EmptyPort - Brian's Blog

Lizard People Are Back In Action

Wed, 25 Jan 2012 18:53:00 GMT

After a long hiatus, I've begun writing some short posts for LizardPersonOrNot.com again. If you have suggestions of lizard people or their allies who need to be revealed on the Internet, please let me know in the comments (or submit anonymous tips at IKnowALizard@LizardPersonOrNot.com)

Thanks!

Brian

Strange Commercials Online By For-Profit Schools x2

Mon, 23 Jan 2012 21:09:00 GMT

Here is an example of how bizarre and broken outbound marketing is:

This commercial has a really weird message. It is about a girl who finds a for-profit school on the internet, gets a degree, and starts making a lot more money afterwards. But it is a television commercial about a girl using the internet to find the school.

This commercial just screams modern outbound marketing: Trying desperately to relate to a modern generation via the shared experience of the internet, and failing to.

On the other hand, some people are seeing success with it: The YouTube video of the commercial has nearly 1 million views. Not bad for a commercial on cable.

Using Google+ to Enhance Your SEO

Thu, 12 Jan 2012 16:00:00 GMT

Google is rolling out new features to integrate their Google+ social network with their Search services almost every week. Now that the network has grown to over 80 million members and continues to grow at a rapid rate, the implications of their new features are expanding rapidly as they are adopted more widely. One of the new ways that you can use Google+ as a business is to help improve your search performance and traffic from Google. There are a few ways in which Google+ can impact search results, including the +1 button, new markup for identifying authors, and more. While some of these features have existed for a little while already, new functionality is being added to them constantly and it’s important to stay up to date on how they are being used.

One immediate way that you can see Google+’s impact on search results is by their introduction of the “Author” tag for blogs. Using this new HTML tag, bloggers and authors online can claim ownership of their blog and attach it to a specific Google+ personality. You can learn more details about setting up this tag here. While this can be valuable for you as a blogger by giving your readers a way to follow you online and learn more about you, it also has an impact on other Google products. For example, this is what having the author tag set up can do to your own search results.

Not only is my blog post ranking at the very top of Google (despite several more authoritative domains writing similar articles), but my article includes a headshot and links to my Google+ profile, where people can read more of my content and the other things that I share. While this isn’t specifically new (The Author tag has been around since July 2011), the implications of this have been steadily growing over the last few months as the use the information in new ways. Google also originally limited which websites could take advantage of the Author tag, but it appears that most websites can now use this tag.

It’s also good to note that on the first search result, Google provides another helpful link for people who are trying to find more information about me. This link, “More by Brian Whalley” that returns indepth results from my Google+ profile and sites that I’ve tagged as being associated. Searchers who click on that link get a kind of mini-profile of me and links to some of my recent public status updates on Google+. This is a great way for searchers who are looking for more information to see more about me without having to leave Google.

The greatest benefit to this for a brand or person is the increase in visibility and clicks. I don’t need to worry about other people’s content ranking on my name or brand because I have supplied Google with so much authoritative content about the topic of “Brian Whalley” that they are compelled to rank this result first. Sound familiar? That’s because this works the same way that the rest of the Google algorithm does - I supplied authoritative content and inbound links to my profile and website, and then it ranks very well in search. Google ranks this optimized content very well in search, and so you can also count on people finding your information quickly.

There are many benefits to doing this for your own business - By publicly establishing the face, background, and experience of your bloggers or other important people for your business, you can present your best face to any searchers looking for your content. This is especially valuable because of the association you can create with your non-branded content. It might seem obvious that Google can present a picture and profile when someone searches for my name, the greatest benefits come when associated with non-branded content, like in the first example.

While the appearance is new, it doesn’t look like these new search results around personalities and brands really represent new ground for Google. Instead, they represent the ongoing evolution of something Google has been working on since 1999 - How to separate out different types of search results and present them effectively to searchers. This is now just the latest step in that direction as Google owns more and more of this data over time. It is absolutely worth it to incorporate more information and services from the search engine into your own website.

10 SEO Takeaways From Distilled #SearchLove

Mon, 07 Nov 2011 16:56:00 GMT

Distilled's latest seminar on great search engine optimization just wrapped up in New York City. After working and learning with the very best minds and leaders in search engine optimization, I wanted to wrap up some of the best ideas and concepts that I took away for HubSpot and our readership. If you also attended this seminar, please add your best ideas to the comments or link us to your own wrap-up post if you wrote one.

1) Balsamiq is an invaluable piece of software for mocking up quick pages, laying out your needs, and having a design that you can send to your developer or webmaster to create. It's also great for making page designs to show your boss, teammates, or other people who are interested in what new pages you want to make for the website and how they should work. This is much faster than trying to actually create the page, and then get feedback.

2) If you're working on doing more prospecting for links and trying to identify influencers, a free Twitter user research tool like Followerwonk can be invaluable. You can search for specific terms in user biographies, and then look for people who are influencers around that word. You can quickly research what they like to tweet about, their interests, and if they might be a good person to network with for a link. When doing searches, try to pick on users who are not at the very top of their field - They might be too busy to work with you. People just below the top are more likely to be accessible and have time to work with you, so your success rate will be much better.

3) Mat Clayton of MixCloud presented the latest on how MixCloud integrates Facebook into their service, to make it much more addictive and encourage new users to join in the service. Their Facebook integration success stories had been presented before, but Mat now included the future of what they are doing and some truly cutting-edge integration tips. For example, MixCloud has been gathering data about how Facebook users react to Mixcloud being included in the new Timeline on the right-hand side of the Facebook website. While it may seem like everyone's complaining about the feature, Mat suggested it is just a very vocal minority, as they have benefitted from a 1% click-through rate on placements in the Timeline. Given that the typical Facebook ad has about a .25-.5% click through rate, that's an incredible rate and something to be excited about.

4) If you're still trying to determine if Facebook is a good platform for you to take your business to, there's a new way that you can measure what percentage of your site's visitors are logged into Facebook when they visit your website. This requires some JavaScript knowledge, but this special code sends extra data to your Google Analytics account so that you can measure it in a report there. Since most Facebook users never log out, this is very helpful in determining if your audience is on Facebook or not. Look here for more information.

5) Mat also also suggested that similar information may be available from Twitter soon, but they aren't there yet. Stay tuned- This is someplace that Twitter is going to go. If your audience is on both but more avid about using Twitter than Facebook, don't give up hope. Instead, get ready.

6) Rand Fishkin opened the third session with how to build a huge community through inbound marketing. His presentation was music to any HubSpotter's ears, as Rand described that all of his best SEO tactics these days were about he created the most remarkable content on the web around social media and search engine optimization. Then, by letting his fans and community learn, it fueled him with even more content and ideas to try. By writing a great post about his experiences in trying to get venture capital to grow his business, SEOmoz now outranks any actual VC firm for the search phrase "VC Funding". He set out to write one of the best, most honest articles on the internet about the VC funding process and he was rewarded by his community (who shared it) and the search engines (who rank it well!)

7) Rand also shared his ideas on how to create your own great community: Start with a blog. Many people who are trying to build communities build the wrong parts first, and as a result they have mixed or poor results. If you start with a blog with great content and make sure that you have an engaged and excited readership, it's easy to add a Q&A section or forums for them to use. If you start with some forums, and they're empty and there's no content for them to read, it's much harder to get started. Let your blog be the seed for everything else.

8) If you're a locally-focused business, make sure that your web presence is optimized properly for mobile devices, and that you've created profiles for yourself on all of the proper sites. According to David Minchala, 58% of smartphone users use apps for mobile services that aren't directly a website, such as the Yelp application. If you don't have an up-to-date business profile on Yelp but you're hoping people find you online, you should fix that right away. The same goes for other mobile-focused websites that might be vertical specific, such as OpenTable for restaurants.

9) If you're an agency, consultant, or other marketing professional who is working with a new business or client, it's not enough to just ask them who their "best" or "ideal" customer is. That's helpful information, but there are other important customer questions. Make sure you also ask them who their worst type of customer is, or if there are types of customers that are not good for them to have. They won't think to give you this information, but it's invaluable for doing great work on their behalf. For search engine optimization, this will also help you do better keyword research.

10) If you have competitors that use social feedback tools like GetSatisfaction or UserVoice, Laura Lippay suggests checking out what their customers are saying there. This can help give you ideas for new products or features that they do not currently offer but their customers are looking to use. That can be very helpful in developing your products or marketing further. For an added bonus, it also shows you exactly who is looking for that feature - So when you offer it, you know who to make sure sees it.

What do you think of their advice? Did you attend the SearchLove seminar? What other takeaways did you have from it?

How I Feel About Steve Passing

Fri, 07 Oct 2011 00:51:00 GMT

Last night I was heartbroken when I heard the news about Steve Jobs dying. The man was on another level of genius from the rest of us, about technology, marketing, creating access, and being remarkable. I was a really nerdy kid when I was a teenager, who had a Mac in his room and not one but two Apple posters there too. I was an obsessive fanatic then, constantly experimenting and learning more about programming and technology. Almost any money I ever earned working went to technology, a lot of Mac stuff. (You could get games on Macs back then, you know.) I read endless Mac discussion and crafting blogs and forums and made friends all over the world. (Such as xmatt, among innumerable others)

Steve Jobs coming back to Apple when I was 12 and then being at the front of Apple had an incredible presence and influence in my life, as I watched someone who had a brilliant understanding of marketing & technology. He made those things cool, and it was especially remarkable that he was able to make Macs and easy-to-use computers a cool thing again. It is never a cool thing to be easy. Accomplishing that trait was no small feat. It is no surprise, in retrospect, that I wound up in technology marketing as well.

I never met Steve, but you felt like you knew him after watching him on stage, for an hour twice a year. Every event he touched became a remarkable experience for everyone involved. We are still awed by his incredible charisma and showmanship when we watch videos of Steve in 1984, 1997, 2004, or 2011. He created Pixar and NeXT, and built Apple up from nothing, twice. He was a really remarkable inventor, marketer, and technologist. We are incredible fortunate to have had him here as long as we did.

Obligatory post about my absence here

Wed, 07 Sep 2011 01:20:00 GMT

Yes, It has been a long time since I did any real posts on this blog, and two months since any post at all. I really ought to fix this ASAP and get back into content creation. Unfortunately, moving to a new house, going to Dreamforce, and preparing to speak at HUGS (HubSpot User Group Summit) this fall has occupied a lot of my time. Back to it, soon, I swear.

Does the Camp Bisco lineup rule?

Thu, 07 Jul 2011 04:34:00 GMT

Q: Does the Camp Bisco lineup rule?

A: Yes, it does.

New Google feature being tested?

Thu, 23 Jun 2011 14:50:00 GMT

This morning I noticed a new feature in Google's search results pages, and blogged about it quickly on the HubSpot Marketing Blog. You can read my post about Google's new test of social recommendations by Friends of your Friends here!

New post on the HubSpot Marketing Blog

Tue, 01 Feb 2011 02:00:00 GMT

I've got a new post up on the HubSpot inbound marketing blog this evening. You can check it out here: Why is my website traffic down?

Enjoy.

Are Lizard People Secretly Scheming To Take Over The Earth?

Mon, 31 Jan 2011 19:15:00 GMT

The answer, most likely, is yes.

If you weren't aware, I maintain a second (more active) blog, linked above. I attempt to reveal the identities of secret lizard people scheming to take over the earth and eat us.

It does very well for keywords like "was richard nixon a lizard person?" or "hillary clinton reptile". I wish I was kidding. It's a decent stream of traffic.

Christmas Vinyl Acquisitions!

Mon, 27 Dec 2010 14:36:00 GMT

I was very lucky to receive three new records for the holiday this week. They are below:

LCD Soundsystem
-
This is Happening

This album is a whole lot of fun to listen to. James Murphy creates an eclectic post-punk sound and no two songs sound similar. There is significant musical diversity being represented in his influences, his work, and the presentation of an album. Most musicians who begin to work with electronic music give in to ADD and synthesizers and stop trying to make a good album in favor of a number of good songs. This hasn't hit LCD Soundsystem yet though. The vinyl sleeves are also especially cool for being covered in photographs of people having fun.

Radiohead
-
Hail to the Thief

Somehow, I didn't own any Radiohead yet on vinyl. My sister helped me fix that issue though. Hail to the Thief was their last album before they descended into electronic noise, chaos, and PR push around being the first major band to give an album away outside of their label (hint: they weren't.) As such, this album is not one of their very best (OK Computer and Kid A still hold that title) but better than most of their work, and a lot of fun to listen to.

Radiohead
-
Paranoid Android LP

The Paranoid Android LP is the original song, and then some of the b-sides from the era: Polyethylene and Pearly. Not a bad combination at all.

New Vinyl Acquisitions: December 14th 2010

Wed, 15 Dec 2010 03:25:00 GMT

I've made a lot of great acquisition over the last few weeks. Here's a list!

The Veils
-
Sun Gangs

Sun Gangs is the fantastic third album by The Veils. If you haven't heard of The Veils and you like any kind of folk-rock with soul, you're living under a rock. They aren't for everyone, but their international (and I mean the English/New Zealand kind of international) origins with strong American folk influences. Finn Andrews singing is often halfway between wailing and howling at the moon in many of their songs, and spends much of the rest of his intelligible moments mourning something he's lost in the meantime. A must buy. Their two earlier albums, Runaway Found and Nux Vomica are also excellent but almost impossible to find in vinyl format.

Dire Straits
-
Alchemy

Dire Straits simply rock. I have to admit it was tricky to find the right art of the vinyl version of their incredible 2-LP live album - Every resource I found was for the compact disc version with slightly different art. I'm sure that version excludes the fold-out center displaying the soul of Dire Straits. See below, and excuse my sloppy cameraphone photography. I don't own a camera just. The music's quality and selection of classic Dire Straits songs goes without further discussion.

(click for full)

Dire Straits
-
Dire Straits

Dire Straits self-titled? Yes, thank you. Original recording of Sultans of Swing? Even better! This is a classic album and I was pretty shocked to find it in some bin in Harvard Square for $5 at a used record store. Clearly the mark of someone who did not fully appreciate this album and its value, but I was happy to take it off their hands for that price. The original sleeve for the album was also included and in fantastic condition - The sides almost completely intact and not ripped or shredded up like most old sleeves are. Another total win.

I have two more to write about at some point, but they'll have to wait for now - it's getting later than I intended.

New Blog Post on HubSpot: Will Review Sites Destroy Organic Search?

Mon, 29 Nov 2010 22:00:00 GMT

I had a new blog post go live on the HubSpot Marketing Blog this afternoon. Take a look: Will Review Sites Destroy Organic Search?

- Brian

New Blog Post on HubSpot: 3 More Common SEO Mistakes

Thu, 14 Oct 2010 14:30:00 GMT

I have a new post up on the HubSpot Inbound Marketing Blog, continuing last month's series on common SEO mistakes that I see all over the web.

I'd love to hear what you think.

Definition: Mary Jane (Not The Drug)

Thu, 14 Oct 2010 03:34:00 GMT

Have you had one of the moments recently, where you're having a conversation with someone that you know, and you uncover that they don't know a common fact that you thought that they did?

That's a Mary Jane. We all have them - No matter how much we read, talk, and learn, there will always be facts or things that we don't know or miss somehow. They come in all sizes and shapes, and cover all subjects, from facts about life, pop culture, business, and more. What's so critical about them is that they are usually something that you'd expect that person to know implicitly - Like a CEO who's never heard the story of how Henry Ford came up with the Model T car, or a web developer who's not familiar with the OSI model. It's possible for them to miss these moments, but unlikely and surprising.

I had a great one of these tonight, when I discovered that some very smart people (John Gruber of Daring Fireball, and Tim Bray of Google's Android team) didn't understand how HTTP Referrers work. It's easily excusable - They are both very smart guys in other ways, and these kinds of slips happen, but it's still surprising when it happens. You can see more about this here on Tim Bray's blog, or on John Gruber's Daring Fireball.

Seen or heard a good Mary Jane recently? Let me know about it in the comments.

Vinyl Acquisitions This Week

Tue, 28 Sep 2010 19:55:00 GMT

hi mom

Vinyl that I bought this week to add to my growing collection:

Interpol - Interpol
This album is bringing it back to ground zero for Interpol, with sounds very reminiscint of the Black sessions or Turn On The Bright Lights, and clearly stating that they universally hated their third album and wish that it wasn't attached to their name. This album is kind of cool for having been mastered at 45 RPM. The big 45 RPM hole in the middle and changes are a neat little bit of trivia here for the 2-LP set.

The Chemical Brothers - Exit Planet Dust

This has long been one of my favorite electronic albums, but I only had the MP3 versions before at some mediocre bitrate and low depth. The vinyl sound is incredibly for this, especially on a few of the tracks middle-late in the album. Three Little Birdies Down Beats and Alive Alone really stand out on this album. The Chemical Brothers also stand out a lot for nice album artwork design - The old-time feeling photograph is great.

M83 - Before The Dawn Heals Us
M83 is pretty solid and this is my third record of theirs. You can't really go wrong here, it's fun to listen to and the long 2-LP format is really enjoyable. Not a lot of other stories to tell here - If you like atmospheric electronic, you'll like this album. Otherwise, stay away.

New blog post on HubSpot Inbound Marketing Blog

Mon, 27 Sep 2010 17:47:00 GMT

I have a new blog post up on the HubSpot Inbound Marketing blog, about common SEO mistakes and how to avoid them!

Subscription Renewals In A Time Of War

Fri, 13 Aug 2010 15:04:00 GMT

I have always had a love-hate relationship with subscription services. College was the first time I really subscribed to any kind of content service. When you're in college, getting value from a subscription is a tricky balance - You often have a lot of time, especially late at night, but you have limited money to use to subscribe to them. There are all kinds of flashing lights and blinking things you can buy, and it's a question of what's most important to you to have.

If you're blessed enough to have a job after graduation (like I was), you end up with a lot of disposable income but no time to use it in. I made a lot of good and bad choices about subscriptions in those days. For example:

The Economist - This is one of those great underappreciated magazines. The editorials and writing is top-notch, they have a voice, and they do their job very well. Reading this cover to cover each week will keep you better informed on the world than any of you peers. Reading a 70 page magazine about dense political and economics issues each week isn't easy though - This isn't like breezing through TIME or Us Weekly. I'm a faster than average reader and it would take me five or six hours total to plow through the magazine.

The high price tag for a full subscription doesn't make it easier really - I think I was spending about $250 or so for a six month subscription. Especially in college, that was a serious dent in the beer and pizza fund. In the end, I'd buy a six month subscription, read maybe half of them, cancel my subscription, and then resubscribe a few months later. I found a few good economics blogs online instead and wound up getting most of the coverage I wanted for free, and I wouldn't feel guilty for not reading every post. So yes, zero hedge and naked capitalism replaced a lot of the economist for me.

Pandora - Pandora is without a doubt one of the greatest freemium services on the Internet. This is probably one of the best $50 investments I've ever made. Being able to stream the high-quality music, no ads, and the desktop app for a year was well worth it. Unfortunately, Pandora's subscription system has two problems:

Their renewals system sucks. There's no way to know if your renewal actually went through or not, and so you are left anxious and worried that you're about to get cut off from your supply of good work music. (This, by the way, was the inspiration for this post.)
There is no increasing value to being a subscriber for a long period of time. I've had a Pandora One account for over a year, and I'm getting exactly what I bought a year ago. That can be a nice thing in some situations, but there's also been no new features or improvements to their service. Magazines get new writers, software gets new features, Pandora is streaming the same 192 Kb music with the same limitations as last year.

Overall, Pandora is definitely one of the best subscriptions I've ever had.

PASTE - This is that magazine that I wanted to love but that slipped away by accident. The writing was good, the music was very solid, and I agreed with their criticisms at least half the time. Magazines in general are having a hard time in the new media world though, and when I went to renew my subscription, I sent them a check for another $11 (so cheap!) and my renewal card. Even though I'd tried to continue, my issues stopped coming, and my was check never cashed. At the time, they had no way to renew your subscription or change information online, and no telephone subscription support. Basically, physical mail was the only way to do anything, and they weren't responding to my letters. I think PASTE lost me as a subscriber just due to sloppy bookkeeping on their part.

What were some subscription services that you liked or that you still love today? (Or, if you work at PASTE, can you please get my subscription turned back on?)

New Post by me on the HubSpot Internet Marketing Blog

Wed, 14 Jul 2010 20:17:00 GMT

I just wrote a new post on the HubSpot Internet Marketing Blog about Ben & Jerry's dropping email marketing in favor of social media. Check it out:

Ben & Jerry's Drops Email Marketing In Favor of Social Media: http://bit.ly/9dFUjZ

Beats in Space Podcast

Sun, 20 Jun 2010 05:30:00 GMT

If you like music, and you don't listen to the Beats in Space podcast from Tim Sweeny, you're probably doing something wrong.

It's one of the only podcasts that I subscribe to, but it's two hours a week of dependably awesome music for doing anything to. Writing, reading, chilling out, anything. I've been listening to it weekly since 2007 and love it. There's also some cool interviews and narration here and there from guest DJs, but there's always plenty of music and the DJs he brings on are really cool. The Beats in Space show airs live on Tuesday nights, and it's usually up on iTunes on Thursday or Friday. The genres played depend a lot on the guest DJs and what's going on, but there's a fair amount of electronic, hip-hop, and other genres that get mixed in to make up each two hour episode.

You can subscribe to BIS here via RSS, or on iTunes here.

Windows 7 After Three Months

Mon, 07 Jun 2010 17:46:00 GMT

For the last three months, I have made Windows 7 my primary operating system. This wasn't easy to do - I've been a die-hard Mac user for over 20 years. That made much of this psychological. A month later, I'm still using Windows 7 daily though for most basic stuff... at least until I get a new Mac.

There's a lot of great stuff in Windows 7 though. You can rearrange and pin icons to the system menubar at the bottom - A big pet peeve of mine for years in older versions of Windows. It makes it a lot more like an OS X Dock ripoff, but I'm very okay with that. Some applications will also give you more options when you right-click on their icons - Such as a list of recent documents, one-click tasks (think previous/pause/next in iTunes), or other tools. I find in general this saves a lot of clicking around inside the application. Being able to start a closed application from there is great as well - Better than digging through the Start menu and trying to remember where something was placed and where that item fell in the list.

Speaking of the Start Menu, let's talk about that for a minute. It is without a doubt the most quintessential part of using Windows. They made some very good and big changes here. You can easily pin and order items in the menu just by dragging and dropping, or right clicking to delete an item you want. In the end, you can get the Start menu that you really want with much less digging and struggling and Googling for answers. I really like that. The other great change in my mind is the Search bar at the bottom left. Its primary search works on items in your start menu, so you don't need to remember where or in what folder an item was sorted to. I can type in "gimp" and Gimp comes up without any digging or thinking about "where is this on my computer". You can't ask for better than that.

The new "Library" system works in a similar way. Instead of thinking about specifically where on your computer files are, you now have libraries inside of your personal user folder that works much like if every Documents folder in your account spit out its contents into one larger folder. You don't need to think about navigation or where those files are inside of your personal folder anymore. They're just listed with their folders there, and you can copy, delete, open, and act on them in any way like you were at the actual file. I think this is an example of Microsoft taking a big cue from Apple's iPhone/iPad strategy of no direct file system. You do have files but you don't think about their location ever. The OS manages all of that for you and you can just operate on them easily.

There are still a couple nits that I have though. I've somehow wound up with at least two Downloads folders, in different locations. I think this is a result of the Libraries system, where depending on the item things can be downloaded to what is really my Desktop, or ~/Downloads, or ~/Documents/Downloads. I'm not sure what the rhyme or reason is to the different locations at different times, and so I can't fix it right now. That is frustrating.

Overall, this is definitely a real competitor to the modern Mac OS now and passes this flop of Vista by far. It's up to Microsoft now to get people to replace the "Good Enough" Windows XP that people are still using ten years later. Microsoft's battle is not to build a better OS than XP - It's to convince people that they need a new computer and OS from the XP that they're used to.

WWDC 2010: My Predictions

Mon, 07 Jun 2010 16:50:00 GMT

Alright, I have ten minutes to write this before the keynote starts. Here are my predictions on what will be at the WWDC 2010 keynote:

iPhone OS 4 ships this week. Many apps already updated, some still waiting. iPad OS 4.0 will ship in August.
iPhone HD/v4. More video capabilities, more video editing, other features covered elsewhere in depth already.
CDN available now that will hold your music purchased from iTunes store for streaming to any Apple device you own. Related to lala acquisition. You can stream via wifi 192 Kbit AAC copies of anything you've bought, and video. Not much local storage required that way. You can still download and hold locally if you want though.
No mention of Mac OS 10.7 or new Mac software except for XCode updates.
Bluetooth touchpad now available for $89, for Macs and iPads. Full size touchpad like from a 17" MBP. Supports all the iPad/Mac OS smart gestures.
Demos from Valve and one other game publisher (Activision? Using StarCraft 2?) on how they've started bringing game development back to the Mac, and how new Apple technology helps them do this more easily.

Article: The real reason why Steve Jobs hates Flash

Fri, 30 Apr 2010 17:41:00 GMT

This is the smartest/best thing I've read all week. Tough, smart, visionary, and probably accurate, all in one:

The real reason why Steve Jobs hates Flash

Don't comment here - comment on that article. It deserves it.

Apple's iPad Rocks

Sun, 18 Apr 2010 20:28:00 GMT

I don't own one yet, but I have used one, and I know a lot of people who own them already. In fact, I know more people who own iPads than palm phones, kindles, nook readers, or most other popular mobile devices. This device has been out for two weeks and is already kicking the ass of every other mobile device out there.

Pretty cool. I wish I had one to play with. For now I'll settle for playing with the iPhone OS 4 beta that I got on Friday.

Quick: 5 Genius Things About The iPad

Wed, 27 Jan 2010 23:54:00 GMT

Here's my big 5 list on the genius things about the iPad:

1) Proven content. Nobody can ask "Who will code for this?" or "Will it have an audience?" Proven library of 140,000+ applications from the widely recognized and trusted App Store. Major publishers (newspapers, books, etc.) have already endorsed this and are providing content.

2) "Late-March" ship date is pure Marketing genius. Everyone in the USA will be getting their tax refund in late March/early April. A new $500-800 toy with major sex appeal will be hitting stores as much of America finds their wallets a little thicker than usual. I am certain this is a deliberate effort by Apple. Maybe they're ready to ship in 2-3 weeks, but they're delaying intentionally to have a very splashy first week where people go out in droves.

3) Familiar UI/OS. Everyone who has seen or used an iPod Touch or iPhone already knows how to use this. Everyone who has seen a TV commercial is familiar with the basic moves. Pinch, swipe, tap. The OS is safe and proven.

4) Physical keyboard available. This is what will help it crush netbooks. Basic word processing/formatting/spreadsheet apps, on a cheap computer that is VERY portable, with a full physical keyboard is a killer combination for a lot of people. People who carry netbooks around their office/life will be able to switch to the platform. Light, fast, powerful.

5) 720p video playback is very nice. There's some serious hardware inside of this thing, including the never-before-seen Apple A4 processor. No grainy/pixellated AVIs here. You can watch real HD video from the iTunes Store or from your home computer. I dream of an h.264 version of Hulu here for streaming TV shows to the device over wifi.

These are my thoughts. What are yours?