The Hypocrisy Weblog

Check out this job posting made by Jeff Bezos in 1994;

Well-capitalized start-up seeks extremely talented C/C++/Unix
developers to help pioneer commerce on the Internet.  You must have
experience designing and building large and complex (yet maintainable)
systems, and you should be able to do so in about one-third the time
that most competent people think possible.  You should have a BS, MS,
or PhD in Computer Science or the equivalent.  Top-notch communication
skills are essential.  Familiarity with web servers and HTML would be
helpful but is not necessary.

Expect talented, motivated, intense, and interesting co-workers.  Must
be willing to relocate to the Seattle area (we will help cover moving
costs).

Your compensation will include meaningful equity ownership.

Send resume and cover letter to Jeff Bezos:

mail:    be…@netcom.com
fax:     206/828-0951
US mail: Cadabra, Inc.
10704 N.E. 28th St.
Bellevue, WA  98004

We are an equal opportunity employer.

——————————————————————-
“It’s easier to invent the future than to predict it.”  — Alan Kay
——————————————————————-

[Link]

There’s a lot of talk about “social media” and “social networks” these days, but what I think really makes a difference for many of us is the social filtering made by one or more (sometimes online) friends.

I have a few good friends that are active within a wide range of areas, where-as one person is a bleeding edge kind of software guy (open source / Ubuntu Linux) and whom both try out and give me tips on cool new software for my Ubuntu box (yes, I run both Windows and Ubuntu). Instead of me having to put down time and effort (and sometimes risk) in trying new software, my Linux friend does that job for me.

Another friend is an avid web 2.0 fan, whom jump on basically every site out there. Through him I get reviews of what is good or not, and combining this intelligence with a more general buzz I can decipher what is hot or not.

A third friend is an experienced journalist, and he gives me fresh ideas and angles – especially when it comes to politics, but also other fields.

The fourth friend is a security expert, who shares his deep knowledge from within the security community.

The fifth friend… Well, you get the point – right?! The friendship chain of trust is a very good and (most often) trust-worthy source of information. This is why it is so important to form social bonds with the right people, this is not something that Google, Facebook or Wikipedia can offer you.

In short; never understimate the value of personal relationships.

cnet’s web 2.0 blog, “Webware” has announced it’s Webware 100 winners-list. The question is now; how is this list relevant to anyone in the Internet-business? Each and every category, 10 of them, has 10 winners each – and each and every site on the top 100-list anyone who’s involved in working with the Internet (in any way) have heard of.

The categories are; Browsing, Communications, Community, Data, Entertainment, Media, Mobile, Productivity and Commerce, Publishing, Reference.

Surely, it is a good ego boost for the people behind the services to get recognition, but does it serve any journalistic purpose? I am not so sure about that; Rafe Needleman and the Webware crew are preaching for the already saved. There is no internal ranking of the sites in the individual categories – so how do I as a visitor know which site got more votes than the other? (Yes, alright – they do have a list of the over-all top 10 and the sites that got over 1000 votes, though it doesn’t show the internal ranking in between the sites within each category. Perhaps the over-all statistic material wasn’t enough?! I don’t know…)

From my own perspective I am glad that the swizz army-knife-like site Netvibes, which deserves more media coverage – as it is a really nice service to keep track on all your communication needs ranging from rss-feeds (sites, forums, email, blogs etc), to email, to skype, to.. yeah – you get the idea.

Google was the company with most services in the top 100-list, yet this is not surprising as they are the biggest site on the Internet.

To the Webware authors; Please make the list more detailed the next time and get a broader statistic foundation (aka get more people to vote on the list), then we’re talking about a relevant list.

The Swedish edition of IDG writes about PhD in search engine marketing Elias Kai in the town Kalmar of southern Sweden who named his son “Oliver Christian Google Kai”.

The father, Elias Kai, says that his wife had no problem with naming her son after the search engine, and Elias also got the question if he’ll name his next baby “Yahoo!”if it’s a boy or “Altavista” if it’s a girl, but as a self-proclaimed fan of Google, Elias says “no way” and that he’ll considerate names such as “Giggol, Gaggol eller Boogol” instead.

So, what does Google have to say about this? Well, Google’s European vice president Nikesh Arora held a presentation during London Ad Tech in September, and Elias Kai got to speak at the podium and tell the audience that he’ll name his son “Google”. The audience laughed and no-one thought that Elias actually was serious in naming his son Google, though he was.

Perhaps Elias Kai should’ve taken the 200 people strong audience’ reaction more serious and not name his son after a search engine?! I think so… Maybe his father thinks it’s cool to name his son after his favourite cult-object, but I doubt that the father considered the problems that his son will get in the future with such a name, everything from bullying in school to problems at misc. tasks of life – such as applying for a job, applying for a job etc.

I don’t want to paint it all black, but come on…

Google Kai has his own site at http://www.google-kai.com and of course his own blog at http://googlekai.blogspot.com

Though, regardless of anything else, no-one can deny that Google Kai is a cute baby boy, and I am sure that everyone who reads this post will wish him and his family all the luck in the world in his life!!!

Slashdot writes:

“Steve Soderberg’s latest film will be released in a manner that directly challenges the traditional Hollywood distribution chain. Soderberg’s been influenced by Mark Cuban, the dot-com billionaire who owns the NBA’s Dallas Mavericks, and Todd Wagner, another dot-commer whose ideas about the movie business are radical departures. Wagner’s financing this one. The movie, Bubble, is the first of six that Soderberg will film in HD video; all will be released simultaneously in theaters, as HDNet movies, and on DVDs.” From the article: “As independents, Soderbergh and Wagner are willing to talk openly about subjects that are being hotly debated behind closed doors elsewhere in Hollywood. When Disney chief Robert Iger recently brought up the concept of shortening the window between theatrical release and DVD, he was fiercely criticised by the National Association of Theatre Owners.”

Steve Soderberg is doing what should’ve been done a long time ago: release a film in multiple distribution-chains at once and see how these compare with each other. This is especially wise of a director such as Steve Soderberg who makes movies that are slightly different from those of Steven Spielberg and Ridley Scott (i.e. is films that don’t have a mastodont budget and are aimed at a mass-audience). I doubt that this experiment or even the discussion will be repeated again by any of the above filmmakers, but it’s most certainly healthy that it has been done by such a big fish as Soderberg.

Well done.

Here’s an IT-related post about Katrina:

DirectNIC, a datacenter company in New Orleans rode out hurricane Katrina. Brave employees at this Internet Service Provider is keeping power on, repairing the uplinks to the Internet etc.

If you want to follow their work, go to “The Interdictor” at LiveJournal. There you can follow their struggle (one man operation?) to keep operations running via text, a webcam live-feed and also get amazed of the fans that this relatively anonymous provider is getting.

For further information and comments, visit Slashdot, read the Wired-article, Netcraft’s coverage (Uptime graph) and browse their photo gallery.

Say hello to Google’s new Instant Messenger (IM) software: “Google Talk“. Google Talk is Jabber/XMPP-based, which means that you can use any Jabber-compatible program to connect to Google Talk.

What you need to connect to Google Talk is a Gmail email-address, and after you install the program, you simply login with your Gmail username and password. (If you need an invitation to Gmail, go to “contact me” on the top of this page and I’ll send you one)

The interface is clean and simple, just as with Gmail which is a plus. It has no extra “crap” like MSN, Yahoo! Messenger and ICQ has – but it yet has no offline-messaging support < - which means that you can't send an instant message when the one you are writing to is not connected to Google Talk. This is a major con which I hope will be fixed in a later version, because yes - Google Talk is still in Beta.

As you see from the image displayed here, the Google Talk interface is clean, just as described above. Another neat feature is that those you email with a lot through Gmail gets added automatically in your Google Talk userlist.

In the same breath as I write about Google Talk, I have to write about Skype. Matt Veenstra at Vibe of the Tribe speculates about Google’s possible next step which could be to buy out Skype and integrate it in it’s own IM-product. I don’t see this happening though, as Niklas Zennström and Janus Friis from Skype declined News corp’s to buy Skype from their hands for the meagre sum of 3 billion dollars US.

Is there room for yet another IM-product on the market? Yes and no, Google doesn’t add anything spectacular to the array of Instant Message software out there, but they do have a very strong brand, which will talk in their favour. Google Talk is also based on the open Jabber/XMPP protocol, which rings good in the ears of the ones who actually care about these things – which aren’t many if you look at the popularity of programs such as MSN messenger and Yahoo! Messenger. An interesting sidenote is that Yahoo! Messenger now uses Skype voice-technology for their Voice-chat. (and yes, ICQ and AOL Instant Messenger (AIM) are compatible with each other nowadays).

I think that Google Talk will attract those who want a small and clean chat-program, and that the success of Google Talk depend upon the success of Gmail as the two products are tightly integrated with each other.

This Slashdot newsflash made me giggle

“The New York Daily News, fine bastion of reporting that it is, released an article today discussing the rise of nerd popularity among women in general, and famous women in particular. Detail is given into the dating exploits of Christina Aguilera and Elin Nordegren (nerdy Tiger Woods’ supermodel squeeze), among a bunch of regular Janes. Apparently being a nerd is now in?”

The link to http://www.everything2.com/index.pl?node_id=1532839 is very entertaining!!! I still find it fascinating how people still are desperate to distinguish themselves from others. Following many email-lists online, it seems to be so many that wants to be a Geek – just think about all those 80ies college-movies, where the geeks where those with thick glasses who were outcasts, could never go parties and never had a girlfriend (or boyfriend for that matter)… Aaaaaah, how things change – I think for the better though!!!

But hey, in all honesty: isn’t the old truth: “some have it, some don’t” the real truth?!

As I’m writing on a project related to blogs in corporate environments, I am in contact with bloggers, both here in Sweden, but also around the world.

What other place is better to ask around in about the history of blogging, thoughts of the new medium, and how blogging will be developing in the future, than to ask the actual users themselves?!

I came into contact with Annica Tiger, who is the author of the well-known, in both the blogsphere and outside, blog “Annica Tigers Blog” (written in swedish). I asked Annica about the early diary community “reload”, that was widely popular around 1997-2000 here in Sweden.

While being in contact with her, I asked her about her concept “four-leaf clover”-blogs, where she lists 3-4 blogs, mainly swedish, on her own blog each and every day.

I thought that this concept of hers was about promoting her own blog, but she surprised me by telling me that it was about promoting other, not so well-known, blogs out there – as she stated; “I’ve got enough traffic to my site to be worrying about getting more visitors”.

Surely, Annicas four-leaf clover-concept helps these bloggers to get more readers, and she also gets more traffic to her own blog, as many of these bloggers link back to Annicas blog. A win-win scenario! (the web at it’s best )