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Cybersquatting in Narnia

mr pibbs — Thu, 19 Jun 2008 23:00:29 +0000

In September of 2006 Richard Saville-Smith paid 70 pounds for the domain Narnia.mobi. He hoped to save the domain until the release of the second Narnia film. Then he would give it to his son as a birthday present and let his use it for his email. Now, some two weeks before the release of Prince Caspian in Great Brittan Saville-Smith has been served with a 128-page order to release the domain from the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO).

It seems that the company that owns the rights to the works of C S Lewis has decided that after letting the Narnia.mobi domain expire, sit around for three months in the grace period, and then be in the possession of an Edinburgh father for a year and a half they want it back. Apparently the United Nations organization, WIPO, agrees and has felt pressure from a New York firm to try and snatch it back.

This is Ridiculous
Looking at the face value of this, it seems to be Big business and the UN pushing the little guy around. You may add in the fact that Saville-Smith owns 78 domains and the page is parked with some click through ads, but it still seems like an unjust prosecution of an individual. There is no bad faith in action. He doesn’t make any money off the ads, they are on a parking page provided by Sedo (the hosting company). Cybersquatting laws were not intended to squelch free speech and allow lazy trademark holders to stomp all over people.

Poll: Are you tired of online political polls?

mr pibbs — Sat, 14 Jun 2008 02:08:16 +0000

Alright, I am getting tired of the online political poll. They don’t work. I really enjoyed the digg article referencing an MSNBC poll. The link acted like it was some sort of legitimate vote. If we dugg it up enough and the poll was overwhelming, then congress and the entire American public would follow suit. And now Reddit is in on the mix, and a Political Lore Poll is on the front page. There are so many things wrong with this.

If we really want some legitimate statistics on political opinions, why do we rely on continuously biased sources? The user base on most link sharing websites is no accurate depiction of the internet nor the United States. In that spirit, I have included my own poll. See below.

Note: There is a poll embedded within this post, please visit the site to participate in this post's poll.

Browser Statistics and the Two Party System

mr pibbs — Fri, 13 Jun 2008 01:12:04 +0000

There is a growing notion that IE is dieing and Firefox is taking over. With the upcoming introduction of Firefox 3.0, to mostly rave reviews, I was interested how 2008 had been treating the two party system. Using statistics from W3Schools here is an overview of what has happened so far in 2008.

Overall, things are as expected:
Internet Explorer – There is a gradual shift toward more use of IE7 and a phasing out of IE5. Overall there is actually a slight increase in the usage of Internet Explorer in the first four months. I’m sure this can be attributed to some force download or something.
Firefox – During this time period, Firefox’s market share has risen 7.5%. Thats no small order. This can probably be atributed to the downward spiral of Netscape and the lack of any other choice. It’s no small feat rising so high against the goliath microsoft. We shall see what happens on June 17th when Firefox tries to reach a record number of downloads.
Safari – Steadily climbing. People keep buying macs.
Opera – Rock steady, but who really cares.
Check the graph below.

What most folks really car about is the comparison of Firefox to IE. Look below.

2008	IE	Fx
April	54.80%	39.1%
March	53.90%	37.0%
February	54.00%	36.5%
January	54.70%	36.4%

Very Interesting to think about and ponder. Much like national politics, the two party system had locked us in and there are very few signs of change on the horizon. Can someone come and revolutionize the way we think about browsing?

Solar USB Charger? I Need One

mr pibbs — Thu, 12 Jun 2008 01:32:55 +0000

I am very intrigued by solar power. I live in sunny Florida. Very sunny Florida. The sun is just brutal most of the day. My lawn really can’t handle it. So why can’t we utilize this vast amount of energy? There are a ton of reasons, and most of them boil down to how much it would cost. It seems that solar energy is best utilized on a small scale right now, doing things like charging batteries.

When I watched this, I thought that it would be perfect for use when I was in the car. Shoot, why not include a strip of solar panels in the roof of the car? Another interesting idea considers the amout of light in offices. Why not harness that power to charge our laptop batteries that sit on the desk most of the time anyway. This solution is nice because the current infrastructure could easily support it. Well, maybe one day I’ll put some solar panels on my roof.

4 collar cool? try 23

mr pibbs — Wed, 11 Jun 2008 02:30:47 +0000

You might remember the young gentleman who gained popularity as the four popped collar kid. There was a great demotivational poster made with his picture. The four collar cool kid was pretty outrageous – that was, until I come across the 23 collar cool guy. Check it out.

You may be four collar cool, but are you 23 collar cool? Check Wacky Archives for the full story.

3 Internet Rap Videos that Everyone Needs to Watch

mr pibbs — Mon, 09 Jun 2008 23:01:50 +0000

Talking to some folks at work I found myself referencing internet culture with which they were unfamiliar. I often forget about the internet’s shared culture phenomenon and how not everyone is engulfed with it as I. This being the case, I decided to post what I consider where the top three rap videos that every internet citizen should view.

These three videos were determined based on their production quality, entertainment value and above all their ability to stand beside more “legitimate” hip-hop music. Really, I just wanted to be able to reference these cultural icons in real life.

How to Name Your Webcomic

mr pibbs — Sat, 07 Jun 2008 20:57:42 +0000

As a follow up to the previous article concerning Monetizing a Webcomic here is one strategy:

I suppose it worked for them.

4 Steps to Monetize a Webcomic

mr pibbs — Sat, 07 Jun 2008 03:22:56 +0000

A few months ago I discovered XKCD. It was hard to ignore as every comic was religiously submitted to digg. I ended up reading a number of strips in one sitting and found I was really enjoying the whit mixed with humor. It wasn’t long until I started asking the question: how is this making any money?

XKCD is a very straight forward site. There are no ads on the blog – no typical blog monetization. So I started reading about how people are able to make a living out of giving these comics away online. Based on some readings and models, here is a skeleton step by step to monetize a webcomic. Before we begin, we must assume two things: One, the comic is good and say something that people want to hear. Two, you are already familiar with how to monetize a more mainstream blog.

4 Steps to Monetize a Webcomic

Give them away

The way of the subscription is out. Free content is in. This is nothing new, but webcomics are a different sort of beast. Because of the ease of reading a simple strip, web traffic and page views can easily exceed the standard expectancy. How many times have you sat and read 5 or 10 different issues at once?

With this in mind, navigation is the key. Sometimes comics work very linearly and therefore step by step navigation makes sense. Other times, a “most popular” list can generate a large number of page views for single visitors. The “random” button make a lot of sense with the webcomic as you can shoot the reader into a stream and draw them into the comic through any post. The navigation you require should reflect what is best for your comic. Make the comics easy to find and follow.

Why all bloggers want to be like Andy Rooney

mr pibbs — Fri, 06 Jun 2008 01:16:22 +0000

Have you ever watched Andy Rooney? He is often very entertaining and has a wonderful outlook and interesting perspective. At first reading one might assume this is the reason that all bloggers want to be Andy Rooney, but not so.

The rational behind the aforementioned claim depends on Rooney’s ability to tangentially comment on his own everyday life and keep viewers engaged. This is most apparent when you read a transcript of his show. I always noticed how he skipped from topic to topic without transition, but reading it show just how many opinions and asides are covered in two minutes. Watch the clip below. Read the transcript here.

I especially enjoy his candor toward the letter writer and toward the idea of art. It was funny, random, interesting, and it asked for free stuff. Sounds like a blog post to me.

Confession Site: a Web 2.0 model

mr pibbs — Thu, 05 Jun 2008 02:38:19 +0000

Web 2.0 is many things. It is about the network as a platform and utilizing the something or other. That being said, we all know the main purpose of Web 2.0 is to have users create content for publishers. Publishers hide the fact that they make so much money off of their users by promoting the social aspect of sites and the communal benefits. It works, and the general web public seems to embrace it as well.

Within this system one strong model for success is the “confession” website. The first site that comes to most folks’ minds is PostSecret. This prime example is a website where individuals mail a postcard to Germantown, MD. On the back of each postcard a secret is written. These are scanned and then uploaded to the blog.

PostSecret has been wildly popular. With 146 million hits at the time of this writing, people love to read others juicy secrets. There have also been a number of books published with these secrets published therein.

This model is clear. People come to your site and share their confessions. Others flock to read them all. The publisher makes some money off of the numerous hits or a possible book deal.