Category Archives: Web

A Little Known Fact. . . .

Shortly after John McCain selected Sarah Palin as his running mate, a little riot erupted on Twitter.

Little Known Fact: Sarah Palin once bit the head off a live Osprey snatched from the air as it tried to fly off with a fish she caught.

I have no idea where it started, but it took off like wild fire.

Little Known Fact: Sarah Palin’s name is an anagram of Las Piranha.

It’s a game everyone can play.  No accuracy required.

Little Known Fact: We can rebuild Sarah Palin. We have the technology.

Movie quotes and geek references are particularly plentiful.

Little Known Fact: Sarah Palin made the Kessel Run in less than twelve parsecs.

Even sports.

little known fact: Bill Belichick has been taping Sarah Palin for years.

Some of them are physically impossible.

Little known fact: like a crocodile Sarah Palin can not chew food and uses a death roll to drown her prey before consuming it

Others are a bit more . . . . adult.

Little Known Fact: Sarah Palin can only climax if there are two moose, $15,000 and a solid gold crucifix in the room with her.

You can see the riot in action by searching twitter.  You can even join in yourself!  If you do join twitter, follow dunster.

Little Known Fact: Sarah Palin put the ‘bop’ in the ‘bop-shebop-shebop’

HubSpot In The News

The press is full of HubSpot today.  It’s all very exciting until Obama announces his VP choice and sucks every bit of oxygen out of the press cycle.  Until then, it’s our time to shine!

This one is my favorite.  Mass High Tech talks about HubSpot and our 600 customers!  I have to say, it’s really weird working at a company that keeps hitting monthly sales goals.  Very nice, of course, but still weird.

Marketing Profs picked up an article written by HubSpot’s Colleen Coyne.  Can I tell you how cool it is to work with an Olympic gold medalist?

That’s Great PR has a decent interview with HubSpot’s VP of Marketing, Mike Volpe.

Mass High Tech has a second article about our webinars.  I can tell you I was shocked when we had to cut off registration to a webinar.  The software couldn’t handle the number of people who tried to sign up!

All of this is queuing up for the Inbound Marketing Summit next month.  We’re selling the last tickets today. I can’t wait to hear Seth Godin and David Meerman Scott.  I’ve read their stuff, but never heard them in person.

Oh, Bloglines

Bloglines is down right now.  Has been for at least an hour.  I can’t read about the election, my friends, local news, professional info, humor, etc.  It’s turned into one of those “holy cow, I use this tool every day, WHAT WOULD I DO IF IT WAS REALLY GONE!” moments.  I hadn’t realized how much I depended on it.

RSS rocks.

Google is Safe For Now

The tech community is all a-flutter this week about the launch of a new search engine, Cuil. It’s been a month since the iPhone 3G, and people are a bit starved for content.

Cuil did a good job generating buzz. The preferred version: “Ex-Google employees build a better search engine; David beats Goliath.”

Mike Volpe wrote 3 Reasons Why Cuil is Not Cool. I think he’s right, but his #3 reason is my #1.

#3 Their results suck. Search for “Cuil” in Cuil and you Search in Google for “Cuil” and you get a bunch of results that make sense, including a news article and Cuil itself. Search for “Cuil” in Cuil, and you get results like “Properties for Sale in Cuil Mhuine, Ireland”, “The Shire of Cuil Choluim” and “Download Chase Around the Windmill”. What a joke.

The search results must be good, better than Google, for Cuil to start winning share. That’s how Google got me to change from Alta Vista, back in the day – Google started giving me better results that Alta Vista. Cuil can format the results to their heart’s content, but it’s just lipstick on the pig until they give good results. Examples:

1) Start with the ego search. OK, I know I’m not the most famous Dan Dunn out there, but c’mon, I rate at least a mention! Fine, let’s make it easy, and say Dan Dunn Arlington MA. I know that there’s only one person that matches that search . . . but still, Cuil links to a dead server talking about NHruns.com 6th Annual Millennium Mile. Strike 1 for Cuil.

2) I think a classic search engine test is “broken windows.” Are you talking about your operating system, or the glass between you and the real world? Cuil takes a pass on this daunting question and unhelpfully suggests:

  • a typo. Please check your spelling.
  • your search includes a term that is very rare. Try to find a more common substitute.
  • too many search terms. Please try fewer terms.

Strike 2.

3) This one is, as they say, Not Safe For Work. Let’s say your name is Matt M. Let’s say, just for fun, that you’re a kid, and your parents have carefully made sure that Cuil’s “Safe Search” feature is enabled. And let’s say you do your own ego search for Matt M. You just learned something about gay porn.

Strike 3. (hat tip to Digg)

The Big Picture

A few months ago Alan Taylor of the Boston Globe launched a photo blog called The Big Picture. A couple times a week he posts 10-20 photos on a particular topic. It makes for a quick read.

It is easily the best-looking blog on my reading list.

Kid in fountain

Rush and Child Prodigies

This post has appeal for two very small segments of my blog audience.

1) Fans of Rush, perhaps the greatest Canadian rock band ever.

2) Musical prodigies.

The internet is all about the long tail, right?

Seriously, though, this girl is amazing. There are just enough mistakes to prove that it’s live.

Arlington Party on YouTube

I was pointed to some really random Arlington content today.

The first commenter on YouTube sums it up pretty well: “Micah you’ve really outdone yourself on this one…you strange, strange man you.”

How did I come across this link? This German guy emailed another German guy who emailed this guy who lived in Arlington who emailed to this guy who works for Microsoft in Redmond who IMd it to me. Weird.

Garfield, not FinComm

Several friends have told me that as they read this blog, when they see Finance Committee, the press delete. I’m fine with that – I know it’s not for everyone. I also have people who tell me that they rely on my FinComm and Town Meeting notes. Many of them couldn’t care less (or just don’t want to know) about the other content I find interesting. I have adopted a plan to manage these divergent expectations. Every time I post a dry Arlington-specific article, I’ll also make sure I post a non-Arlington article.

It’s all about getting as many RSS readers as possible, right? Isn’t that what everyone wants? Please don’t answer that.

So, tonight’s non-Arlington content: “Who would have guessed that when you remove Garfield from the Garfield comic strips, the result is an even better comic about schizophrenia, bipolor disorder, and the empty desperation of modern life? Friends, meet Jon Arbuckle. Let’s laugh and learn with him on a journey deep into the tortured mind of an isolated young everyman as he fights a losing battle against lonliness in a quiet American suburb.” A brilliant comic. Check it out.

Harder Bodies Faster Stronger

I’m way behind in my blog posting. I have two FinComm notes meetings to post, a Finneran bashing, the latest in junk mail technology, and volumes of politics. But I’ve been so busy! Campaign work, real work, fraternity stuff, etc. has kept me hopping.

What do I do with a spare 3.5 minutes? Marvel and rejoice at how weird the internet can be. Safe for work, speakers required.

Accents

Many of my better memories of my father involve performing, discussing, and recounting accents.  The root is in the family’s love of Bert and I (holy cow that link is good – listen, and then buy ALL of the CDs).  We listened to more than Bert and I, and explored all sorts of New England accents.  I still use New England Brahmin, Maine, and Vermonter lines as half-decent party tricks.  People say to me “But Dan, you don’t have an accent” and I quickly show them that I can have one when I want to.

Getting to my point: check out this site.  They’re collecting a kind of history of accents, time, and place.  It’s fun to listen to.  The navigation isn’t great, but there are highly entertaining rewards.

It brings up all sorts of questions about the effects of the web and globalization on speech and language, but I’m not going to try to tackle them.  At least not today.