So you have two ex MTV VJ’s both of them sitting in front of the map. Both uniquely cute. Both talking about tech stuff internet news. To me its all the same. But I must say Joanne seems a bit more polished. Check out a clip from her days on a show about Iceland.

I’m not a fan of the term 2.0, or a fan of the word Beta. But she’s Joanne and I will have to get used to that until Drew replaces her.

Originally posted on July 12, 2006 @ 7:33 pm

Not to be outdone by Six Apart, Automattic unveils its Sidebar Widgets on the same day. The Automattic Widgets are a simple WordPress plugin that allows you to customize your sidebar. It’s pretty amazing actually it only works with select themes. It had been developed for WordPress.com but they’ve released into the general WordPress community.

From the Automattic website:

“Widgets” is just a silly buzzword we’ve chosen for this sidebar-chopping plug-in we have developed. They could have been called Gadgets or Gizmos or Wizbangs or Whatevers. On the surface, they’re just things you can use to personalize your WordPress site without knowing HTML. Way down deep, they may be something entirely more significant. Anyway, here’s a peek:

Sidebar Arrangement interface
Drag and Drop

Widget Configuration
Configure

Customized Sidebar
All done!

Even more widgets

The plugin comes with several useful and entertaining widgets but we expect great numbers of widgets to appear over the coming days and weeks. We’ll feature the best new widgets right here.

Originally posted on March 30, 2006 @ 1:57 pm

The New York Times launched the grand redesign and I see all a lot of potential. One of my new favorite sections of the Times is The Most Popular. They have a section for most blogged. i think this is key for the Times interaction with bloggers. It’s a simpler design that’s classy. Now they need to move ahead with utilizing and tying in more content directy from blogs.

Six Apart says:

The most prominent change is the new wide page layout, which makes great use of the expanded screen real estate that serious web geeks have available on their displays.

.

While that might be a huge change. I think the biggest change is if the New York Times begins linking bloggers. I think you will see a lot more bloggers returning to read that old archaic flagship. One thing mentioned already today by Michael Arrington is that the Times needs to move towards using BlogBurst.

Originally posted on April 3, 2006 @ 1:11 pm

It was a little quiet here today. I was busy watching baseball and acting like the blogosphere didnt exist. Some cool things happened while I wasn’t paying attention. Gabe Rivera launched Ball Bug, a meme tracking site that will track the hot stories in the baseball world.

While I imagine it is fairly easy to launch meme trackers around each niche of his choosing. I think its actually a bit harder to keep an eye on them and do it as well as he has. Go Baseball, and Go Ball Bug. Good job Gabe.

Originally posted on April 4, 2006 @ 9:15 pm

Goodbye Windows. Goodbye Fast Company. Want my prediction? Magazines will be gone by 2016. And so will all my bad memories of Windows.

Gatekeepers
TV schedulers, A&R guys, Wall Street researchers, cool hunters. As punishment, now it’s our turn to ram stuff down your throats. Hope you like Bon Jovi!

Bloggers
Pay someone to write snarky comments? Do you think we’re getting paid for this?

Advertising creatives
Talented amateurs making ads for fun and posting them online seem to be better at your job than you are. Bonus: No more “whither the 30-second spot” whining.

Auto mechanics
As cars run on software, the grease monkey will need a makeover.

U.S. high-tech jobs
But software engineers can always get a job down at the garage.

Indian call-center operators
American customer service is rescued from oxymoron status as companies realize that being nice to the people with the money is the only way to win.

Via Fast Company

Originally posted on March 28, 2006 @ 6:17 pm