Okay this may sound very pompous and self congratulatory, but this is the first time I have quantifiable information that people actually *read* what I write. Whew! A little while ago, I wrote, BlinkX BlinkX. The Guardian has followed up with a story, which shows some of the blog-network effect. Here is the gist of the story: Kathy Rittweger of BlinkX left Business 2.0 office at noon, thinking the meeting had gone quite badly. Trust me, it went well, for I am far obnoxious that what KR experienced. I blogged about them at 12.40 pm,
The blog was posted on a Friday, and by the Monday there were 5,000 links to it and people were discussing it all over the world. Since then, there have been 130,000 direct downloads, and many more through users swapping files. This week, the site – which is only launched today – has been recording 6m links or hits a day solely from word-of-mouth publicity.
And if that was not enough, BlinkX took my advise (people actually listen to me…amazing!!!)
It also searches blogs. This function has just been added because Malik suggested it would be a good thing to do. “I didn’t appreciate the significance until he wrote the article and then I thought, ‘Right, I get it’,” she said disarmingly. Blinkx can also search digital TV on the internet, which, in practice, means video output from the BBC. Why? “Because the BBC posts its digital TV free on the internet.”
Also, the story is guardian got picked up by Slashdot (http://www.slashdot.org).
W-o-w. So that’s how widely read and how influential this blog is. The competition against Google is getting legs because of the posting… not to mention an additional product functionality. Does this qualify as another instance of outsourced Indian development?
hugh – you are just too kind! I am sure life is treating you well
Have been looking at this for a couple of days. Reminds me of a free tool from Autonomy (Cambridge based software firm) called Kinjan that was sadly “killed”when I upgraded to WindowsXP.
Just one question how do they intend to make money, is this some form of spyware that collects my data and sells it on? I don’t use a loyality card here in the UK because I discovered that Tesco Stores makes more money selling trend data to its suppliers about its customers than it does selling to the customers!
well some of their technology was from autonomy. and no i don’t think there is any spyware in this. they have the ad model which is like the one with google. same textual ad serving technology. the whole fear of spyware has been blown out of proportion by people who have not even tried the product it seems
I read that very same article (paper version) on the train to work yesterday. I went “Holy Smoke, I know that guy!”
Heh.
Om,
Kudos! Great Johb! Give Om a raise
Om is not only ahead of some of the journalists that write for Forthune but I find some of his work is duplicated by the writers at Fortnue. For e.g. the Cisco story on the latest Fortune is for the most part a revision of Om’s article in Business 2.0.
NOTE TO FOERTUN?E EDITO?RS” Please say yourselves the embarrasment of recommending stock on a week that a coompany likeNokia releases earnings. I felt I did not get the value for my money when I read that article. I feel bad for writer but he should let the sell siders and the Cramers;s of the world cover stocls ot names in street paralance
Sorry for the typos in the early blog. I am sleepy. do my best to do away fromn typos during my next post
Hey Om,
That’s funny about the blog search function. I interviewed Kathy and Suranga for Technology Review a month before you did, on June 14, and told them at that time that they ought to include a button for blogs on the Blinkx search bar. They said that sounded like a great idea. I was tickled when the giant Blinkx billboard that later appeared on 101 North in San Francisco included “blogs” among the file types that Blinkx searchs.
It was the one and only time that something I said found its way into a piece of commercial software. But apparently success has many fathers.