The mo'Times

Articles of interest about mo'time, the blogosphere, culture and society

Oy vay.

In other words, sorry sorry sorry!

We were down for what seemed like an eternity and (unlike all the King's horses and all the King's men) we have just been able to put Humpty Dumpty back together again.

Suffice it to say that Murphy's Law struck on August 15th with a massive meltdown of our server farm. Most of our technical staff is in Italy, which meant that we had to put together a crew on the sacred day on which the whole country is on holiday.

We were not even able to put up the blank page that lets you know that we working on it! We sincerely apologize for this, and hope that the absence of Motime didn't cause you undue pain or suffering (as it did to us)!

posted by: howard at 10:50 | link | comments (9) |
news, advisory, spumante

NOW I'm Impressed...

So, I have seen these articles that were way to technical for me about the Internet2.  I have really been confused and after reading an article today, I am stunned at the futures holdings.  You thought mobile was impressive, heh, THIS is truly amazing.

The "AREA 51" for many of the new technologies determing our future is known as Internet2. Put together by UCAID (University Corporation for Advanced Internet Development)in '96, the Internet2 is a an alignment of a number of universities, governments, and compnaies. It's a place where network experiments take place. It's goals are to produce new applications that can't work over the existing Internet and to create the infrastructure that lets those applications run.

Internet2 isn't a network. Its a host of HUNDREDS of high-speed networks linked by fiber optic means that run the United States and linked to other countries. It sends data at speeds up to 2.4 GIG per second--45,000 TIMES FASTER than a 56 K modem.   Its letting scientists test their lab discoveries in the real world.  It went online in Feb.'99, connected to a bunch of schools through the world. It should be available for commercial use soon. Then get ready for 21st century services like interactive television, virtual 3-D videoconferencing, and much more.  Its Richard Branson in 3-D HOW DO THEY DO THAT!  I WANT ONE!

posted by: psmartin at 17:04 | link | comments (3) |
blogosphere

Mobile baby, mobile...

It may be necessary for you very soon to get out that cell phone and figure out, "How do I shrink my blog down?" in the very near future.  The iphone is in its secong gen, and there are other companies coming out with 1st and 2nd gen PDA/Phone models capable of all sorts of whizbang on the net.  The next five years could entail 1/2 of your readers from the US and other populated countries reading your blog at lunch time in a cafe with a turkey club outside at the picinic table in a park.  Combine that with a new push for simplicity in peoples lives in all this madness we call careers and you need to look at this lovely place called motime and think, "How am I going to Rickroll someone on their cellphone?".

There are several ideas out there.

- A blogging platform that has mobile support built in.  Which I believe Motime will be getting soon... I leave that up to howard and the Tipic folks.
- Use a plugin.
- Use a service that creates a mobile site from your RSS feed (which is your best option now).
- Transcoding...deep six it.

Welcome to the immediate future.  Take a clue from major news sites.  They hire people to figure out how to reach people with the newest ideas.  CNN is a great example.  Podcasts, RSS feeds, Mobile, Emial, Breaking news, Video. Tools and Widgits!

Get your Mobile on folks!

posted by: psmartin at 06:22 | link | comments (4) |
blogosphere

Happy Birthday H!

Best Wishes and a frosty spumante for our fearless leader.

posted by: rustymadgal at 18:54 | link | comments (11) |
community, international, holiday, spumante, thank you

Some news from our sponsor :)

Those of you with impressive powers of recall will remember the post back in October 2006 announcing the fact that Motime was acquired by Dada S.p.A... Although entitled "Fasten your seat belts", anybody who chose not to was not exposed to any great danger.

However, dear reader, that will soon change. In the next 4-8 weeks we will be upgrading the software, adding some features and, finally, adding new templates!

In other news, I want to call your attention to the newly launched music store that Dada Entertainment, the joint venture that Dada and Sony BMG created. Mo'time's very own "Paolino", the guy who basically built the Motime platform, is there in New York City  working on the project. He's just posted on the Dada Entertainment blog telling all about it:

"Well ... today the cat is out of the bag !! The many months of work behind the scenes finally payed out.

Our new site is out. The site features the best Sony BMG artists, each artist has an engaging personal space where you can listen to previews of the artists hits, become fans, comment and create your very own playlists with their favorite music to share with your friend. We've worked hard to put you at the heart of the Music Movement, Soon we will add more artists from other major and indie labels. And you can take your Dada.net music with you anywhere you like since it is completely DRM-free. "
Read more...

posted by: howard at 16:37 | link | comments (5) |

OUT OF CONTROL!

Ok, we have all seen strange things pop up on the net.  Blogs about strange subjects, odd happenings, and crazy randomness.  But I think out of all the valid web companies out there supplying a demand for something, I Beat You takes the cake. 

I Beat You?  What in Zeus is that?  Well my fine freakazoid web fiend, you have come to the right place.

Ibeatyou.com is a place where the general web/blogging population wastes all their addictive time to do one defining thing.  Challenge other bloggers at something.  Anything.  Your choice!  There are 17 categories to choose from.  From Dancing, Staring, Crazy, Art,  to Pictures of your Baby.  Got a webcam, a face, and an online connection?  You are good to go!  These people are serious!  Just another thing for you to go do, come back and blog about, then of course, post!

Check out the crazy stuff here, go to "i beat you" now!

posted by: psmartin at 01:25 | link | comments (1) |

Alarming revelations!

Are bloggers being worked to death? Muckraking journalists expose the dirty underbelly of the industry!

 

posted by: howard at 10:15 | link | comments (7) |

One Mo'time!!!!

You're invited to a Mo'time Reunion!   Howard has tirelessly burned the midnight pixels emailing our Mo'time friends from long ago.

Hey.

Once upon a time you had blog on Mo'time. Remember? Well it's still there and it's only missing one thing - YOU! I am sending you this email because at least one Mo'timer, plus me, has been wondering what you've been up to! This is not one of those just-another-social-network trying to bother you kinda things. This actually a personal letter, a plea, sent simply because we miss you.

We're planning a Mo'time reunion for the month of April. Starting April 1st, surf on by to www.motime.com and dust off your blog. See what your old friends are up to! "One Mo'time", write a post and catch us up on what's new in your world -- no obligation or expectation to stay, of course, but a little update would be rather cool.

Forgotten your password? That's no excuse! Either use the new password generator http://www.motime.com/newpassword or write back to me by replying to this email. See you April 1st!

Love and Kisses,

Howard and the Mo'timers

One of our favorite Mo'timers has already answered the call,  keep your eyes open for more!

posted by: rustymadgal at 18:02 | link | comments (30) |
updates, blogosphere, community, international, holiday, spumante, reunion

Tune up your Blog...

Here are some simple ways to keep your blog as sharp and interesting to your community as possible...

1) Keep it simple.

2) Form vs. Content. Be concerned with content to make a meaningful contribution.   Not concerned with form.

3) The final look is only the icing and it is the bigger, more difficult step of problem solving (i.e., building the cake) that really matters.

4) Take too long to download? Get back to the drawing board.

5) Sounds you  rollover are funny the first three times.  They're just annoying after that.

6) Learn how to structure HTML and why it works the way it does.

7) After three seconds, someone is going to hit the back button.  So, get it on the screen instantly, and make it enchantingly interesting.

8) Get your content high on the search engine list by tweaking your META data

9) Learn and think about your net audience, then learn and think about their computers, then think again about your net audience.

10) "SIMPLICITY+SAFETY+BLATANCY=DULL WEB", thanks Eric Adigard for the formula.

posted by: psmartin at 05:54 | link | comments (6) |
technical, blogosphere, community

Life cycle of a blog post

As usual, I'm late. I just saw this article and very cool graphic representation of the blog post's ecosystem. Check it for yourselves, click here. (Then click on the link in the graphic below the introduction.)

What do you think?

posted by: howard at 11:45 | link | comments (7) |
blogosphere, community