th@talldude

The Genies Work For Twitter

Actively Inactive, Reluctant To Change

I'm on a bit of a downer today, after the Lakers dealt my Spurs a heartbreaking loss last night.  So that may be part of the reason this post is happening.  It's a bit of a rant, but it's also something that's plaguing me.  This is going to hit on a few different, yet intertwined areas, before you reach the end.

Being without a steady job, I have a lot of time to think.  Having a lot of time to think, gives me a lot of time to network and explore new ideas more thoroughly.  Much of this networking has led me to new goals, like revitalizing my hometown and the area around it.  Many of those ideas have led me into discussions with a variety of people, to do a variety of things.  With a little more time on my hands, I've begun doing a lot of volunteer things, as well as more odd jobs than I would typically do.  Being a geek, and being heavily into all things on the web, I've discussed doing several different projects with people, most of which would have resulted in a little bit of cash for me.  However, to do these projects, I need these people to be actively active, as opposed to actively inactive.  I hope that people in the Small Town, USA you're from aren't like this.

Viral All Over Again With Weezer

Weezer's back at it again!  The 'Red Album' is coming out the beginning of June, and we're getting a peek at it with their new song, 'Pork and Beans.'  Weezer did an outstanding job with this, incorporating many things us web geeks will recognize, with past viral hits on YouTube, and some geek speak sprinkled throughout.  Great stuff, ROCK ON!

Twitter Users Can Be 'el Stupido' At Times

I'm sure you're all well aware by now, I like Twitter.  A lot.  I follow a lot of people (634), and a lot of people follow me (525).  I'm what people might refer to as a 'power user.'  I don't sit back like some people do and just watch, I actively participate in the stream, replying to people with @s, sending and replying to DMs (direct message), following new people I find interesting, and throw out my own original thoughts and ideas, even if they may be a bit controversial at times.  I think after 5500 tweets, and following about 1.2 people for every follower I have, you can logically say I'm not a spammer, but a legit person, with legit frustrations.  When I follow you, I expect you to show at least a small bit of common sense.  Yes, this is part rant, part 'Twitter users, SHAPE UP!'

Truly Astounding, Apple Reaching New Levels In Music Videos

I'm not quite sure how it took 12 days for this to come to my attention, because it ASTOUNDS me.  This obviously took hours upon hours upon hours to set up.  And more hours upon hours to time it out just right.  Truly a superb job by all involved.  I fully expect this to be incorporated into a full on Apple commercial at some point in the future.  The song is called 'Again & Again,' performed by 'The Bird & The Bee.'

Rural America's Mobile Coverage Is Pathetic

The Wall Street Journal has a new article by Amy Schatz, Exclusive Phone Deals Assailed.  While it's nice to see somebody going on the offensive to help more people get the phones they want, the 'cool' phones, it is only scraping on the issue that plagues us outside of the city.

I make no secret about it, I am a geek.  I am very demanding of my gadgets, my internet connection, and my phone service.  When the iPhone came out, I was ecstatic, thinking that has so much of what I am looking for!  However I live in North Dakota, which at the time had no AT&T coverage.  There was some GSM roaming provided along the interstate, so I thought about getting one anyways, for the 3 days a month I'd be able to use it as a phone (yeah, I'm that geeky).  However, there was some wording in the iPhone agreement, that if you used X amount of data in a roaming area over X amount of time, they could cut off your service.  Your billing address also had to be in an AT&T service area.  So I was out of luck.

Shyftr Treats Me Right, How To Build Loyalty

Discussion has been coming up again about how the web is changing, and those that change with it are seeing results.  After reading what is quite possibly the best thing I've read all year, I thought I would share my own example with you.

Today on RWW, Sarah Perez wrote the piece, Why Gen Y Is Going to Change the Web.  From the 'Marketing Has To Change' section, I quote:

Because Gen Y is media savvy and conscious of being marketed to, brands that succeed in the future will be those that open a dialog with their customers, admit their mistakes, and essentially become more transparent. Companies' web sites that want to attract Gen Y'ers will become more like today's Web 2.0 sites. Social networking will be just a feature. Blogs will be standard ways for companies to reach their customers. Customer service won't just be a phone call away, it will be available via non-traditional means, too. Today, savvy companies might be using Twitter, but that could change at any time if Gen Y moves on. Companies will have to keep up with Gen Y and not get too comfortable using any one format.

My favorite RSS reader, Shyftr, gets this.

Take Pictures of Models With Taco Bell and Sports Illustrated

Taco Bell has created a gold mine for viral marketing.  Combine two of the typical American male's favorite things, food and a hot girl, and put them together online.  Voila!  An online photo shoot.  I am sure they are going to get tons of traffic off of this.

Is Small Town USA Ready For Expensive Gas?

I wasn't on Twitter long today, when TWalk posed this question.

I immediately thought of Small Town, USA (see recent post, Would You Live There?), and my own shopping habits.  There is no shortage of talk about our country's economic conditions.  Watch CNN, search Google, or read a newspaper, and somebody will be either proclaiming a recession, or that it's not so bad.  In the big city, while you use gas, everything is nearby, even though it may take you a bit to get through town.  Outside of the city, however, you often must travel long distances.  When agriculture is your economy, when everything in town, be it the hospital, school, or cafe, is made possible by the number of farmers in the area, every dollar counts.  When you must often drive long distances to get that ONE thing that your local town businesses don't provide, the fuel expenses quickly add up.

My TweetWheel

I finally got TweetWheel to load for me today.  I haven been hearing interesting things about it, but their server has always been so busy, and even today, I had to refresh several times before it got all the way through.  TweetWheel is very similar to the Facebook app, FriendWheel.  It collects the data about you and your friends and who you're following, then gives you a visual display to show you how you are all connected.  You can find my original TweetWheel here, but I also took a screenshot of it, so you can glance at it on the blog before reading my other posts (wink wink). It obviously doesn't have all of my Tweeps on it, there's far too many for TweetWheel's current capabilities, but it still gives a nice representation.  You can follow me on Twitter @thattalldude.

Small Town USA, Would You Live There?

I've had a lot of thinking time this week, as I had to spend a large amount of time away from the internet and my friends on Twitter.  As I pondered many topics, I kept circling back to a passion of mine, my hometown.

I understand completely why people move away, and leave North Dakota (my home state) completely for that matter.  But as much as it may benefit me to move away, and be around more people with the same mindset as me, technology wise, I would rather be the guy who turns things around, and gets people to move here.

On Twitter, Age Doesn't Matter

Tonight, while tweeting with @jordikell, @GeekMommy made an interesting observation.

The more I think about it, the more I realize just how spot on she is.

Does Google Heart Skype? GrandCentral Hopes So

This has already had a ton of discussion in the blogosphere, but it's come up again.  Rumor has it that eBay is again thinking over the possibility of selling Skype, and it seems to me this is the most seriously they have ever thought about it.  Despite languishing under eBay, Skype is still an attractive piece, especially if Wall Street knows you as GOOG.

Bravo Microsoft, Brilliant Marketing Here

Microsoft, the bungling behemoth that can't quite seem to catch Apple in anything these days, has pulled off a brilliant marketing opportunity.  Knowing all too well that Apple's iPhone sucks people into AT&T stores, they have placed the new 'Microsoft Surface' in these AT&T stores.  The iPhone took the world by storm, quickly running up the the ranks of the smart phone market.  Microsoft hasn't been able to compete with this, and was about to be left completely in the dust.  Now, however, people will be flowing steadily into these stores to look at the iPhone, and they'll see this nifty screen that interacts with these phones, and they'll say, 'Hey, that's cool!  Let's check it out.'  Yes, Microsoft has figured out how to show off their new toy by taking attention away from the very product bringing people to the store, the AT&T Store.

Why Can't I Find Anything?

I am a geek, living in a world of social media, where EVERYTHING gets tagged, archived, and indexed.  EVERYTHING.  So why is it, that I can never seem to find what I'm looking for?  This morning I was looking for an address, which I still haven't found, which made me start thinking about blogging this, which brought even more looking.  I don't have a digital camera, so I had to use my phone to take the picture of my 'desk.'  I haven't figured out how to send files from my phone to computer via bluetooth yet, so I popped the MicroSD card out to copy the pic to the computer, but then I couldn't find my SD adapter card.  All the more frustrating, is that it wasn't but a month ago that I 'organized' and cleaned up around here!  So why is this so hard for me?

Why Are We Blaming Shyftr?

As I went to check on my feed readers tonight, I came upon a couple of interesting posts, both on the topic of blog comments, and both targeting Shyftr.  Now this upsets me, as I understand the frustration of any blogger not seeing comments show up on their blog, but instead, seeing them elsewhere.  What I don't understand, is why this is reaching a boiling point with Shyftr, as opposed to the myriad of other sites guilty of it.

'Friends For Sale' Wins the April Fool's Grand Prize

As I made my way to Facebook tonight, to check up on my 'Friends for Sale' app, I spotted a new link.  Hovering over this link, the status bar informed me it led to http://apps.facebook.com/friendsforsale/offers/rick.  By now, that should be a dead give away to just about everybody, but the link text said "Today's Bonus: $10,000."  Always wanting extra money for that app, I clicked on it, and sure enough.....          .......RICK ROLLED!  The guys were really cool about it though, and still gave me the $10,000 bonus.  However, for turning their April Fool into a Rick Roll, I declare 'Friends for Sale' the winners of the Aprill Fools Day pranks.

Is Google Fooling Us With Custom Time?

So I quick popped in to check my Gmail, and what do I find?  Custom Time, the newest 'feature' in Gmail.  Apparently we are able to set our email to be sent at a time previous to now, like yesterday, when you forgot your significant other's birthday.  Now you can prove you 'didn't' forget, simply by sending your email yesterday, right now!

Sorry Google, I'm calling it, your 2008 April Fool is Custom Time.

Hey Jason, When You Reach #1, Then What?

As I'm sure everyone reading this already knows, Jason Calacanis is offering a free MacBook Air to a lucky person following him when he becomes the #1 user on Twitter.  If I hadn't already been following him at the time, that would have immediately sent me to the follow button.  This, of course, immediately spawned much conversation on Twitter about following and being followed.  However, as many of us have come to realize, you don't really gain anything by being followed by mass amounts of people, unless you're trying to push stuff at them, in which case you suddenly have a huge audience.

Blindsided By ATI

Computer hardware companies need to step it up, NOW.  I'm quite knowledgeable when it comes to computers, and there isn't too much that I can't handle with them.  So when my computer had some issues this week, I was a little shocked.  Typically, I see stuff coming from a mile away, take care of it, and move on.  I didn't know it at the time, but I got completely blindsided by ATI this week.

Digg Needs to Use Twitter

    I think that most of us are familiar with Digg.  A great blog post with a digg from a reputable digger has taken down many a site, however, Digg doesn't seem to have the influence it once had.  Facing strengthening competition from competitors such as Mixx, Reddit, and StumbleUpon, Digg is no longer the go-to spot to spread the word about a great read.  Also, with the recent outcry over their algorithm change, many reputable diggers no longer have the influence they once had, for better or worse.  While this may prevent a few malcontents from exerting their will over Digg, it also costs us some great material, as the people who once found great stuff early and got it onto Digg's front page, are now being suppressed longer by newer users with lower quality material.

Assetbar, Social News Reader

    Introducing Assetbar, a new, more social way, to check out your RSS feeds.  Featuring the ability to 'win' by being the first to view any particular asset (post), rate the assets, leave feedback for your friends, even become an "influential sharer," Assetbar is taking the news we look at every day, and making it easy to share with our friends.  I've only spent a little more than a day with it so far though, so I'm far from being an expert.  Before you read any further on this, you need to remember that Assetbar is still in BETA.  I would still love to hear your opinions, as many will be different than mine, but all of our opinions are likely to change as the developers continue to tweak and refine everything in their ongoing effort to improve it.

I Can't Do Mainstream

    I can't do mainstream.  I just can't.  It drives me crazy, it begins to be ordinary; begins to seem, so, yesterday.  The latest and greatest attracts me, cool new web browser using the same underpinnings as Firefox?  Sign me up.  Flock, you have changed my life.  College geared social network, simpler than MySpace, more fun, I'm there.  Facebook connected me.  A computer that's easy to use, rarely crashes, and doesn't involve a $300 OS?  Thank you Apple.  Some still capture my fancy, others, you blew it.

Twitter With a Touch of Apple?

Chris Brogan just got me thinking with his "Yahoo Should Buy Twitter" post.  No, I don't think Yahoo and Twitter would be good together.  However, I think Twitter would have a lot of value to Apple.  Twitter is already easy to use, but Steve's group of interface gurus can find a way to make it easier yet, because he'll demand it.  Apple will provide Twitter's need for more stability as well, another outage this morning intensified my love-hate relationship.  I envision Twitter being seamlessly integrated into iChat, and then porting iChat over to Windows, of course, still leaving the API open to everyone.  Apple will then make their own iPhone app for Twitter, and ship it on all new iPhones.  If they really feel the need to monetize, every few hundred tweets they could throw in an iTunes link for a hit new song, on the iPhone they could link to ringtones as well.  So with that I ask you, should Apple buy Twitter?

2008 Belongs To Twitter, Ya Heard?

Twitter is shaking up the way we do things.  No longer do we wait for an online news site, much less the morning paper.  No more looking on Digg for upcoming stories, or seeing the feed from your favorite blog post.  Twitter is where the latest news is at, and it's as soon after an event occurs as I can see it getting.  Earthquake in California?  Twitter is onto the next story before anyone can write up a blog post.  Who's leading the exit polls in Iowa?  The Twitterverse knows within seconds, while CNN and Fox News are still trying to get a camera on the reporter.

Pownce - A Quick First Take

Now that Pownce has been out of beta and open to anyone for 45 minutes, I'm not that impressed.  A quick friend import from Twitter yielded 'Jack Dorsey' as the first option, which I found amusing.  I was looking for an option to request they all be friended, but there was none.  It must be done one by one, which can take quite some time if you have a lot of friends.  They also have a list of 'Featured Powncers,' which is nice, although there was a "server 500 error" very quickly, only for adding that one friend, and it was several minutes until I could request to add them.  They also have a 'Friend of My Friends' feature, which would be nicer if it listed more than a few people.  As with Twitter, there are settings to adjust as to how you want to view your messages, as well as others, Pownce having more flexibility with it.  However, this also leads to more complexity.  One of Twitter's greatest strengths is its simplicity.  Pownce has a variety of ways to send links and files, although most Twitter users prefer linking to outside places with Twitter's built in Tiny URL feature.  Perhaps the only thing Pownce offers that virtually every Twitterite would like to have, is the ability to put friends into groups.  There is always an occasion you would like to send a message to a select group, and that would really be the only way you can efficiently do it.  Twitter's greatest weakness thus far has been it's downtimes, which they are addressing later today with a capacity expansion, as indicated on user's Twitter pages.  All in all, I'll continue using Pownce throughout the week, to get a better feel for it, but I'm fairly certain that Twitter will still reign supreme.  The next few weeks and months will be interesting as they duke it out.

You can friend me at:  Pownce     Twitter

Next Gen Online Communications

As many of you already know, Facebook has become woefully unusable, Myspace has been going down the tubes for years, and instant messaging just doesn't cut it for many situations.  Twitter and Pownce are taking online social communication to the next level.  Twitter has been collecting users for months already, and Pownce is about to open up to the masses, both are like a cross between a chat room and instant messaging, then given a heavy dose of steroids.  You can hold conversations with multiple people at a time, between you and a small subset of friends, or with anyone who is interested in what you're saying.  There are sure to be many reviews over the next several days, all over the web.  If I don't agree with what most of them are saying, I'll probably put my two bits in here.  If you're ready to take the next step, get a little bit ahead of the curve, and meet lots of friendly people from around the world you can start now, with me.  I'm known as @thattalldude on Twitter, and here is my Pownce profile.  Come and add me as your friend, I'll add you back, and let the conversations begin!

Firefox Campus Edition

I'm not quite sure how I managed to miss this, but there is a special browser package made special for college students!  The Firefox Campus Edition includes useful utilities like Foxytunes, Zotero, and StumbleUpon.  Firefox is an excellent browser, and is far superior to Microsoft's Internet Explorer.  For a one stop download to pick up a great browser preloaded with some great extensions, hit up this download link.

Free Applications for iPod Touch

A petition has been established for the world's iPod Touch owners.  The application update (requires iTunes), which brings formerly iPhone exclusive applications over to the Touch, has a price tag of $20 attached to it.  To all those fortunate enough to have a Touch, go forth, and sign the petition!

Petition for Free iPod Touch Apps    

Future Laptop Design

Apple released a new feat of engineering yesterday, the MacBook Air.  This represents an entirely new idea of thin, having a sloped design that scales from .16" to merely .76" with a 13.3" screen!  This feat was not accomplished without some drawbacks though.  It doesn' t have an optical drive or an ethernet port, for example.  However, as they have done before, Apple is leading the way.  They made USB a standard on computers, pushed LCD screens into our homes faster, and also led the way to the wireless home.  In an age where more and more of the software we use is being downloaded, our entertainment is stored on the Hard Drive, and flash drives are becoming more common than the floppy disk was, we are able to do away with some of those things.  This is not a high powered computer, you won't be doing any professional editing on it.  It is the perfect travel companion though, for business trips to make a presentation, your vacation, even for school!  If you still need an optical drive, you can plug one into the USB port, the wireless connection will keep you online nearly anywhere you'll go, and you'll look good the whole time.  Apple will take some heat for what they don't have now, but soon enough, everyone else will follow their lead.