October 31st, 2006 | Written by Tucows | Comments Off
Filed Under: Programming
I do most of my work on a 1.33 gig PowerBook G4, but I'm not going to say no to a company-issued computer with decent specs. Hence the other computer on my desk, a 3.0 gig P4 IBM ThinkCentre with half a gig of RAM, one of the standard issue machines here at Tucows. I use it mostly as a machine for testing sites and web applications in Windows, and occasionally, I'll do a tiny bit of Windows development on it. There aren't any important files on the machine, which made it a suitable subject for today's scary Hallowe'en experiment: installing Windows Vista RC1 (that's Release Candidate 1).
I got a copy of Windows Vista RC1 last night at a gathering held by Microsoft here in Toronto, where they invited a number of Toronto tech bloggers to see Vista in action and hear presentations on deployment and security. I took notes and will post them here later.
October 30th, 2006 | Written by Tucows | Comments Off
Filed Under: Conference Coverage
A sizable contingent from Tucows will be making an appearance at ISPCON Fall 2006, the premier conference for internet service providers, wireless providers, VOIP providers and internet businesses. It'll take place from Tuesday, November 7th through Thursday, November 9th, 2006 at the Santa Clara Convention Center in Santa Clara, California. If you're in the neighbourhood, we'd like to see you, which is why we're handing out these free guest passes!
These guest passes get you free admittance to:
The exhibit hall, where among other things, you'll find our booth. We'll have a number of product managers here, who'll be more than happy to demonstrate our internet services.
The guest passes also entitle you to register for the conference at a great discount.
There's no limit to the number of guest passes we can hand out. If you'd like one (or several) — simply click here or the image below to download a PDF of the pass [816K PDF file], print it out and bring it to ISPCON. See you there!
What a week. It's Saturday morning now I'm on my way to the VIP wine tasting - wine dinner excursion. There wasn't room for me to fly to this on the Greenpoint technologies Lear jet, but, I'm flying back tonight on it, so pictures will be take (blogging from a plane!). This is going to be one of the last posts here for me on the Tucows Blog. So if you'd like to keep reading my posts on other (but still related) topics, please come on over to A View from the Isle.
So, how was the conference, you might wonder. I don't go to that many conferences, three or so a year usually, but I have a great affection for BBS as you know. BBS seems to be the conference where I take giant leaps forward in my career. BBS is an interesting conference. There are people coming to learn how to get their business blog going, some to learn how to make their business blog better, others are already bloggers and here to just connect with each other.
While there are always good sessions and some not as good sessions, overall I think the sessions this go round where the best thus far. Being the third BBS, Steve et al have figured out what the range of people are looking for, and this really showed. Besides the two sessions where I was speaking (which were of course spectacular ), I really like Jason Calacanis' keynote, John Batelle's keynote and the small business blogging sessions. Yes, I liked all the others too, don't feel left out, those where just my favourites. The keynotes where interesting just because John and Jason were interesting to listen to and had interesting insights. Might not 100% agree with 100% of the talk, but it was still entertaining. The small biz blogging session was so tremendously important … I wish it had been in the larger room and not the smaller side room. SMBs (small to mid-size businesses) can leverage blogs and blogging far easier than large companies and, IMHO, reap larger rewards faster. SMBs are more nibble and can level the playing field versus larger competitors. It is not hard or unheard of (actually it's rather common) for a small biz to lap a large biz on search engines by leveraging blogs.
As the sessions were wrapping up I had a chance to chat with Steve Broback about what BBS07 might look like. One idea thus far is to make it more of a community of business bloggers, therefore people already blogging. Sure there will always people who will still need to get their business blog going, but I have two ideas for that. One is, of course, the pre-conference workshops. I'd make them much more hands on and maybe more like small group classes. Second, might be for newbie bloggers to have a "blogging buddy" a speaker or attendee who is already an established blogger to just keep tabs on them through the conference and offer insight to the new folks.
I think this has been a watershed BBS. It's the third one, business blogging isn't a new concept or something that I think needs a strong arm sell. I think we need to work on refinements and enhancements, but the overall stuff is all set, IMHO.
I'm going to be covering the special post-conference event I was invited to attend on my blog.
My message was simple: Net Neutrality isn't a new issue, nor is it over. The fight for the basic rights that the Internet's end-to-end architecture give us are being slowly but surely taken away from us by Big Media and the Bellheads. We need to be aware of this and take specific steps to ensure that we don't lose anything else, or better, turn the tide.
Apologies for some of the formatting. Keynote doesn't have a great Powerpoint export, and Slideshare only supports PPT uploads.
Looking into the future is fun. The concept, the vision of what could be … Liz Lawley, Steve, and Matt are doing a job more akin to herding cats or wrangling talking about this. This isn't bad, in fact it's great. The discussion is out there, it's interesting … Matt started with referencing Plato's Republic and the "noble lie" about technology and making it easier is better. Matt thinks makes it personal is key.
The information is the key. Is the goal transparent tools? Is the goal a giant place where we actually don't know what we're using, it just works? Would one company control it all?
If they could buy a company:
Matt: Sun and Amazon
Liz: Six Apart and Amazon
Steve:
One think about BBS … I think I'm going to have to start watching Ze Frank.
Search as an Interface … wow at the command line. We're still at the DOS prompt level here. Waiting for Search 2.0. This is a whole new why to consider this. Search results now are just like type dir or ls -a and getting a list of what's there. Wow.
Browser battles, it's not who own's the window, it's who owns what's inside the window. In the window is where the business is going on and the outer part doesn't really matter.
Lightweight business model with innovation as the assembly of new and interesting things into things we can really use.
Search rules. The cost of acquisition of paid search is $8.50. A new business model that monetizes the declaration of intent not content. Looking for a car … search for the model you're looking for and … well we all know what comes next, the ads. It is because of this focus on search that fueled the explosion of social media. Search is tied to the links and linkages within the media. A symbiosis between what people are looking for and those who can supply the information or the product.
John's keynote gave me a lot of ideas for things I'm going to have to blog about later … and this post is a tad late because right after John spoke, I actually could share the stage with John and Dave on the SEO panel. Which, has to be the highlight of my time here. Thanks guys for letting me be a part of the panel.
October 27th, 2006 | Written by Tucows | Comments Off
Filed Under: Conference Coverage
In an earlier post today, I put in an Amazon affiliate link to buy Elements of Style. I decided at lunch that any money earned from that link will go to the Pender Island Public Library. Enough said.
Interesting session, my only problem is that my ears seem to be having a post-cold stuffiness and I'm having a tad of trouble hearing people (making it hard to concentrate). After listening and watching, here's the big take away. Have a story to tell, start small (low investment in hardware), and just do it.
I haven't done a video blog post yet, but for podcasting I'm trying PodcastSpot (disclosure I've known the guys there for a while and as a beta tester I got an upgraded account for free). And guess what! I have been recording, just not mixing and uploading! Well inspired by this talk, I did my mixing, edit (not much, I like the recordings to be pretty raw), and uploading during this session.
And … now it's lunch time. Dave Taylor and I will be at the SEO table … cause guess what? Dave and I are doing the SEO panel discussion … I'm actually subbing for John Battelle! How cool is that?
October 27th, 2006 | Written by Tucows | Comments Off
Filed Under: Conference Coverage
The straight dope from a couple of people who might have heard of in the blogosphere Maryam and Robert Scoble (I only wish Maryam blogged more). The tips and ideas here are real, tried-and-true techniques that will make your blog and blogging.
Don't bog if you don't want to — If you aren't passionate (or interested in) what you're writing about … don't
Read other blogs
Pick a niche you can own … which is getting tougher and tougher to do. For many people, the search box is the address bar. People use one-three word search terms. So … people are always looking for something, if you content isn't focused, then people will probably miss you. It's like a person searching on a particular day might be looking for info on RSS on the day you're writing about your dog. Okay maybe not that bad, if you've written a lot on the topic they will probably still find you.
Linking to other blogs is the lifeblood of blogging. If you don't link, it just won't work. Like getting a link from Scoble yesterday (heck getting a link from Scoble anytime) is great. Beyond the traffic a link is an affirmation of your content.
Oooh the A-lister question (I don't think I'm an A-lister. I'd like to be an A-lister, but I don't think I'm there, and might not ever be). Robert says that you can become an A-lister in 20 mins. Dave and I disagreed a bit … if you get the exclusive, blogable Steve Jobs interview sure you're going to have massive traffic, but you might wind up being a one-hit-wonder. There is a valid point, however, you can be an A-lister in the various niches (btw the word is pronounced neesh not nitch!).
Thick skin
Write good headlines … yeah pithy is cute, but you do need to write descriptive headlines that people will find your post in search engines.
Use other media … pictures in posts rock! They catch people's eye. Video? Podcast? Yeah, but humans are pretty visual, so pictures are easiest. Halley recommends Tony Pierce's BusBlog for the pictures of hot women … usually that don't match the content, but draw you in to read all of the content.
Have a voice … write like you talk might be talking with them. I do this … I am writing this thinking I'm trying to tell you (quickly) about this talk. My better posts when I'm not trying to type at top speed, of course.
Get outside of the blogosphere. Meaning, have a life and friends who blog in real life. Yes, Lorraine and I are friends with Maryam and Robert and Chris and Ponzi. Really. And the friends I've made blogging are some of my best friends even though I might only see them face to face with them once or twice a year. Go to conferences. Hang out with us. Chat. Sit with us at lunch. Really we won't bite
Market yourself. Well, yeah. We all love to do this, please read us, please link to us, please subscribe to our feeds. Robert makes the key point … put your blog on your business card!
Write well. Grammar, spelling, tone, and your state of mind. Blogging mad or down, etc is a bad idea. Trust me on this. Experiment with different creative writing styles. Make sure your first paragraph makes your point, or is catchy. Even if you have to re-write it when you're "done" with the post.
Expose yourself. In terms of being vulnerable, be open, let people get into your head. Sometimes, no often, taking a risk once and a while will make your blog much more interesting. Maybe a post once and a while about your life or hobbies
Help other people blog. Mentor, help, teach just be the kind of person who makes helping part of your blogging
Engage with commenters. Visit your commenters' blogs, subscribe to them, and leave a comment on their posts. You know that's how you meet great people and learn about a whole new perspective.
Keep your integrity. If you get it for free, disclose. If you have a vested interest in something tell us. Hey we're human we can handle it. Be true, authentic, be you.
Yeah … these are the good tips. Do these and yes, you will be on the road to success.
October 27th, 2006 | Written by Tucows | Comments Off
Filed Under: Conference Coverage
How has YouTube changed marketing, especially for large businesses? The large business, the enterprise (not NCC1701-D), have such different perspectives than other business works.
Tools for enterprise to leverage power of Web 2.0:
podcasting, IBM is getting into podcasting and video blogging (internally, esp) in a big way
Wikis, project management, etc (sorry I still don't like wikis).
Social media:
Not about the technology
Not new channels … huh?
Now that a brand can be created, or destroyed, in moments though online media, it is important to understand it. This is, unfortunately, a rather heavy session for 9AM. Two days of live blogging the conference is taking its toll on my gray matter.
How can I sage and wise about this? Clearly brands matter. Clearly IBM is a huge brand (understatement).
How is IBM changing, more podcasting, more video, but Ben is saying that there are great stories at IBM, but they need great storytellers and people to help. Both things they are having trouble find.
"Large companies want to spend money on this, but don't know where to spend it" — Ben Edwards
), I really like 