Oh crap! I’ve been splogged! (part 1)

Splogging is one online trend I really had no interest in being a part of. But the sploggers had other ideas. This is part one of an ongoing tale of woe entitled “Oh crap! I’ve been splogged!”.

So a while back I figured it was time to take the blog a little more seriously and lose the unwieldy blogspot domain (ounpuu.blogspot.com).

So I took the plunge, dropped a few bucks and registered a domain name: obviousness.net.

Then a few weeks later I took the second part of plunge and actually spent a few bucks to host the thing. Once that was sorted I logged onto blogger and, through a bit of trial and error, eventually figured out how to publish to my new home.

So far so good.

But once I got things working on the new domain I realized something: if I made the switch abruptly I would lose any readers who had subscribed via the blogspot url.

When you’ve got 8 or 10 subscribers every one counts. So I decided the best thing to do would be to make one final post at the blogspot site announcing the change and encourage everyone to subscribe via my feedburner feed, which would follow me to my new home.

And then life just kinda got in the way.

Sutori was taking up a lot of my time. And I was hit with a nasty sinus infection that made thinking even more difficult than usual.

So while I waited out the sinusitus storm what little blogging I squeezed in was “double posted”. That is, I would post to the blogspot domain and then post the same things again to it’s mirror image at obviousness.net.

Not the most elegant or well thought out solution, I will admit. But there you go. I wanted to make a few posts but I didn’t have the energy to think about multiple feeds and site migration details.

So this went on for a few days until eventually Sutori stuff settled down a bit and the sinus infection started clearing and I was finally ready to make the final post announcing my move.

So I logged into blogger and switched over my publishing setup one last time to my blogspot domain (I'd been doing lots of switching during my "double posting" phase).

And this is what I saw:



Huh?

What do you mean it’s not available?

It’s mine.

It’s been mine for a year and a half.

It’s my NAME, dammit!

Stay tuned for Part 2.

BONUS
If you're interested in a little background on splogs and splogging there's an excellent overview of the phenomenon in the September issue of Wired (it won't be online until September 5th). Or check out the Wikipedia entry on "Spam Blogs".

Tags: splogs splogging spam blogs blogging blogger blogspot

Could Ze Frank be a genius?

This rant about brands and experiences is twisted, hilarious, and sort of right on the money.

Combine that with this fantastic piece about fear and terrorism from a few days back and I've got to ask myself: could this bug-eyed maniac be some sort of genius?

Tags: brands branding expereinces experience brandexperience customerexperience zefrank zefrankshow brilliant terror terrorism

Barcamp Vancouver, the wrap up

So it's all over and done and hot darn was it fun.

I somehow ended up presenting the very first session in the main room. Yikes! I was a bit nervous but it good. I decided to abandon my slides and just show people Sutori. Lot's of great questions and discussion from a very smart and very forgiving audience.

Here's a photo snapped by cathycracks of me presenting and making some sort of odd hand gesture.

And here are some miscellaneous highlights and impressions:

The Sessions

• Alexandra Samuel's session on Tagging for World Domination was super enlightening. After 30 short minutes my head was popping with ideas.
  
• James Sherret's talk on AdHack was great. A different perspective on some of the same ideas behind Sutori.
  
• Darren Barefoot's "lifecycle of a meme" was excellent. And the iCryptex meme he created (and dissected for this session) is hilarious.
• Aaron Wheeler's session on postcards and creativity was beautifully random in very funny, very personal way.
• Tod Maffin's session on the highjacking the CBC mothershipt was excellent. Lot's of lively discussion about a quintessentially Canadian topic, which re-enforced the beautiful global -trends-meet-local-folks vibe of the event.
  

Setting

• The Workspace folks have done a bang up job on their, er, workspace. Makes me wanna start freelancing!
  
• However, since Workspace is not really about the walls, there was a fair bit of bleed-over between sessions. But hey, a little chaos is part of the charm.
  

Overall

• The number of people--somewhere around 100--was just perfect. Intimate enough that you recognized everyone by the time the event was done.
• The atmosphere was incredibly open. A real sense that everyone was geniunely ready to meet new people and hear new ideas. I am not a natural at "working the room" but it came much easier than usual in this setting.
• I met some incredibly smart and interesting people. Many folks who until today I just knew from reading their blogs.
• And better yet, they all live and work in this city.

Thanks

• Thanks are due to all of the organizers and sponsers. Amazing job everyone!
  

More photo evidence here.


Tags: barcamp barcampvan barcampvancouver sutori adhack socialsignal workspace

BarCamp Vancouver starts tonight

I'm off to BarCamp Vancouver tonight and all day tomorrow. Not sure if I'll get a chance to present, but if I do I'll talk about Sutori. This should be an interesting weekend. I'll post about it soon.

Tags: barcamp barcamp_earth barcamp_vancouver sutori

Google now trying to control the evolution of language

So Google the proper noun have decided that google the verb, as in "I just googled myself", is big no-no.

Their intrepid legal team has actually gone so far as to shoot off growly letters to major media outlets asking them to stop using "google" as a verb because of "trademark issues".�

Oh god, what a stupid, misguided thing to do.

Here's a quote from one of the letters, courtesy of the Independent Online:

"Appropriate: I ran a Google search to check out that guy from the party. Inappropriate: I googled that hottie."

Nice attempt to diffuse your arrogance with a weak attempt at humour.

Uggh.

So here's a newsflash for you, Google: languages are living things. And believe it or not, the English language is actually bigger than Google. And it doesn't give a shit about you and your trademarks. If you think the media outlets you sent letters to can control it, you are deluded. If you think your legal department can control it, you are even more deluded.

And here's something else for you to chew on: if the English language decides to turn some product or company name you've come up with into a real, honest-to-goodness word in-and-of -itself, you should damn well be grateful.

Sure you are more than a search engine. Sure. Sure. That's why millions and millions of us use Google Calendar, right? But search is still your core business. Your home page is still that little minimal search box that everyone fell in love with back in 1999 or whenever.

So then why on earth are you complaining about the name of your company becoming synonymous with search?

Cluelessness. Arrogance. Legal Nastygrams. This incident has done more damage Google's image than incorrect verb usage ever could.

Sad.


(Via Xeni at Boing Boing)

Tags: google language control pr legal

Sutori is LIVE!

sutori.com

This is kind of a big day for yours truly.

I've been working on Sutori--or at least the idea that eventually became Sutori--for about 5 months now. And a few hours ago we took a very momentous step out of our closed beta into an open beta launch.

We're out there for the world to see.

Yes it's still in beta. Yes it's not finished yet.

That's okay. It'll never be finished.

That's the idea.

Of course, I am just one of the many people who have left there mark on this thing in some way. The credit for getting this far belongs to all of them.

To Jordan, of course.
To Idris.
To Brian.
To Alex.
To Eiko.
To Jeff.
To Sarah.
To Michael.
To Ryan.
To Jeff.
To Chris.
To Greg.
To Justin.

And to everyone who's blogged about Sutori.
And everyone who signed up for the closed beta.
And everyone who's emailed us with their feedback.
And to everyone who's written a story or left a comment.

Of course, despite everything we've gone through up until now, this is only the beginning. That's the best part, I think.

I can't wait to see what happens next.


Tags: sutori launch thanks

Fortune goes all obvious on us

Been meaning to post about this for a while . . .

A recent cover story in Fortune Magazine showed a remarkable willingness to, well, to wave a not-so-fond farewell to "we've just always done it that way".�

The story, entitled The New Rules, begins by announcing that the management approach which came to dominate American business in the '80s--exemplified and evangelized by former GE CEO Jack Welch--just doesn't work any more.

This short quote sums up what went wrong:

Managing to create shareholder value became managed earnings became managing quarter to quarter to please the Street. "That meant a disinvestment in the future," says (Rakesh) Khurana, author of Searching for a Corporate Savior.

What rings so true for me is the way the problem is phrased in terms of time. The battle between a long term and a quarter-to-quarter mindset is once that I've seen at every company I've ever worked at. And more often than not the short view trumps the long.

The author of the piece, Betsy Morris, then goes on to list 5 old rules alongside the 5 new rules that she argues are supplanting them.

Here's my favourite:

OLD RULE: SHAREHOLDERS RULE.
NEW RULE: THE CUSTOMER IS KING.

Amen, Betsty. Amen.

Here's hoping Fortune readers are believing what they read.

Tags: fortune, customers, management, rules