Free sample pages from Dover Publications
July 22, 2008 Category: Uncategorized No Comments »
Dover Publications has a really extensive catalog, everything from coloring and maze books to clip art to engineering and tech books. They're the publishers of the wonderful 507 Mechanical Movements. You can sign up here for the Dover Sampler - every week they send out an email with links to book content. It's a complete mixed bag, you never know what you'll get, sometimes it's really fun! This week there were pages from this Origami Aircraft book. They also give you discount coupons and notice of sales.
(More pages of the plane instructions are here)
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This week on the Big 3 - Disney Fan Podcast Review
July 22, 2008 Category: The Disney Portal No Comments »
This week, we jump into the WTTM Time Machine and journey back 20 years. Ricky announces some exciting news at my sister’s house. And Lou has another big announcement? All this and more;
THIS WEEK ON THE BIG 3
This week on WTTM #157; while Paul is enjoying himself at the NFFC Convention and Disneyland, we get another episode from the Window to the Magic Dream Team. I was a bit concerned this might be the Dichter episode but thankfully, no. This week we’re treated to a blast from the past. Magic Joe from the WTTM forums takes us on a trip back in time in the Window to the Magic Time Machine to celebrate Disneyland’s 30th Anniversary. It’s the summer of 1985; this princess was only 11 at the time and had never heard of Disneyland. Magic Joe has some great recordings of attractions long gone and those we can still enjoy. We even get to enjoy some cool ‘80’s tunes. If you remember the summer of ’85 or want to experience some stuff from the olden days, this week’s Window to the Magic is great. Now, when is Dichter showing up on WTTM?
This week on Inside the Magic, in Ricky’s “News Around the World” he reminds us that we could win an iPod Touch, want to know how? Check out this week’s show. During the July 15th rededication ceremony at Disneyland my dear sweet sister, Sleeping Beauty, announced the re-opening of the Castle walk-thru attraction. It should be opening in time for the holidays. Why do I hear family news second hand? Fantasmic at Disney’s Hollywood Studios will have a new schedule when American Idol Experience opens in January. Check out the show for details. And speaking of American Idol, auditions are now going on for a Seacrest-like host, judges and a warm-up act. If you think you’ve got the chops listen to this week’s show to find out more.
Ricky interviews Jody Daily about designing floats for the Pixar Play Parade. Forum member, Mr. Shiny, shares some audio from Disneyland Paris in his “Welcome Home” segment and Skipper Ben fills us in on his trip to The Great Wolf Lodge in Grapevine, TX. What does that have to do with Disney? Listen to this week’s Inside the Magic for the scoop.
We wrap up this post with WDWRadio #76. Due to Lou’s trip to MagicMeets this past weekend there’s no news or rumors this week. Lou interviews Kristi Breen, Director of Segment College and International Programs Recruitment, and Katherine Farmer, a recent graduate, to talk about the WDW College Program. We learn what it takes to get into the program and what it’s like to participate. If you think you might be interested or secretly hope your child might have a chance (Hello, my kids are being groomed as we speak) then this week’s show is for you. And now the big announcement, Lou and Tim Foster are launching Celebrations Magazine. I heard about this at MagicMeets ’08 and it looks like an awesome addition to the Disney Fan world. To hear all the details tune into this week’s WDWRadio show. You can also go to www.celebrationspress.com for all the info and to subscribe. Hmmm, I wonder how I can score a writing gig.
Well, that’s it for This Week on the BIG 3! Stay tuned for another new weekly blog post coming at the end of the week.
Links:
- WDWRadio - Website, iTunes
- Inside The Magic - Website, iTunes
- Window To The Magic - Website, iTunes
- Catch more of Jenn on her blog and on twitter.
Originally posted on The Disney Blog.
This week on the Big 3 - Disney Fan Podcast Review
3 Ways to Make More Money Blogging
July 22, 2008 Category: Uncategorized No Comments »
Allen Stern over at CenterNetworks has been asking a number of interesting questions over the last six months or so, starting with the question of whether an RSS feed is worth a buck. Today, in a continuance of this professional blogger introspective, he asks what you’re doing to put food on his table. The whole question is neatly explained and contained in this video embedded below.
Here’s the version for those unable to view the video: “Bloggers are supported by ads. Few of you click on those, and you seem almost proud of this fact. As much as 52% of you use ad blocking software. How do you expect us to eat? ”
There’s a bit more to it than that, but it’s the gist of the issue, and it’s one that I identify with. I’m a content producer, and I’m a supporting a wife and two kids on the fruits of advertising. I’d love for you to click on as many ads as possible, so that our CTRs will go up, the advertisers love us, and they keep throwing money our direction.
Problem is, just by begging and pleading, I’m unlikely to change your behavior in for a sustainable period of time. You may click a few ads around this article if you really feel sorry for me, and you may remember to do it again tomorrow, but long term, you’ll probably go back to your habits of not clicking on ads.
Frankly, it’s ok. It’s human nature. Bossman Pete will probably kick my ass for saying this, but we have learned, as humans who stay on the ‘Net all day, how to tune out ads. You probably don’t even see them when you’re looking at this site (and no, I’m not talking to the folks with AdBlocker, I’m talking to regular folks who have the ability to focus on what they want to pay attention to).
This is a failure not on the consumer’s part, but on the part of those making the advertisments. Sure, we can all assume for a minute Allen’s attitude, which to me is a bit akin to the attitude assumed by most public broadcasting. It works for a certain segment of the audience: “It’s your responsibility to make sure this programming stays on the air.” But there’s a reason why Charlie Rose is on PBS and not CBS during primetime - most folks find him boring. Those that don’t find him boring will seek him out on PBS, and ostensibly donate to the cause. The rest watch Survivor or American Idol or whatever else is on network TV these days (I guess it’s obvious I’m watching Charlie Rose).
There are innovative and interesting ways to increase the value for advertisers on blog content, but it requires that bloggers and their advertising agencies start to think outside the box a bit. I’ve a number of ideas of what this means…
Behavioral Marketing
One of my biggest let downs in recent memory was that Facebook, the supposed darling social network of the Web 2.0, had a groundbreaking advertising and monetization solution, and the best they could come up with was Project Bacn. This is a company that collects a literal wealth of information about their users, all of it supplied voluntarily, and they do absolutely nothing interesting with.
I had hopes that they were going to announce an advertising network that others who had content that was in no way associated with Facebook could join. The most successful form of advertising on the Internet currently is Google’s search ads. This is because they know my intent - they know what I’m looking for, and can present relevent ads alongside my results. In theory, Facebook know my favorite movies, my favorite activities, and in many cases, my favorite websites.
Concurrently, one of the worst performing types of ads are those displayed on social networks. The reason is simple - the content is too enjoyable. Advanced mainstream social networks are the ultimate in a customized web experience. Why would I click off to the ads?
Open that targetting data to content websites, and you have yourself a ballgame. Tailor the ads down to a micro-targeting level, based on what they’ve said their interests are, and you’ll increase CTRs. Simple as that. The first major social network to start offering this to bloggers will be the next major player in Internet advertising.
Using Your Brand with Video
I’ve long said that the smartest thing that blogs with a brand can do is get into video. The response rates on video advertisements, when done properly, are amazing. Furthermore, a video ad associated with a recognizable brand fetches a much higher asking price than any typical display advertisement.
Add to that the ability to latch in captive subscribers via podcast subscription feeds and being able to deploy to a large variety of platforms and other media types, and you are seeing return on investment.
The downside to video is that for well produced stuff, it can be both time-consuming and expensive. As newer technologies become available, this cost is going down, and frankly the bar for excellence in broadcasting has been brought way down in recent years, so that often a few minutes of commentary on a webcam can be just as compelling and acceptable to general audiences as slick Hollywood effects.
As Stephen has been noting recently, it’s also very important to make sure that your video adds to the equation, a struggle for any content producer. It shouldn’t simply be a re-hash of what you’ve got in your text format. Following a few simple guidelines for production, though, will give you another monetization angle - one that’s lucrative for the producer, and beneficial for the advertiser.
Sponsorships Instead of Advertising
Between Steven and I, I feel like we’re beating a dead horse here, but even when clicks aren’t made on sponsorship deals, the advertiser still gets value. Take, for instance, Stickam - a sponsor for our SummerMash tour. Certainly part of the reason Stickam is advertising has to be for the purposes of driving traffic back to their site. That’s why we link their logo in our SummerMash posts back to the site.
More importantly, though, they want to associate their brand with Mashable. They have the desire to not only be seen by their users and their users viewers as a company that can get things done with live video, but by associating with Mashable in a publicly viewable way, every attendee to our events sees their logo, their work, and the fact that they’re doing well enough as a company to give us sponsorship dollars.
That imbues a feeling of stability, hipness, and awareness amongst all who see the logo on the site, watch our podcasts, and go to the events. It’s obviously not a driver of traffic, and the benefits are fairly far removed from how many people click on the link from our website.
It’s another example of how we’re diversifying our income here at Mashable so as to not solely rely on display advertisements.
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St. Louis cops turn forfeiture policy into free car rental service
July 21, 2008 Category: Uncategorized No Comments »
Cops and their kids get to use confiscated cars in St. Louis for free.
Seems that the city of St. Louis, like many cities, allows the police to confiscate the cars of people suspected (but not necessarily convicted) of certain crimes. They have a contract with a city towing firm, and said firm was allowing police officers and their families to "rent" confiscated cars free of charge, sometimes for months on end. Officers and their families could also sometimes purchase the confiscated cars at a fraction of the cars' value.St. Louis Cops Turn Forfeiture Policy Into Free Car Rental Service (Reason Hit & Run)All of that is pretty outrageous. But it gets better. The St. Louis Post-Dispatch stumbled onto the story after investigating the daughter of the city's police chief. She had been involved in a number of accidents with different cars. On several occasions she had wrecked a car, then simply gone down to the towing service to get a 60-80 percent discount on a new one. After one accident, her blood-alcohol concentration tested at .17. She wasn't arrested or charged. The department says it has "no idea" why she was let go.
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Like Its Users, The New Facebook Is All Grown Up
July 21, 2008 Category: Uncategorized No Comments »
Yesterday, we told you that Facebook would be launching its new design today and briefly highlighted the coming changes. Today we've received the official word from the Facebook team that the new profile is indeed live. According to the company, access to the new design will be limited at first as it gradually becomes available to all of their more than 80 million users over the coming days. What's most interesting about the new Facebook design, though, is not just the change in the aesthesis. Instead, the new look reflects the changing needs of their core user base.
The Hard Task of Staying Relevant
Facebook, which launched in February of 2004, began as a social network just for college students. The closed nature of the network became one of its biggest selling points. Here, students could plan their social schedules, create study groups, and yes, even post those embarrassing photos from last night's kegger without worrying that mom or dad might see.
But now, four years later, those same students are graduating and entering the job market. Cleaning up a Facebook profile - that is, removing those "sort of" friends and old acquaintances as well as ditching a slew of time-wasting applications is almost like a coming-of-age ritual now. As the college kids move into the real world, the social network needs to reflect their changing needs in order to stay relevant while still appealing to the next generation of users, too.
That's a fine line to walk, but Facebook is making a go of it. Although the network provides numerous privacy controls, that isn't really enough to make the network "safe for work." For the Gen Y workforce, getting the point across that their set of social media tools can be the new way to get things done, it helps when profiles aren't filled with pointless, time-wasting apps that don't just fill your screen but also spam you and your friends with their notifications.
Application Lockdown
The new profile page cleans up the applications by moving them into the "Boxes" tab, but what's more important is what's going on behind the scenes - application security. On the new Facebook, apps are now "try before you buy." That is, you can interact with the application before adding it, granting it access to your information, and deciding where to put it on your Facebook profile.
Also, app makers will no longer be rewarded for forcing their users to promote their apps and apps that don't meet certain privacy requirements will be banned. Recently misbehaving apps Slide's Top Friends and Rock You's Super Wall were banned earlier this month, for example. (Top Friends has since fixed their privacy violations and returned). No longer will these sorts of attention-grabbing apps rule Facebook. Instead, thanks to the new application bookmarking feature which gives you quick access to your most frequently used bookmarks, the most popular apps will be the one that you actually find useful.
New Application Bookmarks, image courtesy of Inside Facebook
You're In Control
As far as user privacy controls, the new design does not change any of the privacy settings previously set, but you will now have more control over what information appears in your feed. You can add and delete items from your feed which now surfaces more "pertinent" information about you. You also have complete control over stories on your profile. According to the Facebook blog post, "you can adjust the size and prominence of stories and can choose between having one-line stories, short or full stories. One-line stories are one sentence long, while short stories include thumbnail photos or content, and full stories display large, noticeable images."
Conclusion
As the Facebook generation grows up, they should find added value in the new redesign which highlights more relevant and current information while putting the most useful aspects of Facebook at their fingertips. And as Facebook becomes less of a place for them to hang out and more of a tool for networking in the business sense of the word, the cleaner design and additional controls make sense. However, the one remaining question is whether or not this new design will work for the younger Facebook users who are still "having fun" on the site or whether they will agree that this was a necessary step to prevent the MySpace-ification of Facebook.
For more details on the changes, All Facebook and Inside Facebook have first looks. You may be able to access the new Facebook by visiting http://www.new.facebook.com, but many people (such as myself) are reporting that this is now doing a redirect back to the www.facebook.com.
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Tinkering around
July 20, 2008 Category: Uncategorized No Comments »
Gever Tulley from the Tinkering School gave us this tinkering update:
We're off to test our canvas and PVC boats (eerily synchronistically coincident with the PVC and duct tape boat article) today in the harbor. Our boats are made with canvas that we are sealing with melted wax. The kids also built a cantilever bridge out of eucalyptus saplings, and a giant pinball machine on a 4x8 foot piece of melamine.
Gever says there is thrilling coverage nightly on their blog. (I want to go to Tinkering School!)
More:
5 dangerous things you should let your kids do
PVC Pipe & duct tape canoe
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Look Around Corners and Over Walls with a DIY Periscope [Weekend Project]
July 19, 2008 Category: Uncategorized No Comments »
Peek over walls and look around corners with a periscope—a long tool that uses two mirrors to show you hard-to-reach places. Over at how-to site Instructables, they've got the step by step for putting together a periscope using a thin mints box, duct tape, two small mirrors, and an X-Acto knife. The kids will love this one.
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Shop Socially Across the Web with Fling it Girl
July 18, 2008 Category: Uncategorized No Comments »
Fling it Girl is a new social bookmarking and shopping site aimed at the Web-savvy consumer crowd (the site is pink and has “girl” in the title, but there’s a section for guys too). As with most other social bookmarking sites like Kaboodle, Fling it Girl is broken down into various categories, and each user-generated submission can be voted and commented on, saved to your own profile and further shared within the community as well as across the Web.
Fling it Girl has a bookmarklet that you can add to your browser toolbar for easy submissions as you surf the Web. Its toolbar, which is similar to StyleFeeder’s recent browser add-on, is what really ties things together and provides a more direct social interaction amongst users. Powered by Medium, the Feed it Girl toolbar gives you additional features while you browse the Fling it Girl site and surf the Web for new shopping items.
As Medium is a social toolbar that gives you recommendations and related sites, a co-branded Fling it Girl option for users means that you can ask other users questions while you surf, find more shopping sites, and have direct access to the constantly updating new and hot items coming through on Fling it Girl. Co-founder Kary Rivera notes that unlike the StyleFeeder social browsing tool, Fling It Girl has the opportunity to extend its network. “This toolbar with real time function and accessibility to the site from everywhere is an unbelievable feature. All me.dium search users will benefit from what is being Flung Up through Fling it Girl in the social search results,” said Rivera.
It makes a lot of sense conceptually to integrate an additional social search toolbar for active Fling it Girl users, as it aims to provide a full circle of options for both browsing and connecting with others. We’re sure to see more of this, not just in girlie shopping sites but across a large portion of social Web surfing, even delving into areas of Web surfing that isn’t necessarily considered social. Tools like Vysr and Yoono are doing a lot to make such provisions available to users, with browser sidebar widgets that include bookmarking and chat. Such browser add-ons will only continue to grow and mature, layering in increased feature capabilities and integration with existing networks and recommendation engines.
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DIY PVC Pipe “Kid Wash” [Weekend Project]
July 18, 2008 Category: Uncategorized No Comments »
When the heat turns unbearable this weekend, get the kids outside anyway: head to the hardware store and pick up some PVC pipe, joints, and small plastic "mister jets." With those supplies, after drilling a few holes, screwing in a few jets, and gluing a few joints, DIY-er m32825 made a "kid wash" water spray hooked up the garden hose that the little 'uns could run and ride their bike through and cool off in the July heat. This project seems like something even an inexperienced DIYer could handle, and the result is totally worth it.
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The M in Meebo Means Missouri [video]
July 18, 2008 Category: Uncategorized No Comments »
In what seems to be a continuation of a never ending growth pattern by Meebo, it was widely reported this morning that they’re now going to be offering branded chat for social networks and online communities. They have a staggering list of volunteer launch partners as well, including DanceJam, Flixster, myYearbook, Nickelodeon/MTVN Kids and Family Group’s AddictingGames, Piczo, SparkArt, Sugar Publishing and Tagged.
Sean and I had a great discussion with two of the three founders of Meebo on today’s Mashable Conversations, and we came away with two main things that really are noteworthy about this implementation, aside from the technology aspects of it.
First of all, the sheer size of the expected network growth is particularly eye-popping. According to Seth, Meebo, after implementation is finished, will have a global reach of 54.7 million, including an unduplicated reach in the US of 23.3 million. This is accomplished by allowing inter-site communication. If you signup on Piczo, for instance, you’ll be able to speak with users from Flixter. This is accomplished by use of the XMMP (Jabber) architecture for the IM service backend.
The other thing particularly noteworthy is that each partner is entering into a revenue sharing agreement, so that advertising supported chat will not only be a tool to significantly increase stickiness, but it will be a profit center as well.
Aside from that, we got a little bit of insight into exactly where the name Meebo comes from - you can too. The video is embedded below (or you can download the MP4 version here).
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