developers take some of Max is Now!'s idea of theme structure is push it forward.

Re: The Blogroll I Want For AVC

fredwilson — Sat, 14 Feb 2009 08:23:37 -0000

I've tried

When is enough enough?

Re: The Blogroll I Want For AVC

postzavtra — Thu, 12 Feb 2009 09:59:39 -0000

Give Google Reader another shot )))

Gotta love the "J" key!

Re: The Blogroll I Want For AVC

postzavtra — Thu, 12 Feb 2009 09:42:30 -0000

Yes, I think our Comments crossed each other in the blogosphere.

Re: The Blogroll I Want For AVC

fredwilson — Thu, 12 Feb 2009 08:13:17 -0000

Dave left a comment on this thread

The first one I think

Re: The Blogroll I Want For AVC

postzavtra — Thu, 12 Feb 2009 07:28:29 -0000

Fred:

Such a tool would be an excellent way to measure "influence." I love the idea and I'll be the 2nd user.

Note: If someone is looking to develop such a tool/service s/he may want to speak with Dave Winer. Dave's OPML Manager was an initial attempt to put together such a tool.

If would think that the Google Reader team would be well positioned for such a project.

Re: Fred Wilson Dot VC

fredwilson — Thu, 22 Jan 2009 15:39:44 -0000

Yeah, she¹s good. And different which is the key in blogging.