And so to another link of the day: Never ask Yahoo for a Medieval Mocha. [Related]
2005: Fans Vote On Qualifying Rules
2003: 40 Days and 40 Nights
2003: Consumers Around Your Product
2003: No More Netscape
2002: London Life Underground
2002: 50 things
Since I started more-or-less daily blogging, I have taken more of an interest in other people’s musings. Today I find that everybody (well, Tom Coates and Ben Hammersley) is linking to this from Amazon (more accurately, this). Given that I would buy everything on Amazon if I could, I am very interested in anything they do. I am a devoted Amazonian (I just made that up but it sounds good). Actually, I wouldn’t buy everything but almost everything. (Public Service Announcement: other e-commerce sites are available). Of course this also means that I can place a shameless link to my WishList. Shameless is OK as nobody will ever buy anything from it. Something on there might rank at Daypop’s WishList Chart one day.
2005: links for 2005-07-17
2005: In Case Of Emergency
2003: Rain Breaks Heatwave
2003: Gay Consumers Are Good
Why do I always seem to post the links the rest of the blogging world sees? Anyway, this caught my attention today. I use the internet for research purposes but I was not fortunate enough to have access when I was studying. This article essentially implies that researching on the ‘Net is not as good as reading a good old-fashioned book. “The quality of information [on the Internet] is below what you find in print,” according to the story. Perhaps it is but then most of the information still remains free on the web. I wonder if we’ll ever get an appropriate charging model that allows people to use the ‘Net for the research they need but pay in the same way as those who buy the books. Is it down to the libraries to pay to put the information online? On the upside, “‘Net thinkers are said to generate work quickly and make connections easily”. I know one thing for sure, Google is a lot easier than the old Encyclopedia Index volume.
2005: links for 2005-07-16
2005: Harry’s Here
2003: Paris Photographs
Finally Gordon Brown is spending some money on public services in the UK. Today the Government announced £511 billion worth of spending. They are focussing on education with some of that but also targeting poor performing public services whose managers may be removed and replaced if they do not meet performance goals. Why do I think we will have more overseers and less doers in the future? I hope not. It’s about time this government fulfilled some of its promises that many people believed were made back in 1997 when they first came to power. I want to the government build a better society and, at the heart of that, better public service provision is required. [Yahoo]
2006: Changing The Face of Pop
2005: Trafalgar Square Vigil
2003: A 4 Minute Warning
I got more then you
And you can set it free
I can catch the moon in my hand
Don’t you know who I am
Remember my name
Well for no reason at all, I decided to look up what was the number one UK single on this day in 1982 (I don’t even know why I chose that year). Well, it’s a bit of a minefield as it somewhat depends on which chart you count as being the “official” chart. Still, it would appear that it was Irene Cara and the theme from Fame which is, of course, one of the greatest records from my childhood.
2005: Two Minutes Silence
2003: 1789 And All That
2003: Wind Power
2003: Power of the Idea
2002: Ask Homer (and remember HotWired)
I have been reading .Net magazine since Issue 1. They are now 100 issues old. Happy Birthday .Net! Anyway, this month they have published 100 Sites That Changed The Web. Included in that list, was HotWired – which I haven’t looked at for ages. So, off I went and came across the story of Karin Spitzer, a young fashion entrepreneur who shows it’s still possible to have a great idea and make money on the web [She Built a Business in ‘No Time’ ]. Of her product line, this one is my favourite.
HotWired also points me to the BBC News web site and this delightful gem of corporate embarrassment for Fox: Homer Simpson, cartoon character and a role model for millions, has been caught telling consumers to hack their DVD players [BBC].
Still, publishers need to make responsible decisions about what kind of ad content they will accept. They need to scrutinize both the product being advertised and the ad vehicle being used to promote it. Users will rebel at a certain point — and an ad like this perfectly illustrates the point when you’ll hear from more than just the “noisy few”; you’ll hear from the “loud masses.”
Looking at yesterday’s Way Back Machine link again, [yesterday’s link] I am struck by the lack (almost, anyway) of commercial messages on the Yahoo! Page from 1996. Obviously, any sensible person realises that, in the end, all this great web content has to be paid for somehow. I am more than happy that the company I work for manages to pay my salary on a monthly basis. Still, can’t help wondering if it’s all gone mad now: Is Our Industry a Modern-Day Sodom and Gomorrah?
No other posts on this day.
The new look Yahoo homepage (http://www.yahoo.com/) carries on Yahoo’s tradition of a clean interface but brings a fresher look. I have always liked that clean feel about most of Yahoo’s interface. I hope they bring it to the UK site soon and make similar changes to My Yahoo! It’s so sad that this makes me happy!
2006: Bye Bye Juan Pablo
2006: And We’re Back
2005: Yummy
2004: My Data
497 Billionaires in the World’s Billionnaires list 13 are from the UK. And I am not there! Still it doesn’t contain the same UK people that The Times Rich List 2002 does. I wonder how they compile these lists?
Well, I decided to try and find a list of the biggest selling singles of all time. That led me to EveryHit.com which must be the site I have been searching for all my life!
Finally, I’ve found the Top 30 Music Millionaires list [here] which is probably the most interesting list.
I wish I’d been at the Formula One Grand Prix on Sunday. The year I went, the atmosphere at Silverstone was fantastic (it’s all smell and noise) and, if Bernie Ecclestone gets his way we might not have too many more of them ;-( Thank goodness for Jackie Stewart’s sensible comments. I’m going to try and get there next year, assuming any of the teams are still around. Even worse, I have to do it before 2050 because, according to The Observer, that’s when the world will expire.