Test Driving Edgeio & Help.com

I was introduced to Edgeio while it was in Beta and got an early preview into it’s potential upside – at least in concept. TechCrunch does a good job summarizing the higher level concept around this service.

The idea is that as publishing (blogs), and the ability to distribute published content (rss, tags) falls more in the hands of the user the need for “centralized” services like Craigslist or eBay are no longer necessary. Simply put, to list an item on eBay, Craigslist, or another classifieds service, I ‘should’ be able to post the item in my blog, tag it appropriately, and allow these services to pick up my post and compete for the sale. Per TechCrunch, services need to focus on pulling data from the edges (user’s blogs), as opposed to the center (eBay) – hence the name Edgeio. Is this too 2.0 kool-aid?

Erik Kokkonen, dept head at CNET Networks, recently launched a new site uniquely poised to rival Edgeio – Help.com. Help.com is premised on connecting user’s questions with answers (blog posts that address the user’s question). This naturally extends to classifieds.

Julie and I are purging old bikes so I will take this for a spin later today. I will set up a blog post, tag it appropriately, and let it fly on both sites.

Update –So I set up a new blog “Listings & Reviews” — Yahoo’s integration of WP is fantastic — specifically for testing out these aggregation services. Having some problems with Help.com accepting my rss feed though all seems to be working well with Edgeio

Worse-than-Baylor

Was the chant streaming from the UT student section last night. And given the way KU performed it should not come as a surprise. In reading the post game comments it simply sounds like young Hawks were overwhelmed with the entire experience – the hype leading up to the game, conference title hopes on the line, and the GameDay atmosphere.

It will be interesting to see how they respond with games against CU in Lawrence and the season closer in Manhattan. In response to KU’s dominance in Manhattan, apparently the k-state students are printing “No one beats us 40 times in our house” t-shirts. Classic.

Why KU will trump Texas

Yet another biased fan’s musings about the biggest game of the year for KU as the take on Texas for the conference title.

IMO…the key to KU winning tonight involves exposing the UT zone and hawkish – no pun — D. Here are a number of ways to accomplish this but let’s not forget that it was the k-state zone that lead to the debacle in Lawrence. Here are few –

• Penetrating guard play — the three freshman guards are primed to penetrate and dish. The key here will be for Russ Rob to finish when he has the chance.
• Rush being Rush — pick up your 12 – 16 — we don’t need a game of the year type performance. And yes, Tucker’s double/double will not win the game for Texas. He will get his. Where was Rush tonight…..
  
• Giles and Jackson being aggressive on the defensive end in their own unique ways. Forcing Barnes to play his bench could be key Barnes found major point productiion from his guards coming off the bench.
• Fluster Gibson and Paulino early and often — our defensive numbers speak for themselves let’s hope this is uncharacteristic
• Transition game – consistently beating Texas up the court won’t prevent UT from setting up in their zone and will force Barnes to look to his bench.
• House favorite Julian Wright….his unorthodox, freakish like game will cause major problems for Texas. Coming off his first 20 point performance, he is gaining confidence and playing like the preseason conference freshman of year. Damn he is fun to watch play. Let’s just hope he doesn’t try to do too much.

Anyway…here’s to two or three of these panning out and the turnaround story of the season unfolds. KU wins by 3, picks up a much needed signature win, and Self locks up COY honors.

Soul Check

I am guessing if you came here to read a basketball post you were expecting my two-cents on the big game tonight. No…..maybe later…..but this story trumps all. This will resonate with those who have a soul. And if you still unsure if your soul exists…this may be a good barometer. Storyline:

• Piece features an autistic high school student who is also the basketball team manager
• Enthusiastic supporter of the team and cherishes his roll
• For the last game of the season, the coach opts to let him suit up but with little intention of playing him
• With the game in hand and four minutes remaining the coach rolls the dice and puts him in. Watch for the coach’s nervous reaction once he makes the decision to play the student.
• The manager turned player is quickly fed the ball and misses badly.
• Players, wanting him to see his name in the box score, feed him a second time…and he misses again
• Then…the stars align…..

Check it out –

KUBB Factoids

As we gear up for the big game in Austin this weekend, I thought I would share some KUBB facts.

1. 0 – 30: the Big XII South’s record in Allen. As mentioned on the KUSports.com’s podcast – since inception, no Big XII South team has won in Allen Fieldhouse. This includes rivals from the former Big 8 OU and Okie St.

1. Defensive Superiority – Could this year’s KU team be one of the best defenses in the country? And I am not referring to the 2005-2006 season, but over the last three seasons. From our friends over at PhogBlog here is how KU current defensive percentage ranks amoung the best of season’s past:

TEAM	YEAR	RATING
Kansas	2006	79.8
Louisville	2004	81.9
Pittsburgh	2004	81.9
Washington St.	2005	82.5
Duke	2005	82.9
Connecticut	2004	83.0
Duke	2004	83.5
Iowa	2006	83.7
Georgia Tech	2004	83.7
Villanova	2005	83.8

Notice the gap between the 2006 Jayhawks to date and RObert’s NIT bound Cards relative to the rest of the field.

1. ESPN showing the Wheel some love. All KU alums have fond memories of Lawrence’s version of the classic college town bar – the Wheel. Every true college town has a bar that has been a staple for generations of students and alums. Catch this recap of last night’s game against Baylor for the reference.

Rock Chalk…..

mizzou Whacked…

As referenced by what is becoming my morning coffee of websites – Phog Blog referenced what will be a classic UDK piece: Dear Mizzou, you owe me $5.. As usual….here is a teaser:

Now, I’m an understanding guy, Mizzou. I know you’ve had a rough couple of weeks. After the mighty Baylor Bears took you out to the woodshed, Gary Link, one of your radio announcers, fired your head coach — a job responsibility I didn’t know radio announcers had. For Kansas’ sake, let’s hope Bill Self doesn’t make any jokes about Max Falkenstien any time soon.

Now who would accuse this of being over-served?

In case you have not heard, the controversial Stanford tree mascot — yes, the same tree that was banned from ESPN’s mascot tourney a few years ago- – was recently suspended for a series of alcohol related incidents. This is classic. Here’s the capper:

“I’m so fucking burnt out,” Lashnits said. “I have shin splints that are killing me and my costume got torn up and destroyed against Washington when Sixth Man stormed the court. The only things I’m missing are two home basketball games which really aren’t that big of a deal to me. I’m not that big of a sports fan.”

You go tree….

Don’t believe the hype

With all the buzz surrounding signing day last Thrusday, SI has a great piece that looks at the top recruiting classes 99 – 03 and, now in hindsight who was truly the most productive class. It will come as a surprise to none that Texas’s 2002 class with standouts including Aaron Harris, David Thomas, Rod Wright, and some quarterback from Houston was the only one that was rated #1 at that time and proved to be the best class.

Check it out…