Nels Wadycki

Nels W

Writes Code, Fiction

  • Vertical Social Networking

    Nels W

    This is another one of those question posing posts. The question for this post is: Is Vertical Social Networking important? Or do we just need more fine-grained privacy controls?

    welcome_3.gif vs. logo.gif

    The question is one raised indirectly by Scott Gatz in his Keep Facebook Fun post.

    I will freely admit that I’m a member of Friendster, MySpace, Facebook, and LinkedIn. Oh, and Yahoo 360, for good measure. I also will admit that I was sort of faced with the same issue as Scott when I started delving into Facebook after they launched The Platform. There are some people who are not my friends on Facebook because I’d consider them business associates or contacts, and for those people, I don’t really want them to know what level I’m on for the iLike Music Challenge. I don’t really care if they read my movie reviews, but I’m not sure if I want them to see all my Twitters (this is kind of a separate issue, but my Twitters are restricted to my “friends” on Twitter, but I think that all of my friends on Facebook can see them; yet another reason not to be friends with people you aren’t really friends with on Facebook).

    But, instead of having two different social networks – one for “fun” and one for “business” – couldn’t I just have one social network that will allow me to place my friends/contacts into different groups with different levels of privacy?

    Flickr actually does a pretty good job of this, allowing me to have Private (only me), Family, Friends, Family+Friends, and the more generic Contacts. But the privacy is really only 3 levels deep instead of a more desirable 4. I.e., My House, Walled Garden, Public. The Walled Garden is divided into two spaces, but it would be nice to have one addition level between Walled Garden and Public. There’s some photos that I wouldn’t mind sharing with my Contacts, but I don’t want to make them public to the world. So, they remain as Friends photos, and my Contacts don’t get to see them.

    Of course, as I mentioned above, wouldn’t it better to let me designate what my groups are and which groups can see what? It would certainly be better for me! I know for a fact that it’s more difficult for the programmers on the other end. How do I know? Yahoo 360. (Just for good measure, remember)

    ma_360-beta_1.gif

    I’ve tried sharing photos on Yahoo 360, but the permissions just don’t come out right. I LOVE LOVE LOVE that they let me create my own groups and put people in as many different groups as I want. Of course, if it really worked, that would be even better. But as far as I can tell, it’s still a little buggy. I’m pretty sure that no one else has tried this approach for that very reason. It’s always going to harder code and test.

    But (but!) if someone could give people a social network where all the contacts are grouped into categories that are centered around the user, wouldn’t it essentially eliminate the need for any other social network? I believe it would.

    Now go build it! I’d do it, but I’m working on my America’s Next Top Model fantasy game.

  • One of the better days

    Nels W

    I mean, first off, it’s Friday, and it’s 71 degrees outside.

    Next, and I have to backtrack a second here, we had a tree branch break off yesterday when it was really windy. But my wife ran into a city garbage collector on the way home and asked him about it and he offered to have a friend chop it up for us and he’d haul it away. So, today, his friend showed up right at 8, and cut the branch up and put it in the alley. Then he came by this afternoon and picked up all the branches for us. Awesome.

    More:

    I got an offer for some more advertising on Give Me The Rock.

    My wife got her teacher rating for the year. And it was a good rating. 🙂

    I had my “compensation discussion” today, and it went as well as I could have realistically hoped.

    I forgot about this giant fudge brownie that I’d bought on Wednesday and not eaten, and then I didn’t eat it yesterday, and it was just sitting there, waiting, knowing that today was going to be a good day.

    And a small, but cool, bonus: I got this month’s copies of Electronic Gaming Monthly and Chicago magazine – the only two magazines that I actually look forward to getting (sorry GQ).

    Now I’m going to a Barbeque for dinner! Hooray for Friday!

  • iRock at the iLike trivia game

    Nels W

    Score: 1,005
    Questions answered: 134
    Correct: 103 (76.9%)
    Average time: 2.9 seconds

    Of course, they don’t have anything more than a friends leader board (and I only have one friend who’s played it), so I can’t really say if that is that good, but I’ll take it for now!

  • By sheer coincidence

    Nels W

    Bob Lee at crazybob.org made a post yesterday listing his recent Twitterings. Funny because I’d just been wondering about the same sort of scenario.

    At first I thought, what the heck is the point of using Twitter if you’re going to be posting your Twitters on your blog? Well, to attempt to answer that question, one could argue that having your Twitter feed separate from your normal blog feed means that people who like your long-form postings can subscribe to that feed and not be inundated by the constant Twitter chatter (this is a link to Bob’s Twitter page so you can see what I mean). So that’s nice for those people. But the people who want to just read everything you post now have to subscribe to two different feeds (and if they’re like me, they have to worry at least once or twice a week if the feed is updating correctly since there haven’t been any new posts lately).

    But, in fact, it appears that Bob is thinking nearly the same kind of thing I’m thinking since his most recent Twitter (at the time of writing) is:

    I’m starting to wonder if I should just start a high frequency blog–kind of like Dave Winer. Or maybe I should convert my existing blog.

    Exactly.

    The question, I guess, is: are more people going to be annoyed by having to read more, shorter, Twitter-style posts in between the longer posts that they’re more interested in? Or are more people going to just wish that you’d only have one feed for everything?

    I will do some searching about this magical “meta” feed, of course, right after I finish this post. Just as I did some searching yesterday after that post and found that Facebook will import blog entries for you from any RSS feed and post them as “Notes.” So, now, everything I post here will be crossposted to Facebook automagically. For the meta-feed, though, I’m imagining something that will include public Flickr photos integrated as well. But then the question still remains, will people want to see somewhat random photos just appearing in my feed whenever I happen to upload them, mixed in with the .plan posts as well as the more-than-one-paragraph posts? Or is it just better to have 3 separate feeds for photos, twitters, and posts, and let people subscribe to whatever they choose?

    Another potential solution – perhaps the easiest for everyone – would be to add a “post” or “longform” category to this blog, and make sure that all posts that are not twitter-like in nature are included in that category. WordPress is nice enough to create feeds for each category, so anyone who wanted to get only the posts without the twitterpations, could subscribe to that category and get what they wanted without all the other stuff. To provide for the eventuality that this idea becomes the implemented solution, I have added said “Longform” category now, and this is that category’s inaugural post.

  • Twitter me this

    Nels W

    Why is it that with Twitter, I feel like I can post just about every though that comes to mind (at least while I’m sitting in front of my computer and don’t feel like I’m going to annoy my Twitter friends), but when it comes to “actual”, “real” blogging, I feel like there has to be something to say, or something to talk about, or some point to make?

    I mean, there are certain things I can say on Twitter that I probably wouldn’t here, since my Twitter feed is only viewable by my Twitter friends, and I can control who my friends are, so I know who is going to see what I write.

    But something like “How is it 3:23 already?” could just as well be available to whole world (and still no one would care). Of course, I don’t want to start something along the lines of having to crosspost to Twitter, Facebook (cause those two aren’t quite integrated enough yet), and my blog. That would be the ultimate waste of time, and futile effort in futility. On the other hand, something I could do would be to add a category like “Twit” or “Snips” or “.plan” to this blog, and let people who want those shorty posts subscribe to that tag/category. I’m fairly sure the related statistics would blow your mind. In a “why is he still talking about this?” sort of way.

    The problem then becomes that, on the surface, this blog seems to be more of a one way street of communication, where as Twitter feels much more like a two-way, albeit asynchronous, communication. Of course, I’m already to subscribed to a couple separate feeds of info that come from my Twitter friends, in addition to their Twitter feeds, so really, perhaps it only seems like more of a two-way communication because of the framework that Twitter has put in place.

    Following that, though, is the ability to post from Twitter via cell phone (though I haven’t actually done that yet), and also via IM. The same applies to the ability to receive Twitter chatter via cell phone (again, haven’t done that) and via IM (which I do, and enjoy, but by which I am sometimes annoyed). Furthermore is the integration (weak though it is) of Twitter with Facebook (with which I am currently totally obsessed). I do see, though, that someone is working on a wordpress app for Facebook that would make posts show up in the Mini-Feed. If that worked, then posting “twits” to my blog would essentially eliminate the need to post them to either Twitter or Facebook. Perhaps I can get in touch with the developer of that plug-in and help him along with it. 🙂

    And while this post may have appeared to decide nothing, it does serve as the birthplace of the .plan category.

  • Swaptree – I can see why money was invented

    Nels W

    I’m in the beta of swaptree, and after listing a bunch of stuff, I found something I have that apparently is of some value to someone else. The DVD of Hitchcock’s North by Northwest is the first item I’ve listed that people have actually wanted to trade for. Initially, there wasn’t anyone who had something on my “want” list who also wanted NxNW. But, the magic of swaptree worked quickly and soon I was united with someone who wanted NxNW and had something I wanted!

    The Web 2.0 induced buzz wore off quickly, though. The item being offered in trade for this DVD was a book – a simple paperback book – and not one of the ones that I was really hoping for. I figured that sort of problem would come up when you have a site that’s trading things as diverse as books, CDs, DVDs, and video games. Those are essentially 4 different price points, and the only way to get over that is to swap things that you consider to be of the lowest common denominator of value – that being the book (paperback books, that is). So, when swaptree found someone who had a paperback I wanted, and that person wanted my DVD, I felt like I should be getting more for the DVD than a paperback.

    To confirm this feeling I had, I checked Amazon and found that I could get the paperback for $0.01 + $3.99 shipping for a total of $4. If I were to sell the movie, I’d get $7.99 – $2.99 commission + $2.99 shipping credit – $2.00 actual shipping = $5.99. I just lost $1.99. Yeah, yeah, I’m an IT professional and I make enough money that I can give up a measly two dollars. Until I’ve made 10 trades and then I’m out almost 20 dollars. I can buy stuff for 20 bucks. I mean, if I you look at those paperbacks that are $4 each, that’s five more books I could read.

    Another “swapping” site that I’m trying out is BookMooch. Now, as should be obvious from the name, only books are exchanged on BookMooch, but knowing what we know about the previous scenario, it does make things easier. The site gives you a “point” for sending a book to someone. Then you can “buy” a book from someone else for that point. Of course, there’s still room for some arbitrage there, but you don’t get into as much of a gray area as when trading books for DVDs or CDs for video games. In addition, since you get points for every book you send out, you don’t have to wait to find someone to trade with. Maybe I’m showing a little too much faith, but I sent out a few books before I even “mooched” my first; I’ve still sent out more than I’m due to receive, but I’m feeling good about the whole process. I know I won’t be able to trade my MoochPoints for real money like I can with my buckets of Linden dollars, but I (and everyone using the site) knows the value of those points, whereas swaptree relies on me denying trades to establish a value for my items.

    Now… if only there was a place I could go where I could send anything I wanted to get rid of and get “EverythingPoints” and then use those “EverythingPoints” to buy whatever I wanted. Maybe when Web 3.0 gets here…

  • Nothing to Download

    Nels W

    I’ve actually been sitting on this post for about 6 months – which is about how often I manage to post here, so you can kind of see how the process goes.

    It wasn’t a revelation in the sense that it led to some insight or allowed me access to new knowledge, but I’m not sure how else to describe it…

    something like this…

    My wife: You can email me, or I’ll be on Gchat when I’m in my email.

    Her friend: Yeah, it’s nice that you don’t have to download anything.

    That’s it. Simple as that. Nothing to download.

    Now, my wife and her friend (and her friends in general) are technologically savvy, but aren’t the techie type nor usually early adopters. I guess this is part of the genius of Google. It was a lot more obvious when they rewrote pretty much every rule that existed with the release of Gmail. And while the addition of GChat [ed: and now chat in Yahoo Mail] is certainly less revolutionary, it’s another indication of where this all is headed.

    Of course, as far as I can tell right now, the advantage of GChat over chat in Yahoo Mail is that GChat saves all your chats for you. It even does that when you chat using the downloaded version of the client. Yahoo Messenger saves your chat history on your hard drive. Now that you can chat in Yahoo Mail, it would certainly make sense to update that. [ed: they might have done that already, but I haven’t opened up the thick client for YMessenger in a while – it’s all about Trilian as the thinnest thick client there is]

    The addition of Yahoo Web Messenger adds another level of importance to the need for syncing that history. YWM will save your history to the web, so I’m not sure if YMail also does that now as well. I could probably test it, but I’m lazy.

    Since I’m writing this post now and not 6 months ago, I do feel that it warrants a mention that YWM is done in Flash/Flex. Not Silverlight. Yes, Silverlight just hit beta this week. But with what those Metaliq guys have done with it already, it would seem that Yahoo could have done Web Messenger that way if they wanted.

    And since I’m inviting fanatics from both sides just by putting the words in the post, I might as well link to one of my favorite posts ever from Eric Dolecki.

  • Weird Habits Besides Biting My Nails

    Nels W

    It’s odd… because it’s usually pretty quiet in my/our home office. In fact, the new clock we picked up from Office Depot has a much louder second hand than the previous one. You think that would get to me enough to put on the headphones immediately. I mean, right now, it’s nearly all I can think about.

    But… when I work at home, I don’t get that urge to turn on the music until about 2pm. And when I do, I usually just listen through the computer’s speakers even though the sound quality is extremely low.

    But… when I work downtown, I get the urge almost as soon as I sit down to put the headphones on and open up iTunes. Even when it’s totally quiet and nobody is on a phone call or talking to someone else about their project. I want to put them on even when it’s as quiet as a Buddhist temple. I resist because I do actually like the quiet. When I make myself aware of it, it’s quite peaceful and relaxing (and it works out because, for some reason, I feel like I should save my music time for when there is actual external noise to drown out).

    That and I bite my nails a lot.

  • Update on Flex stuff

    Nels W

    Okay, so it’s been almost a month since the last post and I really haven’t gotten that far… It’s difficult when 8 hours of your day is taken up with work that is not Flex, and another 7-8 is taken up with sleeping. And my social calendar has been fairly packed this month as well, so, all in all, just not much time…

    But here’s the most recent Flex articles I’ve read:

  • Flexing my brain muscles

    Nels W

    So, today I read this article comparing the syntax of Java 5 and ActionScript 3.

    Of note:

    • Function overloading is not allowed in ActionScript 3. What’s the workaround for that?
    • Exception handling: ActionScript can throw not only Error Objects, but numbers… So, a function of a Monkey class could throw 900.

    That’s poo in case you didn’t get it. There’s no number for F, so ActionScript monkeys can’t throw feces.