Will Speaking

(Photo by Dallas Web Design) One of the great features of AOL's Feed Reader and Favorites product is the ability to "Mix" feeds together, and then Share them.      Kind of like your own personal newspaper . Say you like your news from CNN, your Business from Business Week and your Sports from ESPN.   You can put together all of this content and "mix them together" to create your own content feed.    Then, you subscribe to the feed in your feed reader, and you get the latest from each of the sources.  I've created a Tech feed, which contains Techcrunch+GigaOm+SomewhatFrank+Mashable+Valleywag+GoWeb20.    You can go direct to t he page and subscribe to the feed.  It's very useful on your mobile phone, so you go to one feed and scan the headlines, rather than 4 or 5. Tags: willspeaking , feeds , mix n share aoljurlAdd , ao...

Check out " Lessons from a Garage " blog.  It's got some great insights into your own company, pitching to VCs, getting funding.  All written with a good sense of humor.  Barry Spencer writes this blog.     I met Barry 2 years back since we purchased our house from he and his family.      What I slowly became to learn was Barry ran his startup (Reality Fusion) from the garage for sometime - so it's got a lot of history.   And as I ponder my next move, maybe the garage will come in handy. The startup garage Tags: willspeaking , vc , startups , internet , lessons from a garage

Friday Fun : Extras - are you having a laugh If you are fans of The Office, then get the DVD set of "Extras".  This comedy, produced by HBO and the BBC, is a great laugh.  It stars, and is written by, Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant. I've nearly watched season 2. I watched it on my treadmill, and nearly fell off it laughing.   Season One was centered around the two main characters being "extras" in movies. Each show had a famous actor normally acting very silly and bad (Ben Stiller, Orlando Bloom, David Bowie). Season Two continues but Andy gets a sitcom on the BBC and he feels he has sold out with cheap laughs.  It is very funny, though some of it is British humour.   Are you having a laugh? _______________________ William Morris http://willspeaking.com Mobile Blogging

I've subscribed to Netflix for many years now.  It wasn't until I really had time to look at the website I started to use the "Play Now" feature.  This is essentially the first step into movies on demand, and has been out for a few months now. It's part of youy Netflix membership (which I didn't know until I discovered the feature on Sunday). It works well, and seems to have a decent library of movies behind it.  I watched a very good 30 mins of "House of Cards", a great drama I had not seen for ages.   Moveis , tv shows (Dexter, for example, The Office - both US and UK versions) - a good selection. It takes some setup time.   First you need to install the Netflix video player (which plays in IE ), then Windows Media Player 11, which takes ages.  Once that is done, streaming a movie or tv show is easy.  Full screen mode looks great. Obviously you don't get the DVD extras, but that shouldn't worry you since they are normally not t...

Mobile Mail - Gmail, Yahoo, AOL - who is the best? When it comes to using email on your cell phone browser, who has the best offering ? I have been a heavy user for over a year now of mail on my phone. I use the browser to check mail often.  For me, it is very important to get to new mail, reply, mark spam,  delete and go on. I have 3 email boxes - aol.com, sbc!yahoo and gmail.  I must say that the wap version of aol mail is the best, with gmail close behind. Aol and gmail are fast.  You can navigate fast, get to new email, mark spam - all with one click.  Yahoo is fast, but tasks such as managing are in secondary screens, so quick mail box clean up is not fast. This makes it more slow to use, less practical. The feature that puts AOL ahead is quick reply. This is on all messages when reading them and saves a click to reply - important on mobile slower loading browsers.  In addition it has "preset message replies" so you can quickly reply. ...

"World-renowned motivational speaker Zig Ziglar in his book See You At The Top relates a story from his childhood growing up in Yazoo City Mississippi in which his neighbor’s cook, Maude, made biscuits.   Ziglar remembers one occasion when Maude brought out a pan of biscuits that were no thicker than a silver dollar, he asked her what had happened to the biscuits and she replied that “the biscuits squatted to rise, but they just got cooked in the squat.” Here's the video. It's fun, entertaining and has a good point  : start today, do it now. Tags: zig ziglar , willspeaking

What do you check out everyday?    For me, my startpage has headlines from various blogs that I scan at least 3 or 4 times a day.  The startpage is my default page on the browser, so pops up, and I do a quick scan.  Here's my tech selection : Go2Web20 Blog is a great blog that has insights into the Web2.0 world, and some great reviews of the latest technology.  Written by Orli Yakuel. Mainstream Web 2.0 Blogs : Techcrunch and GigaOm .  Always lot's to read in these. I guess they shouldn't be called mainstream, but they are very popular. Valleywag .  I do a quick scan of valleywag , the silicon valley equivalent of TMZ . Always good for a laugh, and not to be taken seriously. SomewhatFrank . Frank Gruber's insight into Web 2.0. Now with SomewhatFrank TV and some interesting interviews. pmarca - Marc Andreessen's blog . He covers lots of subjects and is very insightful.  Calacanis.com - Jason's blog - I like this because it is v...

AOL's Programming Channels look very good when compared against others.   I think the key to this is the user generated content. AOL Food is a great example. I bet many users don't use AOL Food. But it has lots of tips recipes , comments, ways to eat well.  The look and feel of the content is very nice, the navigation easy. User generated content is a theme across AOL Food.  You can comment on recipes plus enter your own - and let other people comment on them.  It is truly a nice 360 degree way of implementing content and getting users to contribute. Check it out now Tags: aol , aol food , food , willspeaking aoljurlAdd , aoljurlAdd_1

Valentines logos. Everyone's sending love! Tags: logos

For years, I have listened to tapes and later CD's of "Zig Ziglar". No, it's not the name of a group,  but a person.  Zig talks about setting goals,  being #1 in sales, self image and many other things. I've learnt alot listening to these tapes on the way to work.   Inspiring, funny, witty -  and common sense. I finally got to see Zig Ziglar in action in Dallas, Texas in 2007 as he prepared to retire. It was awesome to see him.   A few weeks before the 3 day seminar,  he fell down a flight of stairs.  What a shocker to hear this - an 80 year old man falling down the stairs.   But wow, he was right there at the seminar going going going.   If you get a chance, watch the video below.  It is an example of Zig at work. He speaks fast, common sense and is very animated.  This one is filmed in the mid 1990s, but Zig is still going today. See you at the top! You can learn more at ziglar.com Tags: ...

I was looking at YouTube last night, and found this commercial shown in the UK last year. It was for a great cause (prostate cancer).  The really odd thing is it starred someone (Bob Monkhouse) who had died 4 years earlier, but it seemed like he was back again.  Bob Monkhouse was a well known entertainer in the UK, so it's fitting that this was made to help a good cause. How could such a video like this be made?   I wonder what technology is used to pull this together.  Video editing has always been an interest to me.        Links: Give a few bob Tags: prostate cancer , videos , bob monkhouse , will speaking

I remember seeing Philippe Kahn for the first time in 1992, when I arrived (not on a boat) in the USA and started at Borland.   He struck me as a tall guy, oozing with enthusiasm , and came across very well.     That was a long time ago.  He founded Borland International, a company that built compilers (Turbo Pascal,  C , Delphi) and then went head to head with Lotus and Microsoft with Paradox, Quattro .v. Lotus 123.  It was a wonderful company to work for in the early 90's.    After Borland, he started Starfish . The first product from Starfish was Sidekick for Windows, a product he purchased from Borland. Then it went into the sync business - syncing contacts, calendar and address books.   This was sold to Motorala. After Starfish, came Lightsurf .   This was based in Santa Cruz, and pioneered the camera phone, working with Sprint as the provider for the end to end imaging.  It was a great success, and th...

Look at these little cubs. Tags: willspeaking , and finally , itn

Though today is my last day at AOL. It's been a great experience and time. I would like to say two things: 1)  Thank you all so much. It's been great to work at this company, with such smart people delivering great products and programming.  Thank you, Thank you, Thank you!   2) My blog moving forward will continue.   Yes, I know that may be disappointing to some of you,  but I will keep on going with my blogging.   (If you want to unsubscribe to the alerts for blogs goto alerts.aol.com) Below are some photos from a skit Ed and Hamid did for me today. It was very funny.. Those guys should be on television!      Thanks team. You rock! Contact me in these other places too: StumbleUpon LinkedIn Photos Facebook Tumblr AIM Profile Tags: willspeaking , aol

This one hasn't made it on News at Ten,  but it is a cute one to watch and have a smile. Or if you don't like cats, hiss at. Tags: willspeaking , and finally , cats

People who create widgets need to know how well they are doing.  This essentially means reporting - how do you know how many people have used the widget? Or embedded it onto another site?  How many visitors come from the US or other parts of the world? This is one part of the yourminis acquisition that came as part of Goowy Media Inc (AOL announced this yesterday). They have an awesome reporting solution for widget developers. Yourmini's has a very nice reporting suite, that allows the widget creator to report on adoption of the widget (and them make changes based on this reporting). Reporting is critical - if I create a widget I need to know if it's being used, where it's being used, and how.   And if I am an advertiser using widgets to distribute my product, it's even more critical. Check out the reporting - goto yourmini's and create a login. You can then remix any existing widget and make it your own.  Example When I was working with the yourmini's team...

Myspace is live with the developer network today, at an event in SF.   I tried to get in the door, but it just didn't help that I was on Valleywag with a wig on. Seriously,  the myspace developer page has some useful information on it - introductions on Opensocial (which is used heavily)  as well as more advanced details.  It's open to developers right now, and you can have 10 applications running.   What will be interesting to see is how MySpace Developer Network continues to build, since OpenSocial itself is still in early phases. More details here. Tags: myspace , community , willspeaking aoljpictureUpload , aoljpictureUpload_1

I wrote in a previous post that Flickr has a great set of tools built around it.  Much of this is due to the easy to use API's that Flickr created, another part is Flickr makes the photo the central point of the site, which attracts lots of fans. One of the tools I really like is BigHugeLabs.com.  This allows you to take a photo and do great things : build a motivational poster,  a magazine cover, a movie poster.  These can be used as gifts, for humor, for fun etc. See examples below.  Check out Bighugelabs.com here . For example, you can create a magazine cover from a photo : Or take a photo and make it into a movie poster: How about a jigsaw (and I don't mean Saw IV) : And that motivational poster too : Tags: bighugelabs.com , willspeaking aoljpictureUpload , aoljpictureUpload_5 , aoljurlAdd , aoljurlAdd_1

The news about Goowy being acquired by AOL is very good.  Goowy has a rich set of widgets, that can be placed on lots of websites - including mySpace, Facebook, Blogger, Journals, myAOL etc.    Goowy has a rich reporting suite for it's widgets - very important for developers and for advertisers.    Read the previous details here on how to embed these widgets into AOL Journals. The example below is the Flckr widget. This allows you to show your photos on any website (yours, a tag, most interesting etc). Tags: willspeaking , aol , widgets , tech , goowy , yourminis

The Superbowl this year was probably the first one I have watched right through. It was exciting - well the second half was...   Nail biting down to the last seconds.  I think I finally may have got the idea of American Football (after 16 years, I should! The commercials were interesting. But what is it with half time.  I mean, I know Britney is not available,  but what about GwenS  or even the Spice Girls.

iPhone is great.... except for sending and getting photos The iPhone is a great phone and great device. So slick, so easy to use. Except when getting photos or videos via MMS. . But when other people send photos to the phone (and a lot do),  it's a real pain. It doesn't seem like it wants to get MMS message in an easy way.  It gets delivered as a text message that says "I sent you a multimedia message. Go to viewmymessage.com with user I'd 6hyjkh2k and password how2bad".    No direct one click url. Instead you need to up the browser, and try to remember the unique message user login.... Not a good user experience. Anyone know a way to make this work?  Cheers ;-) Tags: iphone , willspeaking

Logo from Mahalo.com Mahalo Daily is a videocast with Veronica Belmont, updated daily. It's on the people search based product " Mahalo.com" .   They have started a new feature called "In 60 Seconds". Last night they posted Obabma and Hillary in 60 Seconds ,  the night before the Republican debate in 60 seconds , the recent Steve Jobs keynote at Apple in 60 seconds.  It's a great idea to catch some of the main points in 1 minute.      Also check out the quest to meet William Shatner . Tags: mahalo , 60 seconds , willspeaking

Frank IM'd me a link to Valleywag posted yesterday. I normally follow theWag very close, but with all the Microsoft|Yahoo headlines I missed this one.   As you can see, it uses the best photo of me. Anyway, my point in my previous post is to just go back to people and educate them about the product you work on.  Most likely they didn't understand it or sometimes did not even try it and gave up when they heard "AOL"... It's important to follow up. In the previous post, I responded to the users comments directly by email. macb wrote that the personal domain's product did not mention the website can not be hosted. I am following up with the Mail team on this. eolaughlen left a comment on the experience on AOL for Mac. I gave him a pointer to the AOL Desktop client in beta, which fully supports the new Mac OS. allentomdude asked when we would accept OpenId's to leave comments.   beerburpsbeer commented that why didn't we discover this sooner. ...

Waking up to the news of Microsoft offering Yahoo! a huge sum to merge the companies together.    Could be a great win to fast forward Microsoft's Web services side.  And maybe for Yahoo! too.     Lots of synergies here. Video Report Read more here ( Techcrunch ) Tags: tech , yahoo , microsoft , willspeaking