May 14th, 2008 | Published in FriendFeed, Twitter, social media |
I take it all back, I want to drown in awesomeness! It’s one thing for Twitter to be down (I wonder what Corvida’s doing now?), but for Twitter and FriendFeed to be down at the same time? Noooo….
Seriously! I got this:
Can everyone just please send me your tweets in the comments? Help!….Oh and by the way, did you see this? YackTrack Updated - New Feature Called "Chatter" Added! I was going to tell you on Twitter, but….
May 14th, 2008 | Published in AIR, Google, RSS |
How excited was I when I heard that there was now a Google Reader Adobe AIR application that would let me browser through my feeds outside a browser? Pretty freaking excited! But then I thought "wait - why do I need this?" This doesn’t really help me solve a problem. With Twhirl, for example, I get easier access to all of Twitter’s features and it refreshes my tweets for me. Google Reader, though, isn’t really broken. (Well, except for NO SUBFOLDERS, which is literally killing me).
But, for the most part, Google Reader in the browser works just fine. ReadAir on the other hand, lacks a major feature: keyboard shortcuts. I don’t even think about it anymore, it’s just j, j, j, j, j, k, j all day long. I can’t imagine having to give them up just to use an AIR app.
That being said, it seems that adding keyboard shortcuts to the app is an upcoming feature, as is an offline mode, continuation, and alternate themes that don’t make it look like a Mac app (thank god). Maybe I’ll just have to check back later, then. (via DownloadSquad)
May 14th, 2008 | Published in FriendFeed, social media |
Neat! The World of Slippy blog recently posted some steps on how you can put FriendFeed into your Firefox sidebar in just a couple of steps. The trick involves using Christopher Finke’s Feed Sidebar extension. After it’s installed, you can just use Firefox’s Live Bookmarks feature to add your FriendFeed atom feed (click here) to your Live Bookmarks. Wah-la!
Nice tip!
(img via)
May 14th, 2008 | Published in social media |
I’m following the discussion around my latest rant on RWW (“Too Many Choices, Too Much Content”) using YackTrack. If that was your kind of post, you’ll want to check out these related articles too:
He Beat Me To It!
More:
May 13th, 2008 | Published in Fun, Time Wasters, Web 2.0, Web Apps |
Do you agree with this? If not, you can join the debate going on at the web site CreateDebate. The site aims to take the classic internet flame wars and turn them into a more civilized event. Debates can spring up around any sort of topic and the homepage features the hottest ones. Expect to see topics involving religion, politics, morality, and, yes even Mac vs PC. (PC is winning right now!)
Each user on the site has a profile, which automatically builds itself over time. Your allies, enemies and hostile relationships are tracked and a news feeds provides personalized updates. Debates can be sorted by most heated, most arguments, most recent, etc. and there’s even a handy "Research" section which can help you craft your arguments. Within "Research," there are articles you can click on to become the focal point of a new debate. Each article has a little RSS feed icon next to it - different colors for different blogs. It’s subtle features like this that make CreateDebate stand out as one of the better debate sites.
I’m opinionated, but I like debating via a blog platform myself. However, I can see where this site could appeal to casual internet "arguers," who like to just pick a topic and riff on it. The site is also well designed, so it’s easy to navigate through the myriad of debates going on as well as access the other features, like your own profile for example - a feature that’s often, surprisingly, hidden on some of today’s services. There’s also a Facebook app to check out, which extends CreateDebate out into your social playground. If this sounds like your kind of internet fun, you’ll definitely want to try it out.
May 13th, 2008 | Published in Facebook, IM |
OK, this could actually make Facebook Chat useful: you will soon be able to access it via Jabber. Tonight, Facebook is announcing that they will soon release a Jabber/XMPP interface for Facebook Chat. Via any Jabber-based chat apps, you’ll be able to communicate with your Facebook friends, see who’s online, view friends’ profile pics, and set your status.
Which reminds me…seriously, what is up with Trillian Astra? I’ve been waiting on that for a year. I’m beginning to think it doesn’t really exist!
May 13th, 2008 | Published in Personal |
Again, apologies in advance for those that follow me both places, but here is another round-up of my recent articles at RWW:
The Android Developer Challenge is a two-part contest whose goal is to encourage developers to build apps for the new Google mobile platform, code-named "Android." In this first round, "Challenge I," submissions were accepted up until April 14th. Yesterday, the top 50 entries were announced. Each of these application authors received $25,000 to fund further development of their app. We’ve dug through the list of winners to pick out our favorite apps and the ones we’re most looking forward to. Continue reading »
Last night was the second Digg Townhall, a live session hosted online by Digg founder Kevin Rose and CEO Jay Adelson. Like before, Kevin asked Digg users to post their suggestions on Digg as to what topics should be covered. (The thread is here). Now that the event is over, we can review how well those questions were addressed. Continue reading »
Benjamin Golub has been busy. He runs the site RSSmeme, an RSS aggregator that displays the top Shared Items items from Google Reader users. For a brief time, RSSmeme was the only Google Reader aggregator in town after ReadBurner closed up shop. But not too much later, ReadBurner was purchased and relaunched (our coverage), putting the two sites in competition once again. However, it looks like Golub has no plans to slow down with RSSmeme’s development. He has recently released an RSSmeme API, which allows for all kinds of new filtering options, a mobile web site, and much more. Continue Reading
Looking to visualize your Facebook friend graph? You can with a Facebook app called Nexus. This app is a friend grapher that displays a visual analysis of your Facebook connections. But it’s not just a pretty picture: in addition to viewing how your friends are connected, you can use Nexus to discover what interests your friends share and which of your friends are the most similar to you. Continue Reading
It seems a debate is brewing in the "Wikipedia-sphere" surrounding the commercialization and the soon-to-be-made profit from the voluntarily written and edited online encyclopedia web site. For the first time, a major publisher has made plans to print out and sell popular articles from the site, leaving many wondering if the content’s writers are being scammed out of royalties to which they are due. Continue Reading
While it’s fun to follow some of the bigger names on Twitter like Scoble, Jason, Leo, and Kevin, it’s even better when you find others with similar interests with whom you can have real conversations. And even better than that is finding others to connect with from your same hometown. Connecting with other locals is something that the site TwitterLocal has helped facilitate for some time, but now they’ve added a new feature for finding top local Twitterers: a TwitterLocal Leader Board showing a city’s top tweeters. Continue Reading
May 8th, 2008 | Published in Wikis/Wikipedia |
…or the “Great Wikipedia Debate of 2008″
It seems only fair that I follow up a bit on the great big debacle that was my recent Wikipedia post on Read Write Web. If you missed it, let me catch you up: Apparently, I should be disappointed in spreading this FUD, I have no understanding of how open content works, I need to get real, I spread stupid, negative publicity, I need to think before I write, it was a parade of nonsense, etc., etc. Sigh. Of course, amidst the haters, there were some those who agreed with me, but their voices weren’t quite as loud.
I’ll admit, the article was meant to stir the pot a little. So sue me. At the time, I thought I would just throw a controversial topic out there for discussion and see what people think. Unfortunately, people who disagree with an article tend to comment more than those who are neutral or those who agree, something I’ve stated before.
Unfortunately, with the way I wrote the article, this pot-stirring came across as 100%, pure personal opinion, especially when I said this:
But let’s be honest here, if the writers thought that the content they were contributing was to help a commercial publisher make a buck, and not part of a movement to “let information be free,” would they still have given so much of their time on a volunteer basis? It’s one thing to see Wikipedia distributed to the developing world, like when SOS Children’s Village, the world’s largest orphan charity, distributed Wikipedia CDs to Africa, but it’s quite another to know that you’re making money for someone else…for free.
That was meant to spark the debate (it worked), but as to my true personal opinion? Well, perhaps it’s a bit more malleable than the hard line I took at the time.
So, to follow up on the issue, a bit more thoroughly, I’ve since spoken with Mathias Schindler, a member of the board of Wikimedia Germany and the person who had some part in the development of the project to create, publish and distribute the one-volume edition with Wikipedia content, which took roughly three years.
He was disappointed in the turn the debate took, especially in the comments, and wanted to know if we could discuss it further. I readily agreed.
The Bertelsmann Project Is Not a New Idea
First of all, he wanted me to know that the Bertelsmann project is not entirely a new idea. In Germany, he says, they have a history of successful projects involving adapting Wikipedia content to other media, including CD-ROMs and DVDs. For example, a DVD project helped to start a new Wikipedia project on person data, a new kind of authority file. The file later helped a lot in a cooperation between Wikipedia and the German national library.
Schindler uses this example to illustrate, how, in the long run, projects can help do more than just make a few bucks. Although getting paid is nice, he says, Wikipedia has been completely honest from the start: You are free to use the content for any purpose, you don’t need to pay for accessing or using the content. If you contribute, you will have to allow other people the same kind of freedoms you are enjoying.
In fact, this Bertelsmann project isn’t even the first time German Wikipedia content has been put to print. Nor is it the first time that publishers have attempted to make a profit for themselves: products at Directmedia, for example, were primarily designed to make profit for the publishing house. However, reading through that page of print editions, specifically the Directmedia one he referenced, I see a section entitled “Reactions.” And reading through that, I see that it states:
News of the latest Directmedia endeavor was recently reported on the popular website of German newsportal Heise [1], and posts to Heise’s discussion forum revealed a range of reactions to the possibility of a print edition.
Since I’m trying to be more thorough this time, I click through to the link provided by the [1]. On the Wikipedia page, the “range of reactions” they cite include things like environmental issues and whether Wikipedia is ready for print, but reading through the linked page, translated from German to English, I see that a discussion thread very much on this same vein of compensation….at least as far as I can tell considering the translated version. GNU is mentioned. So is Red Hat. (see “not a good sign” on this page). So it appears that there are a few other people who share these concerns after all.
Future Implications
If the project is successful, additional volumes could be printed. It’s even possible that other publishers would follow suit. If that’s the case, then Schindler will recommend to the publisher to think of innovative ways to support Wikipedia and the people who made it possible - the authors. In his opinion, it would make more sense than sharing revenue if Bertelsmann tried to bring its own unique skills into Wikipedia, helping to develop an open source tool-set for publishing Wikipedia content or allowing its staff to spend time in contributing content to Wikipedia under free licenses.
Well, that sounds good, but what I wanted to know, though, is this: how do you really know that the current Wikipedia contributors will remain happy to contribute if a for-profit industry starts up surrounding their efforts? Are they really all that selfless?
Schindler points out that the concept of open source is not a new thing and that some of the contributors turn their reputation of having written a brilliant piece of software into a well paid job.
He adds,
You don’t need to be selfless in order to contribute to Wikipedia (of course, it never hurts).
May 7th, 2008 | Published in Twitter, social media |
I never thought Twitter spammers were that big of a deal. Unlike with spam in your inbox, you can just "unfollow" and "block" spammers, you know. However, it looks like Twitter won’t be letting spammers muck up the community they’ve built. I saw the news over on Stay N’ Alive, where Jesse Stay wrote:
Today, Alex Payne confirmed on the Twitter Dev mailing list that from now on users marked as Spam on Twitter will have their accounts suspended entirely for violating the Terms of Service. He also confirmed that they would avoid the headaches Facebook has had (aka Scoble’s account being suspended) and contact the owners beforehand to let them state their case.
Jesse welcomes the practice and I do, too. Best to start young with a no spam allowed policy before Twitter grows to MySpace portions and gets filled with unscrupulous users.
May 7th, 2008 | Published in Digg |
Yesterday, thanks to Twitter’s ability to break news, I heard about the new Digg comment system from Digg founder Kevin Rose, when he posted (accidentally?) a video link to Twitter, but then quickly took it down. Perhaps a ploy, but it worked. The news hit the Digg front page fast.
So what’s new with the comments system?
A quick overview of the changes:
Unfortunately, the update is still "coming very soon," so it hasn’t launched yet.
You can watch the video about the new comments system here:
This is a guest post by Perry Reed, Twitterer, and LJ and Spaces blogger.
Call me old-fashioned. While I think all this Web 2.0 (or 2.5 or whatever number you kids are up to now) is great and all, I still prefer email as my primary tool for getting things done. In particular, I use […]
Our Grand Effect blog network isn’t going to grow very large, so this may be one of the last times you see an announcement about new members being added. Today, all of the Grand Effect bloggers want to welcome three more members to our network: Joe Anderson, Steven Hodson, and Mark Evans, all of […]
This is a guest article from Robin Cannon, who blogs regularly on web design, social networking and accessibility at his site Fog of Eternity.
I’ve had a Facebook account for a while, I have well over 100 friends, and yet I still can’t see any real point to it. Barring an occasional visit to clear out […]
Oh dear lord. As if we didn’t already have enough with the war between Twhirl and Alert Thingy (and Feedalizer and bTittleTattle!), here comes yet another AIR app for Twitter/FriendFeed users. This one is from the makers of the Firefox extension, MySocial 24×7, and, like the extension, the app focuses on consolidating your social […]
This is a guest post by Shane Perris, who authors a blog at techwhimsy.com.
Trent Reznor kept hard core Nine Inch Nails fans in desperate suspense for two weeks with cryptic clues in the properties of two free mp3 downloads - Discipline (made available from nin.com) and Echoplex (available exclusively through iLike on Facebook). We […]
According to TorrentFreak, Nine Inch Nails (the only band that seems to get music 2.0) is offering a new single "Echoplex" for free on Facebook. I added myself as a fan of them on Facebook, but somehow missed the single - was there a trick to that? However, the single is also available for […]
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