I spoke, this morning, with political consultant about social networking optimization. We are working on some ideas for a company that he is starting.

And then an idea popped into my head regarding search engine optimization (SEO) and Social networking optimization (SNO):

> SEO is for companies.  SNO is for individuals.

SNO is about YOU.  It's about optimizing your communications on the Web.

And it's not just for getting more traffic to a website, it's about reaching an audience, spreading your wisdon and gaining influence.

More ideas about SNO coming soon...

 
This is the second post in a series about Social Networking Optimization (SNO) aka Social Media Optimization.  I am attempting to flesh out some ideas regarding social networking for personal marketing and career/business advancement. Previous posts in this series are located here.

CC Sabathia doubles home Hardy and Fielder as the Crew down the Astros.

I'm working on a series of posts regarding "social media optimization" (SMO), also referred to as "social networking optimization" (SNO). I've been involved with a few projects recently that combine Feed.Us with social networking to help sell services or a product.  It's an area that has recently captured a lot of my attention.

WHAT IS IT?

You've probably heard of search engine optimization (SEO).  That's the act of optimizing a website so that Google (and the other search engines) can index a website easily and thus accumulate extra website visitors (traffic) "naturally" (without paying for it). 

SMO/SNO is the act of optimizing your social networking actions and communications to accrue more traffic to your site.  It can also be used to gain more notoriety amongst your network. 

Some examples:

> Forward a link to your Facebook friends about something you're involved with
> Upload a video to a variety of video sharing sites
> Use "Digg.com" to promote your website
> Blog daily about a subject matter in which you are an expert.

Sure you might have done something like the above before.  However, SMO is a calculated effort to mazimize your online social networks for personal and career gain. 

I will, hopefully, add a series of posts about SMO/SNO over the next 2 weeks.

I was on the NPR show "The Takeaway" to discuss the Favre situation.  Don't ask me how they found me, I have no clue.  But I'm more than happy to complain about my hero.  Click the "play" button to listen. 

The price of a barrel of oil has dropped almost $15 in the last 9 days.  That's like 10% drop in a week!

I can't stop thinking about a editorial that ran in the WSJ three weeks ago about the role of "perception" in the oil market, by Martin Feldstein.  Nutshell: Dr. Feldstein said that the perception of higher oil prices (at that time it was $140) drives speculation and pushes our prices higher, not demand. But, that some simple changes in perception will cause the price to sink and that price change will will then trigger a larger supply.  He's the economist so I'll quote him:

"When will an owner of oil reduce production or increase inventories instead of selling his oil and converting the proceeds into investible cash? A simplified answer is that he will keep the oil in the ground if its price is expected to rise faster than the interest rate that could be earned on the money obtained from selling the oil. The actual price of oil may rise faster or slower than is expected, but the decision to sell (or hold) the oil depends on the expected price rise...

...Hence, with no change in the current demand for oil, the expectation of a greater future demand and a higher future price caused the current price to rise. Similarly, credible reports about the future decline of oil production in Russia and in Mexico implied a higher future global price of oil – and that also required an increase in the current oil price to maintain the initial expected rate of increase in the price of oil.

Once this relation is understood, it is easy to see how news stories, rumors and industry reports can cause substantial fluctuations in current prices – all without anything happening to current demand or supply."

So how has perception changed? Well, it looks like we may get drilling in the US at some point in the future.  "May" and "some point".  Very powerful words - 10% drop!

The airlines drop flights. JoshJS sells his car.  People stop driving to starbucks.  SUV sales are in the dump (used small cars currently sell for more than similar mileage used SUVs). 

Huge changes in US demand caused what? The price to continue to go up!  But the annoucement that the US may start drilling at some point in the future and the price drops 10%!

I spoke to my dad about that editorial tonight. Of course he perfectly summarized the article.  He also added: "I bet that oil is under $100 soon". Interesting bet.  

Again if you have a subscription to the WSJ online, go read that editorial. It was great. 

Another house project.

Congrats to Ryan Hunter-Reay on his win today at the Watkins Glen Indycar race.

Ryan now has wins on oval, street and road circuits. 

The Mini Me (my 1 year old) is airplane-crazy.  And because of which, we are desperately awaiting this summer's Milwaukee Lakefront Air Expo.  Of course, that is, if it's still on.  We don't know.  The Thunderbirds say it's on. But there's no other reference to it, anywhere.  Wikipedia says it's off, due to lack of sponsor.

So I decided to call the old sponsor, TCF Bank, and ask them WTF?  Well, that was a mistake.

They're based in Minneapolis.  But there's no local business office number, except for a customer service line.  The customer service line is IMPOSSIBLE to get through without being a customer because you have to have an account number.  How do they get new customers, I wonder?

I finally got through only by incorrectly entering an account number that I don't have. The customer support rep. had no clue and was (surprisingly) instantly annoyed that I didn't have a problem for her.  She seemed relieved, actually and enjoyed telling me that she couldn't help me. When I asked her what I could do, she told me that I could hang up.  It's against policy to give out any kind of corporate information that would allow me to call the main folks in Minnesota (which I quickly found on their website).

The last thing I did was try to explain that banks make money by bringing in new customers, and since I wasn't a customer, I was an active candidate. "I don't deal with people who aren't customers" she explained.

At the very least I know not to bother setting up an account with TCF for any business stuff. 

Yes, we all will miss Tim Russert.  He was a giant. He will be missed this fall, surely.

But my goodness...  he wasn't President.  NBC get over yourself.

And meanwhile, Katrina part deux is taking out the Midwest.  People out here are losing everything.  Des Moines looks like New Orleans.

But back to Tim's legacy and how you can prevent heart disease.

Update:  Slate agrees!! 

So you want to move your blog outta typepad/blogger?

Congrats, you can't: the URLs are stuck in Google.  

(Fred Wilson has the best description of this problem.) 

There are two options, here:

1. Borrow the Typepad URL for a few months.

2. Call Google and have them update their PageRank for you.

Obviously, neither of these are viable. What do you do?  I don't know, but I'm searching for a solution. 

I'm offering a bounty: If you've got the answer, I'll pay you $1000.  You don't have to do the work - just tell me how it can be done.

email me at rick at feed dot us or comment.

I'm kind of addicted to Twitterbots.  I love the idea of crowd publishing for recreational endeavors like food, wine, books, music.  Anything where there's a huge supply and there's a need for recommendations.  Mkefood and NYCfood are now live and working.  Twit your food and restaurant recommendations for those cities, please.

Meanwhile, last week, I created WineTweets for Fred Wilson.  There are now almost 300 people following WineTweets and almost 100 wine suggestions.

The next one is BookTweets.  What are you reading? 

Also, keep track of twitter bots via TwitterBotting. 

Final stats on our Santa Fe Century:

> 103 miles

> 4000 ft of climbing.  Elevations changes from 5900 feet to 7300 feet

> 4 PB&Js, 3 cliff bars. 12 bottles of water.

> 6:04 of riding with 30 minutes of stops.

> Bad sunburn on the arms

Check out the photos and video on Flickr. 

I'm adding photos and videos (via the Flip) to this flickr set. Check it out.

On Sunday, I'm riding the Santa Fe Century in Santa Fe, New Mexico.  It includes the 15-20% grade, 1/4 mile "heart break hill".

Below is the embed code from MapMyRun.com, a very cool google mapping service.  I'm going to download the map to my bike's gps as well.

Btw, when you wake up on Sunday morning, think of us as you're having that second donut (Ollie!).

I regularly get the "This disc is unreadable" error on the old xbox.  It happens pretty often.  It's pretty annoying.  

Since I got GTA4 (which is AWESOME!! LOVE IT!), it's been happening more often.

It's not a disc problem. It happened withing 5 minutes of putting the new DVD in the xbox.   It's a problem with the harddrive.

But not according to Microsoft!! Read here... Only causes that MS admits to are disc related.  That's bulls*%t.

It only happens with more intense game, like GTA4.  It only happens when the game is loading.  My theory is that the xbox HD heats up and can't hack it and then gives the error.

(I still love my xbox btw.) 

Every time I talk about Chipotle, someone goes, ‘Oh, Chipotle is delicious. Can you believe they were started by McDonald’s?’

Hello?!  McDonald’s is delicious, so yes... I can believe that. 

It’s not like Ben and Jerry’s opened up a lingerie shop. The world’s greatest restaurant chain taking a stab at another kind of food and hitting it out of the park.

- Todd Barry 

I'm addicted to Twitter.

I like short, simple, small, writing.  I have 4 kinds of posts:
> "here's what I'm doing even if you don't care"
> "I know some piece of news that you probably heard 3 hours ago"
> "I'm so funny and so very smart"
> Also the "look who I'm @ replying, I'm so important!"

All kidding aside, I try really hard to avoid posting things that are useless.  And I try very hard to be humorous.  And I am going to try to post some smart shit, too.  

I've also met some interesting people via Twitter. I am connected to other folks in MKE with web/software/media interests and actually made it to an event last week - all because of Twitter.

The main thing I like?  Twitter has opened up my eyes to the beauty of SMS.

Everyone can SMS.  Everyone has a phone.  It's short/simple and everyone has it.  So it's GIGANTIC.

I have begun to think about the services that can be built on SMS.  The first step is to build a couple Twitter services.  I'm trying to find someone to help me play with the Twitter API for this.

We're going to have a SMS adaption for Feed.Us.  An editor could approve content or a writer could make a breaking news story from a phone.  We'll probably use Twitter for some part of this.

But I've also begun to think of an SMS service that I want to build or would love if someone built.  Basically I want to use SMS to send and recall information to a central storage area. When my thoughts are more flushed out, I'm going to write a longer post.  But basically I'd want to be able to use SMS to send myself information and then be able to recall it later.  Example: I can never remember my car's license plate number.  I want to be able to text "recall car plate" and get it back via an SMS within seconds.  

I think the above service could be built on Twitter.  But maybe it should be on its own?

I just bought these domains - can you explain the relevance?

FRANKLINDELANOROMANAWSKI.COM
KRUGERINDUSTRIAL.NET
KRUGERINDUSTRIALSMOOTHING.NET
PENDANTPUBLISHING.NET
TYLERCHICKEN.COM

I made a few MP3 ringtones out of some college fight song wave files.  Feel free to download...

Michigan's Let's Go Blue and Hail to the Victors 

Notre Dame's Victory March

Wisconsin's  On Wisconsin and the Bud Song (you said it all)

USC's Fight On

Illinois' Oskee Wow Wow (for Jake) 

To download: point your phone to http://tachophobia.com/wireless/detail.asp?c=5315 .  Most phones should allow you to click on the link for the song and then, via the browser, download and install any MP3 as a ringtone.  It's especially easy to do with a blackberry, btw.

Lots of folks have written recently about pricing software & services at $0. 

Meanwhile, I spent some time today playing with the new Streetview Google maps for Milwaukee.  What a wonderful, useful and entertaining service.  All for free.  But Google can offer great crap like Streetview because they're so profitable on search. 

We've been working on our business model for feed.us.  Guess what? Feed.Us is going to be free.  It will be a simplified version. And we'll probably reserve the right to display small ads at the bottom of our customer's content.  But it will be free and still take advantage of our cache web service.

The main reason to offer Feed.Us for free is to let potential customers sign up and start using feed.Us easily/quickly.  The idea that we host the content and feed it to outside sites seems to be very illogical to a lotta people.  We'll have trouble getting people to try it unless there are very few strings attached.

So, all hail free! 

I have been fascinated by Microsoft's hostile takeover bid for Yahoo.  I find myself reading dozens of articles about the deal.  Probably because it's similar to last summer's Midwest-Value Jet takeover bid (which thankfully failed).

Mostly it's because I own a bit of GOOG and MSFT. 

The article that caused me to blog is this one by NY Times' Randall Stross. 

This is such a defining moment for Microsoft and Balmer.  They've got such a great business.  Vista is just kicking in and contributing to earnings.  They can't keep Xboxes in stock and XBox live is growing.  They've got people crying.  

But they can't seem to get anywhere near Google in search.  It's almost as if it just kills them to lose out to Google.  So they are going all in.

If they start to compete, it'll be great for MSFT and probably good for GOOG too.  But I worry that all they are doing is increasing their desire to not fail.  And trying not to fail is always a good way to fail.

Wisconsin primary is today, in case you didn't know.  We've got two primaries, here: President and Milwaukee Alderman.

Wisconsin is an open primary and with the lack of Republican battle...  I voted for Clinton to offset my wife's vote for Obama.  (I've never voted for a Clinton before.  Hope I don't have to do it again.)

I also voted for McGovern! 

Maybe I'm becoming a liberal? I came home and listened to some Springsteen...  

God help me before I start wanting more taxes!

A new photo via Engadet of the new Google android.

If I was starting something new today, it would be to make web applications for iphone, blackberry and android.

There are not many applications that truly combine the web with the medium.  I sound like a broken record, but that blackberry facebook app is the best example.  

At first glance, I was pretty excited about the potential deal.  With apologies to my friends at Google, I would like to see a little competition.  Especially an Adsense/Adwords competitor.

At second glance however... what a mess!

Microsoft: MSN, Live, Hotmail, Windows Messenger, City Guides, Money, Music (zune)... etc.

Yahoo: mail, Yahoo! Messenger, Flickr, MyYahoo, Travel/shoppping/autos, sports, movies, music, delicious, Hotjobs, Finance, etc.

Search is the key. They've got to create a powerful combined search service.  They need a search/adwords/adsense competitor that works. Overture and YPN suck but they're better than MS's version.

What to do with the rest of those services? Music, finances, mail.   Each one of those services has tons of customers.  Example... You can't cut Hotmail or Yahoo mail... yet you don't want to keep the status quo.  

Then there's stuff like Flickr and Delicious, things that were never really integrated (and probably not great buys).  Do these get spun off?

And what do you call stuff?  MSN sucks.  But you can't rename MS stuff as "Yahoo".  Do you make a new Cingular-style name?

Seems like a big mess.

Update: Gotta love Umair: 

It's not often that we get to witness fatal errors. Strategic errors, sure.  But bona fide fatal - company-killing, firm-vaporizing errors - errors? Almost never - they're the strategic equivalent of meteor strikes.

The Academy Award nominees were announced this morning and two Conn College Camels are competing for the documentary award.   Both are members of the class of 1996 and I am proud to say that I was friends with both!

18. Documentary Feature: "No End in Sight," "Operation Homecoming: Writing the Wartime Experience," "Sicko," "Taxi to the Dark Side," "War/Dance." 

Sean Fine's "War/Dance" is competing against Jesse Vogelson's "No End in Sight". 

Good luck to both!!

Over the holiday week I downloaded and installed the Facebook blackberry application.  Now I've tried dozens of applications on my blackberry and none of them live up to the blackberry's email abilities.

But this facebook application is different. 

As a married guy, I don't really use Facebook that much.  It's basically just for reconnecting with friends.  So the facebook blackberry app isn't that useful to me.  So that's not why I was impressed.  I was impressed because someone figured out how to intergrate facebook into a blackberry.  

Best example is the Facebook "site mail".  I'm always annoyed that I get an email to my inbox whenever someone emails me within facebook.  Then I have to go to the facebook site to view the email.  Well on the blackberry, there's a little facebook icon whenever there's a message (or friend request).  Open the blackberry app and read/reply to the email.  It's actually better. Viewing profiles works pretty well too.  I have to say: it's very cool. 

Why hasn't anyone else come up with great applications like this?  If I could start any new company right now, it would be to make Blackberry applications.  Applications that work like RIM's email system. Applications like:

Sports: I would love a sports scores that gives me score updates as they happen - just like RIM email. (ESPN's blackberry version is just a link to their mobile website.  It's not an application.)  

Financial:  I would love to get all my stock prices on my blackberry... not a mobile webpage but work like RIM email.   

News:  Headlines on my blackberry from AP, google news or even Drudge?  Have it look/work just like the RIM email.

RSS reader:  I use NewsGator on my blackberry all the time. And it works pretty well.  But again, it doesn't utilize the Blackberry.  I'm sure they built it for all mobile phones.  

Again this is part of the reason I think that 2008 is going to be the year of the mobile web. 

I made some t-shirts with a Feed.Us logo via CafePress.com.  I was hoping to send them as Christmas gifts.

So the order arrived with just one t-shirt.  Not the 10 I had ordered.  One shirt.  

(BTW, it looked great. MUCH better than the ones I made at t-shirts.com.)

So I called them up to find out just exactly what happened.  The customer service person informed me that they'd send the remaining shirts, at no cost!

What nice folks - FREE SHIPPING on something that I'd already paid for!  Thank goodness!

As I usually do when someone screws up an order... make it up to me.  I asked the customer service rep that, since the ONE shirt looked so nice, give me a discount and I'll order some more?

"Well, I already gave you free shipping" was the reply.  Oh, yeah... You're right, that was already a great deal for me. 

Why don't companies empower their customer service people to offer great customer service? Why not give your people flexibility?  If you think you've got a great product or service, why not make it easy for your customer service people to extend that greatness to their roles as well?

Howard Schultz to Larry King in 1997 interview: 

“People weren’t drinking coffee. ... So the question is, How could a company create retail stores where coffee was not previously sold, ... charge three times more for it than the local doughnut shop, put Italian names on it that no one can pronounce, and then have six million customers a week coming through the stores?”

Great article. 

As last year's recipient, I want to first congratulate him.  It's a true honor.  Maybe you should take this award to heart and start thinking about your country's freedoms, eh Vladimir??

Here's an update on the strange boat that ran aground off of our part of Lake Michigan in October.

Basically a Czech dude, named Pavel Bernek, bought the 30 foot sailboat in Chicago and planned to sail it to the Mediterranean (from Lake Michigan) to pick up his girlfriend.  Instead he ran aground right off Milwaukee's east side (North of Bradford Beach).

The guy fled to Europe leaving the strange, half sunk craft in our neighborhood.  It's been a fascinating sight for many passersby and even has snarled traffic.

Finally yesterday a local salvage company sawed the boat into pieces hauled it out and put it on a flat bed truck. The Journal Sentinel has the full story here. We thank Pirate's Cove Diving company for taking care of this.

The Journal Sentinel also has some great time lapse video of how they finally got it out.  Very cool stuff. 

Testing the way we import from Blogger.  This post comes from this blogger account.  It's imported to Tachophobia via Feed.Us.

Works perfectly.  Damn! 

I spent about 30 minutes too long in my local Walmart, today.  (The Walmart on Capitol Dr. is a scary place - people begging inside the joint.)  

I was hoping to find a copy of a new Xbox game, of course.  Usually Walmart has video games that the other retailers don't.

The "associate" informed me that they indeed had several copies but it was "impossible" to find them.  After a perfunctory search - the associate gave up.  And so I kept my $59.

Compare that with my trip to the dentist yesterday. My denist is always pushing new procedures on me.  Drilling, filling, crowning, cleaning, whitening.  She must have a lot of equipment to pay for.   (She is a good dentist, btw).

So, what's the difference?  It's not a rhetorical question - I would love to know more about encouraging people to sell and service current and future customers.

At 1871 Media, our pricing structure and software made it a pain to do new or more work for customers.  I'm sure the situation was similar to Walmart, at times. It was frustrating and I fell into the trap at times as well. 

Next time (FeedUs) we'll have a product that makes us love to do more work.  

I did a quick redesign of Tachophobia today.

I'm importing RSS feeds into Feed.Us and it has made the site a little confusing.  So instead of putting all of the content down the center, I changed everything up.  It really wasn't a redesign, because my CSS and XHTML didn't change. No, it was more of a content layout change.  I changed what Feed.Us feeds are being displayed and where.

Down the center, I've got the latest stuff from my site and from the FeedUsBlog.com.  Both of these orginate in Feed.Us and are syndicated to this site and the FeedusBlog via the Feed.us  web service. Then along the right, I'm pulling RSS feeds from Flickr and Twitter, and then reformating them using our web service.  (Also I made a new "XSL" that adds the "MORE..." as a link in every article 'teaser'.)

Probably the biggest change is that I've got the latest stories prominently on the top of the main page. 

Also, I made some new RSS feeds that are being used in different spots.  There's one that goes to Twitterfeed and posts all my main articles to Twitter. Then there's the old one... but it now pulls my photos from flickr, my twitters and my delicious bookmarks. 

I haven't really updated this site since I added the RSS importing functionality.  The site feels a bit neglected so here are some thoughts...

Importing Feeds:
I am working on a redesign of the content on this page.  I've been thinking about it for a while.  The feeds coming from Flickr and Twitter and Feedusblog need to have their own space.  Going to try to work on that this morning.

Ryan Braun:
I hope he  gets rookie of the year.  He saved the Crew from a miserable finish.

Packers:
No one... NO ONE would have picked the Pack to be 8-1 at this point.  Ridiculous!!   I keep waiting for the shoe to drop, and they keep reeling off wins.  Carolina at home, then Thursday games vs. Detroit and Dallas.  Going to lose at least one of those... I predict a 12-4 finish.  

Miller:
The merger with Coors is not good for Milwaukee.  If you live in Milwaukee you realize that it's a great place to live/work.  But if you're not from here you have no clue.  So guess what?  No way will Milwaukee win the Miller Coors headquarters.  Book it - they will be in Denver and I don't blame them.  Sad because it's like 300 people, and about 100 executives, many of whom are young and smart and we'll lose them again.  (As long as we can keep GE Healthcare, we'll be ok.) 

UPDATE: Ryan Braun named NL Rookie of the Year!! 

My site had finally worked its way up to #5 in Google... after 4 years of hard work.  Suddenly on Monday, it's back to like #30.

The only change I made was to insert the "no follow" attribute into all the outbound links.  I did that so that Google doesn't think I'm selling links, which I don't.  I did it per the official google blog and after the last PageRank update.

I wonder... because I now have so many no follows on my links... that they think "gee he sure sells links" and dinged me? 

UPDATE:  Back to normal by Friday.  Ranked 4th again.  Weird. 

A sailboat ran aground off of Bradford Beach.  It's been there for about a week. But with 50 MPH winds tonight... probably not going to be there tomorrow.

Full story here.

Welborn has been finishing up our new RSS Importing.  You'll notice on this site there's now Twitter posts and Flickr photos.  I'm also going to add an RSS of a specific tag in Delicious. (Jake - we could now do Saved Stuff even better.)

It's the first step in our importing project.  The goal with importing is so that our customers don't have to use Feed.Us to use Feed.Us. We hope that our customers can assemble sites from a variety of sources.  I think the big use is to allow writers to publish via their own favorite source, and then send an RSS feed to their editors.   (Next, we're going to do Metaweblog synching as well. Metaweblog would be really cool because you could 'pull' content from a variety of different CMSes and Blog systems, or use a variety of different publishing applications.  Then assemble and syndicate all that stuff to wherever you want.)

There are few tweaks left (not bugs, tweaks) on this RSS stuff, but email me for info. 

Update 1: The only problem I see, right now, is that Twitter seems to put the entire tweet in both the headline and the body of the RSS. Weird.

Update 2: I just saw that Tumblr got funding. Tumblr is a really neat blogging tool.  Basically it lets you 'reblog' all the stuff you create in other places and assemble it on one Tumblr blog website.

They import RSS like Feed.Us does.  Try it out.

As you are probably aware, the US Congress is set to have a full vote about the Armenian Genocide.  Per the bill, it's just a US Congressional "recognition" of the Armenian Genocide by the Ottoman Empire between 1914-1920.  But to the 1.5 Armenians spread across the US (more than actually live in Armenia), it means more - a lot more.  Armenians have been working on this since before Clinton.  Never has our government tried to force the world to officially acknowledge the Armenian Genocide, even though it is generally considered the first genocide of the 20th century.  (Here's some good background info about the bill via USNews.)

So Erdogan responded via last Friday's Wall Street Journal.  Here is the editorial.  Reminds me a lot of what Sudan President Hassan says about what has gone on in Darfur.  

This part is the most offensive:

Many Turks lost their lives during the mutual killings. And despite an onslaught of Armenian terror that lasted decades and took many innocent Turkish lives (including in the U.S.) Turkey has always been the one extending the olive branch.

That quote is insanely offensive.  However, his threats look to be working: previous supporters are suddenly losing interest in the bill. 

Eventually, someday, it will pass. 

If you don't know much about the Armenian Genocide, here are a few links:

Wikipedia

ABC News' the forgotten

University of Minnesota's Center for the study of Genocides

PS: FYI, I am a little fearful of what Turkish hackers will do to my sites when they read this.  This is not a joke - I've had run-ins in the past. 

If you happen to be in beautiful New London, CT on Friday afternoon, stop by the "Plugged In" panel at good old Conn College. 

It'll be me, Andrew Margie (CSTV.com), Luke Beatty (AssociatedContent.com), Anne Holland (MarketingSherpa.com) and Tim Armstrong (Google).   

From Boston Globe:

No more waiting to bear witness to genocide truth

October 15, 2007

FOUR GENERATIONS of my family (of which I am the third) would not exist were it not for the courage and strength of one woman: my great-grandmother, Azneve Ohanian. As a 9-year-old girl, she marched through the deserts of Der-el-Zor with her infant brother strapped to her back, while the rest of her villagers were raped, mutilated and massacred by Turkish soldiers.

It was more than 90 years ago; the Ottoman Empire no longer exists. But its successor, the Republic of Turkey, shares in the human obligation to acknowledge the past. If we let Turkey erase it, how long until we erase Croatia? Burundi? Rwanda? Darfur?

The White House argues that now is not the "right time" for the United States to speak on this chapter of history ("Genocide vote sets a face-off with Bush," Page A1, Oct. 11). And Turkey, in keeping with its longstanding policy of intense lobbying and indignant posturing, has suggested that repercussions could be felt by American troops in Iraq should the resolution acknowledging the genocide pass the House.

I am not so incensed as to ignore the resolution's less-than-ideal timing. But I wonder when it will be the "right time," because in the last 90 years, we have yet to find it convenient. Perhaps, for the truth, it is always the right time.

When it began, the final solution to the Armenian question was "annihilation." Later, it was "a tragedy." Today, it is "unfortunate."

What will it be tomorrow?

DEREK J. JOHNSON
Brighton

Below is a summary of a couple of conversations I had about Facebook and use/impact for college administrators.

Facebook was created to network students together.  Conn College had a facebook before there was a facebook. (Tim Harrington utilized our 1992 facebook in order to find freshmen babes... Right, Timmy??).

Here are some thoughts on to effectively utilize Facebook for communications and networking amongst college alumni and students:

Facebook is the leader: 

Facebook is by far the best software platform for connecting people that are within a community (Myspace and Linkedin do better jobs of connecting people from independent communities).  It's by far the best way to connect students, alumni, administrators, etc.  It's way better than anything you could ever make.  And it will continue to improve.

That being said, Facebook is in the middle of a large bubble.  It's not really worth $100 billion dollars or whatever the news is reporting.  It's a bit of a fad.

Here's the big deal with Facebook: It has a wonderful audience of teens and 20 year olds.  90% of the students in classes 2011-2002 are not only going to have a "profile" but they're going to be logging in to Facebook daily.   And the older folks will continue to join Facebook, though probably never be more than like 50%.

The bottom line is that Facebook will be the best way to reach the people who are class of 2001 and younger.  You'll still need to use email and snail-mail to reach the older folks. 

How to use Facebook to reach students, alumni, etc:

Your network's page:

Each Facebook "network" (your college, your city, your work place)  has its own page. Conn's page is here.  Community members can post a lot of information to that page.  Events, discussions, even pay for "Flyers" that are a form of Facebook ads.  This is a great way to reach out to your network's members... however not many people realize they can go to that page.  

Groups:

Anyone can make a group in Facebook.  A "Group" is a network within a network or a network that compasses multiple networks.  Example:  "All Because of U2" is a U2 fan group.  Anyone can join.  I created a group within the Conn community called "Conn people in web" for students and alumni that are working in tech/software/media etc.  Only folks within the Conn network can join.  The downside is that it's kind of hard to promote a group, it has to grow by word of mouth.  But once you have a decent amount of members, it's pretty easy to publish news to your group.

Applications:  

The new Facebook "applications" are another way you can reach students, alumni etc.  Outside developers can build small programs that will exist in the Facebook system.  These "applications" can be added to Facebook members profile pages.  The popular applications involve animation, video, travel maps, photo, music related stuff, etc.  

A college or university could create applications for publishing news, events or even fund raising.  This area of Facebook needs further exploration - the application stuff is still very new.  

From the WSJ:

We hate to be the bearers of good news, but someone's got to do it: The Congressional Budget Office has released its preliminary estimates for Fiscal Year 2007 that ended September 30, and the federal budget deficit fell again, this time by 35% to $161 billion.

I was taught, repeatedly, by my Conn College professors that "trickle down" "voodoo" economics didn't work.  How many times were we told that the tax cuts early in Bush's presidency were going to wreck the deficit?  Too bad it's all bull----... the tax cuts spurred the economy and generated higher returns for the IRS.  It's one of the few successful ideas out of GW Bush's tenure.

The WSJ continues:

The overriding lesson here is that the best antidote for deficits is faster growth, not tax increases. The budget deficit has declined more rapidly this decade in the wake of the Bush tax cuts than it did in the 1990s in the wake of the Clinton tax increases.

So if you're a liberal and you feel guilty about having money, what should you do? Easy, cite the US poverty rate! Clinton, who reduced the deficit the right way, reduced the poverty rate as well!  While Bush's tax cuts increased the poverty rate.  From Wikipedia:

The official poverty rate in the U.S. increased for four consecutive years, from a 26-year low of 11.3% in 2000 to 12.7% in 2004, then declined somewhat to 12.3% in 2006. This means that 36.5 million people were below the official poverty thresholds in 2006 and that there was an increase of 4.9 million poor from 2000 to 2006 while the total population grew by 17.5 million. ^[12]

It's up 1% during the first 2/3 George Bush's tenure!  That must mean that he does all those tax cuts for the wealthy.

So when Hilary and her Congress takes power next year...  we should all feel enough shame about our money and give in to tax increases, especially on the rich because it's such a large group of people who don't do anything with their money anyhow!  Let the government distribute it for us.  We can all feel so much better about ourselves, and we won't even have to give more money to charities!

More on Bush's tax cuts from DircktheNoorman. 

My neighbor (5 blocks away, luckily) was involved in a very strange incident.  He and family were held at sawed-off-shotgun-point for an hour one evening last week by an extremely large black man.  The guy tried to rob them of cash, but after a few beers took off with just a laptop and iPhone.  No police were called; instead the guy calls the mayor the following day.  Still, almost 2 weeks later... police are not investigating because he won't let them.

The man in question is John Jazwiec, CEO of Red Prairie  (probably the only big software company in Wisconsin, btw). He's been a vocal critic against Milwaukee's taxes (ridiculously high taxes) and services (poor services).  Supposedly he's scared of the police too (the local police are really good, actually but don't visit our neighborhood often because not much goes on here).

Here's the background for you, if you are interested.  First is a J-S article.  The second is a summary of the emails sent between Jazwiec and the Mayor's office.

http://www.jsonline.com/story/index.aspx?id=670875
http://freedomeden.blogspot.com/2007/10/john-jazwiec-and-not-your-typical-thug.html

Here are the things that our neighbors are asking each other...

1. What piece of information is missing.

2. Would someone fake a robbery in order to bring more attention to city's problems?

3. His next door neighbor was robbed and the police immediately caught the suspects.  He obviously knew this.  Still he's skeptical of the police?

I've recently installed the blackberry twitter application.  Pretty nice - works really well. 

It got me thinking about other blackberry applications.  NewsGator's blackberry feedreader works pretty well.  Google Maps on my bb saved my ass a couple weeks ago.

I tried to download a blackberry google calendar sync program.  It didn't install for me because my BB has older java software.  But everyone seems to think that it works fine. 

I would love an IM application that uses the blackberry network.  Is there one out there that works on a cingular phone?  

What about sports scores? That's the killer app. Why do I have to log on to the web to get the latest scores?  Why can't it connect and get the scores for me like it downloads emails?  And news headlines? Or a fantasy sports monitor?  I'd pay for that.

There's definitely opportunities out there.

I've been using Twitter pretty regularly.  It's starting to change the way I use this site.  In fact, I don't post as much.  All my stupid crap that no one wants to read goes into my Twitter posts.

Soon we'll be adding the ability to import RSS feeds into Feed.Us. That means our customers actually won't have to use Feed.Us to use Feed.Us.

As soon as that happens, I think I'll change this blog so that it's just a bunch of my RSS feeds... flickr, Twitter, feedusblog.com, Packerbackerblog etc.  This site can be a summary of what I'm publishing.

Meanwhile, I am starting to write more thought-out crap over on the feedusblog.  My first one was last week - how to add video.   I've started keeping track of the things people ask advise for... like ecommerce, html newsletters, what to do with those domain names you bought years ago, make an RSS feed, get on iTunes, that kind of thing. 

Anyway, look for this site to change, soon. 

Update: just changed my twitter to FeedUs.

Question:

For a while now we've been wanting to start shooting digital video and placing it on the Web site alongside our stories. We're planning to start small -- 30 second video interviews, sound clips, etc.  Can you give me an overview of how to get started?

My answer:

On September 9, 2001, Keeks and I were in engaged in NYC.  We flew back to Chicago late Sunday.  A weekend of food, engagement, US Open, more food, Yankees/Sox.  What a great weekend.

All that changed on the following Tuesday.  I was at my desk in our apartment that overlooked the Hancock and the Sears.  Right in the middle of my view was our TV - tuned to the Today Show.  Keeks was about to leave for work - she never went.  The Today Show switched the cameras to the Towers.  I remember wondering whether it was live or not (The Today Show is taped for non Eastern timezone markets).  

I immediately tried to call Josh Metnick Schneider and make sure he was out of the Hancock.  We thought for sure the Sears or Hancock was next. To this day, I feel a fright every time I see a 767 flying overhead. 

We were so far away from NYC but we felt so close. 

The car I most want to own is regularly on my mind. 

But the car's details regularly change.  Viper GTS, Lamborghini Miura, Ferrari Dino, 73 Porsche 911RS.

Until last week it was a Lamborghini Gallardo.  Not anymore.  I saw a couple of young high school punks looking in the trunk (front) of an orange Gallardo in NYC last week.  I honestly think they were looking for the engine up there.

So I've moved on.  It's now the Ferrari Maranello. 1999-2001 Ferrari 550 or the 2002-2006 575 Maranello.   

The 550 and its upgraded friend the 575 were Front engine Berlinettas with V12  5.5L (later 5.7L).

I would get gray exterior, classic Ferrari tan interior (see photo). I'd go for the GTC package with brakes and handling upgrades.  Oh, and a clutch, please - no paddle shifting nonsense.

eBay pricing places the earlier 550s in the low $100K range.  Maybe $110k for a decent one. Compare that to $500K+ for the current Berlinetta (ugly!). 

It's a good rule of thumb not to blog about one's sex life, finances or... fantasy football team.

I'll violate that third one, here.

Our annual draft was last night.  It was our first "online" draft - the 10 previous seasons have been manual.  This year it's on ESPN instead of Commissioner.com (sportsline).  For the most part it went well but there were some technical glitches when manager's computers froze.  It happened to 4 people.  The JRE stuff ESPN runs definetely has issues.

I cannot use ESPN's JRE as an excuse.  Here's my lineup:

QB Peyton Manning
RB Thomas Jones
RB Cedric Benson
WR Roy Williams
WR Calvin Johnson
WR Deion Branch
Packers D/ST
K Ryan Longwell
RB Warrick Dunn
RB Chris Brown
QB Jon Kitna
WR James Jones
RB Heath Evans
WR Steve Smith (giants)
TE Bubba Franks

We've got the pleasure of being able to watch tons of sports this week on the tube.  We've got Yanks vs. Sox and Brewers vs. Cubs (I'm not jinxing it).  

But I'd prefer to watch the US Open on Universal HD.  For some reason, the stuff on Universal HD is noticeably better than the HD sports on other channels.  Even ESPN.  The US Open night matches, outdoors... all in HD.  It's so perfect and we'll have it every day and night for almost 2 weeks.

Yesterday I added the Disqus comment system to my site (and here and here).  I was actually amazed at how simple they've got it working.  They really thought through their AJAX and their Javascript.  Hats off to them.

I immediately thought of all the newspaper/magazine writers and editors that I've worked for over the last couple year (at 1871 uxCast).  There are dozens of our old customers who would love to have this kind of comment system.  We made several attempts over the years, but it was never our focus.  

Then reader polls.  We had a nice reader poll through the years and every newspaper utilized it.  Now there's a widget reader poll from Qubblo that looks terrific.  They've done a really nice job.  

Surveys... i'm sure there's a nice Widget-based survey system out there.  Newspapers would love it to get feedback from readers about articles.  

Then there's the ad systems... all are javascripts.  And the video... newspapers love adding video.  Brightcove has the best player, in my opinion.  They did a great job.  Better than what we tried to do with flash video.

So here's my point: we have all this great software, just a copy/paste away,  but we rely on javascripts. 

There are all these companies out there making pieces of an overall publishing system.  They all focus on their individual component, and because of their focus, the product is WAY better than anything else out there. 

But all of them get added via a javascript.  And as most folks know... Javascripts dramatically slow page load time. For newspapers, it cannot be done.  Newspapers are already deathly slow because of the desire/need/fasination with placing EVERYTHING on EVERY PAGE. 

So adding all of the widgets I described above is a deal breaker.

Maybe...

1) Somehow combine a bunch of services into one javascript.  There are services out there for this, but I doubt it reduces the overall number of javascripts.  

2) Build a common API that publishers can easily implement. 

3) Do something "local" like we did with Feed.Us.

We built Feed.Us with the idea that we're a cog that works in a larger gear system.  But we'd rather be part of Audi's multitronic  CVT  rather than a Shimano 105. 

We think we've done a really good job of avoiding the pitfalls of javascript widgets.  I hope others will figure this out, too. 

Disqus.com... one quick javascript and I've got comments.  Goodbye SixApart!

Joe Leonard enjoys sour grapes...

We sought to acquire Midwest because we believe joining the two airlines would have created a unique, efficient, truly national low-cost carrier with tremendous benefits for shareholders, communities and employees. We hoped the Midwest board would come to share our vision and reach a consensual agreement - just as a majority of Midwest shareholders recognized the value in our strategic plan. However, we accept the Midwest board's decision.

A couple things...

Employees and shareholders wouldn't mutually benefit under what was his plan. If shareholders wanted this to happen, they would have expected more profits which only would mean reduced salaries.  That was the "synergy".

Also a majority of shareholders weren't in favor.  A majority of the shares were voted... but with the amount of funds that owned the company, there's no way a majority of shareholders were interested in the deal. 

Anyway, he can find another city to screw and the NY Times can help him then too. 

Finally the months-long saga of the Midwest Airlines acquisition is over, and Midwest's shareholders and customers are both  winners.

For those who haven't been paying attention... Midwest's board was fighting a hostile takeover by Airtran.  It was a cash and stock offer that was only appealing to the institutional owners. 

At the last second, a private equity firm, partnered with Northwest Airlines, swooped in to steal the deal.  Luckily for us, Northwest - a lifelong Midwest enemy - didn't want Airtran stealing more business that it had already lost to Midwest.   And the private equity firm saw an opportunity.

So instead of just shareholders winning, Midwest's customers win too.  We still get good food, nice people, short lines and the best care center.  Though we're probably going to lose our wider seats.

So Value Jet CEO Joe Leonard can go back to Florida, and Gretchen Morgensen can join him.  She wrote this press release for Airtran and got Joe Leonard his prime spot on the frontpage of NY Time's Sunday Business.  

Bottom line is that the board supported the majority of shareholders and resisted Airtran.  We all knew that Milwaukee would suck without  Midwest and that Airtran's stock was not a fair trade. 

And we won. 

The web is amazing.

I was looking for a quote from Seinfeld that was about George being divided against himself.  It's from one of those episodes where George is afraid of getting married.

I put in "george, seinfeld, divided" into Google.  Second result was some guys Seinfeld youtube with the exact scene.

"A george, divided against itself, CANNOT STAND!"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hp1tohmTx40 

19-4.  That's the brewers' score vs. the Rockies yesterday.  The Rockies.

I think the wheels officially have come off the bus.  

I believe I have significantly distanced myself from these Brewers in order to keep from getting too disappointed. 

 The internet is not a big truck; It's a series of tubes.  Big, tangled tubes.

In Nick Aster news...

"A representative for eco-blog TreeHugger has confirmed that the site has been acquired by Discovery Communications, parent company of the Discovery Channel, The Science Channel, Animal Planet, and several other properties. A report of the deal initially surfaced in the New York Post today."

CNET Article here.

I love doing my Milwaukee accent for folks out east.  They think it's hilarious.  Since moving back, I don't think my normal accent and my Milwaukee accent are that different anymore. Still it's fun to put it on thick.   

Say this with a really thick Milwaukee or Wisconsin accent (there's a difference, a-na).   If you can't do a WI or MKE accent, just imitate Fargo - which is close enough.

"John ain't here -- he's on vacation.  He went by the Dells. No way I'd go to the Dells.  Nothing to do there --  Only fish, though.  You can't even ATV there even."

I've used Meebo on and off for about a year.  It lets you IM when you don't have one of the IM clients installed (or work won't let you).  It's browser based - nothing to download, install etc.

Meebo just added a chat widget (www.MeeboMe.com) and I've added it to the right side of my site.  It's really cool - any visitor can send me an IM.  Unfortunately, it goes to my Meebo account and not to AOL or MSN.  There must be a reason why they wouldn't want that part to work?  Maybe it's too difficult?

Anyway - shoot me a message if you drop by!

>> Update:  I added the same Widget to Feed.us and my facebook profile.  Pretty cool.   

I'm going to try to enjoy tomorrow's final 2007 Tour de France stage with extra gusto.  Because it will probably be the last one we see for a while in the US.

The final stage is really cool.  The finish is on the Champs in Paris.  The team in yellow traditionally enters the Champs in the lead and then makes way for the sprinters.  They do like 6 laps (I think) from the Arc d'Triumph to the Louvre and back.  It's beautiful and it's one of those sporting events that should not be missed in your life time.

But tomorrow will be the last time it's on live in the US, I believe.

There's just too much working against us.  No Lance, Floyd Landis's postive test. Discovery Channel leaving Tailwind Sports (Lance's team), waining interest for cycling, and now more doping scandals in 2007.

I feel for the OLN (opps Versus) guys.  They do a great job.  It's fun spending July with them.

>> Update... Keeks guessed, about 2 weeks ago, that  Livestrong would takeover for Discovery.  Rumors have it that Livestrong, Nike and some of Lance's drug company sponsors (Cancer drugs not EPO!) will take over.  Good call!

When I was about 10, my dad and I got a ride in Paul Poberezny's P51 Mustang.  It is one of the all time thrills of my life.  I puked.

On Friday, two P-51s collided at the EAA Fly-in.  One of them - the blue one close to landing - was the P-51 I got a ride in.   Scary! Here are the details.

This year's Tour de France reminds me of an old Saturday Night Live segment... "the All Drug Olympics...."  

"He's taken anabolic steroids, novacaine, nyquil, dervine and some sort of fish paralyzer.  Also I believe he's had several cocktails in the last hour or so.  All of this is completely legal in the All Drug Olympics."

 

It's disappointing to be sure.  But there's going to be a great timetrial on Saturday and exciting final stage on the Champs.  I'm still going to tune in.

There's a football (soccer) highlight show in England that is perfect.  I guess it's a little like Baseball tonight.  I can't remember the name, but I think it's on one of the BBCs.

It's what SportsCenter should be if ESPN was actually run by people who like sports. 

The highlights are maybe 5 minutes long, each.  Then the 2-3 hosts briefly discuss what happened.   Then another 5 minute clip.  

There's NO music, NO "5 questions" or "True or False", "Who's Now" etc.  

No gimmicks.  

Just the sports.

>> update: Jake Gibson says it's the "English Premier League Review Show" and it runs on FSN, here in the US. 

I swore off the tour after Floyd Landis got caught with extra testosterone in 2006.

Here it is almost a year to the day and I find myself glued to the TV every day.  I've got the Slingbox going... I'm getting up early with Beckett... I'm double-checking that the Tivo is working... all so I can catch every minute of this year's tour.

For the first time I find myself checking the GC for the first time in years.  The Mallot Jeune is up for grabs by about 10 different cyclists and it's going to go down to the line.

Oh, by the way, that photo is of a dog that wandered out in front of the back end of the peloton this morning.  Dog was fine -  TMobile rider went down hard avoiding him. 

The 1990 World Cup was on ESPN and finally we got cable. 

Also, for the first time, I got to see the NHL.  (Note to my mom: if I could have grown up watching the NHL on ESPN, instead of waiting till high school, I'd probably be finishing a nice, long pro hockey career.  It's all your fault.)

Over the years, Directv channel 206 (Now HD channel 73) has been my number one stop on the channel lineup.   I've loved the Tour de France, NASCAR, Formula 1, America's Cup, Sunday Night Football, Championship Week Basketball, Baseball Tonight, RPM 2nite, Sunday Night Countdown, Wimbledon, Sports Century, the IRL, NCAA Lacrosse championships and Sunday Night Baseball.

Notice what's not on that list... the ESPYs, "Who's Now", Poker,  The Bronx is Burning, Cold Pizza, ESPN hollywood, The Madden Tour, and "texting" to any ridiculous poll.

SportsCenter has become almost unwatchable.  The self promotions are awful.   I used to be able to sit through back-to-back Sportscenters, now I won't even bother with 10 minutes. 

When did the "E" in ESPN become more important than the "S"?

After the Floyd Landis fiasco, I thought I'd never be interested in the Tour de France again.

But it's stage 2 and I'm watching the whole stage. 

So I'm sucked in, whether I like it or not.  The TdF is one of the great sporting events, regardless of the scandals (or because of them).  

My bet: Kloden or Sastre... but I wish it would be Hincapie. 

It's the Beck-man's first fourth of july, and we're spending it in the car going far north.

I tried telling him that 231 years ago, today, a bunch of men gathered in Philly and signed a letter to the king  and declared the colonies independent from england.

Beck seemed more interested in a set of fake plastic keys.

However, he came alive during the red sox games's 7th inning stretch.  A woman from the boston pops sang God Bless America and she was really great.

The Beck got in the spirit big time but suddenly crashed out to sleep.

Happy first 4th, Beck!

I am lying here, in bed, reading on a Monday night.

The weather is such that I can almost perfectly here multiple bands performing on stage down at Summerfest, which is almost 2 miles south of our house.

I think it's Social Distortion playing on the Leinie's stage.

Tomorrow, July 3, is nightmare night.  Always the worst night because of the crowds.  John Mayer, Ben Folds, Buddy Guy, Weird Al, War, and Randy Travis.  And great fireworks.

After years and years of hoping our one guy gets in the game, the Crew actually is gonna have plenty of representatives in San Francisco.  The Brewers are sending:

Prince Fielder, starter at 1B

Ben Sheets

JJ Hardy

Francisco Cordero

My laptop crashed about 2 months ago.  I tried to go through Dell customer service, but it was pointless.  I knew the hard drive had crashed.  I didn't care that much because I back up everything so I didn't lose it all.  But Dell wanted me to do endless analysis instead of just sending me a new harddrive.  (Actually, I wanted a new keyboard as well because Bart took out the \ key).

So I gave up and just ordered a new HD.  It arrived and so I decided to load Vista and the new Office Unlimited.  Microsoft has a great program for software manufacturers (Bill Gates actually got us into it but that's a longer story).  We get a couple licenses for free in order to stimulate development.

So I loaded Vista for business and Office 2007 unlimited.  It went very very easily.  The only driver I had to find was the audio and it would have been very smooth if Dell's download system wasn't down yesterday.  (I actually downloaded it from Toshiba.) 

So the little laptop is now cruising on Vista.   And the new Word has a really nice "Blog Post" feature that we're going to get working for both Feed.us and uxCast/1871.  Basically you can create and save and publish "posts" from Word.  It's well done.

So kudos to Microsoft and I have officially put off getting a Macbook for a bit longer. 

I've been using Twitter for a couple months now.  I don't use it regularly like other people do.  Probably because I don't have much of an audience.

If a few of my good friends used it regularly, it would become essential, I think.  But I have a hard time convincing my friends to use IM, so there's fat chance they'll go on Twitter (notice how I wont use twitter as a verb yet).

I would love to see Twitter start some sort of group-type network thingy.  Where we could communicate within a group without others watching.  Right now to do this you need a separate Twitter account and then you can't send a text to it... so it doesn't work.  Maybe someone will create an app for this.

However I think that the big idea behind Twitter is not new.  It's very simple to publish.  Blogs did this for personal websites and now Twitter is doing it too.  When people can publish quickly easily and reach lots and lots of people (or none in my case), it's addicting.

So to sum up... the growth of blogging isn't about citizen journalism.  And the cult of Twitter isn't about cell phones, etc.  It's about freedom and the ease of communication.

Speaking of confusion... I generally have trouble telling people what Feed.Us does. 

Welborn and I have discussed a good, short description and we immediately decided on "Remote web page management".  But that confused people.  Lately I've started calling it a "content management web service". 

Feed.Us is a Web Publishing application that works like a Widget. No need to download or host Feed.Us locally.  Copy/paste a few simple scripts to any web page hosted any where and you can quickly/easily use Feed.Us to put text, images, audio, video etc on a website  remotely - without knowing any coding, or using ftp, etc.

But it's more than that.  It can publish to multiple sites from one account.  Or store your content all in one location.  Collaborate with others on Website(s).   Make RSS feeds on the fly.  Make a feed of display or text ads that can run on any Website.  There are a lot of options.

The immediate market is web developers and web designers who want to quickly add CMS functionality for their clients or co-workers who are not technically inclined.  But it's more than just a CMS tool, so we think the opportunity is greater.

If you'd like to try it - please let me know. rick at feed dot us.

We've been fooling around recently with building sites on several different company's hosting systems.  Godaddy, Mydomain, Yahoo, etc.

For Feed.us to work, we're going to need to know it works easily on your hosting service. 

But, I was surprised to find that it hasn't changed much since when i put up my first website in 1997.  In fact, it hasn't changed at all.  No one has figured out a way to make it simple.

Let's take Godaddy, for example.  Great deals.  I can buy a domain and hosting for an entire year under $45.  What a steal.  The bare-minimum hosting is all you need with Feed.us, so it makes it extremely affordable.

But, Godaddy won't make it easy on you.  First of all, you're bombarded by offers.  8 extra options that Godaddy wants to make you think you need when you're buying hosting.  If you're a beginner, all that stuff seems pretty necessary. 

Then the domain management.  There's a separate site with separate navigation for controlling domains.  It works nice, once you figure it out, but it's confusing.  Try to go "back" to the main account page? Sorry, Godaddy has figured out how to lock you into the domain admin.

Next you'll have to make a separate login for your hosting account.  It's great to have a simple login/pw for the hosting account and ftp that is separate from the Godaddy account.  That way you can give the hosting account access to a developer, and keep your godaddy account free.

However, you can't log into the hosting account without first logging into the Godaddy account.  So that doesn't work.

I just wish there was an easy option for hosting that we could recommend.  If you have any suggestions - rick at feed dot us.

The move to feed.us/godaddy is now complete.  I've added the RSS feed out of Feed.us and into Feedburner - that was the last step.

Thank you for your patience. (as if anyone actually reads this).

Thanks to some decent pitching, and Prince Fielder's Major League leading HR surge, the Brew Crew is back to winning.

Last week we took 2 of 3 from the defending AL champs.  Over the weekend we took 2 of 3 from Minnesota.  Then last night we held off the Giants. 

And Prince keeps knocking them out.  26 and counting.

So it's done.  Value Jet, errr Airtramp, errr... AirTran got their nominees elected.

Ousted are the two longest and largest individual shareholders.  

Sad and ridiculous.

You can't really tell from the photo, but that yellow blob over Bill Hall's left shoulder is my mom with her hat covering her face. 

Yes, it's that bad in Brewer-ville. 

We still are what?  5 games ahead in the NL Central.  But who cares when we can't seem to win a game. 

It's never as good as it seems and it's never as bad as it seems.  That's probably a good thing to keep reminding myself this season.

Today is probably going to be a sad day for Milwaukee, and for the majority Midwest Airlines shareholders.

At 10am this morning, AirTran will most likely get most of the hedge and mutual funds to help vote its 3 appointees (ie bribed yes men) to the Midwest board.  Air Tran is paying these guys $40k each to trojan horse Midwest Airlines.  If they succeed, I'm sure they'll get even more.

Meanwhile three of Midwest's best board members will no longer be looking out for the majority of Midwest's shareholders.

It's a shame and a crock, and should be illegal... but that's the way public companies are run now that Hedge Funds are in control. 

And our fabulous little airline will become part of horrible AirTran, aka Value Jet.  

Well, finally the move to Feed.us has begun for little Tachophobia.com.

Last night I purchased a transitional domain and 2 months worth of hosting from Godaddy.  Price tag = $5.

Then I downloaded a decent free CSS template.  With my limited knowledge of CSS, was able to change the layout enough to make it my own.  And then set about adding the widgets, including Feed.us's code.

Feed.us doesn't use a javascript or flash to display the content.  The content gets 'fed' via a URL and a file that sits on your website.  The pages have to be php or asp or jsp, etc but only so that the file works. 

So all I had to do is add one url of code into the XHTML, rename the homepage file to default.asp, and upload all the files, inlcuding the Feed.us file, to the Godaddy FTP.  And now this site is coming to fruition.

I still have to make the other pages.  It would help to actually understand ASP so I can use includes.  Hopefully I can learn that.

Feed.us is pretty amazing!!

Bob Marley is probably my most favoritist artist of all time (U2 is the greatest band of all time, btw).  All summer long, and during the coldest days of winter, my playlists are dominanted by Sr. Marley, and no it's not because of marijuna (I may be the only one). 

He was my introduction to reggae and I cannot remember a time without Bob.

My favorite Bob Marley album is easily "Natural Mystic".  I believe it's been re-introduced twice now because the album cover to the right is not what I have on my CD. 

Regardless, it's got a great track lineup: Natural Mystic, Iron Lion Zion, So Much Trouble, and the live Trenchtown Rock.

[btw, this is my last post on the 'old site'.  I'm working on a new one using a new design and the new Feed.us.]

I just found out that Twitter is built on Ruby on Rails.  Meanwhile it's generally getting bashed on the "blogosphere" (stupid, stupid word) for having infrastructure problems. 

That would seem impossible. If you hear all the stuff about Rails, Twitter must be extremely solid.   "Rails" is supposed to be extremely stable.

Welborn always says that it doesn't matter (much) what you build on, as long as you have knowledgable, solid developers working with a well-constructed plan.  .Net is typically considered crummy, but it's because there are soooo many coders out there making crappy code.  To work with open source or Rails type platforms, you'd have to be pretty experienced, according to Welborn.  Thus applications built on this stuff are better constructed.

I think that sounds right.