Never having been to such a celebrity event, I was roaming the web to see if I made it into any of the pictures. As I surfed from news site to news site looking for pictures, two things struck me: one, nobody thought I was suitable for the red carpet shots and two, some of these news sites are subjecting their audience to a mind numbing assortment of annoying banner ads. It was those ads, and not the quality of the news that determined my interest in browsing the news site.
News sites need to generate revenue from the web to survive, especially as readers of news move from paying for print to surfing for free. But loading these sites up with low budget ads announcing that you are the 1,000,000 visitor can do more harm than good. As viewers are faced with pop-ups, pop-unders and other annoyances, viewers will choose to get their news from other sites rather than be subjected to annoyances.
News sites should take a look at their advertising partners to decide if these partners are helping or hurting the news site’s image.
07/13/07: Googling your way into trouble
While in San Francisco for the All-Star game, I had a chance to catch up with my dear friend Tom Merrit and sit in on his Podcast Show, Buzz Out Loud. Buzz is a daily show from CNet about technology, and despite being billed as being ‘indeterminate length’ it is almost always at least 30 minutes long, which matches perfectly to my morning runs. My ipod automatically syncs with the show’s podcast directory to pull down the latest podcast. Another great case of technology simplifying things!
Tom and I met in the halls of NPR while he was interning for NPR’s morning edition. Tom interviewed me for a story he was working on about marketing for Bob Edwards. Bob and I go way back, so he connected the two of us and we immediately hit it off.
It was pretty neat to watch Tom and his co-hosts run the Podcast, it actually reminded me of my college radio days, except with a lot more computers. If you listen to Podcast 514 you will actually hear my chuckle as Tom reported on how Google was part of a robbery in Colorado Springs.
It appears that the criminals broke into ‘Mr. Biggs Family Fun Center’ with the intent to rob a safe. After trying to cloud the cameras with WD-40 (which didn’t work so well) they moved onto the safe.
It appears that the safe was a bit harder than they realized. As any good information seeker would do when faced with a problem, the burglars turned to the nearest computer and entered “How to crack a safe” into Google.
Apparently the answers were good enough to get the job done, and the burglars ran off with enough money to buy 20 shares of Google ($12K).
It was pretty neat to watch Tom and his co-hosts run the Podcast, it actually reminded me of my college radio days, except with a lot more computers. If you listen to Podcast 514 you will actually hear my chuckle as Tom reported on how Google was part of a robbery in Colorado Springs.
It appears that the safe was a bit harder than they realized. As any good information seeker would do when faced with a problem, the burglars turned to the nearest computer and entered “How to crack a safe” into Google.
Apparently the answers were good enough to get the job done, and the burglars ran off with enough money to buy 20 shares of Google ($12K).
I got to spend the 4th of July in Napa this year with my dear friend Gary Galleron, the owner of the famed Galleron Wines. If anyone knows wine, it’s Gary. I met Gary at the Calistoga fair years ago when he entered a wine in the Napa Valley Home Winemakers Association competition. He won first place and overall ‘Best of Show’ for a delicious Late Harvest Riesling. I usually find Rieslings too sweet, but his was as close to perfect as I had ever tasted. We traded notes on winemaking and selecting grapes, immediately hitting it off. He gave me some tips for my Archer Farms Cab that I immediately put to use during the next vintage.
Anyway, he invited me out for the fireworks and the upcoming MLB All-star game in San Fran. He was supplying wine for some of the VIP parties and received some tickets to the game. We can’t wait!
While we were discussing the upcoming weekend, I was asking him about routes to take to go to a couple of destinations. Popping up the trusted friend Google Maps, I noticed some of the routes may be shorter, but I didn’t think they were the fastest ways around town, especially with the All-Star game in town.
While I was looking at the maps, Gary reached over and clicked on a peiece of the route and simply dragged it to another road that was faster. The map thought for a second and then proceeded to produce a new set of directions based upon that new path Gary set out.
Pretty fancy use of AJAX. Hats off to Google again! I should have no problem getting to the game and back to Gary’s by sunrise!
Anyway, he invited me out for the fireworks and the upcoming MLB All-star game in San Fran. He was supplying wine for some of the VIP parties and received some tickets to the game. We can’t wait!
While we were discussing the upcoming weekend, I was asking him about routes to take to go to a couple of destinations. Popping up the trusted friend Google Maps, I noticed some of the routes may be shorter, but I didn’t think they were the fastest ways around town, especially with the All-Star game in town.
While I was looking at the maps, Gary reached over and clicked on a peiece of the route and simply dragged it to another road that was faster. The map thought for a second and then proceeded to produce a new set of directions based upon that new path Gary set out.
Pretty fancy use of AJAX. Hats off to Google again! I should have no problem getting to the game and back to Gary’s by sunrise!
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