Interesting breakdown of which presidential candidate is getting more Web buzz

Seems counter to current conventional wisdom, but according to Tech Crunch, citing a new study by Attributor, McCain is leading in mainstream news coverage, and catching up on blogs.  Interesting piece breaking down factors in generating buzz in the blogosphere and in mainstream media Web outlets.

Beyond Conventional Metrics

In an Online Spin column ("More On: Is Google Making Marketers Stupid") Joe Marchese writes: "...the Internet ecosystem breaks down because the metrics that marketers demand from Internet publishers are not a true measure of value and can be manufactured to a point, such as clicks and impressions."  Clicks and impressions are of course valid and valuable ways to measure some elements of an ad campaign (or a content strategy), but they don't tell the whole story in terms of reader engagement, follow-through and habituation.  Would love to see advertisers and publishers look to a broader range on metrics; the challenge is the art and agony of complexity in trying to come up with a whole cloth interpretation of reader engagement on a site - that's still farily easy to report and explain.

Woman from our parish returns from the Olympics

There was a standing ovation at the 9:30 a.m. Mass today at Ste. Marie Parish for Olympic race-walker Joanne Dow, who has just returned from Bejing, where she competed and finished 31 in the 20K race walk.  She didn’t expect to win (the New York Times quoted her as saying, “there’s not a chance I’m winning”), but win or no, the 44-year old Manchester athlete is an inspiration for her own kids, her parish community, and the city.  I was glad Father Mark made note of her accomplishment. Here’s a piece on Joanne from the July/August edition of the diocesan magazine, Parable.

Second 22-miler goes down easier than the first; thanks lasagna! And Olympic Marathon is tonight...

Today I ran my second 22-mile training run en route to the Oct. 5 Maine Marathon in Portland.  A few interesting things to note – the first and most striking of which is that I felt really good, all the way through and afterward.  As recommended by various training programs, I ran it about one-minute-per-mile slower than my race day goal pace.  And unlike last week, when miles 21 and 22 got pretty grueling (read as legs turned into concrete posts), I had enough kick left this week during the last four miles to pick it up and run it as fast as the early miles.  The factors seem to be better processing of fuel (I'm not having those terrible energy crashes I did when I ran 18 and 19 miles for the first time, and I don't feel mentally and physically wiped out afterwards as I did then), and better hydration.  Despite drinking the same 32 ounces of water during the run as last week, I started out a few pounds heavier in water weight and lost fewer pounds during the run. I ran earlier in the morning, and that helped, but I think a lot of it has to do with how much I hydrated yesterday and last night.  Oh yeah, and I ate a huge slab of lasagna for breakfast right before I hit the road.  I think that helped as well.  I'm still not sure I'm going to hit my goal pace on race day – oddly, the closer I get and the more training milestones I hit, the more I realize what a foolishly optimistic goal a BQ time was to set for a first time marathon.  On the other hand, the progress is enough so I still have this wild hope left that I'll make it.  With about six weeks left to train and taper, and the expectation of weather 20 degrees cooler, fewer big hills than my home training ground here in Manchester, and maybe another ten pounds dropped between now and then… maybe, just maybe.  Cheers to everybody who's going to join me in having a cold one and watching the Olympic Marathon tonight!  Go Ryan Hall! 

Kids raised in the Internet era still turning to traditional entertainments

I was happy to see that this study of kids' Internet usage shows that at least up to 11, kids aren't heavy users.  They still play with traditional toys and read plenty of books.  I know that in our household, despite the fact that I work on the Web and that Kris and I both use the Internet quite a bit, all three of our kids are avid readers of traditional books (or picture books in the cases of the littlest), and love puzzles, board games, building toys such as K'nex and Legos, imaginative play with dolls and stuffed animals, and of course, roughhousing and running around outdoors.  My hope is as they grow this trend continues ... and that they can approach the Web in somewhat the way I do: it's a tool deeply integrated into my lifestyle, but it is not my lifestyle.

A book for writers and runners

Just finished Haruki Murakami's What I Talk About When I Talk About Running. Murakami is a Japanese novelist and distance runner who weaves the two interests together in this plainspoken book on how these two activities feed each other, compliment each other, and seem to appeal to a certain personality type.  Feeling much in common with that personality type, I enjoyed the book immensely (listened to most of it on MP3 while doing a three-hour, 22-mile long run yesterday).  I found it to be empathetic in terms of my running, and motivational for my writing.  Interestingly, I've noticed that as my weekly running mileage has increased over the past year or so, so has my drive to write fiction and poetry returned with something of the insistence it had when I was in college and just out of college.  There is certainly something that relates the two in my mind, and while it may not be exactly the same thread that binds them for Murakami, it's likely from a similar spool.

Second Life For Business Meetings?

Philip Rosedale, the founder of the virtual world Second Life is stepping down as CEO. He explains why in this interview at Fast Company. He also talks about how many companies are using Second Life for business meetings, and why. A business meeting in Second Life could go something like this, he says: "We could have had three or four people on the call without having to use a 1-800 number. We'd just show up at a park somewhere in Second Life. Audio quality would be better than the telephone and you would hear the nuances of the voice better. If I wanted to show you a prototype of a new product, I'd just pull it out of my pocket and rez it -- meaning it would just show up and float in front of you. If we were working on cellphones, I could show you a big 3D model of our newest cellphone and we could play with it. If you put people in an immersive space that's also somewhat novel -- in Second Life you can actually rent tiki huts on a beach -- I guarantee you that you would remember the content of this conversation better than you would driving in your car and talking on the phone. I guarantee you would have laughed once or twice when I put on a funny hat or changed clothes with my avatar. The applications just make it more fun to do business. We're in a creative economy now and people have choices about where they work and how they work. Being able to do your work in a virtual workspace that makes it fun and reduces your travel time is a tremendous benefit to a company."

I haven't spent time in Second Life yet -- though many friends and colleauges have. I have to say, I'm curious, especially given this possible application. I find conference calls tedious (at least in format -- though the content and conversation may be engaging), and WebEx presentations and the like suffer from similar limitations in engagement. Hmmm...

Second Life's Web site targets the potential business user with Second Life Grid, which boasts: "The Second Life Grid™ platform enables your organization to create a public or secure private space using the leading 3D online virtual world technology behind Second Life®. Discover how your organization can create its own space for communication, collaboration and community engagement. Use the Second Life Grid to hold virtual meetings and classes, construct product simulations, provide employee training and lots more."  

Maybe I can outrun 40 after all; running slows aging

With marathon training at the center of my workout activities this year, I've joked once in a while about outrunning upcoming birthdays… but given a recent study from Stanford University, it's not entirely a joke (check out the BBC story here). The study, which tracked 500 older runners for 20 years, along with 500 similar non-runners, found that running slows the aging process – that the runners had better odds of living longer and healthier lives. According to the BBC, "Running not only appeared to slow the rate of heart and artery related deaths, but was also associated with fewer early deaths from cancer, neurological disease, infections and other causes. And there was no evidence that runners were more likely to suffer osteoarthritis or need total knee replacements than non-runners - something scientists have feared."  I was glad to see the bit about the knees… I've had more than one non-runner suggest to me that was going to pay for my running now with knee surgery in the future.  As I said at the time, perhaps not, my friends. The study's lead author, James Fries of Stanford, sums it up: "If you had to pick one thing to make people healthier as they age, it would be aerobic exercise."

It's a Nissan commercial -- and a training video!

Here's a cool marketing idea... Nissan has produced a series of training videos for various sports and is targeting them to appropriate Web sites for given athletes.  For example, I came across a skyscraper ad touting the Alberto Salazar training videos on RunnersWorld.com.  After seeing them for about a week I finally had to click.  And they're good, interesting content!  It plays, of course, inside a Nissan-branded player and site.  You can the Salazar videos out here.   From a digital advertising perspective, smart campaign, terrific targeting.  From a running perspective, interesting useful video.

A fix for a bloated Windows/installer file

I couldn't figure out why the hard drive on our old home machine (and older Presario) was almost full.  I'd starting getting memory space errors and went through the folders, stripped programs, and run cleaner programs, all to no avail.  The culprit turned out to be the windows/installer folder – which had swollen to almost 20G.   It seems that failed Windows XP SP2 installs can leave a bunch a of duplicate or orphaned .msp files.  Many gigabytes worth!  

The solution (PLEASE NOTE - I'm not a tech support guy; I don't necessarily advocate this solution for you and I don't know that it won't have a different effect on your computer than it did on mine... proceed with caution.) was downloading the Windows Installer Clean Up program, mostly to get the little program inside it Msizap.exe.  Then, instead of running the Clean Up Program, you run msizap.exe from the command  like so: "C:Program FilesWindows Installer Clean Upmsizap.exe" G!  (Make sure to include the quotes and the spaces)

The G parameter tells msizap to remove orphaned files.  Using the process with that, or with other parameters, can lead to all sorts of problems.  (WARNING!)

I ran the command line as above and it freed up 17G. from the installer folder in about two seconds.  Amazing.    Everything on the machine is working right (so far!) and I'm not getting anymore memory errors.

But be careful; I found reference to this solution in a number of places (here are links to one of them, and another).  And all of them had caveats and warnings. I felt comfortable doing this to our old computer because a. the solution seemed to make sense (though I'm not an expert) b. all the data is backed up to standalone drive every night, and c. my next step was going to be to reformat the drive and start with a factory system restore anyway…   

But given all that… it worked, it worked, it worked!

Why To Run A Marathon

A funny, motivating, slideshow/lecture from a guy named Lane Becker on why you'd want to run a marathon. Wait for the end -- he really picks up speed! (Also, perhaps not for listening with the kids in the room -- the language is sometimes ... enthusiastic...)

Goals met (almost) at Yankee Homecoming 10 Miler

Ran the Yankee Homcoming in Newburyport last night – great race in a great town. Race went right through downtown, people lined the streets, crowds cheered and many houses had set up impromptu misting stations and blasted music from their front yards. It was warmer weather than I've run this fast this far in before, but not too hot – about 78 degrees.

According to my Garmin, I ran my goal pace (7:15s), but that's because my Garmin showed my total distance at 10.14 miles at a total time of 1:13:29. My official pace was 7:20s, with a total distance of 10 miles and a total time of 1:13:13. Part of this is because in a big race, you start a ways back from the official starting line. Then there's the weaving through the crowd, and my inexpert working of the corners.

Either way, I'm happy with both times, and figure I'm moving in the direction I need to for my race goal this fall. It feels like a long way from the runner I was last fall before I started training for the half. And I know for sure there's a long way to go; not just to this October race, but in general. I like that feeling. It's a beginner feeling, and there's so much sense of potential in that.

This was my first race with the Garmin, and it really helped me rein in during the first couple of miles. Adrenalin made me think I was going too slowly, but I saw was tending toward 6:50s… I pulled back to 7s and was able to conserve for the hills and those hard miles at 6, 7 and 8.

I ran with the Fuel Belt, and was glad it did -- but I didn't need all four (8oz) bottles. I would have been better off leaving two behind. Especially considering I experimented with carrying water in two and Gatorade in two. Now after a long run, I like Gatorade just fine. But during a race on a warm night, it tastes as thick and sweet as syrup -- made we want to gag. Blech.

One of the best parts of the race for me was having Kris and the kids there at the start and the finish. It means a lot that Kris wants to make these events family events; it's important enough to her that she's willing to juggle the three kids during all the chaos of a big crowd in order to make that happen - a challenge as daunting as any race, believe me. Coming out of the cool down chute and having them there waiting wide-armed to give hugs (which they always get a bit tentative about when they see how sweaty I am!) is invaluable. I'm looking forward to taking my turn -- in September, it will be Kris' race, and I'll wait with the baby stroller at the finish line!

Before and after the race.

Flip This Site

My wife Kris is a fan of the Flip This House television show.  Now if they'd make a Flip This Site show on the Geek channel (also sadly not currently available), maybe  I'd have a bargaining chip -- "I'll watch your show, honey, if you'll watch mine!"  A recent NY Times article details the opportunities in buying under-developed Web sites on the cheap and with fairly little investment turning them around for a big profit.  The story begins: "Dave Hermansen did not own a bird or a cage when he bought bird-cage.com, an online store, for $1,800 three years ago. He simply saw a Web site that was “very, very poorly done,” and begged the owners to sell it to him. He then redesigned the site, added advertising and drove up traffic. Last December, he sold it for $173,000."

Cell phones the saviors of newspapers?

Interesting piece in the New York Times about the opportunities cell phones present for newspapers, and the company that's banking on those opportunities: Verve. The Times reports: "Verve's chief executive, Art Howe, is the first to admit that he’s betting on an industry that’s under siege. Newspapers’ strength is providing local news and information and the mobile Web is the logical outlet for local content, argues Mr. Howe, who is a former Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter at the Philadelphia Inquirer and is himself owner of 50 local papers. 'Mobile is actually a better way to reach people than print or even Web. It's versatile, immediate, travels and is just as compelling–if it's done right–as a Web site or a printed page.'"

Along with many other newspaper companies, Verve is powering the AP's new mobile news network.

50 Marathons - 50 States - 50 Days

I read the book Ultramarathon Man by Dean Karnazes a few months ago and it blew my mind.  Now I see that he's got a movie -- UltraMarathon Man: 50 Marathons • 50 States • 50 Days -- coming out about running 50 marathons in 50 states in 50 days.  Amazing.  And inspirational as I gear up for what will hopefully be a good milestone time in Tuesday's 10-miler on the way to my goal time in the October marathon.  The movie will be in a limited number of theaters nationwide on July 31, including the Showcase Cinemas down in Lowell – close enough to get down and see!  Hoping time and schedule will permit.  

Here's some more on Dean at his site, and a good video introduction to his approach to ultra racing from a 60 minutes story.