I just signed up for an account with Dreamhost and moved this blog from my old service. They offered a free domain name, so I registered brentsoderberg.com, so this blog is now using that domain, although soderberg.org/brent will also point you here if you still hit the old URL.
Archive for April, 2007
Digg.com has just realeased an API (Application Programming Interface) for web sites or application developers who would like to use their data. I can already think of some good uses for their data. Things like displaying any stories from your site that have been dugg can now be done through the API.
If you haven’t used the site Upcoming before, now may be a good time to check it out. Yesterday they released a new design of the site. One of the things they did was drop the .org and change the domain to upcoming.yahoo.com.
I went in and added some events to my watch list and added the RSS feed of the events I am watching to this blog index page. I even was able to get a free t-shirt for being an “old school” member of the site after I went through the process of switching over to my Yahoo ID. Pretty cool.
I’d like to build some the the social network functionality into the BikeRide.com events calendar. I’d like to give people the ability to sign in, and select events they are going to, or add comments on events they have done in the past. One of the things about living in the middle of nowhere Connecticut is that there are not many local events on Upcoming.org. I guess I could add some.
One nice thing I noticed is that since Upcoming and Flickr are both Yahoo companies and now both use your Yahoo ID, I was easily able to set my Upcoming buddy icon to the same buddy icon I have set on Flickr.
Mickey and Minnie were in the ESPN cafeteria yesterday …
Google is close to implementing a filtering system called “Claim Your Content” that they will use on YouTube to prevent users from uploading copyright material. YouTube has come under fire from content rights holders after being aquired by Google, and is currently being sued by Viacom.
The filtering system was supposed to have launched last year at YouTube, which Google acquired for $1.6 billion in October 2006. Delays in rolling it out have caused consternation among movie and television executives. Executives at NBC and Viacom have accused Google of dragging its feet on preventing YouTube users from uploading clips from hit shows and movies.
Network executives of accused Google of stalling so YouTube could reap the big traffic that professionally-created shows generate. Viacom filed a $1 billion lawsuit against Google last month and accused Google massive intentional copyright infringement.
It will be interesting to see how well this system really prevents copyright material from finding it’s way on the site.
Variety also had comments from Google CEO Eric Schmidt about YouTube experimenting with running ads before and after video clips.
In addition to selling ads for partners, Schmidt briefly talked about plans to integrate video ads on YouTube. He said his company is experimenting with running ads before and after videos, but he seemed specifically excited about the possibility of targeting those who watch numerous videos on a specific topic.
“We can separate the fans from the casual viewers and take them to a much deeper site,” he said, citing a partnership with the National Basketball Assn. on YouTube that drives frequent basketball watchers to NBA.com.
It sounds like YouTube now has deals with both the NBA and NHL so it sounds like this copyright filtering system may help them secure deals with other sports or leagues.
PaidContent.org has a post today about Comcast signing a distribution and content deal for a soon to be released video product from NBCU and News Corp. The deal involves Versus is one of the channels that will have content available on this new video product. I wonder if this will include cycling content from Versus. I am already a big fan of cycling.tv, so the more cycling content available online the better. It will be interested to see how the online video offerings compare to the content on the cable channels.
For my daughter’s birthday tomorrow my wife Melinda made these cookies. Yes they are cookies, not hamburgers. They have vanilla wafers on the outside with some honey to make the sesame seeds stick. The middle is a chocolate covered mint cookie with red and yellow frosting and green colored coconut.
I just found a site that is a Google Maps mashup for saving your bike route maps called MapMyRide.com. It is a lot like Gmap Pedometer that I have used before, but you can see other people’s saved maps, find saved maps near you, or just share your maps with friends. I was thinking about building this exact same thing for bikeride.com. A kind of social networking around ride routes, training logs, and events. I think this site is pretty good. I’m sure I will use it if I don’t build something on my own. My profile is here. One thing they don’t have is an RSS feed for my created maps They do have an RSS feed for your rides, so I will add that to this blog.
I signed up for a Twitter account. If you don’t know what Twitter is, it is the latest, greatest, social/Web 2.0 web application. The idea is to post what you are doing. You can add friends so you can see what your friends are doing. My username is bikeride. You can send or get updates from a mobile device or IM. I’d like to use the API to automatically update Twitter when I publish a blog post, create a new flickr photoset, bookmark something with del.icio.us, or share an item in google reader, or add a new training log entry. Maybe I’ll get to it.
