Monthly Archive for April, 2006

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Adsense: The long tail of spare change

Published on April 26, 2006 in advertising, Google and Web2.0. 2 Comments

Google dollars

Last year, Google took in about $2.7 billion through ads on other people’s sites, accounting for 44% of its ad revenues. Most of that money probably came through big sites, but a decent portion must have come from the little guys. When you add up all the under-$100 AdSense balances earned by the Scott Karps of the world, the total must be a pretty impressive number. That’s free working capital for Google, or it can invest the stash and make even more money. It’s a devilishly good idea.
roughtype.com via kingsley2.com and google.blognewschannel.com

Nicholas Carr then goes on clarifying that if you have more than $10 on your account, and you officially terminate your Adsense account, Google will send you the money anyway. In any case, there are thousands of Adsense accounts with sleeping money that cannot be touched until they break the $100 barrier.

BUSINESSMODEL?

Let’s see, thousands of small $ amounts that are blocked, that still represents tens (hundreds?) of thousands of dollars. Let’s see if we can come up with a business model to recover some of that money without breaking the Adsense Terms of Service.
Goal: fill the bucket, i.e. reach the $100 mark and then leave.
Continue reading ‘Adsense: The long tail of spare change’

Emma, Marie and Julie

Published on April 25, 2006 in Belgium and Society. 4 Comments

I found some data on the first names parents gave their children in 2004 (data from statbel.fgov.be). It should come as no surprise that passe-partout names (used in both Dutch and French) dominate the first names hitparade.

Here are the top 10 per province for the girls:
Meisjesnamen in Belgie 2004
Continue reading ‘Emma, Marie and Julie’

Barcamp Brussels: less than a month to go

Published on April 24, 2006 in Belgium and Brussel. Closed

Some more details on the Barcamp event of May 20th:

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

Barcamp Brussels is a free conference where all attendees must also contribute. Topics concern the influence of technology upon daily life. All attendees should list their names here. A (non-exhaustive) list of topics is constructed here.

SPEAKING

  • speaking slots will be 30 minutes each. So a presentation should last between 20-25 minutes. We’ll probably start around 10h till 12h and again from 14h to 18h. (10 slots per room)
  • speaking style can be: regular presentation (Powerpoint/Keynote style), demo (on-line or off-line), moderated discussion (topic is suggested and crowd can join in)
  • everyone should do a presentation, help with someone else’s presentation, do a audio/video podcast of presentations or participate in some other way
  • you do not have to be the world’s authority to speak about something. It can be an unusual hobby, an positive experience or just a crazy idea. If you don’t like to talk, do something with videos (“Computers in 20 years of Hollywood movies”), music (“Feminism in the MTV era”) or images (“Famous newspaper images you thought were real”).

TOPICS

  • I suggest the following ‘tracks’: Geeky / CMS / Blogosphere / Photography / Audio / Video / Marketing track. You can already list the topic of your presentation(s) on the wiki page.
  • Just at the risk of repeating myself: not all topics are technical. No one will validate your CSS when you come in, or ask you to explain Einstein’s relativity theory. If, however, you have no experience with email and have never heard of ‘Google’, this day might be of little interest to you.
  • You will be able to indicate your presentation on a whiteboard when you arrive. If you want to have a good spot, come early.
  • Topics I would like to see presented: making music with Ableton Live/Garageband – blind surfing: accessibility check-up encoding video for the iPod/PSP – original viral campaigns – statistics/history of Belgian blogosphere – Photoshop demo – theory and practice of the RAW image format – the 20 memes you should know about – psychology of the blogger – remake Cinebel/IMDB site with RubyOnRails in 15 minutes – podcast legislation in Belgium and Europe …
    There’s plenty of interesting stuff we all know too little about. Join in, show us what stuff is going on in your mind and surprise us!

She good writer #1

Published on April 24, 2006 in women. 2 Comments

She good writerLet’s introduce some blogs that are worth spending some time on, but non-technical and written by women.

The first blog is written by Ingrid Coppé, the director of the short film “Another Day“. She’s currently working in New-Zealand on some movies. She has a very sharp sense of humour and doesn’t take herself too seriously. And she’s Bieke’s best friend.

Here’s a record of a conversation she had on LAX airport, when picking up a ringing payphone.

- Hello?
- Hi, Is Andrew there?
- Euh, I don’t think so, I don’t know, there is probably one Andrew here, but I don’t know.
- Is this 818 564 784 (ok; the number might not be the number he said,.. so sue me, what am I, Rainman???)
- Euh, I don’t know. You called a payphone in the transit area of LAX. I am waiting for my plane to New Zealand.
- Oh, New Zealand? I lived in Queenstown for a while. Have you ever been to Queenstown?
- Yes, a few weeks ago on vacation.
- Isn’t it the most amazing place? I loved it.
- Yes, it is pretty wild. Quite expensive though, but lovely, I want to go back there.
- You definitely should, I would love to go back there too.

ANNOUNCEMENT THAT WE CAN GO BACK TO THE PLANE.
Silence.

- Listen, they just made an announcement. I have to go.
- Yeah, I heard.
- I hope you find Andrew.
- (laughs) Have fun in New Zealand
- I will, thanks.

And in a split second I think: Was that the man of my life that I just hung up on?

from ingridgoesnewzealand.blogspot.com

PS: the title of the post is a reference to “She good fighter” a monument of belgian lesbian fighting film history *chuckle*.