Nels Wadycki » Twitter

Things I Read Today [aka Links!]

Nels — Tue, 16 Mar 2010 13:35:35 +0000

Rachel at cre8d design bemoans the loss of long-form writing. The example is a book telling a story composed of emails. While I agree with the sentiment that the loss of long-form writing is just that – a true loss – I’d be interested in seeing the same book told through Tweets and TwitPics (or Facebook status updates and corresponding Photos).

Google is set to speed up Gmail. I’m only up to 16% usage on my Gmail account, but I certainly wouldn’t mind anything they can do to speed it up.

Tim Bray is now a Developer Advocate for Google – specifically the Android platform. I don’t have anything against Apple and the iPhone personally, but as a software/web development professional, I am definitely behind the argument that their gatekeeper/executioner style of running the App Store is dangerous for any developer involved.

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AOL Lifestream Might Be Totally Awesome

Nels — Thu, 11 Mar 2010 23:43:43 +0000

…but I may never know.

Part 1: Shock and Awe

I made a decision to try to just focus on positive things with this blog, but given my previous obsession with Lifestreaming, I can’t help but comment on this.

I read about AOL’s Lifestream earlier today on TechCrunch who, rightfully, said that it might be what Google Buzz should have been. From what Michael Arrington says, it may be all that and more.

The problem is, when I tried to sign in using Facebook Connect (which I would normally say is a great use of social network integration by AOL), I get this:

Whawhawhat? Really? No, really?

I’ve never seen that permission asked for before, and I hope I never see it again. While Facebook may be the Walled Garden with Reinforced Steel and Concrete Walls, I kind of like it that way. I can post stuff that I know only people I’ve friended will see.

Okay, so I could probably get past the fact that their sort of invading my privacy because, yeah, they’re trying to break down the Great Wall of Facebook. And since I’m sure some people will want to share everything everywhere, sure, ask for that permission. There’s that nice “Don’t Allow” button there that solves the problem.

Except… oh wait!

So, I can only use AOL Lifestream with Facebook Connect if I let them share all my Facebook updates with whoever they want. I… I… I can’t bring my self to say it, but it starts with F and rhymes with PALE.

Now, with all the privacy turmoil that Google caused when they launched Buzz, I wonder if AOL Lifestream will be similarly crucified by people who just click on through to the other side without actually paying attention.

Part 2: Rational Continuation

Just so I’m being thorough, let me say that I was able to log in to Lifestream using my AOL IM user name, and it looks like you are allowed to change your settings on a stream-by-stream basis using the options: No One – Private, My Buddies on AIM, Everyone – Public. There’s no way of knowing that when signing in with Facebook Connect, though. I tried adding Facebook again without giving them permission to grab all my updates and was again denied because I hadn’t given them enough permissions. I know for a fact that AOL doesn’t need that permission to connect my accounts because I’ve made a Facebook app that posts to people’s walls and I had never heard of that permission before.

I was able to authorize my Twitter account (since that’s my “public facing” status update app) and that appears to work very well, although, it looks like I can only “Like” my own updates and those from my AIM buddies, but not any tweets imported from my Twitter friends.

But it gets stranger… I decided to keep going, and give Lifestream the permission they so desperately wanted, and it turns out that sharing with Everyone – Public is not an option for the Facebook stream. So, they got it half right, I guess.

The one good thing that does come of this is when there’s a status update that I want to post both to Facebook and Twitter, I can use Lifestream to do it – and if I do it from my iPhone, I can even attach a photo and location information! Of course, after giving Lifestream access to my Foursquare account, it appears that posting to Foursquare with that location information, is not possible. It’s a river that flows into AOL with no salmon to swim the other way.

I’m still wary of leaving the app as it is, though, with all that access to my Facebook stuff, but I did set it to Private – No One, so hopefully that will keep it locked down. Oh, and another lockdown bonus: the iPhone app lets you edit your buddy list, which is good because I still had some buddies left over from when I actually used AIM.

Final Conclusion: iPhone app is good for posting to Twitter and Facebook simultaneously, but in the end, it’s just another social network that I doubt any of my friends will even deign to notice.

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Blogging is Easy

Nels — Thu, 28 Jan 2010 03:30:28 +0000

From a (sort of) recent Facebook status update:

While I agree for the most part with the “Tumblr > Twitter” sentiment, well, that’s kind of obvious. Twitter is definitely good for some things (mostly sharing short fleeting thoughts, but also sometimes for sharing links, and conversing with people who use Twitter as their main form of communication). I did not see “being a blog” in that list, though. And as Commenter #1 points out, you can view Twitter updates on your Tumblr dashboard while posting slightly longer commentaries on Tumblr. Of course, Commenter #1 also makes the fatal mistake of saying that he (or she) wishes they knew HTML.

I’m fairly certain that with a little practice, just about anyone could use a Wordpress.com blog without knowing any HTML.

I think what’s really going on here is: People have gotten used to posting status updates and they’re cool with that, but what happens when they want to post something a little bit longer and ~~actually well thought out~~ more introspective? They secretly want to write a blog post, but are convinced that a) they need to know HTML, b) that no one will read it, c) they’ll have to keep doing it (or look like a failure), and d) it’s hard (for many reasons that probably just depend on who you’re talking to at the time).

Tumblr is building it’s popularity off of these popular misconceptions, and, well, good for them, I guess. I just wish that instead of throwing out Tumblr as the next step up from Tweeting, we could enlighten people as to how easy blogging really is.

For example (again, not to disparage what Tumblr is doing – just as a comparison): One can post text, quotes, links, and embed video in Wordpress as easily as in Tumblr (plus you have Categories in addition to Tags). Posting a photo or audio file is more complicated, I can admit that, because Wordpress’ media uploader requires some a little trial and error to figure out (even in its current super-simple form). That said, it’s still pretty easy, and when you want to post multiple pictures, it’s significantly easier. You can select them all from a single dialog, and then insert them individually (and select from multiple size options), or just make a gallery. Like I said, it’s not bash-your-head-in easy, but it’s got value-added at a pretty high ROI. So, the only thing that Tumblr can do much more easily than a Wordpress blog is post a chat transcript. I don’t follow all that many people’s tumblr blogs, but I’ve never seen any of my friends post a chat transcript.

So, d) it’s not that hard, a) you don’t need to know HTML.

b) No one will read it?

You can have a Top 100 blog on Technorati just by picking a URL and posting photos that correspond in a somewhat ironic manner (or not at all) to that URL.

Finally… c) you’ll have to keep doing it. This is the One True Thing.

That said, you have to keep posting to your Tumblr, Twitter, Facebook, Anything Else or it will wither and attract tumbleweeds just like a regular old (brand new, awesome) blog.

And of course, this is also the rub. If you want people to read your blog, you have to post stuff. You have to post stuff even when it’s just your parents and the person you live with reading it. Even if your parents and the person you live with aren’t actually reading it. If you want people to look at and comment on your Tumblog or Twitter or Facebook or Anything Else, you have to put something there for them to comment on. I’ve already shown that using Tumblr doesn’t make it any easier to post content (although, it can provide the illusion that it does). But it doesn’t make you more creative or funny or insightful or emotional or powerful. That would be akin to saying “Oh, now that I can get the newspaper on my computer, I’ll actually read it.” Just because you can read it more easily on you computer without getting your fingers all dirty with ink doesn’t mean that you actually will.

Finally, if you use Tumblr, I’m pretty sure you don’t get analytics. While this is another somewhat in depth tool, you know you like checking how many people have visited your blog, and with Google Analytics it’s easy to see what people are searching for to get to your blog. I mean, how much more awesome is it when you can not just post something about vajazzling, but then also see that someone got to your post about vajazzling by looking for “how to vajazzle at home with swarovski”? Boom. Blogging FTW.

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I’m Famous On The Internet

Nels — Tue, 19 Jan 2010 17:50:11 +0000

I’m so famous that all of Chicago is following me on Twitter! What up!

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5 Reasons Why Feed Readers Still Rock

Nels — Tue, 05 Jan 2010 16:42:13 +0000

From Read/Write Web.

I just still feel like I’m missing something. I can’t get past the fact that Twitter is not a feed reader, yet people insist on using it as one. I mean, if I were following all the people whose feeds I read on Twitter instead of using Google Reader, I don’t feel like I would see even half the posts that I do now. Granted, I skip over half of them anyway, but at least I know that I’m consciously skipping things I don’t want to see instead of just losing them to a Devil’s Kettle whirlpool of information.

Here’s the Top 5 Reasons I Still Use An RSS Reader:

1. Memory – There’s no way I could remember to check 300+ web sites per day

2. Separation of Subject Matter – Even if I could follow all the sites I do in Twitter instead of an RSS Reader, Twitter just mashes everything together. I have all my feed folderized and then ordered by priority. I have my friends’ RSS feeds (for their blogs, Tumblrs, Friendfeed, Flickr Contacts Feed) up at the top. I also have categories for comics, tech/web stuff, blogs by authors and other blogs about writing, fantasy basketball, the Bulls, personal finance blogs, Getting Things Done type blogs, and probably a couple more than I can’t think of off the top of my head. If these were all in one feed it would be nearly impossible to read. If there were all in one Twitter stream, I would almost certainly miss posts. If the ones I missed were the posts from my friends (which I deem Priority 1) that would suck. Flat out. I can totally save the GTD info for some time when I actually want to read it, and I often skip the PF advice anyway, so if those things were pushing my friends out of the visible spectrum and I were using a “out of sight, out of mind” reader like Twitter, then I’m letting the blogs decide who gets my attention instead of the other way around.

3. Control of Information Flow – This is related to the previous one, and is one of the reasons listed on RWW. I prefer to decide what I read instead of having Twitter (or Facebook) do it for me. At best, I’ll get to see something interesting, at worst, I’ll check whatever alternative to the RSS Reader is at a time when a bunch of blogs I don’t care about have just posted. For example, a friend of mine posted something very funny on Facebook at 1:43am the other night. If I used only Facebook as my feed reader, a bunch of tech bloggers would have pushed out posts about the new Apple tablet on top of that, and I might have missed that gem of a moment.

4. Consolidation – In reality, while there is a ton of information available on Twitter or Facebook, most of my friends don’t use Twitter. So, in order to keep my friends as Priority 1, I’d have to use at least 2 different media (Twitter and Facebook) to track everything. In a feed reader, I can pull in Twitter feeds and my Facebook Status Update feed (which I’m not sure you can even find any more), and then I have all that info in one place. Yes, I still have to check Facebook from time to time to see photos and links that people posted, but I also get to avoid all the app and Fan Page spam that comes through to my News Feed.

5. RSS Feeds Are Unlimited – Related to the above point again, but slightly different: Almost every site has an RSS feed. Not every site has a Twitter account. Sure, most people with personal blogs also have a Twitter account, but if they’re like me, they use Twitter for stuff that they don’t post on their blog (even if they use it to announce new blog posts as well). That’s all well and good for my friends, but for other bloggers, it can dilute the feed with information that I don’t really care about (I don’t expect you to care about my Twitter stream even if you like my blog – and vice versa). If following someone on Twitter was the only option I had to get their blog posts, I would have to more careful about who I follow. But with RSS, I have a choice. I can follow their Twitter feed, or I can follow the feed for their blog. And if they aren’t on Twitter, I can still follow their blog. If they have a Wordpress blog (not sure if this works on others) I can even follow individual categories or tags if I want. Yes, Twitter is simple, but RSS is almost as simple, but it’s added complexity increases the overall value so as to outweigh the cost by orders of magnitude.

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Facebook may end my run as the World’s Greatest Copycheater

Nels — Sat, 12 Sep 2009 13:24:41 +0000

Not only can you now use the Lite Facebook Interface – i.e., the Twitter Facebook Interface – but Facebook is also said to be (slowly) rolling out @ tagging of people in Status Updates. I actually posted a Status Update a while back pondering if Facebook were to add that feature, thereby eliminating my need to ever use Twitter again. And now my dream (yes, it’s a pretty lame dream) has come true. Now I can just use Facebook for my “mass” communications until I’m famous enough that thousands of random people will want to read my thoughts 140 characters at a time. (Or they could just read my blog, I suppose)

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Songs In Code

Nels — Sat, 29 Aug 2009 19:03:56 +0000

Only the obvious ones have been submitted to the SongsInCodeDB.

worldAsWeKnowIt.end(); self.feel = “fine”;

Wish skeelo = new Wish[]; skeelo[0] = “taller”; skeelo[1] = “baller”; skeelo[2] = “girl who looked good”;

if (ready) { hereICome = true; } else { hereICome = true; } you.hide = false;

if ( !woman ) { cry = false; }

temperature = temperature + 100; clothes.off();

Guitar g = new Guitar(); g.color = “#CCCCCC”; if ( picasso.know() ) { buy(g); g.play(); }

if ( romeo.makelove(juliet) ) { juliet.cry(); }

public boolean bringDown(landslide) { if ( reflection.see() ) { landslide–; bringDown(landslide); } }

Problem[] jz = new Problem[99]; for (int p=0; p

dc = chillin; pg = chillin; if (this.name == wale) { kill(it); }

if ( me.hasWorld() ) { empire.build(); }

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Does FriendFeed Know Kim Kardashian? (Not In The Biblical Sense)

Nels — Fri, 08 May 2009 17:22:46 +0000

Here’s Kim Kardashian’s alleged FriendFeed page. It would be easy enough for a simple name squatter to do something like that, especially since FriendFeed allows you to import not just a Twitter feed, but Twitter followers without a password.

I’m leaning towards about 75% that it’s not really her. I’d give her about a 25% chance that her crew is smart enough to realize how popular the Ashton/CNN and Oprah things were with Twitter, and they did this to get the jump on the Next Big Thing.

The other 75% I’d split pretty evenly between a) Squatter and b) Friendfeed. That’s right, I’m giving equal odds to the idea that FriendFeed did this themselves to try to attract some additional publicity to their service. And as I mentioned, with their setup, it wouldn’t be too hard to just pretend you had no idea. I mean, I could go to the nearest public library and in 5 minutes, have a completely anonymous Oprah FriendFeed that looks just like the Kim Kardashian one except probably with more followers (or “subscribers”). They probably figured that doing someone as high profile as Oprah or Ashton would have made it obvious what they were doing. But Kardashian is a pretty good mark: her reputation is a little questionable (furthering the speculation that it might actually be her), and she has a lot of crazy people who are obsessed with her (furthering the squatting idea).

Plus, by choosing Kardashian, you get not only someone whose Google Trends indicate she’s actually competitive with Oprah terms of search, but you also get bloggers like me (and TechCrunch) posting pictures of her, which is probably what most people are searching for when they look for her anyway, which will attract attention from people outside of the technocrats.

Finally, let me add the possibility that FriendFeed contacted celebrities to import their Twitter accounts to FF for a little bit of spending money or Cristal. I’m sure they know that links are the currency of the internet and nothing brings links like geeks and hot (or at least supposedly hot) women.

And so as not to disappoint the people who are inevitably going to end up here looking for Kardashian booty… there’s a couple more pictures are the jump.

Copycheating Myself

A Triptych of Facebook Links

Nels — Mon, 04 May 2009 21:25:14 +0000

First up: ReadWriteWeb calls out Facebook’s Twitter envy. I’m with them… Why does Facebook want to be Twitter? There is already Twitter. Twitter has a totally different core competency than Facebook. Why is Facebook trying to change their own core competency to compete with something that has such an unproven revenue model?

On the other hand, competing with Twitter has forced Facebook to open up it’s Stream with an API. Now, can I start liking my friends posts in the iPhone app? Okay, I know, really this move was made so that 3rd parties can develop (or add onto) their own apps to help Facebook be as cool as Twitter is with their API.

But beyond the arms race with Twitter, the stream API will open up the possibility for many new applications both within Facebook and outside its walls. An obvious one would be better filtering options for your activity stream. It would be simple to create an app that shows you the most liked or most commented on items in your stream, for example. Or now that stream can be plugged into various social search engines to give you socialized real-time results. Hell, if I could just search my own activity stream, I’d consider that a giant leap forward. But Facebook still only allows developers to cache data for 24 hours, so you wouldn’t be able to build a very powerful search engine or return results from more than a day ago.

Facebook has also become not just an OpenID provider (issuing party), but also a relying party. I believe they’re the first big site out there to do that. I’m not sure why all the others haven’t, because honestly, it’s kind of annoying to have 20 different sites that provide OpenIDs but if no one accepts anyone elses OpenID then it’s pretty much useless.

I’m glad that Facebook is opening up, but here’s a couple more things they can do to compete with Twitter (and/or make me happy):

Allow tagging of friends in status updates
Allow users to view a feed with ALL updates from ALL friends
Try to make more content viewable on a single screen of the iPhone app
Start rolling out vanity URLs to users in order of when they joined Facebook

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Facebook has made everyone a blogger

Nels — Mon, 09 Feb 2009 18:54:27 +0000

And I’m willing to bet most people don’t even realize it.

Since Facebook added comments to just about everything that passes through the News Feed, it’s created a microblog for every member of the network.

I now feel justified laughing at people (at least, behind their backs) who thought I was weird for having 3+ blogs (and a Twitter, and Jaiku, and Tumblr, and Soup.io). Suckas! You’re bloggers now too!