The better half and I are gearing up for our trip tomorrow to Maui, and we're pleased to be leaving such lovely weather here in Chicago. I mean, really -- Mother Nature has really been treating us here, hasn't she?
At any rate, I'll be on the beach in Hawaii for the next week or so and I hope to have some photo updates as I go. You'll most likely see the photos first in my Flickr photostream, so check that out and subscribe to the feed if you're so inclined.
Peace.
I just caught the blog post that Matt did this morning on FeedBurner's birthday -- three years ago today on February 25, 2004, the company was founded.
I love the graphic presented, too. "Giraffe not to scale." LOL
I put the finishing touches on a couple back-end refreshments on this 'ol Ward-o-blog, so go ahead and visit the site and poke around a bit.
I always enjoyed this blog template (known as Cutline for Movable Type) on other sites so I felt inspired to apply it to mine. It required me to do some revision on the background to roll back to the default Movable Type templates, so I'll surely be revising the design slowly but surely over the next few weeks.
Let me know if you think it sucks.
There was a lot of work to be done at FeedBurner this week (albeit not much from my department) to put the finishing touches on FeedBurner's View of the Feed Market, a report detailing the company's view of the feed market and how users are consuming RSS feeds and what products they use to read feeds, etc.
The major takeaway on the report was this:
Audience engagement, which is to say, people reading feeds and people clicking on feeds - is how we've increasingly been interpreting feed subscription numbers to better understand market penetration.
Everyone in the company is dealing with stakeholders that look past the stats to really, really find out what they mean and what they should be telling you, the publisher and/or advertiser.
A hypothetical from a FeedBurner advertiser might be -- "Sure, we got a 0.4% clickthrough on that one ad unit and a 0.2% on that ad unit, but we had more people sign up for our newsletter on the 0.2% clickthrough placement." It's not about the clicks anymore, it's about what the users are doing after they click.
A hypothetical from a FeedBurner publisher might read -- "That's great that I have 1,000 subscribers but they're all using MyYahoo, which doesn't show the full post." It's not about how many people are subscribed to my content, it's about what the reader is actually doing to that content. Reading it, clicking it, emailing it to a friend, etc.
It doesn't matter to anyone anymore if something is "viewed," as is the model in the very traditional online advertising market. The savvys are the folks that are thinking about everything that happens subsequent...
The Eternals - "Billions of People" (live) [video]
I've been playing The Eternals nonstop over the past two days and I've really been enjoying it. Even though my better half "thinks it's weird..." Oh well, you can't win 'em all.
Brad wrote a great post last night about "stepping in shit," or making a mistake in business that is unpleasant but ultimately won't really hurt anyone too bad. Any knowledge worker would be able to attest that this happens all the time; little shit piles like how you designed the spreadsheet that you now need to completely reformat, or large shit piles like how you called a bluff on the boss that said "we'll give you a raise soon but we need you to step it up first..."
The first comment in response really spoke to me...
I have also found there are a few types of people based on thier behavior after they step in sh*t.
1) They look at the bottom of thier own shoes...
2) They asked everyone else who stepped in sh*t because something smells...
3) They look for a dog to yell at..
4) And then, the guy who doesn't even notice the smell because he/she is running so fast...
Which one, 1-4, would describe what you would do? And actually, what do you do, not what would you do? I'm a big fan of taking full responsibility for your actions, especially when in the office and dealing with other team members. You can't shift blame around by saying "it was the dog's fault." I think I'm a combination of 1 and 2 -- I'd probably notice that I did indeed step in the shit pile but I'd also immediately notice that others are going to be expected to own up to their stepping path as well.
Who knows, maybe I'll step in shit today. I'm sure I'll learn from it, though -- and that's a good thing.
While most people are now aware of what Trey Anastasio has been up to since the Phish breakup back in 2004, nobody's really been paying attention to Page McConnell. He's been working on his album which is due out April 17, and the video above gives you a nice idea of what he was going for when he recorded it. I'm looking forward to this one...
You'll start to notice many more photos on this blog in the near future. Why?
• New cameraphone -- Katie and I just did a much-needed upgrade to our cellphones and service, which now allows us to post camera phone photos while we're on-the-go. We both ended up picking the Sony Ericsson W810i and we couldn't be happier.
• New Digital SLR Camera -- Katie just bought herself a Canon EOS Digital Rebel XT for her birthday, most notably due to the fact that we've got a week in Maui coming up and we really, really don't want to rely on our old 5.1 megapixel camera for such a once-in-a-lifetime trip.
Feel free to drop us some comments if you enjoy the photos -- it's always nice to hear feedback one way or the other...
Last night was another fun night spent bowling with friends and many Fat Tires. We're part of a mixed co-ed bowling league at Timber Lanes and this is our second week into the season. I didn't do as well as I did the week before, although I was a little more consistent this time -- so that's good. And a bunch of people didn't show up, so I'm guessing our team is going from last place to at least fifth place...something like that.
Anyone else get a sore arm after bowling now? As a youngster, maybe I got more bowling time in or something, but it seemed that I never had this problem. Now, as an old man, I'm noticing that my bowling arm creaks and pops a little bit after a night on the lanes. It's actually quite pathetic.
TV on the Radio - Wolf Like Me on Letterman [YouTube]
For the past month or so, I've really been enjoying TV on the Radio. Last year's Return to Cookie Mountain was a huge release for rock music and I'm only now picking it up. It's fantastic and I'm certainly a new fan of this band, so I thought I'd share a little live clip from them on Letterman...
If you haven't listened to these guys yet, I really suggest you check it out and give it an open ear. It's new to me and it's new to music if you ask me; I can't wait to see what they do in the future.
Thanks to Brad for letting me know about Ask the Wizard, a blog by Dick Costolo, CEO of FeedBurner and my boss' boss' boss...
Dick used to blog a bit in the past, something that was slightly before my own time at FeedBurner, so I'm entirely excited to see him directing more energy into a new blogging project. He's an insightful guy, he's got a lot of experience that all of us can learn from, and his straightforward, pull-no-punches approach in the office is something I hope really shines through on his blog posts. Can't wait for more.
I think it would come of no surprise to anyone that knows Katie and I that we're not really too into Valentine's Day. To us, it is simply a Hallmark holiday that really doesn't deserve everyone's attention, at least if you're in a relationship that means something to you already. No no no, we need a day to tell us that it means something. One friggin' day. It's really quite laughable to me, especially when you seeing the local CVS Pharmacy getting swarmed the day of with people buying various items colored various shades of red, white and pink. Candies, flowers, cards that say something cheesy...
I don't know, to me -- it's just kinda lame.
But knowing what I know about pizza places (I used to work at one in high school and I worked at a few others while in college), I knew that the heart-shaped pizza was something people actually ordered each year. Much like the fact that White Castle always opens up for special service on Feb. 14 each year.
When I asked the person on the phone if they could write "I Love You" in pepperonis, she started cracking up laughing. She told me that she had never received that request before, and she put me on hold so she could ask the cooks. It did turn out a little hokey looking, I'm not sure that I really expected otherwise, but Katie loved it. That's all that matters.
This being my third year in the music blogging world, I'm fully aware of the awe and excitement that comes with these large national music festivals and the artist announcements that come along with them. Every year in January/February, people seem to migrate to Live Music Blog to learn about the music festivals, the lineups, the photos from last year -- all on the festivals that you've probably heard of if you're a music fan.
One of the biggest is Bonnaroo, and people literally show up to livemusicblog.com in droves each day to try and figure out who will be playing the 2007 version of the fest. Sure, it's because I post rumors which are written to intentionally fuel that fire but it's because I'm the one that was always looking for those rumors myself. For people like me or fans of the site that have done such searching, today, we are finally in luck.
Bonnaroo 2007 | Lineup Leaked [Live Music Blog]
The lineup looks to have leaked straight from Bonnaroo's website -- they had an unprotected directory that basically showed all 2007 artists and they've since password protected that page at press time, so it seems to me that this is fully, 100% legit. Awesome. The Police. Tool. Widespread Panic. Awesome again.
A few months back I had stopped by the desk of my friend in marketing and noticed a SXSW flier sitting out. "Oooh man, I'd love to be able to make it down there one of these days," I said, fully understanding of the fact that my friend indeed has some clout when it comes to the who, the where, and the why on the festival/conference representation from our company...
Fast forward a few months later and I now find myself with a panel-speaking gig at the 2007 SXSW Interactive Conference. I guess asking nicely does get you somewhere...who knew...
On Saturday, March 10, I will be taking part in the "Online Publishers & Ad Networks" panel at 10am helping to represent the FeedBurner Ad Network, or FAN as everyone else knows it. The great thing about the panel, to me, is that I'll actually have some real-world experience to draw on as the panel discussion occurs.
More on this as the date approaches...
Web 2.0 ... The Machine is Us/ing Us [YouTube]
Very well done; the Kraftwerky type music worked very well on this, too...
Give this a gander if you're at all curious why everyone decides they need a MySpace page these days, or if you really have no idea why Google paid $1.65 billion for YouTube, or if you have no idea what an RSS feed is -- because you really need to understand why it's very exciting, important, and intimidating all at the very same time.
I get all goose-bumpy just thinking about it.
I seem to recall hearing a small snippet of Also Sprach Zarathustra last night during one of the Super Bowl commercials -- it reminded me of Phish's usual renditions of this and I happened across a good one while doing some diggin' this morning...
Phish - "2001" (live, 10/7/00) [YouTube]
Enjoy.
Graphic/image © Chicago Tribune
'Tis a sad day in Chicago sports after seeing the Bears lose the Super Bowl to the Indianapolis Colts last night...
There was some funny advertising, though -- I think my favorite was the accidental kiss (Snickers) or the Late Show with David Letterman promotion with him and Oprah on the couch, snuggled-up and watching the game together...
Good stuff.
There are some days that I really, realy enjoy having a music blog...
Crosseyed will make us all do that...
Greatest glowstick wars ever???
Maybe Harry during Great Went.
Or one of the Hampton Pipers...
--nojorising
Nothing like poetry in response to a bunch of Phish mp3's...too funny.
I've put up a few posts on Live Music Blog this week that might deserve a little more attention 'round the internets, so I figured I'd do a little roundup over here on some recent stuff that you might find interesting over there...
I've been silent on this blog and that really means one thing and one thing only -- I've been too busy to give this blog the love it deserves. The sign of a dying blog can usually be predicted and summed up by seeing more than one post declaring "I swear I'm going to blog more soon..." I think I just need to take my own hints on that one...
