Neomeme

Well, now that the Digg effect has mostly subsided, and as I prepare for my inevitable descent from being the #1 blog and post on Wordpress.com, I think it’s high time for another post. This time: How to coast to the front page of Digg. Now, to be fair, with only three front page stories, I can’t exactly be considered the authority on getting to the Digg front page. And, as you can see by my record of submissions, I have a record of failing 88% of the time. Nice, but 12% is a better success ratio than most venture capitalists. All the same, I think I’ve found a few dirty, underhanded, scoundrelly tricks to hit the Digg front page. I’m guilty of using a couple of these myself, of course, but they don’t violate the Digg TOS, and rest comfortably in that ethical grey area we’ve all come to love. Note that these tricks can apply to other social news sites, and indeed advertising in general, but the focus here is on Digg, as the original and most popular social news site. Here we go:

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This is an idea I’ve been rolling around in my head for some time. Now that I have a blog, I can finally share it with you:

For years, system administrators and savvy users have needed to create long passwords to thwart password guessing attacks. However, those passwords are complicated and hard to remember. Is there a way to create strong, easy to remember passwords that are impervious to most attacks? Yes, thanks to something I call the compound password. It’s very simple, but also incredibly powerful. Essentially, the compound password is a juxtaposition of two simple words, with their letters alternating. For example, dcoagt is a compound password. Can you see the two words in there? How about now: dcoagt . The two words in the compound password are “cat” and “dog”. To generate the password, “cat” is “inserted” into “dog”. But what of memorability? To the unenlightened, this looks like randomly generated, hard to remember ASCII text. But, remember, this is nothing more than the juxtaposition of two words. A simple entry trick means that all you will need to remember is your two words any time you need to type in that password. Here’s how:

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So apparently, people actually read this nascent blog, and a few people even RSS subscribe to it! Thank you all so much!!! And doublethanks(that’s kind of like doublethink, but butter) to those of you who have commented. Blogging is very much a discussion, and all of the comments so far have been very intelligent and insightful, uncharacteristic of the general Internet audience even. It’s been a great introduction to blogging, exceeding all of my expectations. So far, my posts have received amazing comments, ranging from “actually fairly brilliant” to “Blogger sounds like an ass” to my favorite, “laughable”. Thanks
That said, I’m going on vacation for the next couple of weeks, and so will not be blogging . Fear not, I’ll return in mid-January. To the casual reader, please do come back around January 15t- I promise, there will be something good. And to those few brave souls subscribing via RSS:

Predictably, everyone is the blogosphere is making predictions for 2007. I was going to jump on the bandwagon, but unfortunately I got caught up in things and, before I knew it, it’s 2007.Only losers make predictions for 2007 when it’s already 2007, so I figured I’d make the best of things and mock other people’s predictions instead, in a list even Jeff Jarvis might approve of(but probably not). Without further ado, here they are- the top best(and worst) predictions for 2006, made in late 2005.

The good:

• Wordpress darling Robert Scoble snuck in a prediction in a post about wine. He correctly saw further consolidation in a Web 2.0 that, with a flurry of start-ups, was looking increasingly like 1999’s Web 1.0.
• The CEO of Feedburner predicts the growth of and adoption of RSS. 2006 Really was the year RSS took off.
• Mark Kingdon predicted “Video Explodes Online”. With Time Magazine explicitly naming Youtube Invention of the Year and implicitly naming it Person of the Year(the Youtube player is on the cover), 2006 was without a doubt the year video took off.
• Jeff Ventura sees the continued dominance of the Google and Apple juggernauts. 2006 has been a year of incredible success and growth for both companies.

The bad:

• kuru5hin, as many others did, predicts PS3 launching at $399. We can only dream.
• BusinessWeek says that Google, Microsoft, and Yahoo will run out of money to buy Web 2.0 startups. Looking at Google’s record of acquisitions- almost one a month- they’re just getting started.
• USA Today says the popularity of Steve Jobs will decrease, and that “society, as if striving for equilibrium, will then knock Jobs as far down as we boosted him up”. Jobs, incredibly charismatic as always and still the face of Apple, had millions hanging on his every word, with his keynotes still drawing millions of viewers. Even the recent stock scandal can’t touch him.

The ugly:

• Jason Calacanis. The Netscape mastermind and part-time Kevin Rose nemesis drops such bombshells as “Digg will be bought by Cnet” and “CNET will be bought by Yahoo or Fox Interactive/Newscorp.” Calacanis also predicts the death of Web 2.0 if oil prices rise significantly in 2006. Although the first half of 2006 saw tremendous growth in the price of oil, Web 2.0 kept pluggin’ along. In fact, despite record high oil prices in June 2006, Calcanis ignored his own prediction and oversaw the launch of Netscape.com, a very Web 2.0 site. Those at Digg and Cnet did not have to welcome their Newscorporate overlords, and the housing bubble is still hanging in there. To be fair, his prediction about Google stock ending the year as it begun it is spot-on, though that’s not exactly a difficult prediction to make.

More bloggers should look back and analyze the predictions they made a year ago, as Greg Linden did. Predictions are like first dates: fun to make, but a lot more fun to look back on later, laughing at yourself as you were a year ago. Also, tech predictions tend to have less saliva.