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Ziki – a Brave New Business Model

ZikilogoSome commenters on TechCrunch are asking the usual question: what’s the business model?   I think it’s obvious: Ziki has commission-based deals with sunglass-manufacturers.    If you visit the site, you’ll see it yourself – but not for long, your eyes will burn (sans shades).

On a more serious note: I will soon write about a truly innovative business model (by another company).

Update (4/24). Nobody else seems to have discovered the “secret deal” – they talk about Zikis social networking, tagging ..etc features.

Update (4/27): Ziki listens: they toned down the colors – there goes the sunglasses-deal
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Microsoft Getting Human

Wow, for the first time in my life I’ve received an honest, almost-human Windows XP message: The installation is taking longer than expected.

Not as brutally honest as this one, but a good start

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$4 Gas is Here

$4 gas is here … at least in Beverly Hills, CA.  Is this next?

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The Best Part of Waking Up is Sewage in Your Cup (?)

FolgersApparently that’s what Folgers think.  In an ill-fated New York City commercial they placed photos of coffee-tops  on steaming manhole covers.   Yuccckkk….

(hat tip: BL Ochman

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Technical Support: Upgrade Nightmares

Recently there’s been a lot of “noise” over Tech. Support emails – so when I received this recycled Classic by email today, I thought it was perfect timing to share something on a lighter note.

Dear Tech Support,

Last year I upgraded from Boyfriend 5.0 to Husband 1.0 and noticed a distinct slow down in overall system performance – particularly in the flower and jewelry applications, which operated flawlessly under Boyfriend 5.0.

In addition, Husband 1.0 uninstalled many other valuable programs, such as Romance 9.5 and Personal Attention 6.5, and then installed undesirable programs such as NFL 5.0, NBA 3.0. and Golf Clubs 4.1. Conversation 8.0 no longer runs, and Housecleaning 2.6 simply crashes the system. I’ve tried running Nagging 5.3 to fix these problems, but to no avail.

What can I do?
Signed,
Desperate
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Dear Desperate:

First keep in mind, Boyfriend 5.0 is an Entertainment Package, while Husband 1.0 is an Operating System!

Please enter the command: “http: I Thought You Loved Me.htm” and try to download Tears 6.2 and don’t forget to install the Guilt 3.0 update.

If that application works as designed, Husband 1.0 should then automatically run the applications Jewelry 2.0 and Flowers 3.5. But remember, over use of the above application can cause Husband 1.0 to default to Grumpy Silence 2.5, Happy Hour 7.0, or Beer 6.1. Beer 6.1 is a very bad program that will download the Snoring Loudly Beta.

Whatever you do, DO NOT install Mother-in-law 1.0 (it runs a virus in the background, that will eventually seize control of all your system resources).

Also, do not attempt to reinstall the Boyfriend 5.0 program. These are unsupported applications and will crash Husband 1.0.

In summary, Husband 1.0 is a great program, but it does have limited memory and cannot learn new applications quickly. You might consider buying additional software to improve memory and performance. We recommend Hot Food 3.0 and Lingerie 7.7.

Good Luck!

Update (5/28):  Read the other side of the story

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Sans Accent; Marc Fleury’s Feet in the Dish and the Walk of the Waiters

It’s always fun to try to make sense of machine-translated text, so I gave it another run today.  Jeff Clavier announced his French blog, Sans Accent,  the most recent post being the French version of his congratulatory article to Marc Fleury  on occasion of the JBoss sale.

Here’s how Google translated it back from French to English.  I like the opening:

Cheer has Marc Fleury for the sale of JBoss – and assembling it ($420M)

Jboss Logo

Marc Fleury well is known, and recognized, in the mediums of the open source since the launching of JBoss not hesiter does not have to put the feet in the dish and to take aggressives positions – which have amene its company has its current position of leader of the walk of the waiters of application (“server application”), with 35% of share, in front of IBM and BEA.”

I hope  “Walk of the Waiters” is not a reference to a restaurant strike – and would the strike have anything to do with Marc’s feet in the dish?
OK, before my readers think I’ve gone crazy, it’s 4:30am –  see, Jeff, you’re not the only on up in the wee hours, the only question is: is it the end of a long night or the start of a long day? 

On a more serious note, Sans Accent will not simply be a translation, Jeff will “deal with topics related to France and/or the French community – including politics and general rants about what is happening (or not happening) “over there””

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Berlitz for Life


Should the embedded player not work,  watch the video here.

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Shut Up


  No wonder, check out the stat’s.  (hat tip: Jeff Nolan)
(if the embedded video does not work in the feed, watch it here.)

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Blogging is a Body Business :-)

OK, let’s just all come clean.  Blogging is a hoax. It’s just a cover to hide our primary business: selling our bodies.   First Robert and Shel got got naked…  

Then came Chris Pirillo, renting out his chest for 20 bucks…  I have not seen his complete price list for other body parts, but check out his pix at Rentmychest.com.

You don’t have to get naked though to sell your body: Stowe Boyd is putting himself up for auction on eBay and he promises to wear only startup-branded T-shirts for the rest of the year.  Sorry, no pix yet, his “launching the new venture” May 1st. 

Now, I appreciate all the entrepreneurial effort from all these guys, but blogging is not a “male thing”… so perhaps we’ll see more variety when it comes to… let’s say, startup-logo’ed swimwear? 

If that happens, I promise I’ll put myself up for wearing logo’ed …socks.

Update (6/16):  I told you

Update (7/2):  Here’s another Classic, via Robert Scoble

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Missing my Morning (tech)Crunch

Missing my crunchy  breakfast today:

Techcrunch down

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