Electronic shopping lists could be a real blessing for parents, specially those of young kids. Imagine putting your shopping list into your palm, then either syncing it with the grocery stores website or walking into the grocery store and beaming the shopping list to the store's computer. You can then sit at the coffee shop (more business for the store!) while someone packs your groceries for you and brings them over.
I am still hoping that GPS prices fall and there is a GPS that can plug into the Palm.. or perhaps a bluetooth based location detection system. This would allow you to program a 4 dimensional alarm system (location (X/Y/Z) + time). Imagine a $200 device which could be programmed as follows... "when you're out to lunch and walk past the video store, pick up DVDs for the weekend".
Arent periodicals/magazines "streaming" information to you? A chunk of bytes arrives today.. the next chunk a week later... high latency, but still streaming.:)
The US Secret Service has some more information about these scamsters. In the good old days, they would approach their victims using snail-mail with impressive letterheads. Now, they just spam everyone!
-- References. Have any high profile apache sites migrated? While my sites are small... its always nice to know that the big boys have taken the plunge.
-- PHP Support. As of 4.2.0, Apache2 support was experimental. The change log does not show anything which says its supported.
-- Mod_gzip support. This is a big one. Mod_Gzip makes my sites download a extremely fast when users over dialup lines log in. This is true specially for low bandwidth countries in Asia. Mod_gzip support has left me fairly confused.. given that I bothered reading up on some of the early discussions.
Even with all of this.. I'm not likely to change unless there is a perceptible difference in the load / performance stats on my system during the switch.
That does not mean that the record company is pocketing the 19.95 that does not go to the artist. There are marketing, PR, image costs...
How about the softdrink industry? A can of coke costs less than a couple of cents to manufacture, yet by the time it gets to you it costs $0.50 to $3 or even more, depending on where you purchase it. Is that an excuse to go around holding up Pepsi and Coca-cola delivery vans?
Hutchison launched the CT2 service in HK in 1992. A reason it did not take off was related to the lack limited range and no roaming. It was around the same time that GSM networks were launched in HK. Here's a timeline of the various roll outs in HK.
The major ISP's in HK are now wiring up the popular locations like coffee shops, malls locations where people can sit down with their notebooks and surf the net or VPN back into work. The best wireless service is provided by Netvigator. I've yet to see anyone hooked into the net with a wireless connection in HK.
Anyways.. just a couple of pointers from Hong Kong for those who care.:)
"The company decided to make available hundreds of sets of the new portable cassette player, free of charge, to key persons prior the public launch. These key persons were carefully chosen and selected. Sets were given to magazine editors, and specially, touring musicians, they use to carry records and tapes of the music they are going to play and the directors comments and instructions of different aspects of the piece in order to be prepared for the concert."
"A further promotional tactic involved the company paying couples to stroll through Tokyoís biggest and important shopping district whilst listening to their Walkmans. Several Vox Populi interviews. were conducted in collaboration with broadcasters, in the airports and train stations, to ask visitors to Japan about their opinion and their responses to the new portable cassette player. Their reactions were video - taped and featured in news broadcasts."
Wait a second.. who owns the Ericsson phone business??? Sony!
More on http://www.eafit.edu.co/revista/117/acosta.pdf
I have no idea why this is a problem. I run a couple of fairly high-trafficed sites which cater to an Indian audience and getting any money out of the folks from India is a PAIN. Most don't have access to internationally accepted credit-cards and a fair amount of traffic is from students who would not be able to afford the dollar transactions.
Why cant the ISP's say just charge those premium subscribers? For Option 1 -- Indian sites only, subscribers pay $1 / month (hypothetical) and for Option 2 -- Access to all sites including international and porno subscribers pay $50 a month.
Would be simpler than building complex legal traffic / royalty arrangement with the major portals.
Give me a break. You'd rather receive junk mail physically than go through the effort of closing a browser window? Heck... atleast pop-whatever does not involve cutting down trees.
The problem for most online advertising is the lack of targetting... and the lack of quality advertisers (looks like about 50-80 companies account for 90% of the ads). NOT the delivery mechanism. A well targetted advertisement of relevance to you will be tolerated even if it pops out of your rear end.
For example, I'm in the market here in Hong Kong for a car. I'd love to see ads for used car dealerships (back to my lack of advertisers), financing etc. The only people who have recently surveyed me on this are my bank when I went in to deposit a check. The teller interrupted the deposit process (a real life pop-up) and asked me a few questions, which I answered... assuming some relevance to my situation.
The bank now sends me email about car-financing, insurance which is half education and half advertising AND gives me the option of opting out.
I get popups when I visit my online bank, reminding me / offering me relevant products.. I don't mind them.
What I mind are the dumb-arse X10 ads and gambling offers, Orbitz adverts when I go to wash-post. These advertisers have no clue that I'm in Hong Kong and I have no interest or ability to use their products / websites. Back to my point about targetting.
I agree with you when I say that you've got the job description right. Where I disagree with you is the level of competance. There are an increasing number of doctors (specially in Asia and other parts of the world) who are barely competant and a tool like this would serve as a good second opinion and also as a good sounding board.
Every time the doc at the local OPD wants to shove anti-biotics in my system, I have to literally fight then and ask him / her WHY? The answer is usually... "precautionary". I'd love to have a system which could give me a 'threat level' of my symptoms (yeah.. with all the standard disclaimers attached) without having to pay a bomb for the second opinion (usually would have to be at another OPD / physician).
Why have I sold out the community? The sites are still bringing in a ton of traffic, people are still enthusiastic. We manage about 2 million pageviews a month with these sites... not a glorious achivement, but still commendable considering the sites are maintained by my wife and I, in our spare time. Yes, I do get cynical about things at times.. but then there are some great moments which make up for the cynicism also.
Is there anything wrong in making money on a community venture? The freebie newspapers have been making money based around microcommunities / free publishing / providing a service by infact doing what I have said...
They viral market, by publishing content which people are interested in and talk about. They target by providing content which is very specific to their audience and required by their audience.
The comment about being reduced to using affiliate programs was more of a statement on the downturn in the ad markets. We have fixed the problems by going out and actively seeking advertisers who need to get their products out in front of the people who visit the site.
While I am at it... could you define selling out? Oh yeah.. probably means making some money out of your cause. Bleah...
We started a humor based community, catering towards Indian's in 1999. It has been very sucessful in terms of creating a hangout for Indians to share jokes and humor. Commercially.. we made a fair bit of money during the dot-com boom. Right now we've been reduced to using affiliate programs. The site is on Gandmasti.Com
We then started a community website for Indian's in Hong Kong on hkindians.com and this has also been sucessful... even though we don't spend a cent on advertising, these community websites are very viral. People in the community (depending on how targetted your definition of community is) will talk about it and will spread the word. It is then up to you to make the money.
Here's my take on what it takes...
a) Building a community takes a lot of hard work. You genuinely have to be interested in networking with the people and getting to know people. You have to be prepared to answer tons of questions and deal with a lot of trivial (to you as a webmaster) issues. It is not easy.
b) Once you've got a few hundred people rolling, take some time and figure out what they purchase, who are the people who want to target them and try to bring the two together. On HKIndians.Com we are working currently with a couple of local insurance providers and a long distance call broker. We have had sponsorships from local cable companies who want to target new channels to the Indian community. There is money to be made.. just not dot-com millions. Don't give up your day job.
c) This is very important... don't loose your passion for the community. Once you do.. others will sense your disinterest and loose their interest.. this will happen very quickly.
Slashdot Mirror
>> legal remedies I have available for your shirt
.. yep .. i'm in a silly mood.
and
>> What would my legal briefs look like??
Ok. That made me laugh
I am still hoping that GPS prices fall and there is a GPS that can plug into the Palm.. or perhaps a bluetooth based location detection system. This would allow you to program a 4 dimensional alarm system (location (X/Y/Z) + time). Imagine a $200 device which could be programmed as follows
Pity no one listens to me.
Body condo^H^H^H^H^H gloves to prevent unauthorised virii being transmited by human contact.
Arent periodicals/magazines "streaming" information to you? A chunk of bytes arrives today .. the next chunk a week later ... high latency, but still streaming. :)
I think they should restrict access to the .gov DNS records also. Would go a long way in making the .gov net a whole lot more secure. :)
The US Secret Service has some more information about these scamsters. In the good old days, they would approach their victims using snail-mail with impressive letterheads. Now, they just spam everyone!
Will definately have to check it out.
Here's what would convince me to change.
... its always nice to know that the big boys have taken the plunge.
.. given that I bothered reading up on some of the early discussions.
-- References. Have any high profile apache sites migrated? While my sites are small
-- PHP Support. As of 4.2.0, Apache2 support was experimental. The change log does not show anything which says its supported.
-- Mod_gzip support. This is a big one. Mod_Gzip makes my sites download a extremely fast when users over dialup lines log in. This is true specially for low bandwidth countries in Asia. Mod_gzip support has left me fairly confused
Even with all of this.. I'm not likely to change unless there is a perceptible difference in the load / performance stats on my system during the switch.
$9500 is not too expensive! Definately its so geeky its retro-geek! :)
Thank Cisco. :)
No Beouwulf remarks?
...." :P
Ok... "Imagine a beouwulf cluster
>> this effects all of our competitors as well.
:P
I thought they proof read official correspondance. Must be a troll... office XP catches the mistake.
That does not mean that the record company is pocketing the 19.95 that does not go to the artist. There are marketing, PR, image costs...
How about the softdrink industry? A can of coke costs less than a couple of cents to manufacture, yet by the time it gets to you it costs $0.50 to $3 or even more, depending on where you purchase it. Is that an excuse to go around holding up Pepsi and Coca-cola delivery vans?
The major ISP's in HK are now wiring up the popular locations like coffee shops, malls locations where people can sit down with their notebooks and surf the net or VPN back into work. The best wireless service is provided by Netvigator. I've yet to see anyone hooked into the net with a wireless connection in HK.
Anyways .. just a couple of pointers from Hong Kong for those who care. :)
Specially if its this monkey boy!
Battleships?
.. new pickup line.
.. wanna see my torpedo?"
Wait
"Hey Baby
"The company decided to make available hundreds of sets of the new portable cassette player, free of charge, to key persons prior the public launch. These key persons were carefully chosen and selected. Sets were given to magazine editors, and specially, touring musicians, they use to carry records and tapes of the music they are going to play and the directors comments and instructions of different aspects of the piece in order to be prepared for the concert."
.. who owns the Ericsson phone business??? Sony!
"A further promotional tactic involved the company paying couples to stroll through Tokyoís biggest and important shopping district whilst listening to their Walkmans. Several Vox Populi interviews. were conducted in collaboration with broadcasters, in the airports and train stations, to ask visitors to Japan about their opinion and their responses to the new portable cassette
player. Their reactions were video - taped and featured in news broadcasts."
Wait a second
More on http://www.eafit.edu.co/revista/117/acosta.pdf
*grin* option 3 ... pay to avoid sites .. :)
I have no idea why this is a problem. I run a couple of fairly high-trafficed sites which cater to an Indian audience and getting any money out of the folks from India is a PAIN. Most don't have access to internationally accepted credit-cards and a fair amount of traffic is from students who would not be able to afford the dollar transactions.
Why cant the ISP's say just charge those premium subscribers? For Option 1 -- Indian sites only, subscribers pay $1 / month (hypothetical) and for Option 2 -- Access to all sites including international and porno subscribers pay $50 a month.
Would be simpler than building complex legal traffic / royalty arrangement with the major portals.
Give me a break. You'd rather receive junk mail physically than go through the effort of closing a browser window? Heck ... atleast pop-whatever does not involve cutting down trees.
... and the lack of quality advertisers (looks like about 50-80 companies account for 90% of the ads). NOT the delivery mechanism. A well targetted advertisement of relevance to you will be tolerated even if it pops out of your rear end.
The problem for most online advertising is the lack of targetting
For example, I'm in the market here in Hong Kong for a car. I'd love to see ads for used car dealerships (back to my lack of advertisers), financing etc. The only people who have recently surveyed me on this are my bank when I went in to deposit a check. The teller interrupted the deposit process (a real life pop-up) and asked me a few questions, which I answered... assuming some relevance to my situation.
The bank now sends me email about car-financing, insurance which is half education and half advertising AND gives me the option of opting out.
I get popups when I visit my online bank, reminding me / offering me relevant products.. I don't mind them.
What I mind are the dumb-arse X10 ads and gambling offers, Orbitz adverts when I go to wash-post. These advertisers have no clue that I'm in Hong Kong and I have no interest or ability to use their products / websites. Back to my point about targetting.
I agree with you when I say that you've got the job description right. Where I disagree with you is the level of competance. There are an increasing number of doctors (specially in Asia and other parts of the world) who are barely competant and a tool like this would serve as a good second opinion and also as a good sounding board. ... "precautionary". I'd love to have a system which could give me a 'threat level' of my symptoms (yeah .. with all the standard disclaimers attached) without having to pay a bomb for the second opinion (usually would have to be at another OPD / physician).
Every time the doc at the local OPD wants to shove anti-biotics in my system, I have to literally fight then and ask him / her WHY? The answer is usually
From netcraft.com. The site www.darpa.mil is running Microsoft-IIS/5.0 on Windows 2000.
Wonder if their translator thingmy is going to be Microsoft BobXP
How about human shaped body parts? Searched around google and this was the only article with a photo that I found. Kinda cool.
Is there anything wrong in making money on a community venture? The freebie newspapers have been making money based around microcommunities / free publishing / providing a service by infact doing what I have said...
They viral market, by publishing content which people are interested in and talk about. They target by providing content which is very specific to their audience and required by their audience.
The comment about being reduced to using affiliate programs was more of a statement on the downturn in the ad markets. We have fixed the problems by going out and actively seeking advertisers who need to get their products out in front of the people who visit the site.
While I am at it ... could you define selling out? Oh yeah .. probably means making some money out of your cause. Bleah...
We then started a community website for Indian's in Hong Kong on hkindians.com and this has also been sucessful... even though we don't spend a cent on advertising, these community websites are very viral. People in the community (depending on how targetted your definition of community is) will talk about it and will spread the word. It is then up to you to make the money.
Here's my take on what it takes...
a) Building a community takes a lot of hard work. You genuinely have to be interested in networking with the people and getting to know people. You have to be prepared to answer tons of questions and deal with a lot of trivial (to you as a webmaster) issues. It is not easy.
b) Once you've got a few hundred people rolling, take some time and figure out what they purchase, who are the people who want to target them and try to bring the two together. On HKIndians.Com we are working currently with a couple of local insurance providers and a long distance call broker. We have had sponsorships from local cable companies who want to target new channels to the Indian community. There is money to be made.. just not dot-com millions. Don't give up your day job.
c) This is very important... don't loose your passion for the community. Once you do.. others will sense your disinterest and loose their interest.. this will happen very quickly.
On well