Some random bits as I catch up on the news

Network Solutions has to find ways to get people to buy domains from them given that they charge three to four times as much as other registrars. Valleywag reports that if someone searches for a domain on NetSol they register it, effectively locking it up for five days. Bastards. Glad I don't use them anymore. I'm not happy with GoDaddy's treatment of me but at least they let me know when they are going to be ripping me off.

TechCrunch reports that Zillow.com is adding millions of listings to their database. I tried it once, didn't give me any useful info whatsoever. Maybe I'll check it out when I'm looking to sell my house, if they are still around.

Paul Boutin gives his opinions of people on Valleywag. Something to do with Nick Denton's new pay structure. Hopefully this gives you a little bit of extra traffic, Paul.

Social networks and such

Dave Winer on the MySpace / Facebook / Google brawl. I believe my opinions of Facebook have been made abundantly clear. Also - Facebook apparently has not been briefed on OpenSocial.

A chart of how to tell how much your web site sucks. Pretty accurate in my opinion.

Valleywag does a Web 2.0 for idiots primer.

And an update on the breaking Jakob Lodwick story... He responded to my response to his post with a "LOL." I'm not sure exactly what he was laughing at but... um... OK. Thank you, come again.

And Valleywag posts their opinion of the same interview I posted this morning. Shall we take bets on how long it takes him to reply to that? I have seen him leave comments on Valleywag before...

However I posted my name, which I have a Google ego alert set up for, in one of my other random blogs and I have not received notification yet. Interesting...

Wednesday Round-up

An article on rehab, Malibu style.

Don't try to time the market. It almost never works.

Article on Yahoo, Google and paid search results. From Valleywag.

And an article on how Google screwed people over when buying Urchin, which its analytic software is baded on.

Some other people's opinions of Facebook "Platform" and apps.

Ten questions for the guy who does the PostSecret.com web site. From Guy Kawasaki.

Jeff Jensen's latest Lost article for EW.

And I leave you with a long, nonsensical interview with Bob Dylan for Playboy, from this list of his top ten most nonsensical interviews. The Playboy one is #1.

Webb Alert

This is the only video podcast I watch. I am not a big fan of video podcasts - they take too much time. An audio podcast I can listen to while doing something else but a video I can not do other stuff - I need my full attention on it.

This one is less than five minutes long, so it doesn't take a whole lot of time to watch it, it is about tech news, which I am of course extremely interested in, and it doesn't hurt that the host, Morgan Webb, is unbelievably gorgeous. And a geek to boot! She also hosts some gaming TV show - X-Play, I think - on the G4 network, which I have never heard of.

Morgan, if you ever happen to stumble on this site, I will divorce my wife to go out with you! Well, not really (except that I would.) Please don't make me sleep on the couch tonight!

Here is today's cast, conveniently embeddable:



A list of business changing videos. As per my aforementioned aversion to watching anything longer than 5 minutes on the internet I have not watched these videos. But they seem interesting.