Wil Wheaton led the afternoon off with a bit of reading from his books, on the spot discussion, and some questions and answers. I won't try to relay the stories he told, but some of the stories are really really damned funny. I was skeptical of getting his books for some reason, but now I'm probably going to end up reading them.
After the talk, Wil sold and signed books after his talk. He sold out quickly and had a massive line of folks waiting to talk to him and get an autograph.
"The future of on-line advertising" was the topic of the afternoon panel discussion was led by Dave McClure from PayPal. Google on the issue of text vs. graphic ads says that "it's all about the targeting." Apparently the CTR is identical on text vs. graphic ads. Hmm.
Though the panel was composed of smart folks who know a fair amount about on-line advertising, I found it fairly uninteresting. I don't know if it's that we were mostly hearing things we already know, the fact that AdSense has no real competition, or the that the Google guy wouldn't really tell us anything. But it just didn't do much for me.
Posted by jzawodn at October 04, 2004 12:37 AM
I don't get why Wesley Crusher is such a draw at geek get-togethers. He's not a techie nor industry professional, and almost all geeks claim to have hated him profusely on Star Trek. WTF?
I agree...Id much rather see Counselor Troy or Capt. Picard than lil ol Henson Crusher....hehehehe
Wesley Crusher was a character on Star Trek.
Wil Wheaton is, well, just a guy, you know?
There's a difference.
Al:
Listen to the audio stream when it's on-line. Maybe then you'll understand why we enjoyed listening to him.
Wil Wheaton is something many people aren't - himself, genuine, and honest.
As an actor on TNG, he did the thing that actors do. You know? Act?
In fact, if you identify him so well with his screen role of Wesley Crusher, than he was a *damn good* actor!
But he is a better geek, he uses Linux now, groks all the stuff we do, and is an overall nice guy.
And he writes *really* well.
Is the CTR on 5 Textlinks combined (a good skyscraper) as good as on one Skyscraper or is one Text as good as the Image Skyscraper? It has to be sky versus sky because otherwise I don't get how they make more money with them because the conversion afterwards is likely not higher. If it isn't then they are going into the branding business which would be a big story.
As for competition, depends on what your measurements are.
As an actor on TNG, he did the thing that actors do. You know? Act?
Ah, no. Wesley was mostly just really annoying. And every actor puts some of themself into every role they play. It's funny though - I didn't find him THAT annoying, but all the geeks I knew foamed at the mouth about that character they hated him so much. Now that Wil has been cashing in on his Star Trek fame (come on, what else is he known for - his so-so role in Stand By Me, or the freak with the weird face in the white room in that HBO movie?), the same geeks have a rather short memory. Not that I care, but I find the 180 change in position laughable.
In fact, if you identify him so well with his screen role of Wesley Crusher, than he was a *damn good* actor!
Right. So based on the same logic we can assume you think that Arnold Schwarzenegger is a *damn good* actor since everybody identifies him with the Terminator. Or Jim Carrey with talking out of his ass.
Wil is a geek, just like the rest of us. He built his own web site from scratch, learning PHP, CSS, and HTML from books when he outgrew Geocities. Now he runs Linux and does a lot of his own admin stuff.
If that's not a geek...
He isn't Wesley Crusher. He didn't write the lines. He said them. If you don't like the character, why would you get pissed at him? He did a fine job acting them, but he didn't choose them.
Trolls. :-p
So what? George W. Bush has a web site too. Lefties (which Wesley is) are so inconsistant in their explanations.
The character of Wesley being annoying isn't exactly his fault. He didn't write the scenes for his character...he just did what they told him to do. It's like shooting the mailman for delivering you a bill.
