Does this indicate too many Orkut scraps from South of India?

[tags]orkut, gmail[/tags]

The Windows Live people revampled it a little. Again.

It’s not only the user interface; now search results seem to come up faster (something that *never* worked earlier).

I would hope that they don’t stop at this point. The Live! people should continue trying (at least ) to compete with Yahoo! Mail and GMail.

[tags]live, mail, hotmail, beta[/tags]

I had mentioned recently that SmartEconomist is moving to a subscription-based model.

Today’s mail says…

“…you did not subscribe after paid access was introduced on September 21, 2006.”

(what else did you expect?)

“…What follows is a mechanism (loosely inspired by the ‘bookbuilding’ method used in IPOs) we designed…”

hmm…okay

“You let us know your no-commitment ‘bid price’ for an Annual Individual Subscription to SmartEconomist.com …. On the basis of all the bids we receive, we will set the price for a new Exclusive Offer”

Wow! Smart marketing. No, really. I have seen other websites put up surveys *before* before they turned to the subscription-based model. It’s difficult to take a step back (to surveys) once you have set a price on the subscription (like SE did). However, this is a good marketing attempt to “re-survey” and adjust the subscription price.

Let’s see where they land up.

[tags]smarteconomist, marketing[/tags]

Wait. They aren’t calling it Passport yet.

It’s called BBAuth (Browser Based Authentication). Here is the official note.

Instinctively, I see a better turnaround for this than what was for Microsoft’s Passport. YDN comes as a more inviting, friendly source of information than what other such similar attempts by others have been.

Universal Wordpress Login with BBAuth suddenly started sounding better.

[tags]BBAuth, ydn[/tags]

Just when I was wondering exactly when it will happen, they did it.

Recently, SmartEconomist moved to a subscription-based model. From the site, “as Milton Friedman’s much-quoted adage goes, “there’s no such thing as a free lunch”, and SmartEconomist.com, alas, is no exception: unrestricted access is now available to subscribers only. Many of the site’s features are still available free of charge - notably “Smart Interviews” and “Silly Economist” - but subscription is required to access full Reports.”

Clearly, they are targetting non-hobbyists with these prices for Individual subscription.

The free lunch was good. Thanks and Good Luck to these folks.

[tags]smarteconomist, free lunch[/tags]

(Short post)

Did I mention how impressive this looks? (Hey, how do they maintain edit history?)
Not just this, a lot of things on this page rock!

You can see what it culminated in: here.

[tags]short post, wiki, jotspot, cool[/tags]

I was there observing the initial discussions for wikinews. “Does it make sense at all?” “What about reporter bias?” “Why would someone want to visit it when other sites are reporting to-the-minute?” Some of these questions were answered, some were deferred (the voting page wasn’t exactly a mess). It has evolved since then.
I found NewAssignment.net today. First glance, First thought - how is this different from wikinews?

Then, I read through the introductory article on Jay Rosen’s PressThink site. The difference became clear. To quote from the article: “The site uses open source methods to develop good assignments and help bring them to completion; it employs professional journalists to carry the project home and set high standards so the work holds up. There are accountability and reputation systems built in that should make the system reliable. The betting is that (some) people will donate to works they can see are going to be great because the open source methods allow for that glimpse ahead.”

Interesting.

Jay followed the article with “Some Problems with New Assignment.net” and “How Realistic is NewAssignment.net“.

Jay listed the points made by others, and I agree with these two in particular:

1. The system creates perverse incentives for reporters. Future funding for will depend on “delivering the story promised” as against what the reporter found, which “makes agreeing with the perspective of the funders more important than telling the truth.” (Ratcliffe)
2. A story’s “worth” cannot be judged ahead of time. Ratcliffe: “No one knows what an important story is until after it has been reported, therefore you have to trust the judgment of someone who will occasionally ignore the wisdom of the crowd and go somewhere unexpected or unwanted.”

There has been a lot more discussion on these (read Mitch Ratcliffe’s subsequent post).

Overall, I’m both skeptical and excited at the prospect of this idea. The ongoing discussions are constructive - that’s a good sign. Will post more later with my opinions.

[tags]NewAssignment, journalism[/tags]

My new ‘Want This’ feature request for Bloglines: Mark existing feed posts (the ‘keep new‘ posts) with different color scheme. Right now it’s hard to find and view new posts when you have 25+ ‘kept new’ posts in a feed.

[tags] bloglines, wantthis[/tags]

I have been using Bloglines for the past couple of years. There have been regular updates , including some nifty ones I like (shortcut key - m). It also featured in the “Next Net 25” list by CNN.

No ads, no subscriptions. I used to wonder how Bloglines will ever earn money - “may be they’ll shift to a subscription model for extra features, while keeping the base services free“, “may be they’ll insert targetted ads in between blog posts“. But they didn’t do that.

Then, last year Ask Jeeves acquired Bloglines (a quick analysis here). Apparently, they have kept on adding features and trying to increase the user-base further. They seem to be waiting for the critical mass of users (and features) to start doing something for revenue.

[tags]bloglines, askjeeves, revenue[/tags]

Orkut with advertisements … exactly what was missing from the bottom of this world

[tags]orkut, ads, google[/tags]