Geisentumblog

Babbo pasta tasting.

Fri, 11 Dec 2009 19:36:15 -0500

Babbo pasta tasting.

Richard Branson’s introduction to Virgin Galactic. This...

Tue, 08 Dec 2009 09:21:54 -0500

Richard Branson’s introduction to Virgin Galactic. This looks better than skydiving.

(via Waxy)

inothernews: MICROSOFT’S IDIOT MOVE OF THE DAY: Their search...

Mon, 07 Dec 2009 13:10:10 -0500

inothernews:

MICROSOFT’S IDIOT MOVE OF THE DAY: Their search site, Bing.com, is known for showing picturesque backgrounds. Today, it’s a modern-day aerial shot of Pearl Harbor - the site of a Japanese sneak attack on the U.S. naval fleet on December 7, 1941.

When you scroll over this photo, you’ll get various pop-ups pointing to links on the USS Arizona Memorial or to Wikipedia’s page on the attack itself. But just in case you are “ready to take a break from war news”, Bing is happy to point you away from the sad history of a day that will live in infamy… to look at pretty beach pictures.

Jesus H. fucking Christ.

This is fantastic.

"I certainly don’t believe that the Internet will mean the death of news. Through innovation and..."

Thu, 03 Dec 2009 14:10:33 -0500

“I certainly don’t believe that the Internet will mean the death of news. Through innovation and technology, it can endure with newfound profitability and vitality. Video didn’t kill the radio star. It created a whole new additional industry.”

- Eric Schmidt: How Google Can Help Newspapers - WSJ.com (via bijan)

Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey set to debut Square. (via...

Tue, 01 Dec 2009 13:42:43 -0500

Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey set to debut Square.

(via mikehudack: soupsoup)

Content Revenue Models: Pay Per View vs. Ad Supported

Sun, 29 Nov 2009 18:09:22 -0500

Content Revenue Models: Pay Per View vs. Ad Supported:

Question posted to Martin A. Nisenholtz, senior vice president, digital operations for The New York Times Company. (via @cvvalencia)

Q. Do you see online newspaper and magazine content becoming pay-per-view (or pay-per-month, etc.) in the future? With newspaper and media revenues declining, we hear that idea thrown out every once in a while as a way to stabilize the industry. What are your thoughts?

— David N., Minneapolis

A. Martin A. Nisenholtz: The short answer to your question is “yes.” We’ve experimented with many different versions of online payment over the years. For example, when we started the Web site in early 1996 we charged for international usage. Our thinking was that Times content was unavailable outside the United States, hence, users would be more likely to pay for the online version. After about 18 months we had generated under 4,000 subscriptions, so we ended the experiment in July 1997.

Our most ambitious effort in paid content was TimesSelect, where we charged for access to Times columnists, arguably our most exclusive content (since, for example, Tom Friedman is only available from The Times.) This was much more successful, generating more than 200,000 subscriptions and around $10 million in annual revenue. However, we decided to end TimesSelect after careful analysis suggested that the ad revenues resulting from increased traffic from offering this content free through the exploding search and blogs sectors would exceed $10 million over time.

Today, we continue to carefully analyze the question of how paid content (subscriptions, micro-payments, membership tiers) can augment our core advertising business. The trick, of course, is to garner incremental revenue from the user without significantly cannibalizing the high rate ad pages that now account for a very significant amount of money. Unlike many local news Web sites that still depend mostly on declining classified ad revenues, NYTimes.com has a very large national display revenue stream. As we develop new pay-for-content ideas, we must carefully balance our ability to generate meaningful dollars from both sources.

(via mikehudack:soupsoup)

Milo was in the news last week because they raised a $4 million...

Fri, 27 Nov 2009 13:02:15 -0500

Milo was in the news last week because they raised a $4 million round of venture funding. Their goal is to provide a link between online and offline shopping by providing a comprehensive database of local pricing/inventory for a wide range of products. This is interesting from a couple of angles, but most relevant for me is the marketing potential.

For a site like the one I work for that has a CSE component, many of our clients are interested in the impact their marketing programs have on e-commerce sales. We argue that they’re neglecting to consider the impact on offline sales and our clients agree, but our case would be stronger with a data component. I think Milo (or competitors like Krillion), with scale, could eventually unlock that sort of data.

"What we’re seeing now is marketers creating Web properties that act a lot like standalone..."

Fri, 27 Nov 2009 12:07:31 -0500

“What we’re seeing now is marketers creating Web properties that act a lot like standalone media properties, and it takes professional people to be able to curate and bring all this stuff together in a way that is useful and valuable to the community.”

- Matthew Pietro in Clickz about ExecTweets IT.

“Professional people” also provide a certain bona fides to the entire program that can help justify the price tag.

Cajun stuffing with Oysters.

Thu, 26 Nov 2009 13:33:24 -0500

Cajun stuffing with Oysters.

Tigers Nest Monastery, Bhutan. (via fuckyeahprettyplaces:...

Tue, 24 Nov 2009 16:52:51 -0500

Tigers Nest Monastery, Bhutan.

(via fuckyeahprettyplaces: travelhighlights: eugen)

“The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air” - Neil Young originally by...

Tue, 24 Nov 2009 13:41:24 -0500

“The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air” - Neil Young

originally by Will Smith
(posted by sometimesagreatnotion)

This is really great.

(via 86400:matt-t:copycats)

topherchris: The Macintosh IIsi is the first computer that I...

Mon, 23 Nov 2009 23:13:42 -0500

topherchris:

The Macintosh IIsi is the first computer that I bought as a wee lad with my own money.

The introductory price was $2999.

Good god I needed a girlfriend.

This was also my first computer.

Heaven @ Felix’s in NOLA

Fri, 20 Nov 2009 14:03:42 -0500

Heaven @ Felix’s in NOLA

Going For It

Mon, 16 Nov 2009 15:16:00 -0500

Going For It:

Joe Posnanski has an interesting take on why Belicheck’s decision to go for it on 4th down was actually correct.

I disagreed in a Reader comment that I’m cross-posting here:

Ok, so Posnanski sets this up by persuasively arguing that belicheck is the real Herm Edwards and plays to win the game. I agree with that and I find the following argument that, in spite of the outcome, the decision made sense intriguing yet flawed.

Still, make as many well-reasoned arguments as you’d like, the one variable that Posnanski fails to make is the emotional toll this sort of loss might take on the Patriots. If you lose after a punt here, it’s still a tough loss but Manning gets the credit for the win. You lose the way the Pats lost, it sows dissension and results in questions about Belicheck’s sanity.

I get that Belicheck doesn’t care what other people think. I understand that there’s a reasonable argument for this call. What I think people who are taking the contrarian view here are discounting is that this type of loss has the potential to seriously disrupt a team. As irrational as it may seem to Posnanski, this should’ve informed Belicheck decision on 4th down and led him to punt away.

About the old and new Kindle features

Sun, 15 Nov 2009 18:28:06 -0500

instapaper:

The new Kindle feature is intended to replace the old one, not to supplement it.

The old feature generates a big HTML file every day or week for each user and emails it to Amazon’s email conversion and transfer service. This is the only way to get content automatically delivered to a Kindle.

Unfortunately, it’s extremely unreliable. Very few people use it, yet I think I’ve heard from nearly all of them at least once about missing deliveries and content never getting through. Some have been told by Amazon that they were filtering my deliveries. Some were able to have these filters removed. I’ve attempted to get in touch with Amazon many times, through both official channels and business connections, and have never received a response. It’s clear to me that Amazon doesn’t want me to continue doing this.

The new feature allows you to download saved articles as a .mobi file, readable directly by the Kindle if you transfer it via USB. It doesn’t involve Amazon at all, and therefore cannot be blocked, throttled, or delayed. It also now includes images from article content on many sites.

In addition to the massive reliability gains, it solves one huge problem: content duplication and flooding. I ended up turning off automatic deliveries for myself months ago because I was overwhelmed with a bunch of daily files with no idea what was in each one. And there’s no good answer to the “Include articles that have already been sent” checkbox — both options have problems.

The old feature, at this moment, is still technically operational. But over the last few days, I’ve received a huge number of reports from Kindle users who suddenly aren’t receiving their Instapaper deliveries, even when sent manually from Instapaper’s “Manage my Kindle settings” page. Even my own tests are spotty for the first time. I suspect that Amazon has finally done a blanket block on all Instapaper deliveries, so I’ve worked like crazy this weekend to finish and release the new feature to replace it. Unless something big changes on Amazon’s end, I’ll probably remove the old feature this week. I’m sorry about that, but I don’t think I have another choice.

I recognize that it’s not as automatic or convenient as the previous feature. I’ll work on ways to make it more convenient over time. And if I can work something out with Amazon in the future to re-enable automatic delivery, I’ll be happy to. In the meantime, I’ll do my best to make the new Kindle feature as awesome and convenient as possible.

This is great.

Interesting strategy.

Fri, 13 Nov 2009 21:46:16 -0500

Interesting strategy.

Tilt-shift Google Earth (via kevin)

Fri, 13 Nov 2009 15:43:56 -0500

Tilt-shift Google Earth

(via kevin)

Beta Test CNET's Wireless Coverage Map for Major Cities

Fri, 13 Nov 2009 12:33:00 -0500

Beta Test CNET's Wireless Coverage Map for Major Cities:

See this post from Scott Ard, CNET’s Editor-in-Chief for an explanation of what we’re doing.

If you're a Stones fan or if you just haven't peed yourself in a while: Enjoy.

Fri, 13 Nov 2009 12:15:34 -0500

If you're a Stones fan or if you just haven't peed yourself in a while: Enjoy.:

pleasedontsqueezetheshaman:

Keep watching. It just gets weirder and weirder.

(via growabrain)

I’m so confused, this is amazing.

"We believe we can convert a significant portion of our in-store traffic to digital downloads for..."

Thu, 12 Nov 2009 17:51:35 -0500

“We believe we can convert a significant portion of our in-store traffic to digital downloads for publishers… We believe a large market for full game downloads is not imminent in the near future.”

- GameStop’s COO, Paul Raines

TG: Interested how Raines would define “near future.”

(via Variety)