30
November
2005
|
17:30 PM
America/Los_Angeles

A collection of semi-useful and semi-cryptic bits and bobs

By Tom Foremski, Silicon Valley Watcher


-Big sucking sounds may be heard in San Francisco. YHOO and GOOG are hoping to tap into the local SF media and tech community that won't crawl their way to the outskirts of San Jose every day.


I'm hearing downtown, and big facilities over time, which will push up office rents. The two have already pushed up software engineer salaries in Silicon Valley by more than 30 per cent.


. . .


-A giant search company sniffing for a way to monetize individual medical records (HIPAA gasp)? That would certainly provide for an efficient drug delivery system...

. . .


-I recently had dinner with John Dvorak, who is one of the savviest media professionals around. I've been a fan of his work since I started in the business more than two decades ago.


His writing is consistently good, but more importantly, he spots the original angles in stories that thousands have covered. And it is people like John that are going to do well in this new media (yes the term is back and this time it means what it says :-)


It is finally the time of the media engineer--which I define broadly as savvy media professional with (some) knowledge of this new generation of media technologies (blogging, RSS, server-side tracking tools...).


. . .


-Martin Snopek offers a way to claim your mark in the digital ether.


. . .


-Craigslist needs to build out the front part of its online newspaper, imho. That's what I told CEO Jim Buckmaster a few weeks ago. Otherwise Google Base and the searchers and scrapers will eventually triumph over Craigslist.


Founder Craig Newmark has been popping up in various publications, and he says he has figured out how to save newsroom jobs. All will be revealed soon (from under his kimono.) Will it save Craigslist too?


Hopefully Craig and his pals have figured out how to support and reward the media professionals that we need as a society dealing with serious problems.


. . .


-Cryptoscoop: The GOOG is prophetic, rather than superstitious, about its interest in the power in the places associated with the 13th fundamental building block of the Original Design.