Technically Speaking

Ghostery is a new firefox add-on that David was working on, and he now has officially let everyone know about it. It’s actually really cool and handy to have. Much like the grease monkey invisible web, this works really well with ff.

Technically Speaking, I’ve been using it for a bit now and like how it works.

Well it’s already 2009 in parts of the world, but since I only have like 1.63% Australian readers, I think I’m pretty good to go with my 2009 predictions. Of course, I may be way off come next December when I review these as I did the 2008 predictions I made, but it’s all in good fun.

1. FriendFeed – And sites that are like FriendFeed which is basically mashing everything into one place will become more popular. The drawback of course is we’ll be overwhelmed with sites proclaiming that they are better than FF in some way shape or form. This always reminds me of all the hair bands that were signed off the strip in the 80’s just because they were metal. Wake up people, innovate and not copy everyone else.

2. advertising – Will actually improve in 2009 due to advertisers actually seeing the benefits of doing targeting economically vs blindly throwing mud against the wall. This will actually increase revenue for those that choose to advertise. A lot of people are out there writing about the death of advertising online, but I have to disagree – where else do advertisers have to go? Television? Newspapers? Unlikely since both are on the ropes and about ready to go down for a ten count!

3. twitter – Will announce the plan on how they are going to make money. See #2 above.

4. mobile – Will get even bigger in 2009 than it has become in 2008. If you don’t have mobile in your plans for 2009, you need to start thinking mobile if you are new company only catering to the browser.

5. out on a limb – Here are some items that could or maybe will not happen – well truthfully the above may or may not happen, but these are the ones that are dependent on a major break through.

5A. beginning of the end for regular computing – The keyboard and the mouse will finally see the beginning of the end with full scale production of systems that only rely on touch and motion. It’s already a reality, but now it needs to come down to consumer scale and before you know it – it will all be just another Minority Report.

5B. time travel – Will actually become a reality in labs as scientists will send inanimate objects forward and backwards through time. Near the end of 2009, they will begin the early stages of transporting bigger objects and live creatures.

5C. game changer – Some entrepreneur out there will actually think outside of the #1 above and create something that is game changing online. Not another #3 either, and could possibly be another #2 without the #2! There are some people out there that will take this recession head on and try to become the next big thing outside of the box.

That’s it. Lame? Well I’m really interested in the #5 choices, especially 5C as I think that is the most important. We have all become too complacent and not really created anything game changing in awhile. Everything in 2008 wasn’t a game changer, it was all basically a step forward, but not a leap forward.

Technically Speaking, these prediction things are fun to do, but who really knows what 2009 holds in store, so why not just have fun with them and go way out on a limb!

Or rather my predictions for 2008. The original post can be found here. Here they are, 1-7 as posted with my comments on how 2008 proved them right or wrong or FAIL:

1. Advertising online – Now that it’s quite apparent the only viable economy in these times are online, most of the advertising you see in 2008 will be online. Mobile and video advertising will command big bucks, and traditional advertising via banner ads will continue strong.

Advertising online slowed down over the course of 2008 due to the economic times we are in. I still believe that once advertisers take advantage of targeting services, the return to online advertising will be stronger.

2. Censorship – Censorship of the internet by countries, states, cities will be a big issue in the early part of 2008. While it’s privacy that everyone is concerned about, about the middle of the year we’ll see Silicon Valley’s finest entrepreneur’s take advantage of this. I’m sure we will see quite a few new companies making millions by year’s end on this.

While censorship is still in the news it seems on a monthly basis throughout 2008, no entrepreneur really took advantage of this to make money on the issue.

3. Social Networks – Just like 2007, social networks will continue another year of healthy growth. Not so much the big dogs, but more like smaller more niche social clubs will be formed. The big sites will continue their steady growth, and will continue to make big money via advertising.

Facebook grew, MySpace grew, Bebo was bought. Now as far as the smaller niche social clubs, they are developing. The big sites are making tons of money via advertising deals.

4. Less Blogs – There will be your major blogs, and the minor bloggers will bow out when they can’t seem to make money online like some of the big dogs. This will result in better coverage of emerging technology and more money for the upper tier of bloggers.

I can’t really say if there are less blogs, but it seems more emphasis has now turned to sites such as FriendFeed and micro blogging like twitter.

5. Television – Will rebound. Crazy you say? But with the push to HD that is mandated here in the US by 2009, there will be a big push for new tv sales in 2008. Now as far as the industry goes, it’s dead. Stick a fork in ‘em. Most of the content will move online by mid-year, and the content left on television will have a hard time making it since most of the advertising money will follow online.

I hear that flat panel TV sales are now going flat. As far as television in general, the DTV commercials are becoming annoying, time to turn on Hulu, YouTube, Netflix, etc…

6. Newspapers – Most of them will began to cease actual production of black ink on recycled paper by year’s end. Most if not all will dedicate their reporting to the online versions. Near the end of the year, most will be touting it as their company going green.

Need I say the Chicago Tribune Chapter 11 filing? Newspapers are quickly re-inventing as fast as they can. Only thing is – is it fast enough to save them even in an online version?

7. Green – Will continue to remain strong throughout 2008. As noted above, with newspapers ceasing to put out a printed version, other companies will follow online. If the product can be produced better online (such as news updated as news happens – newspapers) – it will come online. The money will be abundant online in 2008 and many companies will have no option if they want to survive. In factoring in all the options, the corporate moves will have green in mind when they make major moves.

Green is very strong, and with the new administration taking office on January 20th, I hope it gets even stronger. Solar, wind, wave, bio-diesel, nuclear, etc….. there are so many other alternatives than lining the oil companies pockets – it boggles the mind.

Technically Speaking, I guess I didn’t do too badly on my 2008 predictions. Stay tuned for 2009 predictions coming soon, and have a safe and happy new year celebration into 2009!

Usually I try to stay pretty neutral on articles or posts of interest that deal with analytics since my company Lookery is in the business of audience analytics.

This morning I was reading my feeds and saw this post by Duncan of the Inquisitor. Since his blog does have a high volume of traffic and it will be read (the above post), I feel that I can’t let Duncan make his blanket defacto statements.

For one thing, as written by David Cancel the Lookery CTO, Quantcast – just where do they get their numbers or their data? Give that post a quick read, it’s to the point.

That begs me to ask the question of what really was being said by his prediction of the Quantcast will rule in 2009 over Compete, since if you read the post by Duncan he says:

There are two provisos with Quantcast’s data: In my experience it does tend to under-report data slightly (around 10-20%), and for sites not using direct measurement, the data can be very hit and miss, but no more so than data from Compete or Alexa.

But prior to that he stated:

Quantcast gives The Inquisitr just shy of 1 million people a month with 723,000 US, Compete gives us 291,000.

The real issue here appears to be the lower amount of traffic that Compete is showing vs what Quantcast is reporting. That begs me to ask – What is the real truth to his last statement below?

As the momentum builds and more and more sites join, Quantcast will rock 2009. We are seeing the rise of a true Alexa killer at last.

Alexa killer? Compete killed Alexa a long long time ago. So there is really nothing new here, as Alexa has been proclaimed “dead, stick a fork in it!” by more than one prominent blog. Is the above stating that he actually believes Alexa data still? Or is he saying that just because Alexa was never fully put to rest officially, that Quantcast is going to kill Alexa? Which of course can’t happen since Alexa is already dead!

The best one that represents how dead Alexa already is, is this humorous video done by Allen Stern of CN.

There is no denying that Quantcast has a huge following, but back to David’s post – How biased is the data they display for public consumption?

One of the more interesting facts about Compete is that everyone uses their graphs now to compare traffic over Alexa or Quantcast. Even the graphic from above is from Compete.com. Most blogs use Compete when they illustrate traffic trends; ie – TechCrunch, CenterNetworks, RWW, etc… Rarely do you see Quantcast being mentioned as where they sourced the data from or use the graphic to display as the source.

One thing I do know, the data we have been displaying about your audience on Lookery is all based on empirical data. We don’t guess about who your audience is. That would be biased, or to be quite blunt – misleading and stupid!

In all fairness, Quantcast does have a big presence in the analytics world. I can’t argue that fact, but what I am saying is that I believe while Quantcast will have a good year in 2009, I can’t agree that they will rock past Compete in 2009.

Also, in all fairness, I have again reached out to Duncan to give Lookery a try to see more about his audience. I feel that my company Lookery offers a very unique perspective into your site audience, and doing it via non-guessing or bias being attached to the data we present.

Technically Speaking, not trying to start a war or anything like that, but wanted more out there about what was already posted earlier today. Just want people to think about the statement that was already made about Quantcast passing up Compete in 2009.

The below full disclaimer will seem like I’m writing about the above post with total bias. I just want to make sure any bias that I have is properly addressed. If you agree or disagree, you can leave a comment or better yet – write your own blog post in response.

Full Disclaimer: Rex Dixon is a co-founder and works at Lookery, and David Cancel is the CTO of Lookery as well as the co-founder and ex-CTO of Compete.com

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Free Online Dating – Just another in the myriad of free online dating sites, give it a try in 2009!

I guess I will stick with a sports theme for another blog post. The past two posts have been NFL football related, and that’s due to the end of the NFL 2008 regular season.

Now today’s news about the 3-D for the BCS National Championship and the NBA All-Star Saturday night is interesting, as it seems that the experiment conducted earlier this fall for the NFL Raiders – Chargers game held enough interest to further this with two more major sporting events. What will be really interesting to see is if this will go mainstream into regular consumers homes soon.

Speaking of the last two posts, I wonder how many people will buy that 0-16 t-shirt. It could be a collector’s item come next year about this time if the Lions due a Dolphins turnaround like we all saw yesterday with Miami beating the NY Jets to win the AFC East after going 1-15 the year before.

Technically Speaking, enough sports for now!

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That was the quote at the beginning of this pathetic St. Louis Rams season. “We are NOT a 3-13 team… ”

While the Detroit Lions will probably end up 0-16 and t-shirt sales will be a plenty, the Rams will more than likely finish in Atlanta later today a 2-14 team. On one hand, the comment at the beginning of this NFL season is true, they are not a 3-13 team, but a 2-14 team!

Now the really sad thing is the homepage for the Rams, if you don’t bypass the splash page says the below:

Yes, it’s been 10 years since the Rams went on to that magical 1999 season where they ended up by winning the Super Bowl over Tennessee. Since that time, we had a few good seasons and another Super Bowl where we lost, but other than that – downhill ever since.

While the Rams played good in 2 games this past season, you can’t sell shirts as a 2-14 team like you can by going 0-16. Many will talk about the upcoming draft and how the Rams will have the #2 pick in the draft, but by the past few years, the draft has been one big bust after another. The Rams are pretty inept at best in the scouting department before draft day. Need I say the name of the #1 draft pick of 1996 – Lawrence Phillips?

Where are all these first rounders now going back the last 10 years? Let’s examine where they all are. Now there were a few good draft picks, but for the most part having a top pick in the first round, at least for the Rams, has provided very little magic sans a few players.

1999 – Torry Holt – #1 – pick #6 – still with the Rams, Pro Bowler, but could be his last season.
2000 – Trung Canidate – #1 – pick #31 – traded to the Redskins, out of football now.
2001 – Damione Lewis – #1 – pick #12 – traded to the Panthers in 2005
2002 – Robert Thomas – #1 – pick #31 – now plays for the Raiders
2003 – Jimmy Kennedy – #1 – pick #12 – traded to the Broncos in 2007, cut and now plays for the Vikings
2004 – Steven Jackson – #1 – pick #24 – still with the Rams, Pro Bowl in 2006, but totally not even in the game in 2008.
2005 – Alex Barron – #1 – pick #19 – still with the Rams, but doesn’t remember a snap count, will be interesting to see how much longer he is on the team.
2006 – Tye Hill – #1 – pick #15 – hasn’t lived up to his potential
2007 – Adam Carriker – #1 – pick #13 – the jury is still out, has potential if the rest of the team jells
2008 – Chris Long - #1 – pick #2 – same as the 2007 draft pick, good rookie season, but remains to be seen how they jell
2009 – ???? – #1 – pick #2

I guess you could say, the draft hasn’t been the best friend of the Rams. If you take a look around the NFL, there are many ex-Rams that are playing on other teams and contributing. Players such as London Fletcher, Dre Bly (a 1999 #2 pick), Brandon Chillar, and others playing and contributing to other NFL teams. Do a further examination of the draft, and you will see players drafted in the lower rounds that are more than likely out of the NFL or on other teams and doing well.

What has seemed to happen is that the Rams have had poor decisions in player personnel choices. This has led to this 2-14 team we have watched all season. Let the re-building begin. The 2009 NFL campaign should hopefully be an improvement on the 2007 and 2008 seasons. This will all depend upon how the Rams do this off season in trades, and personnel moves as well as coaching.

Technically Speaking, 2-14 isn’t too far from 0-16 if the decisions made in this off season are as lame as the ones made over the previous 10 years since the last time the Rams were a team to be reckoned with.

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Tomorrow (Sunday 12/28/08), the NFL Detroit Lions have the possibility of going 0-16 or perfectly imperfect. It seems that this guy has already cashed in on the idea, where you can buy your t-shirt commemorating the imperfect perfection that Detroit has performed this NFL 2008 season.

Technically Speaking, of course this guys money making idea could just be snuffed out if Detroit wins in Green Bay tomorrow, as a 1-15 team is like the New England Patriots 18-1 season of a year ago. At this point all the win would do for Detroit is make the fans feel a bit cheated.

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Free Online Dating – Just another in the myriad of free online dating sites, give it a try in 2009!

Half Japanese, is not only a term for someone that is born with half Japanese parents and half something else, but also is a band that I never knew existed. So maybe I’ve been blinded by the capitalism of the recording industry that hid such bands that Penn Gilette and Kurt Cobain were huge fans of.

Fans of Half Japanese include Penn Jillette, who helped the band release some of their albums on his label, 50 Skidillion Watts, and Kurt Cobain, who had them open for Nirvana on the group’s 1993 tour. According to reports, Cobain was wearing a Half Japanese t-shirt when he died.

After all the guests left the house last evening for the Christmas gathering that is hosted here, I started watching some television and came across this show on the Documentary channel: Half Japanese : The Band That Would Be King
– and it left me digging for more about this band this morning.

By reading the above wiki article, you would think they are pretty much done, but think again. Here is a picture from that page that shows them playing SXSW 2008:

Jad Fair has his own page where you can actually get him to write a song for $300 upon request. There is a pretty active fan page, as well as a MySpace page.

Technically Speaking, Half Japanese are the poster children of everything that was wrong with the recording industry that now is finally falling on their own swords of greed and mis-management. I feel lucky to have stumbled across their documentary last night, and like I always say, it’s great to learn something each and every day.

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