As I was driving back from the gym tonight, I could not help but to keep cycling about the enormous spam problem TnR and million of other email and web supporting service companies are dealing with. Reminds me of a daily war that sysadmins, just like troopers, fight every day in an attempt to protect users/email recipients.

What can make prevent spam from further proliferation?

How/Why is the crime somehow much lower in the off-line world than spam in the on-line world?

What can be learned from the off-line world to be introduced to the on-line world to help reduce and prevent further deterioration of email/web content.

Is it the laws? Is it the enforcement? Is it the ‘core values’ learned within family/school/other society environments?

By a well-timed coincidence, my co-worker sent this link from CNN about ‘9 out of 10 e-mail now spam’.
And one more the Inquirer ‘ 200 People Create 80% of Spam’.

Is it the web so empowering that the whole web world can not stop 200 people/organizations? Is it true that if those 200 (organizations) are “killed”, then others will appear and will proliferate as mushrooms?

Recent research indicated that sex/porno sites are only 1% of all sites on the web; the conclusion was made that the web is not worse than the off-line (more real?) world where some small percentage of people have spikes above ‘normal’ sexuality. (Sorry, can not find the link to the research at the moment of this post.). Why is it that spam does not support the same premise?

It is obvious that the can spam law has not been enforced and has not been useful.

One thing is true is that there is an expectation on the user side that email just should work and that the service provider (even for free one) will take care of it some how. How — the user has no clue (not an attack to users, myself is one of such users). Most users have little understanding how email works and what it takes to keep emails / mail servers (moderately) clean off spam. They hardly have a slightest idea of devices /hardware, software, tricks, and all else sysadmins and companies working in this market come up with to deal with spam. A few know of headaches and sleepless nights sysadmins have dealing with all this.

It is hard to believe that there is nothing the larger (better) world can do to effectively fight the spammers.

Are there any companies that are more successful than others in dealing with spam attacks at mail servers that they can share? But, then again, that is a reactive response to the problem, not elimination of the problem.

Your ideas about how to fight spam at its roots?

Ideas about your success in reacting to it on the server level are welcome as well.

Michael Arrington at Techcrunch today and Steve Gillmor a month ago declared TV dead. While I have not turned mine for quite a while, I can not agree. Give it three – five more years — maybe. Today TV is still alive.

Here are a few numbers to consider:

• Based on Pew Internet report by March 2006, only 42% of American adults had high speed internet connection at home. That is half of adult US population does not have high speed internet while an average American family has more TV units than people (sorry, no link to source).
  Pew Internet does not clarify how they define an “adult” (unless I missed a footnote somewhere).
• US population is getting older and computer usage / internet adoption does not increase with age; it is quite the opposite. Currently, 110 mil people or 37% if the US population are over 45 yo. In 2010, projections are that there will be $121 mil or 39% over 45 yo. At that age, questioning of all new prevails over adoption of the “next cool thing”. Online video is certainly in that category.
• Even if we assume that 42% of those who have access to high speed is evenly distributed among all ages, how many of those 37% above 45 who have access know what RSS feeds are and how to look up news besides going to Google News, let alone how many will bother (or will know) to go to YouTube that is mostly a home of 18-44 yo?
• Those over 45 possess most of purchasing power. — Think Baby Boomers as a major part of the equation.
• While advertising budgets started shifting from off-line to on-line media, the online advertising market ($12.5 bil in 2005) is still at best 1/6 of the TV advertising market ($74 bil).
• I would not even start getting into the world stats in this post — internet penetration will vary significantly from country to country and even within countries (if we look just at China and India).

And a few examples from personal experience:

• TV is great in the gym when running on treadmill. Grey’s Anatomy brought me to marathon. Hardly it would have worked on iPod for that very reason. Larry King Live has certainly been high on the list as well.
  After endless hours in the online / digital world, TV in the gym for me is priceless.
• When I tell my acquaintances (of ages from 25 to 65) that I do not watch TV, they look at me as at an Neanderthal man (or woman). Their perception of me as an education person immediately changes to the very opposite.
• When in a futile attempt to explain why I do not need to (do not want) to watch TV, I tell them that I read all news on MyYahoo, by their looks I can tell I lost them. If I mention that I may listen to podcasts on the background while typing or glancing over news, the looks become even more absent.
• They feel sorry about me. I feel sorry about them .
  We manage to remain friendly as long as we do not discuss our TV / no TV preferences.

 In response to the  Deal or no Deal?  article recently published in Fortune.   –

FORTUNE: "Buy AOL. Swallowing AOL won’t transform Yahoo, but would give it increased traffic and a shot in the arm for its search-advertising business.   The real question is whether Time Warner wants to sell. "Time Warner has a new strategy for AOL and is not contemplating any deals," says a company spokesman.   Citigroup analyst Jason Bazinet estimates AOL is worth about $13 billion. Of course, Time Warner might demand more."

PTI: AOL is an old dog. Yes, it has traffic, but so what?  It has not been to capitalize it and has been loosing money big time.  Yahoo has enough traffic on its own — it is #1 site in the world based on traffic. It has not been able to capitalize it, so why buy AOL if it had not figured out the traffic capitalization part either? 
What are they going to figure out together?  Big mergers rarely work; potential clash in two corporate cultures is something managment will have to work on vs. to concentrate on how to capitalize traffic.

FORTUNE: "Sell to Microsoft. If Semel can’t buy AOL, the best move for his shareholders may be to sell the company. Both Yahoo and Microsoft’s MSN have struggled against Google to cash in on search advertising. Integrating Microsoft’s codehead culture with Yahoo’s Internet vibe would be problematic. But buying Yahoo would be a triumph for Microsoft, giving it a major beachhead in Silicon Valley. If such a merger were to occur, the combined Yahoo and MSN would have 2006 net revenues nearly equal to Google’s expected $7 billion."

PTI: Microsoft is a software company.  Most, if not all of their entertainment (and online) initiatives are still grossly unprofitable.

Yahoo is an entertainment company.  Search has become only secondary to its entertainment business.  In fact, it never was its strongest side.  Why do we go to Yahoo? — not to search (Google is for that), but to check email (where, in spite of all Goggle’s whistles and bells, Yahoo is still ahead of Google mostly due to being first comer),  to check ‘MyYahoo’ with RSS feeds to see what news / blog post is hot today, to (maybe) glance at Yahoo home page to see what they highlight today.

The two (MS and Yahoo) will just not merry well.  Microsoft’s market cap ($290 Bil) exceeds Yahoo’s cap ($37 Bil) almost 8 times.   If acquired by Microsoft, Yahoo, most probably, will follow the sad destiny of Altavista — caught up in between the corporate (often bureaucratic) agendas, it will be shuffled from one department to another and will eventually get lost in between.

I personally will feel very sorry.  I like My Yahoo page and my email — they keep me sane when all else fails. 

FORTUNE: Merge with eBay. The two sites occupy different corners of the web, so they’d be complementary. Indeed, eBay ( Charts) and Yahoo already are stitching together a comprehensive cross-selling initiative in the U.S., and each is wary of Google. The two have discussed mergers over the years, so there’s a long history there. But however appealing it may be, an eBay-Yahoo merger appears unlikely, say people close to the two companies, precisely because of their vastly different focuses.

PTI:  Exactly, the two have two different focuses.   One (Ebay) sells or rather helps sell stuff — physical stuff, and makes money on every transaction.  The other (Yahoo) sells advertising space — digital space, not physical stuff (yes, it has made some attempts to sell physical stuff as well, but Yahoo Shopping is not even in the top 20 Yahoo properties).

In trying to align one to another, they may lose both spaces (selling stuff and selling ads) to Google.  Google is not sleeping and will pick its forces with its Froogle and Google Base to come come after Ebay in addition to Yahoo.

FORTUNE: Stay the course. This is Yahoo’s party line. Semel says that if Yahoo can do better at monetizing search ads and exploit new areas like ads on cellphones, videos, and social-networking sites, it will do just fine. "With the landscape changing, I am very, very excited about the opportunities for Yahoo," he told investors in mid-October, when Yahoo reported its disappointing third-quarter results. Let’s see if Yahoo’s board is as patient as Semel.

PTI: Out of all choices listed above, this one, IMHO, is the most viable.  Traffic is already there — Yahoo does a good job attracting "eyeballs" — they now have to figure out how to put systems in place to capitalize that traffic.  This would involve making the buy/sell part of adwords, banners, text more appealing to advertisers –  so they could (at least perceptions wise) make their cost/benefit analysis make business sense.  

For this, to get new ideas, Yahoo may consider buying:

• Blu Lithium and see if their technology can help cash in on traffic.
• aQuantive that has been successful in building its portfolio and business in on-line advertising.   aQuantive may nicely complement Yahoo and give new blood to capitalizing Yahoo’s traffic and working with advertisers.
• ValueClick  – this idea is byNicole Ridgway  of Techsmart, SmartMoney
• Nextmedium – not exactly in the online ad business, but still in entertainment. It automates the process of product placement in TV shows, movies and videogames. Something Yahoo might want to get their feet into to get closer to ‘Hollywood’ entertainment.

Today I have been to the Hidden Tech networking event at Holyoke Community College (HCC).

I was astonished by the new beautiful HCC Kittredge Center for Business and Workforce Development. Michael Kittredge ‘73, founder of Yankee Candle Company and HCC graduate, provided a $1 million gift to Holyoke Community College Foundation to launch the construction of the state-of-the-art facility. The Center was opened in May ‘06. I am very, very impressed. The building is a gem in otherwise fairly poor Holyoke.

Jeff Hayden, Vice President of Business and Community Services and Executive Director of the Kittredge Center, gave us a tour around it. The five store building has:

• Wireless Internet everywhere
• Videoconferencing, and state-of-the-art lighting and projection
• Huge Flat Plasma TV (63 inches, if not more) in a conference / training room
• Large Flat TVs with announcements all over the place
• 10 “Smart” technology computer labs/classrooms
• Green Roof: A flat or low-pitch roof was designed to absorb atmosphere water from rain and snow not to have a need to build water sewage system. The roof will be planted with pretty grass and other ground covers. “This “green” roof—the first on a public building in New England—will benefit the environment and provide research opportunities to environmental studies students.” — from HCC web site.

In addition to all that state-of-the art technology and environmentally safe roof, the interior design of the building is very stylish and everything is overwhelmingly well done. Walls are covered with richly toned matte finish paint of soothing colors — deep yellow, vinous (deep red), deep olive, light gray. All edges are finely finished. I loved the precision and care everything was done with. Rarely had I seen such a level of precision, especially not expected in a community college. Unfortunately, I did not have camera with me to capture bright colors of this wonder.

The Center does open its doors for entrepreneurs and small businesses to host events and meetings.
Another great thing I found out is that this past summer, UMASS Isenberg Business School, the one I graduated from, started holding classes in the Kittredge Center. This evening, I saw future MBAs sitting in an awesomely well-designed and equipped classroom. Professor Richard Asebrook, one of the best and my most favorite professors was teaching a class of (most probably) Managerial Accounting. I could not resist and stopped by to say ‘Hi’. I remember Professor Richard Asebrook tremendous most patience and tremendous common sense. He would explain complex things as if they were very simple, and, believe me, Debit-Credit and T-accounts can be Chinese to many.

Thanks to Amy Zuckerman, founder of Hidden-Tech for organizing this event and thanks to the Kittredge Center for hosting it. Those who could come and did not, lost a lot.

My goal was not to write a post on “how to vblog” or “vblogging 101“. I collected a list of resources to look at when you’ve decided you want to vblog.

Good place to start from is Everything About Video Blogging, or Vblogging by Ezine @rticles, and Videoblogging PDF from CCT where they teach how to use Blogger for blogging, compress video with iMovie, and post it with Blip.tv. Decent Set to start from when one has no idea and just wants to try it.

• Books:
  

Here is a full list of books on videoblogging from Amazon. I have got Videoblogging by Jay Dedman and Joshua Paul. Great book.

• How to make good quality videos:

Excellent Video Tutorials by Israel Hyman. Israel made 2-5 minute videos about each and every aspect of video making. Excellent work by an excellent creative professional who knows his craft.

Israel Hyman is also one of the Cofounders of Glimpster where they produced video Digital Photography Tutorials and Free Spanish Lessons (maybe this will finally get me to learn Spanish?).

FreeVlog tutorials cover quite a bit related to vblogging.

• Solutions for hosting videos and displaying them on your site:

Testing Grounds has a list of 35 or so sites (!) for free video hosting, with reviews. A couple of examples:

Vlog Central is a “comprehensive audio/video solution for bloggers that is integrated into their existing blog of choice”. They host you video and let you play it on your blog.

Blip.tv is a “free videoblogging, podcasting and video sharing service. If you don’t have a blog we’ll give you one, and if you have one already we’ll make it a show.”

• Video Editing SW:

PC Magazine Product Guides and Reviews – video editing software — 90 or more products!!!

I have not used any yet, so can not comment. I know iMovie (for Mac users) has great reviews and Final Cut Studio for professional (Mac) editors. My business partner uses MyDVD (for PC users) and it works for him.

• Prominent videobloggers (to learn from):

Steve Garfield is a videographer and video blogger based in Boston, Massachusetts.
He has been experimenting with vlogging since 2002 and launched his own regular video blog on January 1, 2004. On his vlog he features Vlog Soup a regular free tour of video blogs from all over the world. Also look at his Squidoo Lens.

See more below.

• Courses (around Boston):

It appears (some) local community television stations offer classes on video editing using their equipment as well as production ($5-10/hour only!). Am going to Amherst Community Television to learn from them and grateful for the opportunity. Check your local station, see what they offer.

Cambridge Community Television (CCT) has courses on Blogosphere: Video Blogs 101, Production and Digital Editing. They have very good manuals and procedures in PDF format (for free) if you scroll the page at the link.

Boston Media Makers, an interesting group of videobloggers in Boston area, also offer classes. They get together on the first Sunday of each month see if you would like to join.

• Online knowledge resources you may want to look into:

WikiPedia on Vlog
Voxmedia on Vlogosphere
Yahoo Tech Group Videoblogging

• Videoblog award (s):

Videoblog award is new — there is been just one (Nov 4, 2006), and, of course, in San Francisco. So, if you have not gotten the first one, you still can get there.

Podtech.net (network of audio and video podcasts and current employer of famous blogger Robert Scoble where he hosts Scoble Show with geeks) organized the first Vloggies annual videoblog awards night in San Francisco featuring and nominating vloggers from all over the country, if not the world. Irina Slutsky was the idea generator and made it happen together with Podtech team.

Best videobloggers list from the Vloggies (the People’s Choices)

Favorite People’s Vlog: Ask a Ninja — I personally can not watch through even one episode of Ninja. The (very) same start for all episodes with Jumping People in Mask (aka Ninjas) bores me and makes me move on before I even get through the start (yup, am aware it is perceived as funny and cool by many). Am guessing they made it to the top for their originality.

Best videobloggers list from the Vloggies (the Judges’ choices)

• A few vblogs (the ones I bumped into):

Ryan Edit
Drive Time
Tinkernet

My V-blog is yet to come.