• Robert X Cringely created Triumph of the Nerds

• he once lost a 96,000 word manuscript and there was no restore function. He created the trash can on Apple's project Lisa, making emptying it a two step process.
• in 1984 he helped build internal and corporate communications for Apple. In 1991 Apple sold that to Quantum Data Physics (later named AOL)
• spooks went to xerox parc and xerox offered a huge price for a computer. the price was too high. the went to Stanford, and although they never originally created computers to sell Sun (stanford university nework workstation) was born. stanford saw no intellectual property in sun.
• cisco came out of the same building as Sun. It used same motherboard as sun. cisco started on credit cards
• typically companies can go to 600K in monthly sales on credit cards then they typically fail if they are still funding on credit.
• Robert could have got 15% of Excite for $1,800 (I think that was the number)
• recently he has been working on PBS GeekTV
• he tracks his accuracy, thinks someone should create something like accuracy in media.com
• talks about consolidation in the space... msn /goog /yhoo only serious competitors.
  • windows and office profitable...nothing else at msft is

  • msft has cost items
  • xbox 4 billion dollars lost
  • they spend tons of money on other stuff as case B if office & windws fail
  • extra expenses there so they can later cut them if profits from office or windows falter in profitable
  • thinks google wanted the 4 billion to buy / create something (but unsure what)
  • google sticks it to competitors
  • gmail 1 gig / user... around 3 million users
  • yahoo matched it with 154 million email users
  • google's largest advantage is their clustering of hardware (see Skrenta's post on Google's source of power)
  • Google has image problem where to busy trying to impress w their brain, not helping you think of how smart ur brain is
  • Robert believes Google will beat msft & define internet for future
  • yahoo will reposition to become something far different than google
  • google search appliance is important in what it represents... it "just works" ... you only have to plug it in
  • if msft tried it you wouldnt trust them or you would think they would screw it up
  • google offer life to struggling companies like the dark fiber ones...get 300 boxes on the network
  • perhaps something like google internet will be more secure etc, just plain works, Robert sees it coming in next 2 years
• on contnet and monetization...
  • Robert has 200,000 weekly readers

  • archives gives him same amount of traffic
  • NerdTV costs $1,000 a show and hosting costs same amount
  • costs about 8/10th cent per download + $1,000 fixed cost
  • 130,000 downloads per show
  • people subscribe to 2-3 times as much as they consume, so sometimes it is not benificial to make data as convenient as possible to access

Free excerpt from the book (about space race, biotech, etc.)

I am sure NickW will love this bit:

"Why not improve the brain?" Brin asked. "You would want a lot of compute power. Perhaps in the future, we can attach a little version of Google that you just plug into your brain. We'll have to develop stylish versions, but then you'd have all of the world's knowledge immediately available, which is pretty exciting."

Apparently the people at Google want to rent weekly digital access to books.

Web search leader Google Inc. has approached a book publisher to gauge interest in a program to allow consumers to rent online copies of new books for a week, The Wall Street Journal reported on Sunday.

The proposed fee is 10 percent of the book's list price, the Journal reported, citing an unnamed publisher.

The discussion with the publisher indicates Google may move toward adding a digital book-renting service. - Reuters

In related news about other business models Google and the web may be changing or killing off, Knight Ridder, the large newspaper company, is exploring selling itself. When will Google Affiliate come out?

By writing articles for high quality sites you get high TrustRank links cheaper than you can rent or buy them, many secondary links, and added credibility (I think Andy Hagans may have been asked to speak at a cool conference largely based on a recent article).

As an added bonus, when search engines place more bias on global popularity scores your article can show up for rather competitive terms if your site for some reason drops out of the results.

I was just looking through Google's [search engine optimization], and after SeoBook.com has been around for close to two years it ranks at ~ 30 in Google, and Andy Hagans recent article on A List Apart ranks at #19.

In my interview of NFFC he stated:

we offer marketing on demand, a webmaster needs to be visible in every channel.

Sometimes that means working hard to make your site fit a variety of algorithmic possibilities, and sometimes that means putting backup on other sites.

A while ago Chad Jones, from Not Nacho, the site involved with the WordPress content spam fiasco, spoke out about what went wrong.

WordPress hosted about 4,000 content articles about expensive topics. Matt Mullienweg hosted the content on Wordpress.org and placed hidden links on the home page pointing at the articles.

WordPress, the popular blog software which use the hidden links, was back in the Google index quickly. Google is still punishing the owner of HotNacho to this day, as Chad states:

They seem to have taken punitive measures by looking up my other sites via WHOIS and punitively banning a bunch of my sites -- including my hobby freeware sites.

Sites I own (all of which Google has banned):
hotnacho.com
acme-web-hosting.info
avatarsoft.com
notepad.com
free-backup-software.net

Thoughts on his article:

• I don't like his comparisons on his content vs real spam, but his point that it is hard for human compiled content to be profitable against automated systems is on many fronts accurate.

• Him saying Google controls over 90% of web traffic right after complaining about others not doing any fact finding undermines his credibility.
• He has some good ideas on the content rating and importance of user feedback or using strong quality guidelines off the start is important.
• I know many other friends who run the exact same business model, but do it profitably, successfuly, and in Google's good graces because how the content is formatted. Wrap it in a blog and post a few articles a day to each channel.
• While he was talking about how his keyword placement software could increase the ability of content to rank, I think it is in error to look at it purely from an algorithmic front. The social structure of content matters.
• It is far easier to build links into topical channels (such as blogs) than article banks.
• He talks about creating a bunch of freeware and offering free support. Doing good on one front does not offset the actions on others with the mob justice on the web.
• I think it is pretty shitty of Google to have banned all of his sites. I mean who does this help? Where is the relevancy?
• And yet Google funds much of the garbage they purportedly hate. Google not only acts reactively, but blatently overly reactive when certain issues become public. I suppose they were trying to send a message to Chad Jones, but it was not one honestly focused on search relevancy. I wish I would have seen this article sooner.
• The fact that few people have mentioned the Hot Nacho article shows how biased blogs are at grabbing the front end of the story and then prowling for the next story before adding any depth or further research. Sorta reminds me of the Nirvana song Plateau, although I admit I am just as guilty at it as the next blogger.