I've already blogged about FriendFeed's rooms...just not in this blog. (By the way, check out the Empoprise-IE room - Russell Reno is already adding content.
Here's what others are saying.
From Corvida:
While this is nice and I’m wholeheartedly going to enjoy watching what groups pop up, the pessimistic side of me wonders if this will play into the fact that we all have circles. The rooms are available to be either private or public. Will we see elite rooms start to pop up where only certain people are able to get access? Of course. While this isn’t against the rules one bit, I think we can all see where it could head to in the end. Gossip anyone?
Dave Winer:
I created a room for Scripting News. What shall we use it for? I have no clue. Help me figure it out.
Thursday, May 22, 2008
Room Service
Tony Pierce had his own reasons for a Twit-Out
While a few of us were participating in a Twit-Out, a few others were showing Twitter love, and Benjamin Golub and the folks at FriendFeed were finalizing their little projects, Tony Pierce was engaging in his own Twit-Out, but for a different reason.
i took down the twitter feed on the side of this blog, because people are spoiling american idol's results for the west coast.
also regular Twitter is spoiling it, so stay away from there if you wanna watch the show in peace.
Let's face it, there's no such thing as embargoing an event any more. I hope that eventually those of us in the West Coast will begin to receive live television.
Martin Luther's Two Mistakes
From Mark Daniels:
[Luther] was heading back to the university he attended, when a ferocious thunderstorm arose. A lightning bolt knocked Luther to the ground. Understandably terrified, Martin cried out to the patron saint of miners. “Saint Ann,” he said, “save me; I will become a monk.”
I once told this story to Father Seavey Joyce, who served Saint Ann's parish in the same small town (Frankfort, Michigan) where I did my seminary internship. Seavey listened and wearing an impish smile, said, "I guess that goes to prove that even saints make mistakes." (He was kidding because Seavy told me once, he was sure that one day the Roman Catholic Church would name Luther one of its saints.)
But of course, it wasn't Saint Ann who’d made a mistake. It was Martin Luther. In fact, in his moment of terror in the thunderstorm, he made several mistakes. Mistake one: Calling for supernatural help from anyone other than the God we know in Jesus Christ. Mistake two: Making a deal in the hopes of placating what Luther thought was an angry God. God doesn’t make deals.
But Luther became part of a long tradition of people who have done the right things for the wrong reasons.
Robert Scoble and 20,000 People Walk Into a Bar (or, what I learned during the Twit-Out about Twitter vs. FriendFeed conversations)
I used the Twit-Out (and the time before it) as a learning experience. While I've already shared some of the things that I learned about mobile access, and while there were other wrinkles such as malfunctioning text messages and some accidentally discovered linkblog capabilities, I guess that the main thing that I learned during the Twit-Out was about the drastic differences between Twitter conversations and FriendFeed conversations. I was trying to capture the words to describe the differences, but other than referring to FriendFeed conversations as islands, I couldn't really capture what I wanted to say.
So I gave up. Sorry that I couldn't describe the differences, but trust me, they're out there.
Since I'm already writing a blog post anyway, I'll take this opportunity to tell a story. This is a story about a guy named Robert and his evening out on the town. Nothing in this story is real, with the exception of one phrase that I adapted from the title of a blog post.
Robert had been busy all day and was looking forward to a night of relaxing and chatting. He was going to to to the Twitty Bar, a place where he spent a lot of time. Now that Twitty Bar wasn't necessarily a high-class bar, and it was run rather haphazardly - sometimes it would close in the middle of the day for no apparent reason whatsoever, and the bar's owners rarely said why - but Robert still loved the place anyway, because a lot of people congregated there.
As it turned out, I was also in the Twitty Bar that evening, even though it didn't have any NTN/Buzztime games. But I liked to have a good time also, even though I knew far fewer people than Robert. Robert had a loud, booming voice that could be heard by thousands of people in the bar, while my voice was much softer and could only be heard by a few hundred on a good day.
And I wasn't immediately recognized by Rob Schneider, who was sitting by the door, greeting everybody.
@scobleizer ... @robertscoble ... @scoblematic ... coming to the Twitty Bar ... @scoblicious ...
The Twitty Bar was noisy, with all sorts of conversations taking place between groups of people, and between individuals. In some places, people were whispering to each other so that no one else could hear. A bunch of people were crowded around a TV, watching the Red Sox game. I was carrying on a conversation about the "Total Devo" album, but no one was paying attention to it.
All of a sudden, Robert stood up on a table, and in his loud, booming voice, said the following to the crowd:
I'm going to eat dinner at the Friend Feed. Join me.
Ah, the Friend Feed, the new restaurant that had opened up next door. A lot of people were talking about it, and because Robert's voice was so loud, a bunch of others started talking about it.
Hey, did you hear @scobleizer? He's going to the Friend Feed tonight.
What, @scobleizer's tired of Twitter already?
Some people asked Robert questions directly.
@scobleizer what's the Friend Feed?
But while a lot of people were listening to Robert's conversation, it certainly wasn't the only one out there. The game was still on the TV, and Doug Haslam was enjoying it, which is to say that the Red Sox were winning.
That was an amazing play at the end of the 6th inning.
Chris Brogan agreed with Doug.
@dough you're right. The 6th inning was a keeper.
However, there were thousands of conversations going on in that bar. I was still prattling on about my Devo album, although I had half an ear cocked to the Friend Feed conversation.
Speaking about ears, I have to say that Robert had some of the biggest ears ever seen on a human being, with the possible exception of Barack Obama. While people always talked about Robert's big mouth, Robert said that his big ears, which allowed him to hear almost anything, were more important than his big mouth.
As Robert continued to talk about the Friend Feed, he noticed someone trying to get his attention for a private conversation.
d scobleizer
In this bar, that's the way you got people's attention. The person, bighunkingboobs, then whispered to Robert.
d scobleizer wanna cyber?
Robert turned to her in anger.
@bighunkingboobs, I'm a married man!
Robert then stormed out of the bar, and a bunch of people (including myself) followed him.
The Friend Feed wasn't nearly as noisy as the Twitty Bar, and it was certainly a lot less crowded. People would cluster together at different tables, chat for a bit, then move on to another table.
Robert found an unoccupied table and, holding up a newly-printed book, he said:
I want to share something that I just read. It's called "I'm going to eat dinner at the Friend Feed. Join me."
Immediately a bunch of people gathered at Robert's table, including Paul and April Buchheit. April spoke first.
I like this.
Paul then spoke.
I like this. And I think you'll like it here too, Robert. Let me know if there's anything wrong with your meal.
I was sitting at my own table, frantically trying to figure out if anyone else at the Friend Feed liked "Total Devo," when I heard Corvida say something.
I want to share something that I just read at the Googleplex. It was written by Louis Gray, and it's called "Robert Scoble has gone to the Friend Feed."
People came to read the book that Corvida shared, and you would have expected them to go over to Louis' house and talk to him about his book. Instead, they talked to Corvida.
I wonder if Robert will like it at the Friend Feed.
Does that mean that Friend Feed's kitchens will be overloaded when everyone comes here?
Sitting at my own table, I made a statement myself.
I want to share something that Corvida just shared. It was written by Louis Gray, and it's called "Robert Scoble has gone to the Friend Feed."
Steven Hodson walked by my table.
I like this.
Next thing I knew, there were ten different tables talking about the book that Louis Gray wrote. And nobody was talking to Louis Gray about it.
Corvida was starting to get angry, so she went to another table and stood on top of it.
Stop! Shouldn't we have some decency and go to Louis Gray's house and talk to HIM about his book, rather than just talking about it at the Friend Feed?
Robert walked over to Corvida's table.
I like this.
Louis happened to walk into to the Friend Feed at this time, and joined Corvida at her table.
Hey, I don't necessarily mind the fact that people chose to talk about my book over here at the Friend Feed. While I would of course appreciate it if people came over to my house to talk about my book, I'm happy to have conversation occurring at other places also.
I happened to hear Daniel Ha's comment:
Hey, if you want to hold conversations at your house, I have a really nice table that will help you have better conversations. It's in your house, but it's really in my house.
Someone responded to Daniel:
Well, that's not a good solution. It doesn't do me any good if the table's really over at your house. If people start looking for the table, they'll end up at your house rather than at my house.
Well, that conversation really took off - so much so that I couldn't even see the middle of the conversation, only the last few comments, such as this one from Corvida.
I agree, something has to be done about this.
Then Robert spoke up.
If the Friend Feed doesn't fix this problem about conversations happening at multiple tables, this restaurant is going to be shut down and replaced by a better one.
I left the Friend Feed after that, having thoroughly enjoyed the evening at both the Friend Feed and the Twitty Bar. Two very different places that give off different vibes, but they're both good places to visit.
Well, at least when the Twitty Bar's open. Sphere: Related Content
Wednesday, May 21, 2008
Landon Donovan vs. David Beckham?
Now that will be an interesting dynamic.
Sports Illustrated notes that the U.S. national soccer team will travel to England for a friendly match on Wednesday, May 28.
Barring injury, Donovan will be playing for the U.S., but I'm not sure if Fabio Capello would name Beckham to the English team for this friendly. He is playing well at the moment, however, so it's possible.
Sphere: Related ContentI can translate anything - the figure skating world opens up to me
Ran across some Finnish text in my blog - some old Laura Lepisto text that I couldn't translate at the time.
Enter Google.
Laura Lepistö taitoluistelun won the Women's Championship in Finland on Sunday before the Rauma Kiira Korpi. Kolmanneksi jäänyt Susanna Pöykiö ei mahtunut EM-kisaryhmään, sillä Suomen kolmas paikka menee Jenni Vähämaalle. Thirdly, escaped Susanna Pöykiö not mahtunut EM-kisaryhmään, as Finland's third place goes to Jenni Vähämaalle. Miesten mestaruuden ja EM-paikan nappasi Mikko Minkkinen. Men's Championship and the European championship on the nappasi Mikko Minkkinen.
So now I can figure out why Kiira Korpi's name has repeatedly appeared with Finnish words that sound like "sponsor."
Such as this post:
The sponsors of individual points of interest in their own categories at the apex of ice hockey will rise along with Kiira Korpi, Ateneum, Pori Jazz and the Baltic Sea.
Or this one:
Advertisers Association of sponsorointibarometrin According to the Finnish companies spend a year, 166 million euros, mainly of sport and culture. Sponsoreiden suosikkiurheilija on taitoluistelija Kiira Korpi. Sponsor suosikkiurheilija is taitoluistelija Kiira Korpi....
The most popular athlete had to turn taitoluistelija Kiira Korpi. Ateneum was the best taidekohde, Pori Jazz's most popular viihdekohde. The Baltic Sea rose to the top of the other items in this category.
Well, my financial pull isn't measured as comparable to an entire sea. Heck, I don't even rate up there with Cucamonga Creek (motto: I surf to school).
Andy C, I need to broaden my musical horizons
Digging in a Habari Sandpit has characterized my musical taste as "unbelievably varied."
Perhaps it's not varied enough.
I found this at Independent Sources.
It's a version of "Sweet Home Alabama."
By the Red Army Choir.
Enjoy.
Independent Sources got it from To the Point:
Back in the days of the Soviet Union, the Soviet Red Army had an official choir composed of male soldiers and musicians. It still exists. The Red Army Choir performs throughout Russia to this day.
Now consider the Finnish rock band called The Leningrad Cowboys. A little while ago, they held a concert in Russia, in which - to the screaming applause of Russkie teen-agers - they got the Red Army Choir to join them on stage for a performance of "Sweet Home Alabama."
Isn't it great when Finns and Russians can join together in singing a song that denounces a Canadian (Neil Young).
P.S. I still have to re-address the "Total Devo" thing. But I did talk about "Disco Dancer" back in 2006.
P.P.S. Alannah Myles video interview can be found here.
Let's get vertical
In my usual way of thinking, online discussions about (excuse some self-promotion) the Inland Empire in California and NTN/Buzztime are vertical interests, since most of the people that I have met online don't really care about those topics.
Most of the people that I have met online are talking about Twitter, FriendFeed, Microhoo, and related topics.
But, in reality, that's a vertical interest also, as Steve Rubel points out.
The first piece of research from Parks Associates (via Dwight Silverman and CNET) reveals that one-fifth of all U.S. heads-of-household have never used e-mail. Based on the conversations I had in Europe this past week, this is even more pronounced outside the US where high mobile penetration makes things a bit more complicated to track.
Meanwhile, a separate white paper from IDC/Nortel (via Jackie Huba) - this one spanning 17 countries - found that 16% of the information workforce is already "Hyperconnected" and that another 36% will be joining us soon.
Rubel goes on to say:
[D]espite all of the buzz around the growth of new media and/or digital advertising, neither will replace existing modalities for some time to come. Yes, Scoble, that's why Google News still rules.
And frankly, when I shared this item in Google Reader, I even took issue with THAT statement. Here's the comment that I left for Rubel:
Google News? What's that?
My mom emails me articles that she finds on AOL.
I haven't even explained Twitter or FriendFeed to her, and why should I?
Someone calling themselves "the threebillion project" put it more bluntly:
Digital media people beware. Not all people are like you, in fact they are few and far between. Technology allows you to find likeminds, but connectivity is not infectious.
In addition, we need to be careful about value judgements. Someone who communicates via Twitter is not necessarily better, or smarter, or more important than someone who handwrites letters in black or blue-black ink.
Something to think about.
My Twit-Out so far
I started my Twit-Out eight hours early, and so far it's been a MOBILE Twit-Out, in which I have posted my pseudo-tweets via mobile Gmail, and switched between FriendFeed (to read) and MojiPage (to write). My observations:
Things take longer.
I'm seeing more native FriendFeed items. (On my phone, I can't generate native FriendFeed items.)
I'm still seeing a lot of tweets, and a variety of views on the Twit-Out.
I'm eating more M&Ms.
#fflag (the time it takes blog posts, Google Reader shared items, etc. to show up in my feed) is still an issue.
Plus all the other issues from my test last week, except for no MojIPage widget errors.
Sphere: Related ContentTuesday, May 20, 2008
I started my Twit-Out early
At 4:00pm on Tuesday afternoon I was going to tweet, but I couldn't access Twitter.
So I'm starting tomorrow's Twit-Out early because of a #twittout.
See http://mrmicro-oe.blogspot.com/ and comment at http://friendfeed.com/ontarioemperor and I will comment when I can.
Sphere: Related ContentWhy it's good to be messy
Perhaps developer number one will get a brainstorm and develop a clean, well-defined application which is intended to do certain things.
Meanwhile, developer number two will get a brainstorm and develop a messy, ill-defined application which could do some things, or maybe could do others, or maybe everything. (The kitchen sink approach.)
In which Ontario Emperor provides a personal example
So anyways, I was reading a FriendFeed item by Britney Mason in which she asked:
So where is the blog post about what is wrong with twitter the company? Whats going on over there? Why has no writtern something about this? I dont mean the twitout either.
Now I have written *a* blog post about what is wrong with Twitter the company, but I probably haven't written what Britney would consider *the* blog post - after all, I'm not regularly referenced in TechMeme, so I doubt that Ms. Mason has ever heard of me.
So I couldn't rightfully interject myself into Ms. Mason's conversation and say, "I have written *the* blog post about what is wrong with Twitter." Then I thought of this:
Too bad I can't d (direct message) Britney with a link to my April post.
This happens to be one of the differences between FriendFeed and Twitter. In Twitter, you can send private messages to people (as long as they follow you). In FriendFeed, you can't.
In which we postulate that FriendFeed is messy, Twitter isn't
As some of us prepare for tomorrow's Twit-Out, a few of us are going to try to use FriendFeed as a replacement for Twitter. As a result of this, I bet a bunch of us will get all sorts of ideas of things to add to FriendFeed. Actually, people are already getting ideas.
- Do you want FriendFeed to be a blog? Why not?
- How about threaded comments? A better mobile client? More like Twitter? An integrated interface to comment on Flickr? Filters?
- And what about Super Like?
Now contrast that with Twitter, which was designed for a very specific purpose - sending 140 character messages. Sure, there are wrinkles - you can send public messages to one person, or private messages to one person, and you can add stars to items, but it's still a fairly dedicated service with a very strong mission statement.
Think about some of the ideas that have been proposed for FriendFeed, and now imagine adding them to Twitter.
- Making Twitter like a blog? No way! That breaks the all important 140 character limit, and would definitely cause a dramatic change in the service that would decrease its value for others.
- Threading the conversations in Twitter? While in retrospect it would have been a good idea to implement threading on day 1, I think it would cause problems to introduce it at this late date.
- Integrated interfaces with other applications? (In other words, your Twitter tweets can show up in things other than aggregators.) In the case of Twitter, this doesn't even make sense. You can't tweet to a Flickr picture. And would you want to?
- How about the Twitter equivalent of a FriendFeed "super like" - in the case of Twitter, a "super star"? Again, this starts to break down the simplicity of Twitter. It works better in boolean, rather than having gradations of everything.
Let's look at Twitter for a moment. If Twitter is still around in some form five years from now, it will probably be somewhat similar to the way that Twitter is today. Sure there will be a few new wrinkles, but it will still be the same basic application.
Contrast this to FriendFeed. I'd be willing to bet five super likes that FriendFeed in 2013 will be vastly different from FriendFeed in 2008. Who knows, maybe we'll be doing secure banking on FriendFeed in 2013. I doubt we'll be doing secure banking on Twitter in 2013.
In which we consider other revolutionary applications
But let's expand this beyond FriendFeed and Twitter. Are the revolutionary applications the messy ones, or the clean ones? Using PCWorld's 2007 list of the 50 best products of all time as a starting point, let's look at some revolutionary applications of the past:
- Number 1 on InfoWorld's list was Netscape Navigator, which by its very nature was merely a presentation engine that could show all sorts of content, and which could be expanded to show other sorts of content.
- The Apple II was, fittingly, number 2 on the list. Again, it was just an engine upon which people could put all sorts of things. A dedicated computer that could only run VisiCalc wouldn't have gone so far.
- Number 3 is TiVo which, in my mind, is a pretty straightforward non-messy application. Sure, you can use it to store pornography or Davey & Goliath cartoons, but it's pretty much a single purpose device.
- Number 4 is the original Napster which, in my mind, is also not that messy. People weren't about to use Napster to trade books, and I don't even think it could handle movies. Just songs. That's it.
- Number 5 is Lotus 1-2-3, which PCWorld characterized as being better than VisiCalc. Around that time I was at a trade show, hawking a word processor and spreadsheet for the THEOS operating system, when a guy came up to me and insisted that our software had to be "integrated." He didn't even have a definition of the term, but he needed our stuff to be integrated. That's the floodgate that Lotus 1-2-3 opened. As D.J. Power noted, "Lotus 1-2-3 made it easier to use spreadsheets and it added integrated charting, plotting and database capabilities. Lotus 1-2-3 established spreadsheet software as a major data presentation package as well as a complex calculation tool. Lotus was also the first spreadsheet vendor to introduce naming cells, cell ranges and spreadsheet macros." You can see the messiness in all this, throwing charts and macros into the mix.
So, in my unscientific survey, it seems that more of the leading applications were "messy" rather than "clean." A messy application allows for growth, evolution, and continuing relevance, while a clean application stays locked into its original vision.
Am I off base? Sphere: Related Content
Monday, May 19, 2008
Mini-Techmeme
I've never really paid attention to Techmeme; I don't have time for one more addiction.
But now that I discovered its mobile site, that may change.
Sphere: Related ContentHead-scratcher of the day
I received an email recently that read, in part, as follows:
We need your help with a very important research study that is scheduled to be finished within the next few days.
As a leading decision maker of your company, you are part of a very powerful reference group. Your opinions on various products you use do matter to and can influence, your co-workers, family, friends, peers and others in a wider sphere.
Specifically, we are conducting a very brief – one (1) minute – survey regarding golf equipment. Your opinions will help to identify best in class golf equipment manufacturers/brands in North America.
At the end of this survey, you may choose to continue participating in future surveys as part of [deleted]'s Professional Forum Panel. As a panel member you will have even more opportunities to influence products, services and issues that may impact your daily life.
All of your individual responses will be kept confidential and will remain anonymous. Only summary data and statistics will be presented in the final results of this study.
I would hope that this survey was also sent to people living in tents in Outer Mongolia, to ensure a diverse and representative sample.
As for me, I'm left-handed, and therefore had no inclination to go out and buy golf clubs that most people wouldn't be able to use if I quit the game. As a result, I have never played golf in my life, and I couldn't name a golf manufacturer even if my life depended on it.
The scary part is that people rely on the data generated by these surveys.
Perhaps if I did consent to take the survey, they'd spend the first few seconds of that single minute narrowing their sample size.
Can you name a single manufacturer of golf equipment?
Can you name three male professional golfers, other than Tiger Woods?
Can you name three female professional golfers, other than Anna Kournikova?
(And no, I'm not that dim. And yes, I did have to look up the spelling. And yes, for the record, "Anna Kournikova" is easier to spell than "Mildred (Babe) Didrikson Zaharias.")
I hope to receive my macrame survey next week.
Stupid Excel tricks - extracting standard release designations
I spent part of my morning wrestling with a problem.
I'm working on a project in which I have to analyze some data, including software release data. At my employer MegaCorp, we are effectively working with four different types of releases, which we define as follows:
- Product releases (e.g. "9").
- Standard releases (e.g. "9.10").
- Supplemental releases (e.g. "9.10.1").
- Builds (e.g. "9.10.1.SP1").
9.10.1.SP1
10.0
So, here's my problem. For purposes of my project, I only care about standard releases. As far as I'm concerned, 9.10.1.SP1, 9.10.0.7, 9.10.1, and 9.10 are all just 9.10. However, because of the variable length of the elements of the fields, I can't simply take the first three, first four, or first five characters of the text string. And I haven't figured out a way to take everything before the SECOND period.
Initially, I had a problem even forming my question. I couldn't just go out and ask "How do you convert a build to a standard release?" because our numbering system is not used across the entire industry. While we use product.standard[.supplemental[.build]], the Wikipedia article on software versioning documents several other numbering systems, including:
major.minor[.maintenance[.build]]
year.month
And there are some other strange variants that I won't even go into here. Suffice it to say that there wasn't a standard way to phrase a Google question "How do you convert a four-part software version to a two-part software version?"
After some false starts, enter meadinkent.co.uk to the rescue:
The most obvious method might be to parse the data. The menu option Data | Text to Columns starts a wizard which will guide you through the process of splitting up a range of data into columns. The wizard prompts you to describe the character which separates each piece of data within the string....The data is then rewritten on your worksheet, broken up over as many columns as required.
However, the Text to Columns wizard wipes out existing data in the column in question, as well as one or more columns to the right. So I had to work out some steps to make the conversion without wiping out the original data. For this example, assume your Excel spreadsheet has 14 columns of data (A - N) and that the data of interest is in the 13th column (M).
- Copy the contents of column M into column P.
- Select the contents of column P.
- Using Excel's "Text to Columns" item in the Data menu, indicating that the text is delimited with a period (.). If you have four-part build numbers, then columns P through S will now have data.
- Since columns P and Q may have one or two digit numbers, place the equation "=P1+Q1/100" into cell O1, then fill the equation down column O. Note that releases such as 9.1 will be rendered as "9.01," which allows this release to be distinguished from release "9.10."
9.10.1.SP1
10.0
will become the numeric data
9.10
10.0
which is what I need for my purposes.
There are probably more automated ways to do this, and applications other than Excel may provide more elegant ways to do this, but this quick and dirty method seems to work for me.
Now on to data analysis... Sphere: Related Content
Alternative pseudo-microblog publishing during Wednesday's Twit-Out
Perhaps when you're driving to a faculty retirement dinner, you're thinking about the faculty member who is retiring.
But when I was driving to a faculty retirement dinner in Claremont on Saturday night, I was thinking about microblogging.
The Twit-Out (i.e. a period of brief refraining from Twitter use - kind of a secular version of I Corinthians 7:5-6) is coming on Wednesday, and I'm taking the opportunity to experiment with various ideas in advance of the Twit-Out. So as I was driving down Foothill Boulevard on Saturday, I decided to set up a pseudo-microblog that would publish to FriendFeed, and allow people to add comments in FriendFeed. In fact, I disabled the comment facility in the blog itself, and I will not be adding Disqus to this blog, at least for the moment. (Disqus comments don't show up on my mobile phone, and for my tests, mobile phone access is essential.)
Following the naming convention that I've used on all recent Ontario Emperor blogs, this blog name starts with "mr" (which, if you didn't know, represents "Mister" - I respect myself). The name "mrmicro" is taken by another blog, so I am using the blog title "mrmicro-oe" (Ontario Emperor). Here is what it says at the top of the blog:
for a twit-out or a #twittout; mrmicro-oe is an official Ontario Emperor blog; comment at http://friendfeed.com/ontarioemperor
(As I noted previously, a #twittout is when Twitter goes down, while a twit-out is when you refrain from using Twitter.)
Well, once I set up my new toy on Sunday, I had to play with it.
My first post was sent as a text message from my mobile phone. As you can see, the first part of the text message (up to and including the comma) was duplicated in the title of the post. In the resulting FriendFeed entry, however, you have to click through to the blog itself to see the entire message. Not necessarily desirable. (Incidentally, I haven't tested this specifically, but it is possible that this communication method may allow me to break the 140 character limit imposed by another famous microblogging service, although I'm not sure if some of the 160 available characters will be needed for other purposes.)
My second post was written directly into the blog page itself, and resulted in this FriendFeed entry.
My third post and my fourth post again originated from my mobile phone, but were sent as e-mails instead of as text messages. In the third post, I typed my text in the body of the message (similar to the second post), while in the fourth post, I typed my text in the title of the message only. I don't really care how they show up in the blog, though; I am more interested in the resulting FriendFeed entries for the third and the fourth items.
Please note that creation of this pseudo-microblog does not negate any of the problems that I found in last Friday's test. Specifically, posts from mrmicro-oe are potentially subject to the same FriendFeed lag (a/k/a by the #fflag hashtag) that apply to any other blog post - or, for that matter, any Twitter tweet (although it appears that tweets show up in FriendFeed relatively quickly). And, of course, since the comments only appear in FriendFeed, I will have the same problem viewing them if there are numerous comments on a post.
But this is another tool in my arsenal. (Fooled you...that one may end up in the Empoprise-IE blog.)
English Top 20
The good news is that the Chelsea Football (Soccer) Club made the top 20 list for English Premier League teams in the "Behavior of the Public Fair Play League."
The bad news is that they came in #20, out of 20 teams in the league.
http://www.epltalk.com/chelsea-fans-voted-worst-behaved/2117
Among the ways they "distinguished" themselves was by booing their own manager, Avram Grant, a man who only got his team to second place in the EPL and only got it to the European Champions League final (with a chance to win it all).
Sphere: Related ContentSunday, May 18, 2008
Peace is war - just ask Abdul Hadi
This is a few days old, but still timely.
Reverse_Vampyr linked to Jihad Watch, who linked to an Associated Press article in the International Herald Tribune dated May 14.
A teacher was shot to death in northern Afghanistan after he gave a speech condemning suicide bombings, officials said Wednesday.
Abdul Hadi criticized such attacks as un-Islamic and un-Afghan during a speech Tuesday in the Archi district of Kunduz province, said Khair Mohammad Subat, the provincial education department director.
Hadi spoke at a gathering of about 700 people, including the Kunduz governor, and was on his way home when he was killed, Subat said.
I couldn't find out any more about Abdul Hadi beyond the IHT article; it turns out that Abdul Hadi is a fairly common name. But I was able to find a 2002 United Nations profile of the Archi district, which said in part:
Economically speaking, the district is very bad as it was a front line area for many years and as a result suffered widespread destruction of housing and infrastructure. Further, the sustained conflict in the area seriously affected the agriculture there, and as a result unemployment is high.
Perhaps things have gotten better in the past six years, but that doesn't mean that the area is peaceful. Of course, assassinations can occur at any time; we're about to mark the 40th anniversary of Robert F. Kennedy's assassination in Los Angeles, California.
Saturday, May 17, 2008
The Welsh Threat
For some, the worst threat to England isn't al-Qaeda, or the US, or France.
Cardiff, a soccer (football) team from Wales, made it to the final game for the English FA (Football Association) Cup, playing against Harry Redknapp's Portsmouth.
So the Portsmouth fans booed the Welsh (?) national anthem before the game. And the Cardiff fans responded in kind to the
English anhem.
But England is safe. Portsmouth won 1-0. Don't know how Charles and Camilla feel.
http://soccerway.mobi/index.php?action=News.Item&news_id=1211040200
Sphere: Related ContentTest picpost
Clerical Taquitos Mashup - Veronica Maggio's "Dumpa Mig" Meets Google Translate
Having written thousands of blog posts, there are innumerable ways in which I can mashup all of my posts together.
But I'm going to mashup two posts in particular:
- A January 12, 2008 post in which I bemoaned the fact that I could not find an English translation of the lyrics to Veronica Maggio's "Dumpa Mig."
- A May 16, 2008 post in which I celebrated the fact that Google Translate now supports Finnish.
I was unable to re-locate the "Dumpa Mig" lyrics on Veronica Maggio's website, but I did find them elsewhere and translated them. Here are the results:
Did the train down, you could dump me
Better on-site than by phone
I did not know what is expected
The first vacation in four years
As I understood we were in love
You said that nowhere as good as I
We talked about everything and loved
I borrow money and come to your city
Why do you think of
someone other than themselves?
Ego... Ego ...
...
Did your job, I would pick you up
You asked me to wait for you outside
Even then I understood that something has changed
Your gaze was different than I remember
I ask what it was you answered
There was one on your job, you felt better about
So you asked me to come here to get dump me
You said: "Better on-site than by phone"
...
OK, now the video makes a lot more sense. Interesting that the oft-repeated word is "ego."
Sphere: Related Content
There are other disco kids out there
Yes, I'm a disco boy, but the Subterranean Blog has the leg twitch also:
If we had to offer you something as the obvious next step in video after Robert Palmer’s “Addicted To Love” girls and pretty much every ZZ Top video from the 80s, but dusted with a bit of hipster aesthetic we would present Chromeo’s “Fancy Footwork” video....
[W]e keep finding that we’re very meh about Chromeo songs until you put some visuals to them and then we’re hooked.
Of course, I came to this song in the opposite direction, hearing the song on last.fm for the first time before I found the video or Chromeo's MySpace site.
4080 Records discusses the political significance of the duo:
Comprised of Canadian multi-instrumentalists Dave 1 (a Jewish PhD candidate and older brother of DJ A-Trak) and P-Thugg (a fully qualified accountant of Lebanese descent), Chromeo - the self-styled ”only successful Jew/Arab partnership in history” - make dirty, funky, synth-heavy electro music.
But I have confirmed my usual non-trendiness. I started writing about Chromeo on May 16. Perez Hilton weighed in back in January:
If you like Justice or Daft Punk, then these boys will make you cream!
Uh...OK.
Their music may sound like it's from France, but they actually hail from Montreal and New York. Their sound is a sweet amalgam of influences and eras. And, unlike a lot of electro artists, they're not afraid of using live instruments.
(Tangential thought: I just realized that this is the second post in a row that mentions Canadian music artists - I was talking about Celine Dion earlier. What's next, my Neil Young imitation? And when do I return to my usual Swedish mania?)
P.R. on TV, you can't do a little 'cause you can't let it be
I was writing a post in the Empoprise-NTN blog about NTN Buzztime's appearance at the National Restaurant Association trade show when I encountered this video (warning: there is nothing wrong with your speakers - the absence of sound is intentional):
It turns out that the video came from MultiVu, a part of PRNewswire that issues multimedia press releases. Here's MultiVu's story:
Today's connected world demands a whole new way of looking at broadcast PR and multimedia news. MultiVu brings together the top talent in Broadcast PR and IR with the global distribution and targeting network of PR Newswire. The result is creative excellence and maximum versatility to help you tell your story more clearly and openly to more audiences.
MultiVu is a full-service source for production, distribution and measurement of: VNRs, ANRs, SMTs, PSAs, Inflight Video, Webcasts and Multimedia News Releases. By adapting your message for multiple audiences on a variety of platforms, our goal is to help you maximize your multimedia ROI.
Here's another example of a MultiVu video:
The purpose of this video was to promote Midler's appearance at Caesars Palace (replacing Celine Dion, who has taken her kayak around the world). The promotional nature of the video explains why the video includes pans of the casino and interviews with luminaries such as Joey Fatone.
Of course, Web 2.0 ultra-purists will claim that this is the same fascist mentality that has been used for eons, in which "content" is pushed to "consumers" who "make purchasing decisions." And that's a fair argument, one that the Seesmic champions and others can justifiably make. But it's better to see someone spouting a quote that someone made up, instead of reading the quote that someone made up.
P.S. of tangential interest. Here are Celine Dion's remaining European tour dates:
May 19, 2008 Palais Omnisports -Bercy Paris, France
May 20, 2008 Palais Omnisports -Bercy Paris, France
May 21, 2008 Palais Omnisports -Bercy Paris, France
May 24, 2008 Palais Omnisports -Bercy Paris, France
May 25, 2008 Palais Omnisports -Bercy Paris, France
May 27, 2008 Palais Omnisports -Bercy Paris, France
May 30, 2008 Croke Park Dublin, Ireland
June 2, 2008 Amsterdam Arena Amsterdam, Netherlands
June 5, 2008 Parken Copenhagen, Denmark
June 7, 2008 AB Stockholm Globe Arena Stockholm, Sweden
June 9, 2008 Hartwall Arena Helsinki, Finland
June 12, 2008 Waldbuhne Berlin, Germany
June 14, 2008 Commerzbank-Arena Frankfurt, Germany
June 16, 2008 Schleyerhalle Stuttgart, Germany
June 18, 2008 Kolnarena Cologne, Germany
June 20, 2008 Color Line Arena Hamburg, Germany
June 22, 2008 Olympiastadium Munich, Germany
June 24, 2008 Hallenstadion Zurich, Switzerland
June 26, 2008 O2 Arena Prague, Czech Republic
June 28, 2008 Blonia Park Krakow, Poland
July 1, 2008 Stadthalle Vienna, Austria
July 3, 2008 Datch Forum Milan, Italy
July 5, 2008 Stade C. Erhmann Nikaia Nice, France
July 7, 2008 Main Square Arras, France
July 9, 2008 Stade de la Praille Geneva, Switzerland
July 11, 2008 Sporting Club Monte-Carlo, Monaco
July 12, 2008 Sporting Club Monte-Carlo, Monaco
Then she takes a month off and starts touring North America until January 2009. And she spent February through April touring Africa, Asia, and Australia. Quite a difference from staying in Las Vegas every night.
One district gerrymandering
Before I forget, this is the article about Myanmar unresponsiveness that I was reading earlier.
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2008/05/when_disaster_strikes_a_closed.html
Sphere: Related ContentFriday, May 16, 2008
I'm a disco boy, I'm a disco boy... (Chromeo, "Fancy Footwork")
Last night I drove away from the gym with the windows down, listening to Devo's "Disco Dancer."
Then today I was exploring the remix of Sarah McLachlan's "Fumbling Towards Ecstasy" (thanks Steven Hodson) and listening to last.fm artists who were similar to Junior Boys.
And eventually I ran into this song ("Fancy Footwork" by Chromeo).
Check out this video: CHROMEO - Fancy Footwork
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It all makes sense to me. Then again, I believe in space aliens.
A Pre Twit-Out Experiment - The Results
Earlier today I conducted an experiement. First I'll talk about the behavior that I expected, then I will note the five unexpected problems that I encountered during the experiment.
First, here's what I thought would happen:
- While still at my desk, I would post a blog post, which would then launch a conversation in FriendFeed.
- I would then edit the blog post to link to the FriendFeed conversation, then I and my mobile phone would head off to lunch.
- While I was at lunch, I would use MojiPage on my mobile phone to add comments to the aforementioned conversation, thus gaining the ability to...um...tweet during lunch.
- Because I couldn't view comments in MojiPage, I would occasionally switch back to my FriendFeed page, so that I could see all of the comments from the conversation.
- It took longer than expected for my blog post to show up in FriendFeed. I actually documented this via a native FriendFeed item, which ironically launched a conversation of its own.
- So, once the blog post showed up, I successfully used MojiPage to comment on the post, then I edited the blog post (to include the FriendFeed link), drove away to lunch, and again tried to use MojiPage to comment on my blog post. That was when I encountered my first MojiPage widget error, a fact that I documented via a second blog post. Eventually I could get to the first page of MojiPage, but when I'd try to scroll back to the entry for my first blog post, I'd get widget errors more often than not. Finally I gave up and started using the conversation that was connected to my second blog post.
- As I (and Morton Fox) continued to post comments for this conversation, a third problem dawned on me. I had assumed that I would be able to see the entire conversation, but I had forgotten that FriendFeed hides the middle of the conversation once it gets too long. This isn't a problem on the desktop or a laptop - you just click on the "Show n more comments" text to see the additional comments. But I can't do that when I'm on my mobile phone with the equivalent of Internet Explorer 4; in IE4, those comments aren't clickable.
- A fourth problem dawned on me, but it's actually something that I've known about for months. In FriendFeed, comments are not timestamped. Therefore, you can't tell when a comment was made, only that it was made before or after another comment. All of a sudden I realized that I was manually timestamping all of my comments, and I asked myself, "Why am I doing this?"
- The fifth problem ties in to the things that I knew BEFORE I started the experiment. I knew that I was going to have to switch back and forth between MojiPage and FriendFeed, and I knew that I was possibly going to have to scroll through several pages in MojiPage, but I didn't realize that it would take so long to do this. As a result, I was so busy trying to comment on my own stuff that I couldn't comment on other stuff. Pity, since Duncan Riley and Steven Hodson were both talking about a story which appeared to interest me, but I didn't have any time to look at it.
- FriendFeed has both a "friends" tab and a "me" tab. The MojiPage widget only has the equivalent of a "friends" tab. I suggest that the widget include a "me" tab so you can see your own stuff.
- FriendFeed lets you go directly to the feed pages of other people; the MojiPage widget doesn't. I suggest that the MojiPage widget let you view any individual's feed.
- FriendFeed allows you to search for items with particular text in it. For example, I can search my own feed, my "friends" feed, or the "everyone" feed for the string "twit-out." MojiPage's widget has no such widget. I suggest that the MojiPage widget include search capability.
- As I've noted previously, I was very happy when the MojiPage widget introduced the capability to comment on items and like them. But this capability, nice as it is, is not enough. I suggest that the MojiPage widget actually display comments and likes within the widget, so that I don't have to switch to FriendFeed to see them.