Jason, C.K., and a group of A-list investors have launched the alpha of Mahalo, their “human-powered search engine.” It’s a sleek, Web 2.0 take on Yahoo 1.0. That is, it’s a modern reinterpretation of the classic Web directory. Jason says his goal is to get the top 10,000 search terms into the index by the [...]
A few years ago, I really wanted a Vadem Clio. With its swiveling display and sloping keyboard, it was one of the coolest looking machines in its class. Unfortunately for Vadem, that class—underpowered, overpriced mini-PCs running on Windows CE —never managed to find a market, since they were too bulky and expensive to replace PDAs, [...]
Photojojo—a great site filled with tips not about photography but about neat things to do with photos—has a link to a service that can turn any photo into ASCII art. I don’t think this is new, but it’s cool nevertheless. However, I was struck by something in the post about the “old-skool” days of ASCII [...]
Domain squatting, or “domaining,” as it’s known among its adherents, has always been something of an embarassment to many mainstream Internet businesses. Like the cousin who made his fortune in a business nobody dares discuss, domainers wield enormous power in the Internet economy—Google alone has made an awful lot of money out of Adsense-fueled “parked” [...]
About a month ago, NPR’s Terry Gross interviewed Wikipedia’s Jimmy Wales on Fresh Air, and this morning I finally got to listen to it (thank you, NPR for providing podcasts!). Gross asks some great questions, and Wales gives his usual spin, even glossing over the Seigenthaler controversy. What’s most telling, though, is Wales’ response to [...]
Despite my love for all things online, I still enjoy reading dead-tree versions of some magazines, especially those about photography. Though I’m sure it won’t be like this forever, the gamut and bit-depth of photos on paper are still well ahead of what you’ll get on most displays, especially consumer-quality LCDs. And there really is [...]
Actually, I don’t mind the iGoogle service; what I can’t stand is its name. While I can understand the business rationale behind Google’s unfortunate decision to rename Froogle “Google Product Search,” the iGoogle branding is just baffling. As pointed out in PC World’s now-legendary “10 Things We Hate About Apple” story, thanks to the success [...]
I have to say that, like everyone, I’m thrilled that Harry McCracken is back at PC World, and that IDG has taken such a strong stand for editorial independence. It’s great news for writers, editors, readers, and, as McCracken points out in his blog, advertisers as well, since editorial independence is vital to retaining the [...]
Photo sharing site Zooomr is trying to raise cash in a somewhat unusual way: CEO Thomas Hawk and founder Kristopher Tate have posted notices on their respective blogs asking for potential investors to contact them. And, according to Tate, the site’s “initial investor heard we were cash positive and has decided to pull their money [...]
A few weeks ago, a friend commented that she was surprised to see that the Most Searched list on NYTimes.com included words like “sex” and “drugs” mixed in with more news-oriented search terms like “bush” and “obama.” In fact, “sex” was, and is, the top search term (and drilling down to Related Searches gets [...]