Archive for Misc
December 21, 2005 at 12:52 pm · Filed under Misc
Due to the Transit strike, I decided I should try walking to work from Brooklyn. I mean, people ride their bikes from BK to Manhattan all the time, how far can it really be? I left my house around 10:15 am, stopped at a local deli and got a nice egg, ham and cheese sandwhich and started my little journey across the Williamsburge bridge with my roommate. 20 minutes into it and my lower leg muscles were starting to hurt a little bit. I think it was because of the uphill climb to the arc of the bridge. Once we passed that part, I was totally fine. Two hours later and I finally made it to work. All in all not a bad walk.
This brings us to Wayfaring.com:
With Wayfaring.com you can explore maps created by others, or create your own personalized map. Share them with friends or the whole world.
And that is exactly what I did. I signed up, which took about 2 minutes and started to create my own custom map. This is a feature that I REALLY wish Google maps had already. Being able to plot multiple points on a map is a really nice feature. Being able to plot out a whole route and share it with the world is even cooler. I think this is a great service and very easy to use. Here is the map of my transit strike journey to work from Brooklyn.
December 19, 2005 at 3:43 pm · Filed under Misc
A group of about 30 web startups have put together an initiative called the Structured Blogging Initiative, in an attempt to bring some order and standardization to the blog-o-sphere. What is their meaning of structure? According to the site:
Structured Blogging is a way to get more information on the web in a way that's more usable. You can enter information in this form and it'll get published on your blog like a normal entry, but it will also be published in a machine-readable format so that other services can read and understand it.
Think of structured blogging as RSS for your information. Now any kind of data - events, reviews, classified ads - can be represented in your blog.
Structured Blogging makes it easy to create, edit, and maintain different kinds of posts and is very similar to an edit form on a blog. The difference is that the structure will let users add specific styles to each type, and add links and pictures for reviews.
This opens up a whole new world of collaborative sharing of information, beyond the boundaries of what is possible and available right now. Imagine blogging about the sale of your 1949 Ford Mustang and having that information automagically posted up on multiple forums and picked up by specialized search engines (like technorati) that search blog sites, but being able to filter your search by model, year, price, etc. Another quote from the site explains it:
Using Structured Blogging, job listings can be created, posted, searched, and found by any service; buyers and sellers of goods can publish what they want to buy or sell and have those posts searched and listed by any number of search services.
Visit the Structured Blogging site to read more
November 29, 2005 at 10:15 am · Filed under Resources, Misc
A list of ten things to keep in mind if you are considering a web startup. Here's a sampling:
#5: Be User-Centric
User experience is everything. It always has been, but it's still undervalued and under-invested in. If you don't know user-centered design, study it. Hire people who know it. Obsess over it. Live and breathe it. Get your whole company on board. Better to iterate a hundred times to get the right feature right than to add a hundred more. The point of Ajax is that it can make a site more responsive, not that it's sexy. Tags can make things easier to find and classify, but maybe not in your application. The point of an API is so developers can add value for users, not to impress the geeks. Don't get sidetracked by technologies or the blog-worthiness of your next feature. Always focus on the user and all will be well.
[source: evhead.com]
November 28, 2005 at 9:15 pm · Filed under Misc
Jason Fried of 37signals mentioned a great book on their blog today. I read the recommended pages (pages 1-6 and 61-64) and I have to agree that the book seems very interesting. Definitely adding this book to my wishlist!
[source: 37signals]
October 30, 2005 at 12:50 pm · Filed under Misc
Web 2.0 - What the heck is it? An idea? A belief? A movement? A purpose? All of the above? Who knows and who cares as long as VC's pay big bucks for "Web 2.0" features 
Can't think of the next big Web 2.0 idea? This may help:
Web Two Point Oh!
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