Archive for August, 2009

The Vortex: There’s a Curse Word in This One

August 28, 2009 at 10:37 am · Filed under Carla Thompson, Week in Review ·Tagged , , , , , , , , ,

Perhaps it’s the end-of-summer quiet but there wasn’t a lot of technosphere silliness this week – just actual news! Don’t get too comfortable; September is just around the corner.

News from the Social Media Vortex

–It’s America’s Funniest Home Videos for the 21st century. YouTube is now giving revenue share to uploaders of hit videos. Once a video gets a certain number of viewings, YouTube will offer to put ads around it and give you a cut of the profits. So get that cat on the piano pronto and start counting the dollars.

–The big kerfuffle of the week resulted in the word “skank” being tossed around with abandon. So that’s fun. Model Liskula Cohen won a lawsuit against Google, forcing the company to reveal the identity of an anonymous blogger who called her a skank and other unseemly things. The ruler could have much broader ramifications for blogging; could this be the beginning of the end for trolling?

Apps on the Radar

–If you haven’t already heard that the new Facebook iPhone app is here, you likely don’t need it.

–If you’re a hardcore Firefox user, check out SmarterFox. It has a plethora of browser tricks that will make IE seem even quainter. (Jessica’s slideshow here gives a good overview.)

–Frequent fliers should check out WorldMate, an app that creates automatic itineraries from your fowarded travel confirmations. There’s a free and paid version, the latter of which gives push notification of flight delays. Yeah, you think you won’t need this. And then you meet the Dublin airport.

–The unfortunately named CommuTweet (aren’t you expecting updates from Karl Marx?) lets users tweet about traffic jams in which they’re sitting. Kind of a “it’s too late for me but save yourselves” sort of thing.

–16Apps pokes its nose into your Twitter stream (or Last.fm or FriendFeed) and then recommends iPhone apps for you. From my updates, it surmised that I curse, drink beer and am into politics. Wow. I sound like a real winner.

Tweet of the Week

–Why didn’t I think of this? Some enterprising fellow created the Twitter id @shitmydadsays and it’s as funny as you think it will be. I had a hard time picking just one tweet so go read the whole stream. But this one made me giggle a bit more than the others: “Your brother brought his baby over this morning. He told me it could stand. It couldn’t stand for shit. Just sat there. Big let down.”

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Here, There and Everywhere

August 27, 2009 at 2:08 pm · Filed under Carla Thompson, Observations, Social Media

I need help. No really, I do. No snark, sniping or sarcasm this time – I need some honest-to-pete technological counsel. While this is not a problem your average Internet user faces, it is something those of us living in our browsers struggle with daily: how do you choose where to post stuff?

I have The Guidewire blog. My Tumblr account. Facebook profile. And Twitter. Oh and there’s Sharp Skirts, but that runt of the litter hasn’t been updated since Sarah Palin first graced us with her presence.  Arguably, each of those sites has a different audience and focus. Of course the audiences overlap. And are also disparate. My high school Facebook friends don’t care about tech startups. Actually some of them do. Are you grasping my problem here?

I finally emerged from my cold-medicine fog this morning and, as usually happens with renewed energy, had a dozen items I wanted to share: a picture of the Loch Ness Monster (ahem), a fabulous Bill Withers tune, a quick comment to my tech friends in Austin (soon to be my new home!), a quiz to find out which Tarantino character I was (that had particularly high priority), and apparently ten thousand parenthetical remarks to accompany each item.

It didn’t take long for me to grow frustrated, as I had a decision to make with each item: where does this go? Do I tweet it, which will also dump it into my Facebook status – unless it contains a link, which will add it to my Facebook feed? Post it on my Tumblr account? What the hell do I have a Tumblr account for, anyway? Should I just save everything for the giant link-dump that The Vortex is becoming? When can I stop asking questions?

This is a technology problem that desperately needs an answer. Give me one feed to rule them all, as it were. I don’t care where it lives. I don’t care if it filters down into 100 different sites and services. Just give me one button to push, no decisions to make, and one united audience. To avoid inundation on the reader end, perhaps filter the feed by subject. So my tech stuff gets one designation and elusive mythical creatures gets another. Then followers choose what they want.

At one time not so long ago, I believe this magic solution was called a blog. You posted interesting items and thoughts and categorized them. People commented and forwarded the link to their friends. It worked pretty well. But blogs are no longer sufficient and our sharing has quickly become over-sharing. So here we find ourselves, members of more communities than we can keep track of, asking our friends and followers to come visit us here. No wait, go over there. But have you seen that up there? Honestly, I don’t know what the solution is. But could someone come up with it? It seems we’re way past the point of having one, unified, all-purpose online identity.

Now I’m going to hit publish on this post, which will send it to my Facebook feed. Then I’ll send out a tweet with a link. Maybe I’ll even call my mom and give her the URL…

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The Vortex: The Nice Version

August 21, 2009 at 11:13 am · Filed under Carla Thompson, Week in Review ·Tagged , , , , , , , , ,

I’m much less cranky this week, I promise. Plus, it was a pretty slow news week so there are more fun apps to tell you about than egos to deflate.

News from the Social Media Vortex

–There’s never a lack of pope-wears-a-funny-hat items in the technosphere. This week, it’s the discovery that “well-known” bloggers aren’t much known outside of Palo Alto. Mark Dykeman did some number crunching based on Google Blog Search results and found that household names in the blog world don’t necessarily equal household names in the real world. Check out his handy table for full results.

–CNN ran a funny piece on the 12 most annoying Facebookers. It’s pretty spot on and I couldn’t help categorizing my friends, and myself, as I read it. Post it on your wall and see if any status updates change for the better.

–And the latest Twitter parody is Woofer, a “macroblogging” service that requires a minimum of 1400 characters to post. Or as some call it, standard prose.

Apps on the Radar

–If you’re a fan of Qik like I am, you’ll be happy to hear that it’s finally arrived on the iPhone. Though of course you need the new 3G S for it to work.

–If your Tumblr account hasn’t been updated since, oh say, early June, maybe the new Facebook Connect integration will prompt you to get off your lazy bum and post something.

–The Google Wave preview opens to the public September 30th. Wheee! I am stupidly excited about this but can’t precisely explain why.

–The TomTom Navigation app is now up in iTunes. I could really use this app but will need to read more in-depth reviews before I fork over $99.

–In my ongoing search for a great iPhone news app, I’m encouraged by Mashable’s rave review of the NPR app. Doesn’t look like it has push technology for breaking news yet, but still worth trying out.

–And finally, check out Spider posthaste. Reviewers are fawning all over it, calling it one of the most ingenious games yet devised for the iPhone.

Tweet of the Week

–Thanks to one of my favorite tweeters @rainnwilson for notifying me that Paris Hilton now has a verified Twitter account. If I’m not careful, she could easily sweep tweet of the week regularly.

“On my way to go visit some of the most poverty stricken villages in Central America. Going to be a very emotional day, God bless them all.”  No, Paris, God bless you.

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The Vortex: The Agony of Success

August 14, 2009 at 11:37 am · Filed under Carla Thompson, Week in Review ·Tagged , , , , , , , , ,

I’ve been awash in home-selling negotiations this week so I’m particularly cranky. You’ve been warned.

News from the Social Media Vortex

–As you’re well aware by now, Facebook acquired FriendFeed this week. Allow me to couch that: you’re well aware of this news only if you live in your browser. For those who frequent FriendFeed, though, it was like George Bush had been elected to a third term. Teeth were gnashed, tears were shed and exclamation points were employed with abandon. With characteristic good humor, FriendFeed set up a FestivusFeed on its site to allow for the airing of grievances.

I’ve been a long-time fan of FriendFeed and certainly understand the disappointment of a service’s community insiders. But the bottom line is that FriendFeed is a business that needs money to survive. Anyone who assumed that the site would exist as is in perpetuity needs to sign up for Economics 101 at your local community college. FriendFeed is an ingenious technology with a super-smart team that deserves to be seen and utilized by a much larger audience. Congratulations you guys – very well deserved. I can’t wait to see how far you go in Facebook.

–Marco Arment, Tumblr developer and Instapaper creator, took on Jason Calacanis this week, dissecting Calacanis’ I’ve-Decided-to-Hate-Apple post, picking apart the vast amount of circular, confusing and sometimes preposterous reasoning. There may have been a sound point or two in Calacanis’ post but those were overshadowed by his suggestion that we should activate multiple wireless services for one phone. Rather than defending his assertions, Calacanis instead “zinged” Marco by saying he needed a Wikipedia page and ending with a “for realz.” The really fun part? Jason did this on his personal Tumblr page.

–In related news, a Pear Analytics study found that 40% of Twitter updates are “pointless babble.”

Apps on the Radar

–Customers of USAA Bank will soon be able to deposit checks via iPhone, by taking a photograph of the front and back of the check. The actual check never even needs to be submitted. USAA is a small bank but their customers are primarily military personnel so they’re smartly adapting to fit client needs. Tech companies should take heed.

-AppsFire hasn’t been approved by iTunes yet but I’m hoping they jump on it. The iPhone app allows users to share favorite apps via email, something I’m surprised Apple didn’t come up with to begin with.

Tweet of the Week

–I fully admit to lifting this from the top slot on tweetingtoohard. But can you blame me? “I swear to g-d I can’t relate to most of society. I’m on a whole different level of consciousness.Its all so [censored] obvious. Wake the [censored] up.” – Loren Feldman

Wow. I need a shower after writing this one. Happy weekend, all.

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The Vortex: The Center Cannot Hold

August 7, 2009 at 10:35 am · Filed under Carla Thompson, Week in Review ·Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

News from the Social Media Vortex

–Someone broke the Interwebs yesterday morning, with a denial-of-service attack hitting Twitter, Facebook, Google, and LiveJournal. Twitter was the hardest hit (or the worst prepared), with the service going completely offline for a couple of hours. [And as of this writing, the site was down again this morning.] As expected, the universe folded in on itself as people tweeted about Twitter being down once Twitter was back up. Then John Hughes died and everyone shifted to Long Duck Dong.

–The other big story this week is so inside-baseball that you may fall asleep mid-paragraph. Robert Scoble “unfollowed” 106,000 people on Twitter. This proved to be a revelation for him – it cuts down on the noise! – which in turn engendered much discussion among people who monitor their audience with frightening acuity. Louis Gray parried with, “Wait, don’t do that!” saying:

“…to massively prune my list would introduce more problems, real and emotional, than it would present solutions.”

I think it’s safe to say that if Twitter ever causes emotional problems for you, it’s time to take a vacation.

–And though I’d love to ignore King Arrington for a week, the fact that he’s now battling the British judicial system is, well… I’m only human. He’s been found guilty of libel against Sam Sethi, charged with:

“a sustained campaign of character assassination against the Claimant… including threats to murder a business associate; of being psychotic; pathological; threatening; despicable; disreputable; deceitful; and a cheat.”

He should make that his Twitter bio. Anyway, Arrington says No Lawsuits Please; I’m Not British, which I’m sure will be a convincing argument to the UK courts.

Phew. Isn’t August supposed to be quiet? Let’s get to the fun stuff.

Apps on the Radar

–I so wish more developers were taking advantage of the iPhone’s push technology. The AP News app does a decent job but annoyingly doesn’t direct you to the related story. So I’m happy to hear that Breaking News Online is taking a stab at news alerts. I’ll be giving it a whirl this week to see if it’s worth two bucks.

–Livestation has released an app for streaming live television to your iPhone. The selection is pretty thin right now but is sure to expand in the coming months.

Pitch of the Week

–If you’re a recipient of product pitches, add yourself to Jonathan Hirshon’s email distro.  The head of Horizon PR never fails to entertain and I find myself reading every one of his pitches, if only to reward his ingenuity. So in place of Tweet of the Week, I give you his intro to a pitch for Scenios:

A bonny Thursday to you, as the heat and humidity outside threaten to climb to levels unseen since my last Finnish Sauna experience (with an equal chance of cardiac lethality, I might add).  The economic climate is equally wilting,.…”

Now that’s a segue.

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