Category: Around the Web
Posted by Jay at 4:29 pm
A few days ago, we finished the Recipe View and launched it on Viewzi.
I think it is a fantastic way to search recipes, and was really excited to show it to Tricia. After about a minute of looking at it, Tricia asks, “Does it have Southern Living recipes?” Well no, as it so happens, it didn’t.
Hmmm… turns out Southern Living hosts their recipes, along with several other magazines, on myrecipes.com. It also turns out myrecipes.com has the sort of data that we need for this particular View (a rich picture contained in a well-labeled div). So now we have Southern Living recipes.
There are advantages to being married to the product manager (that is, the guy who helps decide what gets built next).
Posted by Jay at 8:07 am
Sunday night found most of us viewzers huddled around a table sorting out the final details for our launch until almost midnight. Thankfully, the table was at a nice country club, so it wasn’t all that bad. Monday morning at 7 a.m., TechCrunch posted their exclusive coverage of our launch. For the next 12 hours, Viewzi was live but only accessible via the TechCrunch link. Then at 7 p.m., the wall came down fully and we were live.
It has gone fantastically! All the new platform code, some of which was written just days before launch, worked flawlessly and the site absorbed a massive increase in traffic without so much as flinching. At 8 p.m. last night, a huge group of us (well, huge for a company of 12) met at Kenichi and celebrated the success with wives, husbands, and even a set of parents. What fun! There’s pretty much no better way to enjoy your success than to eat some raw tuna.
Now go use the coolest search on the internet to find something fun.
Posted by Jay at 5:07 pm
My first post on the Viewzi blog went up a few days ago. More to come over the next few weeks.
Posted by Jay at 9:38 am
Okay, first, let’s just clear up one thing. The whole “newzi” rhyme was Tricia’s idea. So if you loved it, now you know. And if you didn’t, well, there you have it.
Yesterday around 4:30 p.m. a news-team of two showed up at our offices to put together a story on Viewzi’s upcoming live launch. Stephanie Lucero interviewed several of us, got her footage, and had a story run on the 10 p.m. news. We were on the air at about 10:15 p.m. The end of the story included a teaser for a referral code found at the story’s accompanying web article. At approximately 10:22 p.m., our servers became a giant molten blob that sank into the earth’s crust…
Actually, the platform did amazingly. And the story had a fun “local boys try to make good and take on the big-bads of internet search” angle to it. You’ll see me briefly. If it was a movie, I would be listed in the credits as “Man 1, 3 men at a table”. Here’s the video. Enjoy!
Posted by Jay at 10:15 am
It is with great pleasure that I announce I am now an employee of Viewzi. It’s a great bunch of folks working together on a great product, and I am extremely excited to be part of it. I began contracting for Viewzi on April 7 after a whirlwind interview/discussion period. On May 1 I became a regular employee and showed up on the About page yesterday.
Viewzi’s got several great ideas all rolled up into one product. Ask yourself, should search results always look the same (e.g. a text list)? No! The display of results should merge two things: the intentions of the searcher and the results. I may enter “Madrid” as a search term, but I likely have a goal in mind such as “I wonder what it would be like to stay in Madrid?” or “I think that song I heard on the radio had ‘Madrid’ in the title”. Should travel information and MP3s be presented in the same way? Not to humans. Viewzi solves this need. It’s all about the Views.
Also, should everyone be forced to use the same means of traversing search results? No! Even with multiple Views, you still need to be able to customize your experience. Viewzi is currently hard at work on the first wave of enhancements to support user customization.
What about the long tail of niches? If you know you are searching for recipes, why get song titles or travel destinations in your search results? Why even search sites other than recipe sites? Why indeed? Viewzi tailors niche Views to appropriate data sources. So for general search Viewzi uses the big 4 and others. But for all the other Views, it pulls from a rich diversity of specialized sites and data sources.
And all this is built on an open platform that (eventually) allows anyone to build their own View. Viewzi isn’t trying to figure out the best way to search automobiles. Instead, Viewzi is building a platform that will allow the wisdom of crowds to settle that issue, and even come up with a diversity of answers.
If you are interested in joining the beta, I’ve set up 50 referrals for our steadfast readership. Go to www.viewzi.com/invite and enter the referral code “hornes.org” and you are in.
Posted by Tricia at 8:16 pm
Though I am usually not one to shamelessly try to talk people into spending money, I nevertheless want to tell you about the Skirty!! I love this new product and am following the designer and her website Amoretti Designs, with great interest.
The owner of Amoretti Designs, Rebekah Merkle, is a American, a homeschooling mommy to 5 living in England, and daughter of the famous Doug Wilson. She has launched the Skirty as her first clothing item in what she hopes will eventually be a line of fun, ladylike but innovative clothes for young girls. I for one cannot wait to see what she puts out.
The fun news is that for the next five days, Skirtys are 15% off! So…if you have a little lady in your life who could use one of these…hop on over to Amoretti Designs and snag you one or two of ‘em!!
Posted by Jay at 8:24 am
Given the times we live in, I recommend this article: Waterboarding Is Torture… Period.
Waterboarding is a controlled drowning that, in the American model, occurs under the watch of a doctor, a psychologist, an interrogator and a trained strap-in/strap-out team. It does not simulate drowning, as the lungs are actually filling with water. There is no way to simulate that. The victim is drowning. How much the victim is to drown depends on the desired result (in the form of answers to questions shouted into the victim’s face) and the obstinacy of the subject. A team doctor watches the quantity of water that is ingested and for the physiological signs which show when the drowning effect goes from painful psychological experience, to horrific suffocating punishment to the final death spiral.
Posted by Jay at 8:09 am
My cousin Erin has written a short, very touching piece on her mom (and dad). For background on my aunt’s story, you can read what my grandfather had to say.
Posted by Tricia at 9:30 am
The race day is almost here!! On Saturday the 21st of October, my little sis will be in San Francisco running the Nike Women’s Half Marathon in support of the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society’s mission to help find a cure for blood cancers. For the past several months, Sandra has been tirelessly working toward this milestone. Many of you have helped her along the way. She certainly could not have gotten this far without all her wonderful supporters. At this time, she has almost reached her goal, but still has a small amount she needs to raise. If you were hoping to donate toward this cause, today is the day!!
Thanks for your consideration, and Sandra, we are proud of you and excited about your upcoming race! GO Team In Training!!
Posted by Jay at 11:49 am
Consumer Reports crash test videos
Both of our cars were rated “Good”. I thought the side impact on the Honda Odyssey was very impressive. It is amazing to see how fast those curtain airbags deploy, protecting the passengers from structural elements as well as flying glass.
Posted by Jay at 11:51 am
This one is for the ladies… (HT Mark)
Posted by Jay at 1:23 pm
I’m having a hard time with this. Should I?
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