Month: July 2006

Categories
Web

How to rollout a Web 2.0 product

Recovered from the Wayback Machine.

Here are the steps to take when rolling out a new Web 2.0 product.

First, drop the last ‘e’ in your name.

Second, insinuate either directly or indirectly that your competitors are afraid of you because they don’t provide a direct pipeline into their customer data for your use.

Also mention how un-Web 2.0 like it is that your competitors are violating the spirit of the open web. Get your buddies to make a cryptic side reference to this at a talk on core values on the web.

When you have infrastructure problems, no need to hire an experienced tech when you can hire an evangelist instead.

Make a lot out of the application’s cool features. Much coolr than a certain othr company. Even more of how young the lead developer is. Make a _really_ big deal at how young the developr is. This is important–make sure that everyone knows that how this product will kick butt because of the youth of the developer (as compared to the old farts over at …. well, you know).

(Also make sure to mention how the application was coded in only three months. That makes it even cooler.)

Spend a lot of time with Om Malik because, well, um, because he’s Om?

Plan a big rollout party at the exact same time you plan on turning on the all new technology. At the exact same time as you’re rolling out the major application change. Free beer!

Leak rumors that your company might be aquired for millions just before the launch.

Give exactly 24 hours notice to your clients that you’re closing down the site for over a day to roll out the new features.

Come back later and say the rollout is ’slightly’ delayed because of a DOS attack.

Site will be down a little longer. Nasty bullies. But gamely appear at party anyway.

(Show photo of buzz producing human holding Stormhoek wine poster. Damn, my heart stopped a moment from that blast.)

Day 2: *silence* (Must be one hell of a DOS attack.)

Day 3: *silence* (But that’s OK, because the site has ‘beta’ on it. Everyone knows that ‘beta’ means, well, broken. But still cool.)

Categories
Weblogging

The Chocolate Wars

Recovered from the Wayback Machine.

Robert Scoble wrote on addressing executives at Nestlè about weblogging. Frank Paynter responded with post listing out several concerns about Nestlè’s corporate behavior. An executive from the company responded in Frank’s comments–not about the concerns Frank raised, but what a nice guy he is, and how he’s only responding in the interests of supporting his ‘new friend’ Robert Scoble.

Scoble then writes how this is all good stuff: how a Nestlè executive is talking with a anti-Nestlè weblogger. All they, Nestlè, need do now is to start a blog.

They don’t need to actually follow through on their commitment to ensuring decent labor practices in regards to the cocoa they buy. A commitment the company made for July, 2005, and one which, once the initial uproar about these practices subsided in 2002, was somehow ‘forgotten’.

No, all they really need to do, is start a weblog and engage us, people to people.

Frank posted a follow up post responding to the executive; additional discussion arose that also focused on the importance of being ‘civil’ in these discussions, and how Frank should have been flattered this important executive actually wrote a comment in his post. Scoble asserted that Frank and I didn’t get it.

I will have more to say on this, over at the Bb Gun, as soon as I finish the book edits and can do justice to the topics introduced. I hope what I write will be thoughtful. I can’t promise, though, that it will be civil. In the meantime, I wanted to point you to the ongoing discussion.

update: Head Lemur: Think about the Shareholders, they Cry.

Perhaps we can get them into Cute Overload. You know, We b-a-a-d, b-a-a-d bunnies.

Categories
Just Shelley

On Seeing

Recovered from the Wayback Machine.

Editing is going well with the book, other than I have a very tight window. I lucked out with this book and had the best editors–main, tech, and content. Between all of us, I have a high degree of confidence that the final book is going to be something of which to be proud.

I had a break today to go down and pick up new glasses. I finally replaced my 10 year old sunglasses when I realized I could no longer see through them. I also ordered new all around glasses, because I had a prescription change in both the far and near vision. Rather drastically in the near vision, which adds an interesting element in managing vision that goes across near and far spectrums.

I wear progressive lens, which are the modern version of bi-focals. I’ve needed them since my 30’s. The first time I tried progressive lens, I hated them. There’s a spot of vision, which is your far vision and you have to make sure your head is just so to get the effect. Then there’s another spot of vision for your close up viewing. After a while you get used to the glasses, and you don’t have to twist your head about as much trying to line up your viewing ‘target’ in the sweet spot. At first, though, the effect is awful.

Now I’m comfortable with progressive lenses, though it is a bit unnerving when you switch the spot and the target and try to look up close with your far viewing spot and vice versa. Normally, it’s pretty minor…until your eyesight gets to about where mine is.

The only thing I can see without glasses is something held 14 inches in front of me. Book reading distance in bed. Without glasses, I could be married to you and not recognize you ten feet away. As for my computer and car dashboard and reading at arm’s length, I couldn’t see anything more than edge and color.

This prescription was exceptionally precise this time, and the far and near vision are wonderful. The only issue I have is that the difference between the two is rather extreme. I stood up and went to pick up my bag on the floor. Nothing. Well, blobbly color and that black thing must be my purse, but that’s it. Look up from the computer outside at the tree, with head slightly titled back, and near blindness until I hastily tiltled my head back down. I’ll adjust but may hold off on driving until I do.

They also made a mistake on my sunglasses and put in that awful amber glass instead of the gray I requested. They’ve ordered replacement lenses and in the meantime I’ll make do with everything having a yellow cast. Why anyone would pick dark yellow sunglasses has always puzzled me — the sky looks green.

When I was having my eyes examined, I asked the optometrist how business was with all the lasik eye surgery. She said that it has cut into business somewhat, but there are still many people for whom surgery is not a good option. For instance, in my case, there is no way to correct the vision of someone who has presbyopia.

(I just broke away for a moment to see if I could find a site on presbyopia and found this site selling contact lenses. I noticed some of the words had a faint greenish tint on them and became rather alarmed for a moment, thinking something in my glasses was causing a color shift. A moment’s clear thinking and moving my mouse over the words revealed they’re links. Do we need to repeat how important it is to make your links vary enough from the regular text to make them easily viewable? Especially when you’re selling visual aids to sight impaired people? )

If someone like myself wanted to have lasik surgery the approach used is called monovision. We have a dominant eye, which is the ’sighting’ eye .With monovision, they correct this eye for far distance viewing, and then correct the non-dominant eye for close up viewing. The same approach is used with contact lenses (which they recommend people try before having the surgery).

Unfortunately, you lose your binocular vision if you opt for monovision correction with either contact lenses or surgery. Frankly, I’d much rather have my glasses.

Speaking of which, my new glasses are charming. I didn’t notice until I got home that they have a little round diamond in the corners. Not the cat’s eye flair, just a little round diamond. I didn’t get them for the diamond. I mainly picked these frames because they’re the semi-visible kind with a slight metal frame on top, and no frame below. The metal also had a pretty coppery tone instead of the usual silver or gold.

I like the little diamonds, though. I probably wouldn’t have bought the frames if I’d seen the little diamonds, but I like the diamonds. I feel like I’m wearing a pillbox hat and a Channel suit, but without the hat and suit. Chic. That’s how I feel. Chic. You can’t get that when you have your eyes zapped by a lazer.

eyeglasses

Categories
Just Shelley

On Seeing

Recovered from the Wayback Machine.

Editing is going well with the book, other than I have a very tight window. I lucked out with this book and had the best editors–main, tech, and content. Between all of us, I have a high degree of confidence that the final book is going to be something of which to be proud.

I had a break today to go down and pick up new glasses. I finally replaced my 10 year old sunglasses when I realized I could no longer see through them. I also ordered new all around glasses, because I had a prescription change in both the far and near vision. Rather drastically in the near vision, which adds an interesting element in managing vision that goes across near and far spectrums.

I wear progressive lens, which are the modern version of bi-focals. I’ve needed them since my 30’s. The first time I tried progressive lens, I hated them. There’s a spot of vision, which is your far vision and you have to make sure your head is just so to get the effect. Then there’s another spot of vision for your close up viewing. After a while you get used to the glasses, and you don’t have to twist your head about as much trying to line up your viewing ‘target’ in the sweet spot. At first, though, the effect is awful.

Now I’m comfortable with progressive lenses, though it is a bit unnerving when you switch the spot and the target and try to look up close with your far viewing spot and vice versa. Normally, it’s pretty minor…until your eyesight gets to about where mine is.

The only thing I can see without glasses is something held 14 inches in front of me. Book reading distance in bed. Without glasses, I could be married to you and not recognize you ten feet away. As for my computer and car dashboard and reading at arm’s length, I couldn’t see anything more than edge and color.

This prescription was exceptionally precise this time, and the far and near vision are wonderful. The only issue I have is that the difference between the two is rather extreme. I stood up and went to pick up my bag on the floor. Nothing. Well, blobbly color and that black thing must be my purse, but that’s it. Look up from the computer outside at the tree, with head slightly titled back, and near blindness until I hastily tiltled my head back down. I’ll adjust but may hold off on driving until I do.

They also made a mistake on my sunglasses and put in that awful amber glass instead of the gray I requested. They’ve ordered replacement lenses and in the meantime I’ll make do with everything having a yellow cast. Why anyone would pick dark yellow sunglasses has always puzzled me — the sky looks green.

When I was having my eyes examined, I asked the optometrist how business was with all the lasik eye surgery. She said that it has cut into business somewhat, but there are still many people for whom surgery is not a good option. For instance, in my case, there is no way to correct the vision of someone who has presbyopia.

(I just broke away for a moment to see if I could find a site on presbyopia and found this site selling contact lenses. I noticed some of the words had a faint greenish tint on them and became rather alarmed for a moment, thinking something in my glasses was causing a color shift. A moment’s clear thinking and moving my mouse over the words revealed they’re links. Do we need to repeat how important it is to make your links vary enough from the regular text to make them easily viewable? Especially when you’re selling visual aids to sight impaired people? )

If someone like myself wanted to have lasik surgery the approach used is called monovision. We have a dominant eye, which is the ’sighting’ eye .With monovision, they correct this eye for far distance viewing, and then correct the non-dominant eye for close up viewing. The same approach is used with contact lenses (which they recommend people try before having the surgery).

Unfortunately, you lose your binocular vision if you opt for monovision correction with either contact lenses or surgery. Frankly, I’d much rather have my glasses.

Speaking of which, my new glasses are charming. I didn’t notice until I got home that they have a little round diamond in the corners. Not the cat’s eye flair, just a little round diamond. I didn’t get them for the diamond. I mainly picked these frames because they’re the semi-visible kind with a slight metal frame on top, and no frame below. The metal also had a pretty coppery tone instead of the usual silver or gold.

I like the little diamonds, though. I probably wouldn’t have bought the frames if I’d seen the little diamonds, but I like the diamonds. I feel like I’m wearing a pillbox hat and a Channel suit, but without the hat and suit. Chic. That’s how I feel. Chic. You can’t get that when you have your eyes zapped by a laser.

eyeglasses

Categories
Just Shelley Weblogging

Shadow of the Megalith

Recovered from the Wayback Machine.

There’s a cicadia shell hanging off my neighbor’s door. It’s been there over a week. He (my neighbor) comes and goes daily, and I keep expecting him to flick it off. But each day when I go outside–to the store, the laundry, a walk–I look over and it’s still there.

I thought about flicking it off myself, but it is his door; it is his cicadia shell.

Speaking of shells, Sour Duck made an interesting comment in the post “Shiny, Happy, …”. She wrote, To my mind, this blog is still currently living in the shadow of that megalith, Burningbird..

Not a truer phrase spoken: my old site casts a big shadow. Not as creepy looking as the cicadia shell, maybe, but still noticeable. It was, after all, my identity for a time. No, that’s wrong. It was my ‘brand’.

Brand. I’ve been reading that term with increasing frequency; people are worried about their ‘brand’ now. Not their sites, or their identity, or their writing. No, the focus, now, is on ‘brand’.

Recently, when the PodShow site re-published several podcaster syndication feeds, it replaced the copyright information with the site’s own. The developers associated with the site said it was a mistake, and it could have been. Until it was fixed, though, there was a minor uproar among those so recursively syndicated. In particular, more than one podcaster mentioned about the ‘threat to their brand’ in having the syndication feed republished without proper copyright and attribution.

Brand. Huh. I grew up in farming country, where the only brand was the one made of twisted metal and burnt into the butts of cows to mark ownership. When I hear ‘brand’ among webloggers, I still see that big furry butt with the squiggle inside a circle with a bar across the top.

I walked away from a site that might be considered a popular site. Or more popular than some. The popularity, though, stayed with the site; the momentum of links and syndication is such that it stops for the will of no woman or man. All that’s left now is this simple site with it’s plain name and odd colors, and my other sites, which I’ll probably start and drop and change on a whim. This site, this writing, these pictures, the code, me, and you, of course; you, silent or otherwise who weren’t so caught up in the ‘brand’ that you forget it is little more than a facade. Or, perhaps, like me grew up around cows and recognize burned bovine butt when you see it.

As for the ‘megalith’ as SD called it, I walk the Ozark ‘mountains’ and they’re small and quaint compared to the those where I grew up in the Northwest. Hardly more than green rolling hills. Yet in the past, the Ozarks were an imposing mountain chain that reached high above the plains–tall and jagged and snow covered. Time wore them down. Time wears everything down. Nothing is meant to be immutable.

I was thinking that the old subscriptions to the Burningbird syndication feed also remind me of the cicada shell. It is humbling to see them. They, too, had meaning once; a use. Now, like the bug’s old body, like Burningbird, they’re just a remnant.

Now that that’s out of the way…