Tuesday, March 23, 2010

So what is this clp.ly thing?

This blog is mostly created using clips and quotes generated by clp.ly. It's a tool that lets me easily grab a quote or a screen clip, format it how I want and paste it into any application that accepts rich text. It's great for turning what would have been a one line "look at this interesting link" blog post or email into something more visually compelling.

But that's only half the story. The other half of clp.ly is the 'Clip this story' button that you see below each post. It lets you grab a visual clip (just click the button) or a quote (select text and click the button) from an article in a way that give the author trackbacks and correct linkbacks at the same time as giving you, the person clipping, a great looking quote or clip.

Why does that matter? Well the web is a link economy, your links out and back are important, it's the primary way people discover your content. By making it easy for people to cite and link clp.ly drives traffic.

Try it - click the "Clip this story" button and paste a quote or image into an email or blog post. Easy!

Are events like Demo useful?



Quick, can you name a single company from last year’s Demo? I can’t.


Robert Scoble make some interesting points as he looks at the way tech product launches happen (or don't). Worth reading.
Clipped from: scobleizer.com by clp.ly



Monday, March 22, 2010

Google gets ready to leave CN

Clipped from: news.cnet.com by clp.ly
 

In advance of an expected announcement about its plans in China, Google has begun redirecting traffic to its Chinese site through Hong Kong, and has removed language warning searchers of censored results from its search results pages.
 

Saturday, March 20, 2010

Obama quotes Lincoln

Clipped from: huffingtonpost.com by clp.ly
 

In what the New York Times called "an extraordinary session," President Obama began his speech by quoting Abraham Lincoln. "I am not bound to win, but I'm bound to be true," he said. "I'm not bound to succeed, but I'm bound to live up to what light I have."
 

Friday, March 19, 2010

Somehow don't see the USPS doing this ..

This is music made by four postal workers as they cancel postage! When I listen carefully, I think I can actually hear the spring mechanisms as the stamps hit the ink. I love it as an example of music turning what is normally seen as a boring, repetitive task into something this joyful.
 

Clipped from: www.boingboing.net by clp.ly
 

Thursday, March 18, 2010

Do you trust Yelp?

I don’t trust Yelp any more.
Clipped from: gigaom.com by clp.ly


Wednesday, March 17, 2010

Healthcare might actually happen

House leadership aides said they expected to release the final legislative language for the measure on Wednesday afternoon, setting up the possibility of a decisive vote on Saturday.
Clipped from: www.nytimes.com by clp.ly

Monday, March 15, 2010

United has, apperently, never heard of twitter, or email or IM

"Security. Cameras not allowed!" was the response. There was clearly no argument.
United stopped John Battelle from having a video chat wither his wife and kids because he might be communicating with terrorists. In face they said that any way of communicating with the ground was not allowed.
Anyway, this is clearly a wonderful charlie horse. The flight attendant just showed me the United policy manual which prohibits "two way devices" from communicating with the ground.
Ah, hello you put wifi on the plane people. Are we supposed to only use it to communicate with people on other planes? Sometimes corporations can be incredibly stupid, this is one of those times.

More on John's blog ...

Clipped from: battellemedia.com by clp.ly

Can you spoof a death to facebook?


Clipped from: arstechnica.com by clp.ly
In order to do this, family or friends must fill out Facebook's special contact form and include proof of death (usually a link to an obituary or a news article).
Do they have any idea how easy it is to place an obit in a newspaper?

Old media gets corrections wrong.


Clipped from: techcrunch.com by clp.ly
 




“A technical matter” – which of course is code for “I have absolutely no idea how the Internet works. We have geeks to do that kind of thing, and they were at home – probably masturbating or watching Battlestar Galactica – or both – when the story went up”


 

Saturday, March 13, 2010

Privacy is mostly a superstition


Clipped from: techcrunch.com by clp.ly




Boyd then transitioned to talk a bit about the fuzzy lines between what is public and private. She says that just because people put material in public places doesn’t mean it was meant to be aggregated. And just because something is publically accessible doesn’t mean people want it to be publicized.


Friday, March 12, 2010

Newosaurs facing extinction, just haven't noticed it yet.


Clipped from: techcrunch.com by clp.ly

Sometimes it is obvious where the world is headed, but some people and industries become frozen in place and time.

Thursday, March 11, 2010

Why do we allow circus animals?


Clipped from: www.sfgate.com by clp.ly

Spokeswoman Crystal Drake says the circus decided to euthanize the animal after weighing his prospects for a comfortable life — not his ability to perform in the future.

How much do you trust the government?


Clipped from: www.wired.com by clp.ly

The FCC is collecting IP addresses, along with physical addresses, but is not asking for names or e-mail addresses. They promise not to release the street addresses, with some exceptions noted in the privacy policy.

Tuesday, March 9, 2010

Is Google the new Microsoft (who were themselves the new IBM)


Clipped from: gigaom.com by clp.ly

former Intel CEO Andy Grove call Google a “company on steroids, with a finger in every industry.”

Google says newspapers doing just fine


Clipped from: techcrunch.com by clp.ly



Varian concludes: “Newspapers could save a lot of money if the primary access to news was via the internet.”


EFF posts the iPhone developer agreement

The more I read about Apple and the app store the less I like them (and we're a 100% Mac shop).


Kill Your App Any Time: Section 8 makes it clear that Apple can "revoke the digital certificate of any of Your Applications at any time."



In short, no competition among app stores means no competition for the license terms that apply to iPhone developers.