Christopher Herot's Weblog

Yule Log, Now in HD

If you grew up in the New York area, you are probably familiar with the WPIX Yule Log.  This 7 minute loop of a log burning in a fireplace ran at Christmas on channel 11 from 1966 to 1989.  Now it's back, on the web and in HDTV (WPIX-DT ch 12).

Alessandra Stanley wrote about it in today's New York Times, including a few facts not on the official web site, such as the reshoot of the original at Gracie Mansion needed to be redone elsewhere after the film crew set an Oriental Rug on fire.

She also observes that the video is a "Dadaist joke: television as the hearth, not just metaphorically but literally."

Robin Good Interview

Robin Good did a nice writeup on ASAP 2.0 on his site and included a 15 minute interview he did with me on Thursday.

ASAP 2.0

For the past 10 months, the team at Convoq has been working on ASAP version 2.0, which was turned up on Sunday, December 5.  This release incorporate a number of improvements requested by our customers, such as more powerful meeting scheduling, presentation management, custom branding, and a web services API.  We also used the opportunity of this new release to add an innovative new feature we call ASAP Links.  This feature allows an ASAP user to create an icon that displays his or her instantanous presence, and allows a visitor to click on that link to request an ASAP meeting.  This link can be placed anywhere that accepts HTML, such as a blog (see the icon under my picture at the top right of this page), web page, or email signature.  Links can also be created for ASAP Lifelines - a way to reach  someone in a predefined group, such as sales or tech support.

ASAP Links allow the Web to me more of a two way medium, allowing people who come to a blog or web site to get in touch with the author, or request help, or talk to a sales rep.

You can try ASAP for free at www.convoq.com.

MSN Spaces

Microsoft is introducing their blog service, MSN Spaces, in the US.  It is very rudimentary, but does integrate nicely with all the other Microsoft tools and will undoubtably bring blogging closer to the mass market.

You can check out my (rudimentary) space at http://spaces.msn.com/members/cherot/ .