David Michael Bruno

Flickr Slide Show Test

Recently I've been having trouble embedding Flickr slide shows into a Web site I'm working on. So I thought I'd test a slide show out on my blog and see if I run into the same trouble.

The problem occurs using FireFox (PC or Mac) and IE (PC) but does not seem to happen when using Safari (Mac). I'm embedding the code that can be found by clicking on the set and then viewing it as a slide show and then clicking on the share link and then copying and pasting the embed code. The trouble is that once any action is taken in FireFox or IE (e.g. clicking or scrolling), the slide show disappears.

Any suggested solutions are very welcome! Thanks.

Web 2.Easy

I'm about half way through an advanced reader of Bill Tancer's Click: What Millions of People Are Doing Online and Why It Matters.  It's an O.K. read so far.

He just made a point about Web 2.0 that I think sometimes gets overlooked in discussions.  While he holds to the traditional definition of Web 2.0 as being Web sites where user-generated content is the focus, he showed through some research that the easier a Web 2.0 site is to use, the more likely there will be participation.  That's right on.

This week my own experience with the principle of Web 2.Easy involved two beta sites: switchAbit.com and Ping.fm.  Both sites do the same thing.  I have no idea if one is better than the other.  All I know is that I gave up on switchAbit within about ten minutes after reading and rereading and rereading the instructions.  So I don't know much about Dave Winer, whose blog first alerted me to switchAbit.  Here's something to consider though, a Web 2.0 application that updates your status on various social sites should sound and operate nothing like Assembler.  There are other applications out there for this purpose, including Six Apart's Facebook app Blog IT.  But if you want Web 2.Easy, go with Ping.fm.  You can try Ping.fm with the beta code "tastyping" if you want.

So the real "power of the Web" seems to me to be a combination of 1. User generated/moderated content 2. Ease of use and 3. Connectedness. Put in the opposite order, if I can connect easily by participating online then I'm using a Web 2.0 application.

Audio, Books, and Technology

The next few days I'll be blogging from the ruckus known as Book Expo America, or BEA.  Yesterday I spend the day at APAC, the Audio Publishers Association Conference.  And tonight is a gala for the Audies, the audio publishing awards.  ChristianAudio is up for an Audie in the spirituality category thanks to the wonderful book by Dallas Willard, The Great Omission, read by the incredibly talented Grover Gardner.  Looking over the rest of the field, I suspect we are a long shot.  But if anyone can pull this off, it's Grover.

Technology continues to be the topic of the day.  According to the consensus at APAC, everyone in the audiobook industry is tired of talking about DRM.  There was some hints from a reliable source that we might "see more DRM-free services" in the near future.  Looking forward to it.  Also there was a tiny bit of Google bashing about their books project.  Too much talk about and fear of technology.

Why Technology Is Good for Business 101

Technology turns into a really good thing for any industry when people stop talking about it or fearing it.  As soon as technology gets into the background, things really start happening.  As soon as technology is less a topic at APAC and BEA than discussions about capitalizing on technology, then the publishing industry will be forging some really interesting new ground.  I should not talk in such sweeping generalities.  There are plenty of people in publishing that are less worried about what technology is doing, and more concerned about what they will do with technology.  But the atmosphere right now is one of technological concern.  Here's a not so revolutionary prediction - the attitude of suspicion about technology in the publishing industry will go away in the next 1-2 years.

What Makes Startups Stick? Who Cares. Taste Is What Counts.

I've been involved in a couple of startup companies, ChristianAudio.com and LetterPop.com.  Neither have made me a Web 2.0 hero.  And for now, my Schwab advisor checks in once a year.  Yet neither of my first two startups have been a failure.  ChristianAudio.com is profitable and growing well.  LetterPop.com has a nice following and sufficient potential.  So in the grand scheme of things, I'm doing better than most.  With that as my platform, I'd like to say something about successful startups.  First, a question.

How do you cook linguine?  Yesterday, I made linguine.  I cooked the pasta while my wife made a delicious lemon basil sauce.  After about eight minutes, I tasted the linguine to see if it was done.  It wasn't, so I cooked it for a couple more minutes.  Now some people don't taste pasta to see when it is done.  Some people throw it all around the kitchen to see if it sticks on the walls.  That seems odd to me.  The point of cooking pasta is to make it edible, not sticky.

Attitudes about starting companies, especially web companies, are not unlike methods of cooking linguine.  Some people think that you "throw something out there" and see if it sticks.  If it sticks, it's done and you've cooked up a startup success.  Figuratively speaking, there are a lot of awful-tasking starchy strands of uncooked linguine sticking all over the web.

The best way to get a startup right is to cook it for a reasonable amount of time and then taste it to see if it's done.

All metaphors break down if you push them too far.  So I'm not going to keep stirring the pot here.  Startups that make news and make people happy are cooked to taste.  The founders are personally interested in the product.  They don't throw the idea out to see if it sticks (i.e. see if millions of people happen to think it's done).  Founders of successful startups know that if it tastes good, people are going to like it.

Here's a lesson learned.  Entrepreneurs need to learn how to cook.