Day: June 11, 2003

A bit of a history lesson for identity systems: the 1958 introduction of the credit card, at least a quick review of said event. This article mentions gives credit to “Joseph Nocera’s excellent book, “A Piece of the Action.”” — I’ll have to add that to my list at some point.

OK, it was one minute long, but at least now I can say I’ve been on one. Stepping on, you have to relax… it rocked back and forth as I tried to compensate, rather than letting the Segway do the work. After those initial seconds, it was stable, and while I didn’t go more than 30 feet in any direction, I got a flavor for it. Fun toy. Still hard to imagine forking over big $$$ for one, but I was as curious as the next person. The occasion? The author of the book on the building of the Segway, Code Name Ginger, came by the office on his book tour, and a representative of the publisher brought his own personal Segway HT. The publisher rep noted that you have to be prepared to talk to people if you own one — everyone wants to know more (and try it). I shared the enthusiasm, but I still can’t imagine the purchase.

I enjoy Steve Outing’s coverage of the online media space. I’ve been a reader of the online-news mailing list for ~10 years (yes, it’s been around that long). E-Media Tidbits, the group blog at Poynter.org he started, is a useful resource. All that as a preface for the fact that I found this Editor & Publisher column one big endorsement for Tacoda, an ad-targeting solution. Useful info, but aren’t there are other vendors in the space to get some feedback? Quite a headline and deck, too:

Targeting Technology Should Boost Online Ads
Salvation for Web Publishers Just Around the Corner

Steve, isn’t ‘salvation’ a bit much to promise?

Found out today that Mark Johnson is blogging (via Vin). This post starts with Hunter S. Thompson, and moves on to the ROI of blogging.

Most people seemed to agree that if you have even one reader coming to your blog then you have achieved ROI. (snip) is not new technology, and the likelihood for an innovative business model cropping up from it is fairly remote, but blogging makes content king again, and that is a good thing.