Disqus - Latest Comments for robdiana

Re: You Know You’re A Cool Geek When…

robdiana — Tue, 13 Oct 2009 06:05:02 -0000

I am familiar with far too many of these :) Though I don't think I will live tweet a major life event any time soon. That may be where I draw the line.

Re: Digital iPhone cheapskates

robdiana — Sat, 10 Oct 2009 20:54:36 -0000

It seems like everyone forgot that most software costs money for every update. If you look on your PC, every version of Microsoft Office costs money. Most paid anti-virus software has a monthly subscription to get virus definition updates and is normally $10-$15 per month. An iPhone app that costs less than a cup of Starbucks I find difficult to complain about. How much do these same people pay for monthly subscriptions for other services?

Re: CobWEBs Daily Edition podcast – Flipping the bird

robdiana — Wed, 16 Sep 2009 06:28:38 -0000

Sean and Steven,

Thanks for spending almost half of your show talking about my post and fast flip. I think we are up to 5 people calling out Google and blogs on fast flip. Pathetic.

Re: Labour Day in the 21st century

robdiana — Mon, 07 Sep 2009 08:32:55 -0000

Mark,

Obviously great minds think alike. I just finished a post about labor day, and how people are working long hours with social media. I like the idea of "celebrating work inside of a life". With social media, the constant connectivity tends to blend life and work a little more than we used to.

Re: The Truth About Star Wars and the Matrix

robdiana — Thu, 03 Sep 2009 12:04:44 -0000

I agree with star wars, but will start the disagreement with the Matrix. There were 2 movies, but only one full movie. The other two movies only had good parts that might total a whole movie.

The first batman, with Nicholson, definitely works and cannot be ignored. For Bond, there are a ton of movies but really there are only 4 Bond men, Connery, Moore, Brosnan and Craig. Disappointingly, Moore did have some real stinkers.

And what about Rocky? Were there any after the first 2 or 3?

Re: You are Crazy not to Measure the ROI of Social Media!

robdiana — Thu, 27 Aug 2009 12:44:56 -0000

I wonder if my post this morning caused this rant :) I admit that I did it on purpose, mainly because people have been focusing on purely marketing and advertising when talking ROI. There is a comment on my post from Paul May that is fantastic. We may compete on cost, but customer service does indirectly affect ROI. The problem is that measuring this kind of things is hard, and I think a lot of people just stop at "this is hard".

Re: Trading one centralized net for another? (Scripting News)

robdiana — Fri, 07 Aug 2009 17:39:04 -0000

Dave,

I was thinking along the same lines as DNS, but there are the
obvious differences that you pointed out in your original post.
Hopefully, some smart and talented developers can tackle the
problem. Thanks for the link too.

Re: As the web gets more real-time are we missing more?

robdiana — Tue, 04 Aug 2009 11:47:37 -0000

I would have to agree when you look solely at stuff like Twitter. Part of the problem is learning to use the tools we have to not miss certain things. Facebook has lists or groups and FriendFeed has them as well. You can create a "must-read" list if you really wanted. The other part is that if you are really interested in someone's updates, you can always view just their updates.

In the end, the problem is going to be time and education. Do most users really know how to use the new Facebook UI? Do they really want to take the time to learn it?

Re: Dumb XML Question answered (Scripting News)

robdiana — Thu, 23 Jul 2009 15:12:30 -0000

Is there any reason you don't display the xml feed in an html document with standard html entities?
Just in case that is not clear, I mean changing "<" in the xml to "<" and other needed changes.

Re: What solutions should people be offering for the Real-Time Web in 2009?

robdiana — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 11:11:25 -0000

Josh,

The emergency system is an interesting idea, but it is not a big business concept. I could be mistaken, but it does not seem like a large revenue-generating opportunity. Real time, electronic health data is a possibility, but their are enormous hurdles for that to happen. There are many privacy concerns in that arena, some logical and some completely unfounded. I do agree that someone will figure this out soon, and I have a feeling we are just missing the obvious application.

Re: URL-shorteners go Amazon (Scripting News)

robdiana — Tue, 09 Jun 2009 18:29:09 -0000

Dave,

The real problem with Twitter becoming infrastructure is that they have been
very hesitant to add any features. As you say, competition could change that
and the Amazon idea is interesting, but only if they back a seriously open
standard like OpenMicroblogging or whatever. Google Wave could be that
competitor as well.

Lastly, thanks for the link!

Re: Twitter a Ubiquitous Utility? Open Up a Little!

robdiana — Sun, 07 Jun 2009 07:00:21 -0000

I just asked Allen Stern to ask these types of questions. Basically, if they really want to be a utility they need to open up more than they already have. They also need to be standards based. Just like you, I am curious if they can make the needed changes before something like Wave really starts gaining adoption.

Re: Look out Facebook! Its a Bing, its a Wave! Realtime Search & Targeting is on the way.

robdiana — Sat, 30 May 2009 14:05:08 -0000

Obviously, you know my thoughts on Wave :) FriendFeed is in an interesting position, but I think the team will quickly do what is needed to compete. The microblogging federation is an interesting point though. Something like Wave could actually boost those efforts.

Re: Twitter Corral … isn’t that pretty

robdiana — Thu, 28 May 2009 06:18:12 -0000

Steve,

Regarding my blog post, my idea was really the fact that people are building tons of applications on Twitter for basic functionality. Twitter can kill half of those applications very quickly.

Re: Twitter Corral .. schizophrenia rules

robdiana — Thu, 14 May 2009 06:02:06 -0000

Steven,

I have been beating the "twitter as infrastructure" drum for a while now. I don't understand why people don't see that as a good option. Thanks for the link too.

Re: http://blog.louisgray.com/2009/05/welcome-to-reputation-economy.html

robdiana — Mon, 04 May 2009 17:45:21 -0000

Josh,

I was saying that I felt a degree should not be necessary, but too many people in the industry feel they are. Reputation is very important. Also, my post is more of a commentary on the state of the industry than purely my opinion, but I can understand some of the confusion.

Re: http://blog.louisgray.com/2009/05/welcome-to-reputation-economy.html

robdiana — Mon, 04 May 2009 15:36:12 -0000

James,

That is correct, college is not always the best choice for everyone. My wife could not afford college initially, but eventually got her degree at night as she was changing careers. Your case (and I hope your back is OK), is also a little different in that your physical situation has changed the scenario. It is very rare for advice to apply to every situation, so you have to look at your situation and see what is best. However, if you ask for people's opinions, then be prepared to hear things you did not want to hear.

Re: http://blog.louisgray.com/2009/05/welcome-to-reputation-economy.html

robdiana — Mon, 04 May 2009 15:18:52 -0000

Josh,

I agree with you, but I can not speak for the industry as a whole. There are a lot of people that still believe the degree is immensely important for your job. That is not what I have found to be true, but some people still do.

Re: http://blog.louisgray.com/2009/05/welcome-to-reputation-economy.html

robdiana — Mon, 04 May 2009 15:01:39 -0000

Josh,

It was not meant as "if you don't go to college you can't build a reputation". College/Uni gives you instant reputation, just based on a piece of paper. Bill Gates, and any others, are definitely the exception to the rule. This fact is sad, but also very true. Previous to the past few years, it was near impossible to build reputation without work experience. The internet is changing that a little, as startups and social media give you more exposure than ever. However, there are a lot of people (including Google) that still look for a degree. As with many things, reputation is what you make it.

Re: Let The Students Teach

robdiana — Mon, 27 Apr 2009 07:51:03 -0000

I have found teaching to be the easiest way to find out what you don't know. When you are the teacher, you need to know more than your students. You are supposed to be the expert. By reversing the roles, meaning the student becomes the teacher, the student is forced to pay more attention to what they are learning and reading because they will need to "present their findings" to the rest of the class. Some of the school districts in my area are doing small presentations starting in kindergarten. From what I have seen, the kids enjoy learning odd facts about animals or whatever topic, and have a sense of pride when they have presented something.

Re: http://blog.louisgray.com/2009/04/we-were-so-wrong-about-twitter.html

robdiana — Mon, 20 Apr 2009 11:21:13 -0000

Given what has been happening in the last few months, I highly doubt that an acquirer would change much about twitter. If they did change something significant, they should be very careful about it.

Re: http://blog.louisgray.com/2009/04/we-were-so-wrong-about-twitter.html

robdiana — Mon, 20 Apr 2009 11:18:40 -0000

I am surprised that nobody saw the celebrity angle. It was something that was talked about with web-celebs like Robert Scoble, Leo Laporte and others. Twitter allowed them to interact with more people than ever before. How did we not translate this to Hollywood celebrities?

Re: http://blog.louisgray.com/2009/04/destination-is-in-conversation.html

robdiana — Mon, 20 Apr 2009 06:13:56 -0000

Corvida,

I think you took me more literally than I intended. The big sites, like Yahoo, were the main destinations before. Now the destination is more about the people, and as you point out, their network. Now that most sites are adding social features, the focus is more on the user. Overall, I think we are agreeing but just saying it in a slightly different way.

Re: There is no defense for IE6.

robdiana — Sat, 18 Apr 2009 07:49:16 -0000

The problem I have with this IE6 is still supported by companies is that IE6 is ancient in technology terms. Granted, anything over 3 years old is ancient in our world. We wasted 2 man-months of time trying to get a new release of an application to work in IE6. Besides the fact that IE6 gleefully ignores standards, the javascript engine is painfully slow.

The main reason I have heard for people/corporations not upgrading is that they have some application (typically something like enterprisey like SAP) that uses ActiveX controls in some way that will not work in IE7. The reason these ActiveX controls do not work in IE7 is that the old controls were taking advantage of the many security holes that Microsoft plugged in later releases.

Re: http://blog.louisgray.com/2009/04/do-not-blame-google-newspapers-have-not.html

robdiana — Sun, 12 Apr 2009 17:15:19 -0000

Ari,

You bring up a good point. The smaller papers, which are not the topic here, are doing whatever they can to stay alive. This could be due to being smaller, they may be more open to change.