I have a friend with a background in marketing. He’s the one who sent me the Comcast complaining article. We’ve been talking about marketing and the internet. The two of us come from completely different perspectives on how we consume content online. I’ve just introduced him to Google Reader and the concept of subscribing to an RSS feed. He seems to be enjoying it, and even shared an article with other people on his GTalk buddy list. I complained to him that he shared a link to a NYTimes article that didn’t have the full text in the RSS feed. This is a pet peeve of mine – I read almost no websites that don’t offer full-text RSS feeds. Techdirt talks about how full-text feeds are better. Feedburner does, too. But NYTimes.com doesn’t do it. Are they stupid? I don’t know. A little Googling suggests that there’s a lot of disagreement on whether or not a partial-text feed drives more traffic to the site. That is, if you have a feed that doesn’t show the full article, do more people actually click through and come to your site, where you probably have ads? Or do most people (Like me) just skip it? Techdirt makes the point that the real bulk of your traffic comes not from your regular feed subscribers, but from them sharing it with their friends or on their blogs. Things get passed around on the popular sites – when something hits the front page of Digg, it’s probably going to show up on a lot of other popular sites. That can generate way more traffic than you’d ever get from your subscribers themselves, even if they clickthrough on every RSS item. My friend says that NYTimes is not dumb, and they’ve probably researched where they make their money, and decided that partial feeds are the way to go. I’m less inclined to give them the benefit of the doubt, but I realize that the way I consume content is not the way everyone does, and I’m probably in the minority. We may be a growing minority, but NYTimes doesn’t make its money on what people will be doing in 10 years. I will always provide a full-text feed. But I don’t make my living with this blog, so I have the luxury of doing what I want rather than what might drive more clicks. I can’t bring him around to my way of thinking, though. But I’m still working on it.
Month: July 2008
Where’s my love from Comcast?
NYTimes.com | Griping Online? Comcast Hears and Talks Back
From a sparse desk dominated by two computer screens in the new Comcast Center here, Mr. Eliason uses readily available online tools to monitor public comments on blogs, message boards and social networks for any mention of Comcast, the nation’s largest cable company. When he sees a complaint like Mr. Dilbeck’s, he contacts the source to try to defuse the problem.
A friend pointed out this article, which describes a blogger complaining about Comcast, and getting contacted by a “digital care manager” from Comcast, who helped him with his problem. I bitch about Comcast ALL THE TIME. Where’s my digital care manager? This is a load of crap. I’m angry with Comcast pretty much every time I turn on my tv, and especially when I get my monthly bill. Or when our tv and internet was out for three weeks, and the techs kept either being unable to fix the problem or leaving their equipment in our living room. But I get nothing. Thanks a lot, Comcast. As an aside, the fact that the NYTimes mentions the guy’s blog by name but doesn’t bother to link to it is complete and utter horsecrap. It’s incredibly rude. Not that it’s hard to find Brandon Notices via Google, but I shouldn’t have to do that.
Where Microsoft went, Yahoo will follow
“All those years the music industry spent insisting that the only way they’d sell music is with crippling DRM attached managed to totally discredit the idea of buying music at all.”
could [Yahoo] seriously not have noticed the massive backlash that Microsoft received for telling people that it was turning off its DRM servers, effectively locking all the songs people had “bought” to their current computers.
I thought I’d written about it a little while back when Microsoft decided that the servers that check to see if the music you’ve “purchased” from Microsoft’s music store is legal or not were no longer necessary. That meant that all the music you thought you “bought” from Microsoft was really just being rented, and now they’d decided to terminate your lease because they didn’t feel like complying with the deal they made with you anymore. And now Yahoo is doing the same thing. All the music you “bought” from Yahoo won’t work anymore if you move it to a different computer. I’ve said this numerous times, and I’m not alone – if you pay for ANYTHING that has DRM attached, you are NOT buying. You are RENTING at the discretion of whoever is taking your money. Some people may be okay with that. I’m not.
Dinner at The Heights on a lovely Thursday night
Birthing class got out early tonight, and we don’t have any food in the house. It’s a combination of my bum foot and the wife’s almost-full-term baby that leads to us not going to the grocery store. So we went to The Heights for dinner around 8pm. Thursday night is generally a nice night out, and tonight is some of the nicest weather we’ve had in a while. The Heights was full but not overcrowded. Most of the seats were taken, indoors and out. It was a diverse crowd – a pregnant couple with a friend on one side of us, a gay couple on the other. A woman and two young boys were being seated as we left. A couple walked in just in front of us, apparently having walked from somewhere nearby (I choose to believe that they walked from home rather than parking in the neighborhood). The food and the service were good. The wife says she’s not sure that we’ve ever had a bad server there, and I certainly can’t think of anything to contradict her. And I was impressed by their mixed greens salad that comes with all the entrees. It was plain lettuce, but it had cherry tomatoes, jicama, and beets, which is pretty exotic and healthful for your average restaurant. The buffalo shrimp appetizer was delicious, although a little light on shrimp. I recommend saving some bread to mop up the extra sauce rather than eating it with a fork, as someone at my table for two did this evening. Their rotating beer taps were not entirely exciting this time – Brooklyn Lager and a Sam Adams seasonal – but the idea of rotating taps is cool. The table next to us was raving about the bread pudding sundae, which we didn’t order because we were both full. And we found that Merkado, a restaurant in Logan Circle owned by the same people, is closing at the end of August. In its place will be “a neighborhood place” called Commissary, hoping to emulate Busboys and Poets and Tryst. They hope to grab all the trendy kids who will move into the new building across from Whole Foods and take all their money. I’m a little sad that Merkado is closing – the wife and I had a lovely dinner there for my 29th birthday – but this sounds like an interesting replacement, although calling it “Commissary” is a little too hipster for my tastes.
Blackberries are the devil
Sonda lik wrong file FRM svn Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry
That’s an email I got from my boss this afternoon. I probably didn’t have to put that second line there – you knew it was from a Blackberry as soon as you read the first line. Now, I’m not bashing my boss. He’s a good guy, and I actually do know what he means by that. His spelling isn’t that great even when he’s got a full size keyboard. And it actually did answer the question I asked. I know everyone bashes the Blackberry. I do, too, although I also really want one. And they can be used for good – I borrowed a friend’s at a bar once to make sure I didn’t have a job interview the next day. That was before I got my current job. Anyway, the problem is that people are lazy. I’ve always found it, not amusing, but interesting that my mom uses complete sentences, proper capitalization, and proper punctuation in ALL instant messages. No one does that. Well, maybe your mom does, I don’t know. I don’t have her on my buddy list. But Blackberries are like the opposite of my mom. Because you’re “on the go”, you can’t spend thirty seconds actually typing out a sentence. It doesn’t take that long. So, next time you send an email, Blackberry or otherwise, take a moment to think. Are you responding to the email, or just making a written record of having received it? If you’re not responding, then don’t bother.
And then it rained
Originally uploaded by thetejon
Went to the DC United game last night. We didn’t stick around for the three hour rain delay. This was the third time they tried to play this game (Although the first time I had tickets). We had pretty awesome seats thanks to a friend, and access to free food and drinks thanks to VW (through the same friend through another friend), and I managed to get home without getting my foot wet, per doctor’s orders. I’ve been to a couple of DC United games this season, and it’s becoming increasingly clear that the team doesn’t much like to play defense. They just don’t seem to have their hearts in it. Which is too bad, because the team doesn’t seem half bad, and the defensive problems really look like they’re due to a lack of effort more than a lack of skill. I won’t claim to be a soccer expert – I played rec league and high school, but never higher than JV, so take my opinions here with a grain of salt. There were delays on the Green Line getting home, too. Everything seemed cool at first, since most of the stadium was still sticking around, waiting to see if they would resume the game, when we left. So the train from RFK wasn’t full, and usually once we transfer to Green it’s smooth sailing. But it took us a half hour to get from Shaw to Columbia Heights. If my foot wasn’t busted up, we could have walked it in that time. Anyway, more pictures here.
Comcast did something right
I complain a lot about Comcast Cable in DC. Any of you in the area waiting for Verizon Fios to come to DC and at least make Comcast pretend to compete know what I’m talking about. But they’re actually doing something cool right now – they’re doing a free preview of their MLB Extra Innings package. Unfortunately, it ends tomorrow, and I just found out about it today. And most of it isn’t in HD. But it means I get to watch the first game of the big Mets-Phillies series, and watch the big rivalry that no one (but my wife’s coworkers) cares about, David Wright vs Ryan Howard. So far Wright is winning. Both are one for three, but Wright has a double, run, and RBI, while Howard just has a single. Good thing I’m not making rash statements based on small sample sizes. I’m a little tempted to pay $129 for Extra Innings for the rest of the season. But I watch too much tv as it is, and I don’t REALLY need to watch out of market baseball games. Maybe when I retire.
Getting back to running
I just saw the doctor this morning about my foot. He says it’s healing nicely, and I got a less bulky bandage that makes it a little easier to walk. He also told me that I should be able to start running again in about six weeks. So, to celebrate my return, I’m going to do the Boo! Run for Life on October 12th, a 10K to benefit the Dean R. O’Neill Renal Cell Cancer Research Fund. It should be fun. West Potomac Park is a nice, easy 10K course. It’s flat and there’s plenty of room. And it will be good motivation to get me running again.
Damn it, Tor
Until Sunday, July 27, you can download all the novels and wallpapers that were given away in our recent “Watch the Skies” program–for free. Don’t delay!
Now they’re gleefully boasting that the carrot they held out to encourage people to sign up early is available to everyone. I know, I could have been reading all those stories I downloaded before everyone else, and it’s not Tor’s fault that there are no good ebook readers. But I really can’t figure out why they wanted people to sign up early. And now that all the free stuff is available to everyone, I can’t even gloat about how I got it first. What a bunch of jerks.
After all that, Scalzi had to tell me?
The new Tor.com beta has launched. Despite signing up with them months ago, when they promised free goodies for getting on the mailing list, they seem to have forgotten to notify me of the opening. They did come through with the free goodies – I have a few dozen free ebooks to read as soon as someone makes a stinkin’ ebook reader that doesn’t suck. And now they have new short stories from John Scalzi and Charles Stross, which is cool. But I didn’t hear about the launch from Tor, I heard about it from John Scalzi’s blog. What’s the point of signing up for the early mailing list if you aren’t informed when the new site goes live? And why did they do it on a Sunday when no one is paying attention? And why didn’t I already have a username and password? I don’t remember if I signed up for one when I got on the mailing list, but I should have, and they should remember it. I haven’t poked around on the site yet, so I can’t speak to what it’s like, but after all this buildup, the launch itself has been pretty disappointing. Hopefully they’ll iron out the wrinkles and end up with a nice site. I suspect that they will. So now I’m off to check out the site.