Google Fantasy Sports

Now that the courts have ruled that baseball statistics are not copyrighted, how about Google getting in on that fantasy sports action? It's one of the last things that keeps going back to my old Yahoo account.

Google Analytics

Feature request for Google Analytics. I want to see one graph displaying all visitor count to all my domains. Who wants to click on every single domain?

Google Reader Tip - Limiting the amount of RSS feed content

One of the drawbacks of an RSS feed is that you can get spammed by the sheer number of news stories from a site. To combat this, some sites allow you to subscribe to posts containing certain keywords or topics that you're interested in.

For instance, I love the financial site Seeking Alpha, but the sheer amount of stories that are posted on the site make it impossible to subcribe to it as an RSS feed. However, if you click on the "get live feeds" button in the top right corner, you are able to subscribe to stories only about certain stocks, like Apple (AAPL) or Garmin (GRMN).

The Toshiba HD-A2 sub-$200 HD DVD player

I have a 50-inch 1080p set, and I'm debating whether or not to pick up the new Toshiba HD DVD player, the HD-A2. The price is finally right, but the problem is that it only produces up to 1080i. My further thinking is that this may not be a problem at all--that at my viewing distance of 8 feet, whether it's 720p, 1080i, or 1080p, my eye will see the same high definition picture. It's not much of challenge to get a hold of HD-DVDs, thanks to my Blockbuster Online subscription. In fact, Netflix and Blockbuster are about the only good thing the HD format war has got going for it, they've been the grease in the squeaky wheel. I remember how hard it used to be to get a hold of DVDs during the transition from VHS.

Link: Ars Technica article on the Toshiba HD-DVD player.

Soulja Boy on How to Do the Souja Boy Dance

Soulja Boy - Crank That

A Few Good Creative Men

Dvorak: There's Still Potential for Microsoft

When a company like Apple is hitting on all cylinders, investment money can be shifted from a company like Microsoft over to Apple. And why not? Growth seems like a given for Apple, and growth is what drives a stock price up and up.

But I have to agree with John Dvorak in his article "Rethinking Microsoft," there is also potential for Microsoft to grow its revenues. Its biggest potential comes from its Xbox division. As an owner of an 50-inch HDTV and a Nintendo Wii, I can tell you that the future of gaming isn't the Nintendo Wii, at least not in its current iteration. Let me be clear, the Wii is the present. The Wii will be the best-selling console this Christmas , but it will not be next Christmas. In the long run, the more HD content that is produced for the Xbox 360, the more its sales will increase . The amount of HDTVs in homes around the world is about to explode. People like me will be experiencing HD for the first time and will want to have a game console that justifies having a large HDTV. The desire for HD content is very strong.

There is still a small competitive risk from the Playstation 3. However, the only thing keeping the PS3's hope alive is the inclusion of a Blu-ray player. It is this same Blu-ray player that has been the PS3's albatross, making the console too expensive for most of the gaming market. There is no reason why, sometime next year, Microsoft couldn't package their HD-DVD peripheral with the 360 and still beat the PS3's price. And by next Christmas, the Xbox will have a larger number of compelling games than the PS3. It's the Xbox and Wii's early sales lead that has a lot third-party gamer designers focusing on those two consoles and not the PS3 for the future.

The biggest threat to Microsoft's revenue stability is Apple stealing away the average computer user at home. Microsoft will continue to dominate in the business world, as it is an industry that Microsoft does anything to cater to, especially sacrifice ease of use for its OS. In the digital age, what the business world wants is directly in opposition to what the consumer wants. Apple understands this is changing their computers to cater to the consumer, not business.

In the end, revenue from the 360 will make up for any decline in the OS market that Microsoft might experience.

Is Google's Growth Rate In Trouble?

The New York Times' Steve Lohr has an article on the risks Google faces in continuing its growth. The author's main concerns are employee bloat, search technology competition, and government intervention.

While each of those is indeed worrisome for Google stockholders, the real threat is competition to its Adsense technology. Google makes a big chunk of its revenue from supplying ads to other websites. Lohr mentions the threat.

"Google’s ad revenue comes mainly from two sources: text ads from its own search results and ads it places on the Web sites of other companies. On the latter, it pays 80 cents or so of each dollar to the Web site and keeps the rest. Increased competition in ad networks, especially from Microsoft, will drive the payouts higher, nibbling away at Google’s profits.

This ad-supply market is quickly becoming crowded with competition. Glancing at any search engine optimization blog reveals tales of making good, in some cases better, money from Google's competitors. One recent example is Digg.com inking a lucrative deal with Microsoft to use its ad-supply tech. Digg had been using Adsense. There also have been complaints about the relevancy of Google's Adsense ads. What good is it if you have a blog about flowers and the ad engine is not supplying relevant advertising? However, webmasters can complain until they're blue in the face, ultimately, it's the advertiser's, not the webmaster's, opinion which matters. The money starts with the advertiser, and they are the ones who see the click rates and their effect on sales. If advertisers feel they get better click-through at cheaper rates from someone else, they will move. Google's advantage is that they can offer their dominant search engine in combination with possible Adsense results as well, something that no other competition can offer. This, in turn, encourages webmasters to use Adsense. If you have a blog about some weird fetish but no advertiser is buying the keywords for your fetish from your ad supplier, you're not making any money from blogging. But, Google might have advertisers for those keywords via their search engine, where else you gonna find links to your obscure fetish? Thus, Google has the snowball rolling down the hill effect--more users, more searches, more keywords, more advertisers.

Another advantage Google has for the future is the size of the market (not market share, but simply the market) is growing. We hear a lot about Google's market share versus its competitors, but we hear little about whether the number of actual searches is growing. It's very likely that every year, more and more people type keywords into Google's search engine. More and more people rely on technology to supplement their memory. More and more are turning to the computer for entertainment, communication, and all around information. And they turn to Google to find it. Financial people know about increase in same-store sales, but they don't know about increase in same-person search.

Radiohead's In Rainbows

Radiohead will release their newest album In Rainbows [review] on a major label after all. What's interesting is that it appears Radiohead has created a new business model: 1. self-release with limited marketing power, get 100% of revenues. 2. seek out more powerful marketing to reach other potential listeners, get small percentage of revenue.

It's the best of both worlds, and it should be the new formula for veteran acts released of record contracts. The success of new acts is still tied to record company marketing power, though, with a few recent exceptions.

Fake Steve's Hubris

You've got to love Fake Steve Jobs:

"See this great article on Wired.com about how the music companies are now desperately trying to prop up some other online retailer as the alternative to Apple, and even sacrificing DRM to do it. Money quote from Edgar Bronfman Jr. where he admits that consumers now care more about their choice of music player than they do about the music itself: "Never before in the history of content has the hardware been more valuable than the software. You think about the VCR or the video cassette -- the video cassette always had more value than the VCR that you shoved it into. Apple has been able to turn that model on its head."

Yes we have. Ain't we cool?"

Why Mahalo Sucks

Take a look at Mahalo.com's search return for the iPhone. The page is dominated by outdated information, the most prominent is an ancient YouTube video of a CBS news report from prior to the phone's release. The most-asked question about Mahalo's user-generated search results was how they would keep the information up-to-date. I've heard Mahalo's creators promise that it would not be a problem, citing Wikipedia as an example. They have obviously failed in the near term. If they can't even keep information on a hot topic like the iPhone relevant, Mahalo may have to find other ways to survive.

Toward that end, it's interesting to note that the the Mahalo iPhone page came up on the second page of Google results for the iPhone. So, it seems that Mahalo is becoming an SEO rather than a search engine.

NY Times' Miguel Helft: Google's Pacific Cable No Big Deal

In a recent blog post titled "Google's Cables Make Unnecessary Waves," The New York Times' Miguel Helft makes the case that news of Google's involvement in laying new cable across the Pacific Ocean is no big deal.

"But my sources told me that Google has long considered becoming part owner of undersea cables, not as part of some new telecom venture, but rather because it needs the bandwidth to move massive amounts of digital information between its data centers around the world. The company already leases capacity in underwater cables, and owning some of the cables outright might prove cheaper than paying rents."

First off, Google isn't trying to start a "new telecom venture," they already have one. Google is currently using their own routers and dark fiber to send their data across the country, which is what a telecom does. Google is cutting out the cost of using other middlemen (other telecoms). Telecoms also own fiber and routers and make money by charging companies like Google to use their hardware. If Helft is talking about Google becoming an ISP, then yes, this news isn't of much interest. But if we're talking about Google expanding its ownership of the hardware backbone that is the Internet, then it is big news. A basic understanding of how the Internet works and what the definition of telecom is could have helped Helft out. His sources tipped him in the right direction, but he failed to connect the dots.

Costco & Lord of the Rings

I bought the 4-disc Lord of the Rings: Return of the King extended edition for $10.99 at Costco. Not bad.

Poor Cell Phone Reception In Your Apartment?

Sprint is offering a solution for those who get poor cell reception in their homes. The Sprint Airave serves as a kind of cell phone extender, but instead of connecting with cell phone towers miles away, you connect to a device that is like a modem that makes your call over the internet. Looks like the service costs $50 for the equipment and $15 a month for the service. That on top of my cell phone bill? I think I'll just stand next to a window. I could really use a product like this with AT&T Wireless and my iPhone--the Airave is Sprint only.

Firefox Works Better on a Mac

I had to take my MacBook in for repairs, so I had to use my old Windows XP Dell for a couple weeks. My god, Firefox 2 eats up tons of memory and crashes like crazy on Windows machines. It works great on my MacBook. I'm not sure who to curse or who to praise.

See Mark Cuban's latest post,"Once You Go Mac," on Blog Maverick.

Georgia Font

Why is Georgia my favorite font? Because it's one of the most readable fonts that's readily available to everyone. From Wikipedia:

"[Georgia] is designed for clarity on a computer monitor even at small sizes, partially due to a relatively large x-height."

Link: Wikipedia article on Georgia font.

Trimming the RSS Feed Fat

One RSS feed deleted today: Federated Media. There was too much noise from this one, and the stories were always 3 days old.

One RSS feed added: Leoville.com/blog. Leo LaPorte's blog.

Starbucks Downloading Hints at Future Business Model

Apple's new wifi downloading at Starbucks is an interesting business model. First, the cost of setting up the service seems minimal. The infrastructure is already in place at each Starbucks via their wifi. All Apple has to supply is the software. If this service ends up a dud, all that Starbucks will suffer are the labor charges associated handling the service.

It becomes even more interesting if Apple expands this technology to other venues. Any place that has a high iPod-carrying customer base should be interested in this technology. Any club or concert venue could sell concert goers a recording from the soundboard or even a copy the band's album. New bands could offer a free single (the first one is always free) or their 5 song ep for whatever they want to charge. Bands would have the advantage of the spontaneous sale, the I-'ve-gotta-have-it-now buying fever that strikes ever y decent American. Most bands already sell CDs at their shows, but those CDs require the band's own capital to purchase before they sell, and can be a loss even they go unsold at the end of a tour.

Bars with jukeboxes could add this feature.

This could also fit into Mark Cuban's idea of going to see a movie and bringing home the DVD. Why not download the DVD over wifi as you sip a cup of joe and talk about the film in the Cineplex's Starbucks cafe?

In general, wifi gadgets with attached memory open up lots of new possibilities. It will be up to the seller to figure out ways to spur sales at their stores. This technology doesn't have to be limited to Apple, but it looks like they've got a foot in the door with their wifi iPods.

Google Reader

RSS readers are an incredibly useful tool. One great reader that I use is Google Reader. The first rule of RSS readers is that you can't subscribe to heavy news sites like CNN.com. Why? Because if you don't check your feeds consistenly, you'll have 200 news stories waiting, just from one site. And most of the stories are just noise. It's best to stick with feeds that deliver between 2-10 stories a day.

My current web browsing routine is skimming through my Google Reader feeds quickly by using the "n" key. If I'm at work, I merely read the headlines and add a star (the "s" key) to anything interesting for later reading.

If I'm at home, I open the interesting stories in another tab, but stay in the Reader window until I've gone through all the feeds. When I'm finished with that, I go tab to tab.

A couple suggested sites which feature great RSS feeds:

Official Google Reader Blog
Boing Boing
Ars Technica
Engadget (warning: this site is "noisy" sometimes. Lots of weird product announcements)
Daring Fireball