“YouMail (www.youmail.com), the mobile industry’s premier consumer
voicemail service, today announced a new transcription capability that
will enable users to receive voicemails converted to text. Users who
opt-in will receive automatically transcribed voicemail messages to
their email inbox or via text message to their mobile phone or PDA.
The transcription service is available now for free through a beta
program, with general availability expected later in 2008.”
- “Youmail Adds Speech to Text”, Reuters.com

Youmail Voicemail Transcription Example:

Signup for youmail.com here….

Technology Review (a magazine published by MIT) recently asked various thought leaders what the Web might be in ten years. Below is one of the most creative responses but all the interviews are quite intriguing.

Jonathan Abrams
Founder of Socializr and Friendster; San Francisco, CA

“In five to ten years, we will all have chips in our brains. When you look at someone’s face on the street, your Google Brain software will automatically call up every embarrassing photo of them from ancient websites such as Flickr, Facebook, and MySpace; list all mutual friends; and remind you of the person’s annotated bio. As a response to the perceived slowness and verbosity of antiquated services like Twitter, people will send everyone they know nanobursts of information about anything they might do or think before they actually do or think it. Every website, blog, and social-networking profile will include an aggregated feed from every other website, blog, and social-networking service, resulting in an exponential and infinite length of repeated content on every possible site, overloading our brain chips and causing frequent nosebleeds and occasional cerebral hemorrhage.”

Source: The Future of The Web, Technology Review 7/2008

Mint.com released an interesting charting tool since my initial write-up on their online money management services. It’s titled “SpendSpace” and helps you stay “below the average”.

• Now you can track spending online and compare your spending on all the categories you spend on, such as Coffee Shops, Movies, Clothes, Groceries, to the average spending of people in over 30 US cities, all 50 states, or the entire US national average.

Here’s an example:

Pretty cool stuff… and it’s still a work in progress…

Thanks to Keith for passing this along… have a great weekend everyone!

1. Go to google and type “find chuck norris”
2. Then click the “I’m Feeling Lucky” button

Below is a story extracted from a rather creative email marketing campaign which I actually read all the way through this morning (yes, 2 minutes of my life I’ll never get back again). It highlights a taxi driver’s perspective on the imminent recession…

Very cool how the company uses a real life experience to illustrate and validate the ominous state of the economy… telling the story in first person and then positioning their service as a solution to the problem.

Great job of seeking out opportunity in a somewhat dismal forecast…

A foreboding Monday morning Dan!

It was about 5 o’clock in midtown Manhattan and I was desperately looking for a taxi to get to a meeting in Greenwich Village when signs of the impending recession landed on my head the way the coming of the robins announces the spring.

Four–thirty p.m. is changeover time in Manhattan. All the taxis light their “off duty” signals and head for the home garage, which makes it difficult to get anywhere in a hurry at the end of the day.

So I was relieved when the driver of one black Town Car – so prevalent in New York streets and “Sex in the City” re–runs – pulled up and rolled down his window.

I’m used to negotiating with these guys. This was probably a $15 ride in a yellow cab, but the black cars will usually ask for $35.

I figured I’d offer $20 and haggle my way to $25.

So I was shocked when he offered “Bank and West Fourth? Twenty bucks.”

“That’s pretty odd,” I thought. But then I got in.

Drivers like to chat. It’s a staple of conventional wisdom and Hollywood movies that the musings of the wizened, world–weary driver are worth more than all the high–priced consultants and fancy lawyers you can hire.

“Tough year, man, so far…” he said over his shoulder.

“Oh yeah?” I asked.

“Yeah, none of them big firms are hiring us. It’s dead. That’s why I’m doing street hails.”

And that’s when it hit me, folks: the recession is really coming. When the financial services and law firms are announcing write–downs and lay–offs and, horror of horrors, they start to economize on expenses, that’s when the crimp has really hit the fan belt.

Cheapo town cars on the streets of Gotham mean one thing for you, Readers: the economy is really slowing up, and it’s time for you to take action.

We’ve got over 70,000 jobs right now on TheLadders.com, and it’s time for you to upgrade to Premium, start applying to jobs and contacting recruiters, and get your job insurance against the coming recession. It’s time to make sure there’s something else out there in case your division, your company, your industry suddenly finds itself doing the “Layoff Polka.”

And it’s time to get serious, folks. I’m asking all 200 employees here at TheLadders.com’s Manhattan headquarters to get even more serious on your behalf… we’re going to dig for every job, polish every resume, and call every recruiter we can in order to make your $100k+ job hunt shorter, more effective, and less painful.

Happy hunting, this week, folks, but also an admonition… get hunting now!

Warmest Regards,

Marc Cenedella
Founder & CEO
TheLadders.com, Inc.

A pretty good laugh…

YouTube  Tech Bubble Video

After reading this article on Toyota’s Robotics division…. it seemed like a good idea to check in on some of the latest robotics engineering… here’s what turned up:

The Violinist…

YouTube  - Robot Playing the Violin

The Trumpeter…

YouTube  - Robot Playing the Trumpet

Dancing Robots…

YouTube  - Japanese Robot Dance

A Real Live Transformer…

YouTube  - Transformer Robot

The Cyclist…

YouTube  - Robot Riding a Bicycle

Terminator…

YouTube  - The Terminator

The Humanoid…

YouTube  - The Humanoid Robot

Related: http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/14.01/robots.html

Google Trends allows you to compare the world’s interest in your favorite topics. You can type in up to five topics and determine how often they’ve been searched on Google. Although this tool has been out for a while I’ve never really given it the attention it deserves…

1. Presidential Candidates
If Google searches are effective at projecting the next president it looks like we are headed towards another texan Commander in Chief… although this one was actually born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

2. Newspapers, Blogs, Magazines
Blogs are taking over the world. It looks as though searches for blogs have surpassed newspaper searches (in volume) for the first time in history. Good bye traditional media.

3. Food and Exercise
Wow. We love food.

4. Fishing and Hunting
Apparently the Ice Fishermen aren’t pulling their weight. And people are less likely to shoot animals in the summer time (which can be attributed to regulated hunting seasons).

5. Turkey and Diet
Lots of Turkey for Thanksgiving, a little less for Christmas, and a whole bunch of New Year’s Resolutions to lose those extra holiday pounds (that typically last about 1.5 months)

6. Girl Scout Cookies
Girl Scouts of America must have some severe cash flow issues during Q2, Q3 and Q4. Maybe they need to start distributing to grocery stores to supplement their door to door sales?

7. Rain and Depression
Rain rain go away come again another day… seriously… you are driving people crazy!

Last week Andrew Tobias (current Treasurer of the Democratic National Committee and Author of “The Only Investment Guide You Will Ever Need”) shared some of his readers‘ experiences with Mint.com.

Mr. Tobias: a big thanks for the link to my write up on Mint/Covestor. Apparently, AT is friends w/ one of the Mint.com founder’s which allowed him to share:

• The monetization strategy of this relatively new online finance management service:
  • AT: Their game plan is ad revenue and “sponsored links.” My friend who’s one of the founders says: “Some of the offers we present are sponsored, meaning we earn a referral fee if you sign up for them. However, Mint will always show you an un-sponsored offer ahead of a sponsored one if it will save you more money. We sort offers in order of their value to users, regardless of sponsorship.”
• A response to the concerns about how your login credentials are used/stored:
  • AT: My friend responds: “Mint does not store your credentials, we use them once to create a linkage with your account(s). Consider the benefits of being able to see all your account activity in one place – makes it easy to spot any suspicious activity (remember 90% of fraud occurs off line). Mint offers alerts (via email, or text message) to bring unusual spending to your attention.”
• Click here for the full article…

Nicholas Negroponte’s goal is to setup every child in “emerging” countries around the world with a $200 laptop to promote self education. This program was setup in response to the lack of educational resources in many developing nations across the globe.

Mass production of these “XO” laptops is slated to begin this month to prepare for launch on November 12th. You can track the progress and major developments of Nicholas’ program by visiting: http://www.laptop.org/en/vision/progress/index.shtml.

1. Nicholas Negroponte is founder and chairman of the One Laptop Per Child non-profit association.
2. He is currently on leave from MIT, where he was co-founder and director of the MIT Media Laboratory, and the Jerome B. Wiesner Professor of Media Technology.
3. A graduate of MIT, Negroponte was a pioneer in the field of computer-aided design, and has been a member of the MIT faculty since 1966.
4. Conceived in 1980, the Media Laboratory opened its doors in 1985. He is also author of the 1995 best seller, Being Digital, which has been translated into more than 40 languages.
5. In the private sector, Nicholas Negroponte serves on the board of directors for Motorola, Inc. and as general partner in a venture capital firm specializing in digital technologies for information and entertainment.
6. He has provided start-up funds for more than 40 companies, including Wired magazine.
   Source: Laptop.org

Click the thumbnail below to see a preview of this laptop that can be donated AND delivered for a mere $200…

(greetings to everyone from AndrewTobias.com!)

Mint.com and Covestor.com are startup companies providing two very unique online personal finance and investment tracking services but they do have one thing in common… and that’s spectacular customer service for all us beta testers.

Mint.com is a free service that has established thousands of integrations with major banks and financial institutions which allows your transactions and spending trends to be aggregated/analyzed via their website. They make their money by advertising “potential savings” through special offers based on your spending activities. This service could effectively replace one’s Quicken or Microsoft Money account (once they work out a few more bugs). One of the issues I encountered with Mint was a failed integration with a major bank. The problem was not entirely their fault as it seemed to be caused by a recent addition of security questions to the bank’s login process. Regardless, I received a response just 4.5 hours after reporting the issue on a Sunday evening!

——– Original Message ——–
Subject: Re: Mint.com: Personal Finance Forums Contact Us Form – Site Feedback Date: Sun, 30 Sep 2007 19:55:41 -0700 (PDT) From: Damon Billian To: dan @ Mint.com: Personal Finance Forums
Hi Dan,
Thanks for the email.

I am going to highlight this to engineering.

Sorry that I can’t provide an immediate resolution…

other banks are now having this problem as well
Regards,
Damon

—– Original Message —–
From: “dan @ Mint.com: Personal Finance Forums”
To: Damon Billian
Sent: Sunday, September 30, 2007 6:18:22 PM (GMT-0800) America/Los_Angeles
Subject: Mint.com: Personal Finance Forums Contact Us Form – Site Feedback

Adding an account for “my bank” fails every time giving me a “Wrong Password Error”. I’ve attempted 7-8 times… my password is definitely correct… The bank just started requiring “security questions” which they require to be filled out at every login.

Can you help? This seems like a decent size bank so the issue could be blocking a lot of people from using your service.

Thanks!

Covestor.com is “a real-trade sharing service for proven self-investors to share real investment decisions, gain recognition and earn fees by helping others. All data is private, normalized and anonymous, and membership is free”. The issue I experienced with Covestor was the inability to add multiple trading accounts to their system. Within 2 hours of reporting my issue I received a response:

——– Original Message ——–
Subject: Covestor Support: Multiple accounts
Date: Thu, 27 Sep 2007 08:40:57
From: perry
To: Dan

Hi Dan
It is possible to add multiple brokers, but unfortunately it is not possible to do this using the automatic data import. At the moment we are only able to consolidate sub accounts with a single broker using this feature. It is on the development list but may take some time given the pending priorities. If you wish to set up a separate account find attached a registration code and it is no problem to set up a second Covestor account: xxxxxxx. With the manual feature you could consolidate them if you wish but I realize that this will likely be additional overhead in populating trades. Just so that you know you may also need to register with a different email address for the other account as we use this as a further security precaution.

I hope this helps and let me know if you need anything further.

Very best wishes
- Perry

Maybe I shouldn’t be so surprised by speedy turnarounds from these ultra nimble/motivated startups… but it is a refreshing change compared to a few recent experiences with cell phone and utility companies.

Paul Graham is currently part of the venture capital firm “Y Combinator“, who provides seed funding for web based startups. In 1995, he and Robert Morris started Viaweb, the first ASP, which in 1998 became Yahoo! Store. In 2002 he discovered a simple spam filtering algorithm that inspired the current generation of filters. He has an AB from Cornell and a PhD in Computer Science from Harvard.

About Y Combinator:

“Y Combinator does seed funding for startups. We fund startups in two batches a year, one in winter in Silicon Valley, and one in summer in Cambridge. We’re the right choice for a group of two or three young hackers who have an idea, and want some money and advice to get it launched.”
source: ycombinator.com

About Graham:

“…In 2005, after giving a talk at the Harvard Computer Society later published as How to Start a Startup, Graham along with Trevor Blackwell, Jessica Livingston and Robert Morris started Y Combinator to provide seed funding to startups, particularly those started by younger, more technically-oriented founders. Y Combinator has now invested in 38 startups, including reddit, Justin.tv and loopt.

Graham has an B.A. in philosophy from Cornell. He also earned an M.S. and a Ph.D. in Applied Sciences, (specializing in computer science) from Harvard in 1988 and 1990 respectively, and studied painting at Rhode Island School of Design and the Accademia di Belle Arti in Florence.”
(Source: wikipedia)

Related:
http://www.paulgraham.com (which got 9.7 million page views in 2006)
http://www.techcrunch.com/2006/09/02/an-interview-with-vc-paul-graham-of-ycombinator/
http://www.itconversations.com/shows/detail188.html

According to this SF Gate article, EBay pulled down it’s entire $25 million dollar per year AdWords campaign on June 14th. After 10 searches today for popular electronic devices, the campaign appears to remain inactive.

vs.

If there is any validity to this article (or the handful below) Google just lost $342,465 in the last 5 days and will continue to lose $68,493 each additional day this is down.

San Jose’s eBay cut its advertising Monday shortly after Google unveiled plans for a party in Boston to hawk its online payment service, Google Checkout. Attendees of eBay’s user conference, eBay Live, which starts today, were all invited for free drinks, food and massages.

Called the Google Checkout Freedom Party, the event was intended to lobby eBay to start accepting Checkout, a rival to eBay’s PayPal. Since Checkout premiered last year, eBay has banned it from its online marketplace, saying that the Google service had yet to prove itself in terms of fraud protection.

Hani Durzy, an eBay spokesman, declined to say whether his company pulled advertising on Google in retaliation for the party. But he did voice disappointment in Google for the event, saying, “We didn’t think it was the way for one partner to treat another.”

Related:
http://googlecheckout.blogspot.com/2007/06/let-freedom-ring.html
http://googlecheckout.blogspot.com/2007/06/update-to-our-event-on-614.html
http://pages.ebay.com/ebaylive/
http://www.reuters.com/article/technology-media-telco-SP/idUSN1339779620070613
http://www.techcrunch.com/2007/06/13/ebay-stares-down-google-and-wins
http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20070614/082702.shtml
http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?command=viewArticleBasic&articleId=9024598

After implementing the Google Sitemap Generator for Wordpress on May 24th I started monitoring the number of pages Google was indexing for this site.

This plugin will create a google sitemaps compliant XML-Sitemap of your WordPress blog. Currently homepage, posts, static pages, categories and archives are supported.

To calculate the number of pages indexed by Google a simple site:danielpeterjackson.com search was conducted on 5 different occasions during the last 15 days.

Example Search:

Here are the results…

Day 0: (Baseline = 69 pages indexed)

Day 2: (73 pages indexed)

Day 3: (84 pages indexed)

Day 15: (119 pages indexed and some new blue formatting)

With exactly 50 more pages indexed and only 12 new pages created during the 15 days… it appears we are moving in the right direction although counting the total number of pages indexed is a fairly basic metric to measure the effectiveness of this plugin.

You can view the actual Google Sitemap XML here: http://www.danielpeterjackson.com/sitemap.xml

Well… sort of… with Google Earth you can now see the location of the origination and destination for every AIM chat… however… you obviously can not read the content of user’s messages.

The latest edition of “Sightseer” (aka the Google Earth Newsletter) references an AIM Google Earth Visualizations KML file that uses IP to City geocoding to display a visualization of all the AOL Instant Messanger conversations that have started in the last minute, in real time.

Here is a screenshot of the most recent chats across the United States:

“The developers of AOL’s instant messaging chat system have an API which allows developers to create innovative applications using anonymous information about chatters. To show a powerful demonstration of what is possible, the AIM host team released a Google Earth network link which lets you dynamically look at the connections between AIM chats geographically around the world. Download the AIM chat network link , and zoom into a geographical region. After you stop moving, lines will appear that indicate the chats most recently started from that area connecting to the destinations of the chats on the other end. If you zoom back out you will see a network of lines showing the connections around the world.