So Krisco and I are having a cosy chat about the state of blogosphere and then she asks would I want to be dooce? While I was crossing my legs at the mere thought of all the surgery that would involve, Krisco clarified the question as: would I want that level of popularity?
The upside: It would absolutely change my life. That level of popularity and, let's be honest, the level of income that it brings would enable me to approach the old hierarchy of needs in a different way. I'd get to be my own boss and stay home a lot more. Sidenote: I haven't the first clue as to what that income is, but by their own admission it is sufficient that neither dooce or her husband currently need to work what you might call a "normal" job.
The downside: It's a huge risk. It's alright if you have a handle on what it is that makes your blog successful and are able to sustain the formula, but what if you can't. How about a couple of months of writers block. Let's face it, no one would notice if I didn't post for a couple of months, but it would wipe dooce off the map. Whilst there are no consequences for me if I fall out of the Top 350,000 blogs on Technorati, the same cannot be true for dooce if she falls out of the Top 100. Tristan Louis recently posted a clinical analysis of the Technorati Top 100 which proves just how dynamic the list is, and by extension how tenuous anyone's grip is on a position within it (unless, it would seem, your blog is named Boing Boing) .
The other thing that comes with a successful blog appears to be the detractors. I've seen a little of that side of things from reading the comments on Scoble's blog and I've seen dooce refer several times to what I'd label as hate mail. I wouldn't underestimate how difficult it might be to handle that on a daily basis.
On balance, no I wouldn't want that level of popularity. But I'd be lying if I said I didn't want my blog to have higher traffic levels than it does today. An interesting question is: where is the happy medium?
Tags: Crib Ceiling, Blogging, dooce, Technorati, Robert Scoble
Sunday, February 26, 2006
Blogging peaks?
The esteemed Washington Post appears to have bought into some of the recent twaddle that somehow blogging has peaked. Personally, I don't think we've even reached breakfast in the blogging timeline.
The article quotes a Gallup pole titled "Blog Readership Bogged Down" that reports that only 9 percent of those polled said they regularly read blogs. I wonder how many people have read a blog in it's online form and never realised. The poll goes on to claim that 66 percent never read them. I wonder how that will change when Vista and the next generation of Office with embedded RSS brings the technology front and centre.
Update: Kent makes a more reasoned argument as to why the blogosphere is still a growth area.
Tags: Washington Post, Gallup, Blogging, Kent Newsome
The article quotes a Gallup pole titled "Blog Readership Bogged Down" that reports that only 9 percent of those polled said they regularly read blogs. I wonder how many people have read a blog in it's online form and never realised. The poll goes on to claim that 66 percent never read them. I wonder how that will change when Vista and the next generation of Office with embedded RSS brings the technology front and centre.
Update: Kent makes a more reasoned argument as to why the blogosphere is still a growth area.
Tags: Washington Post, Gallup, Blogging, Kent Newsome
Blogging Psychology
Crib Ceiling pointed me today in the direction of an article titled "Blogs to Riches" from the New York Magazine. The article immediately brought to mind something Kent Newsome wrote at the start of the year on "Why It's Impossible to Build a New Blog in 2006" and my response to Kent which was "I choose to believe the glass is half full"
Kent's thesis was that successful blogs have one of three things going for them:
1) they got there first and filled an empty space
2) the blog represents a large company which has a ready made audience
3) they get help from established bloggers
Kent went on to make this statement:
So if all this is true what advice does the article have for the aspiring blogger:
Having spent a lot of time reading the blogosphere in the last few months I can see more clearly what Kent was saying back at the start of the year and the article backs up what Kent was saying with a splash of psychology.
So what does all this mean for me:
1) Would I like to write a popular blog? Hell, who wouldn't.
2) Do I think my blog will ever be A List? Not if I keep doing what I'm doing. I'm certainly not regular or relentless enough, and my stuff isn't generally what you'd call witty. I'm not about to crank out dozens of blogs, I have enough trouble keeping one blog going.
3) Does it matter if my blog never makes the A List? Nope. I'd like to think that more people are interested in what I have to say than the few visitors I do get, but I don't do this to join the A List. By the way visitors - thanks for stopping by and reading what I have to say!
4) Why do I do this? I do this to take part and because I think I have things to say. I do it because I've met some interesting people and because I've come across interesting insights and I'd like to keep meeting people and continue to be stimulated by what others think. I've discovered lots of software and ideas that I'd never have found otherwise. Some of the things I've found changed my life, some of it made me more productive, some things made me laugh, other things made me sad. Some of it has been uplifting, sometimes it makes me fume. The internet truly is an amazing place.
Tags: Crib Ceiling, Kent Newsome, Blogging, power law, A List
Kent's thesis was that successful blogs have one of three things going for them:
1) they got there first and filled an empty space
2) the blog represents a large company which has a ready made audience
3) they get help from established bloggers
Kent went on to make this statement:
I no longer believe you can have a successful blog without a ready made audience. Why? Because, unfortunately, the blogosphere is a closed system. There are too many people who believe they are going to get rich by writing a blog. Once you add the element of money into the equation, the element of competition soon follows. So you get the haves linking to one another (and largely only to one another) and ignoring (or at best tolerating) the have nots, in an effort to boost their status and, perhaps more importantly, protect their shares of the readership pie. Anyone who argues this isn't true hasn't spent much time surfing around the blogosphere.The article adds some weight to Kent's contention that there is disparity in the blogospere and suggests an explantion for it. The article relies heavily on research by Clay Shirky, an instructor at New York University, who looked at linking behaviour on a sample of blogs.
When Shirky sorted the blogs from most linked to least linked and lined them up on a chart, the curve began up high, with the lucky few. But then it quickly fell into a steep dive, flattening off into the distance, where the vast majority of ignored blogs reside. The A-list is teensy, the B-list is bigger, and the C-list is simply massive.
Economists and network scientists have a name for Shirky’s curve: a “power-law distribution.” Power laws are not limited to the Web; in fact, they’re common to many social systems. If you chart the world’s wealth, it forms a power-law curve: A tiny number of rich people possess most of the world’s capital, while almost everyone else has little or none.
The power law is dominant because of a quirk of human behavior: When we are asked to decide among a dizzying array of options, we do not act like dispassionate decision-makers, weighing each option on its own merits. Popularity breeds popularity.
“It’s not about moral failings or any sort of psychological thing. People aren’t lazy—they just base their decisions on what other people are doing,” Shirky says. “It’s just social physics. It’s like gravity, one of those forces.”Kent and I agreed that there is an advantage to being an early adopter and the article supports this with the statement that first-movers get a crucial leg up in this kind of power-law system.
The article describes three business models for blogging success:
1) The accidental tourist: A lone writer who starts a blog as a mere hobby but then wakes up one day to realize his audience is now as big as a small city newspaper.
2) The record-label approach: Crank out dozens and dozens of sites and hope that one or two will become hits. [The Jason Calcanis model]
3) The boutique approach: a publisher who crafts individual blogs the way Condé Nast crafts magazines—each one carefully aimed at some ineffable, deluxe readership. [The Nick Denton model]
So if all this is true what advice does the article have for the aspiring blogger:
1)Regularity and relentlessness,” says Arianna Huffington. “That’s how you break through the static of the 5,000-channel universe.” What’s more, a blog is like a shark: If it stops moving, it dies. Without fresh postings every day—hell, every few minutes—even the most well-linked blog will quickly lose its audience. The A-listers cannot rest on their laurels.
2) “The good news is that it’s still possible to create a top-ranked blog,” says Shirky. “The bad news is, the way to get into the top ten now seems to be public relations.” Just posting witty entries and hoping for traffic won’t do it. You have to actively seek out attention from the press. “That’s how they’re jump-starting the links structure. It’s not organic.”
Having spent a lot of time reading the blogosphere in the last few months I can see more clearly what Kent was saying back at the start of the year and the article backs up what Kent was saying with a splash of psychology.
So what does all this mean for me:
1) Would I like to write a popular blog? Hell, who wouldn't.
2) Do I think my blog will ever be A List? Not if I keep doing what I'm doing. I'm certainly not regular or relentless enough, and my stuff isn't generally what you'd call witty. I'm not about to crank out dozens of blogs, I have enough trouble keeping one blog going.
3) Does it matter if my blog never makes the A List? Nope. I'd like to think that more people are interested in what I have to say than the few visitors I do get, but I don't do this to join the A List. By the way visitors - thanks for stopping by and reading what I have to say!
4) Why do I do this? I do this to take part and because I think I have things to say. I do it because I've met some interesting people and because I've come across interesting insights and I'd like to keep meeting people and continue to be stimulated by what others think. I've discovered lots of software and ideas that I'd never have found otherwise. Some of the things I've found changed my life, some of it made me more productive, some things made me laugh, other things made me sad. Some of it has been uplifting, sometimes it makes me fume. The internet truly is an amazing place.
Tags: Crib Ceiling, Kent Newsome, Blogging, power law, A List
Friday, February 24, 2006
Tilting at windmills
Dave Winer has written a contribution today entitled "Hate in the Blogosphere". In it he notes that the level of venom being directed at him on a personal level has crossed the line. I've watched this in my aggregator for days without really having a handle on what exactly is the issue, but understanding that their are some deep feelings on both sides. What I've mainly seen until today though has been passion.
Sidenote: Although Dave's post turned up in my aggregator and I've used the link within the post that arrived in my aggregator, the link isn't working. It will take you to today's Scripting News but the essay on Hate isn't there.
I noticed the other day Robert Scoble was being subjected to a level of personal attack in the comments on his blog that I found offensive. Over the past few days I've been pretty sick with a cold and chest infection and given that I had some time on my hands whilst being laid up in bed I tilted at windmills.
In other words I engaged with a few of the more unpleasant commenters and I engaged them on Scoble's blog in the comments. I was pleased to see a few people jump in and support my view but I was also mildly suprised by the level of apathy.
I fear that we will lose good and important conversationalists and contributors who will be drowned out by those who make it their mission to shout louder or whose aim is merely to be offensive. It's a form of mob rule. It's anarchy. I agree we shouldn't tolerate it, but I'm not sure what we do about it?
Technorati Tags: Dave Winer, Robert Scoble, Blogging
Sidenote: Although Dave's post turned up in my aggregator and I've used the link within the post that arrived in my aggregator, the link isn't working. It will take you to today's Scripting News but the essay on Hate isn't there.
I noticed the other day Robert Scoble was being subjected to a level of personal attack in the comments on his blog that I found offensive. Over the past few days I've been pretty sick with a cold and chest infection and given that I had some time on my hands whilst being laid up in bed I tilted at windmills.
In other words I engaged with a few of the more unpleasant commenters and I engaged them on Scoble's blog in the comments. I was pleased to see a few people jump in and support my view but I was also mildly suprised by the level of apathy.
I fear that we will lose good and important conversationalists and contributors who will be drowned out by those who make it their mission to shout louder or whose aim is merely to be offensive. It's a form of mob rule. It's anarchy. I agree we shouldn't tolerate it, but I'm not sure what we do about it?
Technorati Tags: Dave Winer, Robert Scoble, Blogging
Rex Hammock: Blog because....
Dave Winer points this morning at an interesting article by Rex Hammock:
Rex Hammock: "It's a mistake when anyone attempts to place mass-media business metrics to defining success or failure of a weblog."
The quote that rang bells for me though, was this one:
"If you run a business, blog because one day, I promise, you will be glad you have a place to respond when the conversation is about you."
Tags: Dave Winer, Rex Hammock, Blogging
Tuesday, February 21, 2006
Are YouTube just another bunch of pirates?
I continue to enjoy Newsome.Org. Kent pointed me today in the direction of a contribution by Jason Calcanis on why YouTube is not a real business.
Jason makes his main point that the file sharing capabilities of YouTube makes it a business that relies on piracy to generate it's ranking. Unfortunately he extended the thought to call it a silly little business that anyone could start in a week and for that he's taken some heat. Counter arguments have pointed out that Flickr is similarly an FTP site with Tags, that technically what has been achieved by YouTube in terms of scalability isn't easy, and that the communities that sites like Flickr and YouTube have built are not easily replicated. Good points.
Let's back up a second to Jason's main point. People want facilities that allow them to share photos, videos, files and content. The problem is that if these facilities are delivered as free services then those companies are also delivering the capability to support piracy. Blogging is not immune, witness the rise of the piracy of blog entries being re-packaged by ad-supported delivery mechanisms.
Isn't one of the issues what YouTube are doing to deal with the issue of piracy? Are they doing nothing or even worse are they relying on the piracy and therefore encouraging it to an extent, without crossing the legal line, in order to build their community? And given their business model, scale = revenue. Flickr, by contrast, appear to be more interested in copyright infringement and self-policing. It's possible that if YouTube fail to police themselves adequately that eventually someone else (e.g. the courts) will do it for them.
Technorati Tags: Kent Newsome, Jason Calcanis, YouTube, Flickr
Jason makes his main point that the file sharing capabilities of YouTube makes it a business that relies on piracy to generate it's ranking. Unfortunately he extended the thought to call it a silly little business that anyone could start in a week and for that he's taken some heat. Counter arguments have pointed out that Flickr is similarly an FTP site with Tags, that technically what has been achieved by YouTube in terms of scalability isn't easy, and that the communities that sites like Flickr and YouTube have built are not easily replicated. Good points.
Let's back up a second to Jason's main point. People want facilities that allow them to share photos, videos, files and content. The problem is that if these facilities are delivered as free services then those companies are also delivering the capability to support piracy. Blogging is not immune, witness the rise of the piracy of blog entries being re-packaged by ad-supported delivery mechanisms.
Isn't one of the issues what YouTube are doing to deal with the issue of piracy? Are they doing nothing or even worse are they relying on the piracy and therefore encouraging it to an extent, without crossing the legal line, in order to build their community? And given their business model, scale = revenue. Flickr, by contrast, appear to be more interested in copyright infringement and self-policing. It's possible that if YouTube fail to police themselves adequately that eventually someone else (e.g. the courts) will do it for them.
Technorati Tags: Kent Newsome, Jason Calcanis, YouTube, Flickr
Saturday, February 18, 2006
In the end today's gatekeepers get trampled on too...
In the beginning DARPA created the internet. And the geeks saw that this was good.
And Tim Berners-Lee said, "Let there be HTML," and there was web pages. The geeks saw that html was good, but it separated the geeks from the masses.
And then Dave Winer said, "Let there be RSS," and there was blogs and aggregators. The geeks saw that RSS was good, and more of the masses got involved and the line between the geeks and the masses was blurred.
And then Bill Gates said, "Build RSS into Vista," and the great disruption began. The line between the geeks and the masses disappeared. The word of mouth network trampled on institutional communication tactics. The cluetrain ran over the institutions who didn't get it. And Hugh Macleod thought this was bloody funny and drew a cartoon.
Oh, and by the way Kent, I think "the gatekeepers" get run over too.
Technorati Tags: Kent Newsome, Dave Winer, Hugh Macleod, gatekeepers
And Tim Berners-Lee said, "Let there be HTML," and there was web pages. The geeks saw that html was good, but it separated the geeks from the masses.
And then Dave Winer said, "Let there be RSS," and there was blogs and aggregators. The geeks saw that RSS was good, and more of the masses got involved and the line between the geeks and the masses was blurred.
And then Bill Gates said, "Build RSS into Vista," and the great disruption began. The line between the geeks and the masses disappeared. The word of mouth network trampled on institutional communication tactics. The cluetrain ran over the institutions who didn't get it. And Hugh Macleod thought this was bloody funny and drew a cartoon.
Oh, and by the way Kent, I think "the gatekeepers" get run over too.
Technorati Tags: Kent Newsome, Dave Winer, Hugh Macleod, gatekeepers
Sunday, February 05, 2006
Why Pandora Rocks
Kent Newsome got me thinking that I ought to write a post about my own Pandora experience. I've been using Pandora for a couple of months now and given the spate of recent posts about the comparison between Pandora and Last.fm I guess now is as good a time as any to say why I think Pandora rocks.
Reason 1 - Through Pandora I discovered Howie Day. Both Pandora and Last.fm help you discover talented artists that you haven't heard before taking an artist you choose as the starting point of the discovery process. That's really where the similarity ends. Pandora is built on an approach in which music tracks are decomposed into over 400 attributes which include things like melody, harmony, instrumentation, rhythm, vocals, lyrics and then plays songs with interesting musical similarities to your chosen artist. Last.fm is based on social recommendations. It works on the principle that the people who share an interest in one artist probably share an interest in other artists. Steve Krause has written a much more insightful article on the differences between the two approaches which is well worth a read.
I created a station on Pandora with a starting point of James Blunt. Within minutes the station played a track called "She Says" by Howie Day. I've been a little obsessed ever since. I've bought the album, I play the album in the car to and from work, I've ripped it to my laptop to play to myself at work, I've moved tracks onto my phone to use as my ringtone and my alarm. It's likely I would never have discovered Howie without Pandora, so in my world Pandora rocks.
Reason 2 - Pandora has a very clean and simple interface. Getting started is simple. For me Pandora wins hands down on usability.
Reason 3 - Last.fm wouldn't let me start from James Blunt as my favourite artist. It only says "Artist not streamable".
Technorati Tags: pandora, last.fm, Kent Newsome, Steve Krause, Howie Day, James Blunt
Reason 1 - Through Pandora I discovered Howie Day. Both Pandora and Last.fm help you discover talented artists that you haven't heard before taking an artist you choose as the starting point of the discovery process. That's really where the similarity ends. Pandora is built on an approach in which music tracks are decomposed into over 400 attributes which include things like melody, harmony, instrumentation, rhythm, vocals, lyrics and then plays songs with interesting musical similarities to your chosen artist. Last.fm is based on social recommendations. It works on the principle that the people who share an interest in one artist probably share an interest in other artists. Steve Krause has written a much more insightful article on the differences between the two approaches which is well worth a read.
I created a station on Pandora with a starting point of James Blunt. Within minutes the station played a track called "She Says" by Howie Day. I've been a little obsessed ever since. I've bought the album, I play the album in the car to and from work, I've ripped it to my laptop to play to myself at work, I've moved tracks onto my phone to use as my ringtone and my alarm. It's likely I would never have discovered Howie without Pandora, so in my world Pandora rocks.
Reason 2 - Pandora has a very clean and simple interface. Getting started is simple. For me Pandora wins hands down on usability.
Reason 3 - Last.fm wouldn't let me start from James Blunt as my favourite artist. It only says "Artist not streamable".
Technorati Tags: pandora, last.fm, Kent Newsome, Steve Krause, Howie Day, James Blunt
Hugh, there's something wrong with this picture....
I notice that Hugh Macleod and Robert Scoble are at an interesting looking conference in Switzerland this week. Hugh is one of the most influential bloggers in the UK, Robert is referred to on the conference website as Microsoft's Uberblogger.
I did a quick search around the globe for blogging conferences. The list I've come up with isn't intended to be a complete or comprehensive. I didn't for example include Gnomedex, which I'd love to attend, but doesn't to the best of my knowledge, have a primary focus on the blogosphere. I'm sure I've missed a load of others but check this out:
USA
The RSS Summit
BlogHer
MeshForum
Blog Business Summit
BloggerCon
Syndicate Conference
BlogOn
Canada
Northern Voice
Paris, France
Les Blogs
Geneva, Switzerland
LIFT (Life, Ideas, Futures, Together)
Copenhagen, Denmark
Reboot
Vienna, Austria
BlogTalk Reloaded
Hugh, there's something wrong with this picture. I don't want to upset the folks who ran Global Voices which is a conference with a blogging theme but, correct me if I'm wrong, it has a very specific focus and isn't what you might call a general conference about blogging.
So I'm wondering what the problem is. Is it that we're not getting it? Is it that we're getting it slower than the rest of the world? Have we not reached the tipping point in the UK yet?
Most importantly are we, as a country, in serious danger of missing the cluetrain / hughtrain?
Technorati Tags: Blogs, Blogging, Robert Scoble, Hugh Macleod, cluetrain, hughtrain
I did a quick search around the globe for blogging conferences. The list I've come up with isn't intended to be a complete or comprehensive. I didn't for example include Gnomedex, which I'd love to attend, but doesn't to the best of my knowledge, have a primary focus on the blogosphere. I'm sure I've missed a load of others but check this out:
USA
The RSS Summit
BlogHer
MeshForum
Blog Business Summit
BloggerCon
Syndicate Conference
BlogOn
Canada
Northern Voice
Paris, France
Les Blogs
Geneva, Switzerland
LIFT (Life, Ideas, Futures, Together)
Copenhagen, Denmark
Reboot
Vienna, Austria
BlogTalk Reloaded
Hugh, there's something wrong with this picture. I don't want to upset the folks who ran Global Voices which is a conference with a blogging theme but, correct me if I'm wrong, it has a very specific focus and isn't what you might call a general conference about blogging.
So I'm wondering what the problem is. Is it that we're not getting it? Is it that we're getting it slower than the rest of the world? Have we not reached the tipping point in the UK yet?
Most importantly are we, as a country, in serious danger of missing the cluetrain / hughtrain?
Technorati Tags: Blogs, Blogging, Robert Scoble, Hugh Macleod, cluetrain, hughtrain
Monday, January 16, 2006
The ROI for Blogging
Whenever I get into the topic of blogging with friends or colleagues one of the standard questions I get asked is "What's the Return on Investment?". I usually mention the significant contribution Robert Scoble has made to the way that Microsoft is perceived by important influencers. I talk about Hugh MacLeod, English Cut and Stormhoek as examples of the positive impact of blogging. I talk about Kryptonite and how the global conversation can negatively impact.
I can almost hear the unspoken question that plays in their heads as my friends and colleagues say to themselves "Ok I understand all that, but it doesn't scale to my little world / my little company / my little problem / my little issue".
So here (courtesy of Hugh) is a real world example of (1) how blogging scales (2) why blogging is so damn important. Read the post, and then, and this is important, read the comments. Look at that for a conversation. You can almost feel the wow response from the customer end. You can almost hear the customer's thoughts: "they care about me and my problem", "they care enough to come and talk to me" and "if they sort this out they've got me for life". I'm projecting a little but I'm pretty sure I'm not majorly wide of the mark.
Technorati Tags: Robert Scoble, Hugh MacLeod, Blogging
I can almost hear the unspoken question that plays in their heads as my friends and colleagues say to themselves "Ok I understand all that, but it doesn't scale to my little world / my little company / my little problem / my little issue".
So here (courtesy of Hugh) is a real world example of (1) how blogging scales (2) why blogging is so damn important. Read the post, and then, and this is important, read the comments. Look at that for a conversation. You can almost feel the wow response from the customer end. You can almost hear the customer's thoughts: "they care about me and my problem", "they care enough to come and talk to me" and "if they sort this out they've got me for life". I'm projecting a little but I'm pretty sure I'm not majorly wide of the mark.
Technorati Tags: Robert Scoble, Hugh MacLeod, Blogging
Sunday, January 08, 2006
Boing Boing vanquished in a week?
I was looking at the Technorati Top 100 this morning and my jaw dropped on noticing that not only was Boing Boing no longer the most popular blog, having been overtaken by a japanese site, but what is extraordinary is the margin by which this new site has drawn into the lead and how quickly this has been done.
The Technorati Top 100 is measured by the number of sites that have linked to a blog in the last six months. Boing Boing has over 18,000 links in the period. Robert Scoble, has two blogs in the Top 100, which is splitting his ranking, but these blogs have 2600 and 2200 links in the same period. Dave Winer's Scripting News in 99th place looks like it might fall out of the Top 100 soon, with 2100 links.
The new leader of the Top 100 has over 50000 links and appears to have achieved this in less than a week from what I can see going back through the links.
Technorati Tags: Technorati, Robert Scoble, Dave Winer, Boing Boing
UPDATE 14th Jan - I noticed today that Boing Boing was back in it's number one spot. I wrote to Dave Sifry to ask if the the Top 100 was being gamed or had the Japenese site been removed for another reason. Dave was kind enough to write back and let me know that Hatena, the Japanese site involved, is a hosting site and that each blog links back to the homepage of the tool. Dave tells me that these tools are removed from the Technorati Top 100 as they notice them. Thanks for clearing that up for me Dave!
The Technorati Top 100 is measured by the number of sites that have linked to a blog in the last six months. Boing Boing has over 18,000 links in the period. Robert Scoble, has two blogs in the Top 100, which is splitting his ranking, but these blogs have 2600 and 2200 links in the same period. Dave Winer's Scripting News in 99th place looks like it might fall out of the Top 100 soon, with 2100 links.
The new leader of the Top 100 has over 50000 links and appears to have achieved this in less than a week from what I can see going back through the links.
Technorati Tags: Technorati, Robert Scoble, Dave Winer, Boing Boing
UPDATE 14th Jan - I noticed today that Boing Boing was back in it's number one spot. I wrote to Dave Sifry to ask if the the Top 100 was being gamed or had the Japenese site been removed for another reason. Dave was kind enough to write back and let me know that Hatena, the Japanese site involved, is a hosting site and that each blog links back to the homepage of the tool. Dave tells me that these tools are removed from the Technorati Top 100 as they notice them. Thanks for clearing that up for me Dave!
I can wish.
Yesterday I watched the webcast of Bill Gates keynote speech at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES). There is a lesson for Google here; I'm definitely interested to hear what Google had to say and it seems strange that you can't watch all of Larry Page's keynote on Google Video.
As always, Bill Gates keynote was full of things to think about in terms of where the future of gadgets and software in the home and office might be going. I captured a snap of what Bill thinks the office of the future might look like. I guess I can wish that one day my office will look like this!
Technorati Tags: Bill Gates, CES, Larry Page
Update Jan 13th - I've picked up that the Larry Page CES keynote has, finally, been made available on Google Video.
As always, Bill Gates keynote was full of things to think about in terms of where the future of gadgets and software in the home and office might be going. I captured a snap of what Bill thinks the office of the future might look like. I guess I can wish that one day my office will look like this!
Technorati Tags: Bill Gates, CES, Larry Page
Update Jan 13th - I've picked up that the Larry Page CES keynote has, finally, been made available on Google Video.
Saturday, January 07, 2006
Redneck Palm Pilot
I couldn't resist, not having just written a post on the need for a "never miss" collection process. Here's the redneck version.
From: The Beachcomber
Technorati Tags: GTD, getting things done, lifehacks, productivity
My Flickr photostream
I've had a lot of fun learning more about Flickr over the holiday. You can view my photos and subscribe to my photostream (RSS).
I just got my new smartphone, the Nokia N70, and I'm having a ball with it. It has a 2 megapixel camera with 20X digital zoom, so I can see myself taking a lot more pictures than I have in the past. That led me to look at Flickr and how easy it would be to share my pictures with my family and friends. Flickr is currently the most popular choice with the photo-sharing community and therefore seems to be the obvious choice. The phone can also take short video clips so I'm looking this morning at options for sharing video.
Technorati Tags: Flickr, Nokia N70, smartphone
I just got my new smartphone, the Nokia N70, and I'm having a ball with it. It has a 2 megapixel camera with 20X digital zoom, so I can see myself taking a lot more pictures than I have in the past. That led me to look at Flickr and how easy it would be to share my pictures with my family and friends. Flickr is currently the most popular choice with the photo-sharing community and therefore seems to be the obvious choice. The phone can also take short video clips so I'm looking this morning at options for sharing video.
Technorati Tags: Flickr, Nokia N70, smartphone
Wednesday, January 04, 2006
Collect Stuff and Process It
I'm paraphrasing and simplying quite a lot to make my point but you could sum up the first steps in the Getting Things Done (GTD) process as Collect Stuff and Process It. If you are going to enjoy the benefits of the stress free nature of GTD you need to trust your approach to collection so that it has a "never miss" feel to it.
The goal is to process all the stuff that's coming at you from all angles: the conversations, the telephone calls, the e-mails, the snail mail, the post-it notes and the thoughts & ideas and process them until you have a trusted list of the next actions that need to be undertaken to achieve high productivity. The "thoughts & ideas" is an important concept for me. Most of the day, when I'm on the go, my mind isn't quiet and processing. It's active and doing. There are times however; in the car, in the shower, just as I'm drifting off before sleeping when I have that thought; the answer to a problem I'm dealing with, the nagging thought, have I done X, did I remember to tell Y. That's where my Olympus digital voice recorder comes in. It's my mobile memory, and I find it incredibly useful now that I'm reaching an age when I'm just beginning to sense that my short term memory isn't quite what it used to be. I keep the recorder by my side all the time. When I have the thought I capture it. And then I process the recorder daily to make sure the thoughts are transferred to my trusted list of next actions.
My other tool of choice for thinking and capturing (collecting) is mind mapping. I'm trying to eliminate linear note taking from my work life as much as possible. With mind mapping, as I capture and visualise the information I'm capturing, I'm much more likely to think laterally and comprehensively. When I've mind mapped and derived the outputs, they go to my trusted list as next actions. My tool of choice for mind mapping is MindManager from MindJet.
In my mind I visualise all this capture activity as a funnel. Everything is thrown in, and out the bottom pops my list of next actions. My trusted list is kept in Outlook, but not in my inbox. The inbox is the kiss of death. I still see people at work with hundreds of items in their inbox and shudder. Every day when they open Outlook they have to process that list; what's important, what do I have to do today, what shall I keep ignoring. I use Outlook tasks. A much underused Outlook component. I must admit that I've supercharged mine with the GTD Outlook plugin from Netcentrics. I know, I know; I'm a geek.
Technorati Tags: GTD, Getting Things Done, Lifehacks, Productivity, David Allen, mind mapping, Mindjet, MindManager, information visualization, outlook
The goal is to process all the stuff that's coming at you from all angles: the conversations, the telephone calls, the e-mails, the snail mail, the post-it notes and the thoughts & ideas and process them until you have a trusted list of the next actions that need to be undertaken to achieve high productivity. The "thoughts & ideas" is an important concept for me. Most of the day, when I'm on the go, my mind isn't quiet and processing. It's active and doing. There are times however; in the car, in the shower, just as I'm drifting off before sleeping when I have that thought; the answer to a problem I'm dealing with, the nagging thought, have I done X, did I remember to tell Y. That's where my Olympus digital voice recorder comes in. It's my mobile memory, and I find it incredibly useful now that I'm reaching an age when I'm just beginning to sense that my short term memory isn't quite what it used to be. I keep the recorder by my side all the time. When I have the thought I capture it. And then I process the recorder daily to make sure the thoughts are transferred to my trusted list of next actions.
My other tool of choice for thinking and capturing (collecting) is mind mapping. I'm trying to eliminate linear note taking from my work life as much as possible. With mind mapping, as I capture and visualise the information I'm capturing, I'm much more likely to think laterally and comprehensively. When I've mind mapped and derived the outputs, they go to my trusted list as next actions. My tool of choice for mind mapping is MindManager from MindJet.
In my mind I visualise all this capture activity as a funnel. Everything is thrown in, and out the bottom pops my list of next actions. My trusted list is kept in Outlook, but not in my inbox. The inbox is the kiss of death. I still see people at work with hundreds of items in their inbox and shudder. Every day when they open Outlook they have to process that list; what's important, what do I have to do today, what shall I keep ignoring. I use Outlook tasks. A much underused Outlook component. I must admit that I've supercharged mine with the GTD Outlook plugin from Netcentrics. I know, I know; I'm a geek.
Technorati Tags: GTD, Getting Things Done, Lifehacks, Productivity, David Allen, mind mapping, Mindjet, MindManager, information visualization, outlook
Tuesday, January 03, 2006
Tagging
I've gotten into tagging, as evidenced by my posts over the last few days. Co-incidentally, Jeff Jarvis, columnist for Media Guardian, has written a piece on tagging, what it is and why it's important. Here's the link. Here's the "how to" from the Technorati help pages.
Technorati Tags: tags, tagging, jeff jarvis, technorati
Technorati Tags: tags, tagging, jeff jarvis, technorati
Monday, January 02, 2006
I have a goal: to attend a Blogger Dinner in 2006
I just read Shel Israel over at Naked Conversations talking about Geek Dinners versus Blogger Dinners. I think Shel's main point is that the term "Blogger Dinner" is probably a more accurate label in terms of who turns up to these events, and it's certainly a more inclusive term.
Maryam Scoble recently wrote "The non-geeks survival guide for geek dinners". Maryam makes the point that attendees at "Geek" Dinners do have more to talk about that just geek stuff, but has some good strategies for what happens when the conversation just gets too geeky.
I left a comment on Maryam's blog to the effect that she'd kind of convinced me to maybe come to the next "geek" dinner in London. I read Scobleizer, gapingvoid and the blogs of a number of others who attend the "geek" dinners but I'm not a real tech geek. I do share a number of interests with them: GTD, Mind Mapping, Blogging, technology & it's impact on culture and as Maryam rightly points out there's always ways to have a conversation.
Having read Shel's post I'm even more convinced. I've started mind mapping my personal "Goals for 2006". I've added an objective to attend a Blogger Dinner before the end of the year.
Bonus Link: Here's my recent post about Naked Conversations.
Technorati Tags: shel israel, naked conversations, maryam scoble, mind mapping, robert scoble, gapingvoid
Maryam Scoble recently wrote "The non-geeks survival guide for geek dinners". Maryam makes the point that attendees at "Geek" Dinners do have more to talk about that just geek stuff, but has some good strategies for what happens when the conversation just gets too geeky.
I left a comment on Maryam's blog to the effect that she'd kind of convinced me to maybe come to the next "geek" dinner in London. I read Scobleizer, gapingvoid and the blogs of a number of others who attend the "geek" dinners but I'm not a real tech geek. I do share a number of interests with them: GTD, Mind Mapping, Blogging, technology & it's impact on culture and as Maryam rightly points out there's always ways to have a conversation.
Having read Shel's post I'm even more convinced. I've started mind mapping my personal "Goals for 2006". I've added an objective to attend a Blogger Dinner before the end of the year.
Bonus Link: Here's my recent post about Naked Conversations.
Technorati Tags: shel israel, naked conversations, maryam scoble, mind mapping, robert scoble, gapingvoid
Sunday, January 01, 2006
I choose to believe the glass is half full
I've been reading the blog of Kent Newsome since I found him in Robert Scoble's blogroll. I think the similarity of surname made me zero straight in on him, but I've stayed subscribed because I've enjoyed reading his thoughts, and his ongoing review of Scoble's blogroll.
Today, Kent has published a rather down in the dumps post that talks about the difficulty of building a succesful blog. All of Kent's points about the difficulties are valid but I'd like to devil's advocate his position. Let me make a few counter arguments:
(1) Funnily enough Robert Scoble has just written a post that suggests only 4% of users are using RSS. True or not I believe the RSS opportunity that exists is still huge. Wherever you stand on the Microsoft versus Google versus Yahoo debate I believe that Vista, the next version of Internet Explorer and Office 12 all with RSS built into the framework will be the engineroom that brings the biggest growth in RSS usage.
(2) A look at the Technorati Top 100 has blogs on it that were launched less than 12 months ago. PostSecret is the one that sticks out in my mind - a great viral idea that just exploded in a few short months. I believe that in 12 months time the current Top 100 on Technorati will be a radically different landscape.
(3) I agree with Kent that there probably isn't much room for new blogs about blogging. The innovators rightly have that ground, and good for them. There is an advantage to being an early adopter that exists in any marketplace. Let me add one caveat to that - unless a new kid on the block does something amazing. I believe there is still plenty of room for the new kids on the block to do something pretty amazing.
Today of all days, I choose to believe the glass is half full. I choose to believe that it is possible to set off and achieve something great. I make one prediction today for 2006. That by the end of the year the Technorati Top 10 will contain a blog that today is not even on the Top 100. It may not be Kent Newsome or Steve Newson that owns that blog, but I believe in the possibility.
Technorati tags: Kent Newsome, Robert Scoble, Technorati, Vista, Office 12, predictions
Today, Kent has published a rather down in the dumps post that talks about the difficulty of building a succesful blog. All of Kent's points about the difficulties are valid but I'd like to devil's advocate his position. Let me make a few counter arguments:
(1) Funnily enough Robert Scoble has just written a post that suggests only 4% of users are using RSS. True or not I believe the RSS opportunity that exists is still huge. Wherever you stand on the Microsoft versus Google versus Yahoo debate I believe that Vista, the next version of Internet Explorer and Office 12 all with RSS built into the framework will be the engineroom that brings the biggest growth in RSS usage.
(2) A look at the Technorati Top 100 has blogs on it that were launched less than 12 months ago. PostSecret is the one that sticks out in my mind - a great viral idea that just exploded in a few short months. I believe that in 12 months time the current Top 100 on Technorati will be a radically different landscape.
(3) I agree with Kent that there probably isn't much room for new blogs about blogging. The innovators rightly have that ground, and good for them. There is an advantage to being an early adopter that exists in any marketplace. Let me add one caveat to that - unless a new kid on the block does something amazing. I believe there is still plenty of room for the new kids on the block to do something pretty amazing.
Today of all days, I choose to believe the glass is half full. I choose to believe that it is possible to set off and achieve something great. I make one prediction today for 2006. That by the end of the year the Technorati Top 10 will contain a blog that today is not even on the Top 100. It may not be Kent Newsome or Steve Newson that owns that blog, but I believe in the possibility.
Technorati tags: Kent Newsome, Robert Scoble, Technorati, Vista, Office 12, predictions
Microsofties and Googlers - How's Them Apples?
I set the bar and Dave Sifry rose to the challenge. Within seven hours of posting about my Technorati tagging problems, Dave responded and left me a comment. On a day when you'd expect most people to be spending time with their families, Dave took the time to respond to my issue. Kudos to Dave. To the Microsofties & Googlers having a minor spat about who works the longest hours - how's them apples?
Technorati Tags: Dave Sifry, Robert Scoble, Mark Lucovsky, Technorati
Technorati Tags: Dave Sifry, Robert Scoble, Mark Lucovsky, Technorati
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