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Looks like Feedburner is getting in on the same kind of business model Collectrix.com wanted to do 3 years ago.

Best of luck to them (I think they can do it too).

And it most certainly is a sign of the times.

Via Mike Ewens.

I had one of those moments that you all have probably felt at one time in your life. You read or hear something that reminds you of something that happened to one of your parents and you feel a biological sense of déja vu.

Among other professions, my dad has a background in engineering (received a EE from U of Washington in the early ’70s). He and I, despite our personality differences, share many of the same kind of creative imaginations — continuously concocting some hair-brained scheme. Throughout the past 25 years he has tried, failed and succeeded in more endeavors than anyone I can think of in all the history I have sifted through. If a movie were to ever be made of his life, I could think of nothing other than “Meet the Parents” mixed into a business environment — coming so close that it hurts. And now I can see how he must feel time and again when that eureka becomes someone else’s (i.e. in the early ‘80s he visited Japan and thereafter contacted various American car manufactures, noting that there was a large market for minivans – all of which fell on deaf ears).

Well, my moment came today while reading a story at News.com on the Gawker blog phenomenon:

The simplicity of the model may be why Denton is alternately guarded and dismissive of all the hype surrounding blogs. He seems to recognize that he is not up to anything particularly trailblazing, and that it’s only a matter of time before others catch on. Competitors like Jason Calacanis’ Weblogs, with its network of more than 70 consumer and niche blogs, are already copying the Gawker model.The idea of grouping the blogs, Denton said, was to give the company an air of respectability. “The only reason we’re listed as a group at all is for advertisers,” he said. “Advertisers treat Gawker titles more seriously because it’s part of a group.”

Let me tell you a story about a company called Collectrix.

2.5 years ago I hatched an idea of selling various wares online, notably collectible cards (i.e. Magic: The Gathering). Collectrix seemed like one of those names that fit the bill and was available for procurement (check out DeletedDomains.com for a list of some graveyard names that can be purchased). A long story short, because of how the supply-chain works within that industry, card makers (such as Upper Deck) frown upon virtual stores and would therefore charge Collectrix retail prices (as opposed to wholesale). In fact, because of how I wanted to cut out the middleman, I seemed to make an enemy, with of all people: Steve Jackson (read up on how he got shafted by some spooks).

Anyways, so I had this domain but nothing to do with it.

Then some buddies of mine asked if they could have a subdomain and email address through movementarian.com. At around the same time I was becoming increasingly frustrated with the editorial policy at movementarian.com. For those unfamiliar with this site, in the summer of 2002 I started a satire-esque website after being spurred by various events in my own life and from some of the more nuttier things found in the zeitgeist (such as religious zealots and the upcoming Iraq War). So back-tracking a couple of months…

It was one thing to have this idea of creating a more libertarian version of The Onion and another to implement it. Thus around July of 2002, I turned to my trusty dirt-cheap technically-inclined Ukrainian immigrant guru, David Veksler. Another long story short, David is hard working guy that can pretty much handle any task, but he and I were ideologically worlds apart. The agreement for the ultimate editorial authority on the site culminated into one of those regrettable 50/50 decisions – since he would do the work for free, he was entitled to censor stories he felt that failed his litmus test (he is an Objectivist).

Anyways, after having several stories rejected and deleted from the main website I decided to turn to my own personal blog under the current subdomain. This decision was ultimately made during the first few months of 2003. For those doing the math, March was D-Day for the Iraq War. And this is what I had concocted.

I purchased about a dozen domains covering everything from the university world (AggieBlog.com, BevoBlog.com) to open-source software (GNUBlog.com). From these central sites I planned on setting up subdomain’s from interested parties and then link all their content together through RSS/XML feeds – pointing back to a main page. Thus, I would have effectively created community portals, complete with their own forum and central unifying theme (somewhat similar to what Geocities did back in the day but with more freedom for unlimited customization).

But I also wanted to make a concerted effort to put together blogs that could capitalize off of the information that would soon transcend from the soon-to-be war in Iraq, primarily from the perspective that it was avoidable and foolhardy. This ultimately never happened due to time constraints and a lack of technical coordination (though it did not help having a pro-war contractor building an anti-war community).

From a business model perspective, bandwidth and storage space were fixed costs which in the long run were relatively low. The software was free (i.e. Blogger, WordPress, MovableType) and publicity/traffic was easy to come by (I struck up a couple partnerships out-of-the-blue and Google liked blogs). All the sign-up, registration and blog set-up could be automated leaving the only variable costs for customer service. Therefore, profit margins were high and still are to this day [note: do not let anyone tell you that it costs oodles of money to maintain a website; in fact, patronize this guy – he took over the clients I dropped during a crazy fiasco a year later -- his rates are the kind you should compare everyone else to].

Anyways, the main idea was that Collectrix would set-up these communities based around a central theme, sell easy-to-use hosting packages for bloggers. Each of these bloggers would have links to one another (i.e. blogroll) which in turn increases their Google ranking (be sure to read up on PageRank). So in addition to receiving residual income through web hosting, advertising now comes into the equation.

At one point I was approached (emailed) by two different companies wanting to advertise across the entire network of sites for several thousand dollars per year. At the time of their propositions (September of 2003), I was gearing back up to return to graduate school and put this on the backburner. This idea ultimately fell apart when my upstream bandwidth provider dropped all of his clients for who knows what reason (to this day I have no idea what happened to him).

However other entrepreneurs have stepped in and done the same thing (i.e. Weblogs inc). And it has even evolved.

For instance, here is another idea spawned from putting together digital automation and the semantic web. If done properly, you can create countless websites with legitimate content by simply aggregating topical news, bypassing the need for any human editor overhead. For instance, if you wanted to make a blog discussing baseball cards you would search for all the RSS/XML feeds that were produced by sources on this topic. Then you would build a database that would filter and collate the news. Then you would assign some sort of hierarchy point system for a given authority (i.e. more authority/relevance points are given to the source if the information comes from a dealer). I suspect that this is the basic idea by which aggregators like News.Google operate with.

The only tricky part is filtering out the signals from the noise and if nothing else, which would be one of the tasks left to an editor (i.e. sift through headlines and repost snippets of the articles). When the visions of the semantic web come into existence (i.e. real AI agents) then even the lowly task of responding to emails could even be delegated to these digital assistants.

More to the point, earlier this year I actually emailed Glenn Reynolds over at Instapundit regarding this topic. I asked if he simply aggregated news dealing with set topics (i.e. Iraq War, papacy) and merely cut-and-paste a snippet of the article onto his site. While he never replied, the idea of creating a databank of pithy statements is another doable solution made possible by MySQL and PHP. Plus, through the use of AdSense, you as a website operator do not have to try and solicit advertisers business. Everything is done for you through generated code that can be cut-and-paste into the blog system. Quick, easy and painless.

And recently, an associate and I put together a website that did just that; though, due to legal liabilities I cannot divulge what it is called. But that is besides the point as this type of service is easy to setup so as long as you know how to operate a webserver. In fact, I would not be surprised if some aggregate-management system is created through the open-source community in the near future (all you would have to do is modify blogging and database software).

So here is to a brave new world of automated news junkie content provided to desk jockeys from sea to shining sea. Next time I will be sure to patent this method of allocating and distributing information — bunch of terrorist thieves!

MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif – The team of lawyers representing the Internet search engine, Google, walked out after talks broke down regarding weblog-based intellectual property patented recently by Collectrix LLC.

“Their case is so tight that Houdini himself could not get out of this,” stated David Boise, lead counsel for Google Inc., referencing Harry Houdini, a late 19th century performer known for his ability to escape from tight hair-raising situations.

“Additionally, our walk out should not signal our defeat or even retreat, but rather, a deep breath in which we take a step back and reassess the situation as a whole. We are certain that a compromise can be reached and will most probably be settled out of court within the next few months, barring any new counter-countersuits.”

Tim Swanson, spokesman for the web host start-up Collectrix LLC, stated emphatically that, “The law is on our side. Google could have easily patented the technology, Pyra could have as well. Both dropped the ball and fell asleep at the wheel by playing consolidation and merger instead of innovation and protection. We took the time to design a winning game plan, if they can’t handle the rules, maybe they should just quit playing. At the same time, I myself do enjoy the hotdogs and mascots just as much as the next Pittsburg batter, maybe Google will stage a rally and somehow squeeze through the force out at first or in this case a maximum security prison for white-collar crimes.”

While leaving the press conference Mr. Swanson mentioned that “Eric [Schmidt], Evan [Williams] and Company should get used to bar soap now, so they won’t drop it in the shower when it counts.”

Copyright 2003. All rights reserved. This material may not be republished, retransmitted, printed, copied or distributed in any manner, in whole or in part, without the written consent of the author. Collectrix and One-Click Blogging are trademarks property of Collectrix LLC.

DALLAS, TX – Following the announcement that Collectrix LLC holds a patent on One-Click Blogging™, lawyers from the dotcom issued cease and desist letters to four companies all accused of infringing on the intellectual property of the Dallas-based start-up.

Userland executives, creators and developers of Manila and Radio, two automated weblogging systems had nothing to say when asked earlier in the day to comment on the lawsuit. Google, owners of Blogger, a popular automated weblogging system, told reporters that it is looking into the accusations. WordPress.org, creators of an open-sourced weblogging system, told reporters that they were in contact with lawyers at the Electronic Frontier Foundation but had no further comment. Six Apart, creators of Movable Type, a weblogging system, also refrained from commenting at this time.

Little is known currently, but Tim Swanson, spokesman for Collectrix LLC told reporters that, “this was the first in a series of potential suits to set up a licensing and royalty system for intellectual property that Collectrix LLC was recently issued a patent for. We are confident that this will hold up in court, the law is on our side.”

Copyright 2003. All rights reserved. This material may not be republished, retransmitted, printed, copied or distributed in any manner, in whole or in part, without the written consent of the author. Collectrix and One-Click Blogging are trademarks property of Collectrix LLC.

DALLAS, TX– The Internet conglomerate and holding company, Collectrix LLC, was granted patent 5,960,411 this past week from the U.S. Patent Office.

“This is the first in a series of key pieces designed to boost our start-up dotcom into prominence,” Tim Swanson, spokesman for Collectrix LLC told press at a news meeting earlier today.

The patent is for the method and system of placing a weblog post via a content-management system onto the World Wide Web.

Abstract

The weblog is placed by an author at a client system and received by a server system. The server system receives author information including identification of the author, weblog information, and date-time information from the client system. The server system then assigns a client identifier to the client system and associates the assigned client identifier with the received author information. The server system sends to the client system the assigned client identifier and an HTML document identifying the item and including a publish button. The client system receives and stores the assigned client identifier and receives and displays the HTML document. In response to the selection of the publish button, the client system sends to the server system a request to post the identified item. The server system receives the request and combines the author information associated with the client identifier of the client system to generate a weblog to post the item in accordance with the billing and storage information whereby the author effects the posting of the weblog by selection of the posting button.

“The future of our company is now rooted in a firm foundation with this and other intellectual property and we look forward in doing business with the community as a whole,” Swanson said.

Copyright 2003. All rights reserved. This material may not be republished, retransmitted, printed, copied or distributed in any manner, in whole or in part, without the written consent of the author. Collectrix and One-Click Blogging are trademarks property of Collectrix LLC.

Like A Record Baby Right Right Round Round…

Alright. Well you’re probably wondering what a guy like me tells all of the VIPs we host, that keeps you awake at night, right?

It went a little something like this:

We fired the admin, the person who hired the admin and the person that hired the guy that hired the admin. I’ve even thought about firing myself, because I hired the guy that hired the guy who hired the admin. I’ll hold off on that until tomorrow, after more bloodletting at the board meeting, after all, those guys hired me and look who I hired?

Hehe, actually, if I did have a real boss I would probably get fired for how I sorta joked around with a few of the clients, using email subject headers like: “Your Blog is completely deleted” and “Totally gone.” And then promised improvements in the server uptime category, moving from the previous 19.3% each week to about 27-28%, though that might be pushing it.

On a more serious note, I do appreciate all the comments you guys have made. I spent about 30 minutes reposting all the blogs I’ve made in the past week (25+) and afterwards went back through and posted all the comments you guys made (I inserted phone numbers, online personals, fantasies, etc. along with each of them too).

So now you’re wondering, what’s next? Now that Tim Swanson has conquered the blogosphere with his 7+ visitors a day, what kind of grandiose, megalomaniac, pedantic plans does he have next? Well assuming I’m not the target of another black hat hacker, I’ll probably do more of the same: me thinking I know more than other lesser/inferior hu-mans (say it like a Ferengi). Well, to be honest it really all depends on the time of day, angle of the sun and how much money is flowing freely between my account and yours.

Anyways, I’ll try to stay cool, low and phat. Dig it yo?

As I said earlier, some script kiddies h4×0r3d our servers. All they put up on the pages they replaced was this taunting message:

TechTeaM Defacement Group! sorry baby you is nice! Contact US TechTeaM@MySelf.com

Yes, I know I’m nice, however if you wanted to access the innards of the server I could’ve given you a guided tour, instead you had to bump around, waking up gnomes and scaring the children.

Actually, they did very little (which is a good thing, if you’re going to hack us, please be considerate, thanks). In fact, the “biggest” problem is the company that provides us the bandwidth/space, they sorta fux0r3d up with the back-ups (so you might have seen last weeks posts here instead of todays periodically throughout the day). We’re still sorting through that along with figuring out how to cope with the massive lawsuits that are about to come from our Fortune 500 clients, please donate generously to the: Tim Swanson Needs An Assload Of Money Fund.

Oh, and for those that are curious as to how they cracked our super secret, uber secure and ultra sexy servers, here is a tutorial that basically gives you a step-by-step guide on how to do what they did. This exploit is called ’ssh crc32′ and was actually showcased in The Matrix Reloaded (that scene where Trinity was typing stuff on the laptop was legit).

Stay in school, don’t do drugs and don’t hack our servers. Thanks.

Alright, so you’re probably wondering why I haven’t been blogging much lately. Well a couple of days ago I found out that Congress and various other agencies are about to divvy up a pile of pork to companies that manage to encapsulate their business models within the rubric of ‘national security.’ I sat down Monday evening and plugged away at revising the mission statement and long-term plan.

Originally it was: “Collectrix, building blogging communities through the free-market.”

I jazzed it up like so: “Collectrix, building blogging communities for the Defense of the Motherland through funds donated graciously by John and Jane Q. Citizen.”

Then I set to work on what Collectrix offered.

In addition to supporting all the available blogging software, Collectrix now supports “Terrorist-free functionalities,” which include:

- automatic tracking, to make sure the blogger resides within the Land of the Free
- automatic Stasi deployment, to make sure the blogger refrains from using any derogatory or disparaging remarks regarding the State
- automatic denial of service, if the blogger is discovered to be in contact with an enemy of the State, not only will we deny his service but we will help communicate the fastest ways to relocate the blogger to Camp X-Ray

I also had to work on some new Patriotic RSS namespaces, so that any and all messages they post can be easily parsed, tracked, categorized and then acted upon if need be. Here are a few examples of the said namespaces:

[jingoist:rss xmlns:jingoist="http://tips.fbi.gov/RSS"
xmlns:serf="http://www.totalinformation.gov/serf/"]
[jingoist:channel]
[serf:title]I need a Nanny[/serf:title]
[jingoist:description]Who would build roads[/jingoist:description]
[parrot:altdescription]Who would feed me[/parrot:altdescription]
[drone:author]Lemming[/drone:author]
[/jingoist:channel]

I’m happy to announce that after submitting the proposal to the nearest People Understanding Responsible Governance and Enlightenment office, Collectrix was awarded $21 million for this year alone. And the best part of it all, the terrorists lose, because American bloggers are now protected and sheltered from diabolical naysayers, contrarians and civil libertarians.

Lastly, I was told I could earn an extra couple of mil if I come up with a warning mechanism that explains the level of threat each blogger represents to the collective. I was thinking of using a color-coded system to signify what bloggers are truly patriotic and which ones probably should hitch a ride to North Korea. Any thoughts?

One of the things I like about MovableType is how easy updating the index.php file is (as well as the CSS file). Our default blogging software for the subsites is Cafelog (for a couple reasons, one - you can run multiple copies of Cafelog on the same MySQL database, two - MT has a weird licensing structure). In order to update Cafelog’s index.php file, you have to upload a new copy via ftp. You have to do the same thing with the CSS file as well.

MT on the other hand lets you edit it all within the system, all you have to do is press ‘Rebuild’ and poof, it works.

Anyways, I’ve also bumped into one of those annoying [/div] problems. If you goto DrPersonal.com and look at the right column you’ll see that it ends properly — versus Movementarian.com where it ends abruptly. And yes, I’ve checked the code several times — I think it’s a CSS thing. (Note: if you are reading this in the archive because time has elapsed you can show this to your history professor as an example of a first-hand account/primary source — they’ll be impressed that the Internet now includes that [snicker]).

The templates… yes, we’re getting those together. The guy in charge of that has had the most difficult time trying to get them integrated into Cafelog, something about them not being translated correctly. If I have to wait any longer I might end up having to learn something after all [shivers].

For the time being, I have placed a list of about 20 sites that will add your blog to their directory and/or syndicate your feed. I was actually talking to David a few days ago and at the time concluded that I could use the 25 blog syndication sites as ‘intellectual property’ for Collectrix. That is, my list could help promote their blog and I would keep it as a ’secret’ to add yet another reason someone would want to be hosted by us.

Well, I’ve changed my mind about that. Firstly, because many of the sites require you to put specific personal information like: birthday, gender, topic & location. I really have no desire to pry or seem like I’m prying into the lives of potential or current clients, so I wouldn’t ask them that information. Several of the links also ask for ‘keywords.’ Despite the best efforts of Collectrix to build a community of bloggers around particular topics (like Aggie’s, libertarians, Anime, etc.), I would have very little information to place into these particular keyword sections for clients – simply because I would not know exactly what the blogger will write about.

Yes, I could write some sort of script in Perl (actually, I’d get Jason to do that) but in the end, sufficiently answering the selected syndication sites would require more information than I am comfortable gathering from clients.

So, I put most of the ones I’ve found on the right under “Blog Syndication” — there are a few more under “Links” too.

Also, for those that were wondering where I was for the better part of the day, my router decided to turn off. I ended up calling SBC to find out what the deal was, they didn’t know so they sent out a repair crew. The repair crew didn’t know what was wrong but blamed the router for all the mess. They didn’t bother looking at it or resetting it. So after they left I did what any Curious George would do and reset it. Guess what? Yea, it worked. What a waste of time. And no, when I moved into the current abode I was not informed of what switches/routers/modems were being used, I just plugged in and went from there. All is good now, thank the Internet gods and their minions: the microwave oven.