It's okay. I'm not sure how it's pronounced either.

Entertainment Weekly put out a surprisingly nice list of the 20 Scariest Movies of All Time. What they didn’t do is rank them. So, for our readers’ enjoyment and for the convenience of not having to click through 20 pages just to see the whole list, here they are, ranked by scary movie experts from across the globe (or at least by me).

The reason that magazines prefer lists over rankings nowadays is because these are opinions and everyone has a different one. They fear people reading the list and say “this is all wrong.” I have no fear of this, as I know that the list is wrong for most people. It’s just the way I see it using their list of movies ranked the way I would have ranked them. [click to continue...]

Local search has become a hot niche within the overall search landscape. Web searchers want to easily access data about what’s around them as efficiently as possible. As a result, more local search tools are popping up.

Whatsopen.com is one of these new local search destinations. Originally released at the beginning of the year in “Beta,” WhatsOpen’s only unique feature was its claim to provide hours of operation data for businesses that appeared for a user’s search query. Unfortunately, upon using the site for only a few seconds it became clear that the initial version of Whats Open had completely inaccurate and useless data, and had little more to offer than a cute frog logo and some fluffy language hyping their supposed testing in China and a pending mobile application just around the corner. [click to continue...]

Advertising sometimes goes too far. They just don’t always understand exactly what they are implying. I’m sure they didn’t mean to command people like dogs (or worse?) but that’s exactly what they did on this ad that is currently appearing on Digg.

Here is a portion of the original page where it was found:

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Find more odd news here.

Advertising on the Internet isn’t what it used to be. People aren’t falling for the “9,999th Visitor” iPod winner ploy. They are catching on to Google Adsense, and pop-up blockers have destroyed that avenue.

The problem is, they also don’t want to pay to visit websites. “Don’t make money off of us, AND make it all free.” That’s the message, and a recent study described in Arstechnica about Web surfers and Behavioral Targeting touches on this fact. Check out that article (later) but first, let’s take a look at a solution. [click to continue...]

In the short life of this blog, it has received quite a bit of attention both negative and positive. One of the stories in particular about McCain Fanning the Obama-Clinton Flames has received comments on it as well on Digg and Propeller that are not complimentary.  It has been called names, bashed, yadayadayada.  It’s awesome!

Bloggers are in many ways amateur journalists.  I have written columns for print publications in the past and I prefer the editorial license allowed in blogs.  Why?  Because you can be more bold on the Internet than you can in a newspaper or a magazine. [click to continue...]

Over the past several weeks, I have been privy to many projects in different stages of development. One thing that seems to hold true for many of them is that the developers’ idea of “the next big thing” is a hybrid of sorts.

Some are leaning towards social media mixed with social networking. Most of the social media sites have tried to head in this direction to some extent. All have fallen short. Most notably, the Digg changes a few months ago have turned from an attempt to socialize social media (with shouts and other features) into an unfair way to game the system. The results have been disastrous. [click to continue...]

A little-known but dangerous epidemic is spreading across members of social media websites like Digg, Reddit, Propeller, Newsvine, and Mixx. Like a secret scourge, SM-FPA (social media front page addiction) isn’t making national headines yet, but the effects have been felt in thousands of households across the world.

“Ever since my wife’s submission hit the front page of Reddit last month, we only see her on the way to the bathroom,” said Jake Dixon. His wife Amber, better known as “diggwho”, made the front page of Reddit with a story titled Bush makes more people mad by saying something stupid. Since then, Amber has been submitting 15-25 stories per day and has a submission hit the front page 3-5 times per week. She declined to be interviewed. [click to continue...]

Sarah Palin has been all over the news.  Ever since her tapping as John McCain’s Vice Presidential candidate, the world has been watching her, waiting for her to shine or fail.  The scrutiny has gone beyond any other VP candidate in history because she was relatively unknown, she has strong views that are controversial at times, and yes, most importantly, because she is a woman, the first GOP VP female candidate.

With all of the news swirling around her, it can be difficult to find the real facts.  Here are 10 websites that are as honest and factual as they can be, trying not to totally endorse or smear her, but simply to tell us who she is.  Read them, enjoy them, link to them, but most of all, understand that the real issue here is not her gender but whether or not she can lead this country as President if that day comes. [click to continue...]

When I stumbled upon a site called Local Buzzer last night, I have to admit that I was skeptical. “Easiest Local Search Ever” is what it uses as its tag line. My reaction to this:

“Oh reeeaaallly.”

One thing I liked and probably the only reason I tried it was the homepage layout — one of the cleanest I’ve seen. I tried something pretty random – Chiropractor/my zip code. While the results page is nicely set up with Google maps integration, the real juice is in the community aspect. It has a chance to be truly local.

Two interesting quotes from the About page:

“We are here to promote that conversation and provide tools for our community to discuss the places that they are passionate about.”

“By looking at local businesses through the lens of the collective community on Local Buzzer, you will always find a place that is new and interesting. We are committed to giving every local business a fair chance at being the next big thing.”

Interesting concept. The only way this will work (and I definitely think it can) is with a nice number of people in one’s local area using it. The bad part about most of the review sites is that you can’t find sites or businesses that haven’t been reviewed. The problem with classifieds and map searches is that they don’t have many, if any, reviews. In theory, Local Buzzer brings the two together into one neat, clean package.

Here are some more quotes from the About page and our analysis of what they propose:

User Powered Local Search

We believe that a community working together will create the best search results. Every user will have the power to suggest new businesses, edit business details, review and rate businesses. We will rank our search results based on the user input for any particular business.

Assuming that they are able to get businesses themselves to be active and participate with the site, this can be a really good thing. It’s like having a free listing, so they should be more inclined to make sure the details are correct. Since it offers reviews, those who know about it will be more inclined to visit often and suggest that their clients check it out.

Speedy Results

The whole focus of the site is to give the users what they want, quickly. We have spent a lot of time making sure users should be able to find businesses they are looking for in the shortest amount of time.

This is the part that I’ve been personally dying to see for ages. The search engines are too gamed, too cumbersome, and don’t always have relevant results. If I can pop in and find my next Pizza purchase quickly… that’s a beautiful, wonderful, awesome thing.

Community Driven

We dont worry about any bottom lines and “pay for placements”. You get honest results. We are not about clients, page impressions and traffic. We write reviews, upload pictures, choose our favorite businesses, and enjoy making friends just like everyone else.

I have questions here, but that’s not to say that it won’t work. I can see it as a valuable service, but getting people to sign up is the tough part. I signed up, and while I admit that it was a no-brainer, no-time-waster style setup that I prefer, I wonder how many people will use it but never sign up. On the other hand, there are advantages to having limited signups. Those who do are probably doing so because they feel passionately one way or the other about local businesses. They want their opinions to be heard. That part alone would make signing up worthwhile.

Pound for pound, I think LocalBuzzer has a real chance of making it. I hope it does — I know I would use it.

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For more website reviews, go to the homepage.