New changes to Facebook are being rolled out to control who can see your content. As with previous attempts, this gives a lot more control that people keep asking for. But, makes it much more confusing and a little harder to manage. Good news though: people (mostly female) across Facebook are rejoicing over one of the most requested features (anecdotal): the ability to pre-approve photos you’re tagged in.
Category Archives: Internet
Congrats to Denver-based @bradybecker and @hiroprot for the launch of their latest endeavor (their previous was [Brightkite](http://brightkite.com/)): @forkly. It looks like a beautiful, simple way to share what you’re eating and enjoying when you’re out and about and discover new restaurants and foods. I’m excited to start trying it out.
>In the five months since the disaster struck, people have turned in thousands of wallets found in the debris, containing $48 million in cash. More than 5,700 safes that washed ashore along Japan’s tsunami-ravaged coast … Inside those safes officials found $30 million in cash.
Whaaaaat? I’m trying to picture the ecstasy I enjoy when I find a $10 bill left in my winter jacket when returning to the first day of the ski season. Then I try to multiply that feeling by 7.8 x 10^6.
WordCamp San Francisco 2011 wrap up
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WordCamp San Francisco is now the official, annual “WordPress conference” hosted by Automattic and the WordPress Foundation. This year the event was structured as a three-day, dual-track conference which is nearly a 200% increase in sessions with a very modest ticket price bump. The overall value is unbeatable if you’re a member of WordPress community. I had the opportunity to volunteer and help emcee the developer sessions on Saturday.
Andrew Ozz, Daryl Koopersmith, Mark Jaquith, Jane Wells, Andy Nacin, Jon Cave
I found the conference was heavily attended by hard-core designers and developers with the expected mix of bloggers and beginners. The mix is great, and its even more balanced than what we see in a smaller locale like Denver. That’s the joy of having an “official” conference with that kind of draw from all over the world. With the attendance of dozens of WordPress core contributors, consultants, freelancers, and “Automatticians”, you know you’re surrounded by some of the best and brightest in the space. This lead to insightful developer sessions and even more interesting “hallway sessions” throughout the weekend.
Here’s are some of my more noteworthy take-aways:
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WordPress has matured to the point it has advanced tools and best practices becoming more public and widely known. I especially enjoyed learning a bit about unit testing, debugging, server scaling, security, and deployment.
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Andy Skelton suggested Alex switch to Drupal to solve some of his problems, instead. ;)
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Live-streaming a conference allows for a wider “back channel” discussion. I saw a lot of non-attendees tuning in from the live stream and posting a lot of good quips and insight to Twitter. Being “in person” at a conference is not always necessary.
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The “mobile experiences” in WordPress as we know them are changing. There is a time and place where a custom theme is needed to re-present content in a different way (imagery-heavy sites). But, for most cases, considering responsive design when designing a website or blog experience can lead to less overall effort and maintenance. By focusing on a responsive WordPress administration dashboard we can rely much more on sophisticated mobile browsers than disparate native applications for each device. For bloggers and most websites, this also means you can focus on maintaining one codebase, one set of features, and a consistent user experience across devices.
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Community and friendship is a feature of WordPress. When Alex and I (Crowd Favorite) share a ride back to the hotel with Nick and Mike (Voce Connect) there’s clearly a friendship and professional camaraderie which I’ve never seen in other spaces. When the core team sits on stage and jokes around as old friends, its clear that WordPress is more than a “project” or a “job” for most people. Plus, it’s certainly fun to catch up with (or meet) new friends that you’ve only experienced online.
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Matt‘s “State of the Word” address can become a stand-alone event. It feels like it only scratches the surface of the plethora of things happening in the fast-paced WordPress community and could easily be twice as long. While some projects may get mentioned, others may feel left out. WordPress is just “too big” (a good problem to have!) to cover everything but he’s done a great job summarizing the project as it evolves. The preparation and design that goes into this presentation is worth watching again and again.
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Except for notable exceptions Mark Jaquith and John James Jacoby, people from the internet seem shorter in person. ;)
I would recommend everyone going back and watching the sessions as they become available on WordPress.tv. See you at WordCamp San Francisco 2012!
[Alex](http://crowdfavorite.com) and I are in San Francisco for the annual WordPress conference hosted by Automattic. I’m always interested in meeting up with new folks and friends alike, just let me know if you’re around!
We at [Crowd Favorite](http://crowdfavorite.com) have been working with [MailChimp](http://mailchimp.com) on a slick new plugin for WordPress for a bit now. In short: it allows you to broadcast new posts to Twitter and Facebook, pulls in replies, mentions, comments and retweets, then allows visitors to log in as Facebook/Twitter identities and leave comments. This is a nice compliment to comments because it allows folks to continue the discussion elsewhere (like on Twitter, a la [Cognition](http://cognition.happycog.com/article/is-this-thing-on)) while allowing your site to remain the center of focus. You can see [Social](http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/social/) in action here on [my site](http://wordpress.reams.me/?p=2095#comments).
Email: “unread” should mean “I have not yet read”
I’ve been trying out the new version of [Apple Mail](http://www.apple.com/macosx/whats-new/mail.html) in OS X Lion and it’s really nice. I would say it’s 90% of what I want in a native (e.g.: not web-based, like Gmail) email client. One thing [Alex](http://alexking.org/) and I noticed was that the new two-column view (view the message alongside the list of messages) forces a new problematic workflow.
## Two-column view forces unread status
When you remove a message from the current mailbox, for example you delete or file the message away, you’re automatically pushed into viewing the next message in the mailbox. This marks the next message read every time you act upon an email.
If you didn’t want to reply to that next message and hoped to keep it “unread” so you know to follow-up, well, you’re now forced to mark a message as unread every single time you do something in your mailbox. That’s annoying and a lot of extra work.
## Maybe I’m the problem
But then I thought about it more, and it seems that I may have been doing it wrong this whole time. Instead of keeping any email I need to follow-up marked “unread” in my inbox (or any other mailbox), why not treat unread as “have not yet read this” — as the name of the status implies.
There’s no real good reason to keep marking things “unread” in an Inbox, if you treat it as a true Inbox: something comes in, you then need to take action and get rid of it.
By allowing things I’ve actually “seen” and “read” to change status, the unread counter in my dock or on my phone are true representations of what has not been seen by me yet.
Then, the remaining “read” messages in my inbox are items that need action taken: a response, to be filed away, a follow-up task to do something, etc. This forces the need for me to get a clean “inbox zero” inbox and I don’t have a crazy scary “unread” count that I need to think about every time I glance at my phone: “23 unread? Does that mean I already got seven, or was it eight, new emails since I last checked?”
## Switching to Sparrow
While Apple Mail is great, I’ve found [Sparrow](http://sparrowmailapp.com/) has helped me stick to the Gmail-style email that I’ve come to love with all the benefits of a native app: offline email storage, fast searching, a dedicated (full-screen) window. It’s worth checking out.
It’s been an amazing couple of weeks here in the Streams (Stephens + Reams) household. Much to follow…
Google+ Project invitation system is broken by design?
I have a few observations about the introduction of [Google+](http://www.google.com/intl/en/+/demo/) to the social space. A lot of people are clamoring about it but, even as of last night, not nearly enough of my “friends” are on it yet. So what’s going on?
First, a social network launched by such an internet powerhouse should not be held back in this day. Sure, there can be bugs and beta qualifiers, but the network effect is already matured over at Facebook, Twitter, Flickr, etc. Launching a network needs to allow people to quickly and easily have someone and all their friends join in order to gain immediate traction.
Second, the first people who do actually join within the first week after the announcement are power users and super nerds because they know other power users. Of course, this is by definition: early adopters join early and others are expected to tag along later.
Third, I don’t see mainstream users jumping on after the early adopters because once you hear about it, you want to try it. If you’re told you have to wait, the social network has just missed its opportunity to be relevant. Think back to Google Wave, the first and *only* people who received invitations and joined were the early adopters and widespread usage didn’t catch on.
But finally, maybe this is all the point of Google+? Only power users and nerds are expected to use this and Google thinks they can really capture the social space of the individuals who don’t enjoy Facebook or find Twitter a bit limited. In a world where Facebook refused to use the word “Blog” to describe the “Notes” app, the fact [Google used the phrase “nerding out” and “geek out” to describe sharing things](http://www.youtube.com/embed/MRkAdTflltc) is quite telling…
DigitalOne raid by FBI: Instapaper vs. Pinboard
I couldn’t help but compare the two reactions to the (potentially overreaching) raid by the [FBI on DigitalOne’s datacenter in Virginia](http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/06/22/sites-rebuild-after-f-b-i-raid-on-data-center/). In short, the FBI ceased a bunch of servers in a bust on Latvian crime rings in which two unrelated web services were affected.
Here’s an example from [Instapaper’s blog](http://blog.instapaper.com/post/6854208028) by Marco which rambles on suggesting the FBI may or may not have our data, our passwords may or may not be safe, he is going to make some changes soon, and takes a vindictive pause regarding the datacenter lessor (not the physical owner of the space):
>I’m not convinced that [DigitalOne] did everything they could to prevent the seizure of non-targeted servers, and their lack of proactive communication with the affected customers is beneath the level of service I expect from a host.
Compared to Maciej’s well-organized update at the [Pinboard blog](http://blog.pinboard.in/2011/06/faq_about_the_recent_fbi_raid/) which answered the tough questions: Are my bookmarks safe? (Yes) Does the FBI have my data? (Legally, not likely) Is my password safe? (Yes and no) And concludes with the following:
>**How can I get my data off of Pinboard and close my account?**
>
>Use the [export page](http://pinboard.in/export/) to grab your bookmarks, then send me an [email](mailto:[email protected]).
A conscious effort was made to keep the export functionality available although the remainder of the bookmarking service was degraded due to the lost server. This simple sentence reminds users how they can quickly re-take ownership of their data and disassociate with the service that may have lost their trust
Pinboard has actually continued to win so much more of my trust than any web service I’ve used to-date. Kudos, [Pinboard](http://pinboard.in).