Master of 500 Hats

Searching for Search Geeks in the Big Apple

Geeking out with SearchEngineWatch guru Danny Sullivan et al here in NYC... and whaddya know, we got some snow!

besides getting a little more winter than i counted on, the first day of the conference was chock full of goodies.  i went to several great sessions, one on Searcher Behavior that was excellent.  kudos to Cam Balzer of Performics  and Gord Hotchkiss of Enquiro for some excellent data re: "search before the purchase" report & search term eye-tracking).

also another session on Blogs, Boards, & Posts was very good (in particular Steve Rubel of CooperKatz, aka author of the MicroPersuasion blog).

some cool "heat-tracking" visualizations from eyetools research:
 

more Googlemania, from GQ

for all ye who seek more Googlemania, an interesting take by GQ on the founders, the VCs, the angels, and the CEO that i hadn't heard before.

Yahoo! for Flickr?

Om sez Flickr may get acquired by Yahoo.

similar rumors about Yahoo buying SixApart (or SixApart going public, which i think is unlikely).

also recent speculation that Apple might buy Tivo.

somebody hurry up and buy something dammit.

(oh yeah, NYT bought About.com)

Excellent graphs + article on blog sw market share

A bit long, but here's an excellent article about blog sw market share by Elise Bauer (elise.com).  This is an update to an earlier article last August by the same author.

The writeup is intriguing, however the real gems of the piece are the charts/graphs below:

(note: my edits on the chart above to highlight SixApart properties -- click to see original)

I'm always curious that many people (including several excellent writers/analysts) tend to emphasize words over their pictures.  Even when the pictures are crappy, they often communicate concepts a lot better than well-written text.  Especially when the pictures are as good as the ones above, i'd always lead with the graphics.  Anyway, just an aside... regardless, the article is tremendous.

on a related note, see a graph of recent podcast growth by Netcraft (on Feedburner).

SixApart IPO/Acquisition speculation

more speculation about SixApart going public by Russell, to followup on earlier stories about SixApart getting acquired by Yahoo (pro & con). 

nice idea and i agree they should be in play, but if so there's nothing confirmed publicly yet, and last time i saw Andrew or Mr. Hornik neither of them had the cheshire cat look about them yet (emphasis on yet ;)

for more on this "market" from a "knowledgeable analyst", checkout the October 2004 report by Mary Meeker on blogs & RSS.

TNT halftime organizer = u are so fired

talk about a complete misunderstanding of target market. 

Charles Barkley said it best: "this is a hip-hop night, not a Nascar night!"

for the moron at TNT (or the NBA? Denver local?) who decided it would be a good idea to feature country music at the NBA halftime show, i agree with Charles you better start dusting off your resume.  because unless your boss is the world's biggest country fan, you are most certainly looking for a J-O-B tomorrow morning, homes.

don't get me wrong -- LeeAnn Rimes is a fine entertainer, and i'm sure there must be at least 3 or 4 NBA fans who are also country music lovers, like the gentleman to your left.  but you've got to be clueless-from-another-planet to not know your audience (white or black) wants R&B, hip-hop, & rap as their first, last, and best options for entertainment.

get with the program, vern...

NYT discovers Podcasting

well, i guess if the New York Times is reporting on podcasting, i'd say it's now mainstream.

(note: NYT.com subscription required however... effin' NYT wants $600 for "informational online publishing use".  um, ever heard of the Creative Commons, guys?  i'm gonna send traffic to you for free, and you want six large?  WTF?)

"LinkedIn Services" + new UI

LinkedIn just launched a new service called... (wait for it)... LinkedIn Services.

They also launched a new UI that's a little cleaner than the previous one. 
See what else is new at LinkedIn.

Gizoogle: Fo all you beotches who wanna find shiznit

Gizoogle search on DMC sez:

"The 500 Hats of Dave McClure Rappa of 500 Hats, Dizzy McClure Masta of 500 Hats  like this and like that and like this and uh."

"Gangsta of 500 Hats. A blog `bout Dave McClure n his many hats"

"this was written by cracka Dave McClure"

obviously, i am the shiznit.

Slice of Delicious: *Oishii*

- poll Delicious every 5 minutes for cool new stuff
- grab every X where >30 people think X is effin' cool
- serve all that cool new stuff up for dinner

mmm, sounds tasty :)