Dinner 2.0

Last year I was on a panel at the Web 2.0 conference, so I got an invite to a “we give you food, you tell us what you want in the next conference” dinner tonight up in San Francisco. I’m not really a Web 2.0-ish kind of person, and dinner parties typically give me the willies, so I almost declined. But my wife is out of town and I should get out more, so I RSVP’ed. I almost turned around again once I’d parked in the city–mixing at dinner parties really isn’t my thing. But I’m glad I went.

Now I can understand the allure of all those parties and conferences that Valleywag snipes at. At dinner I’m sitting by Mitch Kapor, Merlin Mann of 43 Folders, Kevin Kelly of Wired and Cool Tools fame, and Hal Varian. So basically I’m trying not to look dumb. šŸ™‚

I knew Hal, and it turns out that everybody else is really nice too. Mitch Kapor has some fun things going on (like Foxmarks, which is a Firefox extension that syncs your bookmarks across machines), but mainly it was neat to see somebody with capital-M Money trying to use his resources to improve politics and education. Plus Kapor’s efforts such as Chandler also try to make the world a better place through open-source software; the Chandler folks are taking Summer of Code applications, by the way.

The nicest surprise? 43 Folders is in my Bloglines, so I felt the need to show Merlin Mann my version of the hipster PDA. It turns out Merlin is a really funny guy. We need to find some reason to get him down to Google to talk. šŸ™‚ It was good to see Rich and Rael and John and Tim and Evan, and meet a few new people. Plus on the way home, I got to listen to a nice long SearchCast, complete with Danny sighing. šŸ™‚

Tomorrow I get to drop the slacks and nice shirt I wore for Press Day and the dinner, so it’ll be back to shorts and a T-shirt for me. I’m glad that the summer is here.

14 Responses to Dinner 2.0 (Leave a comment)

  1. Hi Matt

    Can you do me a favour?

    Would you be kind to ask the crawl/index folks at the plex to let the data of this Miss Gorgeous http://72.14.203.104 to propagate to the other DCs.

    Thanks šŸ˜€

    Have a great day.

  2. Harith, what do you like about that particular data center?

  3. Hi Matt

    That Miss Gorgeous is a good example of the efforts of WebSpam Team, I guess. No spam on top 20 listings of the serps and high search relevancy.

  4. well i like this result.. finally, i have been following this query for so long till now i got the right top answer.. kind of right at least.

    http://72.14.203.104/search?hl=en&lr=&q=opposite+of+next&btnG=Search

  5. Would you be kind to ask the crawl/index folks at the plex to let the data of this Miss Gorgeous http://72.14.203.104 to propagate to the other DCs.

    SECONDED!!!

    Spent yesterday trying to find a local merchant for a particular service I need at home. No joy and I finally gave up in frustration. I clicked on the DC Harith posted and found exactly what I needed – and already have a contractor scheduled. That’s the kind of result I have been missing these past few weeks!!

    Thanks Harith (and Google). The husband will be pleased!

  6. I don’t find that data centre to be any better than my regular search results.

  7. Me either. It doesn’t seem to be any better or worse overall. Just different.

  8. Hmm. That datacenter is such-and-such. What’s running there; lemme check with a team.

  9. dude, that hipster PDA rocks!!!

  10. “Now I can understand the allure of all those parties and conferences that Valleywag snipes at. At dinner Iā€™m sitting by Mitch Kapor, Merlin Mann of 43 Folders, Kevin Kelly of Wired and Cool Tools fame, and Hal Varian.”

    I have no clue who any of those people are, but glad you had fun!

  11. That DC sucks for me. Unlike the 64.233 ones my site is still sandboxed for popular terms. (8 month old popular site with no “seo” tactics other than good formatting and wording).

  12. Hi All

    When somebody think he/she is smart and attempt to spam http://72.14.203.104 datacenter, then he/she deserves a five minutes of fame.

    A kind person sent me a query showing a “smart” site on top 10 . That site is showing googlebot something and vistors something else. That is against GOOG webmaster guidelines which we publishers should defend.

    Here is todays 5 minutes of fame:

    First the smart part:
    ==============================

    Travel guides – France maps, France touring guides, street maps, regional maps and guidebooks for touring holidays. Use hotel accommodation guides to find places to stay, as well as guidebooks on travel, cycling and walking.

    –>

    Useful travel guidebooks, regional maps, street maps of Paris and other French towns – France maps and France touring guides. Guides to travel, walking and cycling round France. Whether it’s a relaxing weekend in a Paris hotel or cycling round the French countryside, we’ve got the France guidebooks and travel literature for you.

    france travel, tourism, france maps – france touring guides
    France maps and guidebooks. Plan French touring holidays with maps, French travel guides, walking and cycling guides, guide books on hotel accommodation- tourism guides
    Maps, French travel guides – cycling guides, walking guide books – find French hotel accommodation with our guide to France tourism. France travel literature to plan touring holidays
    We’ve got guides to all the French maps, books and travel literature that you could need, whether it’s to plan a touring holiday in France or hotel accommodation for a weekend break in Paris. Our guide brings you the best street maps – of Paris and other major French cities – the best guidebooks for tourism, the best road maps for finding your way around the French countryside, as well as personal recollections of French holidays from people who have actually been there and used the guidebooks.
    Maps of France – this guide describes the main types of maps available. From tourism maps which are perfect for planning walking, cycling and regional touring trips round France, to street maps of Paris and other French cities and wall maps of France.
    Books on France – we have included a wide range of guidebooks in our survey including general travel guides to France, French regional touring guides, wine tasting books, travel literature, cycling guides and maps, walking guides and maps, and many more. Whether it’s a weekend break and you’re looking for hotel accommodation in Paris, or a longer holiday touring France, we’ve got the guides and books you need.
    France travel literature – guides and books to help you plan the perfect holiday in France.

    =======================================

    Then the smart site:

    http://www.france-travel.co.uk/

    ===========================

    Then the search query showing the smart site at top 10:

    http://72.14.203.104/search?hl=en&q=french+travel+guides
    see at # 4 http://www.france-travel.co.uk ???
    =============================

    As I said, never ever spam http://72.14.203.104 šŸ˜€

  13. Ok. It seems the blog has removed the tags. Here is the smart part again:

    (!–
    (h1)
    Travel guides – France maps, France touring guides, street maps, regional maps and guidebooks for touring holidays. Use hotel accommodation guides to find places to stay, as well as guidebooks on travel, cycling and walking.
    (/h1)
    –)

    (STYLE)Useful travel guidebooks, regional maps, street maps of Paris and other French towns – France maps and France touring guides. Guides to travel, walking and cycling round France. Whether it’s a relaxing weekend in a Paris hotel or cycling round the French countryside, we’ve got the France guidebooks and travel literature for you.(/STYLE)
    (NOSCRIPT)
    (H1)france travel, tourism, france maps – france touring guides(/H1)
    (H2)France maps and guidebooks. Plan French touring holidays with maps, French travel guides, walking and cycling guides, guide books on hotel accommodation- tourism guides(/H2)
    (H2)Maps, French travel guides – cycling guides, walking guide books – find French hotel accommodation with our guide to France tourism. France travel literature to plan touring holidays(/H2)
    (P) We’ve got guides to all the French maps, books and travel literature that you could need, whether it’s to plan a touring holiday in France or hotel accommodation for a weekend break in Paris. Our guide brings you the best street maps – of Paris and other major French cities – the best guidebooks for tourism, the best road maps for finding your way around the French countryside, as well as personal recollections of French holidays from people who have actually been there and used the guidebooks.
    Maps of France – this guide describes the main types of maps available. From tourism maps which are perfect for planning walking, cycling and regional touring trips round France, to street maps of Paris and other French cities and wall maps of France.
    Books on France – we have included a wide range of guidebooks in our survey including general travel guides to France, French regional touring guides, wine tasting books, travel literature, cycling guides and maps, walking guides and maps, and many more. Whether it’s a weekend break and you’re looking for hotel accommodation in Paris, or a longer holiday touring France, we’ve got the guides and books you need.
    France travel literature – guides and books to help you plan the perfect holiday in France.
    (/P)
    (/NOSCRIPT)

  14. Isn’t it Mitch Kapor founder of Lotus?
    WOW, nice team of people there.

    Your blog still has more traffic Matt.

    Looking forward to see some photos too šŸ˜‰

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