The Taste Blog

It’s not just me

Fri, 04 Jul 2008 07:16:57 -0400

It’s not just me: So now The New York Times frets — as I have — that once he got the nomination, Barack Obama has been making u-turns and right turns as he rejects public financing, embraces the Supreme Court’s…

Son and father teams

Thu, 03 Jul 2008 16:04:09 -0400

Son and father teams:

From PDF2008: The Sifry, Scoble, and Jarvis boys.

When Google’s the library, who’s the librarian?

Thu, 03 Jul 2008 16:04:09 -0400

When Google’s the library, who’s the librarian?: PaidContent says it’s a false alarm that Viacom will get personally identifiable information on our video viewing from YouTube and Google as part of its self-destructive lawsuit. Nonetheless, the…

I’ve got issues

Thu, 03 Jul 2008 11:43:15 -0400

I’ve got issues:

Is Google psychoanalyzing me?

I just noticed that all the AdSense ads on the page with this post were for anger management.

Well, I didn’t think I sounded angry. How did Google conclude that I…

My baby’s 1,000

Thu, 03 Jul 2008 11:43:15 -0400

My baby’s 1,000: I was gobsmacked and delighted to see that my baby, Entertainment Weekly, just came out with its 1000th issue (and they’re about to issue a redesign in its 1001st; I had to redesign it after only…

Dropping bombs in the newsroom

Thu, 03 Jul 2008 10:37:14 -0400

Dropping bombs in the newsroom: Janet Coats, editor of the Tampa Tribune, sat down in her newsroom to tell the staff about layoffs, reorganizations, new ways of doing business, and harsh realities and an intern named Jessica…

What if they didn’t give a party and nobody cared?

Thu, 03 Jul 2008 10:37:14 -0400

What if they didn’t give a party and nobody cared?: Amy Webb talks today about newspapers getting rid of entire sections — and they hear no complaint, no protest. She takes this opportunity to wonder why we’re not spending more on R&D. Well, I’ve…

Hadoop and scheduling

Wed, 02 Jul 2008 18:57:35 -0400

Hadoop and scheduling: A VLDB 2008 paper out of Yahoo Research, “Scheduling Shared Scans of Large Data Files” (PDF) looks at how “to maximize the overall rate of processing … by sharing scans of the same file … [in]…

Amazon page recommendations

Wed, 02 Jul 2008 18:57:35 -0400

Amazon page recommendations: Brady Forrest at O’Reilly Radar points out Amazon’s new page recommendation widget in his post, “Amazon’s Page Recommender: Foreshadowing A New Web Service?”

Put the widget on your website and,…

Microsoft, big computation, and big data

Wed, 02 Jul 2008 18:57:35 -0400

Microsoft, big computation, and big data:

In his post, “Inside Microsoft’s Internet Infrastructure & Its Plans for the Future”, Om Malik highlights some interesting “facts about Microsoft-owned data centers”:

[Microsoft is] adding 10,000…

Website personas

Wed, 02 Jul 2008 18:57:35 -0400

Website personas: Netflix has a feature called Profiles that allows multiple people to use the same Netflix account while keeping their queue and recommendations separate.

Recently, they attempted ([1] [2]) to…

Life is right

Tue, 01 Jul 2008 06:41:34 -0400

Life is right:

I see a tweet from No. 10 that leads me to this statement by PM Gordon Brown:

… healthcare is not a privilege to be purchased but a moral right secured for all.

A moral right for all. That is…

Googlicious

Mon, 30 Jun 2008 15:26:49 -0400

Googlicious: I twittered that I was having fun writing the chapter in my book about what a restaurant run on Googlethink might look like (besides being decorated in gaudy primary colors). Andy Carvin responded…

Old school music recommendation

Mon, 30 Jun 2008 14:07:20 -0400

Old school music recommendation: Instead of relying on machines to recommend music, John Scalzi does something radical … he asks his readers to recommend some music to ‘re-hipify’ him. He’s received lots of interesting…

When your organizers organize you

Mon, 30 Jun 2008 10:52:29 -0400

When your organizers organize you: Ari Melber happens upon what could be an important moment in the history-in-the-making of participatory, self-organized online politics: Barack Obama supporters used his own network to organize…

Seeing readers

Mon, 30 Jun 2008 10:52:28 -0400

Seeing readers: Paulo Coehlo — whom I got to interview in Paris for my book and an upcoming column — is asking his readers to help him create a virtual exhibition of them reading his books making 100 million —…

Retiring the green eye shade

Mon, 30 Jun 2008 10:52:28 -0400

Retiring the green eye shade: Copy editors and subeditors appear to be headed for the pasture. They’re getting laid off. The Orange County Register said recently that it would outsource copyediting to India. Roy Greenslade…

Carlin would curse

Mon, 30 Jun 2008 10:52:28 -0400

Carlin would curse: If you happened to be driving down a New Jersey street this morning and saw a tall, pencil-necked, sweaty geek “running” down the road cursing into what appeared to be thin air, that would be me….

Guardian column: Down to the wire

Mon, 30 Jun 2008 09:39:57 -0400

Guardian column: Down to the wire:

My Guardian column this week reprises the talk of the last two weeks about The Associated Press — not so much the blog kerfuffle but the clash of media models and the fate of syndicates. The end:

Looking for a PhD student for a project on collective memory building.

Sun, 29 Jun 2008 09:00:45 -0400

Looking for a PhD student for a project on collective memory building.: There is the opportunity for a 3-years PhD scholarship at the University of Trento working with my group on Web2.0 and social networking at FBK. The specific project that is funding the…