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White And Nerdy Takes On A Whole New Meaning With Google Glass

Zach Walton — Thu, 02 May 2013 13:33:27 +0000

Glasses are totally sexy, but that used to not be the case. Glasses used to be an indicator that somebody was a nerd. If you wore glasses, you probably played Dungeons and Dragons late into the night while stuffing your face with Doritos. Now thanks to Google Glass, all the pasty white guys can be identified as nerds using only eye wear once again.

A new tumblr popped up recently called “White men wearing Google Glass.” Turns out the title is incredibly descriptive because that’s what you get. Here are some of the standouts:

The most popular image by far is the one below of Robert Scoble testing Google Glass’ water resistance.

It is waterproof to an extent, but Google itself says not to go scuba diving with Glass on.

[h/t: Mashable]

DMX Isn’t Too Keen on the Google [VIDEO]

Josh Wolford — Thu, 20 Sep 2012 14:36:14 +0000

Apparently, internet technology makes DMX lose his mind (up in here, up in here).

Earlier this week, the Grammy-nominated rapper stopped by New York city’s Power 105.1 studios to discuss, among other things, Google. Not only is he not really into using the world’s biggest search engine, but he doesn’t really like the term “google” either.

DMX isn’t really feeling the word “blog,” either:

DMX does have a verified Twitter account, so at least he’s ok with that (or he employes a social media guy). We’re not sure if DMX really is this averse to internet technology, or this is just a bit. Either way, it’s pretty damn funny.

[via reddit]

WordPress by Far the Most Popular Blog Platform

Mike Fossum — Thu, 12 Apr 2012 20:47:14 +0000

A new study by Pingdom has revealed that WordPress is by far the world’s most popular blogging platform, and is used by 48% of the top 100 blogs on the internet, up from 32% 3 years ago. The chart below illustrates the top blogging platforms used by the top blogs over the last three years:

As mentioned, WordPress takes up the lion’s share at 48%, and interestingly, custom blog platforms are on the rise, coming in at 14%. No one is using Bricolage or Expression Engine anymore, and strangely, Tumblr only accounted for one site. Movable Type and Drupal are relatively popular at 7 and 6 % respectively. Five sites use Gawker. TypePad and BlogSmith are notably on the decline since 2009.

WordPress founder Matt Mullenweg had this to say on the current position of his platform, ”The last few years we’ve really focused on both the usability and flexibility of WordPress, which has resulted in accelerating growth in both big and small sites. I expect even higher adoption among the largest sites and blogs over the next year.” Speaking of the “big” sites, here is a list of the top 10:

Interestingly, WordPress accounts for only 3 of the top 10 blogs presently online. The Huffington Post, the world’s biggest, uses Movable Type, and 50% of the blogs on the list use a custom platform or opted not to answer.

With Tumblr rapidly becoming very popular, reporting 100 million unique visitors and over 15 billion pageviews per month in January, it’s evident that the survey results might look a bit different in 2015.

GDC 2012: Ubisoft Creates Engine Room, Blog For Developers By Developers

Zach Walton — Thu, 08 Mar 2012 17:22:21 +0000

GDC is a great place for developers to share insights and ideas with each other for one week a year. Ubisoft wants to create the GDC experience year round with a new blog directed at developers.

The new blog is called Engine Room and it was created “as a result of the employees’ desire to spread their knowledge and expertise beyond Ubisoft.” This isn’t like the PlayStation blog where developers talk to gamers about their new products and what not. This is squarely targeted at developers who want to learn from other developers the tools of the trade. That doesn’t mean that regular gamers shouldn’t read it, quite the contrary, as any gamer who is interested in the technical side of making games will find something here.

Engine Room is really cool in that Ubisoft is making it an “open platform.” What this means is that anybody, even non-Ubisoft employees, can comment or even publish a post if they’re signed up and follow the blog’s guidelines. The hope is that anybody involved in the game industry – programmers, artists and developers – will use this new platform to share ideas and collaborate on new innovations. For any interested developers who wants to submit a blog post, you only need to send them to engineroom@ubisoft.com.

I wholeheartedly recommend that developers take advantage of this to learn more about the art of making games from their peers. Game creation is a collaborative process that needs more ideas like this to keep it fresh. I commend Ubisoft on taking a proactive approach in helping to cultivate the developer community.

Ubisoft threw together a quick video that has their employees talking about technology and what it means to them. It’s pretty neat, so check it out.

Android Design Releases Stencils

Chris Gabbard — Fri, 02 Mar 2012 19:08:50 +0000

The Latest news from the Android developers blog is the recent release of stencils for Android Design. According to Android designer Alex Faaborg, it was “by far the number one request we received.”:

When we initially released Android Design, by far the number one request we received was for us to release stencils as well. The fine folks on the Android User Experience team are pleased today to release some official Android Design stencils for your mockup-creating pleasure.

With these stencils you can now drag and drop your way to beautifully designed Ice Cream Sandwich (Android 4.0) applications, with grace and ease. The stencils feature the rich typography, colors, interactive controls, and icons found throughout Ice Cream Sandwich, along with some phone and tablet outlines to frame your meticulously crafted creations.

Currently we have stencils available for those venerable interactive design powerhouses Adobe Fireworks, and Omni OmniGraffle and we may expand to other applications in the future. The source files for the various icons and controls are also available, created in Adobe Photoshop, and Adobe Illustrator.

Twitter Helps Man Sell Home For $135,000 Above Asking Price

Lee Hester — Wed, 22 Feb 2012 17:24:00 +0000

A tech-savvy Melbourne homeowner used social media to go all out in selling his home and was rewarded with $135,000 above his asking price. Not bad for a little extra work around the house. Real Estate agents, neighbors and most everyone in general is impressed with the 33% increase Kurt Opray received above median home sales for his Northcote neighborhood.

Does this mean Real Estate prices are on the rise? Not necessarily. What it does show is that when a seller includes social media in the process of marketing their home, the extra effort is proving to be very fiscally rewarding and well worth it. The Real Estate agent, Rob Elsom of Hocking Stuart Northcote, hired by this homeowner was blown away when 80 people (30% more than expected) showed up for the auction.

So what did Kurt do to get so much for his home? In tandem with his Real Estate firm and a website, he employed the use of free, easy to use online tools available to everyone. He set up a Twitter account and used it to promote his auction and feed traffic to his blog about the property. He created his blog in WordPress, posted his photos on Picasa and hosted videos on YouTube.

@NorthcoteHouse
Northcote house saleAmazing Northcote house for sale by auction Feb 11 2012. Visit http://t.co/Iaz4qKEb for pics & owners blog. 44 days ago via web · Reply · Retweet · Favorite · powered by @socialditto

Homeowners know their properties better than anyone and can share the interesting, emotional stories and details through social media to engage and excite potential buyers. This added value can help turn a property into a home and take the seller all the way to the bank.

Social Media: Who Are the Most Powerful Influencers?

Mike Tuttle — Wed, 25 Jan 2012 20:17:20 +0000

Forbes Magazine, they of the lists, has released a list of the “Top 50 Social Media Power Influencers“.

The list is comprised of social writers whose networks are most active and identifiable. This is not the same as having millions of followers on Twitter. These are people who write about social media, predicting trends, influencing where things go in the future. Some standouts from the list include:

#1 – Chris Brogan @chrisbrogan – Author of “Social Media 101: Tactics and Tips to Develop Your Business Online”.

Today, I declared war. – ow.ly/8GbuB

— Chris Brogan (@chrisbrogan) January 25, 2012

#3 – Guy Kawasaki @guykawasaki – Early Apple employee who really pushed the Mac; went on to venture capital and found Alltop.

Turnover and tech should be top concerns in 2012 is.gd/OtzVRw

— Guy Kawasaki (@GuyKawasaki) January 25, 2012

#4 – Gary Vaynerchuk @garyvee – Wine connoisseur, video blogger, author of “Crush It! Why Now is the Time to Cash in on your Passion”

Wild how content lives, I got 4 separate emails about this episode in the last 6 hours! I love the world we live in plus.google.com/11131099099124…

— Gary Vaynerchuk (@garyvee) January 24, 2012

#6 – Robert Scoble @scobleizer – Uber-Blogger. Formerly with Microsoft, Fast Company. Currently with Rackspace.

Lots of great tweets from Davos are pouring in: twitter.com/#!/search/Davos

— Robert Scoble (@Scobleizer) January 25, 2012

DirecTV Petite Lap Giraffe Story Controversy

John Vinson — Wed, 30 Mar 2011 18:48:40 +0000

If you ever need proof that truth is stranger than fiction, simply give this story a read. It tells of how a newspaper site ripped off a blog over a story concerning the legitimacy of DirecTV’s viral campaign regarding fictional Petite Lap Giraffes.

Ian Dennis Miller runs a site called localshow.tv, a nifty music video player. He also writes on a personal blog, of which he released an article titled – “Petite Lap Giraffes: Real?” In the article, he writes about research he conducted to find out if Petite Lap Giraffes are real or not. He cites some specific research, concerning the Petite Lap Giraffe site’s URL registration, by way of a WHOIS query, and this photo which originated from a stock photo website.

The story becomes particularly interesting when Miller discovers that LongIslandPress.com used his research to release their own article , without a creditable link directed towards Miller’s website. As any blog owner would do in his situation, he called LongIslandPress out on their exclusion. He did so by posting a comment on the article, getting straight to point without being nasty.

Let’s see if you can guess what LongIslandPress did next, after Miller called them out. Did they:

A.) Admit to the link exclusion, apologize, and keep the story up on their site since it’s sort of funny in a tongue-in-cheek sort of way.

B.) Retract enough information from the original article so they could use information that is attainable through easy means.

C.) Take the article offline, and wash their hands of any wrong doing. Even after search engines crawled their site for content.

Sorry, it’s a trick multiple choice test. Answers B.) and C.) are both correct. The original article written by LongIslandPress included Miller’s research regarding the stock photo image. However, Miller kept up with the article and discovered the stock photo information was taken down. However, the WHOIS domain information, which can be discovered easily by anyone was left up.

Miller’s story caught a bit of steam, and was eventually posted on Slashdot. All the negative attention lead LongIslandPress to take down the story.

Go ahead and file this story under “Newspaper sites that aren’t ready for the internet“. While LongIslandPress is a regional paper and doesn’t have the attention of other major newspaper sites, it paints a portrait of how the needless fight between newspaper sites and blogs rages on. Miller could have really made more of his story, but instead had a bit of fun with it and kept everyone updated with the proceedings. The remarkable part of the story is all of this could have been avoided if they just posted a single link to Miller’s site.

If you haven’t seen the latest DirecTV commercial with the Petite Lap Giraffe being featured, here’s the YouTube video. It’s really quite genius.

UPDATE: It looks as though LongIslandPress.com has seen enough heat from the internet, and have now posted the article with creditable links attached.

UPDATE (04/18): The official Petite Lap Giraffe website has received a rather interesting update. The original video posted on the front page featured a recording, which could have easily have been doctored. They’ve now added a live feed, which has an up-to-the second time code in the top left corner.

The caption below the feed reads: See what our Bull Vladimir do around farm! If not see him, don’t worry he come back.

If people were ready to believe in Petite Lap Giraffes before, imagine how they’ll be fooled by a seemingly live video feed.

Top Tech Blogs in The UK During August

Neville Hobson — Thu, 05 Aug 2010 21:23:38 +0000

Next week, European search engine and news portal Wikio will be publishing the rankings for August 2010 of their lists of the top blogs in the many categories under which they’re classified.

For the past 18 months, I’ve been posting an advance look each month at the top 20 or 30 technology blogs in the UK from the data my friends at Wikio have let me see. Last month, that advance look also included the top 30 online marketing blogs in the UK.

I’ve just received the latest details for both categories:

Top 30 Tech Blogs in the UK: August 2010

Full list at Wikio: Top 100 Technology Blogs in the UK

Top 30 Online Marketing Blogs in the UK: August 2010

Full list at Wikio: Top 100 Online Marketing Blogs in the UK

If you want to suggest others blogs for inclusion in Wikio’s tech or online marketing lists that aren’t there already, either let me know or apply on the Wikio website.

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Colleges Embracing Social Media At More Fleeted Pace Than Businesses

Bill Ives — Wed, 04 Aug 2010 14:29:43 +0000

A new study by Nora Ganim Barnes and Eric Mattson, Social Media and College Admissions: Higher-Ed Beats Business in Adoption of New Tools for Third Year, suggests that US colleges are studying the "rules of engagement" in the online world in order to increase their effectiveness at recruiting prospective students. This is the third year of their data collecting on this topic.

The longitudinal analysis shows that colleges and universities continue to embrace social media as their adoption of blogging again outpaces both the Fortune 500 (22% have a corporate blog) and the fast-growing Inc. 500 (42% have a corporate blog). The latest research shows 51% of colleges and universities have an admissions blog for their school. It is not limited to blogging. My alma mater, Tufts, has prospective students send them YouTube videos.

There have been many reports of business looking through social media to screen out prospective employees. They should look to schools to learn of more positive ways to use social media for recruiting. Colleges are also looking at social media for screening purposes. There was an increase in social media use for screening in 2009 while a decrease in the use of search engines for the same purpose.

Social networking, the social media that was most familiar to college admissions officers in 2007 and 2008 is still the most familiar. Familiarity with social networking has jumped from 55% reporting they were very familiar with it in 2007, to 63% in 2008 and now to 83%. Fifty-five percent of admissions officers report they are very familiar with Twitter.

This familiarity extends to usage as 95% of college admissions offices used at least one form of social media in 2009. Social networking is the most common form with 87% of admissions departments using it. Fifty-nine percent have a school Twitter account and, as noted above, 51% have a blog. In addition, more admissions departments feel that social media is “very important” to their future strategy than Inc. 500 businesses (50% compared to 43%). Good for them.

The colleges are also looking at social media to see what is being said about them. Fifty-three percent in 2007 and 54% in 2008 report they monitored the Internet for buzz, posts, conversations and news about their institution. The latest research shows an increase of close to 20% with 73% of schools now monitoring their school name. I wonder how that compares with business.

Barnes and Matteson at the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth Center for Marketing Research have conducted a number of studies on social media. See for example, Social Media in the Inc. 500: 2007 – 2009. This one is another useful addition to their work.

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