Monthly Archives: January 2008

WordPress Export Base Class

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Real quick note to let you know that over the weekend, I released new code that is GPLv2, relating to WordPress export format (WXR). The code and details are here and I’d love to get some input and contributions of other export classes. I’ve included a (yet undocumented) Expression Engine exporter as well and will back port some of my previous exporters to use this class as well.

So, if you’re a WordPress hacker, or if you just want to help people move to WordPress and have some coding skills, half the battle is already fought. Check it out.

How the Macbook Air is the future of Computing

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2199248287_cf872cccc2_m.jpgIf you didn’t have a chance to see history made last week, you should go watch it. History was made with yet another computer company announcing yet another laptop with better specs than the generation before. Yet somehow, Steve Jobs’keynote address at Macworld announcing the Macbook Air was different. Historically different.

There have only been a few similar occasions in history where the future of computing has changed so dramatically. The Apple II in 1977. The IBM PC in 1981. Windows in 1990. Windows 95. AOL’s unlimited internet access in 1994. The standardization of computers without floppy drives.

The Macbook Air defined a new standard in computers. Steve Rubel thinks it has to do with “cloud computing” and it may. However, I think the the standard is fundamentally more practical. There is no optical drive (CD ROM or DVD).

Since last weeks keynote, I’ve posed my thoughts to friends and colleagues and the general consensus is that people need optical drives and the lack of one would prevent them from purchasing. That may be, but the new standard has been set, much like the floppy drive, and the stake has been driven through the heart of optical media.

Let’s think about this. We don’t need optical media for backups – most of us couldn’t fit backups on the discs and we have external drives. We don’t need optical media for file transfer – we have thumb drives and the internet. We don’t need optical media for music – that’s what mp3′s and digital formats are for. Plus, increasingly people buy their music and movies online. What do we really need optical media for that can’t be achieved digitally.

As well, Apple has a vested interest in eliminating the optical disc. Optical discs are competitors to the iTunes store in the music industry. CD and DVD players are direct competitors to Apple TV, iPods and iPhones.

But it’s not just Apple that benefits from the demise of the optical disc. Microsoft benefits – they have Zunes and Xbox Live. Dell benefits – they can lower prices more by not including superfluous hardware. Cisco benefits from increased reliance on wireless networking (Cisco owns Linksys, the market leader in consumer wireless routers). Google benefits as a provider of decentralized (web based) services. The music and movie industry benefits as updating DRM schemes can be done in batch as opposed to mass producing new discs to support new standards.

Everybody benefits from the elimination of optical and that is why the death sentence, and thus history, was issued last week. Your thoughts?

Photo credit to Kenn Christ

WordCamp Dallas: What do you want to know?

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At the end of March, I’ll be speaking at WordCamp Dallas. I’ve been asked to speak about WordPress in an environment, but have been given broad latitude to shape that discussion in any way I like.

So I’m turning it over to you. I’ll be making my slide deck available here, and maybe I’ll stream it live. So what do you want to know about? Subversion? Mass upgrades? Server caching? Something less technical?

If you want to send in questions by Youtube, mayne I’ll feature you during the talk. Leave your comments, links to videos or whatever else in comments. :)

Marketing 101: How Cloverfield Failed to Deliver on Expectations

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Earlier this evening, I joined several other social media type folks down in D.C. for a first night showing of Cloverfield, the film that was so secretive it didn’t have a name other than 01182008 until sometime last month. The film trailers were released on the internet sometime last year and bloggers, and movie folks started buzzing about what the heck the moview as about.

The trailer did not give any information. Nothing since Snakes on the Plane made the net buzz, quite the way early trailers of Cloverfield did. And this is where things went wrong.

You see, the viral marketing of this movie was phenomenal. Give people something curious enough to talk about and they will. Grip them with camcorder shots of NYC being destroyed by something, and then let them start discussing among themselves. Give people a compelling reason to show the trailer to a friend, and you’ve got money in the bank.

Not so fast.

All Cloverfield’s marketing campaign did was drum up expectations and, as any political candidate will tell you in this election season, it’s important to moderate expectations in case of failure. Cloverfield did not.

Spoiler alert.

The movie starts out odd enough with the screen shrunk to less than a quarter of its size, causing viewers to think there was something wrong with the theatre. This quickly adjusted as we are introduced to a cast of characters that are all friends. Well, except Rob and Beth who apparently have been shacking up a bit. Rob is going away to Japan to take a new position with a company there and his friends are throwing a surprise party for him.

Beth shows up looking like she’s looking for a best gown waiting to have a wardrobe malfunction award with her new loverboy, Travis. The rumors spread among the friends causing an uneasy Beth to leave the party. Then the drama begins.

Some kind of “earthquake” occurs, the power goes out, people pile into the street where the Statue of Liberty’s head comes flying in some miles from New York Harbor into the streets. Right.

Fast forward a bit.

Some kind of freak monster of the Godzilla variety appears to be ravaging the streets of New York. Little spawn creatures a la Gears of War bite people and that does something really gross that I can’t identify. Because, you know there’s these crazy monsters out there that love to ravage New York and all.

Rob tells his friends that he knows what he’s doing and he’s going to go find Beth who is in some Columbus Circle apartment high rise. Again, the movie never explains how Beth and Travis manage to get from Lower Manhattan to 59th St/Columbus Circle in a matter of minutes, but then again, the story probably isn’t meant to be believable.

The movie is a little difficult to handle. It takes all the horror film stereotypes (Don’t walk toward the light, girls running around in the midst of chaos looking fantastically beautiful and, oh… nice heels!). Anyone seeing it should definitely get the back row as well, unless you like motion sickness (the film is all filmed by a camcorder).

Then of course, there was the end (or lack thereof). IT was such a horrible ending that everyone in the theatre stayed in their seats certain that there would be an encore after the credits. J.J. Abrams couldn’t even give us that.

There are so many unfinished storylines. So many questions. An incomplete plot and, oh yeah, it cost me $10.75. I should have paid $5 because I only got half the movie.

Spoiler end.

Bottom line is that the movie left everyone with high expectations. In the end, our money was stolen as expectations were not fulfilled. We were used for our bully pulpit and were not repaid.

The good part was that I saw the first trailer for the new Star Trek movie. That looks hot.

0.5 stars.

Relationship in the Internet World

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shashibI have a friend. Up until about a month ago, I only knew him as shashib. I didn’t know much about shashib, except what I observed about him on Twitter. As I observed shashib and interacted with him, I realized he was from the DC metropolitan area and that he was in social media. We had something in common right from the start and so more and more, I engaged shashib as not only a colleague but as a friend. We laughed, joked all in 140 characters or less.

Sometime last month, I met shashib for the first time in person. It was at Social Media Club in Falls Church, Virginia where Jim Long, the cameraman from NBC and the White House Press pool turned social-media mogul, was speaking to the SMC.

After the meeting was over, I introduced myself to shashib and discovered what he does. He works at Network Solutions, the 20th century era domain registrar that still charges $35 for a domain for a year. I don’t particularly like NetSol, but the fact that he worked there didn’t affect my opinion of Shashi (his real name is Shashi Bellamkonda) because he was my friend.

I don’t mean “friend” in the sense of what most of social media has turned into where “friend” is a status symbol of yet another person who you have chosen to follow or who has decided to follow you. I mean, friend, in the 20th century or earlier sense of the world – two humans having common interests and sharing a common bond.

I’ve given Shashi plenty of grief about Network Solutions. How the perception to me is that it is an overpriced solution that doesn’t offer much more than what you can get much cheaper elsewhere. I even gave him grief over last weeks kerfuffle about NetSol’s domain “holding” practice. I did, however, complement NetSol on their domain administration interface, something I have not used in years and is much improved and much more fluid than any other competitor’s that I have experience with.

But this is not about Network Solutions. This is about relationships.

Since last month, I have seen Shashi in person a handful of other times and he is as genuine today as he was before I knew what he did. It’s about relationship, and Shashi is my friend.

Marketing and communications in the internet world today has somewhere gotten lost. Somehow, it has become more about deceptive practices than it has about relationship. It’s become about trying to get you to believe something, regardless of whether it is true. Where is the integrity?

In real life, I wouldn’t expect someone who is a friend to try to deceive me. I would not expect lying or backstabbing. Not from a friend. The solution then for communications professionals to step back and determine what the best ROI for marketing. Is it a deceptive sales pitch, or is it “friendship evangelism”?

If Shashi started trying to sell me on NetSol out of the gate, chances are that today, we would not be friends. Instead, he established a friendship with me and has me seriously considering a little known service of NetSol. How’s that for evangelism?

* Photo Credit to Schmoozing

10 More Rules For Dealing With Snow

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Since it’s a snow day here in Maryland and on much of the east coast, I thought I’d revisit 10 Rules for Dealing with Snow.

Unfortunately, since I wrote that educational post several years ago, it’s apparent that people still don’t get it. So let’s add 10 more rules for dealing with snow. I don’t like to micromanage the snow process, but it’s obvious I need to lay down more rules.

  1. Hills: Driving on hills, particularly when it’s icy, is a dangerous task. On my way into work today, I observed multiple cars having to throw their cars in reverse and back down hills they couldn’t make. The problem here is that you must drive fast. Throw your car in Overdrive (it means “Drive with Extra Snow Capability”) and gun your engine. You need all the momentum you can get to get all the way up that hill.
  2. Shelter: Shelter is important during snow events because no one wants to get wet. I suggest those green table umbrellas at Starbucks. They are very effective at keeping snow off your body. Don’t believe the myth about the weight of snow and collapsing things. It’s false.
  3. Church of Scientology: As Tom Cruise said, if you do, you will be the only person compelled to stop and help those poor souls that wreck their cars because they didn’t know how to handle the conditions. That can make you very late to your appointment at Starbucks under the green umbrella.
  4. Back Roads: Those roads that are windy and hilly are a great escape from all the crazy drivers on the main roads. The plows and salt trucks won’t even be there.
  5. Only Go Out When you need to: For instance, to see Stephen Colbert’s tri-portrait hanging at the Smithsonian feet away from the America’s President’s gallery. Democracy in action and democracy is important.
  6. Bread and Milk: I alluded to this several years ago, but since I wrote the last advisory, my thrifty wife has turned me on to “After Christmas Sales” on milk and bread. It would be a good time to stockpile these very valuable commodities in advance of the snow.
  7. Survival Tips: In line with the last tip, make sure you get a generator for those ice storms. The best place to keep a generator is in your basement as you can get the additional heat generated rising up through the ventilation shafts, floors and under cracks in door.
  8. Video Games: The kids will surely have snow days at school, so make sure you have plenty of video games to keep them occupied. My suggestions for games for kids are Resident Evil, Grand Theft Auto IV or Manhunt (Pretty much any title from Rockstar Games).
  9. Post Office: The post office will not deliver in the snow. There is this slogan that goes something like, “Through rain, sleet or snow, the post office will always deliver” however that actually has been mistranslated over the past century and a half. The real original quote is, “Through rain, sleet or snow, the post office workers will find someplace to hunker down for a hot cup o’joe”
  10. School’s Out: Finally, always, always, always keep your kids home from school if it looks like it might snow anywhere within 500 miles of you. You can never be too safe

Folks, I really really hope I don’t have to come back in a year and reducate you on snow. Maybe now you’ll listen to me. You’ve been warned.