Racism of the Day

My favorite comment on this topic was Jon Stewart’s. “So does being a racist hurt or help Allen in Virginia???”

Racism of the Day

…macaca!!!

Sen. George Allen (Racist-VA) is the perfect example of the bumbling morons we keep electing: someone who’s not even clever to couch his racism in rhetoric, but uses the most unexpectedly obnoxious kind of slur to let us know how he really feels about…uhhh…people who aren’t white (if you don’t already know, “macaque” is a very nice racial slur across French speaking Africa/Europe/etc).

Nice one George, way to vividly demonstrate my recent points about institutionalized racism.

(Via BGSL.)

<b>The Real Problem With Islam</b>

Very interesting take. I would certainly agree that education tends to push people towards having more context and being better able to see both sides of an issue – look at American politics today. I wonder if sometime soon we’ll see an article like this that says “You should have to have a formal education to be an elected official in the US”. Then again, W went to some pretty good schools, huh?

The Real Problem With Islam

It’s not any of the inanity you hear from our leaders (“fascism”, etc).

The real problem with Islam is, in fact, very simple. It’s imams/maulvis/etc – the guys that run mosques, the Islamic versions of priests/ministers/rabbis/etc.

(Via BGSL.)

Tiny Q&A Session

Seth Godin is just too awesome. As much as I want to strongly despise him for being so smart, you just have to love this.

Tiny Q&A Session

Just email me if you’re
interested in buying the books and coming and I’ll send you my fax
number. First 31 people to fax over a receipt get a seat. If I get more
response, I’ll do a second session a week later.

(Via Seth’s Blog.)

Slashdot | Will Ad Networks Compete for Your Ads?

Hey, they put me on Slashdot today!

Slashdot | Will Ad Networks Compete for Your Ads?

TechCrunch has an article today about a new product called RMX Direct that holds a real-time auction for every ad on a site. Networks and advertisers bid based on the quality of the user (geography, site, time of day, etc). This could be game-changing for sites and blogs; if networks have to compete, will we see AdSense disclose more about its payouts to publishers? Will other networks like Advertising.com and ValueClick participate, or will they continue to force publishers to make hard choices? In a lot of ways, this has similarities to the challenges that Linux faces in a Windows world. The open source community has been fighting for more than a decade to make the progress it has, and we’re not there yet — will online media be different?

(Via Slashdot.)

Amex Events and Rewards via RSS

I logged into my Amex account to pay my bill today, and they had an “RSS” link. I grabbed it, and it’s a feed of various events, rewards opportunities, etc. Pretty nice, really – one less thing to clutter my inbox.

Entrepreneurship, Innovation, and Psychopathologies

What a great quote!!!

Entrepreneurship, Innovation, and Psychopathologies

This has been said before and in different ways, but I was reading Eric Hoffer on mass movements this morning and I came across this gem of an epigram:

The well-adjusted make poor prophets. On the other hand, those who are at war with the present have an eye for the seeds of change and the potentialities for small beginnings.

Lovely stuff, with obvious applicability for many of my favorite wild duck entrepreneurs.

(Via Paul Kedrosky’s Infectious Greed.)

Google Porn?

Should the RMX allow porn? Check out Pornotube too. Seems like the time has come.

Google Porn?

People watching Google Video closely noticed a change this week in the upload area – the restrictions on uploading “pornographic or obscene” material is now just a restriction on “obscene” material. They’ve also added a “mature and adult” category to the genres and removed (I believe) a box on the initial uploading page that must be checked where the uploader certifies that the “video is not pornographic or obscene material”.

This may or may not mean Google is allowing, or preparing to allow, porn. Videos containing nudity are clearly available on the site, and many were uploaded months ago (for example, is this porn?). But nothing hardcore seems to be on the site.

Also, the box requiring uploaders to certify that content is not pornographic is still in certain areas, such as the “edit video” area of the site. And the terms and conditions still prohibit pornographic material.

See our profile of Pornotube, a porn specific YouTube competitor, as well.

(Via TechCrunch.)

The Coming Open Ad Market

Fred Wilson covers RMX Direct launch in “A VC”. He’s not certain that networks will jump on board, but I think he misses the fact that Right Media already has 50 networks in 5 continents using their technology. The big question is: which of the Big 4 networks (ValueClick, Advertising.com, YPN, AdSense) participate, and which try to attack? Sounds like Tribal is of the “attack” mindset based on the comments on the TechCrunch piece, but since they’re not Big 4, it really doesn’t matter.

The Coming Open Ad Market

I believe that ad networks are going to dominate online advertsing in the long run and posted my thoughts on why I think this a couple months ago. If you take those thoughts to the next level, then a system to optimize ad networks for the publisher is the next logical step.

We will see if RMX Direct gets traction. There are some issues they will have to solve. First, is it simple to deploy? I’ll let you know the answer to that shortly. Second, will third party ad networks agree to work with them? There is some discussion about that subject in the comments to the techcrunch post. And third, and most importantly, will RMX Direct filter out spam, viruses, and unattractive ads from my blog. They have something called MediaGuard which purports to do this. If it works well, they have solved a big issue with an open ad marketplace.

(Via A VC.)

RMX Direct: alternative ad networks battle for your blog

RMX Direct hits TechCrunch…

RMX Direct: alternative ad networks battle for your blog

New York based RightMedia has launched a beta version of a new advertising system that lets website publishers participate in multiple ad networks and automatically display ads from whichever network will pay the highest price per impression for their ad space in real time bidding. The service, called RMX Direct, also has a filtering system to prevent malware distribution through ads and enforces publisher criteria.

(Via TechCrunch.)

DSL vs Cable Modem

Any conclusive preference here? I have cable now and it goes down about 2-3 times a month. Grrr. DSL seems to be about the same price – more reliable?