The PubSub Matchbox
"Making the Most of the Matching Engine"

Today is International Women’s Day. What are bloggers writing about?

Gnomedex will be held this year in Seattle. If you look at the bottom of the front page, you’ll see a PubSub subscription for the event. The best way to keep track of the event as it unfolds? Why PubSub, of course.

The glitz and glamour of the Oscars were in rare form last night. Here at PubSub headquarters, we were busy counting up the mentions of the nominees over the past 3 weeks in the millions of weblogs, news resources, and press releases (I’ll call them the big three) that we monitor. While the numbers of posts to these media is not a good indicator of how a selective few will choose the “best” in either category, we thought that the numbers were intriguing. The Oscar winners are displayed in red and the highest mentions in blue (if they weren’t the winner).

Motion Picture

The Aviator: 1163
Finding Neverland: 575
Million Dollar Baby: 1437
Ray: 741
Sideways: 1077

Director

Martin Scorsese: 399
Clint Eastwood: 811
Taylor Hackford: 101
Alexander Payne: 127
Mike Leigh: 139

Actor - Leading Role

Don Cheadle: 271
Johnny Depp: 673
Leonardo DiCaprio: 382
Clint Eastwood: 811
Jamie Foxx: 665

Actor - Supporting Role

Alan Alda: 148
Thomas Haden Church: 149
Jamie Foxx: 665
Morgan Freeman: 388
Clive Owen: 257

Actress - Leading Role

Annette Bening: 117
Catalina Sandino Moreno: 100
Imelda Staunton: 167
Kate Winslet: 325
Hilary Swank: 412

Actress - Supporting Role

Cate Blanchett: 261
Laura Linney: 121
Virginia Madsen: 187
Sophie Okonedo: 97
Natalie Portman: 416

3 out of the 6 winners led in mentions in “The Big Three” over the past 3 weeks. Again, this is by no means a scientific endeavor, just a bit of fun unscientific collective intelligence testing.

An aside: Jamie Foxx probably had more mentions in best supporting actor category because we didn’t distinguish it from his portrayal as Ray, in which he won the Oscar for best actor (doing so would have skewed the results). That said, even though Foxx received that award, he didn’t beat out Clint Eastwood and Johnny Depp in mentions in “The Big Three” for that category. Go figure.

This morning, we went live with a new event page for the Academy Awards.

We have created nomination subscriptions in many of the Oscar categories. There are graphs for data we call “Match Counts", which displays the number of daily results for a particular nomination as it relates to the other nominations in that category.

You will also notice the green “+” icon which will automatically add that subscription to your PubSub account.

The news spreads around the blog world at a fast pace. Here are some of the topics which we picked up on today.

1) The Senate voted on a new bill that would limit class-action lawsuits in state courts.

2) Karl Malone is retiring from the NBA, without that coveted championship ring.

3) Arthur Miller died yesterday at the age of 89. Arthur Miller was the focus of our subscription of the day.

4) Jeff Gannon is really James D. Guckert.

5) The NHL season is (almost) officially cancelled.

6) Google seems to have offered to host some of the content from Wikimedia.

PubSub Concepts, Inc. (pubsub.com) needs a strong PHP/Javascript developer to maintain and expand our website. This is a technical position rather than a design position.

The PubSub website acts as an interface between users and our software back-end. The website does not perform the actual matching service, but does provide a means of interacting with it as far as creating and manging subscriptions. Much of this work is XML based, so you’ll need to do more than just interact with a database (although there’s plenty of that as well). Since PubSub is a service, there are also many opportunities to build applications that communicate with the website.

This is where Javascript comes into the picture. You should be familiar with making HTTP requests through Javascript, and with creating a rich user experience around them.

In other words, client-side programming skills are just as important as server-side programming skills. Please only send us a resume if you know and understand both and can provide samples of past work.

We’re looking for the following skills and abilities:

• Strong knowledge of HTML, including the ability to hand-code pages
• Strong knowledge of design and layout, both using advanced and traditional techniques
• Extensive PHP knowledge. You should be at a level where you can install and update PHP from sources
• Extensive Javascript knowledge.
• String general coding skills, including any non-php languages
• The ability to separate content from functionality and business logic
• Some database management ability - at least familiarity with creating and modifying tables

The following would also be helpful:

• Familiarity with or knowledge of Linux Knowledge of other scripting languages like perl, bash or python
• Knowledge of Flash

PubSub is located in lower Manhattan. This is a full time position. We cannot sponsor visas or relocation.

Please send your resume as text to jobs@pubsub.com.

What’s piquing your interest today? There is alot of news floating around the blogosphere today. These are just a few that we have seen:

1) North Korea has Nucleur Weapons
2) Mark Jen
3) Prince Charles and Camilla Parker Bowles

Of course, these are only some examples. You can create your own as well.

The blog world is talking about Carly Fiorina today (that’s the subscription of the day). Also in the news: Jose Conseco, Eason Jordan, and the bidding war for about.com.

The starting players for the 2005 NBA All Star Game were announced last week. Yesterday, the reserves were added to the list. Here they are, with links to their subscriptions.

East - Starters

LeBron James
Allen Iverson
Grant Hill
Vince Carter
Shaquille O’Neal

East - Reserves

Dwyane Wade
Gilbert Arenas
Paul Pierce
Antawn Jamison
Jermaine O’Neal
Ben Wallace
Zydrunas Ilgauskas

Coach: Stan Van Gundy

West - Starters

Kobe Bryant
Tracy McGrady
Kevin Garnett
Tim Duncan
Yao Ming

West - Reserves

Steve Nash
Ray Allen
Manu Ginobili
Dirk Nowitzki
Shawn Marion
Amare Stoudemire
Rashard Lewis

Coach: Gregg Popovich

There are lots of stories coming out of the news and blogosphere today. Here are a few of the stories that have been creating quite the discussion.

1) Israeli/Palestinian Peace Talks
2) 2006 Budget
3) Google Maps
4) Bloglines bought by Ask Jeeves
5) Game Developers Conference
6) Social Security Reform

Remember, you can create your own personalized subscriptions as well. Be the first to know.

This morning, PubSub went live with our new feature: Earthquake notifications. From the press release:

“A simple new notification system launched today giving consumers and technology developers easier and more immediate access to time-critical data on global earthquake and tsunami activity.

“Seismological activity from the USGS is published in an archaic technical format that’s inaccessible both to the average person and to technology developers using modern programming tools. This older format has made it difficult to quickly distribute relevant USGS information through consumer- friendly mediums like the Web, email or wireless phones,” said Bob Wyman, chief technology officer of PubSub Concepts, Inc.

“We realized our Internet-scale matching and notification system was ideal for making this critical data more easily and quickly available to the average person. So we’ve developed a system to translate the USGS technical feed into XML – the standard language of the Web,” he said.”

Sunday is the big day. Super Bowl XXXIX takes place between the Philadelphia Eagles and the New England Patriots. Many questions will be answered. Which coach will prevail, Bill Belichek or Andy Reid? Will Terrell’s leg hold up? Will Donovan McNabb run through the tough defense of the Patriots, or will Tom Brady pass his way to another Super Bowl victory?

Stay tuned into all the buzz this weekend, from pre-game commentary to the post-game analysis. Direct to you, in real time, from the news and the blogosphere.

PubSub just passed 8 Million weblogs that we ping, track, and match to your queries in real time. That makes us the quickest tracker of the most weblogs out there. Have you PubSub’d lately?

Have you bought your Mac Mini yet? Not sure if you want one? Keep up with the buzz with our subscription of the day.

Mother nature is showing her face in California this week with rain, snow, and landslides. To keep up with the weather, check out our subscription of the day.

What happened to LinkRanks over the last few days? A lot of people have noticed their LinkRank jump by a huge number in one direction or the other recently, and we’ve gotten a number of questions about it.

Here’s what happened:

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