Sifry’s Alerts

I saw this link on Gawker today (keep it up, folks), and saw myself reflected all too well in its 10 admonitions.  Something for all bloggers to read before they hit the "Post" button.

I’ve just put up a new addition to the Technorati site – a sidebar for
Mozilla/Netscape and IE.  When you find an interesting site or blog,
simply cut-and-paste the URL into the Technorati sidebar, and get an
up-to-date list of blogs that link to that URL. It’s like getting
instant reviews and commentary on what’s going on on the web.



I like going to my favorite news sources, like the New York Times, The Washington Post, Slashdot, etc., and when I find an interesting link, I paste it into the sidebar so that I can see what interesting conversations are going on about the article.  Depending on the article, I get a glimpse into different communities of thought – Articles in the Times about missile defense bring up warbloggers, articles about technology bring out the geeks.  It adds a metalayer to browsing. 



It would be cool to have the sidebar automatically load the watchlist for any URL that I’m browsing on, automatically.  Any Javascript or XUL programmers out there ready to take on that challenge?

Kiruba Shankar has posted an interview with Cameron Marlow, MIT Media Lab researcher and author of Blogdex. 

5) Ok, I want you to be honest here. Forget you are the creator of Blogdex. Put yourself in the shoes of a normal guy who blogs. Now, between, Blogdex, DayPop and Technorati , which do you think is the best popularity index ? Why?




Well, each of these provides a slightly different take on the problem. As popularity indexes, Daypop and Blogdex have pretty much converged on a similar set of statistics, where the Daypop Top 40 probably has the more usable interface.





For me, the important services provided by each of these systems are more diverse than "popularity index" suggests. Daypop provides weblog and news search, Technorati focuses on giving webloggers their inbound links, and Blogdex is a historical index of link diffusion. As time progresses, I think that the tools and user interfaces will continue to diverge until each of them provides for a unique niche.

Today’s "Fresh Air" with Terry Gross will feature civil liberties lawyer David Cole, who opposes Total Information Awareness and other security measures implemented after 9/11, and lawyer Douglas Kmiec who supports them.  Fresh Air should also be available on the web after 12/19/02.

We’ll meet at Henry’s Hunan on 1016 Bryant St in San Francisco at 5:30PM on Monday, December 16.  Doc Searls and Marc Canter have already confirmed, among others.  Please do try to arrive on-time, because the official Creative Commons reception at SomArts starts at 6PM, and we don’t want to be too late to the reception.  See you there!

Don’t forget the Creative Commons release party, this Monday, December 16,th at SomArts in San Francisco.  If you’re going to be there and want to get together for dinner either before of afterwards, leave a comment on the blog entry. I’m thinking about either Cafe Moda or The Left Coast Cafe, both of which are a stone’!
s throw away from SomArts.  Of course, there’s always the Mars Cafe, which has decent food nearby too.  Invite your friends, but don’t forget to RSVP to the Creative Commons folks if you’re coming!

News.com reports that Microsoft is having problems with its set of new home WiFi products, which have otherwise received good reviews. 

Users have reported a myriad of problems, all involving dropped connections, and most affecting the company’s MN-500 Wireless Base Station and MN-100 10/100 Ethernet Wired Base Station. Some users said connections were failing every half hour.




A Microsoft representative confirmed the troubles Monday and said the company planned to issue a firmware update to correct them.