Next Generation Shopping

A great tip I picked up at the Sitemaps & URL Submission session yesterday was that webmasters now have an easier way to submit their sitemap files.

Sitemaps can be discovered automatically by utilizing the Robots.txt file. Currently, this is supported by Google and Yahoo!, with MSN and Ask.com to support it shortly. Pretty cool.  However, when I asked the Google spokesperson “If you add a sitemaps file via the Robots.txt will it automatically appear in my Google Webmaster area?”  The answer was No.  If you wish to see the sitemap file appear in your Google or Yahoo Webmaster account you must add it in the Webmaster area first.

[Entry related to the Sitemaps & URL Submission session held at Search Engine Strategies 2007 NYC.]

Yup, Facebook launched an API to the public yesterday. You can see more information and a list of calls to their database on their documentation page. TechCrunch and ProgrammableWeb both have coverage on it. There is already a Mashup created that was put together in 2 hours by the developer. It is called Facebook Friend Mapper, and guess what, you can see your friends as they are geographically located on Google Maps.

I tried it out quickly, and it is pretty interesting. As you can see from the screenshot below, most of my Facebook friends originate from the East Coast.

We’ll soon see what other developers come up with.

Technorati Tags: Facebook, Facebook API, Facebook mashup, mashups, web 2.0

This month’s Wordpress meetup is coming up this Saturday. Topics will include WP Plugins and WP Themes. All Wordpress users or enthusiasts are welcome.

When:

Saturday, August 19, 2006, 4:00 PM

Where:

Starbucks
600 8th Avenue
New York , NY 10018
(212) 997-7337

See here for Signup and more information. Hope to see some new faces there.

Technorati Tags: Wordpress, blogging, meetup, nyc, new york city

My brother has put together a Wordpress “Meetup” group for the New York City area. The first official meet-up is scheduled for July 15th. Basically it will be a casual gathering of WordPress users of any experience to share WordPress knowledge, chat, network, and grab some food and drinks!

If you are interested, you can find out more information here at the WordPress Meetup Page. I’ll be at the Meetup, coming back fresh from Mashup Camp 2. Anyone wanting to discuss e-commerce/shopping-industry or mashup related topics are welcome to come join us as well.

Full information below:

Original post on DisconnectTheDots here.

Technorati Tags: WordPress, bloggers, meetup, nyc, new york city, web development, mashup, ecommerce, blogging

Off Topic for this site… but seems to be big news today…

For those who haven’t heard yet today, there is speculation that Yahoo is to buy Digg for over $30 Million…  Sources are Jeremy Burton and Kevin Burton (Mashable.com)…  Kevin Rose (of Digg) of course denies any of these rumors.

Will the madness ever stop?

Have you heard of AlexaDex?  This doesn’t exactly have to do with online shopping, but I thought it was a notable site utilizing Amazon Web Services.  Similiar in idea to Smarkets this is a stock market like environment where you can buy and sell shares.  The difference is that you can buy and sell shares of web sites rather than Amazon products.  Instead of the Amazon ECS it uses Alexa web services.

It’s really very addicting… So on second thought, don’t check it out if you are easily addicted to simple online games!

Technorati Tags: Amazon, Web Services, Smarkets, Alexa