NYC Transit system Google map mashup: Haven’t seen this before: A New York City “Interactive Transit Map.” When you click on a point, you set the starting point of your route. When you click on another point, the program will display the shortest subway route between those two points, including walking time.

(via: kottke.org)

Technorati Tags: mashup

Google homepage modules: Google is inviting developers to create “modules” that people can use on the customizable version of the Google homepage (or, as we call it here on the rexblog, a Portal 2.0). Actually, anyone with an RSS feed already has created a module. Unfortunately, Google makes it a little confusing by not calling it an RSS feed.

Demo: How to add a “rexblog headline module” to your Portal 2.0 Google homepage: On your “personalized” Google homepage, click the “Add Content” link and under the “Create a Section,” paste in the following URL: http://www.rexblog.com/xml/rss.xml . Tah-dah: a module.

Technorati Tags: google

Darknets vs. Lightnets: (From Publish.com) A Darknet is a hidden Web nook where a small group shares digital files. Lightnet refers to a theoretical push towards an Internet where sharing and remixing files is encouraged.

More: The story’s author, Jason Boog, blogs his interviews with J.D. Lasica and Lucas Gonze.

Technorati Tags: mashup

Alexa announcement reality check: Search guru Danny Sullivan says “wait a minute” on all the genuflection taking place regarding the announcement that Alexa will start offering a “fee-based vertical search service.”

Quote:

How about more rain on the parade? Well, what could you use instead of Alexa? Let’s see:

• Rollyo:
  Just out, allows you to create a vertical search engine by giving it a list of
  sites. Under the hood, Rollyo is tapping into Yahoo and refining it.
   
• Gigablast: Get your own
  custom vertical search engine right now, for free, by using
  Custom Topic Search. It’s been
  out for nearly
  a year. Want some type of hosted service or something special. If it’s not
  listed here, I’ve no
  doubt Gigablast will step up to deliver.
   
• Vortaloptics: This specialty
  firm began offering services back in 2003, offering to create vertical search
  engines for anyone. I
  
  wrote about them at the time as perhaps signaling a return to easy-to-make
  vertical search engines that looked likely before the dotcom downturn. They’ve
  been quiet, so perhaps no one’s taking them up on things. But then again,
  perhaps the Alexa move might revitalize things.
   
• Google AdSense For
  Search: Want to search the entire web, just as Alexa offers? Out
  since
  last year, Google’s more than happy to give you access to its entire
  database, for free, along with ads ready to go right alongside it. Nope,
  vertical search isn’t as easy. You could try
  site-flavored
  Google search, or the Google API
  might help. If not, fair to say Alexa’s move will spur Google along to
  offering more and probably for free, if you want to carry ads.

   

• Yahoo Search
  Marketing Partner Solutions: Yahoo doesn’t have a self-serve custom web
  search program similar to Google, but that’s only a matter of time. Until
  then, if you’re big enough, they’ll do custom solutions. Not big enough?
  There’s the Yahoo
  Search API you can tap into.

Technorati Tags: alexa, amazon.com, google, vortaloptics, rollyo, yahoo

Is there something I’m missing? I can’t figure out whether this “opinion” column in eweek.com is a ploy to attract in-coming links or a parody piece with no humor.

Quote:

“There is a stupid notion going around that the news media would be better off if anyone and everyone got to make a contribution to it. Blogs and podcasts are examples of this and reader-generated electronic “newspapers” are beginning to spring up. People who should know better see this as democratizing the flow of news and information.”

To use the analogy of “open source software” as the basis on which to fear-monger the perils of “open source content” ignores the sausage-making process of open-source software. The culture and hierarchy of control surrounding the development of a Wikipedia entry can fail or succeed — but so can the culture and control hierarchy of a software project. Therefore, it’s a bold mischaracterization of what Wikipedia (and blogs, for that matter) is to compare a few false sentences posted on a Wikipedia entry by a self-confessed prankster to the end product of an open-source software development process.

Note to those actually trying to understand the issues surrounding Wikipedia: Use editorials like the one in “eweek” as a gateway to facts, not a source of them.

Note to those actually wanting to go deeply into this topic: If you really want to ponder this topic on an intellectual and theoretical level (and you probably don’t), spend some time with the writings that link off of the Coase’s Penguin entry in Wikipedia.

Technorati Tags: blogging, wikipedia, wiki

A rexa’s problem with Alexa: I get it, okay. Amazon’s Alexa has invented sliced bread today. However, I have a problem with Alexa. And while it’s purely a vanity complaint, it is something I believe reveals a glitch in their methodology.

Here’s the problem: The “rexblog.com” page on Alexa reveals that this weblog has a grand total of “9″ incoming links. By contrast — and I have no idea what any of this means — Technorati says this blog has about 1,500 incoming links from 323 sites (I’ve complained in the past that the Technorati stats can stand idle for weeks, but I think that situation has cleared up recently; frankly, I haven’t tracked it) and other services have different results.

However, if someone from Alexa is listening to all the glowing praise they’re receiving today, throw this complaint in the hopper as well.

(For the record, if no one linked here, the rexblog would still be exactly like it is.)

Technorati Tags: amazon.com, google, technorati, alexa

What Rich Karlgaard said: (From a post on the Forbes’ magazine publisher’s blog today): “At Forbes we like to say that when a story appears on the cover of Time of Newsweek, it is “top-ticked.” Which means, if Time or Newsweek declares a new trend, the trend has peaked. If Time or Newsweek loves a hot stock, sell.”
Observation: Thank goodness. With “top-tick,” I now have a new term I can use for way-past tock-ticked “jumping-the-shark.” Let me try it in a sentence: “Forbes’ recent top-tick cover story on attack blogs is sure hard to find on their website these days.”
Observation II: Despite that snide crack, I agree (as usual) with Rich.

Technorati Tags: buzzwords, forbes, magazines

Catch-up blog post: In Boston last weekend, I found the maps pointed to by Gary Price very helpful. If you live in Boston or plan to visit there, these maps are great.

Technorati Tags: maps, boston

What Doc said is going to say: Doc Searls is about to make the opening remarks of the “ Syndicate Conference” (note: I’m assuming it has nothing to do with the Mafia) and rather than prepare slides, he decided to blog what he’s going to say.

Quote:

“So there is a new balance of power in the world, that we’re seeing first in the live Web. Now individuals are in charge of their own lives, their own livings, and the things they do in the world, many of which involve production of goods like we’ve never seen before.”

Technorati Tags: blogging, rss, web2.0

Can you hear it? An iPod boombox?

Technorati Tags: apple, ipod

Pay to search? Some folks think Bill Gates hinting that Microsoft may reward people who use its search engine appears desperate and won’t work. Others have tried that with little success, the argument goes. (Haven’t they heard, it’s Web 2.0 — where ideas that failed once get a mulligan if you add Ajax and a mashup to them?) However, I can think of several markets that have been transformed by the introduction of incentives: insurance, autos, credit cards, travel, Sports Illustrated subscriptions. When I was a child, we had an elderly relative who regularly changed banks whenever the two banks across the street from one-another offered waffle irons or toasters as new account incentives — even though she lived in a retirement facility and she didn’t have a kitchen.

Is American Express desperate when every month or so, they come out with a new card offering some new twist of an incentive? (Perhaps they are.) Is, heck, I could do this all day. I can’t think of many products or services that don’t have incentives built in to the marketing method. (Isn’t offering something free in exchange for displaying ads a form of incentive: the incentive being the free content or service.)

Incentives work. It has to be the correct incentive offered in the correct context and the reward must have a clearly perceived value to the user. But incentives work. That said, I doubt they’ll get me to switch from Google to Microsoft. Or, who knows, maybe I’ll create my own using Alexa.

Technorati Tags: google, microsoft