Uncategorized

Anil Dash links to an Inc. article titled “Passport to America” that highlights regional differences in the way business is done in the U.S. I’ve thought about this a lot lately, given I’m moving to a different region in mid-November. I’ve always thought my coming from Texas has been a plus in some ways (and a negative in others). It seems to help bridge the culture gap when I’m talking to people from areas other than NYC or SF.

The Internet Engineering Task Force has shut down the working group that was coming up with standards for e-mail authentication. E-mail authentication, for those who haven’t been following this whole process, is thought to be the first step in getting rid of spam, phishing, etc.

*sigh*

I know authentication will be happening in one form or another, as Microsoft, AOL, Yahoo! and Earthlink are going to do something. (Probably all different things, but that’s another story.) I’d had this utopian idea that a bunch of engineering types could sit down together and work things out. Alas, it was not to be.

From Ted Hardie’s e-mail announcing the dissolution:
The group was originally chartered with a very tight time frame, with the expectation that a focused group of engineers would be able to produce in relatively short order a standard in the area of DNS-stored policies related to and accessible by MTAs….. Each [possible solution] represents trade-offs, and the working group has not succeeded in establishing which trade-offs are the most appropriate for this purpose….The group remains divided on very basic issues.

Well, I once thought the FTC’s planned sit-down in November would be fairly boring, because, of course, everything would have been worked out by then. But now…

Danny Sullivan has the scoop on Google’s plans to become more transparent about its ad policies. I’ve written about this a bunch and would love to quit doing so. Kudos to Danny and to Google.

My prior writings here, here, and here.

Not that I want to boost the level of competition or anything, but I thought folks who spend a lot of time online (aka readers of this blog) might find the Urban Challenge Online fun.

I was interested in playing this game when it was a physical event that had contestants running around the city solving puzzles. In fact, one of my buddies even finished in the top 10 in NYC back in 2002. Alas, it all started up right when I was in the middle of wedding planning, so it was not to be. Anyway, am pleased to see there’s an opportunity to play online.

The organizers seem to have big ambitions and have a history of getting sponsorships (Verizon Wireless) for the competitions, so I wouldn’t be surprised to see product placement or online gaming sponsorship play a role. (That was my lame attempt to bring this post back to an online marketing/advertising focus. But, seriously, I think gaming sponsorships can be pretty powerful, though there’s a lot to be done regarding establishing pricing and measuring results. )

Scoble blogs about discovering the secret beind Google’s “invite a friend” Gmail distribution strategy:

I met Chris Uhlik of Google. He’s the program manager of Gmail and the Google Toolbar and a few other things. He gave a talk at 11 p.m. to well after midnight. I asked him why they only give out a few Gmail accounts at a time. Remember, I thought it was sheer marketing genius. Turns out it wasn’t. Turns out they don’t have enough server capacity to deal with everyone who wants an account. So, when they buy a new server and get it installed they hand out another round of invites. Heh, their server salesperson must cheer everytime he or she sees more invites being advertised on weblogs.

Speaking of which, I have a few more invites if anyone wants one. E-mail theriver (at) mcnigel (dot) com.

From the new Search Engine Watch Blog:

What’s This? A Search Engine Watch Blog?

That’s right, kind reader — you’ve stumbled into the beta test of our new Search Engine Watch Blog. We’re telling everyone about it on September 16 in more detail, but feel free to enjoy what we’ve been testing!

Yes, Danny Sullivan’s blogging. Looking forward to hearing from him!

[via Gary, who is also participating in the SEW blog and apparently is too excited to keep quiet about it.]