Industry News Archive

Hackathons seem to be the hottest thing for developers this year. A hackathon brings together developers for a short period of time (usually one day or a weekend) and the idea is to hack on new ideas or technology. Last week Techcrunch held a three-day hackathon at their Disrupt conference — over 90 ideas were hatched during the event.

The Hackathon Austin group is bringing a news- and journalism-oriented hackathon to the city later this month. The event is described as, “…a collaboration of newsy people who understand communication and nerdy people who understand application development. Collaborative teams will conceive and define data-driven news applications, and build real, workable open source solutions that transform raw data into headline news.”

For this hackathon, the idea is for journalists and bloggers to come together with developers. There is a goal to work with openly-available data sets.

The hackathon will be held on October 16 at the Austin Community College. There isn’t a registration link (just this info document) that I could find so I guess you just have to show up and be ready to hack or be hacked.

It’s amazing to me how much packing products for shipping has changed over the years. I remember my early college days as a youngster working at The Wiz selling computers and how large the boxes were for each computer. Even if the computer was a small desktop (with a powerful 386 processor!), the carton that the product was delivered to the customer in was huge. Even though most manuals are never read, they weighed a lot, were large and required room in the box.

Fast forward to 2004 when I purchased my first laptop (I had work laptops prior to this date) – the Dell laptop was purchased on what is still referred to as the best computer deal ever (50% off all Dell 700m laptops). The box didn’t seem that large but had a lot of extra room and had a separate box inside the main box with all of the manuals and CDs.

When I purchased my next laptop in 2009, a Dell refurbished laptop, it came in a much smaller box. I didn’t realize how much smaller the box was until I decided to sell the Dell 700m laptop when I decided to move to Texas. Even though the new laptop was 1″ bigger, the box on the old laptop was considerably bigger in all dimensions.

I’ve furnished most the new office with products from Ikea. I’ve been amazed at how well Ikea packs their products for transit. A few times I thought I had the wrong product because the box was so small only to open the box and see how smartly packaged the item was setup in the box. It’s almost like the way they setup the box, the inside materials actually provide support for each other without the need to add tons of additional packing materials.

Yesterday I received my new laptop from Dell – also a refurb, though a 17″ Inspiron. I opened the box with my box cutter and when I pulled back the flaps, I was completely shocked. I thought for sure something was wrong. There was not one piece of foam, not one packing peanut, no air bubbles and not even those big bags of air. Nothing. I could see the laptop right there in front of me.

I pulled out a piece of cardboard that the laptop was attached to using what looked like a piece of plastic wrap. The cardboard said, “DO NOT CUT PLASTIC” and had a simple diagram of how to pull the flaps forward to release the laptop. Sure enough, a moment later the laptop was free and ready to power on. And power on it did. The refurbished laptop looks brand new (just like all the other refurbs I’ve purchased from Dell) and an initial test worked fine. I wonder if Dell ships all of their laptops with this new packing system.  The manuals for the laptop were very small – CD sized and there were no extra boxes inside of the main box.

As an aside, I am also impressed with Whole Foods here in Texas. Their receipts print on both sides of the paper — just think about how much paper this will save over the course of a year. I wonder why the Whole Foods stores in NYC don’t use this same paper saving receipt system.

So where can we improve? My new car came with two huge manuals – perhaps a better way is a downloadable PDF or the manual on a USB stick. You would only need a small manual with emergency procedures (like if the Bluetooth won’t connect to Twitter).

I’d also like to see ATM machines that offer email receipts inside of printed receipts.

Next week I will buy my first Apple iPod Touch – knowing Apple, the packaging will have the environment in mind.

Products are getting smaller and now packaging is following suit. It’s so amazing to watch companies of all types invest in packaging. It will mean less waste in landfills, less shipping expenses and less space needed to store all of our product boxes.

If anyone is interested, I can take some photos of the packaging from the Dell refurb laptop.

Yesterday the big news wasn’t that Lindsay Lohan is out of rehab. The real news was that the new version of the social news site Digg launched to the public. Alex from Next Web has an overview of the new Digg. While I don’t use Digg much anymore, it was interesting to see how much of Digg seems to be just like Twitter. From using the “following/followers” terminology to the addition of a default list (aka Suggested User List), it seems like Digg wants to be the “Twitter for News”.

Maybe I never noticed it but it appears that you can now submit a RSS feed and every story you post will automatically be posted to Digg. Many of the accounts I looked at yesterday are setup with this auto-post function.

If we can get serious for a minute, the Suggested User List is what made twitter hit the big time – period. And Digg wants to follow the same pattern hoping the default list will help them regain a strong position in the new technology market. Not surprisingly, Mashable has about 30 feeds on the default technology list and “friends” also take up a lot of the tech list similar to how the Twitter list was/is crafted while I don’t see any of the power diggers (these are the users who spend many hours a day finding stories to post and share on Digg) like Muhammad Saleem on the list.  Lastly, if you look closely, most of the “friends” are just scraped RSS feeds.

Most blog posts I read regarding the new Digg launch ended with a question about whether this new version will help Digg regain the buzz and attention they had several years ago.

Last night I listened to the Drill Down podcast which brings together several of the top power Digg users to discuss popular tech stories from the previous week.

The Drill Down podcast includes several Digg users who get the most stories to the frontpage – Mr. Babyman, Muhammad Saleem and JD Rucker. It’s interesting to hear the group get so fired up about the new Digg. From what I can tell, it looks like the Digg team didn’t include these users in the feedback process while building the new version.

Continue reading “Power Diggers React To New Version of Digg (video)” »

A month ago Techmeme founder Gabe Rivera announced that he hired an editor, Megan McCarthy, to help create a more "edited" Techmeme. Gabe noted in his announcement, "an additional human editor will carry out changes explicitly to directly improve the mix of headlines on Techmeme. Though the implicit edits conveyed via algorithm outnumber the explicit edits perhaps by 1000 to 1 or more, the impact of the human editor is nonetheless pronounced".

The change I’ve noticed the most is that more stories are receiving "lead" status with no visible links. I am guessing this is where the editor plays the biggest role. She can make stories live immediately versus waiting for the algorithm to pick them up and do it’s magic of link association. Oh yea, bitchmemes (staged or real) are apparently an excellent way to boost a blog’s standings on the leaderboard.

Many seemed to believe that Michael Arrington, holder of the top slot (then and now), was nervous that the leaderboard would change based on a post he authored after the news was made public. Marshall Kirkpatrick discussed the Techmeme advertising model and the hiring of a woman as the first editor. Susan Mernit also looks at the revenue model and provides some Techmeme revenue estimates for 2008.

Several new sites are listed on the current leaderboard but weren’t on the list as of December 5th. They are: InternetNews, jkOnTheRun, TUAW, TheOpenRoad, InsideFacebook, Loic LeMeur Blog, Agence France Presse, Google Mobile Blog, Hardware 2.0, DSLReports, PE Hub Blog, Zero Day, Lifehacker, Gawker (probably took over for Valleywag), Fast Company, Inquirer, Apple, TmoNews, Tech Daily Dose, The Bivings Report, Scobleizer, Telegraph, Hitwise Intelligence, Louis Gray, and The Digital Home.

For reference here’s the Techmeme leaderboard as of December 5, 2008 and January 4, 2009:

Harrison Hoffman is reporting that Microsoft has launched Live Search News which is part of the Live family. Hoffman notes that it’s a lot like Google News. He also puts in a TechMeme reference with the "related" links. The innovation appears to come from the automatic local news stream on the right.

What I’d like to see is a truly live news offering. Maybe a nice Adobe Air desktop app that just keeps popping up as new news hits. With all of these news sites, I have to sit there and refresh or wait for the feed to update. Drop the news onto my desktop with nice immediate alerts and you might get somewhere. Remember that to beat Google, you can’t be 2% better, you need to be MUCH better. 

Andy Beal notes that there are no RSS feeds currently available. While this has made him a bit miffed, let’s all remember that most of the world has not a clue (nor cares) what a feed is. With that said, it would still be good to have if they want to hit the tech and reporter communities.

note: I am a current Cingular Wireless customer

I have to say that this new program from MySpace and Cingular Wireless just smells like Jamster and those other services that you use once and they bill you $1, €1, etc for a daily love message or a horoscope.

MySpace has signed a deal with Cingular Wireless to provide MySpace information on your mobile device. The site shows the following list as the mobile features:

• Read and post blogs
• Upload photos
• Edit your profile
• Search friends
• Add friends
• Add comments
• Read and send mail
• create bulletins
• Add kudos
• View profiles

Alright so we know that people will be interested in this and I think it looks like a great feature set. I have one major concern with this service.

Pricing

The pricing on the web site states the following:

You can get MySpace Mobile on your Cingular phone for $2.99 per month. Standard data rates will also apply based on your current feature subscription. Charges will be applied to your Cingular bill or deducted from your pre-paid balance.

So how much exactly is the standard data rates? And more importantly, how much bandwidth in KB does using MySpace mobile take per session or per minute, etc. This information is not listed anywhere on MySpace nor on the Cingular web site.

Chart from the Cingular site regarding pricing for MediaNet option:

A far cry from $2.99. Of course, there are unlimited plans for Medianet starting at $19. So now we are at $23. And while I know you can make a case that some may already have Medianet unlimited, I doubt that number is really that high in terms of unlimited users.

And even more importantly, since I have no idea how much bandwidth MySpace Mobile uses, how am I to know if I go over the $9.99 plan? It offers 1mb of transfer. I would love some info about what the average 1 minute session of MySpace Mobile usage runs in terms of data tansfer.

So I would hope that Cingular comes clean with some more information about what MySpace mobile really costs per month and how much the data transfer is used per session. I can only imagine the customer service call load in 1-2 months when users begin to get their statements with the usage on them.

Time magazine has released their Person of the Year today. So many of the biggest names from around the world were in the running. But in the end, they decided to give it to You. That's right, every person who reads this site, every person who contributes to the user-generated content on the Internet. I would have saved it for 2007, but it comes at a good time. And the truth is, 2007 looks even more promising for You.

The Internet is hotter today than ever. It is in more homes and more places. Twelve years ago, building the first international site for Clinique, one of the team members asked me if Internet access was available in the countries we were targetting. I said, “I think so.” Today, my answer would be much closer to a resounding yes. And not that 14.4 dial up stuff either.

The truth is that user-generated content has been around for a long time, my first forum started in 1994. And of course there were BBSs and MUDs before then (who remembers MUDs!). But it is only now that we really have moved to a more rich user-generated world. I think it is the worldwide part that moved things forward so much. The fact that Internet access is available almost anywhere made it so.

So hats off to all of us, everyone who participates in some way. And if you aren’t participating, why the heck not!

From Lev Grossman, “And for seizing the reins of the global media, for founding and framing the new digital democracy, for working for nothing and beating the pros at their own game, TIME’s Person of the Year for 2006 is you.”

Some direct links to the story:

• main story
• 15 who matter – really worth a read
• Citizen Journalism

A few other writers have some good insight as well:

• Mashable – good discussion on possibly overhype of YouTube
• Steve Rubel – good overview of the article