We haven’t used Network Solutions for many years for domain searching. This morning I learned what the word frontrunning meant in Mashable’s coverage of a class action lawsuit aimed at Network Solutions and ICANN:

Frontrunning is the practice in which users would look up a domain name via the registration-site WHOIS, and would appear available, but every other internet registrar would show the names as unavailable, and registered to Network Solutions, thus forcing the user to purchase the domain from them.

If what this lawsuit alleges is true, this is a dirty anti-consumer tactic and punishment should be severe.

Remember, this is the same outfit that once upon a time was charging $35 a year for domain registration when others were half or less the price. I’m not going to use this post to recommend other domain registrars, but there are plenty of viable alternatives to Network Solutions. These days you can register a domain for $5-8 per year and some hosting companies offer free domain registration if you pay for hosting with them.

I’ve been in need of a quick reference resource for people that are unfamiliar with the different types of blogging and came up with the following 8 different types of blogging in 2008.

1. linkblog

Some call this social bookmarking, but it’s only social if you’re sharing the links with others. e.g del.icio.us

2. moblog

Sending pictures from a cameraphone or mobile device. e.g Flickr

3. podcast

Audio recording, typically in MP3 format and served through RSS feed enclosure. e.g Utterz, Odeo

4. videoblog / vlog

Video recording offered in one or more popular video formats like mp4, wmv and served as enclosure in RSS feed. e.g blip.tv, YouTube

5. microblog - a short text message which may or may not contain a shortened URL. Popular with mobile users (SMS). e.g Twitter, Jaiku, Pownce

6. miniblog / reBlog - using a more significant amount of content from a third party in a post versus creating original material. Typically these posts are shorter than a regular blog post, but don’t have to be. e.g Tumblr, reBlog

7. liveblog - covering some type of live event like a sports event, press conference, tv show, etc. e.g Engadget live coverage of Macworld 2008, coveritlive (tool)

8. blog - a collection of other types of blogging mentioned above and/or typically longer, more detailed postings that could also be labeled as articles. Some blogs offer series or collections of posts around a topic. A blog can be self-hosted using software like Wordpress.org or by using a third party service like Google’s blogger.com. e.g. the blog you’re reading this on: MakeYouGoHmm.com.

Missing/corrections/updates
If I missed a key important point that somebody newer to the world of blogging might need to know, please include below. This is not intended to be an exhaustive reference but something that will point somebody new in the right starting direction.

Has some other new niche developed that I’m not following?

Looking at the Forbes list of The Web Celeb 25, I thought it would be fun to look at their public following/follower numbers on Twitter. I don’t think there is any dispute that Twitter, love it or hate it, is the current king of the hill in the microblogging niche. For those who think Twitter is a waste of time, how many of Forbes chosen Web Celebs are not only on Twitter but actively using it right now?

I’ll draw a few conclusions, probably flawed, along the way from the data but you have the chance to weigh in below with your own interpretation, if any. The numbers below were accurate as of Wednesday December 19, 2007 and naturally subject to change by the time you read this.

1. Perez Hilton (unofficial? automated blog updates) twitter.com/perez
Following 0 - Followers: 28 Last update: within last 24 hours

2. Michael Arrington (official) twitter.com/techcrunch
Following 78 - Followers: 5,162 Last update: within last 24 hours

Funny: check out Mike Arrington saying he will stop following somebody that asks for diggs:

Considering he is following less than 100 people of the 5,100+ that are following him, he must have a lot more criteria for not following others than this?

3. Mark Frauenfelder (official) twitter.com/Frauenfelder
Following 7 - Followers: 195 Last update: 3 months ago

4. Seth Godin (official, automated blog updates) twitter.com/SethGodin
Following 0 - Followers: 853 Last update: less than 24 hours ago

5. Cory Doctorow (official) twitter.com/doctorow
Following 7 - Followers: 693 Last update: 7 months ago

6. Matt Drudge (official?, 1 update) twitter.com/drudge
Following 0 - Followers: 14 Last update: 8 months ago

7. Gina Trapani (official) twitter.com/ginatrapani
Following 86 - Followers: 575 Last update: less than 24 hours ago

8. Mark Zuckerberg (Official, *protected*) twitter.com/markzuckerberg
*Following 1 - Followers: 1 Last update: *protected, unknown

9. Harry Knowles (no account?)
Unknown, no search results. If you have details on Harry’s Twitter account, please use the comments below. I also tried an unsuccessful search for aintitcool.

10. Robert Scoble (official) twitter.com/Scobleizer
Following 6,950 - Followers: 6,890 Last update: less than 24 hours ago

11. Frank Warren (no account?)
Unknown, no search results. If you have details on Frank’s Twitter account, please use the comments below. No result for post secret, but curiously there is a twittersecret that allows you to send along secrets and have them posted anonymously.

12. Om Malik (official, *protected updates*) twitter.com/om
Following 146 - Followers: 137 Last update: *protected, unknown*

13. Will Leitch (no account?)
Unknown, no search results. If you have details on Will’s Twitter account, please use the comments below. Nothing for deadspin.com either.

14. Jeff Jarvis (official, 2 updates total) twitter.com/buzzmachine
Following 17 - Followers: 325 Last update: 6 months ago

15. Kevin Rose (official) twitter.com/kevinrose
Following 22 - Followers: 1,076 Last update: 6 days ago

Note: Kevin is one of the people behind competing service: pownce.com.

16. Kathy Sierra (official? no updates) twitter.com/lefthead
Following 0 - Followers: 0 Last update: never

17. Fake Steve Jobs (unofficial? blog updates only) twitter.com/FSJ
Following 0 - Followers: 72 Last update: less than 24 hours ago

Note: Doesn’t appear that Dan Lyons, the author of the Fake Steve Jobs is on Twitter either (?)

18. Markos Moulitsas (no account?)
Unknown, no search results. If you have details on Markos’ Twitter account, please use the comments below. I tried searching for dailykos too.

19. Xeni Jardin (official) twitter.com/xenijardin
Following 87 - Followers: 1,249 Last update: less than 24 hours ago

20. Ryan Block (official) twitter.com/ryanblock
Following 45 - Followers: 592 Last update: less than 24 hours ago

21. Glenn Reynolds (no account?)
Unknown, no search results. If you have details on Glenn’s Twitter account, please use the comments below. I tried searching for Instapundit too. Nadda.

22. Pete Cashmore (official, mixed with automated blog updates) twitter.com/mashable
Following 647 - Followers: 2,215 Last update: less than 24 hours ago

23. Steve Rubel (official) twitter.com/steverubel
Following 1,452 - Followers: 2,947 Last update: less than 24 hours ago

24. Heather Armstrong (official) twitter.com/dooce
Following 39 - Followers: 1,742 Last update: a month ago

25. Darren Rowse (official) twitter.com/problogger
Following 371 - Followers: 369 Last update: less than 24 hours

Hmm thoughts
As noted in the Forbes summary three of the Boing Boing editors are included in the list (Frauenfelder #3, Doctorow #5, Jardin #19). Here’s some other stats:

No presence: 11 of 25 (44%) - those that appear NOT to have a direct Twitter presence either by using bots to just aggregate what’s already on their blog or haven’t updated in the last month.
Non-selfish: 3 of 25 (12%) - who follow more than follow them? Robert Scoble (#10), Om Malik (#12) and Darren Rowse (#25). Is it more popular among these ‘celebs’ to be followed than to follow?
Active: 8 of 25 (32%) - who appear to be active Twitter users. Michael Arrington (#2), Gina Tripani (#7), Robert Scoble (#10), Xeni Jardin (#19), Ryan Block (#20), Pete Cashmore (#22), Steve Rubel (#23) and Darren Rowse (#25). So does this mean that these 32% “get” Twitter? Or is their attention misguided, since a greater percentage 44% do not have a non-automated presence on Twitter?
Bots: 3 of 25 (12%) - who are using automated feed only. Perez Hilton (#1), Seth Godin (#4), Fake Steve Jobs (#17).
Protected: 2 of 25 (8%) - who are protecting their feed. Mark Zuckerberg (#8) and Om Malik (#12).

Sidenote: This is day #66 of my Twitter experiment (along the left sidebar of the homepage you can see a counter) which basically involves me trying to find value, if any, in the service. I’m building programs for it using the API, adding friends (600+ now) and making messages (900+ now). One major setback on the API side is currently the network is jammed and not accepting a lot of server requests. Alex on the Twitter team says the new data center migration won’t happen until after the first of the year. Bummer

On the list above as of this writing, I’m only following two of these people (Robert Scoble and Darren Rowse). I’d follow Om Malik too but haven’t followed anybody who protects their updates. A few people have changed to protecting their updates after I’ve followed them which is cool.

A major attractive stat to me for any unknown/new Twitter user that I’m not already following is having close to, equal or more than the number of people following them that they follow. This stat suggests to me, and I could be wrong, these people are more open to conversation from new people. It’s a bit disappointing to me that most of the internet celebs according to Forbes are as inaccessible as other entertainment celebrities, but it’s nice to see a few folks like Scoble who are very accessible.

What can you draw from this data, if anything?

If you haven’t heard already Merriam Webster’s word of the year for 2007 is w00t, but this word did not make it visually into the new Merriam Webster Visual Dictionary. Too bad, just imagine what great images could be attributed to w00T! For a serious example, see weightlifting.

If you didn’t know what was a barbell, wristband, sleeveless jersey, weightlifting belt, trunk, knee wrap, strap or weightlifting shoe the image with related links will help. I was disappointed that Merriam Webster didn’t offer images for words like weird, strange, eerie and haunting. A picture of Michael Jackson would have worked for all those. At the least they could have done a mashup with the Flickr API and offered a visual dictionary based on tagged words (e.g flick search results for w00t). No fun.

Adding to the disappointment, the “TOOLS” link at the top leads to a page which says: “This page is under construction.” Oops. You can leave them feedback which leads to a contact form which requires first name, last name, email address, subject and your message. I didn’t bother filling that out, because my comment would have been simply a link to this blog with the following image:

This sanitized, PC version of a visual dictionary feels like 1987, not 2007. I like the concept and the images they do have are worthwhile, but this service left me hungry for more. Grade: D

Google (disclaimer: I own GOOG stock) has a new bookmarklet that you can drag to your Firefox bar to share sites to a page on their site. Just click on the bookmarklet to add a page you are currently browsing. You can also share the page with friend(s) via email and a custom message or submit to digg, reddit, delicious, Facebook, Furl or Social Poster (who?).

Here’s my Google shared page . Here’s how the page looks with a test link from here:

Stats fans will note that the page shows the number of views. I’m starting to amass a bunch of these type of public shared pages and here are two I use regularly:

StumbleUpon - view sites I like and dislike and add to the service. Been using since January 2004.
Del.icio.us - my online bookmark repository. I mark most things public. Since April 2005.

I also share a fair amount of links in our IRC chatroom with our IRC bot and that’s all archived in XML on the server. Probably should take a little time and make those links shared publically somewhere, either on one of these third party services or on a page. Wonder when there will be an API to add to this list, Google (hint, hint)?

Blogoscoped is calling this a “social link sharing service” perhaps in part due to the feature that will also show you shared items from people in your Gmail contact list? I have a pretty good sized Gmail address book and so far nothing is showing on this page. Will have to test this with friends and update once I see how that works.

A mind map is a visual organizational tool with related words and concepts linked with a key concept by means of lines and arrows. On the Tablet PC there are a couple well known mind mapping tools, most notably Mind Manager by Mindjet which starts at $229 USD on the PC and Mac. With Mindomo you can create free mind maps.

Mindomo has their own registration system (too bad no OpenID) which requires first name, last name, email, username and password. Email address doesn’t accept + for Google filtering. Fill the form out and then confirm by clicking the validation link sent in the email. Then it’s onto creating your own mind map. It launches in full maximize mode, but you can resize by clicking around the edges.

Here’s a basic right mind map I whipped up in a few minutes on virtual worlds:

You can add images, background, hyperlinks and assign tasks. The map starts out private, and Mindomo allows you to create up to 7 private mind maps. It wasn’t very clear how to make the mind map public, so I went searching on the site and ended up in the forum. when you choose “save as” make sure you click on the “public” folder on the left.

I resaved my virtual worlds mind map as public. Next I deleted and then opened my Virtual Worlds mind map saved to public below:
http://www.mindomo.com/view.php?m=5a99211fae82775fc23057154d54ef05

Mindomo is taking the Google ad-supported model and puts a long, thin, unobtrusive ad strip in the right sidebar:

When Mindomo leaves beta a premium version for 4.99 Euros a month will offer a more secure environment, unlimited private maps and more.

Mind mapping is the kind of thing that feels best in your own handwriting and thus is perhaps best suited to Tablet PC users or traditional yellow pad and pencil. Still, Mindomo is worth looking over for the many people who don’t have tablets and don’t want to go old school with ink and/or lead. I can see using Mindomo for a few things, sort of like I’ve been using Google Spreadsheets and Docs online. I wonder if Google will either buy this or launch a competing product. It would fit their growing suite of online applications.

Download Hmmcast #51 mp4

The Song Remains The Same: Soundtrack From The Led Zeppelin Film, Fair Use, FOX, 24 - Season One, 24 - Season Two, 24 - Season Three, 24 - Season Four, 24 - Season Five

All Amazon links in this post are affiliate links. When Season six comes out on DVD, we’ll most likely be adding that to our collection as well. Since our family continues to be by choice TV-less we are watching current 24 episodes using the Fox On Demand thru MySpace site. A friend asked me what this setup was like, so I took a picture:

The white speakers are from my wife’s iPod and sound a lot better than they look. Longtime readers might remember this same laptop setup for use with Vongo. I learned the cool FUNCTION + F8 trick to toggle the TV out from a Hmm reader, thanks CTyler.

Another good case made for keeping comments open on archive posts. Some 11 months after that post was made and almost 100 comments later, people are still contributing. The only good reason to shut down comments on archives is to limit the amount of spam received but I believe the good far outweighs the bad.

Bonus: Just before publishing this post, I came across Jeff Baker’s updated listing of where to watch TV online which includes: ABC, CBS, FOX and more. Handy reference.

Earlier this week a Microsoft employee came under fire for contacting an Australian author over doing some “work” to edit a Wikipedia article. Mostly lost in that message over the furor of “how dare [Microsoft]” was the accuracy of the Wikipedia entry brought into question. A few noticed and focused on that, but most went with the more salicious attack on Microsoft. Almost every time I write something about Wikipedia, I feel compelled to write about the accuracy and not being comfortable using it as the only source.

Looks like more scholarly types than me have the same issue and continue to criticize Wikipedia.

Inisheer writes “History professors at Middlebury College are tired of having all their students submit the same bad information on term papers. The culprit: Wikipedia — the user-created encyclopedia that’s full of great stuff, and also full of inaccuracies.”

I agree with the professors and if I was a teacher, I’d send anything back from students that used Wikipedia too.

Curious to see if this blog’s history reinforced my reluctance to cite Wikipedia as a source, I searched how many times Wikipedia has been mentioned since July 4, 2003: a mere 41 times (41 out of 4143 = 0.009% — slightly less than 1%). ‘Encarta’ has only scored 2 mentions over the same time.

Personally I think the same people who have given Wikipedia power, have weakened the accuracy of information over excessive micromanagement of the details from people in the know. It’s one thing to fight for accurate facts, but it’s quite another to create a hostile environment for those with the facts to be able to participate, usually by more experienced Wikipedians. It might purely be perception on myself and other parts that this hostile environment exists, but that’s what has kept me away in the past and continues to keep me away from having much direct involvement and interest in Wikipedia.

Here’s my question about your blog or in every day business: how often do you cite Wikipedia? Do you doublecheck other sources in addition to Wikipedia or feel comfortable citing Wikipedia standalone?

Disclaimer: I’m being paid to write this review.

The single web page Search Engine Marketing Glossary by SEO Book author Aaron Wall seeks to provide definitions for some affiliate programs, AJAX, server status codes (301, 404, etc), people and more. The glossary uses the Creative Commons Attribution 2.5 license meaning others are free to copy, distribute, display, and perform the work as long as they attribute the source. This is a copyright friendly license that encourages mashups.

Wall cites the reason for creating the glossary was because people asked and then explains:

I think our personal experiences make everyone biased, but the bias in any of the following definitions is my own (or at least one which matches my own if I borrowed a definition from another source … like the Wikipedia), thus if there are any faults in the following definitions those faults are my own.

During this review when I use terms that are defined in the SEM Glossary, I’ll enclose them in brackets like this [definition]. When no definition exists in the glossary but might be a nice addition, I’ll use: [no definition].

Glossary page design
The top of the page is the same logo as the seobook.com website. Not even the word “glossary” merged into the title. There is a big RSS button which is visible in the screenshot but that doesn’t provide updates/changes for the glossary, instead it is tied to the SEObook book. Kind of disappointing not providing a separate feed for the glossary.

To the right at the top is a first party advertisement for search engine consulting services. This is the only traditional advertising, no Google Adsense, banners or buttons. I didn’t spot any affiliate links either when there were opportunities (e.g. affiliate marketing [definition]).

The basic design focus seems — intentionally or unintentionally — more like a single page advertorial for the SEO book than a glossary others will want to link to and use, which is a bit disappointing considering the quality of the content on the page. The same header is used for the blog and other key pages in the navigation header. It wouldn’t take much to add the word “glossary” to the logo and would help brand the page.

I like that the glossary fits on one 59K sized page. That should load fairly quickly even on slower dialup connections. The definitions and layout are clean and easy to follow and on the eyes (important). Quoted text is formatted attractively. White background with soft blue headings. Some paragraphs could use an additional line break for clarity like banner blindness [definition] which has two paragraphs sandwiched together (see red arrows added below):

Anchored definitions with 0-9 and A-Z navigation at the top, but not the bottom. Would be nice to see the navigation duplicated on the bottom and maybe even in the middle too for those scrolling through all the definitions.

At the bottom the category header is repeated.

Useful for whom?
When I looked at the glossary for the first time I thought it was a good way for Wall to organize terms used in his ongoing SEO book, but how much use would this page get by others?

At the top of the glossary, above the fold [definition], he identifies the way I search for 98% of definitions on the web (using Google with “define:TERM”). If define: doesn’t get me to a word’s definition then I’ll hit dictionary.com. Even if I bought Wall’s SEO book, I’m not sure I’d return to his glossary on the web.

Just to make sure I wasn’t a super web geek (denial alert!), I decided to ask a few folks in our IRC channel how they searched for definitions of words online. Google was the #1 response. Then I asked my wife who doesn’t spend nearly the time online that I do and a good friend who is what I’d politely call non web-savvy the same question: “when you need a definition for something, what do you use online?”

With a little more pressing from the latter respondents, the same answer: Google. Just another example of a powerful reference niche where Google acts as the #1 proxy [no definition]. Not Yahoo, MSN/Live, Ask.com or even dictionary.com.

I tend to rely upon authors to give me the context of words I’m unfamiliar with, either with a link following the term or on the term itself. In some cases I hyperlink unusual words directly to the definition. The SEM Glossary provides writers and editors an additional place to link to definitions, but admittedly with the exception of this post I’d be less likely to link to a non-dictionary, non-scholarly source for most the words in the SEM Glossary.

How were the words chosen?
The next question that came to me as I looked through the glossary terms were how did these relate to search engine marketing? PHP [definition]? A programming language. Opera [definition]? A browser. I can understand PHP, but Opera? What does the browser have to do with search engine marketing?

Also, the glossary has a definition for “above the fold” but not the converse: below the fold [no definition], which I’ve used and usually explained several times.

Definition quality
While I didn’t read every definition, the definitions overall seemed competent with some definitions providing examples with related, external links and others a single sentence or two. Where relevant there’s some cross linking like with absolute link [definition] which shows an example and links to the definition of a relative link [definition].

There is also some marketing advice within some defintions like the bait and switch [definition]:

It is generally easier to get links to informational websites than commercial sites. Some new sites might gain authority much quicker if they tried looking noncommercial and gaining influence before trying to monetize their market position.

My least favorite definition in the glossary is Black Hat SEO [definition] which never really offers any examples or definitions, save for external links. Wall sort of touches on it with:

Within that highly profitable framework search engines consider certain marketing techniques deceptive in nature, and label them as black hat SEO.

No inline examples of what people consider black hat SEO? It’s a commonly used and highly flammable term in and in a glossary dealing with search engine marketing should carry more depth. If size is of importance, perhaps cut out the PHP, Opera and John Battelle definitions and put some more meat into definitions specifically related to SE marketing.

Tools, tools
This tools link leads to a bunch of search engine related tools like link checkers, spider test tool, common terms ranking, site maps links and much, much more.

Summary and grade
There are three perspectives to consider when grading the SEM Glossary: writers/webmasters who would link to the definitions (limited), people who actually would use the definitions for reference (limited) and finally the benefit to the site owner (great). Clearly the biggest benefactor of the glossary is the site owner.

Perhaps the biggest weaknesses for the SEM Glossary are that people could be apprehensive about linking to it over other non self-promotional resources. The Google Page Rank for the glossary page is currently zero which supports this hypothesis. The first party advertising for the SEO book is minimal and definitely not offensive, but if I were Aaron Wall, I’d either change the design to de-emphasize his book and/or move the glossary to another domain, perhaps a .org. I realize this advice goes against the underlying marketing of his book which pays the bills, but if the goal for the glossary is to promote natural linking and use from people wanting to learn more from the search engine marketing terms I think it would be more likely linked as a standalone resource.

Of course the Creative Commons license doesn’t stop somebody else from registering a domain and doing precisely this which gives back where points are taken away, as long as they attribute the source. If I was rolling something like that out, I’d also create an API with access to the terms so that developers could mash the terms into their other search engines easily. Maybe even plugins for the popular blog engines so that definitions could be flagged. This might seem like too much for a relatively small number of terms, but I suspect as time goes on more terms will emerge. What, no accidense?

As for the final group: the people actually using the definitions? I think most will continue to use Google. Aaron is in good company fighting that, if he is even trying (which I doubt). Overall, an average resource that could be improved. Grade: C

Yesterday Techcrunch previewed a new service that the co-founders billed as “YouTube for data” but when I visited the site all I saw was a “coming soon” message. Since TC indicated Swivel would be launched this week. I bookmarked and started checking back. Late yesterday I refreshed but nothing had changed.

This morning I refreshed and saw a different front page saying that the “preview was coming” and a link to a tour at the top of the page (pictured above). I followed that link and discovered a working Swivel signup link — woohoo — I filled it out and got in right away, no confirmation required.

Uploading and sharing your data
The first thing to do is upload some data which can only be shared publically during the preview. In the future a fee-based Swivel Pro version will be available where you can upload and keep data private but right now your only choice is to upload data that is shared with the masses.

I decided for a test to use the monthly post numbers here at Hmm that can be found on the homepage in the right column as of this writing.

STEP 1. Create. I quickly whipped up a spreadsheet using Google Spreadsheets with two columns: month and number of posts and then went to FILE->EXPORT as CSV (comma separated value) and saved the page to my desktop.

STEP 2. Upload. Inside Swivel I browsed to the desktop, located the CSV file and uploaded.

STEP 3. Preview data. Does the format of the data look right?

STEP 4. Confirm data types. Make sure the column types are correct. In my example, column one is date and the second column is number of posts for the month.

STEP 5. Set title and description. This step also integrates with Flickr for choosing a picture to go along with data via a built-in Flickr search engine on the page. I might have missed it, but didn’t see an upload or web link form, only the Flickr option. (update: later after this process you can edit with a non-Flickr image location).

STEP 6. Explore. This is the fun, interactive part where others view, rate, leave comments and can share the data elsewhere.

A metrics section displays that the lowest posting month was December 2003 (40 posts), the higest (149) on June 2005 and the average 92 posts, about 3 posts every day.

Swivel offer comparative data types like comparing the number of monthly Hmm posts to San Francisco temperature:

By clicking on the “blog” link you can copy and embed the graph in your webpage/blog as I’ve done above in a wide variety of sizes: sparkline (40px wide), small (120px), medium (400px), large (600px), huge (900px) or custom defined dimensions.

You can also “add to your favorites” the generated graph.

Summary and initial thoughts
Swivel borrows generously from the YouTube feature set, easy to use and generates results that can quickly be shared. The YouTube comparison by the co-founders is wishful thinking at this point but people who are sitting on data and would like to compare to something else will find this interesting.

Swivel is a nice complimentary service for Google Docs & Spreadsheets and I wonder if they built this with being a future Google acquistion in mind? Whatever the creator’s intentions, this is a service to watch and play around with going forward. Give it a try and let me know what you think. I like what I’ve seen so far. Nice work, Swivel team.