The Worthy Adversary

6 People Like Walter Cronkite's Death

2009-07-17T20:15:00.000-07:00

About two and a half years ago I reviewed Google Reader and made a few suggestions around social features, especially the ability to connect with others by being able to read comments from within Google Reader.

I am still waiting for this feature to be implemented, and I am certain that it isn't an easy challenge to tackle, if they are even considering it. Pulling comments from completely different platform (e.g. WordPress, etc.) into the Google Reader experience seems like a gigantic challenge so I am not holding it against them. Aside from that, the Google Reader team seems to be busy at work bringing interesting improvements to their own product.

The other day I was checking in on my subscriptions in Google Reader just a couple of days ago and noticed their new "Like This" feature. "Great", I thought, "another way to connect with the Google community and especially with the readers who are subscribed to the same feeds as me." This could be a really interesting opportunity to discover new sources of web-content just by looking at what those with similar interests are subscribing to. I can't wait to dig in a little bit and explore what those who like stories in the feeds I am also subscribed to in Google Reader are reading.

The only complaint that I have is a fairly minor one and I will address it directly to the big G:

Google, how could you choose "like this" to be the idiom for this feature? First of all, Facebook has already been down this path (thanks to Passive Aggressive Notes). Second, you know what's going to happen when people like terrible news? It's going to look just like this:

Even if it's the most touching story about the late, great, Walter Cronkite, the deflating headline placed juxtaposed against a count of the number of people who "liked this" just seems a bit too raw. Perhaps just adding the word "story" to the end of the phrase would eliminate the concern... For the time being, I guess I will just have to accept that there are at least 6 really mean people out there in the world somewhere.

At the end of the day, I guess I would recommend that they invest in the ability to artificially systhesize the meaning of a feed and be able to inject the appropriate idiom for the context.

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Hello Amber, Oklahoma

2007-01-08T08:22:00.000-08:00

So I hope this doesn't freak you out. But together, Google and I are watching you. I recently signed up for Google Analytics and am using it to track page-views for this blog.

I am not by any means a statistics type of person, but I find this service fascinating. It would be great to have more visitors, and I might be able to use the information about what sites are referring page-views, etc to find the most effective marketing strategies. The truth, though, is that I am not interested in marketing this blog. I signed up for Google Analytics because I am a curious sort of person.

Upon first review, it is very comprehensive. My favorite feature is the Geo Map Overlay:

I would like to take this opportunity to say hello and welcome to my first international viewer from Edmonton!

Where I work, we have a Video-Conferencing facility and keep a world map with push-pins for every place we've connected with. We had a long debate about where to put the push-pin after we connected with the space-station to allow a NASA astronaut to communicate with his family. I wonder where Google would put the push-pin?

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Google Reader: Whassup or Ish Not Think So?

2007-01-09T23:17:00.000-08:00

I have to admit that I am totally conflicted about Google's Reader. On one hand, I really like Reader. It's really easy to use and has integrated search so subscribing to feeds couldn't be easier. It has some really nice social features, as well. For example, you can check the link at the top right of this blog and see what articles I am sharing and I can really easily email friends when I read a story I want them to see.

On the other hand I feel conflicted by the amount of guilt I feel each time I log in and see the (100+) indicating that I have a lot of reading to do to keep up. My problem certainly isn't with the product, it does everything it can to make keeping up easier.

My problem (one of them, anyway) is my compulsion to keep up, and to a lesser degree the "RSS Culture" of staying connected. I want to subscribe to feeds on things I am interested in. It is rare when I don't enjoy reading a story arriving via a feed I have subscribed to, but, somehow the very thing making it easier to stay connected, also clearly points the 100+ finger at my poor habits in this regard (as is witnessed by the sparsity of posts on this blog). After all, it can be hard enough to answer all the email I get in a day.

I would still really like to see Google Develop a light version of Reader that works as a widget on the new iPhone. That thing is smoking and I got the sense that we witnessed a watershed moment in tech history today as Mr. Jobs unleashed his blitzkrieg style attack on the phone industry. How must Bill Gates feel right now, sitting in Las Vegas looking at his Zune like the ugly stepchild it truly is?

So how do you deal with this? Do you feel pressure to keep up? Keep a blog? Stay connected? Subscribe to fewer feeds? Leave a comment, let me know...

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Reader.l.icio.us - Spice Up Reader with Tasty Features

2007-01-11T20:00:00.000-08:00

Part of the secret of a success in life is to eat what you like and let the food fight it out inside.
- Mark Twain (1835 - 1910)

This quote seems appropriate for this post. I like the parallel between eating what I want and using a great product like Google Reader... Not sure who's fighting it out inside in this equation...

In the day-and-a-half since my last post I've thought a lot about Google Reader. It is a truly amazing product. I briefly touched on the features I really like in my last post, and have learned a lot more about it since then.

I read an informative post at Mitchelaneous (thanks for the link via del.icio.us, O) about getting more from Reader. The author includes pics and links to useful tools such as Reader Notifier for your toolbar, and a pretty cool Reader Notifier Firefox Extension. The most interesting and promising enhancement I noticed was link to an article by the developer of a greasemonkey script promising to merge Reader into you gmail. It sounds as if the developer is also a member of the Reader development team. Interesting reads if you have time.

This article was posted only a couple of days ago and I have to say I am surprised that the following features didn't rate a mention. Did you know that you could drag and drop a next button (and a next button by tag) into your bookmarks toolbar that will load the next unread item in your reader (and mark at read at the same time)? There is also a subscribe button which will search for an XML feed for the page your are currently on and automatically subscribe to it. Pretty cool, huh? (I am new to Reader, so pardon me if these features are not news)...

Like I said, I really like Reader. After having used it for only a few weeks, I'd like to offer the following suggestions to the development team at Google Reader:

First, I love that you can "put Reader in a bookmark". The subscribe, next bookmark, & next bookmark for a specific tag toolbar button features in the goodies section are really valuable. I would love it even more if I could put bookmarks (non-xml/rss url's) in Reader. I know that Reader is based on RSS feeds, but often times I am surfing the web and come across an article on a site that doesn't have a feed and want to share with my social network via my "shared items page" or through the syndicated clip in the sidebar of my blog (or by gmail). Currently, I've subscribed to my del.icio.us feed in Reader and share pages bookmarked via del.icio.us that don't have rss feeds of their own. This is why I use del.icio.us, but is there a better way? It would be powerful not to have to make this circuitous journey to share a bookmark.

If non-xml/rss in Reader bookmarking is a feature they will consider, I hope they will also consider adding a bookmark bar link (much like the subscribe link) that will add the URL of the site you are on to Reader when you click it.

Second, sharing articles is really powerful as a social networking feature of Reader. I have embedded a clip of my shared items on my blog. I love it. One thing I've noticed when you click through to the shared items page is that there is no way to quickly filter or sort by the different categories or tags I have used. It would be really great to have a set of links in the upper right of the shared items page that allow users to quickly filter and sort the posts via categories or tags.

Third, Google's Blogger Web Comments should be a feature within Reader. Web comments is an amazing concept that -- as a feature of Reader -- could be really powerful, far beyond its current existence as a firefox extension (not a knock on firefox, extensions, or Comments). While Reader affords me with an efficient way of keeping up with blogs, etc., there is still an experiential gap between consuming content, reviewing comments, and being able to continue the dialogue (either as a commenter or as someone blogging about a site). Further, every blog has a different and oftentimes painful method for commenting on their posts. Google's Blogger Web Comments, integrated into Reader, could become the default tool for making comments on the web. Features such as comment syndication (for your blog, shared items page, etc.) would serve to further extend the reach and usefulness of "Google Reader Web Comments" (and possibly provide new opportunities for ad revenue).

Lastly, I know that the Reader team is already creating packages of popular RSS feeds from certain categories for folks to subscribe to. It would be really nice to be able to subscribe to, search on, and browse categories such as the most popular, most searched on, most commonly used tags, most commonly starred, and most commonly shared posts among users. I have a friend that does most of his surfing in del.icio.us. He is constantly browsing popular items and the bookmarks of users with whom he has bookmarks in common. Integrating these practical features into Google Reader would position it not only as the most powerful news reader but also as the leading tool for social content management.

Thank you, thank you, thank you Google Reader for making my life easier with reader. I can't wait for next evolution of this product.

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No Patriots Allowed at the Super Bowl

2007-01-27T19:12:00.000-08:00

I must say, I am NOT a Peyton Manning fan. I am really looking forward to seeing him on his back staring up into the face-mask of Brian I-just-sacked-your-stupid-ass Urlacher. Despite that, I wasn't unhappy about the fact that someone was finally able to burst the bubble of Tom Brady by keeping him out of his fourth Super Bowl in six years.

But Tom Brady's team won't be the only Patriots missing the big game this year. The committee for stripping the most American of traditions from the most American of events (a.k.a. the Super Bowl XLI Host Committee) issued a statement to the public last Tuesday: Tailgating will not be allowed within one mile of dolphin stadium on game-day. According to this story fans spotted grilling or consuming alchohol may even be hauled off to the clink.

While Floridians have traditionally used legislation to prevent folks from "hiding the sausage" in the sunshine state, it appears they will allow an exception so the NFL doesn't have to see your sausage on a hibachi near the stadium.

Not for nothing, this prohibition on American activities near the stadium must have been intended to protect. Perhaps to protect spectators, perhaps not. The Super Bowl is a huge event, not just for Americans, but for the American economy too. I don't know what kind of an economic impact a disruption of the big game would have, but television advertisements alone were sold for $5-5.2 million dollars per minute during the 2006 Super Bowl.

There is no question that protecting this event is important. But how much protection do I need? A few years ago, Justin Timberlake ripped part of Janet Jackson's "wardrobe" off during the Super Bowl half-time show. Since this incident (and the record fine dealt to Viacom) networks have set most live broadcasts on a 5-10 second delay so as not to transmit another accidental areola (which was fully covered, upon really close inspection).

At the end of the day, grilling sausages and drinking beers at the stadium is more patriotic than... well... the Patriot Act. And nipple-slips and f**k da eagles t-shirts can't be more harmful to us than ghostwhisperer, can they? I am dubious about whether banning tailgating on Super Sunday will keep anyone safer. So, the question is are the risks so high as to justify the police-state mentality and censorship we are seeing?

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Welcome, Promptu. Another Friend in the Blog-o-sphere!

2007-04-03T20:24:00.000-07:00

Much to my chagrin, I haven't been writing a whole lot lately. But a friends recent foray into the blog-o-sphere has inspired me today and I wanted to welcome her!

Please check out Promptu for insight into education, technology, software development and more...

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Video, Education, & Open Content: Best Practices

2007-05-25T18:38:00.000-07:00

I returned from a conference on Video, Education, and Open Content at Columbia University in NYC yesterday. Some really amazing projects were presented, and there was a lot of stimulating conversation.

The following are my highlights from the conference:

Day 1

Creative Commons Video:

Yale's CMI2 group - Open Education Resources project to make around 40 courses freely and publicly available over the next 4 years!

Microsoft's Curtis Wong showed off an astronomy product sort of like Google Earth for the Universe under development at the Redmond software giant. The key difference is that the renderings are based on both a dataset and images.

Wong also showed off a tool called codescope used in an interactive CD-ROM on DaVinci's Codex Leicester. It's basically a really slick slideover window which seems to "peer through the document" to reveal an English translation.

There was a brief presentation by the senior VP of content strategy for Joost, an internet video (TV?) service developed by the creators of Skype. This product couldn't have come soon enough as I have been looking for a new way to clock-watch at work!

Good friend and former colleague Obadiah Greenberg presented on education and YouTube and the role it can (and will, knowing Obie) play for video in the .edu domain.

Throughout there was a lot of talk about archiving as well as IP and copyright issues...

Day 2

John Dehlin, director of MIT's OCW initiative talked about MIT's OCW initiative. It was a good presentation that ended with a suggestion that a video capture best practices "toolkit". I think Berkeley can do him one better than a toolkit with its open-source enterprise capture and delivery system currently under development...

UC Santa Cruz's Abram Stern presented on MetaVid a killer project that captures audio, video, close caption and ocr on-screen text from cable broadcasts of the house and senate. It has intense implications for making educational video more discoverable and search results more relevant and meaningful. Respect.

Colleague Judy Stern gave a great presentation on best practices for video in Teaching and Learning.

Colleague Mara Hancock rocked the house with a rousing call-to-arms for community and open-source development in education. She really seized the opportunity to evangelize for building an intelligently architected framework to develop within so various projects from the education community can be better leveraged to help each other and be more easily integrated into enterprise systems.

Dean Jansen from Participatory Culture Foundation (makers of the Democracy Player) & Colin Rhinesmith from the Berkman Center, Harvard Law School talked about Broadcast Machine an application you install on your website to easily publish video, audio, and images. These folks have a great concept and are just plain cool. I am really looking forward to further conversation and thinking about ways in which we might be able to incorporate the Broadcast Machine into our open source enterprise capture and delivery system.

Lastly, I had the opportunity to check out the various projects and products that CCNMTL has developed over the years. They are an inspired, educational, and forward thinking group and it shows in projects like Vital, Havel, and an amazing project that I can't seem to find online that aims to breakdown the barriers for educating couples where one of the two is HIV+ about the disease and how to prevent transmission to the uninfected partner.

The CCNMTL group was really terrific and I have to say that the event was killer. So killer, in fact, that it was jam packed and difficult to pick-up on everything that was put-down. Everything from registration, to AV support, to catering was first rate. The only change I'd suggest is a little more down-time so that folks could gather and communicate on a one-to-one basis about their projects and potential collaboration. I can't even begin to express how much I appreciate the opportunity to attend and participate.

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Surface, MicroSoft Introduces iPhone Killer

2007-05-30T08:38:00.000-07:00

In a bold move, the Redmond monolith introduced its iPhone killer, Surface. About the size of a coffee table, "Surface features a 30" tabletop display whose unique abilities allow several people to work independently or simultaneously. All without a mouse or keyboard" (microsoft.com).

While Surface won't fit in your pocket and isn't battery operated, Microsoft believes that one key feature will allow it to out-compete iPhone in the marketplace: Viewable Image Size.

Surface shares many features with the iPhone: the ability to check your email, look at maps, play music, view images, browse the web, and a touch sensitive user interface. The primary difference is that Surface allows you to do all this from the convenience of your living room (or T-Mobile store until winter 2007) while Apple allows its products to run rampant and isn't capable of setting these types of boundaries.

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Feedly, Feedburner Acquired by Google

2007-06-02T17:03:00.000-07:00

Just last week I was talking with my wife about the conundrum of how to view statistics on her RSS feeds. Here is the backstory:

I'd been hounding her for a while to syndicate the full content of her blog. Suffice it to say that I wanted more than to just get the gist of her posts in Google Reader. I wanted to read the full version of her posts right there, without waiting for the sluggish (IMHO) blogger page to load.

One day she tired of my whining and relented. A few days later she was frustrated by a substantial drop in page views for her blog. This is when we realized that analytics doesn't track views of your feeds.

Google must have recognized this same problem. They saw yet another ad sales opportunity in RSS feeds and have acquired Feedburner to get a leg up on the metrics end of RSS. With Feedburner & Analytics Google now has a formidable suite of statistical analysis tools.

But that isn't all this gives them. Google AdSense is a very well established (and lucrative) platform for online advertising and now that they have FeedBurner, they'll be able to inject ads into your feeds, track the viewership, and make money in the process.

Google has also been doing trials with Video AdSense and with both Google Video and YouTube in the fold, they have the content and platform for delivering media rich ads in spades.

All in all, purchasing Feedburner is just a great move for Google.

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What a Week!

2007-06-02T18:00:00.000-07:00

This was a pretty amazing week for product announcements. With Microsoft, Apple, and Google all announcing major projects and Walt Mossberg's All Things D Executive Conference (Lollapalooza for nerds) there was excitement in the air and I found myself checking the calendar to be sure that this wasn't MacWorld/CES week.

In the interest of full disclosure, I am the co-manager of webcast.berkeley (we manage UC Berkeley's presence on iTunes U & Google Video). I was aware that an iTunes U section of the iTunes store was going to launch shortly before it happened. I had no idea that Apple would announce iTunes Plus or the ability to stream YouTube content to your Apple TV. These announcements have served to whet my appetite for WWDC. These seem like pretty big announcements and for them to be made only a week before Steve Jobs delivers the WWDC keynote leaves me thinking that there must be some pretty major announcements in store (See my predictions here).

In addition to all the Apple goodness that we witnessed earlier in the week, we also saw Google announce Google Maps StreetView. It is pretty radical, if a little big-brotherish. One of the first things our student employees found while using streetview was a colleague on her way back from lunch waiting for a light to change. I can't wait to see what the mash-up community does with this product. Check out the vid of this Googler in Spandex explaining the product:

Not to be outdone, Microsoft announced Surface. A coffee table sized computer that allows users to interact using a touch based UI. The first look the provided of the product showed off some pretty interesting UI interactions with images. I am curious to understand what MS thinks the target market for Surface is. I would question the value it will add to the client experience at a restaurant or hotel, which is apparently the only place that will have them until the are commercially launched. I am sure that casinos will buy a ton of these things, though.

Some of the features of the Surface are pretty compelling and I will be interested to see how MS incorporates bits and pieces into new products. I guess the strangest thing about the Surface is the ever increasing presence of the Redmond giant as a hardware manufacturer. Over the years Microsoft has made computer peripherals such as mice, keyboards, joysticks, and even a beta version of the recently announced Surface. But their hardware ventures have become increasingly ambitious starting with the success of the XBOX 360 (not mentioned in their hardware history timeline), now the Surface, and even Roundtable in the near future. I wonder if Microsoft hasn't learned something from Apple after all. Wonder what is next from these guys.

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Google (Finally) Brings Core Competency to Reader

2007-09-05T21:48:00.000-07:00

And it's about time. I can't believe it took this long for Google to allow users to search their reader subscriptions. I haven't really used it yet so I can't vouch for its function, but many a time have I lamented the lack of this feature.

Now if we could only get them to bring this same feature in the administration area of my YouTube account (more on that soon!)...

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Adobe Buzzword

2007-10-28T14:55:00.000-07:00

Strolling around the Educause Exhibits, I happened into the Adobe booth and got an impromptu demonstration of Buzzword. A recent acquisition of the software giant, Buzzword is quite an impressive internet application.

Closest to Google Docs in its function, Buzzword breathes new life into the notion of what an internet application can be. With some really nice touches in layout and design, it is very easy to use (my four year old has picked up on how to use it). Though I haven't dugg too deep into the program, I think the only thing that seems to be missing is a set of hotkeys that can be used to control the program.

It would be interesting to see Adobe release its whole CS suite as internet apps to be used within any browser. Imagine doing your graphic or webdesign work from your iPhone. Oh the places you'll see:

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New England Patriots: A Team of Destiny

2008-02-03T19:15:00.000-08:00

Uh, oops. Did anyone tell them they actually had to win their last game BEFORE they got the trophy? It sure wasn't the press who all but anointed them 19-0 before the game even began.

It was an extremely drab game for commercials too. Not a good one in the bunch. Someone should tell the marketing groups that if they are going to spend a whole, whole lot on ad-time during the Super Bowl, they should at least entertain us. I don't remember a single commercial...

Were you as bored as I was?

I have to say that I do feel bad for Mr. Brady, but he really played poorly. Not to take anything away from the Giants defense--who clearly wanted it more. I have a hard time believing that he played so poorly, with the exception of one drive late in the fourth quarter.

Hopefully, this will be the end of the Patriots dynasty. As someone who watched them luck there way out of a playoff loss against the Raiders in the Snow because of a blown call (or was it just a really poorly defined rule, enforced to the letter?), I never hate to see them lose.

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Muxtape: A Fantastic & Simple Music Discovery Tool

2008-04-06T16:02:00.001-07:00

I like a little background noise while working on my computer. When I am at work, I will put iTunes in random play mode, throw on my headphones to tune everything out and play some music.

I have about 15 Gigs worth of music in my iTunes library (about 8 days worth, according to iTunes). That's more music than I can really choose from and embarrassingly, if I don't put iTunes into random mode I get into ruts, listening to one of just a few albums over and over again.

Even in random mode, I skip a lot of songs because I am either not in the mood or am tired of the song (how can I be tired of songs that I haven't listened to in months?). I seem to have developed a case of iTunes fatigue.

Today I stumbled across Muxtape.com. Muxtape is a service that allows users to upload a muxtape (playlist) of up to 12 songs for the world to check out. It is extremely simple and though it appears to lack the social bells and whistles that many "web 2.0" sites are flaunting these days, the playback interface is clean and sophisticated. Users can use the arrow keys to skip forward and back, and the spacebar will pause the current song.

Muxtape was launched on March 25th, 2008 (according to their tumbler blog), and it definitely has that new site smell. There are just a few features that would add great value to the service that I would like to request:

Embeddable muxes
Add genre tag for songs, make searchable
Listener tags for muxtapes, make searchable
Listener ratings for muxtapes (this could be a display of how many times a muxtapes have been favorited by users)
Nested Muxes: Instead of looping back to beginning of the mux after the last song ends, loop to another mux (perhaps playing through a users favorites...)
Exposed stats for number of listens a muxtape has
Add album art for songs and links to where you can purchase a song (Since the RIAA just don't get it, muxtapes is probably going to have to appease them at some point... [Muxtapes terms explicitly state that users must have permission to use the songs they upload, but I can't see the RIAA letting go unless mux proactively works to prevent this from occurring or does something that will be of fiscal benefit to the music industry... though they arguably are doing that already!!!])

Currently, you can subscribe to the RSS of individual muxtapes. Presuming users will change their muxes over time and that you like their tastes, this will be a handy feature. Other than the few new feature requests I have, I think that they've hit the nail on the head with this service.

Nice work, Mux! I'll be listening, and cheering for your success!!!

P.S. Can anyone tell me if muxes will play on the iPhone/iPod Touch? That kind of device combined with geographical awareness (á la iTunes store @ Starbucks) could present some pretty awesome opportunities for audio guided museum tours, driving tours, you name it... (ever used one of those crappy green handsets they give out at places like Alcatrez and the Coliseo Roma [image from Ed_Aisela]).

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Note in Google Reader, Goodbye Del.icio.us & twitter

2008-05-05T18:37:00.001-07:00

I just checked my Reader subscriptions after a long day of work. Top of the list was a post from the Official Google Reader blog about their new "Note in Reader" feature. I came straight here to post this cause I think it's pretty cool.

I have been an on and off user of del.icio.us to bookmark various things I happen upon around the net that I think are interesting and know that I wouldn't be able to find again if I tried to. I have also used twitter for the same thing (with the help of the awesome firefox extension twitterbar). These are both great services in their own right, but before today it was always a bit irritating how disconnected my own personal experience on the web is. The majority of my time on the web is spent checking my reader subscriptions and randomly stumbling upon sites (literally and figuratively).

In the past, when I have wanted to share a site with friends who use google reader I have chosen to tag them in del.icio.us and share them from reader once they show up (I subscribe to my del.icio.us feed in reader for this very reason). Twitter could be a similar experience, but I just haven't taken it that far yet. And now thanks to the good folks at Google, I can catalog my entire experience on the web (or the parts I deem important, at least) in my Reader and go back to tweeting my way out of egyptian custody.

They have made a simple javascript utility that you can throw in your bookmarks toolbar. When you click it, the script pops up a dialog allowing you to comment/tag the URL and post it to your Google Reader account as a note. By default it is set to share via Reader automatically.

The ability to tag/bookmark sites isn't quite as big a deal to me as the fact that you can do it from within Reader. All of the sudden, Reader becomes a great place to collect the content that is important to me. Subscriptions to RSS feeds that I find interesting, sites that do/don't have feeds that I have happened upon but may not want to actually subscribe to, sites that don't have anything, YT videos, etc. All connected and all within Reader.

Though it feels disconnected, there is one way in which del.icio.us still has the drop on Reader, community. One thing I really like about del.icio.us is the ability to check out links/tags from users who are bookmarking the same URLs or using the same tags. I suspect that through suggestions and some features that may come out over time, this will be less and less of an issue.

Also, I would still really like to see Reader add a post's comments into the posts within each story (at the very least for those blogs using blogger, right?). The experience of seeing what other views think is worth sharing via comments is something I really miss about living with Reader. Someday...

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Muxtape Stumbler

2008-05-07T11:01:00.000-07:00

A few weeks ago, I posted about muxtape, a relatively new website which allows you to create your own 12 song playlist in the cloud. I wrote about how it was a great tool to relieve iTunes fatigue. Now I have sumbled upon muxtape stumbler, which allows you to find posted muxtapes by browsing top artists or by artist search. Is this the cure for muxtape fatigue?

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Cal Fans in the Stands

2008-01-26T10:34:00.001-08:00

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Kaltura, the facebook, youtube, imovie mashup

2007-11-17T08:40:00.000-08:00

If you can envision a facebook page that is centered around editing a video with iMovie-like editing tools and YouTube-esque delivery and you have envisioned Kaltura.

As if creating a server side application that replicates all the best qualities of iMovie wasn't enough, the creators of Kaltura have added a dash of social community to spice things up. After signing up, the best way to participate in this community is to edit an existing video project (called a Kaltura) or create your own.

It will be interesting to see if the über-social notion of group editing will be attractive to the community. The one thing I found a bit lacking when playing around with the service was the source content available. Like many of you, I don't have an existing library of content for everything I would like to make Kalturas about. When searching (and I really like the search tool they have built) I didn't find enough content to use as source. I hope they will be able to partner with sites like YouTube to make more content available as source...

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TubeMogul, Analytics for Media

2007-10-02T08:17:00.000-07:00

I was really excited to find this tool to track views across multiple video sites. I love the fact that I can track videos from my YT account, but it is even more interesting to track stats across other accounts. The TubeMogul blog has some really interesting examples of how to track trends. They look at YouTube's YouChoose 08 (presidential candidates) to see who's stock is rising.

Very interesting stuff.

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YouTube's Killer New Embed Player

2007-06-08T15:30:00.000-07:00

Chalk this one up to more innovation from Google and YouTube! I just realized that YouTube has released a fantastic new UI for it's embedded player.

To demonstrate I have embedded one of the funniest (and just plain not right) videos that I have seen on YouTube lately. If you are both a videogame nerd and a WWII history buff, this is your slice of heaven. (Subtitles are NSFW)

What's different? Click on the play button, then click on the menu button (lower right-hand of player). Once you click the menu button, the video shrinks to reveal a number of videos at the bottom and an (OSX like, no?) magnifying video dock with a number of icons for related videos. This feature has some amazing implications if YouTube will allow users to specify what videos populate this list (videos from playlists, videos from groups, videos based on search strings, etc)

Also, note the two buttons on the right of the shrunk video: one to get the embed code, and another to get the permalink. I think the previous player had something similar, but these seem more polished to me.

Lastly, click forward in the timeline and the video will start to re-download from the point that you clicked on. I am pretty sure this is a brand new feature and it is pretty awesome. I really hope that they can crank out some deep linking features now to allow users to specify clips within clips!

Pretty cool, huh?

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In Name Only

2007-06-03T10:19:00.001-07:00

Being the good narcissist that I am, I searched for worthy adversary in Google this morning and came across these college student shirt-makers.

There's no relation between us, they've got too much style to be related. But I'm still hoping they send me a t-shirt (or at least a sticker!)!!!

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Welcome to The Worthy Adversary

2005-10-09T14:45:00.000-07:00

"The man in black pajamas, Dude. Worthy f**kin' adversary." - Walter Sobchak

I don't own black pajamas, and I didn't fight on either side of Iraq 1 or 2. I do like The Big Lebowski, but this blog isn't really about that. I will be posting as the man in black pajamas, your trusted source for things posted here.

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Google, Earthlink, and Apple could really ring your Bell(s)

2007-01-07T10:19:00.000-08:00

A really interesting conversation with a friend and a little story about Google, Earthlink, and the city by the bay has really got me thinking.

I have come to the conclusion that there is an epic battle taking place, and it's happening in the palm of your hand and your living room. Put the KY down, okay? This isn't that kind of blog. This battle is about the ultimate phone/computer/dvr/media device and the underlying infrastructure which allows it to work, one that gives you control over what's on the "boob-tube", whether you answer that chat-call from your parents, posting to your blog, checking movie times, getting directions, making reservations, reading/sending mail... your entire digital life, really.

You are right, the ultimate device doesn't exist... yet. But the battle to develop it, control it's features, and to provide the underlying infrastructure for its' services is being hard-fought as we speak. It's a really complex and competitive plot with a number of companies and their partnerships writing the story. My thinking about this thing has been pretty uptight because there are a lot of ins and outs, but I'll do my best to make a cohesive argument here.

My suspicion started with the announcement from Mayor Newsom that Google and Earthlink were teaming up to deliver free (and premium, for paying customers) wi-fi to the city of San Francisco. In order to provide the proper context for my line of thought, we must travel back in time to the summer of 2005:

When the brain and I moved into our current domicile a year and a half ago we decided to tithe to the technology gods at SBC (now AT&T) and get both telephone and DSL services. At the start of the last college football season (yes, I am a college football fanboy) we added Dish Network Satellite TV (billed through our AT&T account!). All these services are being provided through one outlet and the inter-operability between them is very 1.0, but it is interesting nonetheless. Our telephone line provides signals to our home that are translated by various devices that allow us to order movies, check email, surf the web, chat with friends, ignore calls from telemarketers (our DVR displays caller ID on our TV), etc.

The brain and I both have laptops and we use wi-fi in the house. Slowly, through the advent of software and features such as email, chat, newsreaders, personal multimedia managers, and skype we are migrating from our analog lives to the digital wonders of the internets. If it weren't for the fact that we need our phone line to keep DSL, we would have dropped our local phone service a long time ago. The Bell(s) with DSL services, cellular network providers with EVDO services, and cable/satellite TV providers with high speed internet access via cable modems all have a dog in this fight. But the high cost of DSL and Cable Internet as well as digital service plans offered by cellular network providers are prohibitively expensive and in this writer's opinion putting the full financial burden of making these services available on the consumer is the major failing of their business models. There are other ways.

Google, for instance, has developed a staggering number of amazing products and services available online. They don't put the burden of developing and maintaining these services on the end user by charging them for it, but rather they collect information about their users and advertise to them in order to generate revenue and remain profitable.

San Francisco's wi-fi initiative is a shot accross the bow of telco's, cellco's, and cable co's. Google and Earthlink have fired the first shot in this battle and could be reloading to launch a blitzkrieg style attack seen in the annals of history only by the likes of Poland, possibly even tomorrow.

Apple, a company so good at designing hardware and software so well integrated and feature rich that people lust over their products is less than 24 hours away from their signature event, MacWorld, where they typically release a lot of new products. This is where it gets interesting. Imagine: Google and Earthlink team up to provide freely available ubiquitous wi-fi service throughout the country & Apple unveils the iPhone and iTV (which is all but released, but may not get announced). If iTV and the iPhone have some version OSX installed (even a scaled down or mobile version) it could be game over for the telco's, cellco's, and cable co's.

I wouldn't need to pay for their overpriced services I would just log onto the free wi-fi with my iphone or iTV to check my mail, calendar, stock prices, or to make an iChat or Skype call. In order to take advantage of media rich content such as prime-time TV, movies, music, etc I would likely need to subscribe to the premium service. This would be a-okay with me as I would be saving at least $100 on my combined cable, internet, and cellular service bills each month, I can afford to splurge.

Whether Apple and Google would partner is dubious, some of their products are very complimentary and others are ostentatiously fierce competitors. Google's CEO recently joined Apple's board of directors... so that is food for thought. Even if they weren't partners, they will still make benefit for glorious products and partnerships of each company...

The biggest question is about the users and I think it is one that is being answered 28 hours a week in your average household. In order to keep wi-fi services free or relatively cheap and dominate the market, Google and Earthlink will have to collect a lot of information about who we are in our digital life so they can more effectively sell advertising. On the flip side users will have to be willing to put up with extremely targeted (some might say invasive) advertising to get access to the wi-fi network...

If you have a problem with being advertised to, I hope you don't plan to watch the SuperBowl. This Google Video site makes every commercial (55 by my count) from SuperBowl XL available for your viewing pleasure... At 30 seconds a pop (some are longer) and assuming they are only shown once (they aren't) I say I will have wasted at least 27.5 minutes of my life by the final whistle; The brain says I will have wasted at least 4 hours of my life; My parents just say I have wasted my life...

This is my pick for most creative ad from last year's SuperBowl. I suddenly feel like eating cow...

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Rubik's Cube Hint

2007-05-29T08:00:00.000-07:00

Pretty Crazy:

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Developing: Mac Shuffle Introduced

2007-05-30T08:18:00.000-07:00

***Developing***

In the ever present race to make computers smaller and smaller, a leak out of Cupertino informs us that Apple will introduce the Mac Shuffle. Currently, Apple desktops on offer include the Mac Pro, iMac, and Mac Mini. The Mac Shuffle is a natural extension of Apple's current line of desktop computers.

About the size of an iPod, the Mac Shuffle will include a 40GB Solid State HDD, 1GB RAM, and a 1.66GhZ Core2 Duo processor.

Running a stripped down version of OSX Leopard, the Shuffle will have a power button, sleep button, and skip forward button. When you first start up your shuffle a random application will be started and you can use it or use the skip forward button to cycle through your applications in random order.

I am sure we will be hearing more about this as the product creeps closer to launch, but one thing you can bet on is that people will swear there is nothing random about the order in which applications are skipped through...

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