Jay Gaulard Blog

Twitter, Ethanol, Instant Messengers and Diesel

Thursday, April 3rd, 2008

How We Tweet: The Definitive List of the Top Twitter Clients

Twitter has one of the fastest growing application ecosystems of any web service outside of Facebook. For this post, we looked at 37,248 tweets and found 142 different ways in which people interact with the Twitter service. Some of the results, which follow below, were rather surprising.

Is Ethanol Production Fueling the Size of the Dead Zone?

Every year a New Jersey-size patch of the Gulf of Mexico where no sea life can be sustained is created by nitrogen-based fertilizer runoff. This runoff comes largely from corn production, which is now tied heavily to the production of ethanol in areas of the Midwest where the runoff comes from. So what can we do about it?

5 Best Instant Messengers Compared & Analyzed

5 Winners from the 550 comments on Lifehacker from users of IM services. They are compared and analyzed so that you can select the ones right for you.

World’s First Commercially Viable Cellulosic Ethanol Plant O

Range Fuels Inc. announced yesterday it has secured over $100 million in Series B funding, an investment that could make it the first company to seriously commercialize cellulosic ethanol. The first phase of construction will produce 20 million gallons of mixed alcohols per year by 2009, and has the potential to expand to up to 120 million gallons.

Diesel Grows On Trees, Seriously

Apparently scientists (and some of our readers, surely) have known that we can grow oil for years, and not in the grow-corn-make-oil kind of way. The Brazilian Copaifera langsdorfii can be tapped for a natural diesel fuel that requires simple filtering before being poured into a truck. Is it viable for world use?

Social Media, Facebook, Digg and WordPress

Monday, February 25th, 2008

SEO Shenanigans Pose Clear & Present Danger to Social Media

Steve Rubel: “I have recently witnessed a disturbing trend. Some respected experts are advocating launching social media marketing programs solely for the purpose of influencing search engines, rather than with the intent of fostering collaboration. This represents a clear and present danger to the fabric of the community.

Facebook Offers $85 Million To Acquire Chinese Social Networking Site Zhanz

Facebook is said to have offered $85 million to acquire Zhanzuo.com, a Chinese social networking site with seven million users.

Was Digg the best social site of 2007?

In 2007, the world’s favorite social network, MySpace, quickly gave ground to Facebook and companies like the ill-fated Netscape tried to take on Digg. But which of these sites was the best of 2007?

The Next Social Network: WordPress

Could open-source blogging platform WordPress serve as your next social networking profile? Chris Messina, co-founder of Citizen Agency, thinks so. He’s started a project called DiSo, for distributed social networking, that aims to “build a social network with its skin inside out.” DiSo will first look to WordPress as its foundation.

Inside The Social Networking Craze

If you’re not already a part of the social networking craze, it can be difficult to understand what’s so great about sites like MySpace and Facebook. But nonetheless, millions of people flock to them and lead secondary lives on them.

Facebook, Robots, Oil and Mortgages

Tuesday, January 15th, 2008

Facebook IS Buying Plaxo

I’ve just heard from a source that Facebook is “one hundred percent” buying Plaxo. This follows up on at least one previous rumor saying the same thing. While there are reasons to be skeptical, here’s why it could make sense.

Monkey Controls Robot Using Only its Mind

Recently, neuroscientists at Duke University announced that a monkey in North Carolina had managed to make a robot all the way in Japan walk using only the power of its mind.

Forget oil, the new global crisis is food

A new crisis is emerging, a global food catastrophe that will reach further and be more crippling than anything the world has ever seen.

Mortgage Lenders Do Not Deserve to Be Rescued By Tax-Payers

The U.S. government is working to develop several different programs meant to stave off foreclosures. Although policymakers claim that these programs are for struggling mortgage borrowers, it is obvious that the real goal is to bail out mortgage lenders. The question is: do reckless lenders deserve to be rescued?

Black Holes Spin Near Speed of Light

Super-massive black holes — isn’t that a song by Muse? Anyway, super-massive black holes may spin at speeds approaching that od the speed of light.

Matt Cutts, Internet Companies, Entrepreneurs and Search

Tuesday, December 11th, 2007

Matt Cutts 3 Step Process to Building a Really Good Site

This post is a combination of transcribed content from video recorded at a PubCon 2007 evening session that featured Matt Cutts, my organization of that content, and related resource links for websites or articles Matt spoke about during his presentation.

The offices of today’s leading internet companies

Charl’s post showcases some really innovative workspaces at some of the hottest Internet companies today. These workspaces are generally informal and designed to bring people together rather than keep them locked away in their small, grey cubicles.

The Twice Shy Entrepreneur

A number of venture capitalists I’ve spoken with have said that too many “old guard” entrepreneurs are not being bold enough in their business decisions, and it’s hurting their startups.

Top 10 Worldwide Rising Search Terms - Google

Earlier this week Google released the fastest rising search terms in the US. I have received the fastest rising search terms Globally from Google and there are some interesting conclusions to point out.

Facebook Wakes To Find Its Members Making Money - G-A-S-P!

Looks like Facebook does nont like people making money off their own profiles.

Blogging, Careers, Online Storage and Mobile

Wednesday, November 28th, 2007

There’s No Money In The Long Tail of the Blogosphere

In a recent post here, we examined the reasons that people feel compelled to blog. From the post and the comments it received, it became clear that quite a few people are blogging to make money. The reality is that it is difficult to make money in the long tail. In this post we examine why that is and look at other aspects of long tail economics.

10 Hot Computer Driven Careers

While traditional IT careers will probably stay in-demand for the foreseeable future, don’t forget the alternatives. From climate modeling to revolutionizing the very fabric of life itself, there are plenty of enjoyable computer jobs to keep the computer professional creatively engaged.

Google preps online storage service

Offering would compete with recent products from rivals Microsoft, Amazon.com and Facebook.

The Mobile Web remains far off, and inevitable

“Within 10 years more people will be accessing the Internet from their mobile . . . than in the home from a PC,” said Geraldine Wilson, vice president of connected life at Yahoo! Europe. “In emerging markets most people’s first contact with the Internet will be with a mobile phone.”

Google hopes to undercut coal with cheap, renewable energy

Google’s latest plan to put all that money to good use is to announce an initiative that will develop renewable energy that’s cheaper than coal.

YouTube, Culture, Yahoo! and Neutrality

Thursday, November 15th, 2007

High-quality YouTube videos coming soon

YouTube co-founder Steve Chen, speaking at the NewTeeVee Live conference today, confirmed that high-quality YouTube video streams are coming soon.

Does Internet kill or promote culture?

This article by Jeffrey Barlow of Pacific University discusses the impact of the internet on modern cultures. Using 2 differing texts, he discusses how the internet positively and negatively effects the way we act in society.

Yahoo! Says the Future Will be Modeled on Facebook

The future of both email and start pages is in social networking, according to Yahoo, but what’s really at issue here are two concepts that Yahoo execs didn’t name explicitly, but which will be familiar to most of the readers here. RSS and Attention Data.

Once thought dead, ‘Net neutrality roars back to center stage

Network neutrality has lost some steam, but the boilers have returned to full pressure after two senators ask Congress for an investigation. AT&T, Verizon, and Comcast have only themselves to blame.

Hulu Launches! Should YouTube Be Worried?

While it may not live up to its billing as a “YouTube killer,” Hulu is as different as a web video service could possibly be from the market leader.

Pro Blogging, Firefox, Friendster and Flickr

Wednesday, November 14th, 2007

Quitting the Day Job: Finding the Guts to Pursue Your Dream by Pro Blogging

For those of us who dream of being able to support ourselves by simply blogging each day. This story tells it’s possible, but not overnight.

Mozilla Still Flummoxed by Firefox’ Appetite for Memory

Anyone who uses Firefox on Windows knows the browser has an almost insatiable appetite for memory, and it’s not unheard of for PCs to allocate a half GB or more of memory just to the browser alone.

When Friendster could have bought Facebook

As a side note, a little known fact is that when I was at Friendster, I found a small company out of Harvard that we came very close to acquiring, a startup no one had heard of that time, a company named Thefacebook. I’ve been an admirer of Zuck and the facebook team for a long time now.

Flickr Hits Two Billion Photo Uploads

Two billion photo uploads on Flickr. That’s a lot of f****n’ photos. You’ll be glad to know that Flickr staffers have spent the past weeks placing bets on the exact date and time for passing the milestone, which went down sometime on Sunday.

Is Microsoft Building a Flickr Competitor?

You gotta love job postings. Depending on the description provided, you can often times determine some underlying plans for a company. And the only companies we care about in this regard would be the ones big enough to lend some interesting job postings and descriptions. In this case, WebProNews was tipped off to a posting from Microsoft, and …

True Knowledge, Facebook, Google and YouTube

Friday, November 9th, 2007

True Knowledge Launches Natural Language Search Engine

Cambridge, UK based True Knowledge released its natural language search engine into private beta yesterday. Like the much-anticipated Powerset, the company aims to give appropriate answers to natural language queries, even if key query terms are not included in the data being indexed. Current search engines are unable to return appropriate results

Is Facebook Eyeing an Acquisition in China?

A report in a Chinese newspaper today indicates that Facebook may be looking to acquire social networking site Zhanzuo.com. A very rough translation using Google Translate indicates that Zhanzuo has turned down an offer in the $85-100 million range.

Google Only Ahead Of Microsoft In Search: Ballmer

Whilst spruiking the release of Windows Live in Tokyo Thursday, Microsoft’s Steve Ballmer told reporters that Google wasn’t ahead of Microsoft in any way online except with search.

YouTube Enhances Video Flagging System

YouTube has announced they have improved their video flagging system. If you ever watch a video that might raise a concern, you can click on a “Flag” link below the video (when on a video page) that will enable you to report the video to a human editor at YouTube.

Just Sell Digg Already, Jay :: Says TechCrunch

Michaeal Arrington gives Advice to Digg: One thing that has become a certainly in our little tech world - a few months can’t go by without rumors surfacing that a sale of Digg is imminent. CEO Jay Adelson and cofounder Kevin Rose are in a perpetual rumor cycle. The problem is, they seem to be the ones at fault for the rumors. The reason?

Google, Digg, Facebook and Being Social

Thursday, November 8th, 2007

Google’s “Nofollow” Rule

The “nofollow” tag, when added to a link, prevents Google from counting the link as such a “recommendation”, thus not providing any search ranking benefits to the site being linked to.

Rumor: Digg close to a $300 million sale

Digg is close to announcing its sale to a major media player for $300 million to $400 million, according to sources close to the company.

Report: Google Organizing Less Than 0.02% of the World’s Information

The later study estimated that between 3,416,281 TB and 5,609,121 TB were produced in 2002, so there was a ~19% annual growth rate between ‘99 and ‘02. Assuming the same growth rate to present, somewhere between 6,869,341 TB and 11,278,629 TB of new information were produced in 2006. There were only 1085 Terabytes Organized by Google Last Year.

Facebook to Turn Users Into Endorsers

Facebook now will give advertisers the ability to create their own profile pages on its system that will let users identify themselves as fans of a product.

The Social Enterprise - What Works, and What Doesn’t

Why should enterprises go social, and what are the compelling reasons for adoption?

Tracking, Bloggers, OpenSocial and Google

Sunday, November 4th, 2007

Many Consumers Are Unclear What “Online Tracking” Even Means

A study released this week shows that a huge percentage of Americans don’t grasp just how intensively their online habits are tracked, analyzed, and used to serve ads back to them.

Top 10 Events for Bloggers

Blogging can be a lonely business. And if online blogger communities don’t satisfy you desire to mingle, this is a list of the top 10 events in the real world where you can participate in, meet with fellow bloggers, and share experiences.

OpenSocial - What a Difference a Day Makes Google Beats Facebook

Facebook vs Google Open Social

Google Purchases Shortest Domain Name Ever

Google has purchased the shortest possible domain name to make it easier for Chinese users to find Google: g.cn.

Google OpenSocial Now Live!

We’ve been waiting all day for Google’s OpenSocial site to start working, and it has finally happened. The site contains the official OpenSocial API documents, developers blog, featured community gadgets, and featured videos. Unless you’re a developer dying to see the inner workings of the APIs, there isn’t really much new information up there;