OK, I took the plunge and created a Facebook account. I pretty much decided to do this last week when it was announced that Facebook had surpassed Yahoo as the second most popular website in the world. Google is the most popular website. I’ll have to get back to you as to where RegenAxe is ranked.
The real reason that I joined Facebook was because of my friend John. At least I think that we are friends. We’ve know each other for thirty years, we’re bike buddies and he just invited me to his retirement party, but he hasn’t friended me yet on Facebook. John is my age, well actually a little bit younger and he is retiring retired. He sent out an invite using his now former company’s email inviting us to his retirement party. I procrastinated and didn’t respond until his email account had been shutdown. He left the note that he could be reached on Facebook. So I joined Facebook.
So I’m writing this post as the friends are starting to roll in. Liz was the first one. Frankly, I’m a bit at a loss as of what to do on Facebook. I sent my message to John and I am waiting for a reply, but that is just like email. Janet’s feed has these features that are for example entitled ‘likes this’. I’m familiar with some of these concepts from this great Slate series of comic riffs off of a fictious Barack Obama’s Facebook feed. Apparently, we here in RegenAxe-land were in the minority of people who were not on Facebook.
A fellow Team Kaldis member (Gary) sent us a link to the YikeBike website. I’ve copied the pictures above and below from their website. I hope that they won’t complain, because I’m going to rave about their product. It is not really a bicycle, because you don’t pedal it. It is all-electric. It folds up into an amazingly compact form and is easily carried. It is electronically limited to a 20 KPH or about 12+ MPH speed. Its battery life is about twenty minutes or about six miles. It was featured in Time Magazine. Its main disadvantage, as I see it, is its cost, ~$4500. Segway? Move over!
When the web was young, pioneering entrepeneurs would stake out their claims. Being tech savvy, they lapped up the web addresses that major corporations eventually wanted. For a while they held sway and could negotiate lucrative deals for their internet land grabs. Eventually, the powers that be moved in and made this trade obsolete.
Typo-Squatting is the next lucrative trade. It is a practice that preys upon us poor spellers. Whenever you mistype of more accurately misspell a relatively popular Google search, think Newsweak instead of Newsweek, you get directed to one of these Typo-Squatting websites. These Typo-Squatting websites derive their revenue from royalties off the Google ads on their websites. So to breakdown the business model, find commonly misspelled popular searches. Host your website. Add Google ads. Then just wait for the money to start flowing in.