Slideshare.net - YouTube for PowerPoint presentations

Last week I spoke at a conference called Computers In Libraries, otherwise known as CIL, produced by Jane Dysart and Information Today (infotoday.com).

A number of people asked for a link to my slides, which Lou Rosenfeld and I prepared for a talk we presented a month ago for the Information Architecture Summit (IA Summit) in Las Vegas. Lou and I are writing a book on Web search analytics.

Lou introduced me, literally and figuratively, to a site called Slideshare.net, organized by a friend of his, Rashmi Sinha.

I predict that Slideshare.net is going to be a Big Deal. I've already looked at a number of slide shows they host, and learned quite a bit from some presentations. Edward Tufte will spin in his grave -- and he is not even dead yet -- but a lot of important ideas are imparted in PowerPoint (et al) presentations.

Slideshare will have its own Zipf curve, more popularly understood as the Billboard Top 100 chart. A small number of important, useful, or clever presentations will command the attention of the masses. So it is, and so shall it always be. And we'll learn from these presentations -- style as well as content.

My slides from Computers in Libraries are at http://www.slideshare.net/richwig/search-analytics-conversations-with-your-customers.

Those crazy domains they create

Ever since 1995 or so, major corporations have aligned in odd ways and created silly domain names. MSNBC is probably the most famous conflation, but ABC / Disney still does goofy things with Go.com.

It's not just domain names. Corporate America also makes up stupid URLs, obviously drawn by committee. Consider:


'

So let's parse this. NBC of course is the famous TV network. It could've been worse; they could've created a meaningless domain under the corporate parent, e.g. nbc.ge.com.

Anyhow, they're advertising something that they want to place under their TV show "Heroes" (which I've never seen, and do not expect to see).

So we go to nbc.com, fair enough, makes sense. And we go to a folder named "heroes" which seems to make sense, if millions of people know that show.


And now we go to a subfolder named "cisco"? All of us rely on Cisco routers, but what does Cisco have to do with Heroes, or NBC, or GE, or anything else a consumer might care about?

Has Rewind on your PVR spoiled you too?

We've had TiVo-like rewind functionality in our house for a year or so. If you miss something, you hit Rewind, becase the set-top cable box is constantly recording.

This has spoiled me horribly. Now I find that when I'm listening to radio in car or office, I want to be able to hit Rewind and listen again.

When I was in Las Vegas a few weeks ago during March Madness, I wanted the TV in my hotel room to rewind so I could see a play I wasn't paying attention to. Of course, the Sahara hotel had TV technology not much advanced since the Rat Pack. (OK, OK, I exaggerate.)

In the Hard Rock Cafe in Vegas, while watching NCAA hoops, I mentioned this impulse to some young guys also watching the game, and they said they'd also had the same feeling.

It's got to be only a matter of time before every device that streams content also caches it for replay. I expect even the lowliest devices -- your cell phone, the clock radio in your hotel room, whatever -- will have a Rewind button.

Do you also feel the need?

There is no news in Detroit

Next Monday I'm going to do an interview with WDET, the major NPR station in Detroit. I was checking to see if they archive their interviews, so I went to the News section of their Web site and clicked on "Interviews." This is what I saw:



Click for full-size image


Yup, "Currently there is no news." I assume that this really means that WDET hasn't done any interviews lately (or today) but I had to laugh seeing that message from a major news organization for a major city.

CNN broadcasts compelling content but misses the BBC Best Bets idea

In the early days of the Web I attended a computer conference in Atlanta. I met a young CNN producer and talked about the Web to him. I ended up at CNN headquarters showing color prints of screen shots explaining the nascent Web, including images of the MSU weather pages, brainchild of Charles Henrich.

This morning CNN leads with video of a tearful five year old lad racing to hug his dad, back from war in the Middle East:



This is very compelling video. Whether you are a parent or not, if you watch this footage, it will tear at your heart strings. Now observe how CNN fails to promote its own content:



Amazingly you can't find CNN's own compelling footage on cnn.com. Search for it under "tearful reunion" -- CNN's own on-screen label -- and you get a lot of irrelevant fluff totally unrelated to the story.

CNN should implement a Best Bets regime. Period. Full stop. If someone at CNN sees this post, contact me. CNN doesn't "get" the notion of "Best Bets". Guest what, CNN -- the BBC, and the Financial Times, do get it. Is it CNN's plan to cede territory to them as you have to Fox News?

If a site visitor searches for a phrase that CNN shows on the TV screen, then it should match the user to that story on the Web.

Circa 1994 I visited CNN headquarters in Atlanta and showed producers and reporters this new thing called the World-Wide Web. It was pretty clear that only one guy, the producer giving me the tour, "got it" at the time. I sincerely doubt that in 2007 anyone at CNN understands that they can link search keywords and phrases to CNN content with incredible impact.

Here is a screen shot of CNN's home page at the time they featured the reunion:

Click for full-size screen shot

Memo to CNN: what your TV techs type into the Chyron also belongs in your Best Bets database. If it's worth telling a story to millions of people on cable TV, it's worth helping your Web site visitors follow the same story online.

Free for the asking: the over-the-range microwave that thinks it's a Web browser

We are replacing a Sears Kenmore Elite over-the-range microwave oven / vent. It is perfectly functional and high-wattage but it has a cosmetic flaw.

The main problem is that it is circa 1997, and it thinks it is a Web browser. I am not making this up. The controls include Back, Home, and Favorites buttons, and a rotating knob that serves the mouse function.

It was designed by Whirlpool in the heyday of Netscape Navigator. I met two young designers from Whirlpool at World Usability Day at MSU and they swear they are not responsible; they joined the company after that horrible mistake. Even the model name says 90s Web; it is Navigator. It's damn confusing to operate.

So my wife hates it. She curses whenever she warms milk for the cat.

The cosmetic flaw is a crack in the plastic fascia. You could probably order the part, but parts for this thing are expensive. The light bulbs to illuminate the range are like $50 each, but I bought two spares and they come with the package.

I told the Whirlpool engineers that my favorite microwave is the small Sharp cube I have at work. When you close the door all it exposes is Start and Stop. The Start button starts it. Hit it again and it adds a minute. Hit Stop and it stops. When I visit a foreign microwave and want to warm my hot tea, I always hit the Popcorn button. I think my comments upset the Whirlpool usability experts. I'm sticking to my words -- the best designs make it trivially easy to do the most common tasks.

If you could use this unit, or if you know of a charity that could, it's yours for free.

Oh, now I get it. Spring Break conference at Ohio U

Received spam from someone at Ohio University advertising a Web conference I never heard of that's taking place next Thursday. The text included this:



I thought: How strange to use the dishonored Break tag in an online missive.

Then I got it: it's a pun. Ohio U must be on spring break, and they must do a Web conference each year at that time.



A couple of modest proposals for the conference organizers at Ohio U: 1) Find a better title/tagline. 2) Spamming university Webmasters at 12:55 a.m. on the Saturday before a conference that takes place the following Thursday may not be the most effective marketing plan.

Promises, promises: since 19XX

Surfing Google News I encountered the Web site for a place called Promises, located in Malibu, the current domicile of a newly shorn Britney Spears.

I skimmed their purple prose describing the great gated community they purport to be. I chuckled when I learned that they've been in business since 19XX:

Click for full size screen shot

Yup, you read it right:

When Promises opened in 19XX, we realized that a facility is only as good as its staff.

And a Web site visited by millions is only as good as its Webmaster.

The Complete New Yorker Portable Hard Drive

The New Yorker offers DVDs with past content -- articles, ads, and most importantly cartoons. Their latest ad really caught my eye: they're also selling this content on a small portable USB hard drive. For $200 you get an 80 gig hard drive with everything ever published in the New Yorker pre-installed.



It's not a totally new idea to sell content on portable media. Way back when Verbatim might have included a trial version of software on a floppy. But that was a case where you're buying the media and, by the way here's some content to sample. Here we have a magazine selling you the content and, by the way here's a hard drive to use for other purposes.

http://www.newyorkerstore.com/product_details.asp?sitetype=1&sid=122751&did=8&affiliate=TNYS_CHD4

I wonder what happens when the head crashes? Do you have to buy the content again?

Google News favors foreign sources over local

My dad served in the Signal Corps in World War II. He landed in Normandy on D-Day. He never told anyone exactly what happened that day, but he was awarded the Silver Star for what he and his men did. Sometimes very important stories are lost to history. We will never know.

Ever since I predicted the creation of Google News I've watched carefully to see how it performs.

One of the serious shortcomings of Google News is that it showcases foreign news sources in favor of local sources covering local stories. A train wreck in India gets prominent coverage by the Chinese news agency, highlighted by Google News. A campaign event involving Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama is covered by The Guardian, highlighted by Google News. The robot takes local news global, and it cares not who covers it.

Click for full size sceen shot


And so today we see Google News give the headline to Canada's Globe and Mail a very important story that the Washington Post broke in a series of investigative reports. Sad that the robot relegates the publication that spent many days and dollars investigating the issue to an also-ran, leading with a Canadian publication that had nothing to do with the reporting.

Nonetheless, in today's crazy Old Media / New Media world, the story got out, and, we hope, things will be fixed.

Amazing images of Saturn, courtesy of NASA

I remember as a boy loving a great little color picture book about space by Herbert Zim. I suppose space attracted my attention more than the average lad because my dad was a NASA engineer. NASA has released images from the Casini spacecraft showing Saturn from different views. Way cool stuff.



NASA even offers a movie showing the rings and a moon in orbit.

Awesome stuff.

Hybrids are so quiet they could kill the blind

OK, that was a bit of an exaggeration. Well, maybe not so much. Read on.

The Lansing, Michigan area bus provider is the Capital Area Transportation Authority, or CATA. My friend Mark Grebner worked for years to integrate the Lansing and Michigan State University bus systems. He succeeded beyond his dreams. CATA buses ramble through the campus at an amazing rate. They carry students from all corners.

The end result is an integrated town/gown bus system that enjoys huge ridership. Sometimes it seems more like a well-run streetcar service.

CATA, being a progressive organization, has invested in hybrid buses. They cost more to buy, but they use far less fuel. A few months ago, walking on campus, I noticed that they also emit far less noise.

I called Mark and mentioned that people rely on the noise that buses emit -- you hear the bus coming and you don't step off the curb. Even when driving the noise helps you stay away from these behemoths. So I proposed we should put a horn or a bell on the hybrids. Mark replied, well why not install sound emitters and pick your sound? The bus could sound like a bus, or, as Mark observed, it could pretend to be the Staten Island Ferry.

Lo and behold it turns out this is a serious issue for the blind. All Things Considered reported Thursday that the National Federation for the Blind wants hybrid cars to emit sound. The reporter waited with a blind man on a street in Washington D.C. as cars passed by. His interviewee could hear internal combustion engine cars easily. A hybrid (a Prius) went by; he did not hear it.

The advocate for the blind suggested that hybrids should emit sound at all times to make up for the missing noise. That was Mark's idea for the buses. There is technology for sending focused beams of sound, but I bet the passengers in the car could hear it, and it would drive them nuts.

I think a better answer is low-power radio. The car emits a radio signal. At busy intersections, receivers pick up the signal as hybrids go by, and in turn emit an audio warning of some sort. It could be a bell, a beep, or a vocal warning. Heck, it could take advertising. "Warning: a Prius is approaching and saving the earth." (Already at busy intersections on MSU's campus, recorded voices announce the status of Walk / Don't Walk.)

Blind people also could carry special receivers that pick up the signal anywhere. If a Prius drives by, the radio catches the signal and interrupts whatever program you're listening to. Also imagine a low-power FM network throughout a city or a campus, broadcasting location information so you know where you are.

I am betting that my friend Ron Choura, who knows more about telecom in his little finger than I will ever know, can come up with a low-power radio scheme within minutes after reading this post. And my friend Mike Hudson will probably tell me this has all been thought through.

___________________________________________________________________

Mark Grebner weighs in, proposing that the hybrid should emit noise but not upset the passengers. Quote:

My thought is the sound should be "plausible", not "artificial"sounding.
That is, sort of like a slightly amplified hybrid would really sound..
So if the system failed, you'd still hear (faintly) the same sound as a
car approached you.

The analogy would be power-steering or power-brakes - they both continue to
work even if not as well. Or lightly amplified opera, which is a major issue for
NY Times
critics.

Mounting a small speaker in the outer shell of the vehicle (where the
lights are) and directing the sound outward, should result in unobtrusive levels
inside the passenger compartment. And - in any event - it would just sound
like your hybrid was slightly louder than its natural level.