YouTube Community Council - My View On The Group

This video's a response to BravesGirl's presentation of the YouTube Community Council of which she's a part. I'm happy to see she's on it, but I have one major criticism which I present in this video.

MacBook and Coffee - Two Friends Talk About The Mac

Web 2.0 Summit - Flickr's New Geotagging Design Seen At Web 2.0 Summit Lunch

As I write this, I'm having lunch at Maxfield's, a nice restaurant in the Sheraton Palace, a place where, according to Attorney General Jerry Brown, a president got shot in. I don't know which one, off the top of my head.

At any rate, it's pretty crowded with people, and all of a sudden. And by their the tags around their necks, they're here for Tim O'Reilly's Web 2.0 Summit. Having just presented my friend Monte Poole with an award from the San Francisco Black Journalists Association, I was hungry and decided to not just stop by but gain some information.

One of the interesting online devices I've seen is what appears to be a new Flickr application. It seems to mate photos with geographic location so that if you press on a part of a map, it matches all of the photos you have for that part of the map into one area called, "San Francisco" for example.

As the people demonstrating this were at a table nearby, I managed to get this video of what they were seeing.




According to Paul Miller over at Nodalities, Flickr was at the Summit to report ...

a replacement for existing geotagging service...

115,000 geotagged photos per day, one every 1.3 seconds.

Merge tagging and locations to deliver a new ui that scales better to handle growth in usage.

“But there's more...”

Current 'interestingness' algorithm for photos can also be applied to the geolocation, creating pages of 'iconic' images at a given location.

That was what I saw, and what you're seeing here. I wish I'd turned the camera over their sooner as there were more interesting screen shots I could have taken.

Web 2.0 Summit Has "Web Bowl" - Tuesday Oct 16th.

This is from CMP and the Web 2.0 website

Sold Out Web 2.0 Summit Announces First Web Bowl: Challenges World to Stump the Luminaries

Competition Offers Everyone the Chance to Participate

SAN FRANCISCO -- September 25, 2007 -- O'Reilly Media, Inc. and CMP Technology, co-producers of the annual Web 2.0 Summit, today jointly announced the launch of the Web Bowl, a live trivia competition about the Internet, taking place during the sold out event this year. Conference organizers are reaching out to the general public and attendees to pool together the most challenging (and fun) questions about the World Wide Web for the first annual Web Bowl.

Web 2.0 Summit's Web Bowl asks people to match wits with Internet luminaries, bringing the toughest questions about the Web on stage. The biggest names of the Web community will be able to prove themselves in real time amidst the gunfire of questions on industry trivia, history, and personalities. Hosted by Web 2.0 Summit's chair, John Battelle, the Web Bowl was modeled on the Computer History Bowl to entertain, inform, and inspire the Web community.

"We are pleased to announce the first annual Web Bowl at the Summit," said John Battelle, Web 2.0 Summit's Program Chair. "The game show format will create an entertaining opportunity to both celebrate the history and future of the Web among the leading members of the Web community. Even those not able to make it will be able to participate virtually, in true 2.0 spirit."

Web Bowl is challenging the world to submit the toughest questions about the Internet to use in the Web Bowl. Questions could range from what the first instant messaging service was to who created the first blog, and more. Acknowledgement will go to the person who submits a question used on-stage at the event.

To sign up for this, click here.

Yahoo!'s Appointment of Jerry Yang As CEO No Surprise To Me - My Idea!

This week, Yahoo! announced it was hiring -- or re-hiring -- co-founder Jerry Yang as CEO. The move comes as no surprise to me because I suggested it to a newly-minted Yahoo finance executive I was sitting next to on a Monday April 30th 2007 5 PM EST flight bound from New York City, where I was for the NFL Draft, to the San Francisco Bay Area, where he and I both live.

The conversation started because we were talking about the web and "Web 2.0". In the process of the talk, we both revealed our occupations. He was only with Yahoo for about three months to that point and had just come from a meeting regarding the then-new acquisition of Ad Bright, the online ad company, in New York. I said that one reason Google was way ahead of Yahoo! was that there were two recognizable founders at the center -- Larry Page and Sergi Brin. By contrast, Yahoo's founders were no where to be seen. I said the best way to recapture some attention and institutional memory was to bring back Jerry Yang.

After the conversation, the man said little. He was working on a massive Excel spreadsheet that explained Yahoo's ad inventory and revenue estimates. OK, I absorbed a lot of information. Hey, it was in my face, what could I do?

Yahoo's website is an enormous system containing over 100 million pages and several billion impressions. I was really surprised at just how large the site system and the company as a result, had become. And it may be the very reason for the problems it faces -- it's so big both in site and company structure that it's lost it's identity.

Can Jerry Yang bring Yahoo! back? Perhaps. But I think the first move should be to simplify what's there. Yahoo's all over the place and it's hard to see it in a coherent fashion. Google's website design provides a key, as it's many services are neatly separated and grouped so one does not get lost. This isn't true for Yahoo!'s site at all.

Yahoo! needs to find a new design formula that's easy and timeless and scaleable -- and stick with it.

Sony's OLED TV Technology -- Flat Screen TV Is Here!

In one of my favorite movies, "2001 A Space Odessey," a common device was something called a flat-screen television. Just as thick as a sheet of paper, it had a clear image where one could watch television from any angle, even with it sitting flat on a table.

Now, Sony's introducing the real, world's first flat-screen television. Called OLED, it's only 10 millimeters thick, basically wafer-thin. The clarity is without peer and the technology itself will revolutionize pop-culture. It's so thin and flexible that I can see jackets and coats with flat-screens as per of them.

See the video!

Craiglist Largest Use Is For Erotic Services - Sfgate and Complete

It's no secret that Craiglist is widely used to locate many goods and services, but it seems the best use is for erotic services. This is what Compete.com reports:

"It’s no wonder that Craigslist is champion of the online classifieds revolution; Compete reports just under 17 million people visiting per month. The site boasts quick accessibility, a straight-forward interface, and a posting registry ranging from video games and community events to furniture and real estate. But as it turns out, many visitors to craigslist.org are looking for something more risqué than that lamp with the red velvet fringe.

Analysis of eight major American cities shows erotic services consistently garners the highest number of individual visitors for February – almost always twice as many as the next ranking category, averaging 265,000 people per city. Equally racy lists that consistently score high visitor volume are the section for casual encounters as well as personals for women seeking men. The most commonly frequented venue outside of this virtual red-light district? Cars for sale."

Sam Zell's Nuts - Google's Not Using His Content

Here's an example of how some people just don't get the Internet -- Sam Zell . According to CNBC and The Washington Post, Sam comes to Stanford University and makes this comment:

"If all of the newspapers in America did not allow Google to steal their content, how profitable would Google be?" Zell said during the question period after his speech. "Not very."

This proves he doens't understand what the heck's going on. Google DRIVES traffic to the newspapers -- all Google has to do is drop Sam's newspapers, advance other news sources -- which are plentiful -- and leave him in the dust!

Google has links to the newspapers -- Sam Zell can buy more links to them. But Google's not the only search engine -- there are hundreds of them! There's Yahoo! Mamma. Lycos. This list goes on. In fact, here it is, and this one doesn't include blog search engines!

Complete SE list
7Search -Pay for position SE.
Acclaim Search -by ValueCom.
AOL -Lousy web search.
AllCrawl -"Why Choose, When You Can Have It All?"
All The Web -Claims alot of pages, but disappointing.
AltaVista -Also offers translation.
Amnesi -Search internet server names (DNS names).
Ampleo -Human interactive search engine. Free.
Ask Jeeves -Uses natual language input. Mediocre.
Deja.Com -Search UseNet newsgroups.
Deoji -Includes tools for WebTV.
Dewa -
DevSearch -The web developer's SE.
DirectHit -One of the biggies. Pretty good.
DMOZ -Open directory project
Excite -Rated as one of the best SEs.
Findit2000 -
FindWhat -Pay for position.
Frequent Finders -Search for words in the actual URLs.
Funkycat -International search engine with a broad index.
GenieKnows -
Google -Huge *and* accurate, a favorite. Weighs popularity.
Go -Mis-managed by Mickey Mouse & Co.
Go2Net -
GoshDarn! -Hot new search engine
HotBot -Scalable. Search a domain, eg. [.edu].
iBound -
Info Hiway -
Infomak -
InfoSeek -Owned by Disney. Average.
Intelliseek -Their Profusion site allows searching 1000 sites, including many on the 'invisible web'
IXQuick -Highly rated.
Jump City -
Kanoodle -Pay for position SE.
Link Centre -
Link Master -
Links2Go -Most-referenced pages by topics; it's also personalizable.
Look Up -
Lost Link/ Web Links -Great site, adds links instantly... with banners!
Lycos -"Wolf spider" (Latin). Another SE biggie.
MSN -
NBCi -New respect for this search engine
TheNet1 -
Nexor Aliweb -
NorthernLight -Recommended, plus a special pay collection.
Overture -Top pay for position SE, high commercial relevance.
Pathfinder/ Time-Warner -Time, People, Money, Fortune, etc...
Reference.Com -UseNet resources
Rocket Links -Pay for position SE.
Scrub The Web -Robot SE claims to have indexed 80 MM pages. Search.Com -CNET. Infoseek SE, own db for subjects.
Search4Info -
Search Hound -Pay for position. Slow?
Search King -Indexes instantly. Surfers votes determine ranking.
Snap -Advanced setting allows excluding words, eg. xxx, porn, etc..
Splat Search -
Subjex -
Super Cyber Search -Pay for position.
ToggleBot -10MM URLs. MetaSearch, Directory, Auction Search, etc..
TopClick -The Private SE. Claims to protect privacy. No cookies.
WebCrawler -Very user friendly interface. Owned by Excite.
Web Direct -
WebSearch2K -New SE, pay for position, no adult.
WebVentureHotlist -
What-U-Seek-
Where2Go -TOP 20 search engine, directory of URLs.
WWWHunter -
Yahoo! -Leading net directory.
Zen Search -
Z Search -"The last name in searching"

2007 BMW 335i Convertible Features Roof-In-Trunk

I saw this really cool 2007 BMW 335i Convertible on YouTube and had to share the video...

MySpace Sued For Negligence In LA Superior Court - SF Chronicle

This is a fascinating case, but it does raise the question: can MySpace counter-sue the parents for not policing the kids? Many teens are far more tech-savvy than parents know, understanding such processes as how to mask IP adresses, and adept at programming in Java and HTML. Ultimately, the teen has to be policed as well as the adult MySpace user.

Families of sexually abused girls sue MySpace, alleging negligence
Joe Garofoli, Chronicle Staff Writer
Friday, January 19, 2007

Four families whose underage daughters were sexually abused after meeting people they encountered on the social networking site MySpace have sued News Corp., the site's parent company, alleging it was negligent in not creating safety measures to protect younger users.

In separate suits filed this week in Los Angeles Superior Court, an attorney for the families said the virtual site is like a day care facility or a restaurant that didn't adequately protect its customers.

"These virtual sites are no different," said Jason Itkin, a Houston attorney representing the families. "MySpace has not taken the steps necessary to protect its customers. They know that these predators have been there."

The families want MySpace to toughen its age verification system "so that people are as old as they say they are" on MySpace, Itkin said. They are seeking damages "in the millions" he said.

The lawsuits, similar to one filed last year in federal court in Texas by some of the same attorneys, raise a broad cultural question: When it comes to monitoring children's online behavior, where does parental responsibility end and corporate responsibility begin?

"Blaming MySpace won't solve the larger problem," said Liz Perle, editor in chief of Common Sense Media, which monitors children's media from San Francisco. "Parents are aware of where their children are when they go to a party. They need to be aware of where they are online.

"We teach our kids how to be responsible and not drink and not smoke. We have to put media communication on that level," Perle said. Common Sense Media offers tips for parents at www.commonsensemedia.org.

MySpace policy bans children younger than 14 from the site. Teens 14 or 15 years old can show their full profiles -- which can contain a variety of personal information -- only to people on their list of known friends.

However, it is up to users to confirm their ages to the site. MySpace announced Wednesday that it was developing software to allow parents to see if their children were creating multiple profiles -- one to show to their folks, another to show to the rest of the world. Dubbed Zephyr, the parental tools are expected to be available this summer.

In a statement Thursday, Hemanshu Nigam, chief security officer for MySpace, said: "Ultimately, Internet safety is a shared responsibility. We encourage everyone to apply common-sense offline safety lessons in their online experiences and engage in open family dialogue about smart Web practices."

But Connecticut Attorney General Richard Blumenthal, who is leading a coalition of 34 attorneys general pondering legal action against MySpace, called Zephyr "a shortsighted and ineffective response to a towering danger to kids.

"Children can easily evade the software's purported protections by creating profiles from computers outside the home," Blumenthal said. "This software does nothing to stop predators or protect kids from inappropriate material."

Blumenthal wants MySpace to increase its minimum age to 16 and to require that parents confirm their children's ages. He suggested that the site use "publicly available data" to confirm the ages of older users.

In light of several high-profile cases of predators meeting underage MySpace users online, a number of companies have developed versions of spyware and other tools to help parents monitor their children's online wanderings.

But such tools "are only Band-Aids. They're good tools, but they don't teach safe usage to your children," said Common Sense Media's Perle. And once their children leave the computer screen, she said, "parents need to know where their 14-year-olds are going and who they're meeting."

Itkin said the families he represented were "all diligent parents who are doing the best they can." One parent even equipped her daughter's cell phone with software that would tell the parent when the teen was using it. He did not know if the parents had any monitoring software on their computers.

"But even the most diligent parent can't supervise their child all the time," Itkin said. "These children would have never been lured away from their homes if they hadn't met these predators in the first place."

Rebecca Jeschke, a spokesperson for San Francisco's Electronic Frontier Foundation, said MySpace might have some protection under a section of federal law passed as part of the Communication Decency Act of 1996. According to the law:

"No provider or user of an interactive computer service shall be treated as the publisher or speaker of any information provided by another information content provider."

Still, some of the details revealed in the Los Angeles filings will frighten many parents and further concern the operators of social networking sites.

According to one of the lawsuits, a teen identified as Julie Doe III created a MySpace profile when she was 15. Last year, a 25-year-old adult male MySpace user, a complete stranger to the teen, initiated contact with her. He lured Julie out to a meeting, drugged her and sexually assaulted her.

The Houston Police Department and the FBI located Julie, still heavily drugged, according to the suit, "with multiple X marks carved into the side of her pelvis by a sharp blade, presumably by the 25-year-old MySpace user." She spent seven days in the hospital and has been undergoing psychological counseling. The 25-year-old pleaded guilty to sexual assault and is serving a 10-year sentence in a Texas state prison.

Three of the four girls represented in the lawsuits are back in school, and all have undergone extensive counseling.

Chronicle staff writer Ellen Lee contributed to this report. E-mail Joe Garofoli at jgarofoli@sfchronicle.com.