Source: Aharef via Clicked

I'm really into maps and how we can use them to better understand and visualize our increasingly complex world. Here's an interesting map-graph app for visualizing the structure of websites. It swaps a website's HTML tags for color coded dots mapped to the directory structure. Enough words. Here's some maps.

Yahoo! - very portal-y

Google - simple. simple. simple.

BoingBoing - go there, link out

So many people are mapping sites like this and uploading them to Flickr, websitesasgraphs has become a hot tag.

FULL ENTRY

Source: Time

Why bankrupt yourself to pay $90,000 for a surgery you can get for $10,000 in Bangkok? The availability of high-quality medical care in India, Thailand, Singapore and Malaysia have led to a steady stream of uninsured and underinsured Americans boarding planes for care. We're not talking just tummy tucks...this is the real deal - hip replacement, heart surgery, etc. With U.S. medical costs out of control, companies like Blue Ridge Paper Products of Canton, N.C., see outsourcing as an employee benefit. The carrot? The patient would get to take a family member and then pocket some of the firm's substantial savings. One prominent economist says "This has the potential of doing to the U.S. health-care system what the Japanese auto industry did to American carmakers."

FULL ENTRY

Source: VC Ratings

Bessemer Venture Partners actually publicizes the companies they wish they hadn't passed on. But instead of making Bessemer look dumb, the list makes it look both down-to-Earth and impressive from a deal flow perspective. Along the same line, Kara Nortman of Battery Ventures blogs that she's sorry she missed out on Boston-based mobile ad startup Third Screen Media, that looks as if it will be acquired by Microsoft for an undisclosed amount. Joshua Jaffe blogs that he's sure Kara will get over it quick, as EMC recently purchased Kashya, a company Kara was involved with at Battery, for $153 million. Win some. Lose some.

FULL ENTRY

Source: Inc.

A new non-partisan study finds that with a higher minimum wage, retention is improved, and businesses ultimately save money on hiring and training new workers. So, ignoring Washington (who has kept it at $5.15 since 1997 - that's just 33 percent of the average hourly wage of American workers, the lowest level since 1949.), many states are raising the minimum wage. Just before the holiday weekend, Massachusetts Senate lawmakers unanimously approved a measure that would increase the state's minimum wage to $8.25 an hour - the highest in the nation. Some think it's just another item to add to the list that makes Massachusetts inhospitable to business. But I'm betting that most people reading this pay their teenage babysitters more than that and would riot in the streets if they hadn't had a raise, even for inflation, in 10 years.

FULL ENTRY

Source: BusinessWeek

Procter & Gamble has an army of 600,000 moms. They're enrolled in Vocalpoint, a business unit of P&G that pitches products via word-of-mouth. P&G doesn't do anything small or unstudied. In markets where Vocalpoint moms pitched Dawn Direct Foam ("so fun to use, kids will want to help out with the dishes.") sales doubled. Vocalpoint moms get product samples, coupons, and a chance to share their opinions with P&G. But, oddly for a company renowned for its militant protectionism of brand trust, P&G leaves it up to each mom to decide if she discloses her affiliation – something word-of-mouth marketers don't advocate. The next time you get a recommendation for a P&G product you may find yourself wondering..."Is it real or is it Vocalpoint?"

FULL ENTRY

Source: GigaOM

Robert Young blogs that social networks, blogs and video sharing sites are simply a micro-phenomenon of a much larger macro-trend: digital self-expression. Young says that the "art-form of self-expression has become the new media," and "social networks are their distribution channels." This is a big opportunity for traditional media companies. Consider what would happen if American Idol had been produced solely by the contestants, without the expertise of the show’s producers, directors or writers. Would it be a mega-hit? No. Social networks should be like Simon Cowell and crew...helping people express themselves with the highest levels of creativity and the best production values and they will draw a huge following.

FULL ENTRY

Source: Financial Times

This year the Internet is forecasted to overtake national newspapers, making it the third largest advertising medium by spend. By the end of 2007, Internet advertising will close the gap on regional newspapers, the number two medium, but will still be well short of television, the biggest outlet in media advertising market.

FULL ENTRY

Source: Babson Women's Business Blog

Jan Shubert, Assoc. Director of the Babson College Center for Women’s Leadership, blogs that the Glass Ceiling is being replaced by a Gray Ceiling made of Baby Boomers. Half of the 76 million Boomers in America are women and three out of four are currently in the workforce. Retirement? The farthest thing from their minds. So the 44 million Gen X'ers and 80 million Millenials (almost 70% of whom are women and minorities), will be waiting them out. Shubert says the boomers "passionate take-no-prisoners approach to work" is the model the next generation is rejecting. So Boomers! You may have paved the way, but the next generation has seen the enemy (er...ceiling) and it is you.

FULL ENTRY

Source: Mass High Tech

Speaking of Ajax, Norwalk, Conn.-based travel search engine Kayak.com just closed on $11.5 million, raising its total funding to $30 million. The two-year-old company plans to do a full on marketing push and expand into Europe. Kayak was used as an example of Ajax in action by Wired Magazine who just gave Ajax this year's Tech Rave Award. Kayak uses Ajax to add each of your matching flights to the screen the instant it’s found. No more waiting in suspense while the site searches every airline on Earth while you watch an animated wait screen.

FULL ENTRY

Source: Wired

Jesse James Garrett from web consultancy Adaptive Path has been named the Tech Rave Award winner by Wired. His big idea? Clean up the user experience with Ajax – or Asynchronous JavaScript and XML. Instead of the old call-and-response model of interaction (click, wait, load page; click, wait, load page) on web sites, Ajax anticipates the user’s next move, loading data in advance. It's the difference between MapQuest and Google Maps. Or as Garrett says, "It’s the difference between looking at motion-picture stills and actually watching the movie."

FULL ENTRY

Source: Slate

College faculty supply generally outstrips demand and a new study says that if you're a newly minted Ph.D. you should hope to graduate in a boom year for hiring because it increases your chance of landing a job at a top 50 university by 40-60 percent. And if you take a job at a lower-ranked college hoping to do solid work and raise up the academic ladder? You're more likely to end up in a Roach Motel scenerio. You can check in, but you can't check out.

FULL ENTRY

Source: MIT Advertising Lab

The New York Times reports that Virgin Mobile customers can earn up to 75 free minutes of call time through its new SugarMama program. How do you get free? Earn one minute by watching 30-second commercials on a computer or receiving text messages on your phone, then answering questions to prove you were, in fact, paying attention.

FULL ENTRY

Every Monday I gather up some Business Filter posts and they run as a column in the Business & Innovation section of the Boston Globe with a nifty illustration from Art Guy. So if you found this by reading the paper - welcome to the blog.

Eldercare by iRobot
Illustration: James F. Kraus

Blogging women power
Packaging hell
Online ad jobs boom
Nike + iPod
People power
The new bestsellers

Source: Forbes

Speaking of locking up (or unlocking) real estate, an International Standards body (ISO) recently accepted the Open Document Format (ODF) as a standard for saving and exchanging digital office documents. That's a big win for open source and a blow to Microsoft whose proprietary Office file formats have been the de facto standard for years.

And in no insignificant way, it's partly thanks to Peter Quinn, the former CIO of Massachusetts, a man who endured a political firestorm and a Boston Globe story alleging he'd misused state funds for travel. (He was exonerated but quit his job soon after.) Quinn stirred things up when he made it a state policy that by January 2007 all state employees would begin saving their work in open formats such as HTML, PDF, and ODF so they would work on anyone's software, not just Microsoft's. Peter Quinn, described by Forbes as the mild-mannered geek from Boston who took on Microsoft – vindicated.

FULL ENTRY

Source: Disruptive Thoughts via Chartreuse

Fraser Kelton blogs that Howard Stern hasn't fully embraced new media, but new media can learn a lot from him. If anything, Kelton writes, Howard's reticence to go online is a testament to his patience and his understanding of his fans. Stern is in the big money because he has masterfully "down-geeked new media strategies, keeping them within the promise of what the majority can embrace." He's been making user-generated content for years. His fan base is the ultimate social network. He's authentic and honest and has made his listeners his costars, much like many successful bloggers. Howard gets that the audience is everything.

Down-geeked is my new favorite buzzword. It's what I'm always harping about with simple, simple, simple.

FULL ENTRY

So, you ask...how does Maura read the web?

• I subscribe to hundreds of RSS feeds through a paid application called FeedDemon (Feedburner edition). Best $ I ever spent.
  
• If you want to see most of the feeds, check out my del.icio.us links. They're also here on the left of the blog.
  
• My browser is Mozilla Firefox. My Home Page is My Yahoo!. It has gobs of links to important stuff like Reuters, Weather, Stocks, Red Sox scores and Molly Ivins.
  
• I track TechMeme all day.
  
• I Digg too.
  
• I agree with Charlene Li who pointed out this week what an excellent job CNET News.com is doing with their Extra section.

I tried StumbleUpon this week which is a little extension for Mozilla Firefox that helps you find sites you like based on your preferences. Om Malik says it's addictive. I like it OK so far but I think I need to train it for a while before it gets really good. It's a great little time-waster.

Babson College launched their Women’s Business Blog this week. Not only can you read what top faculty are thinking, but you'll get welcomed and introduced to the blog by women on the faculty in pop-up videos. Nice!

Bryan Person touched off a vigorous dialog on Universal Hub when he posted a protest about Boston.com not offering comments on its blogs. Person says that Boston.com's attempt to "faciliate a regular, public conversation" isn't credible when it doesn't allow readers to engage with the bloggers on the blog itself. Many readers pointed to the Boston Herald's blogs allowing comments. Personally, I would welcome comments.

Now for two things that help make life worthwhile. Wine and chocolate.

WineLog is a new site that lets you keep a record of wines you've tried and helps you discover new wines. It's a Wine 2.0 site.

Best news of the week
Chocolate boosts brain power
A new study hints that eating milk chocolate may boost brain function. So that explains it. I eat one Lindt truffle per day and I'm brilliant.

Which reminds me. I want to go to the Chocolate Bar at the Langham Hotel in Boston for brunch.

Stan DeSantis sends this important breaking news story about unbreakable wine glasses. While made of handblown crystal, they have a secret ingredient called Kwarx which makes them indestructible.

And last but not least...go ahead. I dare you. Make an Earth Sandwich.

Source: CNET News.com

Just like Coke or Pepsi locking up Burger King or McDonalds...Google, Microsoft and Yahoo are out there locking up the places we drink our search. Google just announced a deal with Dell to ship all new Dell PCs with pre-installed Google Toolbars and a Dell/Google pre-configured home page. (Even though they were just complaining to the government about Microsoft doing the same thing with Internet Explorer.) Also yesterday, Yahoo announced a deal with eBay in which they will provide ads and search for the auction giant. Nick Carr wonders what the Google, Microsoft and Yahoo are paying for all this, but bets that it's not a buyer's market.

FULL ENTRY

Source: BoingBoing

In the 1960s fewer than three novels reached #1 on the New York Times hardcover Bestseller's list, but they stayed there an average of 22 weeks. Today? Reverse it. Last year 23 books made the bestseller's list, but their staying power was barely two weeks. These numbers are from a new study by print-on-demand publisher Lulu.com. Without current technology that allows small press runs to be cost-effective, Amazon couldn't sell millions of different titles and Lulu.com wouldn't even exist.

FULL ENTRY

Source: BusinessWeek

Berlin's Propeller Island City Lodge

Go to an Ian Schrager hotel and all the bellmen resemble Milli Vanilli and the look is tragically hip. But, now with a W on every city corner, the man who invented designer hotels now says it's over. The new new thing? Art Hotels. In creating The Gramercy Park Hotel opening in NYC this August, Schrager has teamed with artist and filmmaker Julian Schnabel to create a bohemian spirit – but he's quick to add, "bohemian with money." Art Hotels go way beyond hanging art on the walls. The idea is for art to permeate the place. With this trend breaking out all over, don't be surprised when you walk in the room and you're not sure where the art ends and the bed begins.

FULL ENTRY

Source: Chief Marketer

To assure your compelling email marketing message gets read, consider sending it on a Sunday or a Tuesday. A new study shows that on Tuesdays, which is the day with the highest volume of e-mails sent, email open rates are 26.4 percent, and click-throughs are at 6.2 percent. But Sundays, one of the lightest email days of the week (second only to Saturday) showed open rates of 25.9 percent, and click-through levels of 6.6 percent.

FULL ENTRY

Source: Andy Carvin's Waste of Bandwidth blog

Andy Carvin interviewed folks at this demonstration at the Massachusetts State House yesterday. Watch the video and understand why you need to care about the legislation that the U.S. House and Senate are considering that would take away local oversight of cable franchise agreements, making it harder for communities to get cable providers to invest in community television. The legislation would also allow Internet providers to favor their own content and discriminate against content produced by others...that means the big cable and telco providers want to put toll booths on the Internet.

Learn more at SavetheInternet.com.

FULL ENTRY

Source: BBC News

We emit energy just walking and riding around, so researchers are working on harvesting it. "Heel-strike" generators, powered through the pumping motion of a footstep, can be embedded within the heels of shoes. These devices currently achieve 3 - 6 watts of power. If we all had them, we could actually capture the energy of rush hour. Researchers are also embedding energy harvesting devices into roads to capture the energy of vibrations from trains and cars. My favorite? Buildings with specially designed floors that harvest the energy from people walking across them - power your laptop by walking to the watercooler.

FULL ENTRY

Source: Between the Lines

Nicholas Carr has pronounced that Wikipedia, the open source encyclopedia that anyone can edit, is dead. He writes that it "died the way the pure products of idealism always do, slowly and quietly and largely in secret, through the corrosive process of compromise." Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales calls this a "staggeringly bizarre argument," saying that of the 1,151,768 English articles, just 154 are under semi-protection, which allows only a select few to edit them. This is in response to certain – usually politicized - Wikipedia entries having been edited to include questionable or false statements. I agree with Dan Farber that civilizing Wikipedia has included constraints and compromises, just like the constraints we put on American "democracy." Wikipedia and the US are not pure democracies, but they're not dictatorships either. And the ongoing question wrestled with is the same. Are we making the right compromises?

That said, what's really right in all this is that Nick Carr can openly challenge Wikipedia on ideals and spark an international blog dialog. Blogs are one of the purest forms of democracy we've got. Protect them at all costs.

FULL ENTRY

Source: Wall Street Journal (free feature)

The Journal pits Craig Newmark (of Craigslist) against Mike McCurry (former Clinton press secretary, now co-chairman of Hands Off the Internet, a group backed by AT&T and Verizon that opposes net neutrality regulations) in a point-counterpoint email exchange debating "net neutrality." It covers all the various points of view on both sides of the debate, as well as having the added benefit of Craig accusing McCurry of "truthiness."

FULL ENTRY

Source: Yahoo! Asia News via TechMeme

Speaking of caring robots, Mechanical Love is a soon-to-be-released documentary about a Japanese therapeutic robot called Paro, which looks like a furry baby harp seal. Named the world's most soothing robot by Guinness World Records, the robot can express emotions and react sensitively to humans by cooing, moving delicately and opening and closing its eyes. It looks happy when patted on the head and gets angry when ignored. Paro has been shown to help people suffering from Alzheimer's disease and mental disorders by reducing stress, activating the immune system and stabilizing heart rate and blood pressure.

FULL ENTRY

Source: CNET

In this interview Colin Angle, CEO of iRobot says that they purposely didn't design Roombas to be cute, but even so it seems nearly impossible not to have human emotions about them. He's right - in our house we find ourselves rooting for the little guy to make it around tough corners. Knowing that people form a kind of bond with their robots, Angle has now set his sights on developing robots as care-giving companions for older people – helping them remember to take medicine, watching for early signs of distress, extending their independence at home and inevitably being a buddy for lonely people.

FULL ENTRY

Source: Apple and Nike

Here's the thing. I don't set out being an Apple lemming...but I become one. I'm a runner. I love my iPod. We run together all the time. Now Nike and Apple have teamed up to give me something I want to have - a little iPod add-on that allows me to track my running performance through Nike running shoes that communicate with the iPod device. So I can track my run and download custom running tracks through iTunes? Not to mention a marriage of two of the most elegant brands on earth? OK. Go ahead. Laugh. I want it. See the video.

FULL ENTRY

Source: Tech Effect

Google announced yesterday that it will soon auction off video ads through AdSense, its text-based Internet ad money machine system. The video ads will be click-to-play. On the one hand, they'll be less intrusive. On the other, they could get ignored. There is still plenty of debate as to whether this will take off. But Brian Ward at Tech Effect There is thinks this will be a boon for Lone Ranger bloggers who are going it alone without help of a Web developer or ad sales department. Video ads from Google could help these bloggers literally tap in to a level of professionalism previously unavailable on their blogs.

FULL ENTRY

Source: Rough Type

Nick Carr thinks MySpace may be in the right space at the right time. Until now the massive site has not converted it's staggering page views into dollars through banner ads, so it's reportedly seeking a search-engine partner to supply targeted pay-per-click ads throughout the site. Google and Microsoft are reportedly in the running (and perhaps Yahoo?) so look for MySpace to reap the benefit of a titanic bidding war as no company will want to cede the chance to monetize MySpace.

FULL ENTRY

Here's a YouTube video of tons of people, some of whom seem to have traveled a great distance, standing in line in the rain to get in to the new Manhattan Apple Store. Steve Jobs is sighted.

This past weekend was all about giant glass structures. DaVinci Code and the Louvre glass pyramid. Manhattan Apple Store and the giant glass cube.

FULL ENTRY

Source: BusinessWeek

"Mama, let your babies grow up to be Web ad guys." Now that's something that wouldn't have been said just a few short years ago. But with the online ad business up 30 percent in 2006, companies are desperate to fill jobs, salaries are up 10-20 percent and perks abound. Digitas of Boston has advertised 74 new positions since April 1st, on a staff of about 1,700. They recently tweaked a referral program so that even former workers can collect $2,000 for directing a friend toward a job opening.

FULL ENTRY

Source: BoingBoing

British company Inflate sells and rents huge inflatable structures like this one that looks like a giant jellyfish. Or if you need a little privacy for a meeting, just inflate the "office in a bucket."

FULL ENTRY

Source: Wired

When was the last time you stabbed yourself trying to open hard plastic "clamshell" packaging? Dr. Christian Arbelaez, a Boston-area ER physician, sees about a victim a week, some even requiring orthopedic surgery. Why do manufacturers encase their stuff in impenetrable fortresses? Deterring shoplifters is the short answer. But packaging designers are starting to listen to their maimed customers. Energizer started packaging its batteries with slits in the back of the clamshell to give customers a point of entry. And MeadWestvaco is marketing packaging made from a thinner, recyclable plastic and cardboard that can be easily cut with scissors. But the majority of stuff out there will still put your eye out.

FULL ENTRY

Source: CNET

Researchers at Georgia Institute of Technology are experimenting with ways to use bacteria to help clean up uranium. Colonies of cleanup microbes living in soil could also prevent the spread of radioactive material in the event of a leak at a power plant. It turns out that a species from the bacteria genus Rhanella, if it eats certain organic compounds containing phosphate, will excrete phosphate that could bind with uranium, making an insoluble compound. In theory, the bad soil could then be scraped away with a bulldozer. Other microbe wrangling research efforts include turning manure into natural gas and making ethanol from grass.

FULL ENTRY

Source: Contra Costa Times

Here's the irony. There are more women blogging than men. And yet, of the so-called "A-list" – the blogs that command a lot of attention and traffic – a relative few are authored by women. So how do men leverage their blogs into successful soapboxes while "hordes of women type away in digital obscurity?" There are no easy answers, but given that blogging was invented mostly by men, no surprise they have defined it. Enter BlogHer, a network founded by women for women bloggers. On word of mouth alone they have registered over 2,500 women bloggers...including me. BlogHer's first conference last year was attended by 300-plus women bloggers from around the country and sponsored by Yahoo and Google. Expect that number to double for their second annual conference being held July 28 and 29 in San Jose.

FULL ENTRY

Source: Babson College

In her commencement address this weekend, Donna Dubinsky encouraged Babson College MBA grads to think beyond the obvious. Dubinsky, the former CEO of Palm Computing and Handspring said when Palm first launched it had little competition. But when Microsoft targeted them with a feature war, Dubinsky and company didn't do the obvious. They launched the stylish Palm V without new features because they noticed people grew attached to their Pilots. That thinking created a huge hit. "It took Microsoft and other competitors years to figure out that style was important." Dubinsky's thinking has taken her so far, she's now in the brain business. Her new company, Numenta, is taking a new approach to intelligent computing, using algorithms modeled after the human neocortex. Smart. Smart. Smart.

Get the full text of Dubinsky's commencement speech.

FULL ENTRY

Source: Bill Tancer's Hitwise blog

Bill Tancer from Hitwise had such a great response to his last table on Google marketshare, that he's now blogged a table that shows marketshare across each of the big portals – Google, Yahoo! and MSN. No surprise that Google owns nearly half of all search traffic. But then look at the rest.

GMail has just 2.54 percent of the market and yet CNET names it the best free email tool.

And Google Maps does not dominate in that category even though it's clearly superior to MapQuest or Yahoo! Maps IMHO.

This is another great reality check. Listen to the tech intelligentsia and they've already deemed Google to be the standard and moved on. Meanwhile, the rest of the world is still using the old stuff. What's missing here is AOL. I know a surprising number of people that still use AOL for everything. And some of them even still pay for it like the old days.

This is the change formula in play. People only adopt new technology when the pain of their current situation exceeds their perceived pain of switching.

FULL ENTRY

Every Monday I gather up some Business Filter posts and they run in the Boston Globe on page 2 of the Business & Innovation section with a nifty illustration from Art Guy. So if you found this by reading the paper - welcome to the blog.

Starbucks gets bookish
Illustration: James F. Kraus

Tech change formula
Seeking blog metrics
In opposite directions
Boeing opens up
Women earn more?
Green computers

Source: Mass High Tech

Last night MIT announced the winners of the MIT $100K Entrepreneurship Competition. The Business Venture Grand Prize went to SteriCoat Inc. They make a coating technology that significantly reduces infections caused by bacteria on heart catheters. The Development Grand Prize went to CentroMigrante Inc. They offer a sustainable solution that provides clean, safe and affordable urban housing for indigent, transient job seekers. Runners-up included Avanti Metal Co. for their efforts to produce oxygen on the moon (no lie) and Terrafugia for their multi-functional Transition Personal Air Vehicle (um, that would mean flying car).

Just for a second picture Boston, the 5th worse city for road rage with flying cahs.

FULL ENTRY

Source: PSFK

PSFK reports that you can timeshift and placeshift the process of interviewing job candidates via Hirevue, a service that sends a webcam and a standard set of questions to each candidate to record their interview. Earlier today, I was saying that the Internet has dramatically reduced face time. 44 percent of all colleges offer online classes. Hirevue lets you interview by webcam. Telecommuting means you don't even have to show up at the office. For that matter, you don't even have to get dressed. Remember this survey? It says 10% of us telecommute nude.

FULL ENTRY

Source: Chartreuse

Chartreuse says it's not the computer. It's the cell phone.

What it's killed: landlines, watches, payphones
What it's created: a ringtone business, a wallpaper business
What it's changing: music, television, cameras, gaming, the way you live

FULL ENTRY

Source: BusinessWeek's TechBeat

Apparently it's Automatic Generator Week here at Da Biz Filta.

TODAY it's the Automatic Aging Generator. Upload a picture and they email it back making you look older.

Wednesday: Automatic News Clipping Simulator

Tuesday Web 2.0 B.S. Generator

Monday - Company Name Generator and the Mission Statement Generator

FULL ENTRY

Every week I write up the Friday Link Harvest while listening to James Kraus live on WZBC via the Internet. Not only does he play my requests for 80s punk but he does a mean illustration for Business Filter in the Globe every Monday and he just sent me a cooool Art Guy T-shirt. Nice!

Alicia Conway at Boston.com is my new hero because she promises to help me redesign the layout of Biz Filter. Time to rearrange the furniture a bit.

Michael Chmura from Babson College writes to say that the Sloan Consortium, based at Babson and Olin Colleges, recently published research saying the colleges in the South top colleges in the North when it comes to online learning.

"Among all Southern schools offering face-to-face master's degrees, 47 percent also offer master's degree programs online, higher than the 44 percent of those schools nationwide."

But the thing that shocks me is how high even the online learning figures are in general. The Internet results in declining "face time" all over the place.

W. David Stephenson, a homeland security consultant, writes in response to Real-time maps of cities that he thinks this technology will be a critical element of crisis response – but only on an opt-in basis.

"Such a system would have to be opt in, given the current poisonous distrust of public officials regarding privacy (yet another consequence that the Bush Administration should have, but evidently didn't, considered prior to launching the NSA surveillance programs) and the risk to individuals if, for example, their national identities could be tracked without them knowing it while on vacation in an area prone to terrorist attacks or kidnappings."

As a diversion from the homeland security grind, Stephenson clicked into my Automatic name and mission statement generator post and automatically generated his own mission statement. It's Dilbert-ific.

Cube Fabulous is a new Internet reality series that's a Trading Spaces meets Office Space. It chronicles the redecorating of cubicles for office cube-dwellers. As we've discussed on this blog before, the cubicle is The Fidel Castro of Office Furniture. Reviled by workers, demonized by designers, disowned by its very creator...we're still stuck with them.

Speaking of corporate dysfunction, I stumbled upon a series of perfectly ironic Despair Inc. video webcasts on ZDNet this week. In this segment, Despair, Inc.'s Dr. E.L. Kersten explains one of several disconfirmational communication tactics which can be helpful in disabusing employees of their narcissistic delusions of parity.

Funny YouTube video: 10 Things I hate about Commandments, stumbled upon while reading Good Morning Silicon Valley.

I'm really getting into videoblogging. DC Denison of the Boston Globe turned me on to DriveTime, a weekly video blog produced during Ravi Jain's daily commute. It's my new favorite Boston-area videoblog. Last month Mary Richardson from that venerable New England news magazine Chronicle, rode along on the commute. Love it.

Anyone ever see the Bob, the singing Continental Airlines guy at the Newark Airport?

Dan Zarella says he uses WordTracker to spot cool new trends.

Stan DeSantis points out the newly launched Google Health. Search on what ails you and get info, links and remedies.

Source: GigaOM

With Google launching a new service seemingly every week, Om Malik wasn't the only one wondering if, in fact, some of these newer offerings weren't really gaining traction. Well, Bill Tancer's HitWise blog provides some data that could prove out that theory. Based on this chart, Google Image Search and Google Mail are the only Google services that have meaningful traffic. It's all about search for Google.

Notably missing from this list is Blogger – Google's free blogging service. Also some of these sites have not been active long enough to gain traction. Regardless, Tancer says "Google properties continue to grow, in total, accounting for 4.3% of all Internet visits for the week ending 5/13/2006."

FULL ENTRY

Source: ArsTechnica

There's another reason for Skype going free. As companies such as AT&T think about cashing in on a tiered Internet, where consumers would have to pay extra for the "guaranteed delivery" of data, Skype knows they're up against the big guns. Even worse, what if Internet Service Providers decide to just block Skype altogether? There are companies working on commercial solutions to block Skype and other web voice calling traffic, hoping to find early adopters among state-run telecommunications companies and security-conscious businesses. So Skype is taking a gamble. Get big quick so the big guys will think twice about tampering with Skype traffic.

FULL ENTRY

Source: BusinessWeek

Skype is already cheap. But free is the new cheap in the battle over voice over IP calls – which seem to be trending toward zero faster and faster each week. Skype customers can now make calls from personal computers to landline or wireless phones within the U.S. and Canada for free, instead of the usual 2 cents a minute. Skype was acquired by eBay for $2.6 billion in October '05. Skype currently has an estimated 40 million regular users and they want to rev that number up to 100 million by yearend. So they're going for broke and consumers can reap the benefits for now.

FULL ENTRY

Source: Red Herring

British digital identity company, WeeWorld just closed on a $15.5 million second round of funding from Accel and Benchmark. CEO Celia Francis said the London-based firm will use the funds to expand its presence in the U.S., support further advertising and sponsorship deals, and achieve what she jokingly refers to as "WeeWorld domination." 9 million users have already created "WeeMees" - digital avatars that represent a person's identity online and on mobile devices.

As part of their expansion plans, they have hired local product and marketing whiz Lauren Bigelow as General Manager for North America. So look for the Wee little Boston-area office to start ramping up soon. Full disclosure: I've known and worked with Lauren Bigelow for the last 15-odd years. She's one of the best.

FULL ENTRY

IDOL UPDATE:
Last week's experiment with an Idol Google Trends chart correctly placed Katherine McPhee and Taylor Hicks in the number one and two slots.

If Google Trends indicators hold true...Katherine McPhee will be the new American Idol.

FULL ENTRY

Source: Dealscape blog

While Ford and GM are closing plants and slashing jobs, Honda is sinking $400 million into a new U.S. auto plant due to open in 2008. It will add about 1,500 new jobs to some lucky Midwestern town. That'll be Honda's 6th U.S. plant. Honda had a record first-quarter profit of $1.9 billion, three-quarters of which is derived from the U.S. Compare that to GM, who lost more than $10 billion last year and by 2008 plans to shutter 12 plants and lay off some 30,000 workers. Ford? Same. They will shutdown 14 plants in the U.S. and cut 34,000 jobs. Ford lost $1.2 billion in the first quarter alone. In North America, Ford's largest market, it lost $1.6 billion in 2005. Our claim to fame? We invented the car. Me? I drive a Honda.

FULL ENTRY

Source: InternetNews.com

Rightly so, corporations are looking for metrics that prove out the ROI for blogs. But at this week's Mesh Conference Steve Rubel said that it's "sort of like 1995/96 was for online advertising. We're not there yet." But he does say that traffic alone is not necessarily a key metric for a blog's success. The new model, he says, is shaped like the letter T. "Where the long cross is reach and then a small subset of audience that is narrow is where you develop a deep level of engagement with that audience." So rather than the standard model of blasting out a message and counting eyeballs, it's more qualitative. How many conversations get started? How many people are linking in?

FULL ENTRY

Source: The Wall Street Journal (free feature)

While Gateway's retail operation shuttered its 188 retail stores in 2004, Apple powers on with 146 stores. But its 147th, opening tomorrow on New York's Fifth Avenue, opposite the Plaza Hotel and Bergdorf Goodman, is the Mecca of all Apple stores. Profitable for several years, Apple Stores provided $151 million in operating income in fiscal '05. Why? Because they are incredibly cool and staffed with knowledgeable, friendly humans. You go there to buy, get tech support or just to play.

Like a fool I bought some iPod accessories at Target during the Christmas rush and neither of them were the right ones. I should have gone to Apple. The guy who runs Apple's retail operation? His name is Ron Johnson and they hired him away from Target.

What's up with Apple's Back Bay store?

UPDATE:
A reader points out that Boston-based Shawmut Design and Construction is the company building the new Apple Store in Manhattan.

FULL ENTRY

Source: MSNBC Clicked

Let's recap one more time. Monday we covered the Company Name Generator and the Mission Statement Generator. Yesterday it was the Web 2.0 B.S. Generator. Today, it's the automatic news clipping simulator.

FULL ENTRY

Source: Mass High Tech

Casual games are fun little time-wasters and skill-testers. Yahoo! Word Racer is my favorite. As a whole the casual game industry quietly raked in $240 million last year. Newton-based casual game maker WorldWinner scored big in March when they were purchased by Canadian company FUN Technologies for $23 million. Well, they're teaming up with SkillJam (another division of FUN Technologies) to host the Worldwide Web Games. The contest pitches casual gamers worldwide against one another for a $1 million prize. WorldWinner and SkillJam report a combined audience of 27 million online gamers. Casual games are hot little profit centers.

FULL ENTRY

Source: Barnako.com

I've been watching the growth of the videoblog, or vlog, Rocketboom for a while. Yesterday Rocketboom's Amanda Congdon, who hosts the daily 3-4 minute Rocketboom show, gave the closing keynote at the Syndicate Conference in NYC. While Rocketboom famously used eBay to sell its first ad slot, I haven't seen an ad since. According to the blog Down the Avenue in Congdon's keynote she said Rocketboom is considering a subscription model at $4 per month. I agree with Frank Barnako. I don't see that working. If they successfully got advertisers once, they can get more. Hire an ad sales rep and get over it.

UPDATE 5/18/06: Update from Amanda Cogdon via Frank Barnako: "Rocketboom will always be free. What I said yesterday at the Syndicate Conference is something I've been saying for a couple of months. That we are exploring the option of charging approximately $4 for a premium version of the site, for additional content. Rocketboom, in its current form, will always be free."

FULL ENTRY

Source: Fast Company

Pip Coburn has a formula he calls The Change Function:

Change = f (level of current crisis, perceived pain of adoption)

The idea being that people adopt technology only when the pain of their current situation exceeds their perceived pain of adopting a possible solution. Simple, right? Well, simple sells. Consider the Internet refrigerator. Is there a crisis that this would address? No. Would it be painless to buy and install a wired refrigerator? No. Coburn says the technologies that stand the best chance of winning us over are enhanced editions of products we already understand. Take the flat-panel TV. Everyone "gets" what a TV it is and how to install it. Plus they address a powerful need. 19 percent of televisions sold in 2005 were flat panels, so we feel pain at not having one. As Coburn says, "If that's not a crisis, I don't know what is."

FULL ENTRY

Source: MarketWatch

If Barnes and Noble can sell coffee, it stands to reason that Starbucks can sell books. And that's just what Starbucks Chairman Howard Schultz says he aims to do as early as the Christmas 2006 selling season. While short on details, he said the work of popular authors would be featured, in much the same way the company has been selling selected CDs. Add in a plan to make proprietary content downloadable to customers through their in-store WiFi networks, and you've got even more reasons to go to Starbucks. Fast Company wonders if Schultz will anoint bestsellers like Oprah. And it could be. After all, some of their exclusive albums have won multiple Grammy awards. So, they know how to pick them.

FULL ENTRY

Source: BusinessWeek

Like most aerospace/defense contractors, Boeing was not known for openness. But now it's opening up to embrace the power of blogs. A blog by Randy Baseler, V.P. Marketing at Boeing Commercial Airplanes has exposed the company to stinging criticism but has also opened up a constructive dialogue with the public and customers. The Flight Test Journal blog gave the public a rare look at the process Boeing and federal regulators went through to certify Boeing's newest airliner. And Boeing's internal blogs have opened dialogues with employees, allowing them to raise issues anonymously. The company's latest experiment? A series of blog kiosks at an annual executive strategy meeting. While it helped air questions about strategy, it also helped the CEO understand what his top people knew or didn't know.

FULL ENTRY

Source: The Daily OM

Yesterday we covered the Company Name Generator and the Mission Statement Generator. Today it's the Web 2.0 B.S. Generator.

FULL ENTRY

Source: Forbes

Warren Farrell is the author of "Why Men Earn More." He says the pay gap between men and women has nothing to do with women being less effective or productive. The real culprit? We have different priorities. It turns out that money is the primary motivator for 76 percent of men, but only 29 percent of women. All told, he says men and women make 25 work-life choices that result in men making more money and women earning more time with family and friends. But when women make the same lucrative decisions typically made by men? Farrell claims women actually earn more. He says whoever is more willing to relocate, travel and work 80-hour weeks earns more.

FULL ENTRY

Source: Online Media Daily

To further align MySpace with Fox, News Corp. announced that they will start selling episodes of 24 on MySpace next week. This is a first for MySpace, which is now under pressure to convert its huge popularity into profits. Episodes from the first five seasons of 24 will cost $1.99 each. But, as part of a sponsorship deal between Burger King and Fox the first two episodes are on The King.

FULL ENTRY

Source: New York Times

Companies are very busy studying the divided American attention span. Researchers say that we somehow manage to shoehorn 31 hours of activity into a 24-hour day by doing more than one thing at once. Most of the multitasking involves television plus another activity, whether reading a newspaper, surfing the Internet or talking on the phone. But the big question is – which is getting primary attention? Or, more importantly for higher ad rates...which shows are successful in grabbing our primary attention? The big buzzword is "engagement," as in how engaged we are in a particular activity.

Last night while I was watching 24, I was also hitting the refresh button on Dave Barry's blog. Barry blogs live during every show adding his snarky commentary to the experience. I wasn't alone – nearly 600 comments from readers were added during the course of the show. Now that's engagement. Really, all this country needs is Jack Bauer and Chloe O'Brien and all our problems could be solved. And now that I think of it, Chloe is the ultimate multi-tasker, capable of talking on the phone, decrypting code and tasering simultaneously.

FULL ENTRY

Yahoo has a newly redesigned home page. Check it out with your morning coffee. Mouse over weather and see it Ajax around...and yes, it's still calling for rain in Boston.

FULL ENTRY

Source: The Economist

Google came into its own through mathematical precision and the simplicity with which they present their neatly synched search and advertising algorithms. With a few clicks anyone, but especially Google, can turn that technology into a money machine. But in this piece titled "Fuzzy maths," The Economist captures the current state of being Google and how this once simple and popular company with the goal to "organize the world's information" and "do no evil" has now turned into a complicated and controversial one. A good read.

FULL ENTRY

Source: FCW.com

The Environmental Protection Agency just announced a voluntary manufacturing standard that will help computer buyers select desktop PCs, not