dreadfullyposh.com - Jeremy’s Life

A few days ago a message came up that really bothered me on a discussion list I am on for Christian organizations who use the web for their ministries. I didn’t respond directly, but I thought I’d share my thoughts here.

The questions was regarding Facebook. The gentleman who wrote the message had just created a Facebook account and had no idea how to use it. Now, see, though I could go on an entire rant about how people should know more about what Facebook is if they live in any part of the world with half-decent Internet access, I am going to take issue with another part of the discussion that ensued. Indeed many replied and discussed how they set up Facebook accounts for their organizations. That, for me, is a big giant screaming ARGGGGHHHHH!

Let’s think back a couple of years. There was a social site, known as MySpace (who uses that site, anyway?). Now as we all know, MySpace turned into a huge pile of Internet trash. Meanwhile, Facebook snuck in, and with it’s strong committment to securing registration to REAL people, built a new Internet social empire. Over the years, the registration requirements have opened up, which is good. More people are able to get on, but now, we’re heading to a dangerous territory. While before you needed an actual university e-mail account or other means of authenticating yourself, now the registration is open.

The problem I see here is that organizations are coming in and creating social accounts for their group. Facebook has done a decent job of creating a Page structure that supports non-people in the Facebook network. It really irks me that people would use anything but that for a company or organizations. It’s truly contaminating my social grid.

My mesage to groups that have practiced this. Do you really know what you’re doing? Facebook is for people. The beauty of the structure for organizations within Facebook is that it ties PEOPLE together around the group. Please please please please please use it for what it’s for and how it’s intended. I will not be  your organization’s friend, and I will have serious doubts about the accuracy of its college education, gender, birthdate, activities and interests.

Facebook is a beautiful organic network of people connected to eachother. Please keep it that way and help to encourage people to use the site for what it is, a social utility.

Just got finished reading Small Pieces Loosely Joined by David Weinberger.

It’s an impressive piece spanning from the technological to the sociolgical and beyond. It documents the place the World Wide Web currently holds in our society and how it turns the world we know upside down.

I highly recommend this book for everyone to read. For techies, it’ll take your head out of the server room and get you thinking about the real impact the Internet is having beyond the infrastructure. For the luddites, it’ll really open your eyes as to what the Web really is, beyond a flickering computer screen.

I think the key takeaway from the book is that the Internet redefines what it means to be social. No longer is socialization limited by proximity and time. Instead, we can now interact at a deep personal level from any place at any time. That’s the magic of the massive network we’ve built in the past two decades. And it’s cause for us to stop and think and reconsider the parameters we use to try to define our world.

Another good article I found tonight.. If you’re not totally sure what the whole Web 2.0 movement is all about, check out this article:

42 things about Web 2.0 in 2008

This is actually part 2 of a 3 part series.

Interesting article I found reposted by Noah Everett.

It’s an interesting and encouraging list of tidbits for those who are in the process of starting a new business. Kind of goes against anything a business professor would tell you, but that’s the way it goes, at least in the world of the Internet.

View the reposted article here.

So I’ve tripped over my power cord on more than one occasion, and yes, just maybe the MagSafe plug has prevented my laptop from taking flight.

I’m not so sure it’s been really helpful to me, though. In my past experience giving your laptop a little airtime once in a while isn’t usually fatal. Sure, it scares the buh-geezes out of you or the person who’s laptop you borrowed to check your Gmail account, but usually the little wonder comes out relatively unscathed.

Now, a bit past a year of having my MacBook, the power cord is shot. I’m kinda grumpy about it. Why does Apple keep making power cords with ridiculously crappy strain reliefs. Maybe the magnet in the plug is still just a bit too strong to make it truly MagSafe. Though it saves your computer, clearly the resistance on the cord is enough to kill it in time. BLAH.

Anyway. I have a mind to reinforce my next powercord with mounds of electrical tape. Not sure if I’ll do it, but it’s a thought.

I guess I can be glad mine didn’t completely melt and spark as some Internet reports reveal.

Anybody else have trouble with their MagSafe’s? Or am I the only one?

I just got my copy of Dan Pink’s The Adventures of Johnny Bunko. For those that don’t recognize the name, Pink is the author of bestselling books, A Whole New Mind and Free Agent Nation.

I read A Whole New Mind a while back and really enjoyed it. So, naturally I was attracted when his new book was released.

I was a little leary of the new book’s format, as it’s written/illustrated in manga… not my usual style. I did, however, quickly get into it, and I was able to finish the book in less than an hour.

I will spare you the details, but Johnny Bunko is an average office worker who receives six career lessons from an interesting career counselor, Diana. The points Pink makes through his fictional counselor are pretty good, although for those in the know, they certainly aren’t groundbreaking.

As I found with his previous works, Pink’s books are groundbreaking for some, but people like me tend to find them comfortably affirming. It’s nice to know that I’m not the only one who thinks the way I do.

Overall an enjoyable read. Check out www.johnnybunko.com for some free samples from the book. I recommend reading it through in the bookstore. It’s a super-fast read.

As I met with a group of friends several months ago, something interesting came up. One of these friends was my age and just out of college, the other two are a bit older. We had come together to discuss how we might cooperate in providing communications services together to various clients.

In preparation for the meeting, we all outlined what skills and knowledge we would bring to the table.

Interestingly enough, though our skill sets varied, it seemed that many of the same concepts were present.

The key difference, as Richard pointed out, was how we marketed ourselves in our own self-descriptions.

It seems that college students and recent graduates today have a high aptitude for branding themselves (maybe for branding in general). We like to plant our own .com and build a look and style that adequately describes ourselves. Very interesting indeed.

Branding is key. But how will all of these personified brands play out in the future? How will we integrate into a corporate world, yet maintain our own personal and branded identities? How will we work together without competing?

This is yet to be seen for me, at least. But I think the independent and small-biz web development culture is by far the most advanced in this area. As I’m just busting (or re-busting) into the scene of web development, I’m enamored by the community I’ve walked into.

Of course, I must give kudos to Alex Hillman, for his coworking evangelism. He’s drawn me in, and inspired me to participate in a new community of professionals who are working independently, yet together.

what happens when you have a great idea and somebody else comes up with the same idea at approximately the same time? frustrating..

so today, in an ironic feat of web-searchification, while working on my very own foto:blip, i discovered a lovely little app that does nearly the same thing as foto:blip. note, nearly.

clearly i’ve been beaten to the punch in providing a way to use photos instead of words to share the play by play of your life.

so what to do now? beat them with sticks!

the key differentiation that i see right now is that TwitPic (what a silly name) is a bolt-on application. it connects with the Twitter API and (sortof) extends the functionality of Twitter. not a bad idea at all. Twitter has a large and growing userbase. but, i believe that what is really needed to take the next step with microbloggery is to have a completely new application which is built from the ground up to work with images. while two Twitter add-on clients support TwitPic, allowing the posted photo to be viewed directly in the client, other venues such as the Twitter web site and the all-important Twitter Facebook application merely show a link to your photo posted via TwitPic. degrades nicely for those clients, but how will it bode for the visually-inclined user? not so well.

foto:blip has, from the very beginning, been designed to use photos as the users’ primary means of communication. to emphasize that point, photo captions are limited to a short 50 characters. we want users to communicate with their images. to do this, it is a necessity that every viewer can see the posted images alongside the caption.

i’ll be having a closer look at TwitPic shortly as I continue working on foto:blip. perhaps it will inspire me even more.

i’m about 80 percent done my new social site, foto:blip.

the concept is pretty simple. we live in a visual world, not a textual one. though words can describe many things, a picture still captures so much more.

tools like twitter are cool. it allows you to update from a variety of places, most commonly the web site, a facebook application and from a registered mobile device. it’s really cool to be able to share your day as it happens with your followers and see what your friends are doing with their days.

it’s time to take the next step. foto:blip merges the quick-posting ease of use of applications like twitter with the increased level of communication that can take place with a photograph.

some of the features include:

• built in flash-powered foto:booth. you don’t even need to save a photo to your computer first, simply take a picture with your webcam and upload it immediately, all from within your browser window
• mobile uploads. using your cell phone provider’s sms to e-mail gateway or e-mail account, you can send messages with picture attachments that will be posted to your account when received
• no-login-required access to your foto:blip profile
• rss feeds for foto:blip profiles
• more coming..

stay tuned for launch information.

• home again. Quite tired. #
• villages and huts to be the next social revolution, or at least my excuse to use the XFN microformat. #