Chris Ritke is thinking and writing...: May 2005

Brendan's Blog

My good friend Brendan just started his own blog with some really amazing photos. I know there's a lot more great stuff to come!

The Long Tail

There's a lot of talk going on about the 'head' and the 'long tail' here and here, for example. We're actually trying to address this issue with 49media - the Channels page focuses more towards the middle, whereas the New page is more of a 'tail' thing - where visitors can browse the newest weblog posts the server is finding, with no filtering on 'important' or 'headness'. And people coming into the site for one thing will automatically be exposed to other items from the middle and the tail - which will hopefully be a good experience for them and generate more interest in middle and tail things. I know I haven't turned my TV on in a very long time.

San Francisco Podcastng Meetup

Uta and I were at the Podcasting Meetup in San Francisco last night - there were a lot of great discussions on podcasting and some great people (in no particular order):

Rock and Roll Geek Show
Say Yum
Jewish Media Conspiracy
Podtech Infotalk
The Retro Podcast
Lending A Voice
Think Future
IT Conversations

Ha! I bet you didn't notice that I'm writing this on Friday but acting like it's Thursday - and Blogger is helping me out with that because I can just change the date on the post. Pretty cool how at least on the internet you can turn back time. I wish I could do it in real life.

Oh - and I need a haircut. They're one of the few things I like about Germany. Too much other stuff sucks though.

A Green Thing Video: I Miss You

So my wife and I separated a year ago - which is fine, nothing really out of the ordinary these days. But - then she decided she wouldn't let me see my kids anymore. Why? Because she thinks the kids are her property and she can do wtf she wants. But you know what the worst part is: they're in Germany, and the german courts are pretty much saying: "If the mother wants to do this, then she can do it." In other words: They don't give a shit. They don't care what it's doing to the kids. I hate Germany for that.

This movie is for my kids - I love and miss them very much.

A Green Thing: I Miss You.
57sec. 2.7MB

49Media & Sophie Marceau

Well, well, well - what do 49Media.com & Sophie Marceau have in common? Well, 49Media finds images (among other things!) in blogs and lets people browse and search them.

Sophie Marceau on the other hand, just had a 'wardrobe malfunction' - similar to the one at the super bowl a while back. Only this time it was at the Film Festival in Cannes, France.

Now the googlebot visits 49media quite often because it's constantly changing - it's finding new stuff every minute. So Google indexes our page with all of the photos with Sophie's wardrobe malfunction and when people search for Sophie Marceau in Google up pops 49Media with all of it's links to weblogs with photos of her... well, you know.

It's kinda cool how this stuff works!

Green Thing #21

Green Thing #21
Originally uploaded by itzechris.

Got it! Now I have to wait for it to stop raining.

I got gmail

Wow - now I'm in, I'm hip, I'm cool, I'm all of that other stuff whatever it is!

I finally got a gmail account: critke at gmail dot com.

Thanks to Jon from the Tales from the Motherboard Podcast !

So please, please please send me some email - now I really want to use it!

PS. I know. Everybody on the planet already has a gmail account and I'm the last to get one. Oh well, it's not a bad thing to be reminded every now and then how insignificant one is.

Something has been living in my car's glove compartment

thing
Originally uploaded by itzechris.

Now how about that. I wonder what kind of critter that is? My glove compartment is always closed, so it must have come through the engine or something.

It did have a really cute little nest made up of shredded DMV registration papers.

Ugh.

What's on the web tonight, honey?

Way back, when the day's work was done, people used to get out the guitar and make some music or read a book together. Then along came radio and people tuned in to their favorite show. For the past few decades the question after dinner has been: "What's on TV tonight, honey?".

But with the Web coming into the mainstream, bringing a flurry of new media into the house, the question might soon be: "What's on the web tonight, honey?"

There is, of course, lots of stuff to read on the web. But weblogs are beginning to transport a whole new set of media: photos, podcasts, vlogs, music - you name it, it's there. Not only is the quality of the content getting better every day, it's just so cool to spend time in the evening looking at, listening to and watching all of the funky stuff people are putting up there.

I still listen to the radio during the day and read a book in the evening - but I haven't watched TV in weeks. TV is, for the most part, horrible. I notice myself asking the "What's on the web tonight, honey?" question after dinner more and more often - how long will it be before millions are asking that question?

And this is where 49media.com comes in: I'm starting to see it more as a "TV-Guide for Web Media". Since weblogs (and the feeds!) are sorted in reverse chronological order, you always get the newest stuff served up at the top. And 49media presents what it finds in the same fashion: newest items at the top. So for me the answer to the question "What's on the web tonight, honey?" is: "Let's check 49media!".