Will Speaking

This is Einstein the dog.  He was spotted at a local car wash in Santa Cruz, with his owner.   What a cute little dog.  However, 2 years ago he got into a bit of a mess, and his back legs got burnt.  So from behind, he's a bit bald on his legs and his tail not as bushy as it should be.   But 2 years on, he's a bundle of joy. Tags: dog , einstein , dogs , pets , car wash , willspeaking , willspeaking.com

Mixx.com continues to add interesting new features.   Right now, you can create your own "niche".  From the mixx page: " A Mixx Community is the ultimate in personalization, making it easier than ever to energize an audience passionate about your particular interest or cause. With just a few simple steps you'll be up and running with your own sub-domain and content you choose already in place. " It's a great idea, and brings "digg like" features to the masses.   The other twist - they do a 50/50 rev share on the google ad's on your niche.    I guess the idea here is for you to get it going, and drive people towards it. Mixx.com seems to be doing well. It's got a good team behind it, including Kerry Parkins.  Go Mixx! Try out my niche (guess what's it's about...)   or start your own . Tags: ...

It's been about 4 months since I left AOL, and now it's time to get back into the swing of things.     I'm now consulting and advising for companies, as I continue to talk to companies.   If you have companies (from early stage startups to bigger companies) that need help, let me know.    - Consulting and advising - Strategies and Product - Product feature set - Technology and implemenation options. Tags: web 2.0 , consulting , early stage , startups , willspeaking.com

Here's a new segment - showdowns.  Quick videos that highlight something we use on the web.  The first one is the Poll Showdown . You know polls, right... Polldaddy.com , Sodahead.com , iPoll and Buzzdash .com are four poll sites.    Which is the best? Enjoy, and let me know what is your fav Poll site.   Here's a quick overview I did for Toby a few months ago on Polls. Tags: polls , web 2.0 , gadgets , polldaddy , sodahead , ipoll , buzzdash , willspeaking , showdown

A couple of people have asked me about building out API's for web services, and what the success of the API's were.       Reflecting on this question, it's been a mixed bag. Some products (mainly enterprise ones) had decent API's - e.g. the LDAP client SDK - though I can't take credit for that - really smart people like Mark Smith and Tim Howes did that.    Development tools I've worked on have done very well but they are all geared towards a certain segment of users anyway (Borland was known for it's super development tools - and quite right too).   But in the consumer space,  it's been a mixed bag of nuts. Here's my list on why they often fail : #1  Too late to market.     The #1 reason they aren't successful is they are too late to market.  Someone else has filled the gap.     Flickr is a good example - an entire eco system of add-on's and photo widgets have been built on the API. #2  Not thou...

This photo is a classic... A cute dog named Milou.    Discovered using Tags: picture of the week , photos , willspeaking , willspeaking.com , stumbleupon aoljurlAdd , aoljurlAdd_2

I met with the folks at Cake Financial 2 weeks ago.  Cake is a startup in San Francisco. Cake exists to help you be a better investor.    It's an interesting market to be in : think about the billions of dollars invested via 401ks,  mutual funds, stock.   And think about some of the companies that do the investing.     Then think about what most people do : they don't know what or how to invest.  The 401K statement stays in the envelope,  hopeful that it is growing.    It's an interesting idea - the basic principal is to help you make better investment decisions.  The idea being that most mutual funds under perform, and beat the market. So why not bring community together to outpeform? At the core, Cake will aggregate all of your financial data - securley - into one dashboard.  So if you have accounts on Fidelty,  Etrade, Charles Schwarb, these can all be viewed and accessed from one place.  That in i...

Youtube rolled out a new update to the home page. When logged in, it shows recommended videos (among other things).     Here's one video that it recommended for me : This is a group from the 80's named " Five Star ".  I used to love this group.  I have no idea how it new what I liked, but it certainly recommended the video and I watched it. What a laugh!   "System Addict" - addicted to computers, dot matrix printers and more.  What a flash back. Tags: recommendations , video , youtube , five star , 80s , flashback , willspeaking.com , willspeaking

Happy Fathers Day to all you dads, pops, fathers out there! This is a picture of Tracy Highnotes English Bulldog.  What a cutie... Tags: happy fathers day , bulldog , photos , aol pictures , willspeaking , willspeaking.com

Great photo on the cover of Metro Silicon Valley . Article is a good read too.  It's here if you want to read the online version. (Adapted from Sarah Lacy's book "Once you're lucky, twice you're good") Tags: willspeaking.com , willspeaking , saving silicon valley , sarah lacy aoljflickrAdd , aoljflickrAdd_2

I got the following email to my AOL account and Yahoo accounts last week.   Essentially it was an email from the IRS that told me about my Stimulus payment. It looked legit, and to most people I think they could give away identity information. It was, of course, a scam. It went to the website. It looked like the IRS. The URL had "irs" in it.  I checked out the page, which asked me to complete another page with information like SS# and Credit Card # so my rebate can come faster.  Then I contacted the website owner and got them to take the site down.    The website owner had no idea this was hosted on the site - which was also hacked.  She took it down very fast. The source code for the pages actually used javascript from the irs.gov pages - essentially using form validation that was written by the government in the scam page.  From paypall, ebay to the IRS,  these scams are far too common. What does a casual user of the internet have to c...

In a previous post, I wrote about re-discovering the Phototalk blog. It carried great photos each week - great to look at. It has been replaced with a new site named Pixcetra.com .  .  It still has some awesome photos, so I recommend you check it out.  However, the new site is a little overwhelming (lots of navigation on the side and the footer is six inches high).    You can explore galleries and spend hours looking at photos though. Remember for these products - it's all about the photo.   Nothing else really matters, but the photo.  Check out Pixcetera.com and the Pixcetera blog. Tags: photo blogs , photoblog , phototalk , pixcetera , picture of the week , willspeaking , willspeaking.com aoljurlAdd , aoljurlAdd_1

Urban Outfitters, that hip, young chain,  held a Fashion Show in Santa Cruz.  I was involved because Tommy did the hair.  And I was the photographer and camera man. Here are some video clips.     I did a rush job on putting them together. Note: - I uploaded these to Youtube and Uncutvideo . - The Uncutvideo transcoding is better with the video image, but sound is not good. - The Youtube video has better sound, but the video is blurry.  Very odd! This was shot with the flip Video camera.   Tags: fashion show , urban outfitters , heat salon , santa cruz , willspeaking , willspeaking.com

I saw this on t he news this morning, and boy is it disturbing.  A man crosses the road, gets knocked over, driver speeds off.      Injured, laying flat out. Guess what. No one helps. No one. Cars drive around the person.    No one gets out. Until about 1 min after the crash, then someone starts to help. Can you believe it?   Wouldn't you rush to dial 911. Stop the traffic.  Comfort the person until they arrive?    No, No and No in this case. It's not a good sign of the human race, if we can't help a fellow person. The man injured is still in hospital in critical condition.  The drivers have yet to be found. Tags: willspeaking , willspeaking.com , distrubing , soapbox

Youtube has added the ability for the producer of the video to add Annotations.  These can be in the form of speech bubbles, popups or flickr like notes.       It's a great feature to allow the producer of the video to add comments, or do some fun things. See an example here, using the cheap mini me magnet video. Tags: youtube , annotations , willspeaking.com , video , willspeaking , mini me , magnet aoljpictureUpload , aoljpictureUpload_1

TheFilter is a newish service that recommends movies and music, based on what you like.   It asks you the normal stuff - what genres,  and then to rate the music before it starts giving you recommendations. Similar to other services, but still very interesting.  It reminded me a little bit of the pitch behind Magnet.     These concepts are interesting - it is really, really difficult to cut through the clutter and discover new content.   I like the name "filter" or filter out the noise, and show me what I really want/like. I think "recommendations" in general is a hard sell to end users. The concept feels like  you have to do a lot of work.   Most people don't have time and will move onto other things.      Far better is to go for the emotion of what's in it for you, whats the pay off.   TheFilter also had Peter Gabriel introduce the product ( a little long intro, but you get the concept)....

I'd forgotten about this gem of a blog from the photo editors at a well known internet company .   I stumbled upon it today. Each week, it is updated with photos of the week, along with a brief description on the photos. This one struck me: (be sure to read the entry behind this photo) Tags: phototalk , photos , willspeaking , willspeaking.com