WebGuild web 2.0

went to the WebGuild Web 2.0 conference yesterday. twas very educational. I learned just what AJAX was good for (no it's not the scrubbing cleaning product). apparently it allows you to change things on your webpage and you don't have to refresh to see the results. therefore you can click and drag things around on the screen and watch it change. however, search engines can't read things written in ajax. also, i learn that other geeky acronyms like json. which in my notes i wrote "jason" until i figured it out. haha.

other things i learned:
i didn't know sooooo many people are concerned with search results. apparently whole companies exist to teach you how to maximize your company's results on a search site. people devoted their whole careers to this field also.
-names of your website are important (unless you just want to brand, you need to incorporate key words indicating usage on your webpage. "wireless networks" will have much more exposure than "fill-in-the-blank-name networks" .
-google's homepage started out so simple because the inventor just wanted to test search and didn't want to bother with making a fancy homepage.
-google has a magic triangle (eyeballs all cluster towards the top left of search results)
-perceived relevancy can affect the triangle (if you think the site has more relevant results, it doesn't matter if it really is or not - you will still only look at the top 3-4 results)
-in the future, search results may be customized per person based on ranking
-previous searches are more important in profiling a person on the internet than typical age, gender, race profiles.


after the conference i met up with my bro jon at Santana Row to see the penthouses. not really impressed i have to say. they used nice materials for some things but the carpets were like that of an office building and the apts were not that large. after we had a couple samosas and ate a few blueberry tarts, we (me, elaine, vy, jon, and byong) all went to eat at Blowfish. it's been years since i've been there. tried blue nose oysters for the first time (not bad, loved the green little caviar eggs that went on top), the tartar pyramid (thought of sab since that's her fav), toro, and various sushi rolls. all in all the food is not bad, but still a rip off with how much they charge. my fav sushi joint is still ray's sushi way out in hayward. random place i know...

i'm so tired today....TGIF