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Technology Evangelist

A blog dedicated to emerging technology trends in hardware, software, webware, marketing and beyond.

RSS and Sliced Bread. Tough To Explain. Never Go BackOctober 29

If the bread slicer was a recent invention, I imagine a conversation like this would take place somewhere in the world:

Guy #1: "Dude, you have to try sliced bread."

Guy #2: "Why would I need that? I can slice my own bread, thanks."

Guy #1: "Dude, you just have to try it. It's so much easier and gets you to sandwich status so much quicker."

Guy #2: "Man, how long does it really take to slice bread? You can't be serious."

Guy #1: "Forget that I ever brought this up."

And so goes RSS evangelism in 2008 where, according to Forrester Research (via MicroPersuasion), of the 89% of people who don't use RSS feeds already, on 17% are interested in using them.

Polling people on their interest in trying something they don't understand will certainly generate some odd responses.

Of course, many of these people are already using similar technologies such as Tivo where they can subscribe to shows that interest them. Had the same respondents been asked, "would you like to have a 'Tivo for the web' that lets you easily subscribe to the latest content from your favorite sites?" I think you may have seen a more enthusiastic response.

25 Not-Very-Technical Things Journalists Should Understand in 2008October 16

I continue to be surprised at how many journalists continue to struggle with web publishing. Here are 25 must-knows for people publishing content to the web in 2008:

1. How to create a link. Both using a WYSIWYG publisher and hand coded. Put it on a Post-It next to your desk, or Google it if you can't remember how.

2. How to embed photos and videos.

3. How to properly cite other sources. Understand that people are more generous on the web so you may run into trouble if you play by offline's rules.

4. How to buy a domain name.

5. How to buy an ad on Google AdWords.

6. How to use an RSS reader.

7. How to set up Google Alerts.

8. How to do some advanced searches such as phrase matches, negatives, and site-specific searches.

9. How Wikipedia works and changes over time.

10. How to join conversations on other blogs.

11. How to moderate comments.

12. How trackbacks work.

13. How to upload photos and video to the web.

14. How to record audio.

15. How to shoot video someone beyond your immediate family would find interesting.

16. How to measure a your content's performance.

17. How to use Facebook and LinkedIn.

18. How to use Twitter.

19. How to build upon stories you found on blogs.

20. How to edit live stories.

21. How to do a round-up post.

22. How Creative Commons works.

23. How blogs make mo

Gary Vaynerchuk: Online Marketing OptimismOctober 9

When consulting with businesses on where they should allocate their ad dollars today, my most common response is, "Start online, measure everything, and spend as much online as you can justify. Then look at other options." It sounds like Wine Library's Gary Vaynerchuk takes a similar approach for his own business, as he explains here:

What do you think? Are you aware of any forms of offline advertising that measurably beat what can be done online today?

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DexKnows.com, Minneapolis Pizza, & Blog PayolaOctober 1

I was recently perusing a blog called "THE Facts on Print Yellow Pages" when I stumbled across a post about Minneapolis pizza.

Being a Minneapolis resident and a big fan of Pizza, I checked out what this site had to say about this very important topic (to me, at least):

I clicked through to the post referenced on the above site to find this blog post:

That looked strange to me. Notice how the two outgoing links are both tied to specific keywords? And why is someone so excited about the Minneapolis phone book that they're actually blogging about it? This smelled like rotten fish rather than freshly cooked pizza to me.

It turns out that the person blogging about the Minneapolis phone book actually lives in Arkansas. Strange, eh?

The blogger who wrote the post has a link to PayPerPost on their site. Ah, I wonder is this happened to be a pa

Aggregate vs. Detailed Data - Zillow.comSeptember 25

According to Zillow.com, the home I purchased last fall has increased by 70% in less than a year:

While I wish that was so, I have a hunch that any real estate agent I talked to would collapse if I suggested listing the property for what Zillow suggests.

There are two upward spikes in the green line on the graph that represents what Zillow has thought my home was worth over the past decade.

The first, a year ago, is when I purchased the house for WAY more than Zillow said it was worth at the time.

The second is when Zillow decided that the house was worth WAY more than I paid for it.

So which is it?

Neither.

But, if you look at a large enough set of data, Zillow's numbers are probably pretty good. Notice the trend of the Yellow line. That represents the median price of homes in Minneapolis, Minnesota.

But here's the problem: I already know that my home is a bit above average if you take the entire city into consideration. You don't need to show me a graph to explain that concept to me. What I care about is my OWN house, and I know that data is broken.

So what exactly is the value of this data beyond inspir