Technically Speaking

In this current day of information overload, I figured I’d offload a few tidbits in my blog post today. If I had the time each day to do this, it would be like the good ol’ days here on Technically Speaking. Unfortunately, only time these days to catch my breath occasionally. While the economy is in the dumps, my company Lookery as tweeted by Todd the other day, is booming. We are all busy and slammed with enough work for 3 or 4 people.

Check Your State - If you are interested to see where your state stands in the general election coming up on November 4th, you need to go to this site. Currently, Missouri is now leaning Obama, but just last week it was leaning McCain. Thanks to @billstreeter for the original URL he sent over which lead me to the above.

Cloud Contacts - This is Allen Stern of Centernetworks new start up called Cloud Contacts. I say “new start up”, as those who remember, he had another great start up that didn’t quite take off a little more than a year ago. That one was dealing with running ads on video content. Again, and probably like this one - he was ahead of his time. Read the great write up here on CNET by Rafe Needleman.

Scott Rafer in Berlin - Wow, almost is like dejavu for us guys who started Lookery. Last time Scott was in Berlin, that was when this whole Lookery journey started. Though last time, he was on a well deserved vaca, this time he was speaking at the Berlin FBDevCon. Side Note: Scott, I’m usually still groggy and sans laptop connected at 7am my time zone!

This Is Cool - Especially if you are a smoker (which I am)! The idea seems like it could work, only the one time I tried the patch, as soon as I stepped down successfully - I went back to smoking with no nicotine input into my system. I am hoping that Drew does quit for good. Smoking Everywhere is what he is using, and I wonder if you can really “light up” like the video showed.

Technically Speaking, if you haven’t gone Lookery yet, you really need too with the new cool site design as well as the enhanced audience analytic data page. What I really enjoy is the more direct message (tagline) on who we are and what we are all about:

Lookery is a user-targeting service that helps site owners amplify their audience data.

TechCrunch, the tiny blog that went big time for Mike Arrington looks to be on the verge of a deal of astronomical proportions. Now if the deal is true, this could make TechCrunch another thing that CNET destroys. I think that the offer is probably going to be hard to refuse, and for Mike maybe it’s time he cashes out and leaves the rental he lives in.

CNET’s growth has stagnated, while TechCrunch is growing like a weed. And so are SeekingAlpha, GigaOm, Huffington Post and other new media companies. These companies have filled a niche that appeared when traditional media began cracking apart–and they’ve taken full advantage of it.

The main question is why have big sites like CNET have supposedly stagnated? Well the answer is that Mike worked his nutz off making TechCrunch work. He put in the time, the hours, and did what it took to make it work. CNET rested on it’s already established place, and that my friends is the reason TC took off like a rocket and surged in growth like nobodies business.

The blogs I look to do the same very soon of course are Allen Stern’s CenterNetworks, often overlooked but out of nowhere he is going to drop a DDT before you know what hits you. Than of course there is Read/WriteWeb, who has had tremendous growth over the past year. RWW is another contender for the crown. We mustn’t count out VentureBeat, the scrappy true journalism integrity site left in the blogosphere. If you want the complete story, you go there. Matt Marshall is one heck of a reporter and person. GigaOM, well Om already has his money and he is building a fine network of blogs; GigaNET if you will. Lastly we must not forget the blog that posts 900 items a day of course - Pete’s Mashable.

Technically Speaking, there are a lot of great blogs that have the news when you want it. TC becoming a CNET property is interesting and for one thing, it will free up the blogosphere and put in a new fight for #1!

SplashCast, who I have covered extensively on this blog had a rockin’ new announcement today. Already covered first by the new uncrowned King of Blogging, Allen Stern of CenterNetworks - who coincidently broke the Lending Club story last night.

Hey, what can I say about that? When you do a simple DNS switch that makes “www” live, and no longer fwd’s to the “blog.” - anyone - could have broke that story!

Now back to the real rockin’ story of the day:

We’re excited to announce today a new partnership with Columbia Records and three major new features to make the SplashCast experience more interactive than ever. New York’s Coheed and Cambria is the first Columbia band to have an artist channel built by SplashCast.

Coheed and Cambria’s channel will also be the first to deploy two exciting new SplashCast features. FanCast, our new mobile publishing feature, will allow the band’s fans to upload photos, audio files and video from their mobile phones to the Coheed and Cambria channel.

Here is the Coheed and Cambria channel:

Technically Speaking, the blog is rocking again, and well as I stated - SplashCast always ROCKS!

Revlayer is going to rock. How do I know? Well because Allen Stern is part of it. Ok, so I am being biased, but I have had many conversations with Allen, and he knows Web -1.0, Web 1.0, and now he is becoming part of Web 2.5. I feel that his past experiences lend to the success of the new startup.

Not only that, but he has a great developer onboard who I have interviewed in the past - Felix Shnir(SaneBull). The combination of Allen’s business sense, the need for this, and the development team means one thing - success. Hopefully it will be to the tune of the next article that is written will be something like “Revlayer $5 million… “. I don’t see why not, as this is something so simply done, but it so far has not latched on or been done right.

Let’s all keep an eye on this, as the need is great and Web 2.5 is something that is upon us now. I feel that there are a lot of (will be) competitors in the field. I for one will go with a startup such as Revlayer as they have the solid base that they have built on. That will be the difference. Base operations is what will make this company succeed.

Technically Speaking, yes, I was being a cheerleader, fanboy, overly biased if you will, but I’m happy to see Allen do something in the startup world. Best of luck dude!

Many of you probably ask yourself, why I follow the writings on CenterNetworks. I follow them for the exact reason that Allen posted yesterday about FeedBurner. It is due to his honesty and integrity he maintains. I know better than anyone how you could break embargo easily as a blogger.

One of the things I have always respected about the place is that they may not have the first run (and they do a lot of times), they present the articles with a unique look. There a lot of times where the presentation is in a form that could be looked as “bad” for the company. Still, companies come back to CenterNetworks time in and time out.

Fairness. Allen is a person that isn’t about trade in integrity for a first jump. So what if he isn’t the first person to have the story?

Technically Speaking, as far the blogosphere goes, it’s very rare that you are the “first” to write about anything. With that being said, isn’t your reputation more important than breaking embargo? Think about that as you head out to your 4th of July celebrations today. I heard that many of you even go shopping at furniture stores.