The Daily: Right of the Dot

Today, I learned that the lords of the internet will be approving for sale new top-level domain names. For example, the following are common top-level domain names currently permitted: .com, .net, .org, .biz. Many of us are accustomed to the dot-com boom (and bust) and the colloquialized terms and references relating thereto.

What the introduction of new top-level domains means is that there will likely be many more different website addresses, some that will be specific to a business or type of business. Instead of visiting “Disney.com,” you may visit “Magic.Disney.” Dot-Disney displaces the dot-com. Or instead of going to “Macys.com” to shop online, you might type in “Macys.shop”.

Apparently it costs a lot to gain control of the content to the right of the dot. At least for the most obvious terms. Entire businesses have been built around and for acquiring the management rights thereto. I think we’ll pass on that for now. Instead, I’ll just brainstorm about what names would be right-domains for us: .law, .golf, .love, .yogi, .mich, .goblue, .yoga.

What would you grab if you could get a right-of-the-dot domain?

Blog Reading is a Waste of Time

Blog reading is a waste of time. So is microblog reading and tumbleblog reading.

Let’s tale a look at what I get from each sub-genre.

Blogs

I subscribe to about 100 blogs via Google Reader. On a good day, I read about one third of those and that still took 1+ hours of my time.

Most of the information I gleened from blogs was unrelated to me. Topics like how to do things better, faster, in an odd way. Topics about art, law, photography, and economics that were far too obscure scrolled down the screen too often.

In theory, I found all of the topics to which I subscribe interesting. In practice, I simply didn’t need to know 99% of the stuff I read. It’s not just that I didn’t need to know it. The information made me think I constantly needed to improve, rearrange or change my own habits. Not good.

Solution: Limit my blog reading to: friends’ blogs, local info and direct interests (golf and law). Although, law will be highly focused.

Microblogs

Same overindulgence of information here as with blogs. I don’t need to know who is complaining about what all of the time.

At one point a couple years ago I was using Twitter, Pownce, Jaiku and a couple other microblogging sites simultaneously. That’s insanely annoying to admit, let alone practice.

I check Twitter while I’m bored, walking around places. I see this as an admission that I find people’s tweets more compelling than either my surroundings or the people I am actually with. That’s not, in fact, the case.

Solution: Only follow friends I’ve met in person.

Tumbleblogs

These are the worst. At least with Twitter the user has to create something semi-original. Tumblr allows users to post scraps (pictures, quotes, videos) without adding anything to them. I’ll admit that this is incredibly addicting, but it serves no purpose and is a huge time suck.

Solution: stop using and reading.

Conclusion

What this all comes down to is that the Internet, as I have been using it for 6+ years, is a huge waste of time. I usually have a laptop with Internet within reach about 90% of the day. This was because I thought I needed to be connected. What I’m discovering is that I’m happier without the connection. I still have my iPhone. I can chech email and Google directions, but the time suck stuff has gone away. The life tips have disappeared. The random information has stopped scrolling.

What is left? More things I can trip over, talk to, and smell. Everything around me. Everyone around me.

Embrace the Internet Already!

Dear Newspapers and Television Networks, the fact that I can’t get everything you offer for free on the internet at the same time, or earlier, than when you print or broadcast it is unfortunate in this day and age.

Newspapers, most of you are starting to get it. But you’ve been slow on the uptake. The pay walls were not smart (Come on WSJ!). I understand you’ve yet to figure out how to make enough money from your websites to cover costs. That, coupled with declining print subscription rates is doubly bad.

My suggestion is this: stop paying reporters to write content for you. Cut that part of your staff. It’s got to be a significant portion. Instead, make the people your media. Tap the collective mind, and hire a smaller herd of editors to refine submissions. I’d be surprised if the contributions were not overwhelming. Exposure would be compensation.

It is here that we can take a page from Twitter’s book. At the rate the world turns today, printed news is old news. In fact, CNN is often old news. During an event nearly anywhere on the globe, search for relevant keywords on Twitter’s search and I assure you that you’ll be more in the know than anyone reading a newspaper or watching cable news.

Broadcasters, you, too, need to accept the web. I can deal with the commercials you splice into your online offerings. I get that your linear brains see that as the obvious way to do things. There were commercials on TV, so there should be commercials on the internet, right? Wrong, but I forgive you for the time being.

There can’t be a delay and the content needs to be high definition. Further, you need to flip your current stance and make the Internet your primary focus and television your secondary focus. New goes online because online is where we find new things now. That’s where it will be shared on Facebook, talked about on Twitter, and recut for YouTube.

Stop showing kids toys they can’t play with. Instead, give them the toys early and let them play and share them. Embrace that the kids may find new uses for the toys you didn’t think of instead of being scared of such an outcome. The worst case scenario is that the toy sucks. Best case scenario – the kids love the toy and do your marketing for you. Do yourself a favor and loosen up a little!

Instapaper

Instapaper is the best site I’ve come across thus far in 2008. The basic premise is:

1) You come across substantial news or blog articles that you want to read, but don’t have time at the moment.

2) You need something to read while sitting on a bus, waiting in a line, or bored in front of a computer. Instapaper solves both of those problems.

I suppose the same task of saving a news story for later could be accomplished by posting it to a social bookmarking service (E.g., del.iciolus) with the tag, “to read.” But, the interface and simplicity of Instapaper are what set it apart form a general bookmarking service, email, or other form of saving online articles.

Once you’ve read an item, it’s marked as read. You can edit titles and URLs, the later of which is good if you want to replace a URL with a permalink.

I have two stories posted to my Instapaper, and I plan on posting many more. Time to say goodbye to the “To Read” folder on my Mac.

China: Cleaning Their Internet

CNN reports (link):

Chinese President Hu Jintao on Monday launched a campaign to rid the country’s sprawling Internet of “unhealthy” content and make it a springboard for Communist Party doctrine…

I will be studying intellectual property in China over the summer. The idea of censoring the content so that it better conforms with a doctrine seems to run against the principles of free thought, imagination, and entrepreneurship that I regularly associate with cutting edge technology.

I’m beginning to think I have big issues with such an approach. However, I’m keeping an open mind as to the possibilities and hope to be surprised when I’m actually there.