Valve being bought by Google! That is a horrible thought, but there are number of web sites which are reporting this. Here are a few links:

http://www.theinquirer.net/gb/inquirer/news/2008/09/17/google-valve
http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/09/17/google-to-acquire-valve/

I decided to send Valve a quick email, and I think that everyone that is agains this happenign should do as well.

Good morning,

TechCrunch and TheInquirer are reporting a potential acquisition of Valve by Google.

Please say it isn’t so. I’ve been a fan of you company and games since you guys first started. I have been following your company and enjoyed your products all these years. An acquisition by google might seem like a financially good choice but technology and product wise it is not.

Valve has managed to remain financially independent and overcome a variety of obstacles all this years. Please do NOT give into the google idea. Be yourselves. Visiting Valve headquarters and working for Valve is a dream for many people. Don’t destroy your fan base.

Sincerely,

Alexandar Tzanov

http://www.theinquirer.net/gb/inquirer/news/2008/09/17/google-valve
http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/09/17/google-to-acquire-valve/

You can email Valve at contact@valvesoftware.com, or contact the company in the following ways

Telephone:
425-889-9642

FAX:
425-827-4843

Postal address:
PO BOX 1688
Bellevue, WA 98009

The community has already started a discoution on the Steam forums.

The TechCrunch50 conference is going on this week. Very Exciting. You can watch the live stream from the conference, thanks to Ustream.TV, below.

BTW, TechCrunch50 is 52 this year. Two extra companies, which is good. The more the better.

Read the rest of this entry »

Based on the people I follow on Twitter, I have noticed that people are tweeting more before lunch CTZ than in the afternoon, irregardless of geographical location. It seems like people stop tweeting for the second half of the work day, then they pick up again latter in the evening.

I guess it is true, people slack in the morning more than in the afternoon. Of course I have read other wise, but I think that the opposite is only true for the first quarter or half of the work day morning.

I believe the same holds true for pro bloggers. There seem to be more posts in the morning. My guess is they write some in the morning and more in the afternoon, which would explain fewer posts in the afternoon. They publish in the evening writings from the afternoon, then write some more and schedule the posts for the morning. If all that makes sense.

So, tell me twitterers - what do you think? Do you agree or disagree? Have you noticed any other trends or facts about twitterers’ personalities, behavior, or patterns?

As a co-founder of JutiaGroup.com I still handle technical and relevant aspects of the web site. Lately potential advertisers have been making contact, but they have been making contact the WRONG way. I have no idea what’s the logic behind it, but people are using the simple contact form to request information, which is already available on the clearly visible and indicated advertise page. I guess the thing that bugs me most is that to get to the contact form, which they use, a surfer has to find the contact page, which is hidden in a submenu. The information, which they request is available on the page which is to the right of the link on which they have to click to find the contact page.

Maybe they do go to the advertising page, but they just don’t navigate it. It’s called scrolling people, just scroll down the page. All the information people ask for is on that page, plus a very nice and extensive contact form, which was designed to save the time, which is now invested in going back and forth via email to determine something that one should have read and provided at first contact.

Another win for Net Neutrality. Today it was reported that the FCC (Federal Communications Commission) “disciplined” Crap…Comcast for their violation of their customers basic write to access information on the Internet. I say disciplined, because comcast was not punished via a financial burden. They were just told “you were bad. Don’t do it again. Fix it.”. It is hard for people and especially for companies to learn their lesson, when negative reinforcement is not used. Comcast was not punished, so they have noting to loss. If they had to pay fins, for example in the form of free or discounted service for their customers, then they, as the money garbing leach that the company and its operators are, will think twice before violation the freedom of access to information and data of real people and some intangible IP (Internet Protocol or Intellectual Property) address.

Now, because they were not cause to pay fines, the operators of the company will have learned, in their attempt #1, what they can do. Because the company did not have to pay fines, it will again try to throttle its network, but at its second attempt it will know how far it can go with certain actions and how to hide its procedures better.

You can read the announcement here: FCC Comes Down On Comcast For P2P Blocking

My house is serviced by Waste Management. A company, supposedly, on the forefront of thinking green and working to recycle and minimize pollution. Well, I can tell you guys that you are doing it wrong! I don’t know if this is standard procedure, but I for sure know that other companies, which offer recycling, don’t do it that way.

Here is my problem with them. WM asks its customers to separate recyclables from their garbage into different containers, something that is necessary to make recycling easier. But when they come to pic up my garbage and recyclables, they are both dumped into the same container. To me that does not make any sense. Supposedly they sort out the garbage at their station, but then why would you ask your customers to separate these objects if you are just going to put them back together and then “waste” money to pay someone to separate them again? Other companies have trucks, which have compartments for the different recyclables and waste. Why doesn’t WM have these type of trucks?

I think that combining the recyclables with the garbage, just to separate it again at a later point, ruins much of the potential recyclables, like paper products for example. Many times the garbage bags have juices and liquids in them as well as sharp objects. When they are put together and then compressed inside the truck these bags break and all those liquids flow out soaking into any potential recyclable paper products and thus ruining them.

BTW, WM has a new social network called Greenopolis, which is part of their Think Green educational program.

A Justin.TV member was victimized by his neighbors who burglarized his apartment. Thanks to other members of the CDN a video of that burglary was isolated. After watching for a while, I can say that those who just site there and watch others through their web cams must have either a voyeuristic issues or no lives. Personally I could hardly watch more than few minutes from the burglary video and I had to run the commentary/interview video in the background and just listen to it, but not without skipping few times.

Watch live video from WOOT TV on Justin.tv

Also, listening to how members of the community talk, I can say that even though they might not know each other they are more open to sharing and conversing. I guess exposing your life for everyone to watch has to come with extrovert personality.

If I was not involved in the online advertising sphere I wouldn’t have probably noticed this, but this morning I visited att.com and Vonage.com. Ever since I can say that about 85% of the banners I have seen on all of the web sites I have visited, so far, are att and Vonage!

Oh noes, I’m being tracked on the web. Lol. I should probably check which company is serving the banners.