Goal Tracking Made Easy

It’s the simple things that solve real problems that have the most potential to make a difference. When I saw those little power strip savers a year or two ago, I couldn’t believe someone hadn’t thought of that years ago.

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I feel the same way about Joe’s Goals, which I read about today at Lifehacker.

Joe’s Goals is a straight forward, simple to use and seriously useful online goal tracking application. You sign up, set goals (both things to accomplish and to avoid) and track your progress. A neat feature is that you get one point for every goal you meet each day and lose a point for every one you miss. If you think in math like I do, you could average your weekly scores and create a trend line (integrated charts and trend lines would be a really cool feature for a future release).

I set up a few goals in about 2 minutes and now have a little tangible incentive to eat healthy, work hard, etc.

Check out Joe’s Goals- you’ll be glad you did.

Another One Goes Over the Wall

Mathew Ingram is reporting that Om Malik is quitting his job too (or at least going from senior writer to a contributing editor), having received some “funding” (where can I sign up for some of that?) and elected to blog full-time. Paul Kedrosky mentions this as well. Steve Rubel offers some marketing advice for Om’s new venture.

The way I figure it, anyone who can make hell freeze over can certainly make a go at blogging for a living. Like every other blog reader in the world, I read Om regularly and find him to be a thoughtful and reliable voice in an often chaotic blogosphere. In fact, I often look to Om to confirm rumors I read about first elsewhere. Credibility goes a long way in business, particularly media, and Om has plenty of it.

Best of luck to Om.

Now I’m off to see my VC guy at the corner market to see about a little funding for me. The Texas lottery is up to $17M.

Journaling Does Not a Journalist Make

At least not in the way Scoble means.

I have no doubt that a lot of bloggers got it wrong when reporting Scoble’s move. I also have no doubt that all of the blogging frenzy that went on comes with the territory when you’re popular and in the public eye.

In my semi-humble opinion, the biggest thing holding the blogging movement back today is a complete failure to reach any consensus on what a blog is and what a blog isn’t.

The fact is that blogs are many things. Fun, hard, happy, sad, serious, frivolous. The beauty of a blog is mostly in the eyes and fingers of the blog-holder.

To some, it is a podium to express their views.

To some it is a natural part of their larger purpose.

To some it is a way to explore their passions.

To some it is a living Christmas letter (and I mean no disrespect- that is a beautiful and worthy purpose).

To some it is an evolution in traditional journalism.

To some it is a way to entertain.

To some it is a way to grieve.

To some it is a way to have conversations with people about topics of mutual interest.

To many it is some combination of the above.

Granted, that is no excuse for posting irresponsibly. And it does not exempt bloggers from some of the good practices of traditional journalism.

But to say that bloggers are journalists is to miscast both the nature and the beauty of a blog.

Unless, of course, by journalist, you mean someone who keeps a journal.

That would be pretty accurate.

Life’s Sweet Wine’s too Warm to Sip

Here’s my question.

If you’re a happily married, middle aged man who likes to build things but is not big on chatting with strangers, what, exactly, do you do in Second Life after you’ve built your castle?

I can’t believe I’m about to write this, but I think I’ve lost my jones for Second Life. I have built a fine castle from scratch, with good music and lots of gadgets. Now on those rare occasions when I log onto Second Life, all I do is wander around my ghost-town of a region and ask myself “what now?”

I’m not much of a computer gamer, so the casinos hold little attraction. I’m not too interested in chatting up random strangers. I have explored about as much as I want to.

In sum, I’m bored.

Second Life is fantastic from a technological perspective and I am still sold on the business plan, primarily because of its appeal to young people. I’m just not sure what there is to do there that will keep my attention.

Any ideas?

Unless I come up with a plan, I think I’m going to bag it.

In the Wake of the Flood: What Scoble's Move Means to the Blogosphere

Dave Winer wrote today a post that is a second cousin of a post that has been rolling around inside my head since we learned that Scoble gave Microsoft the Mississippi half-step uptown toodleoo for startup Podtech.

Dave talks about how big Scoble’s presence in the blogosphere and beyond has become- and rightly so, given all the work he has done to make Microsoft relevant in the blogging/RSS space. Dave calls Scoble an “evangelist” in the Guy Kawasaki mode. Evangelist is a word that I have used with approval in a similar context that means someone with an agenda who is smart, well liked and has a strong personality. Evangelists are fishers of men and motivators of people. But sometimes, by doing what they do so well, evangelist types tend to overwhelm the systems within which they work and, while perhaps not in Scoble’s case, but definitely in others, can sometime face resistance and resentment from the coat and tie establishment. Or as I have said to colleagues, they too often are rightly loved downstream and wrongly despised upstream.

My thinking over the last couple of days is more along the lines of what Scoble’s departure tells us about corporate America and the blogging movement. I can’t help but think this is a stormy forecast for company acceptance of the blogosphere as a legitimate marketing and information distribution channel. Scoble and others have made it clear that Microsoft did right by Scoble. But if a huge tech company with billions of dollars in the bank hasn’t embraced the blogosphere enough to keep the single biggest personality in the blogosphere on its payroll, can we assume that maybe Microsoft (and likely other big companies) believes that the blogosphere is little more than an online geekfest full of people who are either already customers or not likely to become customers.

Stated another way, is the blogosphere where the customers aren’t?

Sure, there is an army of bloggers at Microsoft, but no one will deny that Scoble was the commander and chief. The successful move to keep Scoble in Redmond would have started months ago, not days or weeks, ago. I don’t know if this is just a big coincidence or tea leaves demanding to be read, but I can’t help but wonder if this isn’t more evidence of the marginalization of the blogosphere by big business.

As far as Scoble’s new gig goes, I had never heard of Podtech until the Scoble news broke- which means that he is already doing his job. I started out thinking podcasts were too hard and that nobody listened to them. Now I think they are too hard and I do one every couple of weeks. I don’t mind hard because I am interested in technology, but a whole potential podcastees do and aren’t.

Do I think podcasting will take hold in mainstream America. No, not as long as the RIAA is still circling around to make sure nobody puts anything on a podcast that mainstream America really wants to hear. But is it a growth area? Of course.

And of course I note that podcasting, unlike software, is one industry that is joined at the hip with blogging and RSS. I don’t think that’s a coincidence.

Whether he’s promoting software, podcasts, religion, apples or bass-o-matics, an evangelist’s job is to take the message to the people. I have no doubt that Scoble’s new message will soon be heard loud and clear.

It’s the other message I’m thinking about.

Scoble Leaving Microsoft?

SiliconValleyWatcher just posted an article stating that everybody’s favorite blogger and the guy who has done more to bring blogging to the mainstream than any other person is leaving Microsoft and joining Podtech.net.

I don’t know all the facts surrounding Robert’s alleged departure, but I will say that this is a huge loss for Microsoft. Scoble gave Microsoft the sort of blogosphere credibility and influence that simply cannot be replaced at any price.

Since I am sure Microsoft knows that, I have to wonder what this tells us about Microsoft’s view of the relevance and future of blogging?

I wish Scoble the best at his new gig.

As a shareholder, I wish Microsoft had stepped up to the plate and done whatever was needed to keep Scoble in the fold. Instead, Microsoft may have stumbled into another PR mess and certainly just became less relevant in the blogosphere.

Why Google Seems Desperate

It has zero to do with anything it has or hasn’t done in China, notwithstanding the protestations of those naive souls who believe Google can force political change merely by denying itself access to billions of Chinese who’d rather have some Google than no Google. The China thing is a PR problem for Google, nothing more.

It’s because Google and, more importantly the perception of Google, is slowly but surely moving from the backbone of the internet to a spam enabling pox on the internet. From a one-stop shop to a semi-glorified ad network. Mix in a little (or a lot, actually) of insider stock sales and you end up with one very big question mark.

Seth Jayson over at the pop-up ad loving Motley Fool has a very thoughtful article about the challenges that face Google as it tries to justify its valuation- both stock price wise and perception wise.

Google’s problems all originate from one fact: Google became the best in the world at something no one will pay for- search. It’s like being the world’s greatest aeroball player, except without the benefit of the ESPNs.

Once it became necessary to actually make a little money, all Google had to work with was a ton of eyeballs. It’s understandable that Google would become an ad network by necessity, though it’s also a little sad to watch it toss out one free thing after another in an effort to acquire and retain eyeballs. Microsoft, for all of its internet-related failures, has a ton of actual products that people buy. The fact that Microsoft, with its half-hearted efforts, is still in the internet game with all the young upstarts tells you all you need to know to separate the real businesses from the disguised ones.

Meanwhile, all the Google stuff that is free to us is costing Google a fortune. It takes a lot of clicking on a lot of ads to pay for all that stuff.

Google has keyword sales that it can combine with the traffic generated by its search dominance, so it is not without advantages. But it’s still a short play in a long game.

And that’s why Google is struggling.

The MPAA, the Dead and Web 2.0

Absolute truths have a way of getting less absolute when the distant worlds of art and business collide.

Which I why I read something this morning that I both agree with strongly and disagree with strongly. Add to that the fact that it was said by a man I generally disagree with to the man who wrote the song I named my oldest daughter after and who has been cool enough to email Cassidy now and again over the years just to see how she’s doing- and it gets very confusing.

Techdirt reports on and links to an exchange between Dan Glickman of the MPAA and John Perry Barlow, of EFF and Grateful Dead fame.

In what Mike at Techdirt accurately calls a bizarre exchange, Glickman and Barlow talked about the entertainment industry.

sand-794348 Barlow starts out by saying, again correctly, that the movie industry will eventually adopt to the new information age (and the new distribution and pricing methods that are the backbone thereof). The only question is how long will it resist the inevitable and how much damage will it do to itself in the meantime.

Glickman responds with the same old line about paying the people to produce the work or you won’t ever get any work to watch, etc., etc.

Barlow points out that he made a lot of money writing songs for the Dead, who as we all know have always allowed people to record and share their shows.

What is lost on Glickman is the fact that if not for all those concert recordings, there would be a lot less Dead music to be had by new fans and the Dead would be less relevant today. By allowing recording and tape trading, the Dead made it easier to become a Dead fan, which made it easier to keep selling records, which made it easier to keep touring to packed houses. And on and on.

Glickman’s problem is that someone moved the movie industry’s cheese and they hired him to frantically search for it. All the futile searching prevents him from seeing that making those recordings available did as much or more for the Dead as it did for the fans.

Then it comes. Glickman makes a statement that I believe it totally wrong in the context of music and movies, yet it is one of my themes with respect to Web 2.0:

“It is ridiculous to believe that you can give product away for free and be more successful.”

So, either I am wrong about art or wrong about Web 2.0 or there is a way to distinguish the two. Let’s think about this for a minute.

Something Glickman said later keeps rolling around inside my head:

“[P]eople who create content for movies and television have to make a profit. If they don’t you won’t see all this wonderful stuff and listen to it.”

I think the difference is that in art, you can give away some of your art and make more money by selling more of your other art. John Perry makes money not only from royalties on record sales, but also on performance royalties, sheet music and other revenue generated from his songs. By allowing all of those concert recordings, the Dead managed to increase and maintain its fan base and mindshare- and to increase the sales of its records through traditional channels. It’s no coincidence that the Dead has released so many of their “from the vaults” recordings over the years. A lot of those records that “went platinum sooner or later,” would not have if not for tape trading.

It’s not unlike those “SE” (for Special Edition- which in computer lingo means watered down) versions of software you get when you buy a new computer or camera. They work fine, but the manufacturers know that if you like it, you’ll eventually buy the full version.

But what about Web 2.0?

I think what separates a lot of these Web 2.0 applications from music and movies and software is that they have nothing else to sell. Some of them, like Box.net, give away some stuff for free to attract users who may then buy more stuff. That is a tried and true business plan.

But many others give away everything they have to offer in a belief that if they can get enough eyeballs on their site, advertisers will pay to bombard those eyeballs with ads. It may work for the mega-sites like Digg and MySpace, but it takes a whole lot of eyeballs to generate enough revenue to run a company. Beer money, yes. Companies, no.

Not to mention the fact that I have never once clicked on an online ad on any site I didn’t own, and neither had any of the 10 or so people I asked in connection with a another post I wrote a few weeks ago.

The point that I would have made had I awoken to the nightmare of Glickman’s job is that unlike bands who all share in the revenue for all their projects, each movie is a one-off deal. The fact that the next movie makes a lot of money does nothing for the investors in this movie.

Regardless, the bottom line as far as movies go is that Barlow is right- the train has left the station and there are millions of young people out there who are going to force the movie industry to play it their way.

The only question is how long it will take Hollywood to face it.

Steve Gillmor’s Self Fulfilling Prophecy

troll-766659 Steve Gillmor can’t even go two sentences without insulting those who dare to disagree with him:

“Note: trolls should already be moving down to the comment section or, more wisely, clicking off to less elitest and more page-view oriented material elsewhere on the Net.”

Of course, Steve won’t engage anyone, other then his hand picked worthies, in any sort of discussion about the various topics he whines and cries about. He seems content to write about his little cadre of pals and continually call the unworthies who have different opinions “trolls.”

Here’s a good way to build trolls: toss out new and occasionally radical ideas, refuse to engage anyone outside the fanclub in anything resembling a discussion and the call those who express their disagreement names. Ask for trolls and trolls you shall get.

Dave Winer had this to say. I’m sure Dave and Steve are pals and I expect Dave is just busting his chops. But truth lies beneath many a jest.

The difference between Steve and Dave is that if Dave thinks you’re wrong, he’ll engage you and tell you why. That’s all a conversationalist can ask.

Richard Querin on Photography

Richard has written the first post in a series that looks like the one I have been waiting for.

I understand what aperture, shutter speed and ISO are, and I am starting to figure out by trial and error how to combine them. Currently, I shoot almost all of my pictures in “shutter priority” mode, via which I constantly change the shutter speed and the ISO and let the camera automatically set the aperture. I have no earthly idea if that is what I should be doing, but that’s where I am at the moment.

What I really want to learn is how to look at a scene (day, night, light, dark, close, far, moving, slow, etc.) and know how to set the values to get the sort of look I am going for. I suspect that when Richard or Thomas Hawk or Darren Rowse see something they want to shoot, they know almost immediately what the settings should be for the desired effect. I want to get to that point eventually.

I’m looking forward to Richard’s series.