Long Tail Blogging is Dying?
Just read an article in the Guardian The long tail of blogging is dying (Found via Donald Clark).
But recently – over the past six months – a new trend: fewer blogs with links, and fewer with any contextual comment. Some weeks, apart from the splogs, there would be hardly anything. I didn’t think we’d suddenly become dull.
He points to backup evidence of this from a NYT article and based on
Technorati’s 2008 survey of the state of the blogosphere, which found that only 7.4m out of the 133m blogs it tracks had been updated in the past 120 days. As the New York Times put it, "that translates to 95% of blogs being essentially abandoned".
I don’t doubt that a lot of blogs are started and abandoned. People change their focus. Lives get busy. Blogging definitely takes work.
I have a limited view of blogging, but I do get to see quite a bit because of Browse My Stuff.
What about eLearning blogs?
Because of eLearning Learning, I track eLearning blogs closely.
When I go back and look at: More eLearning Bloggers – many of the new bloggers stopped blogging soon after. They had the experience and then stopped. This somewhat supports the Technorati numbers.
While there are these abandoned blogs, overall I believe there’s been a nice growth of eLearning blogs from a wider variety of sources over the past few years.
When I first started blogging in 2006, it seemed like all the bloggers were exactly the same people who spoke at conferences. Now, there are more practitioner blogs . And there are more good quality vendor blogs. I remember asking Product Vendor Blogs - Where are They? Now I find quite a few on eLearning Learning. And the analysts have joined in (Brandon Hall and Bersin have blogs).
I’m sure that this will continue to change, but I would question the notion that long tail blogging is dying.
Possible Reasons for the Guardian Drop Off
Over the past three years, I’ve certainly noticed that while I read (actually skim dive skim) through a lot of blogs, I find I spend less and less time on mainstream publications. They simply are too general in most cases. I used to read the Guardian all the time. Now, I only saw this article because of Donald Clark’s mention.
I do think that some of the limited kinds of blog posts that are essentially – here’s an interesting article – has moved to twitter or other status updates. It’s not worth a blog post if that’s all you are going to say.
And, honestly, I’d much rather engage in a discussion with a blogger than with a mainstream publication that will never engage back.
Twitter Not a Good Substitute
I personally don’t think that Twitter is a good replacement for blogging as learning tool. It’s great for quick sharing. And quick, limited conversations. Deeper discussion requires blogging.
You can find a lot more thoughts around blogging via my post:
Top Ten Reasons To Blog and Top Ten Not to Blog
GChart 2.5: Faster, sharper, canvas-rendered, pie, line, and area charts
John Gunther has released GChart 2.5, a client-side library that adds a new canvas-rendering option for sharper, better looking, alpha-transparent, pie, line, and area charts.
John told us:
Canvas-rendering corrects GChart’s most serious visual quality limitations (including the most often mentioned problem by its users: the banded-filled pie slice).
Coupled with its existing feature set and ease of GWT integration, the canvas-rendering option makes GChart an excellent choice for those who want to add basic charts to a GWT application without a lot of fuss.
To access these features, you’ll need to plug an external canvas library into GChart (GWTCanvas in the gwt-incubator is reccommended) as described in detail in the setCanvasFactory method.
With the external canvas in place, the next step is to tell GChart you want a curve to be “continuously filled” by invoking setFillSpacing(0).
With each such continuously filled curve, GChart automatically exploits your external canvas library to improved the quality and speed of that curve’s rendering. Specifically, banded-filled pie slices become solid filled, dotted connecting lines become continuously connected, and (the biggest stretch) bar charts become area charts. See the setFillSpacing method’s javadocs for a detailed description of how each existing symbol type implements this new “continuously-filled”, canvas-powered, rendering option.
Note that GChart’s previous HTML-only rendering is still available, and is the default rendering mode if you don’t bother to plug in an external canvas.
Check out the demo
More than you ever want to see about encoding
Paul Baukaus linked to jsescape, a little form that shows escaping and unescaping across a number of encodings.
Andrea Giammarchi had his own post on encodings in a different way…. as he talked about
en-code which you can check out in action here on the page that lets you do simple encodings, especially for source code, in short order.
GeoMaker - geo locations as microformats or a map from texts or URLs
As preparation for an upcoming tech talk about Placemaker I thought it would be good to take a bit of the pain out of the geolocation service by making an interface for it. Placemaker works the following way: you post some content or a URL to it, it goes through the content or gets the content from the URL and analyzes it. It then finds geographical locations in the text and disambiguates them (for example to skip names like “Jack London” and not consider it the city London). Finally you get it back as XML.
The annoying thing is that Placemaker only support POST request and does not have a JSON output - for now. GeoMaker allows non-developers to enter some text or a URL, filter the results (using YUI datatable) to remove false positives (no system is perfect) and get the embed code for a Yahoo Map or a list of microformatted locations as copy+paste. See the screencast to get the end user experience:
Of course, every time you build something like that, red-blooded developers will ask for an API to do the same thing (and pointing them to Placemaker wasn’t enough). So here it is:
http://icant.co.uk/geomaker/api.php takes two parameters: url of the web document to load and output which could be map, kml, microformats, csv, or json (with callback for JSON-P). Using this you can analyze a url in JavaScript and get the data back as an array:
The Ajaxian.com output right now would be:
-
geomaker(
-
[
-
{“lat”:“42.3586″,“lon”:“-71.0567″,
-
“title”:“Boston, MA, US”,“match”:“Boston”},
-
{“lat”:“42.3586″,“lon”:“-71.0567″,
-
“title”:“Boston, MA, US”,“match”:“Boston, MA”},
-
{“lat”:“40.7075″,“lon”:“-106.918″,“title”:“Clark, CO, US”,
-
“match”:“Clark, Co”},
-
{“lat”:“42.3115″,“lon”:“43.3658″,“title”:“Georgia”,
-
“match”:“Geo”},
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{“lat”:“44.9601″,“lon”:“7.16229″,
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“title”:“Rey, Piedmont, IT”,“match”:“Rey”}
-
])
-
Modernizr: HTML5 and CSS3 detection
Modernizr is a new library that detects various HTML5 and CSS3 features and lets you know so you can use them:
Writing conditional CSS with Modernizr
Now, once your page loads, Modernizr will run and go through all of its tests. It will automatically add all the classes to the <body> element of the page, and these classes will be along the lines of body.feature or body.no-feature, with the former indicating that the current browser supports that specific feature and the latter indicating that the browser does not support the feature.
Additionally, it will create a new JavaScript object in the global scope, called Modernizr. This object will contain properties for each of the features that Modernizr detects for, and their value will be set to TRUE or FALSE depending on the browser’s support for it.
What you can do from this point on is write pseudo-IF/ELSE statements in your CSS. Let’s look at an example from the Modernizr.com site itself:
CSS:
In the above example, we’re doing an “IF” condition in CSS: IF the browser supports both CSS gradients, THEN apply this background property to the #main element (instead of the original background property).
Writing conditional JavaScript with Modernizr
When leveraging Modernizr in your JavaScript, it’s as straight-forward as it can be to do IF-conditions based on what the browser currently supports:
CSS:
We are seeing a growth in these kinds of tools and shims to get HTML5 features into developers hands. Another great site to help is the new HTML5 Doctor.
Buy Twitter Followers: 100,000 for $3479
What is the secret to increase Twitter followers? You can easily buy Twitter followers for a few dollars. As huge twitter follower counts represent prestige, some of them might actually be bought.
uSocial twitter follower service lets you actually buy Twitter followers. I checked their prices and a starting package will get you 1000 twitter followers for $87 to a new or existing account in 7 days. You can buy 10,000 twitter followers for $372.75 in 45 days. So you want more….
How about 100,000 Twitter followers – that is sure to make you famous on Twitter. You can spend $3,479 right now and buy 100,000 twitter followers, which are assured over the next 365 days! You might also join the Twitter celebrities.
And this is just one of them. A quick Google search will reveal many more buy Twitter follower services like TweeterFollowers where VIP members can get up to 300 followers per day! TwitterPromoter lets you buy 5,000 followers in 20 days for $250 only. TwitterFollowers lets you buy 100 followers for $5. Twitboost will get you 5000 followers for $650 in 30 days.
As Twitter is now bigger than Digg and Twitter addiction is on the rise, Twitter marketing is going to become big business and its actually a form of investment to have more Twitter followers. I am sure there are many people out there who are buying Twitter followers to enhance their Twitter profile and the race is on to get the maximum Twitter followers. How can anyone find out if someone bought followers, as they will gradually increase in number simulating normal growth, without raising suspicion.
Of course the best way to get thousands of Twitter followers every day is to get on the suggested users list, and people are willing to pay $120,000 dollars per year to get on the that list. While selling Twitter followers was frowned upon, some used the charity deal to increase Twitter followers.
Anyway all this adds a lot of distrust to Twitter follower counts and flaunting your steeply rising counts may not be believable anymore. Follow us on Twitter for free, and find truly amazing genuine Twitter followers.
Copyright 2009. Quick Online Tips. All rights reserved.
How to Create Cool Usernames
Guest post by Srikanth
Username has many important qualities, it instantly represents you. If you join a social networking site, then you need to have a cool username to gain focus and visibility. Username should be creative, unique and should be able to represent you in all means.
Consider Twitter for instance, people look at your username before looking at your profile, so it should also attract users to your profile to become popular on social networking sites. For email you have to choose a simple and short username such that people can remember it easily.
Think creative when you are choosing a username, try to be different at the same time. So how can you be creative and unique? Well here is how!
- First thing to remember is others need to remember your username, so keep it short and cool.
- Misspells have a great impact and look different from others. For example: you can use krazy instead of crazy. But too many misspells spoils the beauty of the thing.
- Using too many numbers and special characters is not advisable. You can use one or two numbers like your birthday at the end of the name e.g. krazy11
- Most of the sites do not accept special characters in the username field so check for its availability first.
- As microblogging is the hot trend, people can write you short messages up to 140 characters only. So keep your username short to save characters.
- Your username should not be a tough twister and it should be easy to pronounce so that you do not find it difficult to tell others.
- If possible try to include your first name in the username so that people can easily find you.
If you are not sure about a cool username, then you might want to check out this username generator website to generate a username for you. All that you have to do is type in your name and grab the username that has been generated.
If you are looking for a username for your business or want to create an Email ID that is cool and represents you perfectly then:
- Try to abbreviate your organization name. If it has multiple words the at the end of it add a word that represents your product. For example software company A—- B—- C—- try something like abctech@email.com
- Twitter is a good platform to promote your business. To gain more followers on Twitter use the same trick as above, do not worry if the username is little long. As long as it says what your business is all about. For example ABC_softTech
- You can also use your company URL as a username so that you best represent your company.
To check availability of the username on various sites check out usernamecheck.com and know the availability on various social networking sites and web based email services in seconds.
If you have selected a unique username, then it should be available on most of the sites or if it is a common one try making something unique, creative and special.
Guest blogger Srikanth writes on Tech Inspiration blog about tips, gadgets, and technology. You can also write a guest article and share your tips and tricks.
Copyright 2009. Quick Online Tips. All rights reserved.
Top Brands Introduce Extra Large Ads
What are extra large ads for you – 768×90px or 160×600px banners? Well XXL extra large size advertisements went live on top websites like CNN, New York Times as consumers continue searching for content between the ads.
I spotted this huge Mercedes ad on New York Times
Online Publishers Association announced that several popular members, whose sites reach 68% of the total U.S. Internet audience, have begun offering the three new larger new ad units, namely
- The Fixed Panel: 336 wide x 700 tall, remains constant as the user scrolls to the top and bottom of the page
- The XXL Box: 468 wide x 648 tall, opens for seven seconds to 936 wide x 648 tall with 1/24x frequency
- The Pushdown: 970 wide x 418 tall, opens to display the advertisement and then after seven seconds rolls up to 970 wide x 66 tall, with 1/24x frequency.
The Online Publishers Association (OPA) represents high-quality online content providers before the advertising community, the press, the government and the public and comprises of some of the most trusted andwell-respected media brands. Some of the top advertiser brands leveraging the new OPA ad units include Bank of America, Cleveland Clinic, CNA, Frito-Lay, Mercedes-Benz etc.
Some of the top 37 publishers brands on the internet where you can now these OPA extra large ad units now or some time in the near future include About.com, ABCNews.com, Bizjournals, Bloomberg, BusinessWeek, CBS Interactive, CNN.com, Discovery Communications, Disney Online, ESPN, Forbes.com, FOXNews Digital, iVillage Network, Lifetime Digital, msnbc.com, MTV Networks, NBC Universal, National Geographic, New York Media, The New York Times, Thomson Reuters, Time Inc., USA Today, Wall Street Journal Digital Network, The Washington Post, and Weather.com.
Of course bigger ads lead to better visibility and more brand presence. For CPM advertisers, the bigger the ads are, the better it is, as they pay for ad impressions. Since these large ad spaces on top sites would be very expensive, they will be afforded by only top advertisers. Moreover, these ads look great because of high ad quality as top brands would have engaged top ad designers.
How large will ads get? I expect even larger ads in the future. They are still better than the full page ads!
Copyright 2009. Quick Online Tips. All rights reserved.
Thursday’s Rates following the Jobs Report
The Jobs Report was released this morning reporting unemployment trending higher at 9.5% and another 467,000 jobs lost last month which was worse than expected figures. Other points to consider is that people who have lost their unemployment benefits are not factored in this figure nor are those people who are out of work and do not qualify to receive unemployment benefits (such as some commissioned sales people or self-employed). This dismal news is impacting the stock market with the DOW down 178 (at the time of writing this post) causing mortgage rates to improve this morning. Mortgage rates remain volatile with new intraday rate sheets being issued every three hours on average.
Don’t forget that Snohomish County’s recorder’s office is closed today and King County’s will be closed on Monday, July 6, 2009 due to budget issues (no recordings of transactions will be taking place). Tomorrow the markets (and counties) will be closed in observance of Independence Day. Have a happy, safe and sane 4th!
Conforming Mortgage Rates (loan amounts up to $417,000 for 1-unit properties). The conforming rate quote below is based on owner occupied with a mid-low credit score of 740 or higher, “full doc” purchase with a sales price of $500,000 and a loan amount of $400,000 single family dwelling (non condo). This scenario includes reserves (taxes & insurance) not being waived. Rates quoted are priced based on a 30-40 day closing with no prepayment penalties on any of the rates quoted below.
30 Year Fixed @ 1 Point: 5.000% (APR 5.157%). 
0.125% to rate from last week’s post.
15 Year Fixed @ 1 Pt: 4.375% (APR 4.637%). 0.125% to rate.
10/1 ARM 5/2/5 CAPS w/1 Pt: 4.625% (APR 5.885%). Same rate as posted last week.
7/1 ARM 5/2/5 CAPS w/1 Pt: 4.500% (APR 6.257%). Same rate as posted last week.
5/1 ARM 5/2/5 CAPS with 1 Point: 3.875% (APR 6.389%) 0.25% to rate. ~ Priced with 0 Points: 4.375% (APR 6.487%) 0.25% to rate.
Conforming High Balance Rates. Pricing is based on the same criteria above except where the loan amount is $417,001 – $567,500 for properties in King, Snohomish or Pierce Counties; specifically priced for a sales price of $625,000 and a $500,000 loan amount.
30 Year Fixed @ 1 Pt: 5.125% (APR 5.381%) 0.125% to rate.
Jumbo/Non-Conforming. Loan amounts up to 1 million for ARMs and 1.5 million for the 30 year fixed. The quotes below are based on 740 or higher credit scores with 80% loan to value with a loan amount of $650,000.
30 Year Fixed at 1 point: 6.125% (APR 6.268). Same as posted last week.
7/1 ARM 5/2/5 CAPS @ 1 Pt: 5.875% (APR 6.926%). Same…
5/1 ARM 5/2/5 CAPS @ 1 Pt: 5.375% (APR 6.947%). Same…
FHA. Pricing based on credit score of 620 or better and loan amounts up to $417,000 for FHA in King, Snohomish and Pierce Counties.
30 Year Fixed @ 1 Pt: 5.250% (APR 6.091%). 0.125% to rate.
FHA-Jumbo/High Balance. Pricing based on loan amounts from $417,001 – $567,500 for King, Snohomish and Pierce Counties with a 660 or higher mid-credit score.
30 Year Fixed @ 1 Pt: 5.250% (APR 6.087%). 0.25% to rate.
FHA 203 (k) Rehab-Streamline. Pricing criteria same as FHA above with loan amounts up to $417,000. This scenario is based on a $400,000 base loan amount.
30 Year Fixed @ 1 Pt: 5.500% (APR 6.346%). Same rate as posted last week.
VA. Pricing based on credit scores of 620 or better based on loan amounts up to $417,000. VA loan amounts over $417,000 are also available.
30 Year Fixed @ 1 Pt: 5.250% (APR 5.360%). 0.25% to rate.
USDA Rural Housing. 100% financing with income limits and properties must be located within a specific area (this program is generally available in rural towns with populations of 10,000 or less). For eligibility, click here.
30 Year Fixed @ 1 Pt: 5.500% (APR 5.828%). Same rate as posted last week.
Prime Rate (what HELOCs are based on): 3.25%
This is just a small sample available of rates and products. This is not a guarantee nor is it a commitment of interest rate. New rate sheets are currently issued around every 4 hours.
For purposes of this post: “1 point” is 1% of the loan amount and would be reflected in line 801 or 808 (depending on whether the loan is brokered or not). Unless the rate is bought down; there are zero discount points referenced which would be reflected on line 802 of the GFE/HUD-1 Settlement Statement. Zero points means no points are paid on lines 801, 802 or 808 (this applies to all rates quoted on this post).
Rates are as of Thursday, July 2, 2009 at 8:50 a.m. and may change at any time. Available programs may change at anytime as well. Check out RCG’s Mortgage Info page for live rate quotes via my Twitter feed.
Now that you’ve read the post, it’s time to head over to Rain City Guide and leave your thoughts on:
Thursday’s Rates following the Jobs Report
Similar Posts:
Notice of Trustee Sales v. Trustee Deeds
Each month, Alan from Seattle Bubble religiously posts the Notice of Trustee Sale (NTS) numbers for King County. I’m very appreciative of his work because it saves me time each month so thanks again, Alan. Cruising SB last night, I found Alan’s numbers alarming for June: 1615 NTS were filed. Here are more numbers from Alan:
King County Notice of Trustee Sales
6/2009 – 1615
6/2008 – 576
6/2007 – 304
6/2006 – 299180% YOY (280% of last year)
The last few months:
6/2009 – 1615
5/2009 – 992
4/2009 – 938
3/2009: 1089
2/2009: 838
1/2009: 909
12/2008: 660
11/2008: 540
10/2008: 643
9/2008: 607
8/2008: 575
7/2008: 728
If we’re seeing 180% increase year over year with notice of trustee sale filings, then where are the REOs? Well as it turns out, if you compare the trustee deed filings for the same month, you’ll see that a low percentage of Notice of Trustee Sales actually go all the way through the auction process. Here’s comparison data courtesy of Jess and Julie Lyda, which gives us a visual comparing NTS v. Trustee Deeds, which means title changed hands from the owner in default to a new owner. That new owner could be the bank/lender or someone who was the high bidder at the trustee sale. Here’s a link to a larger image of the graph.
So what assumptions can we make given facts that we already know? We already know that banks and lenders are postponing the majority of trustee sales in King County. We don’t have any data as to how long postponements are lasting. If a homeowner is trying for a short sale or loan modification, we do know that the average wait time for banks to process these requests could easily be months based on nationwide reports from Realtors, home buyers and homeowners. We also know that there are many banks who have turned into zombies, waiting for their number to be called and the regulators to show up on a Friday afternoon. Postponing the losses from a foreclosure means the bankers can collect a paycheck for a few more months.
We also know that 50% of all loan modifications re-default by the 6 month mark. This pushes the foreclosure out longer and increases the overall losses to the bank/lender. Another assumption we can make comparing data from Alan and Julie is that hundreds of REOs will be coming back on the market each month, which will put further pressure on home values. Prime delinquencies are starting to surge and so are delinquencies in the upper home price ranges.
With what we know, home values will continue to feel pressure from many angles including higher inventory levels, continued tightening of underwriting guidelines, the lower prices of REO resales and short sales.
More on home price declines:
House Prices: The Long Tail from Calculated Risk
Case Shiller: Anemic Spring Bounce in April from Seattle Bubble
CR explains the difference between a bottom in housing starts and new construction homes and a bottom in residential resale homes in this post; Housing: Two Bottoms.
Now that you’ve read the post, it’s time to head over to Rain City Guide and leave your thoughts on:
Notice of Trustee Sales v. Trustee Deeds
Similar Posts:
- How to Find Short Sales in the MLS
- Hold On To Your Hats! Sunday Night Stats
- Sunday Night Stats – King County
- Are Short Sales Affecting our Home Prices?
- Sunday Night Stats
