Category: Tech

Swivel Feeds, Group 2

This is an update on my swivel feeds experiment, in which I ask bloggers I read to help me rebuild my reading list.

Here are the swivel feeds recommendations so far from the first group.  Note that, when possible, I designate blogs by the name of the blogger, because I like to know who I’m talking to.

Anne Zelinka
Ballastexistenz
Bob Meets World
Bonnie Staring
Chris Brogan
David Rothman
Deborah Schultz
Engtech Lite
f8d
Heise Security
Hilary Talbot
Ian Forrester
IT|Redux
J.A. Konrath
John Tropea
Les Orchard
New Scientist
Nick O’Neill
Phydeaux3
Quasi Fictional
Reg Braithwaite
Robert Andrews
The Struggling Writer
Tresblue
Tricks of the Trade

 

Participants Blonde 2.0, Mike Miller, Amyloo, Assaf Arkin and Improbulus round out the first edition of my new reading list.

So far, we are off to a good start.  I have subscribed to all of the recommended blogs, and all of them are new to me.

No suggestions yet from A Consuming Experience, Amy Gahran, Amyloo, Assaf Arkin, Ben Metcalfe or Ben Werdmuller, but there’s plenty of time to get them in.

Now for the next 8 bloggers (whose additions will be listed in the next update):

Bill Liversidge: Bill is a writer, like several of the swivel feeds recommendations above.  I have been reading his blog for a long time, though he does not post as much as he used to.  I hope he sees this.

Brad Kellett: One of my core blogging pals.  He’s one of my mobile tech gurus, though he writes well about a lot of other topics too.

Chip Camden: Another of my core blogging buddies.  He’s a software developer who, like me, blogs about all sorts of things.  One of my long-time reads.

Christopher Carfi:  Chris is an entrepreneur, and the co-founder of Cerado.  I’ve been reading his blog since I found out what blogs were.

Claus Valca: Another Houston blogger, who writes detailed and very informative posts about software, among other topics.

Corey Clayton: A relatively new read who I met via Twitter.  He’s a tech writer and a podcaster.

Craig Newmark: The founder of Craigslist needs no introduction.  The first time he commented here, I actually called my wife from work and told her.  That’s the only thing about this blog she actually thinks is cool, as opposed to, well, nerdy.  I enjoy Craig’s political and social activism posts.

Dave Rogers:  Dave is a retired navy commander from Florida, whose blog I have read for a year or two.  He writes well about all sorts of stuff.

That’s the second group of bloggers I’m asking to help rebuild my reading list.  If you’re willing, please give me 5 recommendations to add to the list.  Use the comments, your blog or email, whichever you prefer.

My Header Hurts, My Feed Stinks and I Don’t Love MySpace

myspace

We’ve been talking a lot about social networks lately.  I’ve said many times that I don’t get MySpace.  A few folks have tried to explain it to me.  Nevertheless, when I look at MySpace, I still see the worst of ugly Geocities and walled-off AOL all rolled into one.  It’s worse than Prodigy.  It’s GEnie on crack.

It’s a gallery of bad web design, user unfriendliness, intrusive advertising and dead end links.  I don’t care if the whole world is there, it’s ugly.  Horrible, I tell you.

And I ought to know.  I just got back from wandering around MySpace for a couple of hours.  My header hurts, my feed stinks and I most certainly don’t love MySpace.

Here’s how it started.

I noticed the other day that a musician buddy of mine has a MySpace page.  His looks like everyone else’s, so I’m not picking on him when I use his page as an entry point to the many things I dislike about MySpace.  Go to any MySpace page and you can follow along, because they all look the same.  Bad.

First, music starts to play automatically.  If it were a MIDI file instead of a good song (my friend is a great songwriter), I’d think I was back in the nineties.  It’s the same on the MySpace pages of two other people I used to know, whose MySpace pages I found in the chaos that passes for Friends and Comments at the bottom of my buddy’s page.

There are blog-like elements to a MySpace page.  Clicking on “subscribe to this blog” is not one of them, however, as that leads to yet another page stating that you have to be a “member” to do that.  Stalwart potential subscribers can click over to the “View All Blog Entries” page where there is an actual RSS link- where you get short partial feeds.  A lot of work for very little return.

Friends and Comments.  Where to start.  There are a ton of pictures at the bottom of the page.  Some of them are called Comments, but the format screams Guestbook.  Then there are the Friends, that mythical connection that is supposed to make MySpace the great community.  Leaving the cubist-like formatting aside for a moment, you can only have Friends who have MySpace accounts- a symptom of the AOL-era closed system.  And based on the lists I saw on the pages I visited, the only requirement for Friendship is fame or asking to be listed.

Jimmy Buffett has 106,637  MySpace “friends.”  If that’s a social network, then the phone book is a social network.

It makes Twitter seem like a family reunion.

I also spent some time on the MySpace pages of another songwriter I know.  His page is slightly less ugly and less user friendly.

There’s a pictures link.  That leads back to the main MySpace page.

There’s a videos link.  That leads to an empty page.

There’s another jumble of Friends and Comments.  For me to poop on.

Let’s summarize the devastation.  Horrible layout. Ugly design.  Music playing automatically.  Hundreds of so-called Friends, many of them famous people who happen to have a MySpace page.  I’m not feeling the community.

Particularly when you can go to any number of blogging services, get a free blog with a template that is not migraine producing and be up and running within minutes.  No html required.  And if you want to link to famous people, you can still do it.   Here’s a link to Roger McGuinn.  Here’s one to Lloyd Cole.  Here’s one to Steve Rubel.

I think the social networking closed site as online Mecca story is a myth driven by people who want to keep the content producing public behind the walls so they can make money off of the content they produce.

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More on Blogs vs Social Networks

blogssocialnetworks

Jay Neely follows up on our conversation about blogs and social networks and the differences between the two:

What’s the difference between a social network and blogs or a blogging service? One is for your friends, the other is for your audience. The key difference is that one group already knows you (it’s easy to replace “friends” with “coworkers”, “family”, “neighbors”, etc).

As I mentioned the other day, there is logic to that distinction.  But the more I think about it, I don’t believe it’s as clear-cut as that.

Jay says bloggers write for their audience.  Clearly some do, like Guy Kawasaki, the folks at Mashable and other bloggers with one foot remaining in the old media pool.  But lots of other bloggers are writing not merely to have a soapbox, but for the multi-way conversations that are a central part of the blogging experience.  Robert Scoble is the best example of a popular blogger who, it seems to me, approaches blogging from this perspective.  Doc Searls is another.

There are other reasons why Jay’s line of demarcation sometimes breaks down.  Take connecting with old friends, for example.  Very few, if any, of my real world friends even know what Facebook is.  None (to my knowledge) use it.  As a result, I will have a much better chance connecting with people I know by nurturing my web site and waiting for people to Google me.

It’s the same with new friends.  No one will ever accuse me of being shy, but at the same time, I’m not big on chatting online with people I don’t know.  That’s the reason Second Life lost its appeal to me.

On the other hand, I have made a bunch of friends via cross-blog conversations- many of them from other states, countries and continents.  Chip Camden, Earl Moore, Randy Morin, Blonde 2.0, Brad Kellett, Dave Wallace, Ethan Johnson, Frank Gruber, Hugh MacLeod, Nick Carr, Martin Gordon, Mathew Ingram, Susan Getgood, Mike Miller, Ric Hayman, Richard Querin, Rick Mahn, Seth Finkelstein, Steven Streight, TDavid, Tom Morris and Warner Crocker are just a few of the people I likely would never have become friends with if I had set up camp in Facebook.

Plus, the community that develops via cross-blogging is so much more meaningful than merely adding a few hundred “friends” to the botton of your butt ugly MySpace page.  When I visit MySpace I see very little that looks like a real community.  Mostly, I see a gallery of bad web design.

Granted, the cross-blogging community is distributed, inefficient and sometimes impolite.  But it exists, and without walls.

I think Jay is onto something, and I hope he keeps writing about it.  But at the moment, we’re all standing on the tip of the iceberg.  Below the surface are a lot of other forces at work.

These lines that seem bright and pretty today may disappear completely tomorrow.

Or they may begin to look like walls.

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Class Notes: Facebook

facebook

I got a lot of great feedback on my Facebook question.

Jay Neely of the Social Strategist says I am focusing on services when I should be focusing on people.  In other words, that in the blogosphere, it’s what you say that matters, whereas with Facebook and the other social networks it’s who you are that matters.  That makes sense to me, though I wish the blogosphere was a little more people-centric than it is.  If you read Jay’s entire post, you’ll see that the gatekeeper business, the community concept and Web 2.0 applications are all driving the evolution of, and distinction between, the blogosphere and the social networking sites.  Here’s my follow up question to Jay (and everyone else): to what extent, if any, do you think this evolution is really being driven by developers who want to make money off of the content created by users on the social networking sites?

Mike Miller says the social network sites are about community, and ease of use.  Community, in the sense that people want to be where their friends are.  Dave Wallace agrees that the ready-made community draws people in because of the pre-existing population and the fact that making connections is technologically and socially easier.  Dave then sums up the essence of a community beautifully, by quoting Adam Fields:

There’s really only one rule for community as far as I’m concerned, and it’s this – in order to call some gathering of people a “community”, it is a requirement that if you’re a member of the community, and one day you stop showing up, people will come looking for you to see where you went.

I built several large communities around message boards back in the nineties, and that definition is perfect.  I have said before that I thought blogs were the new message boards.  Maybe these guys are right, that the distributed nature of blogs makes it too hard.  Maybe Facebook and MySpace are really the new message boards.

Richard Querin, like me a Facebook skeptic, says that Facebook and blogging are separate animals altogether.  He sees Facebook as a way to connect with people you’ve lost touch with- a better version of Classmates.com (but perhaps not as good as Ethan’s Google/blog post approach).  Richard says that, while blogging is a lot harder than opening a Facebook account, it also has more potential- both technologically and socially.  I suppose it depends on what you’re looking for in a service, but if I ever use Facebook, it will be for the reasons Richard outlines- a way to find people I want to reconnect with and then direct them here.

Amy says we’re better off pulling content from the web onto our sites via APIs and widgets than we are “cramming more stuff into somebody else’s big hermetically sealed office building with windows you can’t open.”  She says content is flowing the wrong way.  While I have a greater appreciation for the benefits of Facebook after reading everyone’s responses, I still agree with Amy.  I totally get Facebook for those who don’t have blogs and/or are looking for people, be they old friends or potential new ones.  But if I am going to work my tail off to create content, I’m going to do it here and in comments to blogs I read.

Thanks to everyone for responding.  I’m still in learning mode, so if you have thoughts or other perspectives, please keep ’em coming.

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Morning Reading: 5/26/07

Movie Recommendation: if you like scary movies, rent The Gravedancers.  Very creepy.  Netflix link.

Louis Gray on the aging of a beloved pet, and a happy update.  We lost Virgil and Beanie within a few months of each other back in 2003.  Beanie (18) was my cat before Raina and I got married.  I still miss them.

Even birds are crapping on President Bush.

Zenhabits tells us 10 benefits of getting up early, and how to do it.

I never would have guessed this.

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Swivel Feeds for Better Reads

It’s no secret that I’ve been a little bored with some of my feeds lately.  So it’s time to launch a grand experiment that will provide lots of good, new blogs to read.  I’m going to dump a lot of my feeds and ask bloggers I enjoy reading to help rebuild my reading list.

And I’m going to compile the list and share it with everyone.

When I logged on today, I had 147 feeds in my feed reader.  Some of them are news sites and blogs that I view as the functional equivalent of news sites.  They will remain in my feeds.  This group consists of Blogspotting, C|Net Alpha, C|Net News, Digital Markets, Download Squad, DPR, eHomeUpgrade, Engadget, Fark, Farmgate, Gizmodo, HD Beat, InsideMicrosoft, Lifehacker, Mashable, Obscure, Photography School, ProBlogger, PVRblog, Steve Gillmor, TechCrunch, Techdirt, Techmeme, TV Squad, Valleywag and ZDNet Blogs.

Next, there are quite a few blogs that I am going to drop, because they have fallen into near abandonment or otherwise don’t interest me for one reason or another.  No need to list those.

Now for the fun part.

Then there are the rest of my feeds.  This group consists of the bloggers who interest me the most.  I have a lot of interests, so these feeds cover a lot of ground.  And I want these folks to help me reseed my reading list with blogs they like and/or think I’d like.

I’ll update both the list and my feeds as we go, and when we’re done, I’ll post the entire list and an OPML file for anyone who wants it.

So, once or twice a week, I’ll list several of these blogs, describe briefly why I enjoy them and ask each of the writers to add 5 blogs to the list.

That’s about it.

So let’s get started with the first 8 bloggers.

A Consuming Experience: I learned a lot of the technical stuff I do with my blog template from Improbulus.  Her blog is a living resource for blogging and technical tips and how-tos.

Amy Gahran: She was the first person who got me thinking about blogs as conversations, which became my core blogging philosophy.

Amyloo: Amy blogs on a lot of topics that interest me.  A great blend of tech, politics, music, philosophy.

Assaf Arkin:  He’s one of my favorite software reads, and the Tom Clancy of the blogosphere.  Lots of hard, but understandable, tech.  Very little “me too” posts about the latest bookmarking application, etc.

Mike Miller:  Mike is one of my core blogging buddies, and someone I discuss stuff with almost every day.  He’s already led me to lots of good reads and several people who’ll appear in this series, but I want more.

Ben Metcalfe:  Ben is a social media commentator and developer.  Thus, I learn a lot more from him than a lot of the social media bloggers who merely regurgitate what they read on TechCrunch.

Ben Werdmuller:  I realize that Nuclear Sledgehammer is a group/company blog, and I mean no disrespect to the other writers, but Ben was the one I started reading first, so he gets the recommendation request.  Good, thoughtful writing about the blogosphere, social networking, etc.

Blonde 2.0: Ayelet came out of nowhere to quickly become one of my favorite bloggers.  If she posted a little more, she’d be in the Technorati 100 within a year (Steve Rubel once said that about me, but I didn’t quite make it).

So there are the first 8 bloggers I’m asking to help rebuild my reading list.  If you’re willing, please give me 5 recommendations to add to the list.  Use the comments, your blog or email, whichever you prefer.

Also, if you are a blogger I don’t know about yet, feel free to tell me about your blog, and it may make the list too.  And if you’re one of the rare non-blogging blog readers, please give me your list too.  I am very interested in recommendations from non-bloggers.

Educating Kent: Facebook

blogssocialnetworksI have a genuine question.

What is so much better about Facebook (and MySpace and other similar platforms) than an ordinary blog on a popular platform- say WordPress?

I would love it if someone could explain this to me.

To this point, I’ve always felt like the blogosphere is the only social network that matters, and that Facebook, etc. are the dilutive sandboxes of the new Geocities generation.  But I am obviously missing something.  Just look at tonight’s Techmeme.

I understand how it’s better for the owners of Facebook, because they can sell ads and leverage off of the content and traffic created by users.

But I don’t get it at all from the user’s perspective.

Can somebody help me with this?

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Evening Reading: 5/24/07

Blogtrepreneur (that’s really hard to spell) has a list of 101 Essential Blogging Resources.

eMoms at Home tells work at home parents how to keep kids busy during the summer.

Ethan Johnson smartly end-runs around Classmates.com.  This is a good idea, and I may do something similar for all the other geezers from Cheraw High School, Class of 1978.  Any of my classmates who read this blog, let me know what you think.

I’m going to try some of these on Luke.  Up until now, I’ve been satisfied with saying “look at the giraffe” every time we see a horse.  Just kidding, eMoms.

An exclusive interview with Jackson Miller.

One of these days I’m going to start a 5 questions series where I ask regular bloggers 5 questions.  Like what’s the airspeed velocity of an unladen swallow?  You’re young and you got your health, what you want with a job?  That sort of thing.

Reason number 187 not to play golf.

Rogers Cadenhead on the RSS Advisory Board.  This is the 7th time I’ve linked to Rogers, not that I’m keeping score or anything.

On that note, Scoble says his link blog isn’t getting enough return links.  Sometimes I think he writes stuff just to irritate me.  It’s a real shame you have to be sycophantic or bombastic just to get included.  I like Randy’s plan better- and it obviously worked.

TVSquad on the future of Lost.  I really liked the season finale.

Thanks to Mike, Penelope (author of the book I was discussing) and Ayelet for commenting on my recent posts.

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News in an Accelerated World

Doc Searls likes his news the old fashioned way.  He says:

So here’s a challenge to the daily papers: stop giving away the franchise. Make daily editorial available online only for subscribers. Charge for the fresh stuff, online as well as off.

In a perfect old media world, that’s exactly how it would work.  But this ain’t a perfect old media world, and if the papers start walling their fresh content off, a hundred online-only publications will happily take their place.  Everyone- bloggers, new media, advertisers- would benefit from the trickle down news effect, except the papers.

I haven’t subscribed to a newspaper in almost 10 years.  By the time I see it in the paper, I already know it.  I don’t watch the local news on TV anymore for the same reason.

We live in an accelerated world and news via old media is in slow motion.

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Evening Reading: 5/23/07

Looks like Google is, in fact, going to buy FeedBurner.  That makes me sad.  Google is trying to corner the market on information.  Like when someone shoots the moon in Hearts, it may be too late to do anything about it when people realize it and start to care.

Now cola has gone open source.

Kodak is getting out of the “low end” digital camera business.  Hmmm.

My home state gets serious about beer.  When I lived there we were happy to get our hands on PBRs and Falstaff.  I even had a taste of moonshine a time or two.  Anyone drinking those high falutin’ beers would have been beat up summarily.

The Civil War in 4 minutes.  This is a great video- watch it before they take it down. (via Kevin Briody)

Tris Hussey asked the $64,000 question, and then deleted it.  Here’s a clip from my reader.

Scott Karp is a blogging buddy, but when I see both “disruptive” and “disintermediated” in the first 13 words of a post, it’s time to mark it read and move on. 

My funny line of the day, from a TechCrunch story on some scheduled Second Life downtime: “Second Life entrepreneurs are particularly unhappy with the downtime, after all, if you’re trying to make a living from Second Life this downtime affects the bottom line.”  That’s what I tell my wife when she makes me and the kids stop playing whiffle ball and come inside for dinner.  “Honey, I’m going to get rich playing whiffle ball one day….”

Blonde 2.0 on brand building via social media. 

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