Techmeme Leaderboard is a new rating service going live today according to TechCrunch in a post titled: Techmeme Leaderboard To Launch, Attacking Technorati’s Last Stronghold.

'… top blogs will be ranked on presence - “the percentage of headline space a source occupies over the 30-day period.” Discussion links are not taken into consideration - only full headlines are counted."

The problem I might have with this approach is that Techmeme doesn't capture a lot of technical posts and I'm disappointed in the level of traffic it drives.  Maybe with the new Leaderboard, Techmeme will drive more traffic than before…we'll see.

Miniature Jets and rockets was a fascination I had, as a kid … but of course I never really had one, except the water propelled type that would shoot up about 100+ feet (as I recall it, the water rocket was supposed to go up 1000 feet, but I'm sure it did not, must be my memory, or child fascination that exaggerated the distance).   Seems like some people, like John Williamson, really get off on seeing miniature jets flying - I guess I must be one of them!

"…Basically they (Miniature Jet Engines) are a simple empty tube with a fuel injector and a reed valve in the front. No throttle and they start and stop instantaneously, and this also makes you jump! Radio Control and good piloting skills are essential!"

But I remember the same stuff that goes into making a Miniature Jet Plane fly, can also power a mobile device, like your cell phone, according to New Scientist.

"…Engineers have moved a step closer to batch producing miniaturised, jet engine-based generators from a single stack of bonded silicon wafers. These chip-based “microengines” could one day power mobile electronic devices."

And if you wanted to build a Miniature Jet Engine - you could just follow the instructions on the HOW TO BUILD MINIATURE JET ENGINES Page:

"….here are 4 miniature engines that offer enormous power for their size. These engines can be used to power miniature boats, trains, cars, (jet) planes, or whatever! Providing as much as 1 h.p., they can power even large-size models. Or, the builder can choose to scale them up to achieve even greater power."

Today, I saw a YouTube video titled: 1/5th Scaled MIG-29 Looks, Sounds and Probably Tastes Like a Fighter-Jet on Gizmodo that had me transfixed; here's the video:

1/5 Scaled Mig 29 - First Flight - video powered by Metacafe

I think if you go in about 3:15 seconds, you'll see the the Miniature MiG-29 Jet flying and then it's hypnotic rapture for the rest of the clip.

"… the team has seemingly created a sweet RC scaled MIG-29, costing between $5,000_$15,000 and the replica was fitted with two turbine engines, which were not tested at their full capacity…".

Also, I got interested seeing what kind of buzz was created by this video, or videos like this one, since there's a community built around Miniature Jets that must be pretty enthusiastic - it's not something you build unless you know what your doing and you love Miniature Jets.

But what I found here, was Blogpulse data was not much help, since the spike represented only one blog post; so I figured I'd look elsewhere to see what the video I'd just seen about a Miniature Jet MIG-29 might have created - especially since it appeared in Gizmodo.  Figured TalkDigger might help with finding out the Buzz on both the term "Miniature Jet" and the Gizmodo URL that features the MIG-29 Miniature Jet.

Turned out that TalkDigger didn't help much either - so I opened up my Compete.com Search Analytics account that still has some credit on it since I was a beta tester for it earlier this year.

Quantcast also has a keyword research tool but it doesn't have enough data on Miniature Jet to tell me anything.

But if nothing else, I can  enjoy watching the MIG-29 Miniature Jet Movie above.

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Merging the real world, our world, with Virtual Worlds is a dream for some, a reality for others.  The Gate (or Hole in Space, Reloaded) is a project that will happen in Brussels next week.

"…The Gate is an installation connecting real life and Second Life, a junction point, a door between two worlds and two representation spaces. Basically, it is a simple window between both worlds where real users and SL users see each other and can meet. A view of the SL Gate is permanently projected in the real life venue; when an avatar comes in front of The Gate, it is visible in the public space; when one arrives physically in front of the door in the public space, he/she can interact with the SL user currently in front.

The result will be a kind of happening where the virtuality of SL is transferred in the physicality of our public space and vice-versa; a stage for performance and interaction, something between a breakdance platform, an inter-dimensional portal and a peep show through parallel universes."

There's certainly "interest" in creating a merging of both "worlds":

"…The Gate is installed on Odyssey, an island in Second Life dedicated to art and performance. In the opening hours of iMAL (October 5 - 6, 11 AM - 7PM [2AM - 10AM SLT]; October 7, 10AM - 8PM [1AM - 11 PM SLT]), people, avatars and performance artists are kindly invited to come, perform and interact at The Gate, both in real life and in Second Life. During the vernissage on October 4 (8:30 - 12 PM [11:30AM - 3PM SLT]) Second Front, the first performance art group in Second Life, will use The Gate as a in-between stage in front of iMAL visitors and SL passer-by."

I'll try to attend the performance in Second Life but I'd like to be part of something similar to this.

I was thinking about my last post Mining Keyword Data for Financial Acquisitions and felt I had not really gone nearly as far as I could with the data in my keyword referrals that's being stored in Google Analytics.  In a way, I'd prefer to focus on this kind of information as opposed to regular SEO, which I find boring.

For example, looking at buyer or acquisition behavior I'd look for phrases that contain "buy", "bought", "sale", "acquire", "cost", "price", "pricetag", "behavior", etc.  Here's what I came up with from Google Analytics:

1. Keywords containing "buy" that might indicate buyer or acquisition behavior:

So…who is going to buy Visual Sciences? Someone wants to know; there were 3 visits, one on July 12, August 19th and August 26th. The landing page visited (which shows the page on my site that comes up when someone executed that query in a search engine (probably Google):

 And the "Locations" where people came from:

The locations, in this case, wasn't that helpful so I looked for the city each search came from:

It's all foreign visitors, so whoever wants to know who is going to buy Visual Sciences, it sure isn't anyone I know and they probably don't live around here; however they were all "new" visitors, meaning they're not regular readers (RSS Subscribers) or people who visit my site regularly.

Microsoft buys hopstop was a search that happened on August 28th but it resolved to a page I wrote about Hopstop:

Hmm… I think I got something here….. HopStop, which I said Google should buy earlier this year:

"..Transit planner HopStop, however, takes on these larger metros, providing coverage for Boston, Chicago, San Francisco, New York, Washington D.C., and several cities in New Jersey. For each city, HopStop will plot directions and estimate travel time by foot and public transit (bus / subway) between two or more addresses. It also comes with some other really useful features. You can choose which travel method you would prefer more, walking, busing, subway, or a combination of the three. Also, since you don’t always know the street address of your destination you can pick it from a map. "

When I went to the Etsy.com party in Brooklyn a couple of months ago, I used HopStop to get directions  - and they were pretty good.  "

Someone is wondering if Microsoft will buy HopStop… question is ….who?  Is it someone from a Financial Institution?

It looks to me like www.Pfsweb.com is a Fortune 1000 Global Outsourcing firm and it's not really clear if this is in someway related to purchase behavior or if it's some kind of study, that suggests maybe Microsoft should buy HopStop.  The individual who searched was located in Addison, Texas, at the Corporate Headquarters.

Let's say it's just that ….. in someone's mind, just knowing that might be valuable information.  For example, it's known that Google is beefing up on local search using public transportation, but it appears they are building that capability themselves…at least, it looks that way to me, else they'd have bought HopStop..but they didn't.    Maybe Microsoft would want to buy HopStop….and if I were a broker or speculator …. maybe I'd put some money on it (both that they will, and that they won't).

Now, all of this is public information, I have every right to it, they came to my blog from a keyword search.  But what if I worked at the Wall Street Journal or the New York Times, or Associated Press…think of the data I'd be sitting on. 

I wouldn't even need to be anyone high up on the food chain, I could be a "web analyst"…. I could pull this data.  Question is…would I know enough to know what to do with it … is it enough information to be actionable.

Probably not….there's probably not enough actionable data here to take any action, except if you were someone who knew enough about how markets work…that data might then lead to further inquiries that might lead to an action…and action one might not take otherwise.

I think there's an awful lot of valuable data, "gold", in Referrer Logs and in Local  Search  Query Logs too, but it takes a bit of datamining to get at it.   However, I think this is much more rewarding and some companies are specializing in datamining precisely this information.

I was talking to a reporter from the Boston Globe recently on how Search Data might be used for Financial Gain.  Immediately I thought back to the situation with HitWise, when I saw instances of people searching on terms like "HitWise Sold" more than a year in advance on when it happened, earlier this year, to Experian.

You could say…that when I traced back those referrals to my site, it often went to a financial institution … meaning that, in some sense, my search query log could be used as a possible barometer of what might be.  

I guess anyone's search query log could be used that way - if you had enough searches on your site.  A large newspaper site, like the New York Times, would be the perfect type of site to datamine for acquisition data….. I'm not telling anyone to do this … just that it could be done - and how well depends on …well.. how good you are at searching.

Here's an example - HitWise - an obvious example

The data is being shown is from February 2006 till today - September 20th, 2007.  The first spike was on August 20th, 2006.

And look at who is visiting (asking if "Hitwise is sold"):

Unfortunately, Google Analytics just can't hone in deeper by the actual visit (ie: I'd have to set my range to August 20th, 2006 to get details of the first visit for "Hitwise sold" but you can be it was probably one of the three "network locations" listed above.

So what do we have here….. someone from a financial institution … Lehman Brothers…..is wondering about HitWise being sold, way before anything is formally announced about HitWise being for sale.

Of course, I knew, because I was watching the data coming in …. but I bet, you could go a lot further than I just did.

Just a thought on the last day of September, 2007.

Having a gas reading Sebastian Wenzel's post at WebAnalyticsBook.com on Web Analytics 4.0:

"….Analytics 4.0 (OK I stop this number nonsense) is going to be an web analytics industry, that is not tied to the internet and works across media channels. In the future, I expect web analytics to merge with other industries e.g the Digital signage industry.

Digital signage is a segment of out of-home advertising in which content is displayed on a digital screen rather than printed sign. The content can range from text and still images to full-motion video."

Not sure Sebastian is joking or not…. I sure hope 5 years from now I'm not going to be called Web Digital Signage Analyst..although, who knows?   I mean, I can see us collecting metrics on it, just like anything else we can get data on, but I'd probably see Digital Signage as merging with Web Analytics than the other way around.

"…A company in Sacramento, CA called SmartSign Media is using interactive technology to gather demographic profiles about passengers as they drive by and respond with advertisements tailored to their preferences. Data on how many cars listen to hat FM radio stations is collected and ad messages are adjusted in response to the demographic profile of the cars’ passengers. HumWare Media based in Colorado uses polling where consumers can respond to a question posed on a digital sign…” [Source]

The technology looks interesting though I'm wondering how a sign can serve a different image to each demographic when you have a mix of demographics in front of it at any one time. 

Yes, I think there's probably ways to do it …but we begin to create a world that is so customized that no two people will end up seeing the same thing (ie: a sign) in the same exact way…and I wonder if that's what we really want, after all.

Been reading all the comments at TechCrunch on Facebook To Launch Friend Grouping. Competition Can Suck. this Sunday afternoon.   Not withstanding "Fake Mark Zuckerberg" and  others who think Facebook is competing directly with the developers who develop applications for Facebook, I think having rungs of friendship is a good idea ..whoever is doing it..even if it's Facebook doing it and not some developer's application.

"…So Facebook will finally allow users to group friends and control information flow based on friend type. For guys like Robert Scoble, who have 5,000 friends (the limit), this may be a way to finally sort through the real friends from the fans. It’s a much needed feature that people have been requesting for a long time.

It also shows the steady maturity of Facebook from a college network to a full on world network, where friendships, business contacts, family and other types of relationships need to be more fully described. And this is also as much about privacy as it is about organization - users will be able to limit the information that certain friend groups receive."

I still have a problem with Facebook as a Social Network for exclusive things - I feel too much information is being thrown at me, all at once - and it's hard for me to decide what I really want to focus on.  In a way, that's Facebook's strength and weakness - it was designed for College Students and I don't think it really works as well when your not in college anymore - even though it's opened up to everyone now - they haven't really changed the basic way the social network works.

But Friendship and Social Networks and having rungs of friends, which I wrote about recently, is the right way to go.

Online Ad Supremacy is an area where Microsoft is doing battle with Google and might win according to an article in the New York Times titled:Microsoft Takes Aim at Google’s Ad Supremacy:

"…Using technology from aQuantive’s Atlas division, Microsoft will be able to provide advertisers with a log of all the places on the Internet where people see ads before going to the advertisers’ Web sites. The data is based on individual computers’ electronic signatures, not individual people."

"…the system will be expensive to deploy without Microsoft, because it requires vast server capacity to analyze billions of ad impressions each day, said Young-Bean Song, a vice president of Atlas. He said that Microsoft would be able to use the new tracking capability to prove the value of its ad space, much of which is unrelated to search."

That's the key… "unrelated to search".  As long as something is related to Search….Google wins … because Google owns Search, even the idea of Search. 

It's true that many searches are really for navigation (IE: typing in the name of a company, name of a person, name of something just so you can find a URL).  In that case, all someone wants is to find the person, thing, URL, etc …. they don't really care about Search.

It will be interesting to see where this goes.

I have always suspected that Process Innovation  determines the advantage a company (or a competitor) has in a given market - it's the stuff that goes into the "black box" or the "secret sauce" according to an article in the New York Times today titled The Unsung Heroes Who Move Products Forward :

Google's Secret Sauce: "…physical network is Google’s “secret sauce,” its premier competitive advantage. While a brilliant lone wolf can conceive of a dazzling algorithm, only a superwealthy and well-managed organization can run what is arguably the most valuable computer network on the planet. Without the computer network, Google is nothing.

Eric E. Schmidt, Google’s chief executive, appears to agree. Last year he declared, “We believe we get tremendous competitive advantage by essentially building our own infrastructures.”

Intel's Secret Sauce: "….Intel treats its process innovations as a competitive weapon, striving to create a “new generation” every two years. That enables the company’s chips, even if there were no changes in their design, to perform better and cost less to make. "

What's interesting, is the people behind the process innovation are just about invisible to the public.  Hopefully, they're being well compensated, but I doubt it.

"… John Feland, human interface architect at Synaptics Inc. in Santa Clara, Calif., knows this enduring truth of invention. He helps design arrays of sensors that drive the touch screens in the newest cellphones like the Prada from LG. Such touch screens are earning raves from consumers, yet Mr. Feland is essentially an invisible man.

“My job is to make our customers look like heroes,” he says philosophically. Then he sums up the special role played by fellow members of the process tribe: “We are like Q to James Bond.”

Sometimes the way a blogger writes is actually more interesting than what is being said; if only because it creates an image in my mind's eye that is amusing; but had I owned an iPhone and had unlocked it, I'd be enraged, not amused by what Apple has done.

In ReveNews, Sam Harrelson writes a post titled: iPhone Debacle Provides Learning Moment for Marketers and Advertisers:

"…However, the actions of Apple in this week's firmware release, which wipe out 3rd party apps that a user might have installed on their iPhone at best and "bricks" (renders useless) at worst is reprehensible. Forget $200 price drops, this move by Apple is rotten to the core."

 

I'm not even sure if that's a rotting Apple, above, but it might as well be one - for all that Apple did by messing up unlocked iPhones with it's newest patches.

It's easy to build good will, but it's just as easy to destroy it.  If anyone has a question on weather to buy an iPhone now or wait a while… I think what Apple did this week answers the question.  Wait.