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December 28, 2005
fun with Google Homepage API
While watching Michigan give away, and then almost win the Alamo bowl, I decided to experiment with the Google Homepage API. Creating a Google Map mashup is so passé, so I decided to create a FeedBurner stats module.
It supports adding feed stats for feeds with the Awareness API turned on and those that don't if you supply your username and password. Just list the feed URIs you care about, separated by commas - example: "burnthisRSS2, boingboing/ibag,feldthoughts"
How do you use this?
1. from your Google Personalized Homepage, hit "Add Content".
2. Expand "Create a Section" and enter into the box labeled "Search by topic or feed URL:" http://www.olechowski.org/steve/fb-homepage.xml
3. it "Go"
4. Click on "edit" on the module to add your username, password, and URIs you wish to track.
Hopefully, one of our great FB designers will help out and make this look prettier sometime in the future.
Posted by Steve at 11:28 PM | Comments (1)
December 21, 2005
no one cares about your blog merch
these are great:
No One Cares Blog Mug
No One Cares Blog Ringer Tee (girly)
Highbrow | No One Cares About Your Blog t-shirts, mugs, mousepads & gifts
Posted by Steve at 04:24 PM | Comments (1590)
December 20, 2005
testing Performancing for Firefox
A test of the 
for Firefox. Trying to see if this is better or worse than using Flock. Seems like it works! no technorati tags yet, though.
Hauppauge Wing
Posted by Steve at 05:41 PM | Comments (1907)
December 19, 2005
baby, it's cold outside
I took this picture from my dashboard this morning. yowza it's cold!
Anyone want to relocate here to take on one of our FeedBurner jobs?technorati tags: jobs, cold, chicago
Posted by Steve at 12:22 PM | Comments (1)
December 18, 2005
domainers = squatters
these people and companies like marchex i consider to be the scum of the earth. they are nothing but domain squatters. they buy up domains that they know people will "type in" and then aggregate paid links, AdSense, and Overture ads to direct traffic. scum, scum, scum.
read all about them here:
Business 2.0 :: Magazine Article :: Features :: Masters of Their Domains
technorati tags: domainers, squatting
Posted by Steve at 07:34 AM | Comments (429)
December 17, 2005
the "bling bling" party
a fun trend in the Netherlands - the "bling bling" party. apparently these are all the rage. don your best 50 cent costume, drink and dance. what's not to love?
Posted by Steve at 06:36 AM | Comments (86)
December 15, 2005
my ass through a fisheye lens
ha!
Posted by Steve at 06:11 PM | Comments (39)
December 13, 2005
Actionable, uh, Feeds!
Back in the day, at Spyonit and later 724, the hot topic in the alerts world was "Actionable Alerts." Companies didn't want to just send alerts, they wanted subscribers to act upon them. Buy something from an email, respond to an SMS alert for more info or an MMS video, whatever. It was all about making a passive experience active.
This is what FeedFlare is all about as well! Making the passive experience of reading feeds an active experience, no matter where that feed item travels. If we believe that feeds are how content items will get distributed, why not attach the relevant actions to that content right to the item?
We've released a few great examples of this with del.icio.us tagging and saving, technorati cosmos queries, and allowing the sending of an email directly from that item. This is just the tip of the iceberg. we'll do a few more for sure, but the real power will come when we open up the APIs an allow the developers out there to create cool things.
A huge round of applause to Eric, Matt, Chris and their teams for getting this out there!
technorati tags: rss, feedburner
Posted by Steve at 01:11 PM | Comments (121)
December 09, 2005
EA to buy JAMDAT for $680 million
Mobile Game Developer - EA To Acquire JAMDAT Mobile for $680 Million
I've always liked EA and I've always liked JAMDAT - so I think this is a great move by EA - to own a distribution partner that perhaps has the strongest carrier relationships out there.
technorati tags: mobile games
Posted by Steve at 04:09 PM | Comments (6)
December 02, 2005
time for someone to do personal aggregation again
Back in Bubble 1.0 when we were doing Spyonit.com, there were a slew of companies in a similar space (we were doing consumer "alerts") that were in the business of "personal aggregation". That is, they logged into all of your accounts for you, scraped the HTML off those sites, and re-presented them to you in one dashboard.
remember companies like :
VerticalOne now points to a domain squatter.
All these companies failed miserably at what they were trying to do, mostly because scraping HTML sucks. It really does, trust me. HTML web sites change all the time, in all sorts of little ways. You just can't run a business scraping HTML; it doesn't scale. It takes too many monkeys to keep up.
But in these days of mashups, and Web 2.0 open APIs and structured data (read XML), I'm surprised someone isn't taking another crack at this. One place to go to get all the stats, balances, etc that can all be fetched securly over HTTPS in the background, and presented with that all that cool web 2.0-like flair.
I'm sure MyYahoo! and the other portals do some of this, and it seems kind of to be what Swivel is going after, but more individualized and not business focused.
Quite frankly, a new startup would probably do a better job at this than the portals, just because they could be more nimble and not worry about all the legal ramifications of dealing with the unwashed masses.
I'm sure also that it will be suggested that all this just piggyback on RSS and be presented in the right feed aggregator, which might someday be a good idea once RSS shakes it's authentication problems.
alright, it's late here, and this James Bond movie is starting to get scenic. ciao.
technorati tags: insomnia, firefox, xbox 360, skype, iraq
Posted by Steve at 03:42 AM | Comments (796)
google base profiles - all adult friend finder
I wonder if Google predicted Google Base would be used primarily for porn, and Adult Friend Finder ads (what some might call "legalized pimpin'")? You gotta love open APIs!
Google Base Profiles
technorati tags: google base
Posted by Steve at 03:00 AM | Comments (15)