News

Testing the body field.

Last week, I was lucky enough to get an invite to test out a new "Social Search" application called Aardvark that was recently released into the wild.  Well, not completely into the wild (more on that in a sec), but wild enough that a no-talent hack like me managed to get an invitation (thanks again, @marshallk and @davidadewumi).

So here's how it works:

1. You sign up.
2. You tell Aardvark what types of questions you'd like to answer, rough categories like "Technology" or "Seattle."
3. People ask questions through their IM client (Google Talk, AIM, Windows Live Messenger).
4. Aardvark forwards that question along to a user on the network who's registered to answer questions about that topic.

You can tell Aardvark what times of day you're available to answer questions, and you always have the choice to Pass on one you can't answer.

A typical exchange might look something like this:

Asking questions is just as easy as answering them.  You just IM a question to the aardvark.im contact and poof, Aardvark does the rest. 

All in all, it's pretty damn cool, and extremely useful.  I can't wait to see what happens once they get more users with a wider knowledge base onboard.  Other than that, my only Wish List item would be Twitter support.

Now, getting back to that releasing-into-the-wild thing.  Right now, Aardvark isn't open to the public, so there are only a couple ways to get in on the fun:

1. See them at SxSW.  Unfortunately, I believe today is the last day for the Interactive part of that show, so it's probably too late for that option.
2. Find someone with invitations to share.  Someone, perhaps, who's devastatingly handsome... with a really nerdy blog...  who wrote this post...

So, yeah.  I have a few invitations still that I'd be happy to share.  Just email email me (justin@nerdliness.com) or leave a comment here if you're interested and I'll get back to you with the details.  I only ask that you a) actually use the service and b) name your next child after me.

Just stumbled across this bit o' news that hit the street a little while ago:

Microsoft Offers to Buy Yahoo for $44.6 Billion

First of all..  Holy hell, that's a lot of money.  As the Bloomberg folks said:

Steve Ballmer is attempting the biggest-ever technology takeover after failing to compete with Google

I don't use any of Yahoo's services, not since I cured my online cribbage addiction about 10 years ago anyway, so I frankly don't care much about what might happen to their offerings if that acquisition goes through.  And judging by the fact that only 1.2% of our site's visitors** ended up here via Yahoo, well, that tells me y'all aren't exactly on their bandwagon, either. 

My biggest concern is what might happen with Google...  Surely the Google juggernaut couldn't sustain it's current rate of growth for much longer regardless, but a fully armed and operational MS/Yahoo battlestation might throw a bigger kink in things.

Big winners in this are clearly the Yahoo shareholders.  So far today, Yahoo is up 8.35 (43.53%), while Microsoft and Google stock have dropped 2.09 (6.41% and 50.60 (8.97%), respectively.  Those numbers, of course, according to Google Finance. :)

** Nerdliness.com visitors are incredibly Google/Firefox biased.  Since we went live, the break down of our visitors by browser and search engine looks something like this:

Google:  97.6%
Yahoo:  1.2%
MSN/Live: .8%

Firefox: 68.49%
IE: 18.19%
Safari: 6.32%
Opera:  4.03%

Probably means that the ASP.NET articles we've been thinking about won't really go over too well around here, eh?  Oh, well.

Just a little reminder for the Drupalers in the Portland/Vancouver area that the Lullabot folks will be hosting a meet-up this fine evening (Wednesday, January 9) at the Hotel deLuxe.  If bathing in a sea of Drupal experts while eating free cookies isn't enough, Jeremy and I will be there, too.

Couple of events going down in the Portland area over the next week or two that all the cool kids are going to attend (i.e. me and any other nerds who can sneak past their mom/wife/partner/WoW).

PostgreSQL Conference Fall 2007

Ah, PostgreSQL...  The Other White Meat.  Or, at least, the Other Open Source DB.  Those cooky kids are throwing their little conference at Portland State University in the heart of increasingly-less-sunny-as-fall-hits-its-stride Stumptown this coming Saturday, October 20th.  You need to preregister and scrounge up sixty tax-deductible bucks to get in ($10 if you're a student/faculty), but the topics and speakers look worth every penny.  The Rails applications talk sounds interesting, and I have a soft spot for the GIS stuff (PostGIS talk at 2:15 PST).  Oh, and don't forget the morning meet-n-greet and the after-dinner/party.

Read more and register at http://www.postgresqlconference.org, and if you happen to see a goofy blonde guy who bears a striking resemblance to the picture on your right, say "hi."

Ignite Portland

Ignite Portland's goin' down on Thursday, October 25 at Wieden+Kennedy in uber-trendy Northwest Portland.  Free to anyone who decides to browse over to http://upcoming.yahoo.com/event/265888/ and get their RSVP on.  Yes, I said "free."  As in, no cost.  Looks like there are currently 181 PDXers on the list right now, should be fun.

But what the hell is "Ignite Portland."  Hell if I know.  The jist of it is that speakers have 5 minutes to talk about just about anything.  They get 20 slides that rotate after 15 seconds, pretty much guaranteeing a fast clip.  Take a look at the clip on the Ignite Portland page for an example (http://www.igniteportland.com/). 

They haven't posted the list of presenters and topics yet, but if the roll calls from previous Ignites is any indication, it should be a hoot.  And given the fact that Portlanders are genetically predisposed to attempt to out-wacky people in other metro areas, well, I'm expecting great things.  Worst case scenario?  Well, each presentation is only 5 minutes long.  I can put up with even the worst speaker for that long, knowing the hook's coming out soon.

By the way, the Ignite people need more sponsors, so if this kind of crowd's the type o' people your business wants to reach or if you have a wealthy eccentric uncle looking to splurge, head to http://www.igniteportland.com/sponsorships/.