InfoWorld: Google: don’t be evil
Chad Dickerson makes some prior art on Google’s grab for RSS advertising patents. Go InfoWorld! Amazes me they had this stuff working two years ago. CXO is now pushing ads through its RSS, along with related links — good stuff — now to measure the impact.
WSJ.com – Use of a Mysterious Cookie Irks Some Internet Users
This is disquieting, given that CXO uses Omniture’s SiteCatalyst to measure its traffic.
Google Earth Hacks – Lots of downloads, information and hacks for Google Earth.
I should be a Google Earth Evangelist (it’s my favorite thing to demo these days) – this site offers downloads that overlay user-built map enhancements. Example – detailed Tour de France stage maps, replete with sprint points, feed stations, climbs, etc.. Maps showing the stadiums of every modern Olympic games, hurricane tracks from 1990-1999. And weird anomalies such as this view of the Studebaker proving grounds with the word "Studebaker" spelled out with trees.
The Tour maps are awesome and if they could be aligned with a real-time text commentary such as those on http://www.cyclingnews.com, I’d be a very happy man.
I need to figure out how to build these detailed route maps and share some of my favorite Cape Cod bike routes.
AJAX bad for publishers, good for users? – The Jason Calacanis Weblog – calacanis.weblogsinc.com _
He estimates he’d lose 10 to 20 percent of his pageviews if his blog network went to a full AJAX model.
(AJAX — see post below referring to Frederic Paul’s TechWeb column sounding the alarm — permits web sites to behave more like client software installed locally on the users machine, permitting users to perform functions without calling for a new page or reloading the same, thus cutting down on ad impressions).
Another fork in the pageview model.
I had heard at some point in the spring that 10 percent of the American public owned an iPod. Today Constantine von Hoffman, editor at CMO Magazine, forwarded this research note to me from The Center for Media Research:
"Upscale Men Dominate Adult iPod Ownership
A national phone survey of adults over the age of 18 by the Pew Internet & American Life Project, found that more than 22 million American adults own iPods or MP3 players. 29% of them have downloaded podcasts from the Web so that they could listen to audio files at a time of their choosing.
"Podcasting" emerged in 2004, as people combined the words "iPod" and "broadcasting." Podcast listeners typically download audio files from the Web onto a computer, transfer the files to an iPod, and listen at their leisure.
Of the 22 million adults who own iPods:
- 13% of men have the players, compared to 9% of women.
- 16% of African-Americans and English-speaking Latinos own iPods/MP3 players, compared to 9% of non-Latino whites.
- 19% of those ages 18-28 have iPods/MP3 players.
- 14% of those ages 29-40 have them
- 11% of younger Baby Boomers (ages 41-50) have them
- 6% of older Baby Boomers (ages 51-59) have them
- 6% of those 60-69 have them
- 1% of those 70 and older have them
iPods/MP3 players are for the upscale. Owners include:
- 18% of those who live in households earning more than $75,000
- 13% of those living in households earning $50,000 to $75,000
- 9% of those living in households earning $30,000-$50,000
- 7% of those living in households earning less than $30,000
- Those who use the internet are four times as likely as non-internet users to have iPods/MP3 players
- 14% of internet users have iPods/MP3 players, compared to 3% of non-internet users.
There is no notable gap between those who have broadband access and dial-up users when it comes to podcasting. "
Given that this study lists adults, I can assume if you add in the youth market, the penetration is indeed around 10 percent.
Ballardvale Blog: Omniture Raises Money — Again
Guy Creese spoke at IDG’s internal online meeting in Boston in June. He’s also chair of the technology committee of the Web Analytics Association, a former Aberdeen analyst, and a total web metrics guru.
Here’s he posts about Omniture’s announcement it had received $40 million in series B financing. CXO is an Omniture client – using SiteCatalyst ver. 12 to track the traffic on its sites. The user manual awaits me.
RSS theft is nasty but happening everywhere. Shades of the old frame-and-scrapers of the mid-90s. I really like Fred’s Internet Axis of Evil, but he misses a couple, like pop-ups, meaningless registration, page takeovers ….