SOMEWHAT FRANK

ZoomTags: Buy Or Sell Tag Cloud Keywords

ZoomTags is a new way to implement a commercial tag cloud with revenue potential on a website or blog. This new type of commercial tag cloud offers keywords from a tag cloud up for sale. Michael Arrington profiles ZoomTags on TechCrunch and brings up a wonderful point in saying:

"Nothing, of course, stops Yahoo and Google from implementing a similar interface if this proves to be a better way for some sites to serve ads."

Michael compares ZoomTags to another similar offering called 1000Tags. I agree, it will be interesting to see if Microsoft, Google, or Yahoo take what 1000Tags and ZoomTag have done and run with it.

$36.1 Billion Profits By Exxon?

Exxon reported profits this year of $36.1 Billion, the highest in US history.

$36.1 BILLION!

This is difficult to fathom gas prices were skyrocketing out of control for most of 2005. Not to mention, it makes it fairly clear as to why there haven't been faster advances in alternate fuel engines and other hybrid vehicle technologies.

Wired Magazine: Bubble vs. Boom Described

Wired Magazine characterized the recent boom (not bubble) that has emerged in Silicon Valley in an article titled The New Boom in the February 2006 issue. I think this quote describes the difference between a boom and a bubble nicely:

"Bubbles are inflated with hot air and speculation. They end with a wet pop, leaving behind messy splatters. Booms, on the other hand, tend to have strong foundations and gentle conclusions."

This  table which was pulled from the Wired News article shows it more clearly and somewhat comically.

 

*Thanks to Niall Kennedy's Flickr account for the graphic from Wired Magazine.

Google + RSS = GooRSS Mashup

I just ran across a very interesting mashup application called GooRSS that was pointed out to me by Steve Rubel. GooRSS is a mixture of Google search and RSS via instantRSS that was offered up in a magnificent post by Miel Van Opstal aggregating a list of RSS tools. If you visit the site you can enter a web search and in return you get an RSS feed output and a permalink of the search results that will continue to be updated dynamically as Google changes its result set. I created a feed for Frank Gruber to monitor the placement of Somewhat Frank in the the Google search results in relation to my name.

GooRSS could come in handy in pulling information about various topics of interesting and pulling them into an RSS reader. This feature could come in handy when monitoring a sites keywords for search engine optimization or SEO since instead of actually having to visit Google you could just pull the search results for your keyword searches into a RSS reader saving you time.

Google vs. iTunes Battle Looming?

There is some speculation in blogosphere and by Forbes that Google will soon to be taking on Apple and their prized iTunes music store head on. According to the analyst Bear Stearns who maintained an "outperform" rating on Google because he believes they may be looking to expand into the MP3 downloading business in saying:

"We believe that Google is in the midst of creating its own iTunes competitor, which we've dubbed 'Google Tunes' ... We think this is a logical step, now that the nascent Google Video product has been introduced."

Apple vs. Google, now this could get interesting! Alice Hill of RealTechNews bring up a great point in saying:

"If Google is about serving ads, a free ad-based music platform could shake things up and that sounds very, very possible."

I agree it is possible but Google had better think to make it easy to transition users from iTunes to a Google Tunes offering since there are already so many loyal iTunes customers that may not move their music libraries.

*Conductor image thanks to wisegorilla.com

RSS Hightlighted By NY Times

Rich Ziade posted a nice piece detailing the various ways to leverage RSS and I explanded on it on Somewhat Frank last week (January 23, 2006). Receiving travel deals via RSS was listed in Rich's post. Ironically, the New York Times highlighted this use of RSS for syndicating travel deals in the article titled There's a Popular New Code for Deals: RSS today (January 29, 2006).

The article which was run in the travel section details the use of email for newsletters and a very introductory explanation of RSS and how it can be used. I applaud the author Bob Tedeschi for educating his readers on RSS. Education is key in speed the adoption of RSS and other technologies. Nonetheless, I feel it is only a matter of time until syndication via RSS becomes the standard for receiving information replacing the email newsletter and becoming just as profitable with the insertion of advertisements.

For additional perspectives from the blogosphere on the RSS mention in the NYTimes check out these posts on Pito's Blog and The Social Customer Manifesto.

Yahoo Mail Beta: Script Unresponsive

I have been using the Yahoo Mail Beta for a few months now and I like it a lot. I think it takes online webmail a step further with it's Microsoft Outlook look and feel and functionality. Lately though, I have been receiving several pop-up windows that resemble the one above. The window is titled:

"Warning: Unresponsive script"

The message goes on to ask me if I would like to stop a script now since it is has stopped responding. I appreciate the option that Yahoo Mail has given me but I feel the defensive design elements in this warning message are poor at best. I am just left with more questions then answers like: 

• What does this script do that I am stopping?
• What will happen if I stop it?
• What will happen if I decide to have it continue?

Has anyone else experienced this type of problem with the Yahoo Mail Beta?

Spam 2.0: Splog Examined

This past Tuesday (January 24, 2006) spam was the topic of a column by Tom Spring on PCWorld.com. The column explains the next generation of spam and in one section title "Spam Outside The Inbox" covers the emergence of splog or spam blogs online. Splog Reporter was mentioned in the article in saying:

"Many are fighting back with special software designed to combat splogs. Still others in the anti-spam community are taking action and creating anti-splog sites like SplogSpot and Splog Reporter, where you can report abuses."

In case you do not recall, I started Splog Reporter as a "grassroots" effort to combat splog back in August of 2005 with the help of colleague and friend Jeff Johns. Jeff and I continued to move the product forward by creating new ways to report splog, like a Firefox extension, bulk upload among other features. Through our efforts I found out first hand that the blogosphere is filled with "good-willed" bloggers willing to help clean up the blogosphere.

Recently, Jeff and I have become extremely busy with our personal lives yet we continue to receive praise, questions and requests via our SR feedback page just about everyday. To be quite honest with you we cannot keep up with all of the feedback.

In realizing our short-handedness, we would be willing to bring on some help in the spirit of the movement to continue to move the product forward in a positive manner by developing out some of the requested features that we have received as feedback. If you are interested in helping us out please let me know by either commenting on this blog post or emailing me directly at: frank at splogreporter dot com. Please let me know what your skill-set as well as what makes you interested in helping out with the effort.

More Classified Ads Heading Online

A recent Wall Street Journal article by Joseph T. Hallinan highlighted the recent drops in auto advertising of the newspaper publishing companies including the Tribune and McClatchy Co. According to the article:

Revenue from auto classifieds has now fallen for seven straight quarters, to $1.01 billion in the third quarter of 2005 from $1.16 billion in the second quarter of 2004, according to the Newspaper Association of America, a Vienna, Va., industry trade group.

These same newspaper publishing companies have been hedging the print classified losses with investments in a company called Classified Ventures, LLC which owns Cars.com and was also mentioned in Hallinan's WSJ article. As the trend or declines continue Cars.com will continue to be in an excellent position to be successful in the online auto space.

*Image thanks to post-gazette.com

Google AdSense Rich Media Ads In Beta

It was recently reported yesterday (January 26, 2006) on JenSense that Google AdSense has moved its rich media ads into the Beta phase with certain publishers. Somewhat Frank was not one of the publishers selected. Nonetheless, this could be a very important move by Google, one that could put them at the forefront of all online advertising. Currently, rich media ads are either done in house by publishers or by using a rich media ad vendor like FastClick or PointRoll.

If Google were to roll out rich media across its entire Google AdSense network of publishers thus adding rich media ads to the mix of the non-compete agreement the competition may be in peril. It will be interesting to see how Google proceeds. 

What is iJot?

I just stumbled upon an online publishing site called iJot. It's catchphrase is to "Take Note!" so I took it literally thinking the site is an online repository for jotting notes. I attempted to find out more information via the links provided on the site but they all seemed to be going nowhere but back to the homepage. So I took it upon myself to try and figure out just want iJot is by signing up with an account.  iJot allows you to organize paragraphs that you can publish to a public URL like the one I created here. The site allows you to also:

• Develop your site by creating additional pages
• Organize your site's bookmarks (with an OMPL format output feed)
• Add a weblog to your site (like this one)

iJot's "about" link was limited on additional information on the product but I assume iJot will offer better documentation in the future when it becomes a completed offering.

Can You Patent Emoticons? :(

Apparently you can patent character groupings known as emoticons since I just read Cingular was allowed to patent mobile emoticons. At first glance I thought this sounded absurd. How can a mobile company or anyone for that matter own characters grouped together to form an alternate meaning like the smiley face? :)

In reading further I determined it was not just the character groupings that made up the patent but a system used to display faces via mobile devices. Feew, I thought I was going to have to quickly patent the question mark when transmitted via a mobile device. Thankfully, I will not! ;)

*Emoticons image thanks to JaguarWoman.com

G__gle Censored In China

With Google's decision to launch a censored version of its search engine in China heeding the strict censorship laws of the Chinese government, many are left to question Google's stance on freedom. However, this move may not have been totally in Google's control since they do have to obey China's laws. But when the goal of Google is to provide and organize the world's information they may now need to place an asterisks next to the word "world."

Google could be facing a public relations nightmare due to the situation in China. The blogosphere is already flexing its muscle as some blog networks are removing Google ads from their sites as a way of boycotting the move. I am not going to make these types of moves, though I would recommend one thing to Google: stick to what made you what you are. In other words, rather than deluding its reputation Google should bring down the censored search. In its place Google should purchase additional shares of Baidu, the Chinese search engine that it purchased shares in 2004. Baidu could be the Google search in China and not the Google Search we know and love.

*Censorship is Unamerican image thanks to www.pinkdome.com

Leadership Is More Than Just Making Decisions

I want to highlight an excellent quote that I recently read in the book compiled by Seth Godin titled The Big Moo. The actual quote by John Seely Brown a renown thinker in the area of management said:

“The job of a leader isn’t just to make decisions, it is to make sense.”

I feel the better you understand the world around you that influences your decisions, the more sense you will make of it all. You can make it easier by surrounding yourself with excellent human resources and relying on them as well as doing your own homework. The blogosphere is an great way to say in tune to the signal.

*Goose image thanks to www.research.ibm.com

Send Podzinger Search Results To iTunes

I posted about Podzinger a few days ago here but wanted to mention an interesting feature that I came across. Podzinger gives you the ability to save searches as RSS feeds. The feeds can then be imported into Apple's iTunes to be at your preferred interval. You can then upload these newly discovered podcasts to your iPod. Here are the full instructions from Podzinger's FAQ:

• Enter your search term and ZING IT, for example "Chicago Cubs"
• At the top of the results page you will see this button. Click on this button and copy the Internet address (it will look something like this http://www.PODZINGER.com/rss.jsp?q=Chicago+Cubs&s)
• Make sure your iTunes program is open.  Choose "Advanced" from the menu, then choose "Subscribe to Podcast", paste the address into the box, and then click OK.
• You can then edit your iTunes preferences to get updates whenever you want.

Coupling Podzinger with iTunes should help you to discover new podcasts.  Enjoy!