Blogging
Tuesday, December 2nd, 2008
by admin
A notice was sent to Pownce users today informing them of the imminent shut down of the micro-blogging system. The message was sent at around 6:30Pm on December 2, 2008. The shut down which is set for the 15th of December is being blamed by their recent acquisition by Six Apart.
Below is information posted by Six Apart on their website:
Pownce has been acquired by the blogging company Six Apart, the makers of Movable Type, TypePad and Vox. To find out more about the acquisition please read the announcement by Six Apart CEO Chris Alden, and the announcement by Pownce Founder Leah Culver.
Pownce.com will be Shutting Down
Pownce.com will be shut down by December 15, 2008. If you would like to keep your content, we have created an export tool to assist you under Settings > Export. But please be sure to have exported your content by December 15, 2008 as it will not be accessible after that date.
We want to thank you for building the Pownce community. We are sad we must close Pownce.com, but we encourage you to continue the spirit of Pownce on Vox or TypePad.
A New Beginning
The Pownce team is excited about joining Six Apart. Six Apart has some excellent services to help you stay in touch and share with friends and to reach new readers.
Pownce, which is a similar site to Twitter couldn’t keep up with their competitors after those competitors hit the big leagues being mentioned within big companies such as CNN, and also from being used in Barack Obama’s Presidential campaign. Although it was a great platform, Pownce just couldn’t keep up.
Friday, October 24th, 2008
by admin
Wow, I can’t believe we have already gotten this far in only a few months. Together we have talked about new technology like the Ipod, and new developing powerhouse companies like Twitter, Facebook, Google, and much more. Together we have, and are still developing a rock solid community that both supports the development of new technologies and software, but still keeps major companies in line by criticizing mistakes and misconceptions. As a community we have grown and have connected to people across all continents, whether it be the United States, The Netherlands, or India. We together have found, using technology, easier ways that contribute to our daily lives.
If you look at the title of today’s entry you will see that i put “Our” and not “I”. We are a team, and I’ve learned from previous experiences that there is no I in team. Your comments and emails, have built up the website to bring relevant traffic to the website. Therefore adding to the power of our community. Bringing new ideas and even more new websites to our community, sharing it with everyone. With our community there is no borders, or oceans between us. There are no politics, and leaders interrupting our debates and opinions. There is only co-operation and ideas that bring us together.
So I ask you the Community to keep submitting comments, and emails. Keep involved with our growing population, and keep these big companies in their place. Keep everyone honest, even myself. I hope that you’ve enjoyed the previous 100 posts, and i hope that there will be many more to come.
Thanks.
Friday, October 24th, 2008
by admin
On the internet, a glimmer of success can go along way either through popularity or money. The Internets power has brought people to fame, and has brought businesses to the ground. Some people have learned to deal with the internet and it’s strength, while others have crumbled beneath it’s force. This leads us to today, where I’m going to point out the Top 5 most successful websites in 2008 in my opinion. This doesn’t include 2007, 2006, or any time before that. It’s just my opinion on what websites have influenced the internet community whether it be video streaming, news making, or blogging. So let’s get started with the top 5 most successful websites in 2008 from my point of view. By the way, these are in no particular order.
1- Ustream.tv- I remember about a year ago, Ustream.tv was lucky to get just about 100 channels going, which at the time seemed like a great amount. I’ve been with Ustream for about a year now, and have just adored the service that they have provided me. They bring a professional user interface to the table unlike Stickam etc. Stickam has brought a more teenage population to online streaming, which i find to be very boring and unprofessional. Ustream has brought enthusiasm, trust, and incredible attitude to their profession, so much that they have over 700 video channels at any one time. They have also attracted influential people to the internet including Presidential hopeful John Mccain, and Barack Obama. Musicians, and Actor wannabe’s are bringing their talents to Ustream and advertising their product. Nasa has involved their NASA Television with Ustream bringing the Space Missions right to peoples screens. People Like Chris Pirillo, Cali Lewis, Leo Laporte, and much more have used Ustreams services. All of this and much more is why Ustream.tv is one of the top 5 most successful websites on the internet today.
2-Twitter- Earlier in it’s time Twitter was known as an unreliable service that allowed you to post what you were doing in 140 characters or less. From server crashes, to IM failures which unfortunately is still down today, Twitter has become one of the most influential websites in the world. With politicians such as Barack Obama using it’s services to CNN and their up-to date news feeds. Twitter has spread news throughout the world in just 1 line. It was Twitter that brought information on Barack Obama’s running mate, it was Twitter that has potentially saved hostages in the middle east, it was Twitter that has brought other websites to fame. The road for Twitter hasn’t been easy though. As I’ve mentioned earlier, it had plenty of server crashes coming out of nowhere, so much that now Twitter has added limitations to how many “Tweets” you may send, and how many people you may follow. As I’ve expressed earlier, these limitations have disappointed me due to my needs of reaching you (the community). The New York Times have called Twitter one of the fastest-growing phenomena on the Internet. Twitter has also influenced other companies to make products that create an ease of access to your Twitter account. Examples of this would be Twhirl, Ping.Fm, Twitter Feed. Iphone Applications have also be developed to access Twitter. Although it still has a few bugs to work out, Twitter is definately one of the top 5 most successful websites of 2008.
3-TechCrunch-
TechCrunch, founded on June 11, 2005, is a weblog dedicated to obsessively profiling and reviewing new Internet products and companies. In addition to covering new companies, we profile existing companies that are making an impact (commercial and/or cultural) on the new web space.
That is just a little information from their website. Techcrunch has influenced the technology community with no end since it’s first post in 2005. But 2008 is when Techcrunch really came out and brought opinion, information, and authority to profiling new, and interesting companies. Techcrunch has been featured in hundreds of online news articles, magazines, and much more. Tech Crunch has also brought more interest to the popular blogging Software Wordpress as this is the software that they use in providing their service to the online community. Now Wordpress is used by major news organizations like the CBC and Cnn. These are all just a few reasons why Tech Crunch is 1 of the top 5 most successful websites of 2008.
4-Google- I know i said that this post was going to be the top 5 most successful websites of 2008, but i couldn’t resist. Google even today is “taking the over the internet” From their Search engine first being created over 10 years ago, to the reality today where they have become an internet powerhouse. With present projects like Gmail, Google Maps, Google Calendar, and much more. Google has accomplished more than anyone else in plenty of different adversities. Google has also brought money to other people using their Google Adwords and Adsense Programs where people put relative ad units to their content and make money every time someone clicks on an add. This is otherwise known as PPC. Adsense has become so popular that Googles rival Yahoo has wanted in. Yahoo is now embedding Googles Adsense into their search results. This is bringing millions if not billions of dollars to both companies. Below i’ve taken a little history from their Wikipedia Page to give you guys a little more information on what Google has done throughout the years.
Google began in January 1996 as a research project by Larry Page, a Ph.D. student at Stanford.[1] In search for a dissertation theme, Page considered—among other things—exploring the mathematical properties of the World Wide Web, understanding its link structure as a huge graph.[2] His supervisor Terry Winograd encouraged him to pick this idea (which Page later recalled as “the best advice I ever got”[3]) and Page focused on the problem of finding out which web pages link to a given page, considering the number and nature of such backlinks to be valuable information about that page (with the role of citations in academic publishing in mind).[2] In his research project, nicknamed “BackRub”, he was soon joined by Sergey Brin, a fellow Stanford Ph.D. student and close friend, whom he had first met in the summer of 1995 in a group of potential new students which Brin had volunteered to show around the campus.[2] Page’s web crawler began exploring the web in March 1996, setting out from Page’s own Stanford home page as its only starting point.[2] To convert the backlink data that it gathered into a measure of importance for a given web page, Brin and Page developed the PageRank algorithm.[2] Analyzing BackRub’s output—which, for a given URL, consisted of a list of backlinks ranked by importance—it occurred to them that a search engine based on PageRank would produce better results than existing techniques (existing search engines at the time essentially ranked results according to how many times the search term appeared on a page).[2][4] A small search engine called RankDex was already exploring a similar strategy.[5]
Google In 1998
Convinced that the pages with the most links to them from other highly relevant Web pages must be the most relevant pages associated with the search, Page and Brin tested their thesis as part of their studies, and laid the foundation for their search engine. Originally the search engine used the Stanford website with the domain google.stanford.edu. The domain google.com was registered on September 15, 1997. They formally incorporated their company, Google Inc., on September 7, 1998 at a friend’s garage in Menlo Park, California.
The name “Google” originated from a misspelling of “googol,”[6][7] which refers to the number represented by a 1 followed by one-hundred zeros. Having found its way increasingly into everyday language, the verb, “google,” was added to the Merriam Webster Collegiate Dictionary and the Oxford English Dictionary in 2006, meaning, “to use the Google search engine to obtain information on the Internet.”[8][9]
By the end of 1998, Google had an index of about 60 million pages.[10] The home page was still marked “BETA“, but an article in Salon.com already argued that Google’s search results were better than those of competitors like Hotbot or Excite.com, and praised it for being more technologically innovative than the overloaded portal sites (like Yahoo!, Excite.com, Lycos, Netscape’s Netcenter, AOL.com, Go.com and MSN.com) which at that time, during the growing dot-com bubble, were seen as “the future of the Web”, especially by stock market investors.[10]
In March 1999, the company moved into offices at 165 University Avenue in Palo Alto, home to several other noted Silicon Valley technology startups.[11] After quickly outgrowing two other sites, the company leased a complex of buildings in Mountain View at 1600 Amphitheatre Parkway from Silicon Graphics (SGI) in 1999.[12] The company has remained at this location ever since, and the complex has since become known as the Googleplex (a play on the word googolplex, a 1 followed by a googol of zeros). In 2006, Google bought the property from SGI for $319 million.[13]
The Google search engine attracted a loyal following among the growing number of Internet users, who liked its simple design.[14] In 2000, Google began selling advertisements associated with search keywords.[1] The ads were text-based to maintain an uncluttered page design and to maximize page loading speed.[1] Keywords were sold based on a combination of price bid and click-throughs, with bidding starting at $.05 per click.[1] This model of selling keyword advertising was pioneered by Goto.com (later renamed Overture Services, before being acquired by Yahoo! and rebranded as Yahoo! Search Marketing).[15][16][17] While many of its dot-com rivals failed in the new Internet marketplace, Google quietly rose in stature while generating revenue.[1]
Google’s declared code of conduct is “Don’t be evil“, a phrase which they went so far as to include in their prospectus (aka “red herring” or “S-1″) for their IPO, noting, “We believe strongly that in the long term, we will be better served — as shareholders and in all other ways — by a company that does good things for the world even if we forgo some short term gains.”
The Google site often includes humorous features such as cartoon modifications of the Google logo to recognize special occasions and anniversaries.[18] Known as “Google Doodles”, most have been drawn by Google’s international webmaster, Dennis Hwang.[19] Not only may decorative drawings be attached to the logo, but the font design may also mimic a fictional or humorous language such as Star Trek Klingon and Leet.[20] The logo is also notorious among web users for April Fool’s Day tie-ins and jokes about the company.
5-Apple- Although it in itself is not a company, Apple has influenced the website through it’s products such as the Iphone, Macbook Pro, Macbook, Ipod Touch, Ipod Nano, and much more. It has also influenced the internet with it’s unique web design, and simplicity it brings to the internet. The Apple website is one of the most vibrantly designs website I’ve seen, and the speed, and support is just remarkable. Apple has also been the cause for new websites such as Mac Rumors which is a website that brings information all related to Apple. Apple has also brought competition into their hemisphere. With Google now releasing their Android Phone, Apple now has competition with their Iphone, further forcing them to create revolutionary products. Apple has also brought controversy about the health of their CEO Steve Jobs. Although this isn’t directly related to their website it has brought attention to the company. Apple has also been a supporter of product Red. Product Red is a charity dedicated to saving lives in unfortunate companies such as Africa and Madagascar. All of this is why Apple has become one of the major powerhouse within the Internet community.
Well I hope i’ve made my point about all these companies. There are plenty more influential websites throughout the internet, but these 5 just seemed to stick out in my mind. All of these companies have generated millions of dollars not just to themselves but to others as well. They have brought the world together through communication, news, search, and their products.
If you have any more influential websites that you think have influenced the internet whether in a positive way, or a negative way please feel free to email me by clicking here. Or leave a comment below. I love hearing what you guys think the latest and greatest is within the technology community whether it’s hardware, software, or even the internet. I also have a Twitter account, and i follow all people that follow me.
Thanks.
Sunday, August 31st, 2008
by admin
More and more people in today’s society are turning to Micro Blogging. A Micro Blog is more commonly known as a status update in 140 characters or less. There is an increasingly used question out there as to what Micro Blogging platform should be used, Twitter or Plurk?
Twitter came to the world in Early 2006, out of San Fransisco, California. It really made it’s mark after The 2007 new year with thousands of new users. So many users that there are rumors floating the internet that they are the cause of the recent blackouts of the Twitter system. Twitter is notoriously known for these server crashes with some so unsatisfactory that they have caused unprecedented damage to the instant messaging application tied in to Twitter. The instant messaging application came out to ease the agonizing pain of going on to the web, instead giving you the ability of adding a Twitter Contact to your IM friends list. This ended up failing in Mid 2008, due to a rumored server melt down.
In August 2008 Twitter Twitter to the displeasure of their users decided to limit the amount of people you can follow. They answered the question of why they were applying these limits by saying this on their website.
Starting with 140 characters per update, Twitter has always been about limits, embracing the idea that constraint inspires creativity. The new limits do not restrain reasonable usage, and thus, will not affect most people. We do, however, hope to discourage unreasonable usage that alarms the people affected by it. These limits also alleviate some of the existing strain on the invisible part of Twitter: fewer robots and whales.
Below are a few of their new limitations:
- 1,000 total updates per day, on any and all devices
- 250 total direct messages per day, on any and devices
- 100 API requests per hour
- Maximum number of follow attempts in a day
These limitations have stalled users from freely reaching new people, and raise new content into their communities. They say that these restrictions are to prevent bots and wales from interfering with the community of Twitter. In my diminutive view adding these limitations to the already 140 characters or less are a cover up for keeping their servers running, and preventing shut downs of their system.
Twitter still remains the home base for the Internets micro blogging, as a majority of the micro blogging users continue to use the disintegrating Twitter Platform. Although a select few large-scale names including Leo Laporte have left the Twitter platform. In Leo’s case, he has created his own Micro-blogging website based off of Leconica called Twit Army.
In the past Twitter has also had problems with their follow feature with error messages popping up frequently when attempting to follow a different person. This could also be implemented with their reasons for posting limitations to the service. This would be referred to as overwhelming the servers with follow requests.
Then along came a new micro blogging website commonly known as Plurk. Plurk a virtual copy of Twitter ads features to the already booming micro blogging system including a time line, karma, and more stats available to the user, and to the public. This ads a certain animation that Twitter was and is still missing. With the ability to scroll along the time line for an unlimited amount, Plurk makes it easier for you to reach back into your social archives. They also allow you to see your friends Plurk’s in a similar fasion allowing you to scroll through them as well. Plurk makes it easier for you to switch from the Twitter platform to the Plurk allowing you to pull in your Twitter friends to your Plurk account.
Now as i mentioned a little earlier, Plurk has an interesting feature in addition to their time line called Karma. Karma in my opinion is an easier way for you to visualize how much your using Plurk. You get Karma by producing quality Plurks daily, inviting friends to Plurk, receiving responses from your followers, and updating your profile frequently. There are also ways in which you can loose Karma like requesting friendship and suffering rejection, becoming unfollowed by your followers, producing spam and spreading it throughout your followers, and if you are inactive for a substantial amount of time. This in Plurks case really helps them in distinguishing who is actually using Plurk versus who just signed up and left.
Plurk like Twitter has an Instant Messaging contact that you are able to add. In Plurks case, it actually works. All you have to do is add their contact to your Instant Messengers friends list and post updates directly from there.
Plurk also ads a unique sense of animation to their website including a little code you can use in your Plurks that allow you to post in different colors. It makes it easier for the follower to tell what kind of mood you are in. For example: You could describe yourself as what you are feeling like, what your thinking, what you love, or what you were. Plurk has it described in a simpler format, you can view that by clicking here.
Here are a few other features that Plurk has to offer.
- The ability to share media, and Youtube Videos
- The ability to share an “advanced” Plurk
- A mobile page in which you can view online
- Qualifiers
- The ability to share a simplified plurk
There are plenty more insignificant features that Plurk offers. The main things that Plurk offers versus Twitter is that they make it more exciting to interact with other people in the Plurk community. Plurk also tends to have more up time compared to Twitter. There have been very few occasions in which i have heard of Plurk’s servers being down.
The upsides on Twitter is that they have more of a community, and you are able to reach a larger audience. It is also more known around the internet community, and has a larger professional base of users. They are also more famously known vs Plurk. An example of that would be the fact that they played host to the Vice President noticed Barack Obama released to the public. Twitter also plays host to Kevin Rose, CNN, Jason Calacanis, Robert Scoble, John C. Dvorak, Micheal Arrington, and Chris Pirillo.
All in all, Twitter still wins the battle with a larger base of users. The thought of Plurk is great buy they need to grow with both a substantial user base, and popularity. Plurk just doesn’t live up to the popularity of Twitter. On the other hand Twitter needs to pick it up. They are losing more and more users to other forms of communication and micro blogging.
Don’t forget you can still ad me on both:
Twitter
&
Plurk
Monday, August 25th, 2008
by admin
I’ve been blogging for almost nine months now, and I’ve enjoyed the experience. Now that I’ve compared it to other forms of expressing information like the newspaper, magazine, and other types of expression i think it’s sufficient to say that blogging, or news being published online is the new form of Journalism.
One of the things about blogging is that you don’t need a Journalism degree to be noticed. The everyday user has become more powerful then ever when it comes to creating, writing, and publishing news. They are publishing great content at a rate that has never been seen before. News is getting out quicker, cleaner and faster. I wouldn’t say that it’s coming out in it’s more truthful form, but users are getting there news more directly or right from the source.
Some major companies have been smart enough to realize this new form of Journalism like CNN or The CBC. They have started publishing their news online through Wordpress, which is a platform for blogging. By doing this, they have been pushed to the head of the game. Links to their website have been found all over the internet driving them traffic, and attention. In some ways more attention than they would get through feeding news through our television screens.
Blogging has also become the new source of income for journalist. Pay per click advertising has never been so popular. Also big companies are entering advertising within the blogosphere paying big bucks to have their ads shown on blogs. Income from Paypal is also growing with more and more people pasting “Donate Buttons” onto their website. Careers of hundreds of people have been made through posting new content, and information online.
This also brings up the question to whether Bloggers are considered Journalist all together. Of course they don’t have the education that qualified Journalist do. But they do post new and relevant information that any other professional writer would. If Bloggers are considered Journalist should they be held to the same standers, and consequences the media have to deal with? Usually Bloggers write for self soothing, or out of interest in a certain subject or topic. Does this mean that they are Journalist, or does this mean that they are everyday people writing as a passion? Should they be under laws, and jurisdictions? Or should they be considered allowed to have freedom of speech?
Credibility also comes up when you talk about Bloggers. Journalist generally are known to have more credibility than an everyday blogger. Do Bloggers have the same credibility as a Journalist? Should they suffer the same consequences as Professional writers for wrongdoings and mis-published information? Or should we just leave them alone if the publish copyright or plagiarized material?
Before i wrap this post up i should also ask the question of whether “Picture Blogs” is really a blog at all. In simpler form is a blog that is only pictures a blog or is it a photo album? Is a photography blog Journalism, or is it a photo album?
Whats your opinion? Is Blogging the New form of Journalism? Is it the future of presenting and broadcasting news? Is the time of the newspaper coming to and end? Where do you get your news from? Do you subscribe to online news distributors, or RSS Feeds? I would really be curious to know. If you have a thought or opinion on this matter please comment below or email me by clicking here. I reply to all email questions and read all of my email.
Thanks, Brad
Saturday, August 23rd, 2008
by admin
Gnomedex hosted by Chris and Ponzi Pirillo, has been yet one of the biggest successes ever performed by the couple. They had very powerful and thought oriented people that clashed together with positive thoughts to make technology more recognized throughout North America, and the world.
Whether it was Sarah Lacy or Mark Bao each presenter had something positive to say and contributed to the tech community around them in some cases involving the community. Ben Huh came in and showed the soft, funny side of the technology community around us, while Scott Maxwell came and showed us what the technology can do to help us advance and linger in the outer limits of our world.
Chris Pirillo dazzled the audience and the chat room with insight, thought, professionalism, creativity, and acceptance. Highlights of the conference included a youth from Chris’s chat room hugging his role model with respect and praise. Chris involved anyone and everyone whether it was a buddy from Ireland, or a local
Chris Pirillo’s (Un-moderated) chatroom also made a spectacular appearance being one of the most respectful television audiences I’ve seen in my entire life. With detailed and intelligent questions, this chatroom could be the brain of technology future alike. Credit for that goes to Kat Armstrong, and Chris Pirillo.
The Pirillo couple also amazed the technology world with his amazing team working the cameras on his live feed. He created it so that the viewers of the tech community felt like they were present and apart of this conference.
Chris also mentioned at the end of this 3 day conference that him and his wife Ponzi are considering moving around the country delivering this technology influenced content to different states, and cities of America.
As this is over, Chris will move back into his office at home in Seattle , and still stream himself plucking away at his keyboard with a trusting community that will follow and respect him for the road ahead whether there is a Gnomedex or not.
Thank you,
Photo Credit: Derek K. Miller-
