Spotify is the next one to pop
By The Dyke | August 17, 2009
As an avid internet follower and someone who works in the industry, I find the speed that some sites burst into popularity amazing. As a side note I m also amazed at how fast those great sites can also slink away – see one of my old favourites SeeqPod – as a site it is basically worthless now http://www.google.com/trends?q=seeqpod&ctab=0 . However I’m sure for seeqpod that all it not lost, the technologies and algorithms are not dead yet as it is rumored that Microsoft has bought some of the ip.
If you look at the history of these sites that bust out you find that they all hit a certain inflection or “popping point” where their curves change direction from horizontally up to vertically up and sites that were good sites turn into sites that become phenomenons.
A couple of sites that have hit their “Popping Point” recently
In both cases you can see where each site hit a tipping point of popularity and “bent their curves”. As you see the change from facebook which took about 3 years until it hit it’s popping point (Mid 2008) to twitter which took about 2 years until it hit it’s popping point (early 2009), the ttpp (time to popping point) is getting less and less.
Anyway, I think the next one to pop is Spotify
What is Spotify?
Spotify is a new “legal” way to listen to streaming music on the internet. Some of the labels they are associated with include the big guns Universal, Sony Music, EMI, Warner Music plus others such as Merlin, The Orchard and CD Baby. Although many have tried to do it in the past spotify is legit and it’s UI is pretty damn good. Although it is only available in certain parts of the world at the moment, there are “ways” around it. I suggest you give it a go.
And as for my guess for spotify’s popping point in popularity, taking into account the rate of ttpp inceasing, i’m guessing it will be in the next 1-4 months. Don’t be surprised if you start to see mainstream media saturation by the end of the year.
Cheers
Dyke
Topics: Search | No Comments »
SMX Advanced 2009 in Seattle – The Dyke and Sid
By The Dyke | June 1, 2009
Sitting down at the breakfast tables of the Seattle Marriot for the second day in a row, I have just finished the “smashed potatoes”. I have never seen these before but they are amazing … they literally are potatoes, smashed to hell, complete with skin and then they have the shit fried out of them (welcome to the US boys!!!)
Anyway, we are here for the SMX Advanced conference which is something I have been dying to go to for the last few years. I’ve been to the regular search conferences in Australia and the Netherlands … and well… they suck big time. They are always aimed at bringing new people to the world of search and having agencies sharking around for new business. Hopefully, hopefully, hopefully (crosses fingers, toes and eyes) I will actually learn something new here. I think the chances are pretty high.
Also i must introduce you to my new travelling partner in crime. As you know I never use real names on this blog but my new buddy looks a lot like this guy
That’s right, Sid, from Ice Age.
So after a day of sight seeing, Sid and I are ready to get down to business – starting with drinks tonight 
Also we are really looking forward to hearingabout Microsoft’s new Search Engine – Bing ( www.bing.com). Is it actually going to be the phase shift in Search it is marketed to be or just another Cuil style hype that will be let down by unworthy product?
When we first saw that Microsoft was the big sponsor of the conference, our first instincts said …”What the hell? How do Microsoft have any relevance in the search game today”. We saw that they were supplying the event’s main speaker and that the evening shin dig was also sponsored by them. Add that to the fact that the conference is in Seattle – Microsoft’s home territory – and we started thinking that something fishy might be up. Obviously that was before bing …. now the cat is out of the bag so that leaves us here eagerly awaiting something special from Microsoft. I hope it’s a Badda Bing and not a Badda Boring!
Topics: Search | No Comments »
Testing
By The Dyke | April 3, 2009
Topics: Stuff Done | No Comments »
Nike Air Max in Amsterdam
By The Dyke | December 11, 2008
Nike Air Max – I love them! They are awesome. Nike is one of my favourite brands and I think that they have had many great joggers / sneakers over their time. Who can forget the original Jordans, the line that is still kicking around or the wetsuit like Nike Huarache’s – when they came out they were so futuristic. The Nike Charles Barkleys with the Godzilla ads or The Nike Air Penny … what classics.
Anyway if you are looking for Nike Air Max in Amsterdam look no further than the Netherlands greatest website – Martkplaats.nl
Topics: Sport | No Comments »
Minicorn – What is a Minicorn? Introducing Mr Bubbles MiLai
By The Dyke | October 29, 2008
A minicorn, is not a small version of corn, that most Google searches return for the keyword search ”minicorn” presnt;y. A minicorn is a cross between a Unicorn and a “mini”. Obviously a “mini” doesn’t really exist (where as unicorns do) so it is really just a smaller unicorn.
However minicorns are not common and actually most aren’t pretty and white, like the “fairytale” unicorns that come to the everyday man’s mind. Often they are special looking. Some branches of the minicorn family are more closely linked to the Shetaland Pony group of horses than the unicorn family.
Possibly the most famous minicorn is this little guy pictured here. His name is Mr. Bubbles MiLai.
Minicorn-Mr-Bubbles-MiLai
Mr Bubbles MiLai
Mr. Bubbles MiLai is famous for getting upset that his father is away and often causes trouble for his mother by creating sparks that fly off his hooves from all his crazy bucking. Whilst only a young Minicorn, Mr. Bubbles MiLai is destined for great things. Watch this space for more Mr. Bubbles MiLai updates throughout the year.
In any case, welcome to the world of the minicorn … all the corn without so much uni!!!
Topics: Weird and Whacky | No Comments »
Aussie expats in Haarlem, the Netherlands
By The Dyke | October 15, 2008
Ok, lets consider this a “soft relaunch” of the dyke in the dam blog. After a 6 month hiatus (after only 3 posts ..) I’m back. There have been so many things happening in that time, that my life has changed completely but I will reserve that topic for another post.
The topic of this post is to let you all know of a great website I have found for Aussie expats living in Haarlem, the Netherlands – though it’s not just limited to Aussies, there are many nationalities that make up the group. This site is called www.MyHaarlem.com has a great number of resources, but especially great are the social gatherings that happen quite regularly. The next event is at Cafe Fidel on the Lange Veerstraat 3 in Haarlem – see the blog http://myhaarlem.wordpress.com/ for more details.
Topics: Dutch Culture | No Comments »
The Canal House on the Amstel River Amsterdam
By The Dyke | April 9, 2008
The sun over the Canal Houses
Our new digs are on the Amstel river in Amsterdam. The Amstel is a big river that runs through Amsterdam and is a great place to watch life go by. The Amstel River is actually how Amsterdam got it’s name, and Amstel Dam turned into the Amsterdam it is today.
We live in a canal house on the Amstel and our view is pretty amazing. We overlook the “skinny” bridge or the Magere Brug – translation is skinny bridge. The bridge was made in 1670 and it opens up for all the ships coming up and down the Amstel. At night it looks so pretty, being lit up by over 1000 lightbulbs. Apparently Queen Beatrix comes here every year for V-E Day or in Dutch ”bevrijdingsdag” and there is a concert held for her.
The Skinny Bridge – The Magere Brug
Also it’s going to be a good spot for Queen’s day. On this day you are allowed to sell anything on the street so I am thinking about pimping out my toilet for a Euro per visit, but that could also get a bit messy due to the amount of partying that happens on that day. Perhaps selling beer at overinflated prices could be a safer option, though knowing me I’ll be buying rather than selling.
Here’s some photos I have been taking. We get a different view every day depending on the weather.
Canal House on the Amstel
Canal House in the Amstel Sunset
Amstel River Canal Houses
Canal House Skyline
Topics: Dutch Culture | 1 Comment »
Introducing Horace Saw
By admin | April 6, 2008
Horace Saw
Born: Jan 2008
Birthplace: Bruges, Belgium
This dude here is Horace Saw
For those of you who aren’t into grossly overused violence in horror films he is the doll from the Saw movie franchise. The movies, which will never win any praises from motion picture critics for being examples of cinematic art, are part of my favourite film collection. The two writers of the film, James Wan and
Leigh Whannell , are actually Australian guys from Melbourne.
So in the footsteps of Tim Nevo, who had his jaunt around Europe in 2006 and saw the soceroos play in the World Cup and from the makers of the overused touring icon we would like to present … Horace Saw.
We don’t know the real name of the little effer, except “that doll from the saw movies” so we decided to give him a name. The last name was quite easy and we derived his first name from “Horror” which is the genre of the movies.
So far Horry has been a busy little bugger.
Here he is here at his birthplace in Brugge, Belgium
here at Antwerp
in Germany
with the Fernsehturm Tower in Berlin
at the Brandenburg Gates in Berlin
with the Eiffel Tower in Paris
at the Arc de Triomphe in Paris
and here he is just stylin up and waiting for the ladies
I agree that the pictures are quite scary, which I like, but I really wish everyone could here this sound
(squeek, squeek,squeek) when they look at the pictures (the same way my mind plays it every time) to get the full effect.
P.s Da Hoff, Flash and Folls – if you wanna send a story and some photos of Horry’s little cousin, Timbo through, I can give him a post!
Topics: Travelling | 2 Comments »
Holy F*ck!!!
By admin | March 29, 2008
Holy F*ck!! (Mum – if you are reading this, sorry for the language – though I must admit that at the moment this is one of my new favourite sayings I have recently picked up courtesy of my Dutch colleague Andres … and it is getting a severe workout at the moment). Anyway, the reason I began my post today with such a harsh, bordering on blasphemous, term is that I am currently in a state of absolute shock. I never in a million years thought I would be writing a blog. I was well in the camp that “those people that write a blog have no real friends”, “those people that write a blog have a boring life and too much time on their hands”, “the only people that read most blogs are the authors themsleves”. And yet here I am, typing away on my keyboard, preparing blog post #1. How did I get here you may ask. Let me explain:
It all began when my wifey, who’s current nickname I have endowed her with is “little one”, decided to say yes to my marriage proposal in 2005. Now my precious little one has had a deep desire to travel to Europe since she finished school. At the time we were living in Sydney Australia and both working in jobs in the internet industry. We decided that it would be great if one of us could land a job in Europe after we tied the knot so we could spread our wings and see the world (you know, in those precious few years between getting married and deciding to start help populate the world with little future taxpayers - not that this is definately the order things should be done, but in my life most things have followed the general plan of the masses). As luck would have it, I became lucky enough to get a transfer to the beautiful Netherlands with my work and so recently we packed up, said goodbye to the many, many people we cared about in Australia and moved to the land of the smoke and the pancake.
That event in itself wasn’t enough to get me to start writing, nor was the fact that I was actually now starting off in a new country with no friends, so technically I could have classified myself into one of the blogger stereotypes I had once held so dear. Over the next few months we started our jobs, set ourselves up with some Dutch digs and did some travelling. I don’t know if it’s all the spare time or the surging wave of new experiences, but I started to see things throughout our adventures and think “wow, that’s cool, I’ll have to make a note of it”. The problem was that the first place I could think to put all these things was into a blog. But I couldn’t do that! No way. It would be against my principles. It would be admitting that I had slid down the social rankings to the modern day equivalent of the people who hang out in the library in their spare time. No. I would have to find some other way.
I first thought my facebook addiction would be the perfect outlet for my observations however that site is a nasty vortex of timewasting, and often instead of doing anything constructive I would end up looking around everything all my friends were doing back in Sydney (things I was missing out on), Frowning at the 50 something invites I had to join the zombies vs vampire war, and wondering if I should participate in the 3 invites to buy a friend. By that time I could always hear little one saying “it’s myyyy tuuuuuuuurnnnnn on facebook now” and my stories remained in my head for another day.
Next came the “old school” idea of using a real life scrapbook. This was perfect so I started keeping little momentos and went out and bought a book to paste everything into. After 2 months I now just have a bag of junk and an empty book. I think I haven’t written in 10 years anyway so i would probably end up with cramping of the hands halfway through the story.
So tonight I have finally given in and written my first blog. I actually can see why people are so enthusiastic about it now. It is a lot of fun and choosing what software to use, whether or not to host it myself and even the name all provided some entertainment. My nickname happens to be Dyke and seeing as “Smoke and a Pancake”.com was taken this was my second option.
So I have a whole list of things to write about in the next few posts. These include
- European toilets, yes you have to pay, no some of them aren’t built right
- Dutch Swear Words, you too can wish diseases on your friends
- The sun, Is their truth to the rumour that it does still exist?
I could probably write more rubbish here knowing that according to my blogging rule number 3, I will be the only person who reads this anyway However I know this isn’t true because mum (who now finally got off dial up this year 2008) will definitely read it – even if it is only to make me feel better. So again, mum, I am really sorry for swearing but you might like to know I put the asterisk in just for you (and also in the hope that Google doesn’t classify my site as “adult”).
Love you all and miss you lots
Me xoxo
Topics: Stuff Done | 3 Comments »