CINXE.COM

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?> <rdf:RDF xmlns:rdf="http://www.w3.org/1999/02/22-rdf-syntax-ns#" xmlns:dc="http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/" xmlns:sy="http://purl.org/rss/1.0/modules/syndication/" xmlns:admin="http://webns.net/mvcb/" xmlns:cc="http://web.resource.org/cc/" xmlns="http://purl.org/rss/1.0/"> <channel rdf:about="http://www.sifry.com/alerts/"> <title>Sifry's Alerts</title> <link>http://www.sifry.com/alerts/</link> <description>David Sifry's musings</description> <dc:language>en-us</dc:language> <dc:creator></dc:creator> <dc:date>2009-04-19T23:47:58-08:00</dc:date> <admin:generatorAgent rdf:resource="http://www.movabletype.org/?v=4.01" /> <cc:license rdf:resource="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/1.0/" /> <items> <rdf:Seq> <rdf:li rdf:resource="http://www.sifry.com/alerts/archives/2009/04/great_kids_afte.html" /> <rdf:li rdf:resource="http://www.sifry.com/alerts/archives/2008/12/this_moved_me_today.html" /> <rdf:li rdf:resource="http://www.sifry.com/alerts/archives/2008/11/offbeat_guides_public_beta.html" /> <rdf:li rdf:resource="http://www.sifry.com/alerts/archives/2008/10/ill_be_on_kqeds.html" /> <rdf:li rdf:resource="http://www.sifry.com/alerts/archives/2008/10/offbeat_guides_sneak_peek.html" /> <rdf:li rdf:resource="http://www.sifry.com/alerts/archives/2008/09/state_of_the_bl_13.html" /> <rdf:li rdf:resource="http://www.sifry.com/alerts/archives/2008/09/technorati_stat.html" /> <rdf:li rdf:resource="http://www.sifry.com/alerts/archives/2008/09/state_of_the_bl_12.html" /> <rdf:li rdf:resource="http://www.sifry.com/alerts/archives/2008/09/technoratis_sta.html" /> <rdf:li rdf:resource="http://www.sifry.com/alerts/archives/2008/09/kudos_to_fred_w.html" /> <rdf:li rdf:resource="http://www.sifry.com/alerts/archives/2008/09/complete_camera.html" /> <rdf:li rdf:resource="http://www.sifry.com/alerts/archives/2008/09/giving_marsedit.html" /> <rdf:li rdf:resource="http://www.sifry.com/alerts/archives/2008/08/technorati_acqu.html" /> <rdf:li rdf:resource="http://www.sifry.com/alerts/archives/2008/08/personalization.html" /> <rdf:li rdf:resource="http://www.sifry.com/alerts/archives/2008/05/offbeat_guides.html" /> </rdf:Seq> </items> </channel> <item rdf:about="http://www.sifry.com/alerts/archives/2009/04/great_kids_afte.html"> <title>Great Kids Afternoon Project: Claymation!</title> <link>http://www.sifry.com/alerts/archives/2009/04/great_kids_afte.html</link> <description><![CDATA[I had a great Sunday afternoon with my kids today. We combined three of my favorite activities together to do something unique, fun, and easy-to-do - we used digital cameras, some play-doh, and some pretty simple software to make claymation animations. Here's my daughter's first claymation: <object type="application/x-shockwave-flash" width="400" height="300" data="http://www.flickr.com/apps/video/stewart.swf?v=71075" classid="clsid:D27CDB6E-AE6D-11cf-96B8-444553540000"> <param name="flashvars" value="intl_lang=en-us&photo_secret=f4db54dc26&photo_id=3457771617&flickr_show_info_box=true"></param> <param name="movie" value="http://www.flickr.com/apps/video/stewart.swf?v=71075"></param> <param name="bgcolor" value="#000000"></param> <param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><embed type="application/x-shockwave-flash" src="http://www.flickr.com/apps/video/stewart.swf?v=71075" bgcolor="#000000" allowfullscreen="true" flashvars="intl_lang=en-us&photo_secret=f4db54dc26&photo_id=3457771617&flickr_show_info_box=true" height="300" width="400"></embed></object> The kids spent about two hours completely absorbed doing the project, and they absolutely loved the results when they were done. I was surprised at how easy it was to make something that looked reasonably competent, and how quickly the kids caught on to the technique, and started to master new ones, even while still making their first movie. What You Need: <ol> <li>A compact digital camera, capable of 640x480 (VGA) resolution ( I used a <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000Q30420?ie=UTF8&tag=sifsale-20&linkCode=as2&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=B000Q30420">Canon SD850IS</a>, which is overkill, almost <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B001G5ZTN6?ie=UTF8&tag=sifsale-20&linkCode=as2&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=B001G5ZTN6">any compact</a> will do)</li> <li>Some <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000V64HZ2?ie=UTF8&tag=sifsale-20&linkCode=as2&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=B000V64HZ2">play-doh</a>, or other soft clay</li> <li>A tripod or mini-tripod (I used a <a href="http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/283757-REG/Manfrotto_by_Bogen_Imaging_709B_709_Tabletop_Tripod_with.html">Manfrotto 709</a>)</li> <li>A mat of some kind (I used 4 sheets of white printer paper taped together, and taped to the table)</li> <li>Some software that does stop-motion animation (I used Quicktime Pro, $29.99 <a href="http://store.apple.com/us/product/D3380Z/A">for the Mac</a> or <a href="http://store.apple.com/us/product/D3381Z/A">for the PC</a>)</li> </ol>First the kids taped four pieces of paper together to make a mat so that the clay wouldn't stick to the dining room table. We taped those down at their workspaces, so that they could be comfortable, and set up the tripod and camera pointing at the mat. Next, set up the workspace in a place that isn't directly lit by the sun - it should be evenly lit and relatively low contrast, I'll explain more later. I zoomed the camera a bit so that the mat filled the frame, but you can do whatever you like with focus and zoom, it makes for interesting effects - for example, we kept the camera zoomed out for my son's claymation, and that led to an interesting clay+reality mixture: <object type="application/x-shockwave-flash" width="400" height="300" data="http://www.flickr.com/apps/video/stewart.swf?v=71075" classid="clsid:D27CDB6E-AE6D-11cf-96B8-444553540000"> <param name="flashvars" value="intl_lang=en-us&photo_secret=831e0a5256&photo_id=3457775557&flickr_show_info_box=true"></param> <param name="movie" value="http://www.flickr.com/apps/video/stewart.swf?v=71075"></param> <param name="bgcolor" value="#000000"></param> <param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><embed type="application/x-shockwave-flash" src="http://www.flickr.com/apps/video/stewart.swf?v=71075" bgcolor="#000000" allowfullscreen="true" flashvars="intl_lang=en-us&photo_secret=831e0a5256&photo_id=3457775557&flickr_show_info_box=true" height="300" width="400"></embed></object> Make sure that the camera is locked securely to the tripod, and that the tripod will stay in place as well. Next, you need to make some changes to the camera settings. First off, you don't need all those megapixels - in fact, you should set the resolution of your camera to its lowest or nearly lowest setting - 640x480 is usually more than enough. Using higher resolutions will actually be a hinderance to you, and won't give you much additional benefit. Of course, if you want to do claymation in HD, you can increase your resolution to something like 1920x1080 if your camera supports that. If you want to improve things a bit, turn the JPG compression to fine or super-fine, which will retain a bit more detail. This is one of those times when you definitely want your camera to be storing in JPGs, the smaller the better! You'll also want to turn the automatic flash off, as it'll just ruin your exposure. If you can turn off autofocus, that's even better, but my experience is that it doesn't make much of a difference. You'll want to turn off the auto--shutdown feature of your camera as well, as you don't want the camera turning itself off and on between frames. I put the camera into its manual mode, and also try to compensate the exposure for the whiteness of the mat - generally that means overexposing the built-in meter by about 1 f-stop. If your camera produces a histogram, you can watch the histogram to make sure that it is a smooth bell curve right in the <a href="http://www.luminous-landscape.com/tutorials/understanding-series/understanding-histograms.shtml">middle of the histogram</a>. With your camera on the tripod, turned on and set, and your workspace set up, you're ready to do your animation! The trick is that you're going to take a photograph of your scene, then move the clay a small amount, and then take the next photo in sequence. When you stitch all of these photos together at 15 or 30 frames per second, it looks just like one of those flipbooks you probably had when you were a kid. It relies on the phenomenon of <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Persistence_of_vision">persistence of vision</a>, which is how all movies work. Now go have fun. I found that it took about 10 minutes for my 6 year-old to understand what he needed to do in his workflow, and my 9 year-old understood it immediately once I showed her. You might want to make yourself the cameraman, and let your child do the animation - it makes for great teamwork, and it's fun to do different things with the clay, like roll it into balls, make snakes and caterpillars, and do chase scenes. Moving the clay more means that it will appear faster in the movie. When you've told your story, or you've filled up your memory card, you're ready to do the software magic that brings everything together. Moving to the computer Once you've got your masterpiece filmed, it is time to dump the memory card of your camera onto your computer. I prefer to start with a completely empty memory card which means that there's nothing to mess up your movie, but you can usually tell which frame is your first by looking at the dates of the images. I then fired up Quicktime Pro (unfortunately you can't use the unlicensed Quicktime player for this, you need to be able to create new movies, which means you need to shell out the $29 for Quicktime Pro) and went to File -> Open Image Sequence so that I could stitch all the frames into a single movie. You'll be then asked for the number of frames per second - generally, 15 frames per second works prety well, but if you're really getting expert, you can go for a video look (30 fps) or a cinematic look (24 fps). The higher the frame rate, the more quickly your movie will play. There is other stop-action software out on the market, but I've found that Quicktime Pro is the easiest and fastest way to go from the camera into a viewable state. don't forget to save your completed movie when it comes up, and you can import the movie into other non-linear editing software, like iMovie, Adobe Premiere, or Final Cut if you want to do further edits, cuts, or ad audio, subtitles, or credits. The best part is that if you're not a video or computer expert, you can still have a lot of fun with a very low-end camera and computer, and the quality of your end-product is entirely limited by your (or your kid's) imagination!]]></description> <dc:subject></dc:subject> <dc:creator>dsifry</dc:creator> <dc:date>2009-04-19T23:47:58-08:00</dc:date> </item> <item rdf:about="http://www.sifry.com/alerts/archives/2008/12/this_moved_me_today.html"> <title>This moved me today</title> <link>http://www.sifry.com/alerts/archives/2008/12/this_moved_me_today.html</link> <description><![CDATA[Maybe it is just thinking about the end of the year and the beginning of a new year, but this moved me: <blockquote>Birth, sickness, death, falling in love, watching TV, raising families, mowing the lawn, going to the movies, taking your nephew to a ball game, drinking beer, hanging out with your buddies, playing frisbee, painting the house. No matter where your adventure takes you, most of what is truly meaningful is still to be found revolving around the mundane stuff you did before you embarked on your adventure. The stuff that'll be going long after you and I are both dead, long after our contribution to the world is forgotten. But often, one needs to have that big adventure before really understanding this. Going full circle. Exactly.</blockquote> That's from <a href="http://gapingvoid.com/Moveable_Type/archives/000932.html">How to be creative</a>, From <a href="http://gapingvoid.com/">Hugh MacLeod's</a> blog. Worth a read or a reread, especially at this time of year. Happy new year, everyone! I'm going to remember to be grateful today, and count my blessings.]]></description> <dc:subject></dc:subject> <dc:creator>dsifry</dc:creator> <dc:date>2008-12-31T09:10:48-08:00</dc:date> </item> <item rdf:about="http://www.sifry.com/alerts/archives/2008/11/offbeat_guides_public_beta.html"> <title>Offbeat Guides Public Beta!</title> <link>http://www.sifry.com/alerts/archives/2008/11/offbeat_guides_public_beta.html</link> <description><![CDATA[I'm proud to announce the launch of Offbeat Guides first product in public beta! <a href="http://www.offbeatguides.com/">http://www.offbeatguides.com/</a> What's Offbeat Guides? <a href="http://www.offbeatguides.com/" target="_NEW"><img src="http://www.sifry.com/alerts/Picture 6.png" border="0" alt="Offbeat Guides homepage. 5 simple steps to build your customized guidebook." hspace="10" vspace="10" width="213" height="195" align="right" /></a>Our first product is quite simple: On-demand, Personalized Travel Books. Travel books that are tuned just for you, only about the place that you're going, with local information like festivals, events, and concerts that are going on during the dates of your stay. We put in local maps that are tuned to where you'll be, and we even customize the guide based on what we learn about you, like the timezone differences from your hometown, electrical plug differences, embassies and consulates nearby, differences in tipping policies, exchange rates, local weather forecasts, and much more. We provide guides for over 30,000 city destinations around the world - of course we cover <a href="http://www.offbeatguides.com/destination/new_york/step/1/">New York</a>, <a href="http://www.offbeatguides.com/destination/Paris:France/step/1/">Paris</a>, <a href="http://www.offbeatguides.com/destination/Rome:Italy/step/1/">Rome</a>, and <a href="http://www.offbeatguides.com/destination/Tokyo:Japan/step/1/">Tokyo</a>, but we also have guides to <a href="http://www.offbeatguides.com/destination/Newark:NJ:United_States/step/1/">Newark</a>, <a href="http://www.offbeatguides.com/destination/Paradise:NV:United_States/step/1/">Paradise</a>, <a href="http://www.offbeatguides.com/destination/Romeoville:IL:United_States/step/1/">Romeoville</a>, and <a href="http://www.offbeatguides.com/destination/Tokorozawa:Japan/step/1/">Tokorozawa</a>, and many more places. We're trying to solve the problem that most of us have when we travel - you want to know where to go, what to do when you're there, and what's going on while you're there. We're a company run by obsessive technologists who happen to travel a LOT. We don't come out of the travel industry. We're travelers, just like you. We value your time, so we focused on simplicity. To get started, we only ask you 5 questions: <ul> <li>Where are you going: We currently cover over 30,000 city destinations</li> <li>When will you be there: So we can include information about local festivals, events, club meetings, sports teams, concerts, and other timely information</li> <li>Where are you coming from: With this information, we give you contextal information, like timezone differences, embassies and consulates for your home country, language guides, exchange rates, electrical adapters needed, and more.</li> <li>Where are you staying: So we can localize the maps that go into your guide, and put your hotel right at the center of things.</li> <li>The Traveler's Name: Well, we need to know who you are, so we can put your name right on the book cover! Makes for great gifts, too.</li> </ul> From that, we show you a live preview of your guide, with sights, attractions, restaurants, and hotels - but we also pull in all the local and contextual information we can find, tuning your guide just for you, your preferences, and your trip details. We also brought on a top-notch team of travel experts, who have gone through the top 1000 city destinations in the world, called the museums, checked on the hotel information, and chatted with the restaurateurs. We built an travel search engine to help us to locate the most interesting information about the other 29,000 destinations, using both freely available information as well as licensed information from partners like <a href="http://wikitravel.org/">Wikitravel</a>, <a href="http://wikipedia.org/">Wikipedia</a>, <a href="http://www.flickr.com/">Flickr</a>, <a href="http://www.eventful.com/">Eventful</a>, <a href="http://www.upcoming.org/">Upcoming</a>, <a href="http://www.meetup.com/">Meetup</a>, the <a href="https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/">World Factbook</a>, and many other local sources. As we continue to build out the site, we'll be adding in many more validated sources as well as incorporating feedback from travelers and locals into the future guides. Can I customize it? <a href="http://www.sifry.com/alerts/Picture 7.png" target="_NEW"><img src="http://www.sifry.com/alerts//Picture 7.png" border="0" alt="The Book Preview Screen, with Customization Features" hspace="10" vspace="10" width="255" height="192" align="right" /></a>Of course. You get full control over your guide - so if you already know where you're staying, you can click to deselect all of the information about hotels, for example. You can add customized chapters and fill them with information that you gather from your friends, or from around the internet. And when you're done, you can get your guide in multiple formats: <ul> <li>As a beautifully printed full-color book, shipped to your door (or your hotel!) right before you leave on your trip so it has the freshest information in it,</li> <li>As a PDF suitable for printing on your home printer, or downloading onto your mobile phone or reading device, or</li> <li>On the web so you can read through the book on-line, and update information before and during your trip.</li> </ul> Why only City Guides? Well, we had to start somewhere. One of the most-requested features from our private beta testers has been to create regional or area guides, for example, for Maui, or for The Napa Valley. We're working on this, it's in the pipeline, but we wanted to open the doors to all of you, even if those country or regional guides aren't ready yet. Another frequently requested feature is for multi-segment trips - where you are visiting multiple places on a single trip. Right now, you'll have to get a guide for each place, but this is something that we're definitely keeping an eye on as we continue to build out the product. How much does it cost? It's USD $9.95 to buy the PDF version, so you can print it yourself and save money. It's USD $24.95 + shipping to buy the book, and the PDF comes included - you can download updated PDFs as many times as you want before your trip ends, as well! That's about the same or less than you'd pay to buy a guide in a bookstore, and you'd end up with information that's 12-24 months old, that's not customized to you. Is there a Money-back Guarantee? Yes! If you're unhappy with your guide for any reason whatsoever, simply let us know, and we'll refund your money. No questions asked. Even if it is after your trip, and you've used the book. We're committed to making a really great experience for you, so if you're unhappy with the guide at all, we will refund your money. Where's the catch? Why is it Beta? This is a pretty ambitious product, and we're really happy with what we've built so far - but there's still so much more to do. We've been testing for 5 months in private beta with over 6,000 people helping us to get things right, but things still crop up, and we want to learn more from you. We're opening up the doors to let anyone come and kick the tires and buy some guides, and we really want to get your thoughts and feedback so we can make the experience and the guide information as good as possible. There will be bugs. We promise to stay in touch both on <a href="http://blog.offbeatguides.com/">our blog</a> and on <a href="http://getsatisfaction.com/offbeatguides">Get Satisfaction</a> and keep you in the loop as we find and fix bugs and issues. We appreciate your willingness to work with us on this and to help us create a great product together. For our Private Beta Testers We love you. We really really do! Thanks so much for all the help and feedback, you are the best group of testers I've ever had the opportunity to work with. The free book coupons that you got as a private beta tester are still valid until November 30th; after that they won't work anymore, so don't procrastinate! We'll also be sending you a survey as we close up the private beta - please check for it in your mailbox soon. It should take 10-15 minutes to fill out, but it will really help us to get your thoughts and feedback and to continue to improve the product. Thanks!!! How to get involved Well, first off, come and kick the tires! Check out the guide preview for your hometown, or for a place you're visiting soon. <a href="http://getsatisfaction.com/offbeatguides">Drop us a line</a> and let us know how things look. <a href="http://getsatisfaction.com/offbeatguides/products/offbeatguides_building_and_getting_your_guide">Are there errors</a>? <a href="http://getsatisfaction.com/offbeatguides/products/offbeatguides_content_issues">Problems with the information</a>? <a href="http://getsatisfaction.com/offbeatguides/products/offbeatguides_feature_ideas_or_suggestions">Are we missing a great feature</a>? Let us know! Also, follow us on <a href="http://twitter.com/">Twitter</a>! We're <a href="http://twitter.com/offbeatguides">@offbeatguides</a>. We love hearing from you. And Thanks! Thanks for all of your support. On a personal note, I want to thank the Offbeat Guides Team who have weorked their butts off getting this built. I'm really excited to be taking this next adventure with you!]]></description> <dc:subject></dc:subject> <dc:creator>dsifry</dc:creator> <dc:date>2008-11-03T00:38:40-08:00</dc:date> </item> <item rdf:about="http://www.sifry.com/alerts/archives/2008/10/ill_be_on_kqeds.html"> <title>I'll be on KQED's Forum with Michael Krasny at 9am on 10/9</title> <link>http://www.sifry.com/alerts/archives/2008/10/ill_be_on_kqeds.html</link> <description><![CDATA[It's a bit late notice, but I just found out myself - I'll be on <a href="http://www.kqed.org/epArchive/R810090900">Forum with Michael Krasny</a> this morning at 9am PT. I'll be on with Carl Guardino, president and CEO of the Silicon Valley Leadership Group and my old friend <a href="http://www.sarahlacy.com/">Sarah Lacy</a>, columnist for Business Week, co-host of Yahoo! Finance's "TechTicker" and author of "Once You're Lucky, Twice You're Good: The Rebirth of Silicon Valley and the Rise of Web 2.0". We're going to be discussing the effects of the Financial Crisis on Silicon Valley. I'm a fan of <a href="http://www.kqed.org/assets/img/radio/staff/michael-krasny-168x225.jpg">Michael Krasny</a> - I often listen to the 2-hour long "Forum" show, and I've always found him to be articulate, intelligent, and very well educated on the subjects he covers, making great conversation with his guests - so I'm really looking forward to meeting him in person down at the KQED studios. I'll try to get some photos. It should be an interesting discussion - especially with the market gyrations in the last 2 weeks, the all-but-closure of the IPO market, and now the tech M&A market, it sure looks like we're in for a cold winter. But I think there's still room for optimism - busts are the perfect time for large companies with cash on their balance sheets to ride things out and gain market share, and also for small agile companies to develop and disrupt industries. I call this the "barbell theory" - where companies at the large and very small end of the scale will do quite well - but the ones in the middle get slaughtered. It's a time when great talent gets easier to find, rents drop, and it's easier to be heard above the din. But I've got a lot of concern for speculative businesses out there that haven't found a way to get big and build brand and revenue yet (or even a business model!) and are large enough that they're burning through cash. I fear that many Valley and "Web 2.0" businesses in the middle of the barbell are going to have a very difficult time in the coming downturn, especially those that are solely advertising based. There's still an enormous opportunity to create value and build very successful businesses, even in a crisis and downturn like the one we're going through - I think it is incumbent on forward-thinking entrepreneurs and investors to think creatively about how they: a) Help businesses save money, b) Increase efficiency or disintermediation reducing friction, c) Reduce their own costs, and d) Diversify their revenue streams I plan on talking more about that during the show - and I'll blog about it afterwards. I'm looking forward to the discussion! I sure hope I'm wrong - Here's hoping for a market upswing!]]></description> <dc:subject></dc:subject> <dc:creator>dsifry</dc:creator> <dc:date>2008-10-09T01:15:23-08:00</dc:date> </item> <item rdf:about="http://www.sifry.com/alerts/archives/2008/10/offbeat_guides_sneak_peek.html"> <title>Offbeat Guides Sneak Peek and Beta Update</title> <link>http://www.sifry.com/alerts/archives/2008/10/offbeat_guides_sneak_peek.html</link> <description><![CDATA[We've been hard at work on the private beta of <a href="http://www.offbeatguides.com/">Offbeat Guides</a>, and I thought it would be a good time to give y'all an update on our progress! We've been making huge strides both in making the site simpler and easier to use, as well as cranking away on the hard tasks of building out a deep semantic search service that dynamically builds guides for over 30,000 different city destinations around the world. We've taken a lot of what I've learned building comprehensive real-time search engines at <a href="http://www.technorati.com/">Technorati</a>, and also what <a href="http://www.offbeatguides.com/about">Marina</a> and her team have learned in building and curating a narrative experience when she was with <a href="http://lonelyplanet.com/">Lonely Planet</a>. We want to give you more than just the facts - to also get you a flavor and some the romance of the place and of your trip. We've expanded the partners we're working with to include even more local photographs, festivals, tickets, and events, and we've put in a lot of heuristic technology to help to make sure we weed out as much irrelevant information as possible. If you want to work with us, <a href="mailto:partners@offbeatguides.com">drop us a line</a>. Algorithms can't provide everything though, especially for the top travel destinations of the world - humans mean a lot too. We've got a team of people who have been digging deep into the top 1000 city destinations of the world - calling the shops, restaurants, hotels, fact-checking, and pulling out the cruft, while focusing on bringing you the most interesting offbeat local perspectives, and we also take advantage of all of the great <a href="http://www.creativecommons.org/">Creative Commons</a>-licensed and Public Domain information thats out there on the internet to help to create a satisfying experience for anyone who is traveling. We're also looking to get feedback from locals and travelers so the guides stay current and completely up-to-date, too! There's still a lot to do, but I thought I'd put up a <a href="http://www.sifry.com/alerts/videos/screencastoffbeatguides01.mov">screencast</a> (it runs a total of about 13 minutes) that takes you through the main features of the site - a sneak peek of what our private beta testers have been playing with. <center> <object classid="clsid:02BF25D5-8C17-4B23-BC80-D3488ABDDC6B" codebase="http://www.apple.com/qtactivex/qtplugin.cab" height="420" width="492"> <param name="src" value="http://www.sifry.com/alerts/videos/screencastoffbeatguides01.mov"> <param name="autoplay" value="false"> <param name="type" value="video/quicktime" height="420" width="492"> <embed src="http://www.sifry.com/alerts/videos/screencastoffbeatguides01.mov" height="420" width="492" autoplay="false" type="video/quicktime" pluginspage="http://www.apple.com/quicktime/download/"> </object> </center> We're actively adding more people to the beta, on a first-come, first served basis - so if you want to get involved in testing out our beta, helping us to identify and fix bugs, and get two printed guides shipped free-of-charge to you as part of the private beta, make sure to <a href="http://www.offbeatguides.com/">sign up</a> at the site. This offer won't last forever! :-)  Technorati Tags: <a href="http://technorati.com/tag/offbeatguides" rel="tag">offbeatguides</a>, <a href="http://technorati.com/tag/travel" rel="tag">travel</a>, <a href="http://technorati.com/tag/travelguide" rel="tag">travelguide</a>, <a href="http://technorati.com/tag/travelguides" rel="tag">travelguides</a>, <a href="http://technorati.com/tag/book" rel="tag">book</a>, <a href="http://technorati.com/tag/guide" rel="tag">guide</a>, <a href="http://technorati.com/tag/vacation" rel="tag">vacation</a>, <a href="http://technorati.com/tag/webservice" rel="tag">webservice</a>, <a href="http://technorati.com/tag/beta" rel="tag">beta</a>, <a href="http://technorati.com/tag/privatebeta" rel="tag">privatebeta</a>, <a href="http://technorati.com/tag/sneakpeek" rel="tag">sneakpeek</a> ]]></description> <dc:subject></dc:subject> <dc:creator>dsifry</dc:creator> <dc:date>2008-10-01T23:06:30-08:00</dc:date> </item> <item rdf:about="http://www.sifry.com/alerts/archives/2008/09/state_of_the_bl_13.html"> <title>State of the Blogosphere 2008 Wrap-up: Brands and the Blogosphere</title> <link>http://www.sifry.com/alerts/archives/2008/09/state_of_the_bl_13.html</link> <description><![CDATA[To wrap up a long data-filled week, we've rolled out <a href="http://www.technorati.com/blogging/state-of-the-blogosphere/brands-enter-the-blogosphere/">part 5</a> of the <a href="http://www.technorati.com/blogging/state-of-the-blogosphere/">State of the Blogosphere</a> report, which is all about how traditional brands are perceived and how bloggers interact with brands in the blogopshere. This data is taken from the large survey done on Technorati bloggers earlier this year, as described in<a href="http://www.technorati.com/blogging/state-of-the-blogosphere/methodology/"> our methodology</a>. Here's a few of the interesting things we learned: <ul> <li>More than four in five bloggers post product or brand reviews, and blog about brands they love or hate.</li> <li>One-third of bloggers surveyed have been approached to be brand advocates.</li> <li>Of those, more than six in ten were offered payments of some kind.</li> <li>One in five bloggers don't think that newspapers will survive the next ten years. </li> <li>Half of bloggers surveyed believe that blogs will be a primary source for news and entertainment in the next five years.</li> <li>37% of bloggers surveyed have been quoted in traditional media based on a blog post.</li> <li>Bloggers are most open to receiving marketing messages from other blogs. Even non-blog web content is more influential among this group than traditional media sources for brand information.</li> <li>Bloggers spend twice as much time online as U.S. adults 18-49, and spend only one-third as much time watching television.</li> </ul> <a href="http://www.technorati.com/blogging/state-of-the-blogosphere/brands-enter-the-blogosphere/">Read the whole section</a>, including charts and graphs. <a href="http://www.technorati.com/blogging/state-of-the-blogosphere/">Read the entire 5-part report</a>.]]></description> <dc:subject></dc:subject> <dc:creator>dsifry</dc:creator> <dc:date>2008-09-26T12:44:30-08:00</dc:date> </item> <item rdf:about="http://www.sifry.com/alerts/archives/2008/09/technorati_stat.html"> <title>Technorati State of the Blogosphere Parts 3 and 4: How, and How Much?</title> <link>http://www.sifry.com/alerts/archives/2008/09/technorati_stat.html</link> <description><![CDATA[Technorati continues to release our <a href="http://technorati.com/blogging/state-of-the-blogosphere/">2008 State of the Blogosphere report</a>. Here's some highlights from the last two days of posts, on <a href="http://technorati.com/blogging/state-of-the-blogosphere/the-how-of-blogging/">how most bloggers blog</a>, and on <a href="http://technorati.com/blogging/state-of-the-blogosphere/blogging-for-profit/">blogging for profit</a> (an eye-opening read). <ul> <li>One in four bloggers spends ten hours or more blogging each week. </li> <li>Over half of the Technorati top authority bloggers post five or more times per day, and they are twice as likely to tag their blog posts compared to other bloggers.</li> <li>From their use of RSS feeds, video, photos, and mobile updates, top bloggers are also tremendously sophisticated in leveraging the available tools to make their blogs more robust.</li> <li>The Technorati Top 100 blogs had more than twice as many postings in June 2008 as the next 500, and more than 12 times as many postings as the next 5000.</li> <li>The Technorati Top 100 are prolific, with 43% posting ten times per day or more often. Only 8% post once a day or less frequently, compared to 13% of the next 500 bloggers, and 22% of the next 5000 bloggers.</li> <li>Among bloggers who have advertising on their blogs, two in three have contextual ads (such as Google AdSense). One-third of bloggers have affiliate advertising on their blog. One in five negotiate directly with advertisers and one in ten sell advertising through a blog ad network.</li> <li>The average annual blogger revenue is more than $6,000. However, this is skewed by the top 1% of bloggers who earn $200k+.</li> <li>Among active bloggers that we surveyed, the average income was $75,000 for those who had 100,000 or more unique visitors per month (some of whom had more than one million visitors each month). The median annual income for this group is significantly lower — $22,000.</li> <li>Bloggers with advertising invest an average of $1,800 annually in their blogs. U.S. bloggers earn an average of $5,000, though bloggers in Asia earn 50% more on average and European bloggers earn an average of 75% more than U.S. bloggers.</li> <li>High revenue bloggers skew the mean revenue. The median revenue for U.S. bloggers is $200 annually (and the median annual investment is only $50).</li> <li>The top 10 percent of blogger respondents earned an average of $19,000 annually.</li> <li>Three-quarters of these successful bloggers are male, and four in ten are self employed (twice as high as the average blogger).</li> </ul> <a href="http://technorati.com/blogging/state-of-the-blogosphere/">Get all the details</a>, including graphs and charts.]]></description> <dc:subject></dc:subject> <dc:creator>dsifry</dc:creator> <dc:date>2008-09-25T17:40:33-08:00</dc:date> </item> <item rdf:about="http://www.sifry.com/alerts/archives/2008/09/state_of_the_bl_12.html"> <title>State of the Blogosphere 2008 Part 2: The What and Why of Blogging</title> <link>http://www.sifry.com/alerts/archives/2008/09/state_of_the_bl_12.html</link> <description><![CDATA[Today <a href="http://www.technorati.com/">Technorati</a> released the <a href="http://www.technorati.com/blogging/state-of-the-blogosphere/the-what-and-why-of-blogging/">second part</a> of our <a href="http://www.technorati.com/blogging/state-of-the-blogosphere/">State of the Blogosphere report</a>, and today's topics focus on what bloggers blog about, and why they blog. Technorati surveyed over 1000 bloggers who use the service, and came away with some very interesting statistically significant information: Some highlights: <ul> <li>Both personal and professional topics are equally popular, with most bloggers covering multiple topics</li> <li>Half of bloggers consider their style to be sincere, conversational, humorous, and expert in nature.</li> <li>Although there is a perception of blogging as a means for writing a tell-all or gossiping, those blogging styles fell to the bottom of the list among the bloggers surveyed</li> <li>Music is more popular and politics is less popular in Asia, while personal, lifestyle, and religious topics are less popular in Europe.</li> <li>International bloggers tend to be less conversational and snarky.</li> <li>Asian bloggers tend to be more motivational and confessional, while European bloggers are more confrontational.</li> <li>Women tend to be more conversational in their blogging style, while men tend to be expert.</li> <li>Those under 34 are more confessional in their blogging style, while those over 35 are more expert in their style.</li> <li>When asked why they blog, the majority of personal bloggers do it for fun.</li> <li>Twenty percent are currently making some money blogging, and another 42% hope to make money on their blog in the future.</li> </ul> There's <a href="http://www.technorati.com/blogging/state-of-the-blogosphere/the-what-and-why-of-blogging/">lots more in the report</a>, along with some very interesting charts and graphs showing more detailed analysis of what bloggers feel, and how they are motivated. If you missed it, you can check out the <a href="http://www.technorati.com/blogging/state-of-the-blogosphere/who-are-the-bloggers/">first part of the report</a>, which gives more of an overview.]]></description> <dc:subject></dc:subject> <dc:creator>dsifry</dc:creator> <dc:date>2008-09-24T00:44:23-08:00</dc:date> </item> <item rdf:about="http://www.sifry.com/alerts/archives/2008/09/technoratis_sta.html"> <title>Technorati's State of the Blogosphere, September 2008</title> <link>http://www.sifry.com/alerts/archives/2008/09/technoratis_sta.html</link> <description><![CDATA[I'm very pleased to announce that the next installment of the <a href="http://www.technorati.com/blogging/state-of-the-blogosphere/">State of the Blogosphere</a> is out! It has been about a year since the last report, and the Technorati team has really worked hard to make this report something comprehensive, interesting, and informative. One of the big changes this year is that along with a comprehensive scan of <a href="http://www.technorati.com/">Technorati</a>'s complete database, we also did a massive survey of bloggers who have registered with Technorati - a detailed survey with dozens of detailed questions about themselves, how they blog, and more. Altogether over 1,290 completed surveys came in from over 60 countries, with over 1,000 respondents (83%) providing their URLs and email addresses for follow-up. More information about the survey methodology is <a href="http://www.technorati.com/blogging/state-of-the-blogosphere/methodology/">here</a>. The report is so big, in fact, that we're releasing it in 5 parts: Day 1: Who Are the Bloggers? Day 2: The What And Why of Blogging Day 3: The How of Blogging Day 4: Blogging For Profit Day 5: Brands Enter The Blogosphere Enough of the preamble! Here's some juicy nuggets: <ul> <li>Technorati is currently tracking 133 million blogs (we've done a LOT of culling spam blogs, and the number of bloggers keeps growing!)</li> <li>7.4 Million blogs have posted in the last 120 days - that's 5.5% of all blogs we track.</li> <li>1.5 Million blogs have posted at least once in the last 7 days.</li> <li>There are now, on average, 900,000 blog posts tracked every 24 hours. That means that Technorati's tracking 37,500 new blog posts per hour, or 10.4 new blog posts per second!</li> </ul> Here's some more highlights from the survey of Technorati bloggers: <ul> <li>The majority of bloggers we surveyed currently have advertising on their blogs. Among those with advertising, the mean annual investment in their blog is $1,800, but it’s paying off. </li> <li>The mean annual revenue is $6,000 with $75K+ in revenue for those with 100,000 or more unique visitors per month. </li> <li>Median investment and revenue (which is <a href="http://www.technorati.com/blogging/state-of-the-blogosphere/">listed in the full report</a>) is significantly lower, around $100-$200 per year.</li> </ul> There's so much rich data in there, lots offered for study. I don't think anyone has ever done as detailed a study of bloggers with as many participants, which means that you can slice and dice the data in a number of ways and still have enough respondents to have statistical significance. For example, blog networks serve nearly women bloggers at more than double the rate they serve male bloggers (16% of women who have advertising use a network, while only 7% of men who have advertising use a network). There's more to come, but go have a look at <a href="http://www.technorati.com/blogging/state-of-the-blogosphere/">the initial report</a>, hot and fresh at the Technorati site. If you want to see the <a href="http://www.sifry.com/stateoftheliveweb/">older reports to compare</a>, I've got them archived as well. Kudos to the Technorati team for working so hard and getting this out. I'm really looking forward to the conversations it generates.  Technorati Tags: <a href="http://technorati.com/tag/report" rel="tag">report</a>, <a href="http://technorati.com/tag/sotb" rel="tag">sotb</a>, <a href="http://technorati.com/tag/technorati" rel="tag">technorati</a>, <a href="http://technorati.com/tag/blogosphere" rel="tag">blogosphere</a>, <a href="http://technorati.com/tag/stateoftheblogosphere" rel="tag">stateoftheblogosphere</a>, <a href="http://technorati.com/tag/blogging" rel="tag">blogging</a> ]]></description> <dc:subject></dc:subject> <dc:creator>dsifry</dc:creator> <dc:date>2008-09-22T11:31:06-08:00</dc:date> </item> <item rdf:about="http://www.sifry.com/alerts/archives/2008/09/kudos_to_fred_w.html"> <title>Kudos to Fred Wilson and Union Square Ventures!</title> <link>http://www.sifry.com/alerts/archives/2008/09/kudos_to_fred_w.html</link> <description><![CDATA[Nice <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/22/technology/22venture.htm">writeup</a> today in the <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/">New York Times</a>. Who says that nice guys finish last? Or that good guys can't win? I've been hearing good things about the team ever since their <a href="http://del.icio.us/">del.icio.us</a> investment and Dick Costolo at <a href="http://feedburner.com/">Feedburner</a> couldn't say enough good things about them. Fred's also a <a href="http://avc.com/">prolific and thought-leading blogger</a>, who has kept up consistent quality for a few years now - not an easy feat. Congrats, Fred and team! Well deserved.]]></description> <dc:subject></dc:subject> <dc:creator>dsifry</dc:creator> <dc:date>2008-09-21T22:56:51-08:00</dc:date> </item> <item rdf:about="http://www.sifry.com/alerts/archives/2008/09/complete_camera.html"> <title>Complete Camera Lust: Canon EOS 5D Mark II</title> <link>http://www.sifry.com/alerts/archives/2008/09/complete_camera.html</link> <description><![CDATA[I admit it - I'm a bit of a camera junkie. I've been a photographer for 20 years, and I know enough to know that the camera you use is simply a tool - and that the true skill of photography lies between our ears. However, I just couldn't help myself from getting a bit tight-chested when I saw that Canon had announced their newest camera in their lineup this week - The EOS 5D Mark II. <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/37996599986@N01/117079164" title="View 'Buttes as a Storm Approaches, Monument Valley AZ' on Flickr.com"><img src="http://farm1.static.flickr.com/36/117079164_ce7a0e0c27_m.jpg" alt="Buttes as a Storm Approaches, Monument Valley AZ" border="0" width="240" height="180" hspace="10" align="right" /></a>I left the film world behind in 2000, which I gotta tell you, was way too early - I was shooting 640x480 onto floppies way back when, and the pictures looked like crap. But ever since I got the <a href="http://www.dpreview.com/reviews/nikoncp990/">3 Megapixel Nikon 990</a>, I've been hooked on digital. I have 11x14 prints taken by that camera, and a few are still my favorites, like the one on the right, "<a href="http://flickr.com/photos/dsifry/117079164/">Buttes as a Storm Approaches, Monument Valley, AZ</a>". I've upgraded a few times since then, both in point-n-shoots, as well as in workhorse DSLRs - first the EOS 10D, which I used in 2004 to shoot the DNC and RNC political conventions while working with CNN, and then more recently, with the EOS 5D, which I have taken with me all around the world. <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/37996599986@N01/322812336" title="View 'Kiosk on the Champs Elysees - 2604' on Flickr.com"><img src="http://farm1.static.flickr.com/144/322812336_153b62a7ab_m.jpg" alt="Kiosk on the Champs Elysees - 2604" border="0" width="240" height="160" align="left" hspace="10" /></a>I love the 5D. It's got nearly everything that I want as a photographer, in a reasonably lightweight, solid package, and it's built to make most tasks easy and intuitive. I bought it primarily because I love taking wide-angle shos, and the 5D as the first reasonably-priced camera with a true 24mmx35mm sensor - meaning that there is no "magnification factor" when you put a lens on it. A 24mm lens looks like a 24mm lens back when I shot film. A 50mm lens is a normal lens, not a portrait lens like it was on my 10D. It had significantly improved low-ligh characteristics, like really smooth shots up to about ISO 800, which meant that I could get a lot of those birthday-shots-lit-by-a-candle when I fixed a nice fast lens like the 50mm f1.4 to the 5D and shot at 800 or 1600 ISO. My family thanked me, because I was able to get no-flash shots of the kids blowing out birthday candles and I loved it because I could walk around places like Paris and get shots I would never have been able to get before. So when i heard that Canon was finally doing an upgrade to the 5D, I was very excited. And then I heard about the features of the camera, and some of the <a href="http://www.dpreview.com/previews/canoneos5dmarkII/">preproduction reactions</a> by photographers. Some of the things that impressed me: <ul> <li>New, higher ISO settings - including shots that look nearly noise free at ISO 1600 and 3200. This is amazing. And the camera can go up to ISO 25,600 for when you really are in nearly no light, but I uspect I won't go any highr than ISO 6400. But still, this increase in relatively noiseless high ISO images is nothing short of fantastic. Basically, this means that I'm going to be able to get greater depth of field or faster shutter speeds later at night. This is a very good thing.</li> <li>21 Megapixels. Now Megapixels aren't the only judge of quality, but it appears that these 21 megapixels are the real deal - it's truly medium format quality in a 35mm body. Often adding pixels means that the overall sensitivity of the camera drastically drops in low light, but see the item above - Canon has made their sensors dramatically more sensitive, even as they made each individual pixel smaller so that they could cram in 21 Megapixels in. Amazing. Again, a big win.</li> <li>3.9 fps. Now this isn't the super-fast 5fps that sports shooters need, but adding essentially an extra frame per second will definitely feel faster, and let me get more expressions when I'm taking portraits. I'm one of those guys who likes to take lots of shots of people and try to get them relaxed to get lots of different expressions - chances are, you'll end up getting at least one well-exposed, natural smile when you d that. The current 5D is 3fps, but the new one will get me an extra frame per second. That's a good thing.</li> <li>Live preview shooting (which means a nearly silent shutter) I'm hoping that I'll be able to get lots more fun candid shots. I haven't had a camera with Live Preview before, but it has been available on Canon's (and some Nikons) for a while, so it must be pretty good. I 'll give it a go, anyway.</li> <li>The big kicker: 1080p video along with a microphone jack and HDMI output on the camera. Wow. This is amazing. When I heard about the Nikon D90 coming out that could do video, I was envious. Now when I think about the kids of video productions I can create with my current lens lineup, fast zooms, and fast focus, I get very excited. Add to it the enhanced smoothness and noise reduction at high ISOs and shooting with natural light even in low light sounds like it'll be fun too. Definitely looking forward to filling up lots of hard disks with video to play with. Another plus - it shoots directly to 1080p quicktime movies, so there's no transcoding necessary if you want to edit in iMovie or Final Cut Pro. Sweet.</li> </ul> I could go on and on. I think this camera is going to be a huge seller, and I'm preordering mine - I think that if you don't get in now, this camera is going to be backordered for months. There are downsides oo- like the incompatable set of accessories and batteries, meaning that you're going to have to buy new ones when you get the camera. But for a guy who takes care of his tools, I'm really looking forward to having the 5D Mark II as my new primary camera, and the 5D as it's very worthy backup. And now my Channukah list is complete. This camera comes out sometime in November, just in time for the holiday season. Woo hoo!  Technorati Tags: <a href="http://technorati.com/tag/cameras" rel="tag">cameras</a>, <a href="http://technorati.com/tag/canon" rel="tag">canon</a>, <a href="http://technorati.com/tag/5d" rel="tag">5d</a>, <a href="http://technorati.com/tag/lust" rel="tag">lust</a>, <a href="http://technorati.com/tag/gear" rel="tag">gear</a>, <a href="http://technorati.com/tag/photography" rel="tag">photography</a> ]]></description> <dc:subject></dc:subject> <dc:creator>dsifry</dc:creator> <dc:date>2008-09-21T22:27:50-08:00</dc:date> </item> <item rdf:about="http://www.sifry.com/alerts/archives/2008/09/giving_marsedit.html"> <title>Giving MarsEdit a try</title> <link>http://www.sifry.com/alerts/archives/2008/09/giving_marsedit.html</link> <description><![CDATA[For many years, I've been using Adriaan Tijsseling's <a href="http://infinite-sushi.com/software/ecto/">ecto</a> as an offline blogging client. It's not perfect, but it's a damn good blogging client - full-featured, easy to use, and has plugin support, as well as having nice things like Technorati tags built into it. if you're starting out blogging, you should definitely check it out, it is a big improvement from the web-based tools that come with most blogging platforms. Recently I've noticed, however, that for some reason, I haven't been blogging much. Maybe it's because I've been really busy, or because of the amount of time I'm spending working on <a href="http://www.offbeatguides.com/">Offbeat Guides</a>, I'm not sure. Maybe it's because I've been hanging out a bit more on Twitter<a href="http://twitter.com/dsifry"></a> and <a href="http://friendfeed.com/dsifry">Friendfeed</a>. Who knows? Well, I'm going to try blogging a bit more often from now on, and we'll see if it sticks. And just for fun, I'm going to go give <a href="http://www.red-sweater.com/marsedit/">MarsEdit</a> a try, and see how I like it. So far, it's pretty nice - it gets out of my way, and there's this nice Preview window that gives me a preview of my post that updates while I type. I like that. It supports <a href="http://technorati.com/tags/">Technorati Tags</a>, and has support for <a href="http://flickr.com/">Flickr</a>, which should make it easy for me to add photos. And it seems to support some Emacs-style keyboard shortcut, like Ctrl-a to go to the beginning of a line, and Ctrl-e to go to the end of a line - little things that just feel right for an old-timer like me. What's your favorite offline editor for the Mac? Got any good tips or shortcuts when using MarsEdit? Leave a comment below...  Technorati Tags: <a href="http://technorati.com/tag/marsedit" rel="tag">marsedit</a>, <a href="http://technorati.com/tag/blogging" rel="tag">blogging</a>, <a href="http://technorati.com/tag/tools" rel="tag">tools</a> ]]></description> <dc:subject></dc:subject> <dc:creator>dsifry</dc:creator> <dc:date>2008-09-21T20:08:17-08:00</dc:date> </item> <item rdf:about="http://www.sifry.com/alerts/archives/2008/08/technorati_acqu.html"> <title>Technorati Acquires Blogcritics</title> <link>http://www.sifry.com/alerts/archives/2008/08/technorati_acqu.html</link> <description><![CDATA[Many congratulations to <a href="http://technorati.com/">Richard and his team</a>, and also to Eric and Phillip at <a href="http://blogcritics.org/">Blogcritics</a>! Welcome aboard. More about the <a href="http://technorati.com/weblog/2008/08/444.html">announcement</a> is available, and <a href="http://techcrunch.com">Techcrunch</a> has a <a href="http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/08/26/technorati-acquires-blogcritics-gets-into-content-game/#comments">story</a> as well.]]></description> <dc:subject></dc:subject> <dc:creator>dsifry</dc:creator> <dc:date>2008-08-26T10:17:47-08:00</dc:date> </item> <item rdf:about="http://www.sifry.com/alerts/archives/2008/08/personalization.html"> <title>Personalization and the publishing business</title> <link>http://www.sifry.com/alerts/archives/2008/08/personalization.html</link> <description><![CDATA[The <a href="http://www.business-standard.com/">Business Standard</a> of India wrote up a really interesting <a href="http://www.business-standard.com/india/storypage.php?autono=332040">review of Offbeat Guides</a> today: <blockquote>Recently, I had the chance to travel to Japan to speak and participate in an international conference. Ever heard of Sapporo? Quite honestly, I hadn’t. It’s Japan’s 5th largest city in the northern island of Hokkaido. There’s a good chance I would never have bothered to find out where it is, if not for the conference. Now that I had to spend a week there, I figured that it would be a good idea to get a travel guide. And so, off I went looking for a travel guide to Japan. I found two books, both very generously priced at around Rs 1,500 (ed. Note: That's about USD $35). I probably wouldn’t have minded it that much if the book had enough material about Sapporo. Unfortunately, all it had was a measly chapter about the city where I was travelling to and I was left standing with a book where 95 per cent of the information had no practical use to me. It didn’t take me long to put the books back in the bookshelf. It’s after this experience that I so much appreciate the value of OffBeat Guides, a make-it-yourself, personalised guide book service. The service understands that your main interest is the city you are travelling to. In this case, my only interest was Sapporo in Northern Japan. And in under 10 minutes, I had myself a personalised travel guide to Sapporo.</blockquote> This sums up so succinctly why I started the company - I travel a lot, and I was disappointed with what more traditional guides gave me about the places I was going - especially if they were not the 50 most traveled places in the world. I wanted travel search that worked for me, rather than something that made me work hard to collect all the information on my own. Here's what Kiruba Shankar, the author of the article <a href="http://www.business-standard.com/india/storypage.php?autono=332040">writes</a>: <blockquote>It then gives me the choice of menus of the different information about the city and I get to choose what I want and what I don’t want. For example, I did not want information about 5-star hotels. So, I unchecked them. But what I definitely wanted to know was the Subway train map and the local bus routes. Likewise, there’s a long laundry list of items I can choose. Even though all the information is available on the Internet free of charge, there are two distinct advantages that the book provides. One, someone else does the searching for you, saving you time and two, all the information is neatly packaged into a small book making it easy for you to carry along. You can either choose to have the PDF version for about Rs 400 Ed. Note: USD $9.95) and read it off your laptop or choose to buy the printed book for about Rs 1,000 (Ed. Note: USD $24.95). I prefer choosing the PDF version and taking a printout on my printer. Works better this way. The beauty of the book is it’s personalisation. Since it knows what dates you are in the city, it only lists important events that take place in the city when you are there. For example, I was told that there is a Beer Garden Festival happening which I made sure to attend.</blockquote> Go read the <a href="http://www.business-standard.com/india/storypage.php?autono=332040">entire article</a>, and sign up for the <a href="http://www.offbeatguides.com/">private beta</a> - there's a waiting list right now, but we're letting more folks in to the beta on a first-come, first-served basis. We believe, as does Kiruba, that personalized publishing is a tremendous opportunity in the publishing business - and that printed books have a lot of value, especially if you can personalize them to each individual reader. I'm a big fan of customized product companies like <a href="http://moo.com/">Moo</a>, <a href="http://cafepress.com/">Cafepress</a>, <a href="http://lulu.com/">Lulu</a>, <a href="http://spreadshirt.de/">Spreadshirt</a>, <a href="http://threadless.com/">Threadless</a>, and <a href="http://jpgmag.com/">JPG Magazine</a>. I think there's a new sector forming around creating tangible representations of digital creations - and I like it...]]></description> <dc:subject></dc:subject> <dc:creator>dsifry</dc:creator> <dc:date>2008-08-22T10:37:57-08:00</dc:date> </item> <item rdf:about="http://www.sifry.com/alerts/archives/2008/05/offbeat_guides.html"> <title>Offbeat Guides: Personalized, On-demand Travel Guides</title> <link>http://www.sifry.com/alerts/archives/2008/05/offbeat_guides.html</link> <description><![CDATA[Today is a very big day for me and my team - <a href="http://www.offbeatguides.com/">Offbeat Guides</a>, the new company that we've been working on for the last 6 months is launching in private beta! What does the company do? Offbeat Guides' first product is personalized, on-demand printed Travel Guides. Ever go through the experience of planning a trip using the web? I've always found it pretty painful - finding all the sights, the best places to stay, restaurants, walking tours, public bathrooms, wifi maps, and all that, not to mention finding out what bands are in town, or what interesting local meetings, book signings, museum and gallery openings are out there. I also end up getting maps for my hotels and meetings, too. When I do end up having the time, I often become like a packrat, finding tidbits on the web, bookmarking, and then printing them on my home computer. Add in a big black clippy to keep all the pages together, and if I'm lucky, it'll hold things tightly so I won't be dropping papers everywhere as I'm running through airports, or searching through papers in taxis. The end result often gets stuck at the bottom of my bag, totally crumpled and ripped. The problem with everything else out there Here's the other thing I noticed - when I've got time to do more extended planning, the travel guides that I get at the bookstore are really only about the "big" destinations - you know, the big cities and tourist spots. And I'm paying for lots of information that I really don't need - I end up getting a book that's mostly about the places where I'm NOT going, often hundreds of miles away. Of course, that's all that the current publishers can do - the economics of the book publishing business demands that you focus all your energies on the lowest common denominator - and that you mass-produce the same out-of-date content to every bookstore on the planet that puts you on the shelf. It's also pretty wasteful from an environmental standpoint - all those unnecessary pages means more dead trees. That's just not right, and in the age of the net, there's got to be a better way. After five years of <a href="http://www.technorati.com/">building a search engine</a> that scoured the "live web" for new, fresh information from authoritative sources, I knew that there was an exciting opportunity to add in a new dimension - location - and maybe build something really neat: A constantly changing, up-to-the-minute set of travel guides that could also be personalized to your preferences; but also something that was easy to build and easy to read. Oh, did I mention that these would be physical books, not just virtual? Of course, if you want to get the PDF, you can do that too, and print it yourself, or put it on your <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000FI73MA/ref=amb_link_6369712_1?pf_rd_m=ATVPDKIKX0DER&pf_rd_s=center-1&pf_rd_r=11ZTMJMGR0MM37DH2P8S&pf_rd_t=101&pf_rd_p=401927101&pf_rd_i=507846">Kindle</a>, for example. Call me old-fashioned, but I think the technology of paper still has some legs yet: When you do it right, paper is lightweight, extremely low power, flexible, you can even write on it! You can get it wet, no need to reboot it, and it fits easily in a knapsack or back pocket with no fear of breakage. You can also feel perfectly safe riding an elephant in the jungles above Chang Mai, Thailand even if you drop it in a muddy puddle, or if it gets stepped on by a following pachyderm. No 3-year warranty necessary! Of course, when I head on a trip somewhere, I like to have my computer and mobile phone with me, and I love it if I can get internet access while I'm on my trip, but sometimes that's just impractical or impossible - I don't like leaving my computer or phone on a beach, or wait for a crappy net connection when I'm on the road. Those things are great at the end of the day, when I'm in my hotel room, but they're terrible when I need to look up how to say "Where's the bathroom?" in Italian, or "I'm staying at the Sheraton Hotel" in Thai. For that, we put a bunch of useful information on the back cover of each guide - just for the important facts that take too long to look up, like how much to tip your taxi driver! Ideally, what I wanted to bring with me is a nicely bound personalized travel guide, that has information about just the destination of my trip, and includes more detailed information - not only the history and the like, but also gives me updated information on exchange rates, local events and festivals, and what's actually going on in the city while I'm there. Who cares if there's a great festival in December if I'm there in June? I wanted to add in information that is relevant to my preferences, too - If I'm traveling with my kids, I want to know what's fun for them in that town, or if I'm on business, I want to know where to get free wifi. And of course, I want to know where to get a great meal; but if I already know where I'm staying I want to be able to pull all of the "where to stay" info out of my guide too! And it would be great to have this guide accessible to me when I'm in front of my computer or phone, as well. Offbeat Guides was born from that personal itch. There's a lot of technology on the back-end: You could say that in a way, what we've done is flip the implementation of travel search on its head. We're trying to actually give you more of what you want, and less of the unnecessary or irrelevant stuff. We've scoured the web for the best information about over 30,000 different travel destinations, using a combination of search technology, and curation by both amateur and professional travel experts (our travel content coodinator spent the last 4years at Lonely Planet!) But technology is only useful if you can make it simple - so we spent a lot of time boiling the user experience of building a guide to it's essence: 5 simple steps that everyone should be able to answer easily: 1) What's your name? 2) Where are you going? 3) Where are you coming from? 4) What are your travel dates? 5) (Optional) Where are you staying when you're there? With that information in hand, you can create a personalized guide. You can go in, customize your table of contents to add or remove sections depending on your interests. And more is coming soon as we continue to build out the product: For example, you'll soon be able to add your own chapters with any information that you cut-and-paste into the guide, and you'll be able to tell us a bit more about yourself and have the guide tailored for you: If you're travelling with kids, for example, or if you want WiFi maps, or food preferences. We're currently pulling information from some really great places on the internet - about two dozen sources so far, and more being added every day. We're very cognizant of copyright issues, and try to work first with folks who put their information in the public domain, or use creative commons licenses that encourage commercial use. With some sites, we've worked out commercial relationships to be able to use their data, and we're actively negotiating with lots more who want to make available their writing and data to our customers - and we're looking at creative ways to build an ecosystem where everyone wins. We're also working with some fantastic companies that are solving big pieces of the puzzle, like trip recommendations, flight reservations, and other travel scheduling tools. If you want to work with us, <a href="mailto:partners@offbeatguides.com">drop us a line</a>! It's been a thrilling and exciting 6 months, and I'm so proud of <a href="http://www.offbeatguides.com/about">the team</a> that has gotten us here - it's been such a blast to be able to work with such smart, motivated, and fun-loving folks! If you're interested in helping us to deliver a great experience, looking to help a young company produce just the kind of guide you want, and aren't afraid of seeing a few bugs along the way, come to the site, and <a href="http://www.offbeatguides.com/">sign up for the beta</a>! We'll be adding folks to the beta as we continue to fix bugs and increase scalability, and we'll be doing it largely on a first-come, first served basis. More to come. Onwards and upwards! ]]></description> <dc:subject></dc:subject> <dc:creator>dsifry</dc:creator> <dc:date>2008-05-31T23:59:00-08:00</dc:date> </item> </rdf:RDF>