Robin Good Archive Of Latest News
August 2004

The Corporate Weblog CounterManifesto   Here is my counterpoint to the corporate blogger manifesto Robert Scoble has just published through the ChangeThis initiative. He has gotten some really good points. But the view of the emerging grassroots, semantic Web should reflect some universal laws that seem not yet to find way... Link | cat.: Robert Scoble -- August 31

Test IE Compatibility Inside Firefox!   This is something we have been longing for quite a while, and, in my humble opinion, something that can have a profound disrupting role in how IT departments and Web developers will select their Web coding and testing standards. As it appears, we may have a... Link | cat.: Dan McTaggart -- August 31

Voice-Over-IP Lands On Mac Desktops: Skype For Mac OSX Is Here!   Skype, the best free voice-over-IP solution available today to PC and Linux computer is now accessible also from Mac OS X powered machines (beta version). With this new release, Skype is the first company to have on the market a powerful instant messenger integrating voice, multi-party... read more | cat.: | Link | Comment Robin Good - Skype -- August 31

CMS, Findability And The Importance Of Making Your Content Be Found   "The current emphasis on content management is not about content management at all but rather about content publishing - and there is a difference. Organizations are aware of the problems in getting current, reliable information into an intranet but feel that their responsibility stops with building... Link | cat.: Martin White - Econtent - [via InfoDesign.org] -- August 30

Carry Over Your Best Internet Explorer Features To FireFox   "I have been an explorer user for a long time. The question is not whether I like it or not. The question is, is there something that can reasonably replace it. Between spyware and BHO's changing my home page on a regular basis I was getting annoyed... read more | cat.: | Link | Comment Dan McTaggart - FireFoxIE -- August 30

The New Web Advertising Paradigm: Bottom-up, Distributed, Customized, Credible   Bottom-up advertising is an idea whose time has come. The tipping point came about 3 days ago, when John Battelle finally published a short but powerful blog post entitled "Sell Side Advertising: A New Model?". The idea had been indeed circulating for some time through a few... read more | cat.: | Link | Comment Robin Good -- August 29

Bottom-up Advertising: As Above, So Below; As Below, So Above   Bottom-up advertising is an idea whose time has come. The tipping point came about 3 days ago, when John Battelle finally published a short but powerful blog post entitled "Sell Side Advertising: A New Model?". The idea had been indeed circulating for some time through a few... Link | cat.: Robin Good -- August 29

PC Intrusion Prevention Software: Quickfix Pro   "Today's fast-spreading worms and viruses can infect every vulnerable PC on the Internet within minutes. Some worms shut themselves down long before the Anti-Virus vendors have even had a chance to analyze how they spread. Many of those leave thousands of Trojans in their wake. ...one... read more | cat.: | Link | Comment Robin Good - [via Marjolein Hoekstra] -- August 28

Newsfeeds And Specialty Search To Gain Popularity Over Traditional Web Sites   Jakob Nielsen points to the emerging relevance of dedicated search feeds, and, as I personally interpret this, of the highly specific and targeted newsfeeds. He says in one of his latest Alertbox columns: "...the Web's strength comes from narrowly targeted sites that provide users with highly specialized... read more | cat.: | Link | Comment Jakob Nielsen -- August 28

Is The Conferencing Industry Clueless About Marketing On The Web?   The hot issue remains pretty much the same. Here is an industry, dynamic, fast growing and exciting with new tools and technologies showing up on my radar on a weekly basis now, but with no real voices, personalities and character as the audiences they are targeting... Link | cat.: Robin Good - Kolabora -- August 27

Usability Tips For RSS Newsfeeds   While RSS continues to escalate in popularity as a viable distribution medium for content, issues about how to make newsfeeds more accessible and easy to use are just now emerging. It must be said, that being the application of RSS feeds highly varied and differentiated among... Link | cat.: Robin Good - Helge.at -- August 26

Audio As A Web Marketing Tool   "Most visitors to your website are using computers with audio capabilities. Recently introduced techniques make it easy to take advantage of this capability. In the past, web audio was primarily decorative, consisting of musical fanfares or other clichéd sound effects. Now, you can use audio to... Link | cat.: Roger C. Parker - Woosy Info -- August 26

The Web As A Distributed New Media Factory   Jason Kottke has a valuable view on Web services and the Web as a distributed platform to assemble, splice and publish aggregated content components from multiple re-sources. "...we need tools that create feeds and then let us combine them into web pages." He correctly points to the... Link | cat.: Jason Kottke - Kottke.org -- August 25

Reality Is Up For Grabs: Learn The Code And Start To Co-Write It   Stephen Downes points to an interesting interview with Douglas Rushkoff just launching a new comic novel entitled Club Zero-G. Goal of the novel is to bring through the use of popular fantasy and allegoric language like the one of comics, awareness of the potential for changing... read more | cat.: | Link | Comment Douglas Rushkoff - [via Stephen Downes] -- August 25

Specialized Search Engines Offer New Market Opportunities   John Blossom captures in a great article the essence of what is already happening with the emergence of very dedicated news channels and search tools. "While major search engine indeed have changed the face of what's considered valuable content, search technology as a whole is empowering... Link | cat.: John Blossom - Shore -- August 24

Blogs Are Really Boring   I've come to the conclusion that blogs are boring. And the comments on blog entries are often worse than boring. Not only are many of them silly, but just like the online guest books of 10 years ago, the software is so unsophisticated that it allows... read more | cat.: | Link | Comment Robin Good -- August 24

The Emergence Of Secondary Markets For Digital Media   eBay has just announced that during a 180-day pilot it will allow digital music files for download. “Pre-approved” resellers will be able to offer downloadable music within auctions at eBay. Is this the beginning of a legal secondary market for digital media? This article gives a... Link | cat.: Lutz Niehüser - INDICARE - [via PaidContent.org] -- August 23

Find Out EVERYTHING About Any Web Site: URLinfo   Michael Fagan is at it again with one of his great search services. "Fagan Finder's goal is to help people find what they are looking for" and URLinfo, the latest gem in his search collection, just launched overnight and still in beta. It sports the most... Link | cat.: Robin Good Recommends -- August 23

Test Your Web Interface: Navigation Stress Test   If you don't know about the Navigation Stress Test, it is time you consider it for serious adoption within your Web testing toolset. The Navigation Stress Test allows to evaluate the accessibility, usability and navigation framework effectiveness of any Web site. Though the author himself declares... read more | cat.: | Link | Comment Keith Instone -- August 23

Synchronize PC And Laptop Data Seamlessly: BeInSync   Datapod, an Israeli company, brings to market an aptly named tool to facilitate the popular need to easily synchronize PC laptop contents with one or more desktop computers. Chris Shipley, reports its first impressions about version 1.0 in its latest release of DEMOletter. "BeInSync, the software,... Link | cat.: Chris Shipley - DEMOletter -- August 22

Good Presentation Tips + RSS Newsfeed   Ellen Finkelstein does it again with a great resource of information for PowerPoint presenters. PowerPoint Tips brings together the best and most useful advice collected by the author over the years. Tips include everything from how to utilize a Summary Slide for questions & answers to... read more | cat.: | Link | Comment Ellen Finkelstein -- August 21

Synchronous Collaboration Tools For The Academic World   This is a Macromedia Breeze presentation I recorded for the e/merge 2004 conference on Blended Collaborative Learning back in July. It addresses issues relating to live collaboration and conferencing systems that can be effectively utilized in the academic world. It points out to different categories of... read more | cat.: | Link | Comment Robin Good -- August 21

Rip Mix Feed: Alan Levine Goes After RSS NewsMastering Tools   Alan Levine catches on, all on his own, on the base core concept of a newsmaster. He just gracefully lands on it as many of you have as well, and he goes out to test a few of the possible alternative services that he found to... read more | cat.: | Link | Comment Alan Levine -- August 20

EXTRA! Advertisers Reward Bloggers For Doing What They Do Best: Blogging. Blogversations Does The Rest   Blogversations is a hot and juicy next-to-be launched service that really strikes the perfect Cluetrain chord: markets are conversations. The idea is: Let bloggers write, review and comment with genuine passion while rewarding their valuable marketing effort in tangible ways. Let bloggers discuss and contend among... read more | cat.: | Link | Comment Robin Good -- August 20

Digital Technologies Can Be The Key Building Blocks To A New Economic Future   "New digital technologies are creating a crisis in the business models of the companies that depend on having a monopoly on distribution." Howard Rheingold blows some fresh and truly inspiring ideas in a short interview on MSNBC.com. Technologies, the ones enabling the individuals to take back initiative... read more | cat.: | Link | Comment Howard Rheingold - MSNBC -- August 19

PC Security? 20 Minutes Is All You Have   Researchers at the SANS Institute's Internet Storm Center estimate that an unprotected PC will be compromised within 20 minutes of being connected to the Internet, down from an estimated 40 minutes last year. The estimate is based on observations of vacant IP addresses, which received reports... Link | cat.: Robin Good - CNET -- August 19

Usability Testing: Get A Captive Audience + No Online Surveys   "To discover which designs work best, watch users as they attempt to perform tasks with the user interface. This method is so simple that many people overlook it, assuming that there must be something more to usability testing. Of course, there are many ways to watch... read more | cat.: | Link | Comment Jakob Nielsen -- August 18

Is Less Always Best? How Visual Simplicity Can Harm Usability   Balancing visual and structural complexity in interaction design. "Usability is based on principles such as "Less is more" and "Keep it simple, stupid". But there is more to simplicity than meets the eye. By reducing visual complexity at the cost of structural simplicity, you will give... read more | cat.: | Link | Comment Henrik Olsen -- August 18

Easy-To-Use Digital Photo Album For PC, Mac And Linux: B*Gallery   An interesting image publishing and photo album-creation software is the one from B*Gallery. The software, which costs only $ 19.95 to be fully registered, has versions for Windows, Mac and Linux and it stands out from the crowd for its simplicity of use. On top of... Link | cat.: Robin Good -- August 18

P2P May Help Transparency In Politics Emerge   "The US Congress offers webcasts of their hearings but these often evaporate into the ether unless citizens take the initiative to make live recordings," says Click to Vote founder John Parres, who's spearheading the launch of the non-partisan P2PCongress.org. "The P2P Congress website helps coordinate those efforts... Link | cat.: JD Lasica - [via SmartMobs] -- August 17

How To Build A Site To Web Standards: The Official Checklist   "The term Web standards can mean different things to different people. For some, it is 'table-free sites', for others it is 'using valid code'. However, Web standards are much broader than that. A site built to Web standards should adhere to standards (HTML, XHTML, XML, CSS,... read more | cat.: | Link | Comment Robin Good - Max Design -- August 16

Niche Blogs Can Be Outstanding Advertising Channels: Rich, Relevant, Discrete   I don't know much about others, since everyone is so secretive about profits and advertising returns, but I am rather curious, and outside of Google imposing policies to its publishers and advertisers (not to disclose detailed information about their accounts) I feel I want to share... read more | cat.: | Link | Comment Robin Good -- August 16

Time To Kill Microsoft Word?   Microsoft Word: time to rethink its role? Popular PC Magazine columnist John Dvorak launches a timid attack on the most popular word processing application available on personal computers. Microsoft Word Dvorak argues that some of Microsoft Word long time weaknesses have persisted with no signs of recovery... Link | cat.: John C. Dvorak - PC Magazine -- August 15

Top Ten Online Editing Mistakes   "Sometimes the question of where to put a comma, how to use a verb or why not to repeat a word can be important, even strategic. But most of the time the author either missed that day's grammar lesson in elementary school or is too close... read more | cat.: | Link | Comment Pat Holt - Holt Uncensored - [via Chris Pirillo] -- August 15

Money Is Not A Measure Of Well-Being: New Corporate Investors Show Change   Money as the measure of value and consumption as the measure of well-being means that when more money is spent -- that is, when the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) statistic is up -- "the economy is healthy." It doesn't matter whether that money is spent... read more | cat.: | Link | Comment Tom Atlee -- August 15

The Future Of Internet Video Distribution   The economics of video distribution may be changing drastically and much sooner than you may expect. Rich Gordon, one of the excellent contributors to Poynter's Online E-Media Tidbits first came across this realization by reading a fascinating report, "Pipe Dreams: Media's Exploding Capacity," prepared for investors... Link | cat.: Rich Gordon - Poynter Online - E-Media Tidbits -- August 14

Open Source Media Repository For Creative Content Creators: Open Media   JD Lasica and Marc Canter have announced the launch of their Open Media project for which I would like to provide all of my support. Open Media wants to provide easy and free access to multimedia authors of all kinds to upload, share, syndicate, remix and... Link | cat.: J D Lasica & Marc Canter -- August 14

Online Publishing: The Long View?   "We live in a time in which the media business is undergoing its greatest change in the 500 years since Gutenberg. ...One main factor affecting media is the sheer supply of news and information available to consumers. Thirty years ago, the average U.S. consumer had access... read more | cat.: | Link | Comment Vin Crosbie - ClickZ -- August 13

From VHS To DVD In Four Simple Steps   Converting VHS tapes to digital DVDs is any amateur videomaker secret desire. Tools and technologies are here that make this once difficult black art a straightforward set of simple steps. CNet editor Lee Koo and the CNet Forum community contributors provide great tips and advicet: "1. Capture... read more | cat.: | Link | Comment Robin Good - CNet -- August 13

Transparency And Credibility In The Blogosphere   The openness of Weblogs could help explain why many readers find them more credible than traditional media. Can mainstream journalists learn from their cutting-edge cousins? The article "examines reasons why bloggers are more trusted than journalists. "Bloggers are more trusted, I think, because they are human and... read more | cat.: | Link | Comment J.D. Lasica - Online Journalism Review - [via Stephen Downes - OLDaily] -- August 13

Desktop OS Alternatives To Microsoft Windows: Linux Gains Good Ground   "Will it always be a Microsoft Windows world? Okay, I knew this chunky black box wouldn't be the sexiest PC on my block. But that was fine, considering its paltry $278 price tag—and that I'd really ordered it for what it didn't have: any Microsoft software... Link | cat.: Robin Good - MIT Technology Review -- August 12

Google Keywords Popularity: G-Metrics Tracks Keywords Over Time   "You might be interested in the popularity of keywords in Google for a variety of reasons -- you might be doing research on a technology, or you might be trying to optimize your page and get a sense of how many other people are using the... read more | cat.: | Link | Comment Robin Good - ResearchBuzz -- August 12

Link Popularity + Authority = Credibility On The Web   Gaining traction, exposure and visibility online is not easy. Many factors are at play, and though some superficial aspects do count more than you would think (just like in real life), what it comes down to is the credibility that your site transmits. Credibility is not... read more | cat.: | Link | Comment Robin Good -- August 11

PACmeter - Popularity, Authority, Credibility Online: How To Measure Them?   Popularity The quality of being widely accepted, sought after or admired. www.cogsci.princeton.edu/cgi-bin/webwn Authority Power of influence, either granted to or developed by individuals, that leads to others doing what those individuals direct. www.dhs.state.or.us/admin/ois/pmo/publications/pmo_glossary.html A measure of how reliable a source of information is. Is the article wriitten by a recognized... read more | cat.: | Link | Comment Robin Good -- August 11

Instant Messaging Graduates To Workgroup Collaboration Tool   "Today, Palo Alto-based start-up Five Across introduced a new instant messenger system, called InterComm. At first blush, another IM system may seem redundant, silly and unnecessary. After all, AOL, MSN, and Yahoo already capture the vast majority of consumer IM users. What can a newcomer bring... read more | cat.: | Link | Comment Chris Shipley - DEMOletter -- August 11

Presentations For International Audiences: Localize, Contextualize   In any presentation, one of the keys to success remains a focus on the audience's frame of reference. However, when that audience is international, you'll need to step out of your own frame of reference and focus on making the presentation salient for your target group.... read more | cat.: | Link | Comment Dr Joseph Sommerville - MarketingProfs -- August 11

How To Select Your Web Conferencing Provider   Today, Stephanie Downs of ConferZone presents a new live event focusing on selecting a Web Conferencing provider. Entitled "How To Pick A (Web Conferencing) Vendor" the event goal is to "help participants learn to:Decide on the "Category" of e-conferencing that fits your needs. Structure your requirements... read more | cat.: | Link | Comment Robin Good Real-Time Reporter -- August 10

Information Architecture + Information Design = User Experience Design   E-learning teams are noticing and becoming aware of the immense potential of UXD (User Experience Design) practices in addition to the learning design methods used until now. "This article is an early attempt to define the elements of learning experience design or LXD and to explain... read more | cat.: | Link | Comment Maish Nichami - Australian Flexible Learning Community -- August 10

The Future Of News? Dan Gillmor Launches Grassroots Journalism Into The Mainstream   "Grassroots journalists are dismantling Big Media's monopoly on the news, transforming it from a lecture to a conversation. Not content to accept the news as reported, these readers-turned-reporters are publishing in real time to a worldwide audience via the Internet. The impact of their work is... read more | cat.: | Link | Comment Robin Good Comments -- August 10

Shortcut Your Desires: AWesome ActiveWords   Thanks to TinyURL's voluntary-distributed human alert service (you may not be subscribed, but I tell you this thing is great) I was informed the other day that may links in the newsletter where not leading anywhere as the TinyURL server was temporarily down. Whoooi. "Thank you TinyURL,... Link | cat.: Robin Good Recommends -- August 9

The Making Of Reality And The Dupe Theory   This is an exercise in thinking. This is an exercise in evaluating how conditioned you are. "...This first level could be called PR/propaganda/intelligence. It involves painting a picture of the world and the forces of power that is completely conventional and acceptable to the masses. Namely,... Link | cat.: Robin Good -- August 8

The Malleable Reality: Propaganda, Deception And The Dupe   This is an exercise in thinking. This is an exercise in evaluating how conditioned you are. How much the news and media which permeate much of your life, outlook, attitude and interests shape your ability to see reality beyond them? If you can digest the excerpted article below... read more | cat.: | Link | Comment Robin Good -- August 8

Spyware, Adware, Malware: Who Owns Your PC?   Here is one more "enlightening journey into the dangers lurking out on the 'net for the unwary". Spyware and malicious ware of all kinds attempts to install itself on your PC and the more I look, the more I see people not even realizing what is... read more | cat.: | Link | Comment SANS - Internet Storm Center - [via Slashdot] -- August 8

Marketing Is Part Of The Conversation: Or Not?   Ben Hunt pointed me to this article on Wired and asked with surprise if blog commerce is next up on the list. Yes, Ben, not only blog commerce is coming up next, it has already been here among us for a while. We are just not... Link | cat.: Robin Good -- August 7

Marketing Is Part Of The Conversation: The Emerging Blog Commerce Business Model   Ben Hunt pointed me to this article on Wired and asked with surprise if blog commerce is next up on the list. "Yes, Ben, not only blog commerce is coming up next, it has already been here among us for a while. " We are just not... read more | cat.: | Link | Comment Robin Good -- August 7

Web Conferencing Experts Say: It's A Buyer's Market!   Some quite interesting trends emerge from the report I created with the questions and answers collected at yesterday's live event "State of the E-conferencing Industry: Today's Issues and Tomorrow's Solution" organized and presented/moderated by Stephanie Downs of ConferZone. If we don't leverage more audience participation and parallel... read more | cat.: | Link | Comment Robin Good - Kolabora -- August 6

Real-Time Blogging   Real-time blogging was my yesterday experiment. I set-up to cover in real-time the live online conference "State of the E-conferencing Industry: Today's Issues and Tomorrow's Solution" organized and presented/moderated by Stephanie Downs of ConferZone. The challenge I had posed to myself was: how do I blog a... read more | cat.: | Link | Comment Robin Good Reports -- August 6

Best Educational Projects Involving Creativity, Learning And Play: The Map of Creativity   Behind an innovative, elegant and for many aspects, effective interface, the Map of Creativity gives you access to an exploratory view of all the best ongoing learning projects available on the Web. "Given the enormous number of innovative projects, many of which are unknown outside a... read more | cat.: | Link Robin Good Recommends - [via Andy Carvin] -- August 6

Beyond Search: Gathering, Aggregating, Filtering And Publishing   Quality newsmastering gear is finally appearing everywhere I turn. Last night I was out for dinner with Reid Conrad (former Extensibility) who has a fascinating product in development (version 1.0 - Mac only is already out) called Near-Time Flow. These tools facilitate individual researchers/publishers role of... Link | cat.: Robin Good -- August 5

Where To Find Great Images For Your Site   FotoSearch is a great digital photo clearinghouse that taps into multiple stock catalogs (50) while providing one unified search access to hundreds of thousands of commercial-grade quality images. Although I am a frequent and extremely satisfied user of Stock Exchange, a vibrant, informal and fast growing... read more | cat.: | Link | Comment Robin Good Recommends -- August 5

Robin Good Blogs The Future Of Conferencing   Today, at 12 noon New York time, I will be reporting/blogging live for about three hours, Stephanie Downs' live conferencing event "State of the E-conferencing Industry: Today's Issues and Tomorrow's Solution". If you are interested to attend a live conference on the future of Web conferencing... read more | cat.: | Link Robin Good - Kolabora -- August 5

The Perfect News Site Profile: What's Yours?   Steve Outing points to his ideal news site profile. While acknowledging ideas coming from other journalists, opinion leaders and bloggers, Mr Outing pulls together an interesting set of traits that would bring the stale boredom of many present-day online newspapers to the age of breaking news,... read more | cat.: | Link | Comment Steve Outing - Editor & Publisher -- August 4

SkypeOut Connects You To The World: First Impressions   Robin Good reports on his first impressions in using the new official release of Skype and in particular its new revolutionary offering allowing direct PC-to-phone calls called SkypeOut. While the judges are still out, Robin provides its own dose of expert opinion and advice on the... read more | cat.: | Link Robin Good - Kolabora -- August 4

Topical News Mapping : NewsIsFree News Maps   News Maps is a new visual mapping facility bringing together the most popular/recent news in pre-selected topic areas together with an effective set of customization controls to personalize your news panorama. Along the effective lines of earlier newsmaps (Stamen and Newsmap) Newsisfree News Maps offer... Link | cat.: Robin Good Recommends -- August 3

How To Access the Internet With Maximum Privacy: Create A Virtual VPN To Bypass Firewall Restrictions   "More and more employers and universities are becoming aware of the amount of time their employees or students are spending using the Internet for personal reasons. Obviously employers want to discourage this behavior and may implement a number of different ways to do so. This guide... Link | cat.: Robin Good - BuzzSurf.com -- August 3

Search, Track, Monitor, Publish: GoogleAlert   Among the many different tools and online services that can be utilized to create key topic trackers, competitive intelligence reports, and content newsfeeds for independent publishers GoogleAlert stands out from the group for its focus on Google Web results and its powerful filtering capabilities. What GoogleAlert... read more | cat.: | Link | Comment Robin Good Recommends -- August 2

Spread Your Change-Agent Ideas On The Web: ChangeThis Helps You Do It!   Bloggers are special. A jumble of slanted, shouting voices have overcome our airwaves, infiltrated our newspapers, filled every corner of our waking lives, and they aren't going to stop. It's affecting all of us. You may have noticed that every argument seems just a little more... Link | cat.: Robin Good Recommends -- August 2

The Ad-Jay: Will Bloggers Mix, Edit And Match Their Preferred Ads?   "As search-result pages from Google and Yahoo get increasingly crowded by competing ads, programs that syndicate ads out to third-party sites may become even more attractive to online advertisers. But those services need to improve. ... read more | cat.: | Link Robin Good -- August 1

Curated Consumption Supports Ad-Only Channels   Steve Outing reports of an all-commercial TV channel in Britain, the Advert Channel. "Yes, that's right, 24 hours a day of commercials, with no pesky programming to interrupt things. Of course, this would be just a crazy idea if some TV commercials weren't funny and entertaining.... Link | cat.: Robin Good -- August 1

Choose Your Own Contextual Advertisers: Will Google Ever Let You?   Amy Gahran recently wrote in the Poynter Online E-Media Tidbits: "According to a July 19 report from Nielsen//NetRatings, the demand for search-engine advertising (such as Google Adwords or Overture) is growing far more quickly than the supply of available advertising spots. This means that before long,... read more | cat.: | Link | Comment Robin Good -- August 1

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