When was the last time you favorited a tweet? June 29, 2009
Posted by Ryan in : Tech, del.icio.us links, Podcasts, Social Networking, Trends, Twitter ; 2 commentsA few days ago I was listening to @davewiner and @jayrosen_nyu on their Rebooting the News podcast, and dave was talking about his 40tweets app.
40twits takes a look at the stats for the shortened URLs you post to twitter and decides which ones are most popular, then displays them in order. Dave’s current top link as about Wikipedia and Michael Jackson.
I don’t know if it counts the link being retweeted, but I’m going to guess yes.
This got me thinking about one of the original features of twitter – the favorite. I remember using favorites a lot before I started following 1000+ people. Now I just sort of let the wave go by. Also, not every desktop tool has an easy/visible favorite button.
I put out a call to my twitter group: “when was the last time you favorited a tweet?” and got a big response. (displayed in reverse order)
Thanks @gilcreque, @modulist, @karschp, @thandelike, @ericschechter, @domhay, @staticnrg, @tiburon, @doreeno, @incanus77, and @mrscrumley for replying. Of everyone who participated, it seems like Eric Schechter and myself are the only two people who don’t use it very often, or at all.
Looks like I’m not the only person thinking about the utility of Twitter Favorites. This post by Christopher Lynn is about the same subject.
TweetDeck has a view to let you look at your favorites, but I didn’t see a place to add a favorite very easily – it’s hiding under “other actions”, which you see when you hover over the user’s icon. Tweetie (desktop) requires a right-click, or you can press the “F” key, then a little star appears next to the tweet.
I currently pipe my blog feed to twitter, and I don’t hear a lot of complaints about that. I’m thinking about piping my Delicious bookmarks to twitter as well. Do any of you folks pipe your bookmarks in? Would you like to see more useful links on twitter?
My Pipes to Retweet Article as a Video May 28, 2009
Posted by Ryan in : HowTo, Tech, Video, Blogging, pipes, Recipies, Trends, Twitter ; add a commentI’ve been getting lots of good karma and feedback from people about my retweeting recipe using Yahoo Pipes. In truth, the tutorial can be a bit hard to swallow if you aren’t familiar with pipes or a node-based editing system.
Xavier Vespa from Hyve Up has done an easy to follow, step-by-step version of a retweeting recipe based on the content of my original tutorial.
From: HU Twitter: How-to Retweet Automatically – Video Demo
JetPack, Bespin, Ubiquity… and beyond May 21, 2009
Posted by Ryan in : Tech, Video, Browsers, Design, interface, Programming, Trends ; add a commentMozilla Labs announced a new product called JetPack, which reminds me of the kinds of features you’ve seen in Adobe Air, Flock and Songbird, but the tool makes creating said features very simple.
Mozilla Labs Jetpack – Intro & Tutorial from Aza Raskin on Vimeo.
In the video, the developer mentioned two other Mozilla Labs projects, the first of which I hadn’t seen before. It’s called Bespin, and it’s a cloud-based code editor. Right now, they are hosting the app for open source developers, but I’d love to be able to host an instance on my own server in the future.
Introducing Bespin from Dion Almaer on Vimeo.
Last but not least is what’s basically an implementation of QuickSilver (the application launcher) in your Firefox browser, but instead of launching desktop apps, you’re accessing web services, search and browser actions. The project is called Ubiquity, and it’s cool (for people who like using the keyboard).
Ubiquity for Firefox from Aza Raskin on Vimeo.
Then they just get downright insane…
Aurora (Part 1) from Adaptive Path on Vimeo.
This video really takes the idea of web browsing away from just a bunch of flashing data and gives some good context. I can’t say I would like to use that exact interface, but extra points for effort.
Or if you’d rather see something that’s not so far in the future, this MIT student builds on some ideas that are already out there and improves them. It still has some of the “spatial history” ideas, and takes the idea of “pages” out of the browser, but if you ask me, it doesn’t go far enough.
Firefox Concept Video from liyan chang on Vimeo.
Peter Hirshberg on TV and the web – TED Talks November 23, 2008
Posted by Ryan in : Tech, Video, Digital Media, Historic, Radio, TED, Trends, TV, Video, Web Sites ; comments closedJust a few minutes after I wrote my most recent “Internet killed TV” rant, I see this more well-informed and context-rich talk about the very same subject, complete with references to Marshall Mcluhan.
From Peter Hirshberg on TV and the web | Video on TED.com:
In this absorbing look at emerging media and tech history, Peter Hirshberg shares some crucial lessons from Silicon Valley and explains why the web is so much more than “better TV.”
A Silicon Valley executive, entrepreneur and marketing specialist, Peter Hirshberg might just be the definitive voice on how new technology affects business and culture. Full bio and more links
YouTube Has Replaced MTV
Posted by Ryan in : Tech, Video, Trends, TV, Video, youtube ; comments closedIt’s official – crappy reality TV has been replaced by reality, captured on your Flip™ brand camera!
You tube held their first ever awards show – YouTube Live, complete with Discovery Channel stars, pop (and anti-pop) music, ukuleles, breakdancers, vulgarity and lots more, all in a familiar MTV Music Awards-style format.
Now that YouTube has peaked, it’s time for some of the verticals and startups to try again. A few years ago, all you heard about was Yet Another Video Site popping up every 5 minutes. Now I fully expect cable networks, magazines, radio stations, and companies none of us have heard of to adopt similar tactics — most will fail, but a few will succeed, and we can stop subscribing to cable TV, because crappy entertainment, gossip, infinite programming and cheesey awards shows have now arrived on the internet too!
I expect also (more like hope) that there will be lots of directory services and lowest-common-denominator channels showing up, like the TV Guide of the web, the Home Shopping Channel (I guess SlickDeals and the like have gotten us part-way there), the religious video, and what have you.
One reason why we don’t see more cable networks rushing to put all their content online in its full form is the on-demand nature of it all. If you want to watch the Sopranos, you’re forced to watch what comes on a few minutes before and after, perhaps the entire show, and for HBO, especially the commercials for their other original programming and the movies of the month. This was an important way to hook the viewer into coming back.
However, DVRs and Tivo have killed that for people who don’t care about watching it in real time, so why do prime-time schedules even matter any longer? Everyone made a big deal about Barack Obama breaking in to the World Series for his 30 minute commercial, but weren’t people watching it on Tivo a few hours later, or the next day?
In the future, there will not be any possible way to grab the attention of that many people at once, unless we have another 9/11 (knock on wood). I don’t even have to watch the Superbowl any longer, I can catch all the commercials on YouTube the next morning.
What do we do now?
Larry Halff and Tara Hunt – Ma.gnolia 2 October 28, 2008
Posted by Ryan in : Tech, Entrepreneurship, Love, microformats, OAuth, open source, OpenID, Social Media Events, Trends, Viddler, Video, Web Services, Web Sites ; comments closedVideo introducing Ma.gnolia 2 from this year’s Gnomedex conference:
Larry Halff and Tara Hunt [...] discussing how Ma.gnolia has implemented many of the tools of the open web such as OpenID, OAuth and Microformats and [...] unveiling Ma.gnolia 2, the next evolution of Ma.gnolia and a building block of the open web.
The real Web 2.0 entrepreneurs like Larry will realise when they’ve got something great — and how they can get that something into the hands of the most people possible might be by giving it away, opening the data for unknown uses, letting you import (and export) as much as you want, giving you tools that don’t just raise their bottom line, but instead make you love the service so much that you need to invite everyone you know to use it.
Letting go the Strings of Servitude October 23, 2008
Posted by Ryan in : Tech, BarCamp, Blogging, bloggingfringe, Career, CoLab, Coworking, Drupal, floridacreatives, Liberatr, Orlando, OrlandoScene, PopSci, Site News, Social Media Events, Teaching, Trends, Video ; comments closed
That’s right, folks, I quit my job at Bonnier. No more PopSci, no more corporate life.
Somehow I thought our friend Jonathan (above) working his VCRs and television sets helped get that message across. As Pandos, instead of fighting against modern technology, just letting a couple of simple magnetic tapes play serves as a more entertaining picture than a single curated stream.
My life working at Bonnier had become a lifestyle – long days (and nights), spending all day in the same place doing the same thing. I couldn’t even take 7 months of that.
So now what?
I’ve got a couple of freelance things lined up that should bring in the next month’s income alright, but I don’t want another hourly job. Here are some ways I plan on keeping myself distracted:
- Drupal Easy – this is the home for some (free) Drupal advice, and hopefully some (paid) screencasts, eBooks and tutorials. I will be doing a Drupal conference circuit in the next few months to connect with folks who are looking for training more than straight-up work. I hope I am a good provider.
- Orlando Scene TV – I still have yet to see a project emerge that achieves the goals of this videoblog. The more I think about it, the more it needs to be a one-on-one account of some fun stuff. We were trying to bring more of a TV correspondent feel to the show, but that takes work, and this is supposed to be about fun! Maintaining this channel gives a place for the Blogging Fringe videos and Orlando Puppet Festival content to go, and video is so engaging, measurable and portable — I really love doing this.
- Florida Creatives Podcast – I have been meeting some great people who need to get pulled in to this community, and one of the best ways to get them to care about you is by doing the completely selfless thing and asking them about themselves for half an hour, and sharing the conversation with the world on a well-trafficked web site. The happy hours will certainly continue.
- Florida Creative Summit – the idea here is to do something like BarCamp, but that covers more than just geekery – I am talking to some folks about how to pull this off right now, most of that goes down at Florida Creatives Happy Hour. This is the whole point of Florida Creatives coming to be in the first place.
- Coworking Orlando and our first coworking space in Orlando, CoLab – Coworking Teusdays are still going strong after some 8 months — also, I have already paid my $49 for use of a desk at CoLab in November — I’m not sure whether I will be full-time or part-time there in the future, but I know I want to be present for the birth of the formal coworking movement in Orlando. This is something I’ve been talking about for years, and now it’s downtown and affordable. Couple that with all the communities looking for useful consistent space, and the need for something like this is even greater. This probably deserves a separate blog post…
- Oh so many more things… like getting other Florida Creatives chapters going in other cities, like Brevard, Jacksonville, Lakeland, Tampa, South Florida — helping Petentials get to a happy place — doing a joint event with Doterati — creating a DIY community, a graphics hackers community, a podcasting community, a blogging community, an independent microblogging site, and lots of things I can’t think of just now.
To all my Bonnier peoples, I will keep in touch. Let’s do lunch! Blackwater BBQ?
To everyone else, it’s good to be back!
Tons of Notes, BlogOrlando Aftermath 3 October 1, 2008
Posted by Ryan in : Tech, BarCamp, BlogOrlando, Coworking, Doterati, floridacreatives, Orlando, OrlandoScene, photos, Programming, Social Media Events, Tampa, Trends, Twitter ; comments closed
Folks, I’ve got things to tell you, and things I want your input on. First of all, huge thanks to Tim Welch for his excellent BlogOrlando3 “Best of” post.
Next, I want you to stop reading this post. STOP! Go to the Florida Creatives forum and contribute to this discussion, or start a new discussion about something for which you are passionate.
If you’re still reading, I’ll remind you we have TWO BarCamps coming up. Count them.
BarCamp Tampa Bay is going down in less than two weeks. If you were at the Orlando BarCamp in April, this will seem familiar to you – Tech Day, Media Day. Held at USF’s Business school, Saturday and Sunday, October 11th and 12th. I believe there is a party-bus or a caravan of some kind headed down that way. Check the Twittersphere (92 followers, natch!) or Doterati? for more details.
BarCampChaos held on Monday October 13th, the first night of CreateChaos08 at the Mariott down by Disney World. It’s 10 conferences in one, and one unconference, and bunches of parties, like a certain Internet Marketing and Tech association I know of, and an Advertising and Design Alliance I know of, and a Create Awards, and a Job Fair, and an Expo, and lots more, including $200 off registration if you register for BarCampChaos.
The Florida Creatives website now has 4 feeds for you to pay attention to:
- Podcast Feed (original)
- Site-Wide Feed (includes groups, events, blogs, forums)
- Event Feed (mashed up from all over town)
- Comments Feed (in case you don’t prefer emails)
Those of you already subscribed in iTunes will continue to receive podcasts.
Those of you who used feedburner email subscription should keep getting your emails (of the site-wide feed).
The events feed is pulled from the Florida Creatives group on Upcoming.Y!, the Calendar feeds of The Daily City blog, Doterati and the newly-formed Advertising and Design Alliance (I don’t even know where to link for it yet).
The old Florida Creatives Google Groups is going away. I have already closed out new people from joining. With a forum, email subscriptions for feeds and all the other stuff, it should be easy to stay informed.
If you haven’t checked out the Florida Drupal Group yet, please do. Classes are third Saturdays at 1PM in Maitland, and completely worth it. We are talking about putting together a DrupalCamp early next year, so get involved now.
Did you realize that Café Scientifique was today? I sure didn’t, but I’ve been an extremely busy man of late. Chad is organizing some awesome talks down at Stardust, these are not to be missed.
The 2nd Annual ELLA Music Fest is this weekend. Crazy that a year has gone by already. Orlando Scene TV has some vids from last year if you want to know what you’re missing out on.
Ubiquity: Web Services + Microformats + Quicksilver = Mashups (in your browser) August 27, 2008
Posted by Ryan in : Tech, Browsers, Google, interface, mashups, microformats, open source, Trends, Twitter, Video, Web Services, Web Sites ; comments closed
Ubiquity for Firefox from Aza Raskin on Vimeo.
Mozilla Labs » Blog Archive » Introducing Ubiquity
The overall goals of Ubiquity are to explore how best to:
* Empower users to control the web browser with language-based instructions. (With search, users type what they want to find. With Ubiquity, they type what they want to do.)
* Enable on-demand, user-generated mashups with existing open Web APIs. (In other words, allowing everyone–not just Web developers–to remix the Web so it fits their needs, no matter what page they are on, or what they are doing.)
* Use Trust networks and social constructs to balance security with ease of extensibility.
* Extend the browser functionality easily.
I think Microsoft is going to copy the hell out of this and release a “Microsoft Live OpenWeb Command Window Beta” before mid-September.
SXSW 2009? Turn Your Old Media Empire into a New Media Paradise August 12, 2008
Posted by Ryan in : Tech, Magazine, Social Media Events, Storytelling, SXSW, Teaching, Trends ; comments closedQuestion mark is because we proposed the talk, but it’s up to the people to decide whether they’d like us to present…
The form we filled out had lots more info on it, but here’s what the site says:
Turn Your Old Media Empire into a New Media Paradise
Companies that have been at forefront of the publishing revolution, before the days of the internet, have recently found themselves behind the eight ball. While they struggle with their digital strategy, smaller leaner companies have been capturing their traditional audience on the web. However, many of these companies forget that the ability to create compelling engaging content is their greatest asset. Instead of placing their focus on pages views, they should be placing it on the pages themselves. This presentation will show how we used Drupal and other open source technologies to to transform a couple of 100 year old magazines into fresh and relevant web 2.0 destinations – from both a technical and philosophical perspective.
The whole deal is, Content is King, but media companies are withholding their content from their audience, because they don’t want to cannibalize their print business (or insert traditional medium here). Eric (@xentek) and myself (@liberatr) are proposing this topic, so vote, comment, or otherwise show us some love.
