We planted some perennials last weekend and I’m amazed how great these look.
Category Archives: Internet
You Suck at Retweeting and Favoriting
8 Replies
Dan Frommer at SplatF on the subject of Twitter:
…it really bums me out how bad many people are at retweeting.
I think his post dovetails into a larger discussion on how I think Twitter intends people to use their product now (but not everyone has caught on or chooses to follow).
I feel most users continue to use Retweets for things they should’ve favorited, or simply replied to:
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Favorites: interesting things said that I like and want to be able to recall, but need not broadcast directly to my followers, but perhaps indirectly through the Discover tab or third-parties like stellar (positive mentions, links to me, funny video clips)
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Retweets: things I found interesting and relevant enough that my audience of followers would too, thinking “if I wrote this would I expect others to share it verbatim?” (sharing links including photos and video clips, or quotes from direct sources)
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Replies: I want to respond to something or someone and if my followership happens to overlap, I can provide a great threaded discussion where context is already known and easy to follow… or I can write an original thought in response to something if I want all to see (by removing the @reply prefix but keeping the reply association)
The biggest violators of the above make for a noisy, circle-jerk of self congratulations, duplicate content, and one-word replies copying entire tweets senselessly. I’ve found these violators sometimes amass a large following and are actually doing the opposite of much of the above intentionally (social media “experts” in some cases).
More and more I’m starting to find the structured-but-not-entirely-enforcable nature of Twitter to be less endearing than a controlled experience like Facebook.
The 5by5 Radio app confuses me
I enjoy some of the podcasts on the 5by5 Radio network and today they’ve released their own iOS app. But, I don’t quite get it.
Live Broadcasts
The majority of the app’s features tout the “live broadcast” including the ability to listen in to shows live, see the number of live listeners, view the upcoming broadcast schedule, send push notifications for live shows.
I’m sure there are plenty of people that listen live but is that the audience Dan wants to target? Is having an app for the existing most active listeners something you need to provide? (they already love you!)
In my small world, podcasts are typically enjoyed while commuting or on downtime, not during the middle of the workday, live, while chatting with show hosts and other listeners.
Pricing
First, I understand the costs (time, money) it takes to build an application. This is no small undertaking, I’m very much aware. Those costs need to be recuperated.
Then wouldn’t the time have been better invested in an app that introduces new users to the shows for free? A free app would attract more, new listeners, create more prominence, and create yet another avenue to get new fans (App Store versus the Podcast listings in the iTunes Store). Then it would be understood that more listeners means higher premium for advertising on-air. Which, the app itself could then also be subsidized through new advertising inventory (within the app itself) and be freely available for both current and new listeners.
This is now a “niche” app for a “niche” subset of 5by5 fans.
Right? Am I crazy?
For now, I’ll stick to Instacast.
Gay rights laws in America have evolved to allow — but in some cases ban — rights for gay, lesbian and transgender people on a range of issues, including marriage, hospital visitation, adoption, housing, employment and school bullying.
The Guardian has done a great job visualizing the various rights, state by state. Timely and well done.
According to the Facebook S-1 they earn approximately $9.61 in revenue per user per year. But, averages are deceiving. Based on anecdotal evidence, this is likely how the long tail of Facebook’s revenue ties out: the lion’s share of money comes from shared revenues of grandmas and kids accidentally buying currency and credits in Zynga games.
Prove me wrong?
Worldwide WordPress 5K
The folks at Automattic (who run WordPress.com) schedule an annual 5K run/walk. Not the kind where everyone shows up at the same place but one that is scheduled simultaneously around the world for everyone to participate in.
During this worldwide 5k week I participated in two:
1. Weekly Running Club
Every Tuesday the Denver Beer Co. hosts a running club where nearly a hundred folks all take off and run a 5k together around the Confluence Park area. Rachel and I plan to be there every week if possible.
2. March of Dimes
Every year Rachel and I walk with a family friend at the March of Dimes and this past Saturday it was at City Park in Denver. It was a great way to spend an early weekend morning.
I’ve become more and more accustomed to running over the years (and Nike Running is a fascinating athletics-turned-technology company story) so I hope to document more of these over time.
I just finished reading Mike Monteiro’s book: Design Is a Job. As a principal at Mule Design for over ten years, Mike has a lot of great experience and much of what he said elicited severe head nodding and a me-too’ing. This book is a great roadmap of the things I’ve learned working with Alex and the team at Crowd Favorite for the past 3 years. I’d say anyone in the web design and development industry should take look at this book. It’s a quick read (finished it in a couple hours) and extremely insightful into the “business side” of web design at a small firm.
In celebration of Red Hat reaching $1 billion in revenue, here is Red Hat Linux 8.0 as seen on a shelf in my parents’ basement.
Introducing FavePersonal: a new WordPress Theme from Crowd Favorite
Yesterday the team and I at Crowd Favorite released our latest product offering: a WordPress theme for personal sites and bloggers that we built for, and use ourselves (that’s how you know it’s really good).
It’s been in the works for over a year now and based around a few cornerstones:
- you should be able to own your various types of content (status updates, photos, videos, links, quotes) and maintain those on your own website without succumbing to a service like Tumblr;
- you should still be able to participate on the social networks (Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, etc.) where your friends participate;
- you have the option easily customize the site to fit your style (custom color schemes using Adobe Kuler);
- you should attractively showcase who you are and what you’re about (featured posts or photo in the header, Bio Widget with a profile and links)
- and all this should be accessible from devices of all shapes and sizes (including mobile and tablet).
If you’re looking for a well-built, highly-designed WordPress theme for your own personal site (note: I also use it to run cosnow.com) I’d recommend you check out FavePersonal. It’s on sale now for only $49 which is a steal considering the average pricing of some of the other offerings out there and knowing it comes from one of the top WordPress design and development groups in the world (yes, I’ll toot our own horn).
I’ve thought a lot about how to “own” my content and how to create the simplest “social sharing” flow. The Path app is very close but it’s still closed down (I can’t easily get my content out) and it doesn’t offer the flexibility I want (photos should interact with Flickr or Instagram). FavePersonal is a step towards the ideal scenario. Expect more around this to come…
Apple TV is (just) an accessory
The Apple TV as we currently know it (a black hockey-puck shaped paperweight), is an accessory. It sits on the final page, before you check out, of the iPad store experience. You will see it right there below they keyboard and charger, next to the printer.
Apple is laser focused on a handful of technologies. iPad, iPhone and Mac as “hardware” and iCloud, iTunes and iOS as “software”. The Apple TV is the middle of the venn diagram. It’s an accessory to continue to bring the experiences (hard and soft) together cohesively on a big screen (a different kind of “social media”).
It’s priced at $99 but has brought so many hours of value to our household. Considering how much a DVD player, sound system, PlayStation and other devices cost: this “accessory” is the most underrated, most disruptive, and least costly device that is sneaking in and making way for the next wave of Apple.