Links of the Week – January 19th
Everybody loves links, so here are my links of the week:
Money Quote: Beta, as it pertains to web sites, has seen better days. Not long ago, saying the word as part of your web development cycle could help land venture capital even faster than claiming “community,” “paradigm shift” or “disruptive technology.” Now, the term is dissipated and confusing.
Me: Good inside look at what goes on behind the perfectly-perceived and hyped utopia of all tech employers, Google. Grass is always greener on the other side, and things are always worse inside than they are perceived outside.
How To Make Deals With Bigshots in Less Than 10 Minutes
Me: Pretty good advice, in my opinion. Although the most important advice of all, I believe is just have confidence. Or at least portray the impression of confidence.
Google Searches Are Power Hogs Earth2Tech
Money Quote: An average search on the Google emits 7 grams of CO2 — so, two searches on Google uses the same amount of power as boiling water in a tea kettle.
Salesforce.com Launches The Service Cloud, A Customer Service SaaS Application
Salesforce.com just launched a new customer service application called Service Cloud. The new application, built on a SaaS model, tries to capture the crowdsourced pools of knowledge floating across the internet and use them for commercial customer service.
Me: This is just wonderful news for me. I have no pity for the speculators who no doubt will suffer from this forthcoming property bust – serves them right for driving prices sky high and pricing serious home buyers like myself out of the market the last couple years.
Music: David Lee Roth + Microsoft SongSmith = Pure Horror
Me: Brilliant. Just Brilliant.
Windows 7 – The agony and the glory
Money Quote: My general impression of Windows 7 so far is basically this. As soon as TigerDirect in Canada is taking pre-orders I’m jumping in on that line.
FOLLOW FAIL: The Top 10 Reasons I Will Not Follow You in Return on Twitter
Me: My take? Following someone on Twitter and hoping to establish a relationship for dialogue with this person is very much the same as meeting someone in real life at an event and trying to network and keep in touch. Sincerity is the most important. And yes, if you don’t have a profile photo or don’t show me that you are not sincere in having conversations with others, I won’t follow you.
Ultimate List of Free Windows Software from Microsoft – Windows Live
Ultimate List of Free Windows Software from Microsoft
Did Google Just Expose Semantic Data in Search Results?
Money Quote: As we’ve said about the semantic web before: Once our software is capable of deriving meaning from web pages it looks at for us, there’s a whole lot of work that will already be done, allowing our human, creative minds to reach new heights. Structured data is a layer of standardized abstraction upon which new innovation can be created.
Pirate Prisons Project Launches, Book Your Cell Now!
Me: Hilarity! Where can I book my cell?
The Biggest Ponzi Scheme of Them All – O’Reilly Radar
Money Quote: Since Bernie Madoff has put Ponzi schemes back onto the front pages, it’s worth considering whether we are all complicit in the biggest Ponzi scheme of them all, the idea that the global economy can grow indefinitely.
Why Windows 7 Will Save Microsoft at Chris123NT’s Blog
Money Quote: Apple, get ready to meet your match, you’re not going to be able to poke fun at this release, it’s probably going to trump Snow Leopard too.
Dare Obasanjo aka Carnage4Life – The Myth of the Open Source Business Model
Me: This is Dare’s take on the myth of open source business models. I tend to agree. While open source is a wonderful way to do collaborative software development, I’m skeptical that open source is the solution to piracy.
Advertisements that Work: Lessons from Tissue Pack Marketing
Me: I can attest to the effectiveness of tissue pack marketing in Japan. Whenever I’m there, I will always seek out tissue packs, just because they are so useful and you need them EVERYWHERE. And many times, right there on the tissue package I see an ad and discover a new store or service. Win-win marketing.
All about Microsoft mobile edition
Money Quote: When I read analysts, customers, bloggers, partners and others prematurely dancing on Microsoft’s grave because of a loss of a half percent of market share here or a customer loss there, I want to remind them that there is a long legacy — and lots of layers of fat — protecting Microsoft from annihilation. This isn’t a Microsoft apologist talking; it’s a Microsoft realist.
DeepEarth: Microsoft’s Open Source Mapping Control
DeepEarth is a mapping control powered by the combination of Microsoft’s Silverlight 2.0 platform and the DeepZoom control. At its core, it builds on these innovative technologies to provide an architecture for bringing together layers for services, data providers, and your own custom mapping elements together into an impressive user experience.
I guess it pays to get the Big Guns involved
Money Quote: So you see it does pay to get the A-List boys involved because contrary to popular belief they actually are the only ones that people like Google listen; or respond, to. The rest of us are just fodder for their ad food chain.
NBA player charities often a losing game – Salt Lake Tribune
Money Quote: The average NBA player foundation put just 51 cents of each dollar it spent toward charitable programs, well below the 65 cents most philanthropic watchdog groups view as acceptable. Tax records show budgets are quickly eaten up by poor planning and administrative costs.
Other ways of getting my links in real time: Twitter, Google Reader, Delicious or FriendFeed.
I may leave out certain links from my feed if I feel the stories have already been covered ad nauseam this week.
I find the list you made pretty useful. I can catch up what I’ve missed this week.
Thanks for dropping by, Horizon.
Hope my biases don’t show through the links I select.