Category: Site Related

Transition

It's been a long, odd transition to Fall from Summer. And I've been a bit quieter than I'd like here. But I hope that will change, for the better, soon. Web 2 is over, it was extraordinary. I am moving house, as they say in England, and will be…

It’s been a long, odd transition to Fall from Summer. And I’ve been a bit quieter than I’d like here. But I hope that will change, for the better, soon. Web 2 is over, it was extraordinary. I am moving house, as they say in England, and will be too busy to write this week. But that will change, and I hope you’ll stick with me as it does.

7 Comments on Transition

SIGN UP FOR THE NEWSLETTER

Stay up to date on the latest from BattelleMedia.com

Into the Cyclone…(Web 2)

I'm gathering up my stuff and driving over to SF this afternoon. I'll be hosting Web 2 for the next three and a half days, and I imagine posting will be light here. You can follow me on Twitter and also follow Web2Summit….

I’m gathering up my stuff and driving over to SF this afternoon. I’ll be hosting Web 2 for the next three and a half days, and I imagine posting will be light here. You can follow me on Twitter and also follow Web2Summit.

Leave a comment on Into the Cyclone…(Web 2)

So…Why Is Google Reminding Folks How to Block Advertisers…Now?

Check this out from the AdSense blog: When we notice a spike in readers who are interested in a specific topic, we like to address it as soon as we can. There's been some interest in filtering ads from publisher pages, so here's a quick refresher on the filtering…

Check this out from the AdSense blog:

When we notice a spike in readers who are interested in a specific topic, we like to address it as soon as we can. There’s been some interest in filtering ads from publisher pages, so here’s a quick refresher on the filtering tools we offer:

Competitive Ad Filter

You can restrict contextually-targeted and placement-targeted ads from appearing on your pages by adding the URL of each ad to your Competitive Ad Filter. After logging in to your account, click the AdSense Setup tab and visit the ‘Competitive Ad Filter’ page. You can also find full instructions and tips for entering in specific URLs in our Help Center. To determine the URL of an ad, try the AdSense Preview Tool or follow these steps. Please keep in mind that it may take several hours for the filter to take effect.

Look, I run a network of high end publishers, and many of them use Google and other remnant networks to backfill ad inventory. So I see this too. And I can give you exactly one reason why this came up. For those of you too lazy to click the link, Google came out against Proposition 8 a while back, and I applaud them for doing so. And the spike they are referring to? Most likely (I have not confirmed this) it’s because the Yes on Prop 8 folks are aggressively spending on Google right now, and a ton of publishers are seeing Yes on 8 ads on their site, and they don’t want to allow those ads.

For the record, I am openly against this proposition. If that means another group of readers (yeah, I am for Obama too) stop reading me because they think my views don’t fit theirs, well, sorry to see you go, folks. Most likely, most of you left me already given my views on the presidential electon. Somehow, I sense, in a decade or two, this will all seem like a pretty stupid debate.

Onwards.

8 Comments on So…Why Is Google Reminding Folks How to Block Advertisers…Now?

Web2 Comments Winners!

I couldn't pick three, so I went with four winners. I learned a lot from the hundred or so comments that came in, and I am busy preparing for the show next week. It was hard to narrow them down, but I had to. If you won, congrats! I'll…

I couldn’t pick three, so I went with four winners. I learned a lot from the hundred or so comments that came in, and I am busy preparing for the show next week. It was hard to narrow them down, but I had to. If you won, congrats!

I’ll be reaching out to the winners via email for their free We2 passes, but here are the comments!

* Dominic Son says:

* # October 22, 2008 11:57 PM

Read More
2 Comments on Web2 Comments Winners!

The LowJack Self-Perpetuating Road Warrior

I am really, really busy. So why did I just spend 20 minutes making a dream PC? Because I really want this machine. From my description: This is the continuation of my "Lowjack PC" idea, but now with bells and whistles. One of the things I am most worried…

http://www.wepc.com/dream/embed/1973
I am really, really busy. So why did I just spend 20 minutes making a dream PC? Because I really want this machine.

From my description:

This is the continuation of my “Lowjack PC” idea, but now with bells and whistles. One of the things I am most worried about is someone stealing my laptop. It’s got ALL my key info on it. I want my PC to know that I’m using it – ie, that it’s ME, and not anyone else. Keystroke analysis, camera-based pattern recognition, anyway…. Sure, I can always encrypt, etc. but that is a pain and can be foiled. Key feature is integrated cloud-based mirroring so if this thing is stolen, dropped, etc. I can just get another machine, verify my ID, and BAM, I have the same machine back. I want a computer that knows when it’s been stolen, connects to the web, reports it to the authorities (and to me!), knows where it is via GPS (a lowjack PC!) and perhaps, just for fun, it plays with the mind of the person who stole it through subtle system errors (oh, and yes, I want the ability to “tune” these hijinks!).

The key here is to work Road Warrior features into the OS of the machine itself. Not bolted on, but part of the machine’s “personality”. I think the key to the next generation of machines is to innovate on top of Windows (or the Mac OS, but I’m a realist there), just like folks innovate on top of the “Web OS”. This is a netbook, in a way, as well as a notebook, and it’s tuned for folks who travel a lot and have a lot of valuable data on their machine. For us, it’s not about the machine, it’s about the data. Protect it, but not at the expense of flexibility and power!
(Oh, and publicly bust the crook and humiliate him/her on a site like LOLCats).

2 Comments on The LowJack Self-Perpetuating Road Warrior

Web2 Conversations: Shai Agassi

Continuing my crowdsourcing of Web2 conversations (and this is nearly the last one), on the third day, and just a few hours after Elon Musk, I'll be talking to Shai Agassi, founder and CEO of Better Place, and former President at SAP. Agassi is yet another example of a…

Shai

Continuing my crowdsourcing of Web2 conversations (and this is nearly the last one), on the third day, and just a few hours after Elon Musk, I’ll be talking to Shai Agassi, founder and CEO of Better Place, and former President at SAP. Agassi is yet another example of a tech executive who left the IT industry to boil a new ocean, in this case, the automobile industry. Wired recently put Shai on the cover, his plan to “sell cars like cel phones” is audacious, and some say impossible.

Remember that I’m running a contest for best comments: I’ve decided to take three of my personal complementary passes to Web 2 – yes, even the Program Chair only gets so many – and give them to those who comment on my site about these Web 2 conversations. My decisions are entirely subjective, but I plan to pick the three best questions, and reward them with a fress pass – a street value of nearly $4000 each. Yes, commentators from the past six posts are already eligible:

Mark Zuckerberg

Jerry Yang

Larry Brilliant

Paul Otellini

Lance Armstrong

Read More
4 Comments on Web2 Conversations: Shai Agassi

I Support Barack Obama

…which should not be a surprise to regular readers of this site. I am on a list of "CEOs for Obama" and have been donating to Obama's campaign. Why am I posting this now? To a media/tech site? Well, I was inspired by Tim. Faced with these problems, we…

…which should not be a surprise to regular readers of this site. I am on a list of “CEOs for Obama” and have been donating to Obama’s campaign. Why am I posting this now? To a media/tech site? Well, I was inspired by Tim.



Faced with these problems, we need a president who can harness the best and brightest our country has to offer, a president who is conversant with, and comfortable with, the power of technology to assist in solving these problems, a president who is good at listening, studying, and devising solutions based on the best insight available, rather than on narrow ideology. We need a president who can forge consensus, not just among the partisans in our own fractured democracy but around the world. We need a president who can inspire our citizens and our global partners to forgo narrow self interest and embrace the possibilities that we can achieve if we work together to build a better future.

41 Comments on I Support Barack Obama

WePc.Com Launches

For the better part of a year, we at FM have been working on an innovative new project with Asus and Intel. Today it launched. WePC.com is an experiment in crowdsourcing an entirely new piece of hardware, and I'm very proud of the work we've done together. Check out…

Wepc

For the better part of a year, we at FM have been working on an innovative new project with Asus and Intel. Today it launched. WePC.com is an experiment in crowdsourcing an entirely new piece of hardware, and I’m very proud of the work we’ve done together.

Check out my first submission – the LowJackPC. The idea here is to gather the collective intelligence of PC users to help build a smarter, better machine. We’ve integrated all sorts of tools to help create a platform for ideas, including Grafitti, so you can draw it. But I’m terrible at drawing, so for now, my PC doesn’t have any pictures. I should fix that.

Anyway, here’s the release on the program. From it:



Consumers become product designers at WePC.com, a Web site launched today by Intel Corporation and ASUS. WePC.com is where consumers can collaborate with each other and with Intel and ASUS to design innovative new products. The plan is for the two companies to deliver to market what could be the world’s first community-designed PCs.

Read More
4 Comments on WePc.Com Launches

Web2 Conversations: Elon Musk

On the third day of Web 2 next week, I'll be sitting down with Elon Musk. Now, depending on your age and level of interest, Elon is either A) a co-founder of PayPal, b) founder of SpaceX, c) the guy behind Tesla, d) the guy behind Solar City, or…

Elon

On the third day of Web 2 next week, I’ll be sitting down with Elon Musk. Now, depending on your age and level of interest, Elon is either A) a co-founder of PayPal, b) founder of SpaceX, c) the guy behind Tesla, d) the guy behind Solar City, or e) the guy behind all four.

Elon is truly a “Web Meets World” kind of guy (and yes, that’s the theme of Web 2 this year).

He’s bringing his Tesla to the event, and participating in our auction to boot. I’m looking forward to what I am sure will be an eclectic conversation, in particular given that later in the day I’ll be talking with Shai Agassi, who has something of a competing auto startup going in Better Place.

Read More
8 Comments on Web2 Conversations: Elon Musk

Web2 Conversations: Lance Armstrong

Next up in our ongoing tour of conversations at Web 2 next week is Lance Armstrong, the seven time winner of the Tour de France, who recently announced his "de-reitrement" and is going for an eighth win. This appearance, a dinner conversation on day one, is one of Lance's…

Lance

Next up in our ongoing tour of conversations at Web 2 next week is Lance Armstrong, the seven time winner of the Tour de France, who recently announced his “de-reitrement” and is going for an eighth win. This appearance, a dinner conversation on day one, is one of Lance’s only public appearances since he announced his comeback. He’s also an internet entrepreneur, having launched Livestrong.com, a health site, earlier this summer.

This should be quite a unique opportunity to talk to one of the world’s most extraordinary people. Remember my new contest: I’ve decided to take three of my personal complementary passes to Web 2 – yes, even the Program Chair only gets so many – and give them to those who comment on my site about these Web 2 conversations. My decisions are entirely subjective, but I plan to pick the three best questions, and reward them with a fress pass – a street value of nearly $4000 each. Yes, commentators from the past four posts are already eligible:

Mark Zuckerberg

Jerry Yang

Larry Brilliant

Paul Otellini

Read More
24 Comments on Web2 Conversations: Lance Armstrong