I love the new TechMeme River. It’ll be interesting to see how often I use it compared to old-style TechMeme.

Heheh, I’m not sure what to think when Jason Calacanis says that I’m “out there.”

I guess it’s better than having the local neighborhood committee knock on your door and ask when you are gonna put up Christmas lights (true story, happened while we were in Europe according to Chris Coulter who was staying at our house while we were gone).

Personally I think I haven’t been “out there” enough. I haven’t shared enough about what’s going on at PodTech, for instance. Most of that is just sheer being overwhelmed with email and stuff to do. We just moved into our new offices and I’m feeling out of sorts. More on that later, gotta run to an interview.

Thanks Kris Krug for the great photo of Maryam. More from the Pirillo wedding on his Flickr page.

Speaking of photos, Kris and I talked about Northern Voice. Turns out that’s going to be a BIG photo meetup next year. February 23-24 in Vancouver. If you’re into photography, or you are getting a new digital SLR for Christmas, you will want to be there.

If you can’t make that, come to our Photowalking tour of Sacramento’s Train Museum — December 27th at 1 p.m. Turns out JPG magazine should be there and I have a handful of 8GB flash cards donated by Seagate to hand out as prizes.

What kinds of things will you find on my link blog?

Well, how about this stunning image of El Capitan in Yosemite?

Want more? You’ll need to read John Nack’s blog on the topic (he works for Adobe and is its best blogger that I know of so far).

Eddie Codel is in Europe at the Roboexotica event and sent us some video on GETV. Damn, he got Violet Blue to fill in for Irina AND he gets to see some very cool robots.

I’ve been looking over what I’ve been putting on my link blog trying to see trends that are happening. One thing I realize? No one has a lock anymore on being “the source” for Web 2.0 information. If you want a complete picture you need to subscribe to more than one feed. Yeah, reading TechCrunch will get you about 65% of the way there, but look at the numbers of interesting news, new products and services, opinions coming from other places.

I don’t know how we can keep up anymore. Just this weekend there were several new services added. I put dozens of new items on my link blog. It’s amazing the quality of blogging that’s being done in the tech industry — and there’s no way any one person (or company) could do it all.

While I was talking with Sanaz Ahari of Live.com, she was bragging that there’s hundreds of new gadgets available. 471, in fact. That’s just crazy and I haven’t even listed the ones available from Microsoft’s competitors like Goowy, Google, Netvibes, and others.

How will we keep up? How will any new company get adoption?

Either way, I’m sure enjoying reading feeds again. So you don’t have to.

Today Maryam, Patrick, and I went to see Sanaz’s new office at Microsoft. She is lead program manager on Live.com’s home page. Not a small job. Anyway, during the interview we were talking about what makes us say someone “gets it.” We bandied about a whole bunch of things. She told us a few questions she asks in interviews about Flickr and Del.icio.us to see if people going for jobs on Live.com have kept their skills and interests both up to date and aligned with those who “get it.”

I remember other places where we’d use similar terminology.

“Are you on the Cluetrain?”

Anyway, I just got a pre-release version of Gina Trapani’s LifeHacker book (my publisher, Wiley, sent me one). This is the owners manual for the always on, always connected person. Official title? Lifehacker: 88 Tech Tricks to Turbocharge Your Day.

What does it have? 88 tips for being more productive, living life better, and using your computer and online systems to their fullest extent. This is the most useful book I’ve seen in years.

From now on I’ll be able to tell if you care about being productive by asking whether you’ve read this book. If you don’t care about getting things done you won’t get it.

We’re on our way home from Seattle (we are driving home from Oakland International Airport) and stuck in a traffic jam. All lanes of 92 are closed due to an accident. Major one, based on how many fire trucks and ambulances have passed us.

In past years one might turn on the radio. KGO and KCBS here in San Francisco area are two that come to mind. We did that (KCBS has traffic and weather every 10 minutes) but after a few of those reports said the same thing, I pulled out my laptop to answer some email and check on traffic. In Seattle the traffic sites are very accurate and even have good cameras where you can see what’s happening to traffic. San Francisco area is WAY behind Seattle in this regard. In Seattle I can even see where each bus is located and approximately how long it’ll be before it gets to my stop.

Now that more of us are getting portable phones that are Web enabled, we’ll expect even better services.

Who has the best traffic info sites, particularly for mobile phones? And what impact does that have on things like housing prices? I remember thinking in Bothell that having lots of alternate routes to the freeway was good and it did impact our decision on where to live.

Anyway, follow along and see if we get home anytime tonight. We’re stuck on the San Mateo bridge on HWY 92. SF Gate gave best traffic report. Others still don’t show the accident.

Oh, I do love having a Verizon Wireless card. Makes traffic jams a whole lot more productive. This is the first time I’ve setup office on a bridge, though.

UPDATE: we got home OK after being delayed about half an hour. Turns out we were a few hundred cars back, and it, indeed, was a bad accident. A car was destroyed the way you can destroy a piece of paper by crimpling it up in your hand. Sure hope it turns out OK for everyone inside.

UPDATE 2: this points to a new opportunity: a “news near me” URL. Put in “San Mateo Bridge” and mark that you only care about things that happened in the last hour and such a service would have pulled up all the latest stuff within 10 miles. I haven’t seen anyone do anything like that, have you?

Scott Beale has the photos. I’m sure there’ll be more uploaded soon too. It seemed like there were 50 cameras there at one point. Anyway, what a wonderful evening. Congrats to the Pirillos! More on Pirillowedding tag. Heheh, Jeff Sandquist was playing “count the Canadians.” More than a few geeks had searched Google last night for “how to tie a tie.” You should have seen them, the geeks clean up nice! And, damn, neither Maryam nor I could recognize Julie Leung. Stunning.

He says blogging killed FrontPage.

The thing that really killed FrontPage? Microsoft’s marketing team tested the name on a range of developers and Web designers/builders. They all derided it. The marketers learned there was no way they were going to be able to continue with the FrontPage brand. So they killed the brand.

Does the code live on? Yes. Sorta.

The Microsoft Expression Web product is really a continuation of FrontPage. But it’s been totally rebuilt. Why? Cause FrontPage had a reputation for changing code, for not respecting standards, and for forcing its own style on the development team. Those problems are all gone now.

You can see the new Expression Web demoed and meet the team in interviews on ScobleShow.

Anyway, it’s time to go get dressed for Chris and Ponzi’s wedding. I hear their vows will appear on Chris’ blog at about the same time that he and Ponzi are saying them to each other.

I’m not going to blog, but Jake Ludington and I were thinking about how we could stream video. We won’t know if that’s possible until we get to the place and see if there’s any good Wifi. Either way, you’ll get a report later.

UPDATE: there’s more over on Digg. The comments there are a good example of why I don’t get much value from Digg. Too much noise and very little knowledge.

I met Scott Beale in the lobby here at the Bellevue Hyatt (we’re in room 1514) and he shot me interviewing Doug Rowan, former CEO of Corbis (he now invests in photographic-centric companies like ZoomAlbum and Piczo). Then I turned the camera on Scott. Hopefully we’ll do a photowalking while here in Bellevue.

Doug told us about selling computers back in the 1960s for IBM that had 600 bytes of memory that cost millions of dollars (no hard drives, either!) That’s not gigabytes. It’s not megabytes. It’s not kilobytes. It’s bytes. How far we’ve come in one lifetime is simply amazing.

Engadget reports record sales of HDTVs.

I’m not alone in seeing that HDTV is changing everything about home entertainment. This story is just beginning to be written.

Here you get to meet Kevin Burton (26-minute interview), the developer behind TailRank (which competes with my favorite TechMeme).

I’ve been looking at TailRank more and more lately and it is, indeed, coming on strong. The next year is going to be interesting to watch Kevin go at it against Gabe. May the best geek win!

Kevin also gives you a good six-minute demo of TailRank’s features.

Heheh, I’m glad I’m not the only one (thanks Parand Tony Darugar) who has gotten addicted to using the “J” and “K” keys, thanks to Google Readers. I find increasingly I’m missing that interface on other applications and useage models.

Anyway, good podcast over with Leo Laporte and Paul Thurrott where they both talk about Windows Vista. Paul says Vista is changing the way he uses his computer. I find that too.

But, damn, I wish everything used the J and K keys. Heheh.

I love Amit Agarwal’s analysis on the full-text vs. partial text debate. I HATE partial text feeds. I am subscribing to a few now (Dan Farber, for instance) but I find I link to them far less often than people who give me full text feeds. What does that do? Well, read Amit’s analysis. And, yes, I did “steal” Amit’s content and put it on my link blog.

I told you Jeff Sandquist is smart and is one guy I could rely on at Microsoft to get shit done (he was my boss when I was at Microsoft). He just convinced Jon Udell to come to Microsoft. Wow. I think it’s funny that Jon asked himself whether he’d be Microsoft’s new “Scoble.” Hell, I was trying to be as good as Jon Udell was (and I came up short — he’s a coder that can explain how to program to other people, and has far more influence among developers than I’ll ever hope to have).

In other Microsoft news, Mike Sax says Microsoft just signed away custody of its third-born child: All the file formats for Office Word, Excel, and PowerPoint are now under the custody of ECMA, an independent standards body.

One other thing about Jon Udell: to me he was InfoWorld. He’s the only reason I’ve been following that brand. It’s a HUGE loss for InfoWorld.

I haven’t commented much on the other hire that Jeff Sandquist made: Larry Larsen. But he rocks too. This team has raised my expectations for what will happen at Microsoft now. Two rock stars from the journalism world. Larry worked for Poynter Institute and is a major geek.

One thing I’ve learned: a manager is judged by the quality of people he hires and/or keeps happy. Jeff Sandquist has two three grand-slam home runs. (I forgot about Rory, thanks Dare for reminding me).

Yes, Rex, Microsoft just acquired a superstar media brand.

Techmeme link.

Where are the big breakthroughs going to come in the technology world? Watch this YouTube video and you’ll see just how far robotics have been coming. Wild. Oh, good morning from Seattle.

UPDATE: Gizmodo reports that this isn’t a robot at all.

We’re traveling today to Seattle to attend what could be the geek wedding of the decade: Chris and Ponzi’s wedding.

Forget the wedding registry. I want to know what the tag is gonna be!

How about: pirillowedding? The good thing about that tag is there’s nothing on Google yet about it.

For the next few days I’ll keep up my link blog if I can, but won’t be doing much blogging.

Over on ScobleShow we’ll post something new everyday. Today is a three-minute demo of Pando Networks, which has a cool way to send huge files to other people. Hey, who said I couldn’t do short videos?

Just a reminder: no one pays to get on ScobleShow except for my main sponsor, Seagate. So, thanks to Seagate I get to bring all these cool technology companies to you to show off their wares.

Mike Cassidy has been writing for the San Jose Mercury News for years. He’s a general columnist. I remember reading him back when I read paper. Today he called me and asked for help. Blog help. Specifically he was asking for help in building an audience and also getting his blog’s audience to engage — seems very few people leave comments.

Since journalists everywhere are trying to move online, I thought it might be interesting to see if I could quickly give him some advice on how to do it better. So, here’s what I told him.

1. Know how traffic will find you. There’s two ways: word of mouth (probably how you heard about Ze Frank or Rocketboom’s video show was from my blog, or from someone who emailed it to you) and search engines. Toni Schneider, CEO of Automattic, the folks who make Wordpress, told me that about half of the traffic that comes to Wordpress.com gets there from Google. Why is that important? Because if you don’t know how Google/Yahoo/Live/Ask work, you’ll be at a disadvantage over bloggers who understand that. More about how you can appease Google in future points.
2. Pick a niche and own it. This will definitely help you on search engines. Why? Because people visit Google looking for specific things. Google is like a billion niches. If you try to appear on all billion niches, you’ll probably appear on none of them. But, owning a niche, like “funny Silicon Valley stories” is a lot easier than owning a more generic “funny stories” search. Pick your niche carefully, though. You’ll want to do something you’re passionate and authoritative on.
3. Get specific with your title tag. Mike makes a common mistake here by calling his blog “Mike Cassidy’s Loose Ends.” No one searches for “Loose Ends.” And only his mom and relatives will search for “Mike Cassidy.” Well, that’s not really true, a lot of my audience searches for “Scoble” but that’s cause I made my URL so long and hard to spell that it’s easier to go to Google and search for Scoble. I’d put the niche you’re trying to own into the title tag. So, I’d call it “Mike Cassidy’s Funny Silicon Valley Stories.” Or something like that.
4. Demonstrate authority. Let’s say you’re a kid in India searching Google for information on Silicon Valley for a school paper. Are you likely to click on a link that says “Mike Cassidy’s Loose Ends” or are you more likely to click on a link that says “Funny Silicon Valley Stories from Mercury News Journalist?” Also, why isn’t the Mercury News’ logo on his blog anywhere? If I worked at the Mercury News I’d make sure people knew that, and I’d give lots of stories of “behind the scenes at the Merc.”
5. Use more media. I look at TechCrunch and how it beat other blogs, including mine. One thing Mike Arrington did? He used a graphic on every post. That made his posts stand out in my aggregator. Today, how do you stand out? How about an occassional video? Or a podcast? Or, a Flickr feed? Look at my link blog. What makes posts catch your eye? Remember, every post there caught my eye.
6. Link to other bloggers you like (or hate). Disclaimer: I’m an egotistical A-hole. OK, now that we got that out of the way, here’s why linking works. The tool I use to blog, Wordpress.com, shows me when I sign in who has linked to me. I click on those links, and I get to read what other bloggers have said about me. I’m very likely to subscribe to those blogs, or link back and say “you’re a jerkface too.” Or, at minimum, leave a comment “nice post.” Either way, that’s one more reader you have today than you had yesterday.
7. Use bullets and numbers. Copy Guy Kawasaki.
8. Hold a contest. Seagate is helping me hold a couple over the next few weeks. More details soon.
9. Beg for help from other bloggers. Hey!
10. Write better headlines. Mike’s are weak. “Sometimes you have to hold your nose” might sound like a fun headline, and for a newspaper column it probably was. But, imagine that your readers find your post on Technorati, are they going to be very likely to click on a headline like that? No. I’d say just be straightforward. “Cookie smell pisses off bus riders in San Francisco.” I’m sure you can make that a little better, but at least you’ll get more Google hits and readers know exactly what to expect after they click on the headline.
11. Cause some heck. Become part of the conversation. A writer has a few tools in his toolbag to get people to engage. One of the biggest is conflict. Why do we read Valleywag? To see who Nick Denton is picking on (hint, it’s Mike Arrington).
12. Maryam and I put 15 other ways up over on the Blog Business Summit’s site.
13. Get Shelley Powers to link to you. She has more traffic than a dog has fleas.

Anyway, do you have any advice for Mike?

UPDATE: Mike posts: “That Robert Scoble is a Rascal.”

Joe Wikert, publisher at Wiley (he’s the guy who convinced Shel and I to go with Wiley instead of other publishers) talks about the effect of giving away the content of books on the Web and what it does for sales. Hint: our sales are just fine, thank you very much, even though we put the content of the book up on our book blog before we published it.