links for 2007-04-26
Uno as Uncategorized
Apr|26|2007
links for 2007-04-25
Uno as Uncategorized
Apr|25|2007
Captcha sucks, so does non-standard mashups
Apr|25|2007
Dude, I’ve tried to comment on your site but I can’t because THE FUCKING CAPTCHA IS TOO COMPLEX!! Take it off!
So in response to:
Where government falls short, Non Governmental Organizations step in. So it is with crime statistics, where the Centre for Justice and Crime Prevention has built an interactive mapping service based on police crime statistics. With the tool, you can easily view your suburb against theft and murder statistics. Macabre perhaps, but interesting.
The tool highlights how murder per population density is actually higher in remote areas than urban areas. Whilst obviously not higher in absolute terms, it shows that it actually ’safer’ to be in urban areas than rural in terms of the chances of being murdered in South Africa. Good to know!
Hey, this is pretty cool but slow and clunky. Why didn’t they just do a googlemaps mashup? it would have been 100 times easier to use and probably quicker to code as well.
Still, nice idea.
So the question, where is the database of crime statistics that we can use to mashup?
An idea for the aggregators
Apr|25|2007
I can’t remember where the idea came into my head…
At the moment AA (amatomu and afrigator) are both great aggregators, yet they lack that one thing that is great about the interwebs: Personalisation.
The idea springs from having those custom searches that you can do. You can make your own search engine for a specific site.
Oh now I remember…
Someone at work pointed me to Startpagina.nl, and the already launched Startpage.co.za.
What is it?
A start page that is built up by a user. In this case my colleauge has started the zuid-afrika.startpagina.nl, which he has compiled all the relevant links (that he thinks) to South Africa. A lot of Dutch people who want to find something on SA would go here (he then receives ad revenue I think..?) All of the pages look the same, but I can make my own start page at uno.startpage.co.za if I’d like.
Now with AA:
Allow users to create cluster topics. For example there isn’t an option for Afrikaans in Amatomu. Sure you can search for Afrikaans, but you’d get a haphazard result. So you’d browse through the sites and add them to your own category, which is available to the public or not. Similar to the Comparison ratings at the moment, but larger scale.
Vincent, Mike, Justin? Whatchsay?
Technorati Tags: afrigator, amatomu, vincent maher, justin hartman, mike stopforth, startpage, aggregate, afrikaans
Sharing is Caring
Uno as Online
Apr|25|2007
Henk over at Yeah!Fi has a pretty cool aggregated post on how sharing is the way forward. Couldn’t agree more.
and the best part? Skyrove will be auctioning three wireless routers at the next 27 dinner!
links for 2007-04-24
Uno as Uncategorized
Apr|24|2007
Mr Video you idiot
Uno as Comedy
Apr|22|2007
It’s happened to me before: You rent a DVD and then spend the first 5 minutes locked into watching PIRATES ARE CRIMINALS YOU DANGED DERANGED FOOL.
You can’t skip these announcements, and you must watch them everytime. Now, apart from that, I’M THE FRIGGIN GOOD GUY HERE!!! I rented a movie from you! Don’t make me to be the hoodlum!
And now, take a look at their site:
Not only ugly as sin, but also automatically condeming you as a friggin mass murderer. Shees I just don’t understand it…
Friday Facebook Fun
Uno as Facebook Friday's
Apr|22|2007
I had the idea to start a new meme last week called Friday Facebook Fun, which highlights some of the weirder and more obscure happenings on Facebook. And now it’s late, this being Sunday (if I change the timestamp… does that count?) but I’m keeping with the idea. So imagine it was Friday. Ok?
Anyhow, let’s still do it right?
Father needs to call son Spiderman
Breaking news, this just in! The group titled If 100,000 people join, my fiance’ will let me name my second son Spiderman has finally hit 100,000! But unfortunately the group doesn’t have a purpose anymore, if you’d read the top part it goes:
UNFORTUNATELY NO ONE READS THIS DESCRIPTION AND JUST READS THE NAME OF THE GROUP. THEY DON’T REALIZE THAT THE GUY LEFT AND THAT A NEW PERSON WILL NAME THEIR CHILD SPIDER-MAN IF THE OTHER GROUP REACHES 750,000 MEMBERS. I am very sorry for the confusion. This group was actually closed for a while because people were getting angry at the admins for not naming anyone spiderman. Then many people left and we opened a new group, but people keep joining this one.
The new group has been created, and you can find it over here. Long live the spiderman!
In keeping with the If This Group… Meme:
I will blow up my car if this group reaches 500,000 members
Guess what he’s going to do? So far the group has 27,495 members and seems to be going strong with some 1700-odd wallposts. I suppose the great question we need to ask is how are we going to keep these people to honour their word? Is a simple “Ok I’ll do it” enough? Grand philosophical questions arise from this predicament. Or something like that.
2nd Flasmob hits Cape Town
For the local Capetonians, the Cape Town Flashmob has held their second event. This one was a point at the sky kinda thing. There are some pics and a video up on the site.
Assassins abound!
Stellenbosch Assassin has started last week sometime and has so far claimed a total of 9 people (possibly more after this weekend). The basic premise behind assassin is that people hand in a photo of themselves which is then given to someone else. You then walk around on campus in trembling fear of getting shot. You don’t know who is going to shoot you, you just walk around as you would normally do, ofcourse on the lookout for your own mark. Then suddenly BLAM! you get taken out… So much fun!
Then, if you are from Africa be sure to join The Great Facebook Race - Africans.
This is a very simple group, with massive bragging rights for the winners. First to 50,000 members wins. This is the group for Africans (black, white, blue, brown, pink) Come on people from Africa!! Let’s not let these Asians, Eurasians, Americans and British get the better of us. After all, they’ve had a head start!Simple goal. Get to 50000 members before the brits, yanks and asians do.
That’s it for the Friday Facebook Fun this week! Drop me a line if you find anything interesting
Kid socialnetworks sux0rz
Apr|19|2007
Over at Quirk they recently blogged about a social network for kids called ClubPenguin.
As more and more horror stories surface about children being exposed to unsuitable content on the Internet, parents are finding themselves in two minds as to the extent to which they let their kids access such an indispensable – yet treacherous - tool.
I have a problem with this. I mean, with kids Social Networks. Why? As the first commentor of the Imbee network says:
do you know why this wont work? Its not cool enough, what kid is gonna let there parents decide what goes on there page? Why wasnt that thought of before 6mil of funding!
And that is my though process as well. Social Networks that your parents monitor just ain’t cool man.
Secondly, seeing Myspace as The Predator is also a misunderstanding of the internet. It is not Myspace’s perogative te keep perps away from your child. It is you who is responsible. Stop shifting the blame.
Danah Boyd blogged about it a while ago. And a similar article here. Another judge tends to think the same, which was the original reason for the articles.
Here is a list of similar sites, according to Mashable:
Habbo
And some other tools:
ClubPenguin has a massive userbase, about 4 million apparently. But how many of those kids also have a Myspace profile where they are 21Hot4U. Still, from an e-marketers view it would make sense to advertise on the site (which would be where the thinking behind the original Quirk post would be)
Technorati Tags: children, social network, kids, myspace
links for 2007-04-19
Uno as Uncategorized
Apr|19|2007
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Someone speculates on building a corporate feed aggregator