December 2011
15 posts
My hopes for web and social media in 2012
As year-end best-of lists are to music blogs, so are predictions to tech blogs. But rather than doing predictions, which tend to be all “death of” this and “will kill” that, I wanted to stay a little more positive and post the things that I hope will happen in 2012.
Twitter makes a big change to their core service Besides their growing spam problem, the real flaw of...
“Google doesn’t need a critical mass or tons of engagement. It needs signups so...”
– For Google , User Count Is A Journey Not A Race | TechCrunch
An important reminder (and I absolutely include myself here) of why Google+ exists, and why we should stop measuring it by its referring traffic. This quote itself is much more persuasive than anything Google has ever said officially...
1 tag
If you love dumb comments threads, you must love...
Like most people on the internet, I actively avoid most comment threads. The vast majority tend to be filled with nasty insults and/or pointless agreements or even spam. There are good points around, but it’s so difficult and disheartening to wade through the meanness and thoughtlessness that it’s something that few people actually take on.
But now, with Google+, following an...
An incredible story of customer service gone... →
This long email exchange from a horrible customer service experience is worth the read, and brings up a few reminders/points about customer service (in spite of the fact that the person claiming to be customer service is, to try to be nice about it, obviously not interested in being nice or providing service):
Even if your customer service responses are simple and quick, make sure they use proper...
“Among the haunting consequences of Facebook and Twitter use is the immortality...”
– Please Stop Sharing: A Tweet (Or More) Too Far - NYTimes.com
This is probably why so many of the people I know in their twenties claim to hate Facebook: they’ve been burned by its immortalizing their breakups, missteps and other assorted drama.
Twitter (and the story that kicks off this...
Why do people keep missing the obvious future of... →
It seems kind of silly to make yet another response to yet another “email is dying” post, but Steve Gillmor’s columns are always at such a level of ridiculous that it makes it really hard to resist.
The obvious response to his predictions of the end of email (and especially the claims that social media will render it obsolete) is that email has become our single identity....
"Copying is not piracy." →
Some powerful thoughts from Rob Heittman on the SOPA debate and the things that are being argued as “piracy”. It’s an article that shines a light on the difficulty of defining copyright when products can now be duplicated infinitely for nothing.
The production of books, movies and music takes time and money (though often takes much less than it used to), and the delivery of...
Our misery has nothing to do with Facebook
The glee you’re hearing around the web is all the people who claim to hate Facebook sharing this article in Gizmodo about how using Facebook is making us miserable.
In short: uh, no.
Slightly longer: the points made about about Facebook’s misery causing in this article can be applied to television at least, and, oh, all of human interaction at most.
“Creating a den of...
Move the New Twitter Timeline Back to the Left... →
When it seems like every change that a web service makes is greeted with hysteria, remember this: someone went to the trouble of writing a script simply to move the Twitter timeline to the side of the screen it was on before. If people are so bothered by a part of the screen being moved over about 400 pixels but otherwise remaining the same, is it any wonder that people explode in fury everytime...
“That’s not to say Android Ice Cream Sandwich isn’t good (I happen to be testing...”
– Mark It Down: June 6, 2012 | TechCrunch
MG Seigler is a self-avowed Apple fanboy, so take it all with a grain of salt, but I think he’s absolutely right to call out Google here. What Google is creating here is another Windows: it’s a very good product, but being open-source means they...
1 tag
Today's going to be a day spent annoyed at...
Apparently not familiar with the concept of agile development, Twitter has decided to change absolutely everything (almost) all at once.
First I try to log into TweetDeck last night and get nothing but errors. I finally get in this morning to find that the app has taken several steps backwards. Moving columns isn’t as slick, posting isn’t as easy (you have to close the window rather...
2 tags
Gmail merges with Plus & Twitter improves, but...
The two big pieces of news in the tech/social media world today were 1) Twitter is showing off its new interface and 2) gmail is integrating more tightly with Google Plus.
Both of these changes were expected (and in Twitter’s case, long overdue), but my first reaction to both is wondering if these designs will really bring us closer to the products themselves. The Twitter design looks nice...
When someone else makes your dream a reality
This afternoon, a friend of mine tweeted out a link to a song. I didn’t follow it right away, but my friend Ivan did, and he messaged me “Hey…this is kinda your idea.”
My idea, which I’d been trying to learn code to make a reality, was a site where you could post one song a week, basically answering the question “What’s the best song in the world this...
“Sharing and recommendation shouldn’t be passive. It should be conscious,...”
– How Facebook is ruining sharing | Molly Rants - CNET News
Absolutely true. While I kind of love the Spotify songs streaming along in the Facebook ticker (and think last.fm should’ve implemented something like this years ago), the entire point of sharing should be that you’re sharing... 