Nearly two years ago, as part of my ongoing Metafilter Statistics project, I decided to see which websites the Metafilter community was linking to most frequently. With Matt Haughey’s help, I analyzed a complete dump of every post and came up with this list.

Now, two years later, I ran it again. Some of the results are surprising, as you can see below.

In the space of two years, YouTube launched and became the 15th most popular site, Flickr jumped 2,400 places to #14, and Wikipedia went from #66 to #2. Other big winners included Ask Metafilter, Times Online, Archive.org, and MSNBC. Huge losers that fell off the Top 50 entirely were Nandotimes.com (stopped publishing), News.cnet.com (changed domains), Observer.co.uk, and ZDnet.com.

Update: Some people in the Metatalk thread had questions about my methodology. The number next to each link is the jump in rank from the 2002 list. I’m only counting links in the front-page post itself, not the comments. And in the complete list, I’m excluding the 26,123 sources with only one link to conserve space.

Continue reading “Metafilter Sources 2006” →

If you happen to be at the Webvisions conference in Portland this week, you should come by my session Thursday afternoon.

I’ve been to several tech conferences in the last six months, and I can’t count the times I’ve been disappointed to find that a presentation that sounds interesting is either deadly boring or a poorly-disguised product pitch. Even when I was on the advisory board for the last Emerging Technology conference, I was surprised at how often the exciting pitches we approved ended up in lackluster talks.

So, when I was asked to speak, I tried to make a presentation that I would personally want to watch. I picked a topic I cared about and researched it to death — library research, original interviews, and plenty of web dumpster diving. It was a blast, and reminded me of what I missed most about college.

The topic: I’ll be speaking about how and why virtual communities meet in real life, from ham radio to modern online communities. It’s a topic that’s interested me since the BBS era, which I’ll also be touching on. I’m very deliberately not talking about Upcoming.org or anything else Yahoo-related.

Whether it’ll actually be interesting to anyone else but me is up in the air. This is my first solo conference talk and I’m terribly nervous. Hopefully, I’ll be able to hide it well enough so that the material doesn’t suffer. Anyway, I’ll link to responses as they come in after my session, so wish me luck!

July 21: This is my first Webvisions, and it strikes me as both very intimate and very well-run. My talk went very well. So many people have asked to see my slides that I’m going to write up some of my research and do a screencast of my talk.

Some reviews: Brian Oberkirch, Adam Darowski, Paul Bausch, Jeremiah Owyang.

California Extreme, the awkwardly-named yearly arcade/pinball show, comes to San Jose’s Parkside Hall again this weekend. I’ve been going for nearly a decade, and let me say (again) that this is the best thing ever. The world’s biggest 1980s-era arcade, filled with old favorites and many you’ve never heard of, all set on free play. (If the Flickr photos don’t get you drooling, then move along.)

Plus, the speakers they’ve lined up this year are great. Eugene Jarvis (creator of Defender, NARC, and Cruis’n USA) will be talking about the making of Robotron, Kevin Tiell will be showing his pinball’s-eye-view photography, and director Greg Maletic will be screening parts of his Future of Pinball documentary.

If you’re going, feel free to join the Upcoming event or leave a comment to let me know. I’ll be there all day tomorrow, so if you see me, say hi.

Update: The show gets better every year. My highlights, before I forget them:

• Panic Park. One of the funnest arcade games I’ve ever played. The goal of this Japanese two-player import is to shove your opponent around in a number of great minigames. The controls are like two big cushioned levers, which you throw your entire weight against to move your character around onscreen. Tilt your head sideways and watch this video to get the idea.
• Multi-Pac. This 24-in-1 Pac-Man hack created by Clay Cowgill is no longer available because of legal issues. With its crazy boot menu and hacked graphics, you feel naughty playing it. The one I tried appeared to be a different romset, as it had one Pac-Man variation called “Pacman Berzerk,” which used characters and animations from Berzerk Retro arcade mashup!
• Metal Slug X. I completed this remixed and upgraded version of Metal Slug 2, which took around 30 minutes. Exaggerated cartoon violence with a sense of humor and a ridiculous amount of on-screen action, it was very clearly a huge influence on Paul Robertson for Pirate Baby’s Cabana Battle Street Fight 2006.
• Bumper. Released in 1936, Bally’s “Bumper” was the first pinball game to use bumpers on the playfield. Funny enough, early pinball machines wouldn’t get flippers for another 11 years, until Gottlieb’s Humpty Dumpty in 1947. Until then, gameplay was limited to shooting the balls and watching them fall. If you want to see it for yourself, Bumper can be found at the Lucky Ju Ju pinball gallery in Alameda
• Warlords. I forgot how fun Warlords could be with four players at a cocktail (tabletop) cabinet.
• The Irritating Maze. Use a trackball to maneuver through a playing field with electrified walls. Touch the walls and a buzzer sounds, blasting a jet of air in your face. Irritating, but in a good way.
• Prop Cycle. By the time I beat the Story mode, I was sweating from pedaling the stationary bicycle, but the built-in fans kept me cool and added a little immersion. Despite some severe clipping problems and awkward controls, it still felt like I was flying a bike through the air.
• Older, underrated favorites: Quantum, Wacko, Puzz Loop

Two years old already! Not just walking and talking, but singing, conversing, drawing, counting (to two), playing drums, laughing at my jokes, and running to hug me when I walk in the door. I thought having a two-year-old would make me feel old, but it’s like being a kid again. Happy birthday, Eliot!

Continue reading “Eliot Turns Two” →

For the past couple of years, I’ve tried to highlight the best underdog games at E3, but this year was particularly hard. Partly because I spent most of the day waiting in line to see the Nintendo Wii, but also partly because the entire gaming industry is getting so weird. In catering to the casual gamer and trying to differentiate from the competition, every platform and publisher is spending serious money turning former underdogs into big-name titles.

I saw this trend everywhere at E3, but nowhere more prominent than Nintendo, which threw all the rules out the window with the Wii. The new controller forced every developer to invent new forms of interaction without relying on existing standards, so practically everything in Nintendo’s booth felt new and weird. Even the well-worn Tony Hawk series feels new and interesting when you’re waving your hands all over the place, though it doesn’t seem nearly as well-suited for epics like Zelda.

Beyond Nintendo, I was surprised to see games like Loco Roco and Viva Piñata with huge marketing efforts by Sony and Microsoft. (What hath Katamari wrought?) At this point, it’s hard to say that many of this year’s picks are true underdogs, but they’re all odd. If you want real underdogs, the indie gaming scene is thriving and almost completely unrepresented on the exhibit floor. Anyway, here are picks for the E3 Underdogs of 2006.

Continue reading “E3 Underdogs 2006” →

If you’re going to videotape your Star Wars fighting skills on a school camera, remember to remove the cassette when you’re done. Watch this embarrassingly good video.

(Some context may be necessary.)

Like every year, I’ll be rounding up my favorite pranks on Internet Jackass Day (aka April Fool’s Day). In case you’re thinking of getting involved, Anil’s got some advice for you. We’re a day early, but it’s April 1 somewhere, so let’s get started.

* ThinkGeek’s annual lineup of unusual new products

* Flickr goes catty on all “Explore” pages, in a timezone-sensitive hack; some screenshots

* Google Adwords unveils two new image sizes

* Google Rooms

* Bioengineering firm to create pet dragons

* Slashdot finds its feminine side (yawn!)

* Ask.com’s RhymeRank

* Yelp buys rights to the Pets.com sock puppet

* Bungie’s Pimps at Sea video game

* Yahoo buys Web 2.0, all of it

* Ars Technica reviews Duke Nukem Forever

* Google Romance (though Google isn’t far off entering the personals market, in reality)

* TeeVeePedia: TeeVee’s 10th annual entry carries on their tradition of the best written pranks ever

* SQL on Rails, don’t miss the screencast

* Gamespot previews World of Starcraft, among other news coverage

* Google Earth adds some visitors to Area 51

* Wordpattern, WordPress merges with Textpattern

* LinkFilter cribs Metafilter’s design

* Homestar Runner goes upside-down

* DeviantArt previews new Web 2.0 redesign

Comprehensive lists: If you feel like drinking from the firehose, try Urgo’s definitive list and Wikipedia’s rapidly-growing collection. As Greg put it, be prepared for “less than half-assed humor.”

Conclusion: Eh. The only two that made me laugh were the Flickr cats and SQL on Rails.

I suppose it was inevitable, but I got a cease-and-desist from Bill Cosby’s legal team for hosting the House of Cosbys videos and the out-of-print “Cosby Talks to Kids about Drugs” album. (View the cease-and-desist PDF.)

I’ve removed the album (even though it’s been out-of-print for as long as I’ve been alive), as that’s within their legal rights.

But I’m not removing House of Cosbys. House of Cosbys is parody, and clearly falls under fair use guidelines. I’m not taking it down, and their legal bullying isn’t going to work. They claim that hosting these videos “violates our client’s rights of publicity as well as other statutory and common laws prohibiting the misappropriation of an individual’s name, voice and likeness and unfair competition.” Sorry, but the First Amendment protects satire and parody of a public figure as free speech. Also, the right of publicity only applies to unauthorized commercial use, and not a work of art or entertainment.

More than anything, this strikes me as a special kind of discrimination against amateur creators on the Internet. Mad Magazine, Saturday Night Live, South Park, The Simpsons, Family Guy, and countless other mainstream media sources have parodied Bill Cosby over the years (see growing list below).

But because it takes so little effort to threaten a small web-based artist (or the blogger who hosts their work), the Net is constantly targeted regardless of just cause. Justin Roiland, creator of House of Cosbys, was forced to remove the videos because he couldn’t risk the possibility of an actual lawsuit. And when Channel 101 decided to take a stand, Cosby’s lawyers targeted their ISP instead, forcing the videos offline. (Read Channel 101’s excellent response.)

But I know my legal standing, and I’m not backing down unless ordered by the court. This is free speech and creative freedom, and even though it’s just one guy’s goofy labor of love, that’s worth fighting for, dammit.

Cosby Parody in the Media

This is hardly the first time Cosby’s been parodied in the mainstream media. If you have other mainstream examples, please post them or email them to me! Scans, recordings, and video clips are highly encouraged.

* Video: Cosby on Family Guy (July 18, 2001)

* Video: Cosby on The Simpsons (WMV, May 13, 2001)

* Video: Cosby on the Simpsons (Quicktime, April 30, 1995)

* Video: Saturday Night Live’s “Celebrity Jeopardy” (May 14, 2005) – Bill Cosby has been parodied on at least nine episodes of SNL by three different cast members: Eddie Murphy, Adam Sandler, and Kenan Thompson. Any other clips?

* Video: The Boondocks (Episode 11, “Let’s Nab Oprah”)

* Comics: Mad Magazine appearances – Wow, Michael Hunziker compiled a collection of 12 Cosby appearances in Mad from 1967-1998!

* Video: South Park, Episode 210 (“Clubhouses”)

* Video: South Park, Episode 512 (“Here Comes the Neighborhood”)

House of Cosbys: Mirrors Clones!

Watch the original House of Cosbys at any of the sites below. We really need more mirrors, so let me know if you’ve mirrored it!

* Google Video

* YouTube

* Download.com

* CommonFlix (BitTorrent, formatted for iPod)

* EOD.com (thanks, Greg!)

* Watching Paint Dry (thanks, Alek!)

* Stroeck.com (thanks, Michael!)

* Nonstuff.com (thanks, Robert!)

* I’m Just Sayin’ (thanks, Krup!)

* 1hug.com (thanks, David!)

* Panoptican (thanks, Jason!)

* R3V.com (thanks, cls!)

* I Eat Tapes (thanks, David!)

* Kaninka.net (thanks, Páll!)

* Waxy.org

Updates

Stay tuned. I’m calling the EFF and House of Cosbys creator Justin Roiland today.

Update: I was just interviewed by the New York Times for an article set to appear in their Monday business section. Journalist Lia Miller also interviewed Channel 101’s Dan Harmon for the article, but was unable to get a comment from Bill Cosby.

I also spoke to Jason Schultz, staff attorney for the Electronic Frontier Foundation. He contacted me directly, providing some great feedback and offering the EFF’s support to help fight this. Their network of legal counsel is extensive and well-versed in cases like these, and the EFF’s powerful activist community will help raise awareness should this go to trial.

No word yet from Justin Roiland, but waiting patiently. Justin, if you’re out there, call or e-mail me! I got in touch with Justin through Myspace. He’s giving me a call on Monday to discuss.

March 5: The New York Times article is out. Nice!

March 7: I spoke to Justin yesterday afternoon. I was relieved to hear he’s not opposed to what I’m doing, though (rightfully so) he’s hesitant to get involved in a lawsuit himself. He’s going to speak to an attorney and get back to me.

Also, no word yet from the Cosby legal team.

Years ago, I’d heard about a mythical unreleased videogame developed by Penn & Teller for the Sega CD and 3DO. The game was supposed to be an oddball adventure game, with some cruel magic tricks and minigames thrown in for good measure. This Absolute Entertainment press release from March 1995 sums it up nicely.

Continue reading “Penn & Teller's Smoke and Mirrors” →

In the past, I’ve never been a big fan of advertising. It’s very often irrelevant, obnoxious, and almost always diminishes user experience. While there are clever TV commercials, print ads, and outdoor campaigns that win worldwide acclaim, I’m not sure any user would shed a tear if every ad banner disappeared overnight. (It’s no wonder that the Firefox Adblock extension is downloaded 100,000 times weekly.)

The rapid rise of contextual advertising takes a step in the right direction by attempting to recommend ads related to the page you’re currently reading. I’ve been minimally running Google Ads on the Waxy.org archives since May 2004, and I’ve generally been happy with the results. The ads themselves were still a bit ugly and only occasionally relevant, but it was an acceptable sacrifice since they covered my hosting bill every month. (About $150/month, if you’re curious.)

Now, a little bit of news. Late last year, Jim Coudal started a boutique advertising network called The Deck. A few things make The Deck’s approach unique among other online ad networks I’ve seen.

First, every advertiser must offer a product or service that the Deck members have used or paid for, and we’re very picky people. Second, the ad slots themselves are very limited (currently only six slots), forcing us to choose best candidates. And the ads are cleanly designed and unobtrusive, without animation and limited to one per page.

I’d like to see a world where online ads are meaningful, representing the ideals of the writer and the interests of the reader. Careful moderation and unobtrusive presentation will hopefully lead to a better experience for everyone, which in turn means better results for advertisers. It’s an interesting experiment, and I’m proud to be in the company of net legends like Jeffrey Zeldman, Jason Fried, and John Gruber. Neat guys with very good taste.

Anyway, I’ll report back in a few months with the results. For more information, read John’s explanation of why he switched, and Mister Snitch’s analysis some trends in blogger ad networks. And if you have something to advertise you think we’d like, get in touch.