Obviously the comments posted here will all be biased against the proposed new law. After all, you have to be able to type to post here, don't you? Most of the SlashDot readers type for a living anyway. That really limits those with an opposing view from being represented in this discussion.
Now imagine if one day you stopped being able to type... Its not impossible... Maybe you suffered nerve damage in your hands, or you lost a few fingers in a farming accident. There are lots of ways to gain this particular disability. You wouldn't be able to work, you wouldn't be able to play computer games, and you wouldn't be able to chat on IRC. Worst of all, you wouldn't be able to post comments about your plight on message boards like SlashDot that have no provisions for those suffering from this particular disability.
As an evil marketer who has looked into buying pop-under ads, I can safely say that they are certainly not less expensive than other forms of advertising. A typical 720x480 Flash-enabled pop-under goes for around $5 CPM untargeted in volume. On the other hand, 468x60 can be had for as little as $0.50 CPM untargeted on the same networks if you are buying leftovers... which is why I don't do pop-unders.
>At 1,200 a month per company that wants to use it. Sounds like a pretty good business model to me.
Are you kidding? Just how many websites do you think there are that are both large enough and high-end enough to need a Google-type search? Maybe 10000 total? Now how many of those few websites are so disatisfied with the search technologies that come for free or that are already built into their servers that they will fork over $1200+/month to liscense Google's tech? I'll be generous and say 5%, which is almost certainly too high. So with a market size of a paltry $7.2 million, and competition from at least 4 or 5 players, that hardly qualifies as a good business model.
Now on the other hand, Google is making a killing on advertising. The online advertising market is at least a $2 Billion dollar industry...probably even higher. My (medium-sized) company alone spends well over $10000/month with Google just for advertising a single niche product. Google's AdWords system charges an average of $11.50 CPM to up to 8 different advertisers on a single page... Or in other words, Google is able to charge $92 CPM (an unheard of figure!) for non-obtrusive advertisements on high-traffic keywords. Whats more, their system really works. I get an average CTR with Google of about 4.3%... which is incredible. In addition to AdWords, Google also offers exclusive premium sponsorships (the horizontal bar) for another $20 - $50 CPM on those same pages.
Yes, Google does have a good business model, but it sure isn't because of them licensing their search technology.
I've been using AT&T Broadband since just after they bought MediaOne, and their service has been absolutely phenomenal right from the begining. The guy who came out to set up my connection was nice engough to configure my router for me so that I could use NAT.
They do have their fair share of problems, but they always fix them right away. For instance, when I lost DHCP service 2am on Christmas Eve, I called their tech support and got the problem solved in under 10 minutes. 3 days ago my neighborhood's router got struck by lightning. In 2 hours they had someone there to replace it. Another hour went by and it got struck by lightning a second time-- and they sent out a 2nd repair person to replace it again!
The only thing that sucks about AT&T Broadband is the speed. This may be specific to my neighborhood, but I rarely get downstream speeds over 40-60 kps. Upstream speeds seem to be stuck around 25 kps. Still a heck of a lot faster than a modem...
Actually age sex and zip are the determining factors for a well known traditional marketing concept called a "PRIZM Cluster".
PRIZM is a geodemographic system that helps marketers find groups of people who exhibit similar demographic and behavioral characteristics-- making it possible to identify and locate marketing targets.
This is based on the concept that "birds of a feather flock together", or in other words, that people with similar cultural backgrounds, needs, and perspectives naturally gravitate toward each other. People choose to live in neighborhoods that offer affordable advantages and compatible lifestyles.
PRIZM Clusters are usually useless in online marketing since you can rarely know where your customers are coming from unless you've already sold them the product. However, if you are giving the ad company a heads up by letting them know what cluster you belond to, they can serve you ads that their marketing research indicates you will be most interested in.
Obviously, PRIZM isn't perfect-- your daily junk mail should be a good indication of that. One of the big flaws in PRIZM is that its data is only updated every time there is a US Census, making it very slow to change. For instance, I receieve a lot of junk mail advertising things in Chinese, because the area I live in was until recently full of Chinese immigrants.
Being able to serve ads to you based on your PRIZM cluster will probably help you more than it will hurt you. If you live in an affluent area (for instance, a "Blue Blood" cluster), you will probably get ads for high-end electronics, sports cars, and high-limit credit cards. If you are identified as coming from a college-town zip code, you may be served ads for beer and textbooks. I really don't think this is something for any of us to worry about...
because your skinny-assed servers were slashdotted?
and now that I've had a chance to actually look at the site, yes, I can see your point. Using alpha blending and gradients to combine completely unrelated subject matter and art styles really does constitute artwork... come on, who are you trying to kid?
Great.. so we end up with a huge grid of completely different and unrelated pieces of small digital artwork with no discernable (or even intentional) pattern. A good question would be: Why would someone waste their time working on that?
A better question would be: Why would someone waste their time looking at the finished product? Blech.
How many times has this happened in the past 6 months? A marketing rep from some unknown company posts their new product line to SlashDot in hopes of getting some undeserved PR... and it gets approved as newsworthy.
Anyone remember that DVD player that had built in Sega games?
Machine language bytes for example 1: B8 00 4C CD 21
Machine language bytes for example 2: B4 3C BB 00 00 88 D8 80 C4 10 8E C3 9C 26 FF 1E 84 00
Figure 3.
Two examples of machine language bytes that instruct the computer to terminate a program. Even
though the two sequences of bytes tell the computer to do the same task, they look entirely different.
>>Email Freedom Support and let them know that there are also preferences for other operating systems, too!" It's a shame.
How childish to post a company's support e-mail address on the front page of SlashDot... Would someone mind telling me what will be accomplished by flooding Zero Knowledge's support staff with thousands of complaints by people who mostly have never used Freedom and never will?
Michael, I hope you are patting yourself on the back for giving a lot of support reps a major headache today, and for preventing people with real problems from getting the help that they need.
If you have a problem with a company's business decisions, I strongly suggest that you go through proper channels and complain directly to management. Clogging up operations only makes supporting Linux MORE expensive to the company.
I'm the CTO of a to-remain-nameless web retailer. I have never once asked tech people during interviews if they have a MBA, because I believe that would really be irrelevant to the position. Programmers and Sysadmins don't need to understand every aspect of the business, they just need to be able to do their jobs in a way that keeps the business' interests in mind.
You don't need MBAs for that, just people with intelligence. For the tougher and more expensive tech business decisions (i.e., should we get a redundant T1 into one of our offices from another provider), it is always up to management.
I find that our best tech workers are actually undergraduate students from MIT-- MBA? We don't even ask for a BA/BS.
What suprises me most is not just seeing this world of the past in color, but seeing such BRIGHT colors. I always imagined everything from that era being dull and grey..
I wish more suppliers would offer Windowsless PCs. I am responsible for buying workstations in an office of about 25 people. Every time I order a new machine, whether it is to upgrade an older station or to add a new one, I end up with another Windows98 CD in a baggie taped to a manual. Granted, almost every workstation in my office runs Windows.. (not enough people here with PhD needed to administor Linux).. But there are rarely more than 10 stations in use at any one time.
When I lay all of the CDs out next to each other on my desk, the holograms look kinda funky... but thats hardly reason to stick me with 40 or so CDs and site liscenses that I don't need.
if this piece is meant to be sarcastic or if Roblimo really just has no clue. Yeah.. a video game about drug trafficing is going to make a difference / help anyone / being enjoyable HOW?
Was it a really slow news day for Slashdot or what?
That someone who is not Asimov is Brian Aldiss... The text of "Supertoys Last All Summer Long," the original short story, can be found here... or you can order the novelised version from Amazon.com.
...and thus we have to buy several copies for our car, our office, etc.
According to the MSNBC article, these new CDs won't work in most car players (because they use CD-ROM anti-skip technology), and won't be playable in your office computer's CD-ROM drive either. I don't even -own- a CD player that these things would work with, and I'm sure that a lot of other people don't either. Who are they trying to fool? No one is buying multiple CDs that are for the most part unusable.
Slashdot Mirror
Obviously the comments posted here will all be biased against the proposed new law. After all, you have to be able to type to post here, don't you? Most of the SlashDot readers type for a living anyway. That really limits those with an opposing view from being represented in this discussion.
Now imagine if one day you stopped being able to type... Its not impossible... Maybe you suffered nerve damage in your hands, or you lost a few fingers in a farming accident. There are lots of ways to gain this particular disability. You wouldn't be able to work, you wouldn't be able to play computer games, and you wouldn't be able to chat on IRC. Worst of all, you wouldn't be able to post comments about your plight on message boards like SlashDot that have no provisions for those suffering from this particular disability.
Most of these target people probably... did not play games as a primary occupation.
<p>
Naturally... Everyone knows that professional video game players only use the Windows platform.
can someone post a translation of that article into a language that someone who only took high school physics can understand?
As an evil marketer who has looked into buying pop-under ads, I can safely say that they are certainly not less expensive than other forms of advertising. A typical 720x480 Flash-enabled pop-under goes for around $5 CPM untargeted in volume. On the other hand, 468x60 can be had for as little as $0.50 CPM untargeted on the same networks if you are buying leftovers... which is why I don't do pop-unders.
Has anyone ever seen a JonKatz review of a movie that he actually liked?...
Are you kidding? Just how many websites do you think there are that are both large enough and high-end enough to need a Google-type search? Maybe 10000 total? Now how many of those few websites are so disatisfied with the search technologies that come for free or that are already built into their servers that they will fork over $1200+/month to liscense Google's tech? I'll be generous and say 5%, which is almost certainly too high. So with a market size of a paltry $7.2 million, and competition from at least 4 or 5 players, that hardly qualifies as a good business model.
Now on the other hand, Google is making a killing on advertising. The online advertising market is at least a $2 Billion dollar industry...probably even higher. My (medium-sized) company alone spends well over $10000/month with Google just for advertising a single niche product. Google's AdWords system charges an average of $11.50 CPM to up to 8 different advertisers on a single page... Or in other words, Google is able to charge $92 CPM (an unheard of figure!) for non-obtrusive advertisements on high-traffic keywords. Whats more, their system really works. I get an average CTR with Google of about 4.3%... which is incredible. In addition to AdWords, Google also offers exclusive premium sponsorships (the horizontal bar) for another $20 - $50 CPM on those same pages.
Yes, Google does have a good business model, but it sure isn't because of them licensing their search technology.
at the risk of posting another 'me too'...
I've been using AT&T Broadband since just after they bought MediaOne, and their service has been absolutely phenomenal right from the begining. The guy who came out to set up my connection was nice engough to configure my router for me so that I could use NAT.
They do have their fair share of problems, but they always fix them right away. For instance, when I lost DHCP service 2am on Christmas Eve, I called their tech support and got the problem solved in under 10 minutes. 3 days ago my neighborhood's router got struck by lightning. In 2 hours they had someone there to replace it. Another hour went by and it got struck by lightning a second time-- and they sent out a 2nd repair person to replace it again!
The only thing that sucks about AT&T Broadband is the speed. This may be specific to my neighborhood, but I rarely get downstream speeds over 40-60 kps. Upstream speeds seem to be stuck around 25 kps. Still a heck of a lot faster than a modem...
Actually age sex and zip are the determining factors for a well known traditional marketing concept called a "PRIZM Cluster".
PRIZM is a geodemographic system that helps marketers find groups of people who exhibit similar demographic and behavioral characteristics-- making it possible to identify and locate marketing targets.
This is based on the concept that "birds of a feather flock together", or in other words, that people with similar cultural backgrounds, needs, and perspectives naturally gravitate toward each other. People choose to live in neighborhoods that offer affordable advantages and compatible lifestyles.
PRIZM Clusters are usually useless in online marketing since you can rarely know where your customers are coming from unless you've already sold them the product. However, if you are giving the ad company a heads up by letting them know what cluster you belond to, they can serve you ads that their marketing research indicates you will be most interested in.
Obviously, PRIZM isn't perfect-- your daily junk mail should be a good indication of that. One of the big flaws in PRIZM is that its data is only updated every time there is a US Census, making it very slow to change. For instance, I receieve a lot of junk mail advertising things in Chinese, because the area I live in was until recently full of Chinese immigrants.
Being able to serve ads to you based on your PRIZM cluster will probably help you more than it will hurt you. If you live in an affluent area (for instance, a "Blue Blood" cluster), you will probably get ads for high-end electronics, sports cars, and high-limit credit cards. If you are identified as coming from a college-town zip code, you may be served ads for beer and textbooks. I really don't think this is something for any of us to worry about...
this may just be symantecs.. but x10 uses 'pop under' ads, not 'pop up' ads. Their ads appear under rather than over the active browser window.
I did look at your site.. It looks like something that fell off the ugly truck on the way back from community art college.
because your skinny-assed servers were slashdotted?
and now that I've had a chance to actually look at the site, yes, I can see your point. Using alpha blending and gradients to combine completely unrelated subject matter and art styles really does constitute artwork... come on, who are you trying to kid?
Great.. so we end up with a huge grid of completely different and unrelated pieces of small digital artwork with no discernable (or even intentional) pattern. A good question would be: Why would someone waste their time working on that?
A better question would be: Why would someone waste their time looking at the finished product? Blech.
Anyone remember that DVD player that had built in Sega games?
now thats a good use of my time
Machine language bytes for example 1: B8 00 4C CD 21
Machine language bytes for example 2: B4 3C BB 00 00 88 D8 80 C4 10 8E C3 9C 26 FF 1E 84 00
Figure 3.
Two examples of machine language bytes that instruct the computer to terminate a program. Even though the two sequences of bytes tell the computer to do the same task, they look entirely different.
How childish to post a company's support e-mail address on the front page of SlashDot... Would someone mind telling me what will be accomplished by flooding Zero Knowledge's support staff with thousands of complaints by people who mostly have never used Freedom and never will?
Michael, I hope you are patting yourself on the back for giving a lot of support reps a major headache today, and for preventing people with real problems from getting the help that they need. If you have a problem with a company's business decisions, I strongly suggest that you go through proper channels and complain directly to management. Clogging up operations only makes supporting Linux MORE expensive to the company.I'm the CTO of a to-remain-nameless web retailer. I have never once asked tech people during interviews if they have a MBA, because I believe that would really be irrelevant to the position. Programmers and Sysadmins don't need to understand every aspect of the business, they just need to be able to do their jobs in a way that keeps the business' interests in mind.
You don't need MBAs for that, just people with intelligence. For the tougher and more expensive tech business decisions (i.e., should we get a redundant T1 into one of our offices from another provider), it is always up to management.
I find that our best tech workers are actually undergraduate students from MIT-- MBA? We don't even ask for a BA/BS.
If I remember correctly from my cub scouts apple-picking days, a cluster of apples would be a peck.
What suprises me most is not just seeing this world of the past in color, but seeing such BRIGHT colors. I always imagined everything from that era being dull and grey..
Oh come on... Can't a guy just post a simple product review without being accused of being financially biased?
I wish more suppliers would offer Windowsless PCs. I am responsible for buying workstations in an office of about 25 people. Every time I order a new machine, whether it is to upgrade an older station or to add a new one, I end up with another Windows98 CD in a baggie taped to a manual. Granted, almost every workstation in my office runs Windows.. (not enough people here with PhD needed to administor Linux).. But there are rarely more than 10 stations in use at any one time.
When I lay all of the CDs out next to each other on my desk, the holograms look kinda funky... but thats hardly reason to stick me with 40 or so CDs and site liscenses that I don't need.
if this piece is meant to be sarcastic or if Roblimo really just has no clue. Yeah.. a video game about drug trafficing is going to make a difference / help anyone / being enjoyable HOW?
Was it a really slow news day for Slashdot or what?
That someone who is not Asimov is Brian Aldiss... The text of "Supertoys Last All Summer Long," the original short story, can be found here... or you can order the novelised version from Amazon.com.
also a story on CNN...
According to the MSNBC article, these new CDs won't work in most car players (because they use CD-ROM anti-skip technology), and won't be playable in your office computer's CD-ROM drive either. I don't even -own- a CD player that these things would work with, and I'm sure that a lot of other people don't either. Who are they trying to fool? No one is buying multiple CDs that are for the most part unusable.