Tom Drapeau

A project I’ve been working on for some time has finally launched: an upgrade to the social news site called Propeller.com (Official blog post). I don’t normally write about work on my personal blog just because I’m already writing about it on corporate blogs and the like, and also because I like my blog to be a relaxing place to visit, with family pictures and all.

I’m proud of the effort my team put in and the final achievement. The site didn’t get very positive reviews from the tech blogs, and the existing community is still feeling it out. Social news is still a growing concept – I like its potential, where someone brings to light a story/meme/viral video and the community can share it. The mainstream news we get is OK, you can get that anywhere. The spam I hate. Really.

Social news sites are also victim to the fire hose effect, where the filtering mechanisms are too young/naive to really just show me what I want to see. Some community sites are starting to experiment with personalized news, but I don’t think that’s the whole solution. I want stuff you know I’ll like, but I also want good stuff I didn’t know I like – a tough task, but a noble one. BTW – lifestreaming services, news aggregators, RSS clients – you don’t do it right either. Trust me, I use all of you.

Time will tell whether or not we can make the right tweaks to the site to gain more mass traction. For now, though, I’m happy we got the upgrade out there. Trey, Blaine, George, Mike, Travis, Richard, James, Ryan, Alexia, Dakota, Helene – thanks. You guys rock.

tdrapeau Technology Propeller, social news

So I saw a post on TechCrunch today about a partnership between BlogCatalog, which is a cross between a blog directory and a social network, and SezWho, which is a distribution comment reputation system.

I signed up for BlogCatalog (reminds me of when I listed my blog on Technorati), and there was an optional signup for SezWho, since BlogCatalog is simply that, a catalog. SezWho is available only on MovableType and self hosted Wordpress (which I am running). BlogCatalog is taking some time to verify my account, which involves me having to put a BlogCatalog badge on my blog (pretty slick) in order to “verify” that I’m the guy who signed up my blog (see it there, in the left column, under “Networks”?. A 1×1 pixel beacon would be a little less evil.
Read more…

tdrapeau Blog, Comments, Technology

Mashable reports that Marcien Jenckes, who I had the pleasure of working for at AOL, has landed as the CEO of Voxant.

Voxant is “a resource for website publishers who want to embed quality, licensed news content on a wide variety of topics”.

Good luck Marcien!

tdrapeau Technology

Great article in The Journal of Defense Software Engineering written by 2 NYU PhD’s. Found it via subscription to Joel on Software, here.

I received a B.A. in Computer Science from Lehman College, a member of CUNY (City University of New York). When I first declared my major and started, computer programming courses were taught in C++, but by the time I graduated, they were taught in Java. I chose the B.A. in Computer Science, with a minor in Computer Applications, because I could graduate a semester earlier . I’m happy I did, the minor allowed me to take classes in UNIX and COBOL, both of which I needed for my day job at the time.

Its been a while since I graduated, so let’s see what classes I took for my major/minor: Read more…

tdrapeau Technology, Web 2.x

Earlier this month, I posted my thoughts on Wil Wheaton’s book, The Happiest Days of My Life.

Reading that book inspired me to go out and get his earlier book, Just A Geek. And I’m glad I did. I added the asterisk to the post title because Wil is not “just a geek”, as Cory Doctorow says in the book jacket review. He’s a geek who can write.

I enjoyed the story in the introduction, Wil at the O’Reilly Open Source Convention. As in THDOML, I enjoyed Wil’s honesty about his life, Star Trek, geekdom, and other topics. I really felt as though I was there, talking to Sean Astin, right near the corner of Mickey Mouse Street and Dopey Drive, waiting to meet with the Casting Director.

And if you, dear reader, are so inclined to also pick up a copy of Just A Geek (available here) , read the appendices as well. Some fun interviews are reprinted, from BBspot and Slashdot.

tdrapeau Geek, Technology, WWDN

So I’m shuffling through the Sunday Times, and come across this article. I feel like I’m in a time warp from the last internet bubble, with people talking about dumb Internet terminals with all apps being drawn from “cloud computing”.

Um, so the point of the article is that Google Docs is so rad, that it is an enormous threat to Microsoft and its more than 90% market share in productivity apps such as Microsoft Office. I have Microsoft Office on my PowerMac, and via Parallels on Windows XP. I have used Google Docs in the past. Maybe I’m missing something… so the article would have me use a slower version of Office 97, vs. the faster Office 2003 I’m using now? Why should I switch?

I mean, maybe I’m not the target market here… maybe, as the article suggests, the target market is the person buying a new machine. I guess that person doesn’t have his/her Office media from the previous machine… and therefore they aren’t one of the 500 million people who do.
Read more…

tdrapeau Technology

This post by Tim Berners-Lee talks about the Semantic Web and social graphs. Being the creator of the World Wide Web, Tim is someone I listen to.

An example social graph:

tdrapeau Technology, WWW

So MomWonder, KidWonder and I packed up and moved out of NYC and into beautiful Westchester County this past week. The move went reasonably well (I would recommend Moishe’s moving company in the NYC area), and we had Con Ed turning the lights on btw 8am and 12pm and Cablevision btw 11am and 2pm. Con Ed came late, which is not a good thing when you have a 4 month old and its nearly November in the Northeast. When MomWonder reminded them of KidWonder, they hurried up.

So this post is not about Con Ed… no, its not. Its about Cablevision. I thought I’d be let down transitioning from Time Warner Cable to Cablevision, but I wanted to be optimistic. MomWonder and I had grand plans for the install, one digital phone line downstairs, and one upstairs, one cable box downstairs, and one upstairs. Everything was great, until the serviceman got there – and flatly refused to do *any* in-house wiring. Now, I’ve lived in apartments in NYC for 14 years before this, and have NEVER had a serviceman refuse to wire. So with the chaos of the move going on, and the serviceman staring at us, wanting so desperately to leave, we relented. Now I’m typing on my computer which we had to put in the master bedroom, instead of in the small bedroom we had envisioned being an office, and both phone lines are plugged into the cable box, also in the master bedroom.
Read more…

tdrapeau Customer Service, Technology

So about 3 weeks ago, my buddy Chris posts on his blog that he’s looking for alpha testers for a new website he’s building.

This morning, I’m reading my normal RSS feeds, and come across this post on Lifehacker.

I love to see Entrepreneurs in Action. Good show Chris!

tdrapeau Technology, Web 2.x

This is a good talk Andrew Keen gives at Google (not sure if its at the Googleplex). He discusses his book, The Cult of the Amateur: How Today’s Internet is Killing Our Culture. I heard that he had criticism of where I work, but he didn’t mention it during the talk. I might have to go get the book.

I have to agree that determining the line between content and advertising is getting more difficult by the day, especially on Web 2.0 sites. Although a member of the audience claimed that today’s teenagers are among the most cynical of all people, and are skeptical of all media delivered to them so as to be untouched by these masquerading advertisers, I agree with Mr. Keen here.

Skepticism of all media does not increase ones ability to discern truthful media vs. advertising, or sponsored media. It promotes media illiteracy. I think the inevitable result is that the youth who cannot tell the difference simply turn off the media and sink into their elaborate social networks.

Regardless of your position on the matter, its a video worth watching.

tdrapeau Netscape, Technology, Web 2.x, YouTube