Tuesday, July 29th, 2008
Google’s latest rival appeared yesterday to great hype and fanfare. Cuil.com was founded by a handful of former Google heavyweights who are getting everyone worked up at the possibility of a “next Google”.
But instead of a roar, Cuil.com got off with something more like a FFFRRRAAPFT! (although any one of Don Martin’s sound effects would apply).
Cuil (pronounced “cool”) dismisses Google’s search methodology as nothing more than a “superficial popularity metric”. They also claim to have an index three times larger than Google’s. Search 121,617,892,992 Web pages, boasts the homepage - a number that hasn’t changed a day later. They also claim that their mission is to index the entire Internet, not just bits and pieces.
Starting with the name, there are a lot of red flags in the previous paragraph.
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Friday, July 11th, 2008
Beginning in September, Google will distribute original cartoons by Family Guy creator Seth MacFarlane (MacFarlane is Scottish for, “I’m rich, b!*%$ “). What’s interesting about this deal is the method of distribution - Google’s AdSense program will be the delivery channel.
The New York Times reported a few weeks back that Seth MacFarlane’s Calvacade of Comedy will consist of 50 2 minute cartoons that will appear on various websites that cater to favorable demographics (tags: male, 14-35, crotch-injuries-hilarious).
Distributing wildly popular content through an existing infrastructure is a brilliant move on Google’s part. Rather than hosting the cartoons on a single site, MacFarlane/Google are running them all over the web, distributing them as far and wide as they see fit. The cartoons will make money with a pre-roll, sponsorship tag or something along those lines.
Personally, I don’t like Family Guy because it’s stocked with weak characters (except for Stewie - how can you go wrong with Dr. Smith from Lost in Space in a baby’s body?) with grating voices who deliver a slapdash collection of random jokes. Check out South Park’s brilliant interpretation on the Family Guy phenomenon.
Thursday, June 5th, 2008
Until recently I’ve spent most of my career working as a librarian. Now I work for a web agency. How’d that happen?
The answer to this question says a lot about the radical change the library field is experiencing. This is the part where I go blue in the face explaining that not all librarians spend their time shelving books, wearing comfy shoes or shushing teenagers. In fact, according the New York Times, all librarians are now DJs.
So what exactly do librarians do? While many are still doing traditional library work some of them work as database developers, systems analysts or programmers who either branched out or were former geeks who needed a change of pace (paycut).
When I became the librarian at the Rocky Mountain News my job title was the Digital Librarian. I was teased about this for four years. Was I a hologram? What was it like the first time I made love to a human?
But one interesting thing about the job was being librarian without a physical library (hence the job title). In the corporate library world there is a trend towards going digital, whether it’s managing collections of databases or creating and managing web sites and intranets.
It’s a wildly diverse field where many have embraced technology with the fervor with which librarians embrace most things. This is because librarians are like deranged bloodhounds catching a scent and not stopping until they get what they need.
This kind of curiosity and flexibility is part of what makes librarians a wonderfully adaptable species. Their habitat (the library) becomes threatened by developers (the Web) so they mutate, grown tails and start using Google earth hacks. KAPOW - instant survival!!!
Now I am a Business Analyst at Indigio and while I no longer work as a librarian, I still feel like one at times. I do challenging research and analysis but now instead of using a library I use Omniture web analytics software, which I understand was developed by the Russians to get Chechen rebels talking during interrogations.
I also have a Nancy Pearl Librarian Action Figure - it’s a reminder of where I came from. Kind of like how Dr Phil carries a piece of sulphur in his pocket so he never forgets his roots.
Please don’t leave any Dewey Decimal jokes in the comments or I will catalog you under Library of Congress Classification TJ1195
Note: this entry is dedicated to Kevin, who is my number one blogging fan.
