Way-Back Web Machine

I like this.

Monday (1.6.20) Evan Williams wrote this:

One the first URLs I remember being in the habit of checking (in the late ’90s) multiple times a day was scripting.com. Dave Winer pioneered the blogging form, as well as many of the tools and technologies — and he’s still at it. Writing every day about everything from politics to the tech behind his blog. Amazing.

Tuesday (1.7.20) Dave Winer wrote this:

I appreciate the shout out yesterday from Evan Williams, a former competitor who has gone on to make billions as co-founder of Twitter. It’s nice that he still reads my blog, even though I have said some critical things about Medium, but all in the spirit of trying to make the web work better. Hope they have been received that way. I learned from reading his post that he has moved to New York. I think that’s a good move, from San Francisco, which as a born-and-bred NYer has always seemed really small to me. Of course I’ve now moved to a much much smaller place. Anyway Ev if you’re reading this, thanks for the kind words.

Like I said, I like this.

A Music City Somewhat Miracle

My blogging has been muted far too long.

But I had to post this Titans Youtube video so that I can find it one day far into the future.

I’m sorry that Marcus Mariota lost his spot as the #1 quarterback. (That happened last week.) I will be his fan in the future — at least on those days when he’s not playing the Titans.

But watching the home team win is why I enjoy going to the stadium nearly every game day.

Sure, sure, there are endless excuses on why Marcus was dealt bad cards in his five years in Nashville. And a lousy O-line. But such is football. Such is life.

 

(From RexBlog long-ago)  | “I’m glad McNair was traded. I’m glad he’s getting a chance to play the end of his career with a team that plays like the Titans teams he led to several playoffs.”

Welcome Back, Tumblr

Of course, Tumblr has been around even though its relevance to me left long ago. But yesterday, WordPress (parent company Atomattic) purchased the remnants of Tumblr from Verizon who purchased it as a part of acquiring Yahoo! (and other things).

Anyway, I thought I would mark the day by posting an item on Tumblr.

When I typed in the URL to link to the post, the entire article magically appeared below.

(Blogging Trivia: The photo of Matt below is one I took in June of 2006 at a “bloggercon” hosted by Dave Winer — long-ago Flickr album of bloggercon IV in San Francisco.)

https://rex.tumblr.com/post/186985217572/its-been-a-long-time

Google’s Goal is to Double Worldwide Podcast Listening (Where Were They in 2004?)

Here’s an interesting step along the journey of podcasting. (The 12 regular readers will recall I used to devote lots of words to this topic.) Quote from Variety.com:

Google says it’s making it much easier to find — and listen to — podcasts. The internet giant is now surfacing podcast episodes in search results based on an analysis of the topics in a given show, and will let users play back the podcast right from the results page….Now, when you search for a podcast about a topic on Google (such as “instant pot recipe podcasts”) (Google will) show you playable episodes in search results alongside web pages, news, images and videos.

While I’m not yet seeing podcast episodes integrated into any search results page (even “instant pot recipe podcasts”), I do see this if I click a second time.

 

 

 

Zack Reneau-Wedeen, founder and head of product, Google Podcasts, told Variety that Google’s “goal is to double worldwide podcast listening, to not just make it easy to listen to podcasts on Android but make podcasts a first-class citizen on Google. (…) There’s stuff people want but can’t find it — and that aligns perfectly with Google’s mission to organize the world’s information.”

This makes me recall September 28, 2004 when Doc Searls posted on his blog that the word “podcasts” generated 24 results on Google.

It also makes me recall how Google decided to kill their newsreader in 2013.

Why? I can’t recall. Maybe one day I’ll re-read this blog and see if I can find out.

Here are a few more factoids from the Variety article:

  • The Apple Podcasts app accounted for about 63% of all podcast listening as of February 2019, according to App Annie data. The Google Podcasts app for Android, launched in June 2018, accounted for 0.9%.
  • Apple is enhancing its podcast-search features by transcribing the words and phrases used in episodes — although those will initially be available only to Mac users.
  • Google said it will allow publishers to specify a preferred playback destination, such as a third-party website or app. That will provide for discovery of podcasts that may be exclusively available via purchase or subscription on third-party podcast providers.

 

 

Some Back to School Things Never Change (Except for $30,000 Crayons)

(Update: Since posting this, the pricing of the crayons have drastically dropped from the $30,000 amount I saw.)

In the South where I grew up and still live, there’s a tradition that takes place around this time each year. It’s when grownups say to one-another, “when WE were in elementary school, our summer vacation didn’t end until after Labor Day.”

Now, schools start in early August. I’m sure it has something to do with high school football or building-in snow days for when, in January, schools close down whenever snow comes within a few hundred miles of Nashville.

Anyway, this got me thinking about 64-count Crayola crayons which, of course, made me think about a comparison between the price of such a box in 1961 vs. 2019.

Today, a 64-count box costs around $3. I’m not sure what the price was in 1961, but the purchasing power of $3 in 2019 money would be about 36¢ in 1961. (Which I came up with using a dubious internet tool and should not be used as a citation.)

However, according to the Amazon listing below, there’s been some inflation among one supplier.

Surely $30,211.38  must be a bulk price for, say, 10,000 boxes? Perhaps this is a purchase for an entire school district? But the supplier even has competition. Or, as the fine print says, “Image may not reflect the actual item.”