skell blog v2.0

To those who still subscribe to my feed, let me offer my sincerest apologies for the lack of updates.

A lot is going on in my life right now. I wish I had an insane amount of time to write about it.

For now though, the most exciting thing going on for me, which I can’t elaborate *too* much about at the moment is a new startup that I’m working on called Mocial  ( http://mocial.us ). Stay tuned to this blog if you want to know more about what’s brewing.

More updates soon, I promise!

-Rob

It looks like the rumors forced eBay’s hand and they are announcing the deal earlier than expected - they are acquiring StubHub for $285 million plus the cash on StubHub’s books, which is about $25 million. The deal has been signed and should close in 30 days or so. eBay will be releasing a press release shortly.

read more | digg story

MySpace has increased every user’s account to hold up to 300 photos. They have also announced an ‘albums’ feature to follow next week. Screenshot of the announcement below:

Digg this

This pair of maps show the global presence of Starbucks coffee shops and McDonald’s restaurants. When examined graphically, both companies act as global hubs that connect some of the world’s poorest, most remote countries with some of the wealthiest. Very cool yet freaky at the same time!

read more | digg story

Are you a web designer? Do you maintain a site or a group of sites? Do you have a difficult commute to you day job? I sure do. Maybe you do as well.

I’ve begun to counter the daily boredom of sitting in traffic. Music is great and all, but sometimes you need to keep the mind stimulated and productive. Enter: podcasts for us web geeks. I’ve been giving a test-run to many podcasts pertaining to web design and optimization, both professional and (very) amateur. I have chosen a couple selections of recommendation. This will save you some work and sampling. Trust me, there’s some real crap out there that you want to stay far away from.

Worth listening:

The Web 2.0 Show - A superb show, content-wise. The hosts can be quite dry at times and the audio used to be really horrible, but that has been improving. What makes this really worth listening to? Plain and simple, the guests. From the creators of 37signals, Digg (Kevin Rose), and other top-name designers and programmers, this podcast has plenty of interesting interviews from the best of the best on the web, along with some great tips, ideas and motivation. This show has lots of potential, keep listening and you’ll see why.

SEO Rockstars - SEO discussion at it’s best. Again, great content and the hosts are amusing to listen to, but the sound quality is just horrid. The tags and promo spots sound professional, but the participants are cleary talking over their cell phones. What gives?! Please use Skype or something that delivers a little better voice quality. It’s a great show, but sometimes it makes me feel like I’m on a conference call with an analog speaker.

My wishes for better web-related podcasts:

Clearer audio: I know this can cost some money, but with a loyal user-base, this shouldn’t be a problem.
Better Hosts: Take some speech classes. Read a couple books. Practice, then record. Please don’t run a podcast from your bedroom unless what you have to say is interesting and you deliver it in a not-so-boring manner.

I’ve found there to be far too many of the above mentioned issues. Hoepfully this young age of podcasting will mature into better shows with more choices.

Do you have any good web related podcasts that you listen to? Myself and many other would love to hear, I’m sure. Post them to the comments.

I have finally signed up for the buzzworthy social news site Newsvine. After glancing at it for a little bit, I must say I like what I see thusfar. I will write up a more detailed post with my in depth thoughts during the coming days.

In the mean time, if you would like to experience the buzz, I do have a few extra invites. If you would like one, please leave a comment here with your email and I will send you one!

Markus Löffel, aka Marc Spoon passed away this week at the age of 39. He was found dead in his Berlin apartment after suffering a myocardial infarction.

Many of you reading this may not know of Marc or his work. He was a true pioneer to the word. His work was a strong foundation to my passion for electronic music.

I started listening heavily to techno/trance/electronic music back in 1999. I had little idea at the time who or what ‘Jam & Spoon’, ‘Storm’ or ‘Tokyo Ghetto Pussy’ was. But the music I was listening to by his projects was simply eye-opening and moving. I couldn’t tell you how many times I blasted “It’s Time to Burn” in my car, or how many times I looped the music video to it. Songs like that made me love and appreciate the new world I had discovered. It was unlike anything else. “Be Angeled”, to this day, still holds strong as one of my favorite songs of all time. Everytime I think about Berlin, this song instantly plays in my head. When I walked down the streets of Germany in 2002 and heard the song blasting at a nearby cafe, I just had to stop and eat there so I could listen to it. That’s how damn good his work was.

His work lives on in 2006 with his recent remix of the instant classic, Paul Van Dyk - The Other Side. How weird for one of his last pieces to be made to such a strong song, with it’s now chilling lyrics.

Marc, you opened the eyes of many and contributed so much to the rise of electronic music. Your work will always be with me and countless others. Rest in peace.

Google is an amazing thing, is it not? You would think they built the web from day one and indexed it on the fly as millions of pages were added daily. Google just works, and seems like it has been at the ground level of the web. But in fact, Google entered the web a little late in regards to it’s age, though not too late in it’s evolvement.

Lately, I’ve been reading up on a topic that I have not visited in many years — Search engine optimization (SEO). As I build my new blog and develop new sites (after a long hiatus), SEO will soon become very important to me. Re-visiting how search engines work and how they have evolved, specifically Google, is amazing. The algorithms and engineering put into today’s web searches are just so complex, yet so graceful. Literally, geniuses have given the world such an amazing tool and I wanted to acknowledge my countless thanks to an appliance I could no longer live without.

Just remember the next time you fire up Google or hit Alt+K in FireFox and blast away, do realize that what comes up in the following miliseconds is one of the most important feats in the history of technology and the web. It will be amazing to see what web seaching will look like in the next 15 years.

/Google it!

Some of you may ask:

Why would you move your blog from LJ?

Let me outline some qualities I did not like about using LiveJournal and why I am making the long-overdue switch.

• Community
• Appearance
• Cost / Lack of free features
• Exposure
• Stereotypes
• Lack of growth

Now, I’m not an expert on every LJ feature nor am I a professional blogger, but it doesn’t take a genius to figure out why LJ is good for simplicty and teens, but not for somebody who wants something more out of their blogging experience.

Without going into too much detail, I would like to take my thoughts and stories to a new level. Having my blog reside at LJ will not get me there. Having the Livejournal domain attached to your blog already tells 90% of your audience that your content is emo, personal (and not relevant) or just plain silly. I want a good majority of my content to hit a broader audience (in addition to my friends and family). I want to deliver that content over something that is fresh, original and pleasing to all mediums. I also want to eventually embed my blog into my new site (coming soon). This will also be a huge learning experience as well. Mostly though, I want my friends to expand their web experiences and learn to embrace newer standards (RSS, Trackbacks/Pings, dynamic mediums, etc). Web 1.0 is dying fast and while LJ tries to implement newer 2.0′ish items, they just aren’t working for me. I’d rather design something from the ground up that is Web 2.0-enabled, so to speak, and WordPress clearly does that for me.

Honestly, I feel that if 75% of the adult users on LJ could move to a better blogging medium such as WordPress or even Blogger, the web would be a much better place. Consider this my act of duty for the web by moving my blog to a richer platform. I one day hope to operate a couple successful blogs showcasing my passion for technology and music.

Welcome to the other side.

I was quite surprised today to see Mr. Jobs unveil another update to the iMac so soon after the last keynote a few months ago. I was almost certain we’d see the new Mac Intel processor in the Mac Mini first.

Before I go any further, let me give you some of my Apple background:

Being a PC guy for the last 10+ years, I had finally come to my senses to embrace the lovely world of Apple almost a year ago. I’ve become a serious fan since, reading up on anything and everything Apple. I’m finally ready to purchase my first Mac, and I was totally set on the 20″ G5 iMac. .. Now Steve drops the Intel Mac with the dual core processor, claiming to be twice as fast as it’s G5 predecessor. Should I be happy or worried? Is this the beginning of great things for Apple, or the beginning of problems for a dynasty riding a huge iPod-surge? Only time, sales, and customer satisfaction will tell. I won’t be able to compare my future Mac with previous PowerPC models, but I hope the $1700+ investment will make me happy. I am almost certain that it will.

I shall report as soon as I get one in the next 1-2 weeks. I may also purchase the MacBook soon as well. Your thoughts?