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Harry Elsewhere on the Web This Week

Harry McCracken — Tue, 16 Mar 2010 18:54:57 +0000

I’m in chilly New York rather than rainy San Francisco right now. And while I’m here, I’m guesting on two Web video broadcasts you might want to catch:

* At 1pm ET on Thursday, I’ll talk about collaborative tools–their potential and pitfalls–on a BusinessWeek Webcast. You can sign up for it here.

* At 3pm ET on Friday, I”ll join Fox News’s Clayton Morris as one of the guests on his Gadgets and Games show, part of FoxNews.com’s Strategy Room.

Two very different topics–but I plan to have fun discussing both of ‘em…

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Ads, Ad Blockers, Technologizer, and You

Harry McCracken — Mon, 08 Mar 2010 23:13:55 +0000

Over at Ars Technica, founder Ken Fisher has an interesting post on ad blockers and a devilish experiment that Ars performed on Friday: For twelve hours, it blocked back, preventing users of ad-blocking software from seeing any content. Fisher says the counterstrike was a mixed success at best. But he also says that forty percent of Ars visitors block ads, and that doing so can be “devastating to the sites you love.”

As I’ve said before, Technologizer doesn’t need everybody to see the ads here–just a critical mass of folks. I don’t have a reliable way to measure how many visitors use an ad blocker, but here’s a guesstimate: In February, roughly fifteen percent of all Technologizer page views had the ads blocked. I might be more alarmed if the numbers looked more like Ars’, but we have that critical mass of people who don’t block ads. And I’m sure that some of the visitors who block are leaving worthwhile comments, telling their friends about Technologizer, or otherwise doing things that make this a better site and a better business proposition.

Or to put it another way: Ad blocking isn’t devastating Technologizer.

In the Ars post, Fisher says that he takes pride in the fact that his site’s ads aren’t in-your-face crud. Which led me to realize that although Technologizer has a number of guiding principles about the advertising we carry, I’ve never outlined them here.

First of all, my overarching philosophy when it comes to ad-related matters is pretty simple: In the face of financial realities, I attempt to err on the side of making myself happy. By which I mean, we do things that I don’t mind when I’m reading other sites, and try to avoid the things that tick me off.

A few examples:

Technologizer turns down ad formats that make me gnash my teeth elsewhere (such as text links within stories, which we’ve repeatedly been approached about adding).
When we do run ads that go further than most to grab your attention (such as one you may see on this very page) we put limits on their activity so they don’t drive you completely bonkers. And such ads are a once-in-a-while thing rather than a constant onslaught.
We run multiple ads on most pages, but don’t cram ten or fifteen of them into every available crevice, as some bigger sites do. And I hope it goes without saying that when we run ads, it’s clear they’re ads.
We work with a classy ad partner–Federated Media–who does a great job of finding advertisers who are relevant to the Technologizer community. You won’t find ads involving moms who have discovered cures for yellow teeth here, and we’ve been known to ban some advertisers, period.
We do break longer stories into multiple pages, which exposes you to more ads than if an article was on one very long page. But we chop them up much less than most sites–a multi-page Technologizer story has two to three times as many words per page than is typical elsewhere. (Side note: Yes, I know that we lack a single-page/printer-friendly view, but we don’t have a religious stance on them–we just haven’t gotten around to implementing one.)
We run slideshows, which can involve a lot of clicks. But we don’t run many of them, and try to make every one special.
Our RSS feed offers ad-free full-text versions of all content (first page only for multiple-page posts).
We have a number of methods of making money that don’t involve display advertising at all, such as our shopping/product researh feature. (When you click on the links to online merchants, we receive a small finders’s fee.)

I don’t think there’s any way to support editorial content through advertising in a way that will make everybody happy all of the time. (If there was, ad blockers wouldn’t exist.) But we’re trying–and we’re grateful for both the support that makes Technologizer a viable business and the constructive criticism that helps us help you.

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Where the History of Tech is For Sale

Harry McCracken — Thu, 11 Feb 2010 15:26:51 +0000

Yesterday I paid a long-overdue visit to one of the Bay Area’s most amazing geek destinations–the Weird Stuff Warehouse, which salvages the hardware and software that Silicon Valley has lost interest in. The place has been in business for a quarter century and throngs of shoppers were roaming the aisles during my expedition. And it was bursting at the seams with shrinkwrapped software for defunct platforms, obsolete gadgets, components and cables of every imaginable type, and much, much more.

View Silicon Valley’s Island of Misfit Tech slideshow.

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Live From Google This Morning

Harry McCracken — Tue, 09 Feb 2010 16:12:27 +0000

Quick reminder: I’ll be at Google headquarters for its product announcement this morning–possibly relating to new social features in Gmail–and will be covering it live at technologizer.com/google. Join me. won’t you?

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Live Coverage of Tuesday’s Google Event

Harry McCracken — Tue, 09 Feb 2010 02:36:49 +0000

Google is holding a press event on Tuesday morning at the Googleplex. It’s saying only that it involves “innovations in two of our most popular products.” Rumor (as first reported by the Wall Street Journal) has it that it involves new features that give Gmail Twitter-like capabilities. (Sorry, I’ve sworn off describing any tech product as a “killer” of any other tech product.)

I’ll be at the confab and will provide live coverage of the news at it happens at technologizer.com/google. (If you attended our iPad coverage a couple of weeks ago and were frustrated by our CoverItLive problems, I apologize again–and yes, we have a backup strategy this time.) Hope to see you there…

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One Stop for Apple Tablet Live Coverage

Harry McCracken — Wed, 27 Jan 2010 00:49:41 +0000

This is your almost-final reminder: I’ll be at San Francisco’s Yerba Buena Center tomorrow, Wednesday 27th at 10am PT to live blog Apple’s unofficial-but-yes-it’s-true tablet launch. Please join me at technologizer.com/appletablet for up-to-the-second coverage and conversation.

I kind of suspect that just about everyone who hangs out with me tomorrow morning will have multiple browser windows open so they can skim multiple sources of coverage. So what the heck–I’m making it easy. Our live page has links to the coverage pages at Engadget, Gdgt, Gizmodo, iLounge, Macworld, Slashgear, Ubergizmo, and Wired–and I may add more sources before the event starts. (Actually, feel free to suggest ‘em.)

See you there, I hope!

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Envision Apple’s Tablet, Get a Shot at a $100 Apple Gift Card

Harry McCracken — Thu, 21 Jan 2010 21:56:17 +0000

With less than a week to go until Apple (probably) tells all about its tablet, time is rapidly running out to discuss it without really knowing what the heck we’re talking about. So while you still can, please participate in Technologizer’s Apple Tablet Prediction Project. Just spend a few minutes answering multiple choice questions about what you think Apple is geting ready to announce. We’ll tally up the responses into an aggregate prediction, and compare it to the real thing next week–assuming it shows up. And we’ll choose a name at random from the entries and award that person a $100 Apple Store (U.S.) gift card.

We were originally going to wrap things up at 5pm PT today, but what the heck–let’s leave the survey open until 5pm PT tomorrow. Please enter, tell your pals, and have fun!

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Nokia Event Live Coverage

Harry McCracken — Thu, 21 Jan 2010 06:58:55 +0000

Quick reminder: I’ll be liveblogging the Nokia press event that’s being held in San Francisco on Thursday morning at 9am–and which apparently has something to do with the company’s OVI services platform. Join us at www.technologizer.com/nokia, and I’ll tell you what we learn as quickly as we learn it…

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Our Live Coverage of Apple’s Tablet Event

Harry McCracken — Tue, 19 Jan 2010 20:06:06 +0000

A week from Thursday at 10am PT, I’ll be in the audience at Yerba Buena Gardens in San Francisco as Apple announces its iSlate tablet. (Okay, it isn’t telling anyone it’s announcing a tablet, and the evidence it’s going to be called iSlate is extremely tenuous–but we need to call it something for the next eight days.)

As usual, I’ll use the excellent CoverItLive service to share the news as it happens. If you join me, I’ll try to answer your questions, too. These live events are a blast–just ask any of the thousands of folks who have been showing up for recent ones such as our coverage of Google’s Nexus One launch.

Here’s where to go for next week’s Apple coverage: technologizer.com/appletablet. Head there now, and you can request that we e-mail a reminder to you.

See you there, I hope!

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Interpreting Apple Invites

Harry McCracken — Tue, 19 Jan 2010 10:37:42 +0000

The tech press covers Apple like it does no other company. And one oddball, ongoing example of Apple exceptionalism is the fact that even its invitations to product launches are treated as major news. They’re also analyzed as if the minimalist words and imagery they contain will reveal precisely what Apple will announce, if only we can crack the code.

All of which gives me an excuse to…write about Apple invites as we wait for next week’s Apple product event to come around. “A Brief History of Apple Event Invites” recaps eight years of such invitations: what they said, what people thought they said, and whether expectations for the events in question had anything to do with the news that Apple actually released.

(Executive summary: Apple is often vague in its invites but never misleading, and it’s sometimes surprisingly straightforward.)

I’ll be at next week’s event and would be pleased to have the honor of your company for our live coverage. And if you’re in the mood to make predictions, participate in Technologizer’s Apple Tablet Prediction Project, and get a shot at winning a $100 Apple Store gift card.

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