Today has been a very exciting day. First off, About.me has been acquired by Aol, as good friend Tony Conrad writes about on his blog. A great deal on both sides, I think Aol got a steal and a great team here. Second, one of Audrey’s earliest investments Wakemate has finally shipped their first version, which I’ve been using the past two nights and has been great. (I’m averaging 60 so far.) Reserve your Wakemate here.
40% of the tasks in Mechanical Turk are getting people to spam. Amazon should take a hard stance against these, as soon as possible.
City Equations
The first data set they analyzed was on the economic productivity of American cities, and it quickly became clear that their working hypothesis — like elephants, cities become more efficient as they get bigger — was profoundly incomplete. According to the data, whenever a city doubles in size, every measure of economic activity, from construction spending to the amount of bank deposits, increases by approximately 15 percent per capita.
A Physicist Turns the City Into an Equation on NYTimes.com. A fascinating article about some constants between cities, and a bit at the end about how laws are different for corporations.
New Akismet
I’ve been really enjoying the new features in Akismet:
The always-excellent Big Picture blog sums up 2010 in photos, definitely take a few minutes this Friday and check out part one, part two, and part three.
State of the Blogosphere
But blogging perseveres–as it should. It is a place where context, thoughtfulness and continuity are rewarded with inbound links, ReTweets, bookmarks, comments and Likes. Blogs are the digital library of our intellect, experience, and vision.
Brian Solis on The State of the Blogosphere 2010.
Monet and Bulgari Exhibits
Visiting the Exposition Monet 2010 and the Bulgari exhibit in Paris, followed by some frog legs. If you enjoy jewelry definitely check this album out.
LeWeb 2010 Talk
The talk Toni and I did with Alexia Tsotsis at LeWeb this year is now online, at the end we talk a bit about what’s next for Automattic in the WP world:
Also chatted with Hermione Way of The Next Web about the biggest tech story of the year.
Rodin, Versailles, Louvre
Visited the Musée Rodin, Versailles which had the Takashi Murakami exhibit, and finally the Louvre.
Random Paris
Reading, hot dog, Hermes windows, Restaurant Oscar, funny sweater.
Paris Walk and Dinner
Walking around Paris, then dinner with Tony and friends at Chez Savy.
Basquiat exhibit, Snow in Paris
Went to Basquiat exhibit, wandering around Paris in the snow, lunch with Elliot, Social Media Club, Le Web pre-party, some tripe.
Hotel Costes, Guy Savoy, George V
Drinks at Hotel Costes, a fantastic Le Web dinner at Guy Savoy’s restaurant including some peaks behind the scenes and a tour of the kitchen, and closing out the night with some cognac at George V. A lovely night.
Skiing in Deer Valley
I went skiing for the first time in Deer Valley. Includes a video of the one time Barry fell, but not the 15 times I fell.
Big Web Show Interview
The other day I was interviewed by Jeffrey Zeldman and Dan Benjamin for the Big Web Show, which you can now view here. Also good to watch if you’d like an update on my beard adventure. 🙂
TechFellow Award
Earlier tonight I won a TechFellow Award in the “Product Design and Marketing” category. I thought this would be a good opportunity to thank the two people who have had the biggest design influence over the past few years on WordPress (and me): Jane Wells and Matt “MT” Thomas.
Cyber Missile
Mystery Surrounds Cyber Missile That Crippled Iran’s Nuclear Weapons Ambitions, such a cool story.
Groupon WP
Groupon has been in the news lately as a rumored 6 billion dollar acquisition target, and of course their blog is powered by WordPress. On that fact alone I’d say, go for it Google!
Airport Security
It’s not that the terrorist picks an attack and we pick a defense, and we see who wins. It’s that we pick a defense, and then the terrorists look at our defense and pick an attack designed to get around it. Our security measures only work if we happen to guess the plot correctly. If we get it wrong, we’ve wasted our money. This isn’t security; it’s security theater.
Bruce Schnier on why airport security is A Waste of Money and Time in the New York Times.
Stallone
Sylvester Stallone’s website is WP-powered. (I saw The Expendables last night.) Also, am I imagining things or did I read a longish profile of Stallone that talked about his production company, his office, the legacy of Rocky… can’t find it anywhere and search on my Kindle is broken.