CNet has an interesting gallery of doctored photos–worth a look, especially given the recent Reuters brouhaha (via Buzzmachine).

Diversions | No Comments »

In my last post, I described a new service that tracks what other sites are popular with my readers. I didn’t fully realize it at the time, but one such site is the brand new blog of Mahmood Ahmadinejad, the President of Iran. It’s worth a look (but see the update below first)–in the upper right hand corner, you’ll find a series of flags. Clicking on the second from the left will translate the site into English from Persian (thanks, AfghanMania).

The site also has a “question of the day” feature. Today’s question is: “Do you think that the US and Israeli intention and goal by attacking Lebanon is pulling the trigger for another word war?” Currently, 71,844, or 55% of all replies say yes. 58,919, or 45%, say no.

Frightening.

More on Ahmadinejad here and here.

Update: apparently Ahmadinejad’s blog contains a trojan horse intended to attack visitors with Israel-based IP address who use Windows and Internet Explorer.

Update 2 (8/16/06): the latest word is that Ahmadinejad’s blog does not contain a trojan. For more, including technical details on what caused the initial alarm, see here (thanks, Steve).

Blogging | 9 Comments »

MyBlogLog is an interesting service that’s worth knowing about–especially if you maintain a blog. Initially, the company offered a simple web analytics tool which provided basic statistics on site visits, page views, and outclicks. Recently, MyBlogLog launched a community feature: after registering, the service lets you join the “community” of any other registered site. You can then easily find the blogs that others in the community are reading. Some of those blogs will likely be interesting to you.

MyBlogLog also anonymously tracks what links were clicked on by members of my blog’s community. Here is a list of today’s top ten for my readers:

1. TIME.com: 50 Coolest Websites
2. Never Check Your Email First Or Last
3. TypePad’s Post link (this only works if you have a TypePad account)
4. TradingMarkets.com offers to drive traffic to my blog - Smart or Just plain Sneaky?
   
5. Family Guy: Peanut butter jelly time!
   
6. 18 Ways to Stay Focused at Work
7. What Trading Teaches Us About Life
8. Zen- Trader’s Audio Affirmations Site
9. Mahmood Ahmadinejad
10. “Exploding” Dell Laptop Destroys Truck, Imperils Outsdoorsmen

I don’t watch The Family Guy so I’m not sure what to say about item #5….

Anyway, those of you who read this site with your browser rather than a feed reader may have noticed a widget like this on my sidebar:

As you’ve probably guessed, the widget shows a list of recent registered readers. It’s fun to track and, as I’ve been looking for new ways to better engage with those who read this blog, I encourage you to click here to sign up (it’s free and takes < 1 minute). Thanks–I appreciate it.

Community | 28 Comments »

Looks like Interactive just bought a 51% stake in NYC-based ConnectedVentures, which runs CollegeHumor.com, among other sites (link to more deal info). Gawker reported last month that this was in the works, valuing the company somewhere between $20-30M. According to CollegeHumor’s media kit, the company displays ~280 million pages each month and has ~240,000 email subscribers.

At the same time, rumors are still circulating that Viacom will buy The Onion. The NY Post puts the price tag for this deal at only ~$10M (link).

While these are small deals, I think the moves make good sense: there’s real value in brands. In particular, both CollegeHumor and The Onion have fanatically loyal readers in a premium (ie young) demographic.

Emerging Media | No Comments »

Following is Nielsen/NetRating’s list of the top ten fastest growing internet sites, as measured by monthly unique visitors:

While I wasn’t surprised to see Wikipedia and MySpace, I didn’t expect HSBC or the Associated Press to make the cut…

Web 2.0 | 7 Comments »