Tag Archives: Websites

Top Websites That Aren't (Yet) Mainstream

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Lets dive right into them, shall we? I present to you, the websites that aren’t quite mainstream … yet.

1. GMail

  • Who: Google
  • What: Free e-mail with lots of space, IMAP, mobile accessibility, powered by ads
  • Why it’s cool: GMail was on the cutting edge of webmail with a huge giveaway of space and a smart interface coupled with the awesome power of Google search.
  • Why it’s not mainstream: People are afraid of Google still. They see the ads and think that your information is no longer private nor secure and that your precious e-mail and information will be sold to spammers and advertisers. Ironically enough, Google is one of the best at combating spam.
  • Send me an e-mail

2. Hulu

  • Who: NBC, News Corp (and now the content of dozens of others)
  • What: Free access to legitimate television shows and movies in high quality, powered by ads
  • Why it’s cool: I can watch Comedy Central shows, Food Network, Fox, etc. in high definition with less advertising and all for free. I can even subscribe to the show and get alerts when a new episode is up.
  • Why it’s not mainstream: Nobody has heard of it. And NBC continues to botch up their video content by releasing stuff like NBCOlympics.com. So, we all assume media companies don’t get “real” video yet and wander over to YouTube.
  • View my public profile on Hulu

3. Newsvine

  • Who: Veterans of Disney, ESPN, and other media organizations; MSNBC
  • What: News from multiple sources PLUS the ability for anyone to write, “seed” (post an existing) or comment on an article.
  • Why it’s cool: We can contribute the news and read about whats important to us. Plus we can engage with others and talk about stories, debate points, create long lasting friendships, call someone a retard, the list goes on…
  • Why it’s not mainstream: I think it’s too much work for someone to ‘seed’ the news and it gives little value for me to share it with someone else. To many, there is not enough incentive to write articles either. The only saving grace is the fun in arguing and being social on the internet. More people are interested in participating but I don’t think they know about their options.
  • Add me as a friend on Newsvine

4. Twitter

  • Who: Obvious (Ev Williams)
  • What: 140 character message broadcast to anyone who wants to “follow” you (and you get to follow people back)
  • Why it’s cool: It’s like chatting with only the people you want to listen to via SMS, the web, and many other applications
  • Why it’s not mainstream: People still don’t “get” it because nobody has explained it the right way to people. You can’t just say “you have to do it” because everyone can see through internet fads. Not everyone is into making random connections with strangers on the internet. Plus, the site really isn’t what I’d call user friendly.
  • Follow me on Twitter

I thought about adding a “how to fix it” to each of these but nothing about them is broken. They’re just different, unknown, and misunderstood websites that may just always maintain that “web2.0” charm.

But then again, only the “early adopters” were using these sites:

  • Facebook – why do you need a profile online? I have real friends.
  • Google – what else is there to search for? I found the porn.
  • Craigslist – we already have classifieds, they’re called the classifieds.
  • eBay – I can buy cheap things at Wal-Mart.
  • Amazon – books belong in stores (so that I can read them for free!).

Community Next bridges Silicon and silicone

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Community Next is bridging Silicon Valley to the land of silicone with The Next Generation of Media and the Web happening Saturday, March 29 in West Hollywood. You may remember I’ve been pretty involved with Community Next and this one is going to be a neat twist on the original conferences: it’s not in the Bay, it’s in LA!

Quick overview:

  • Learn how the web is changing and how to stay ahead of the curve
  • Connect with people from top online companies
  • Connect with funny/smart/cool/interesting people
  • FREE OPEN BAR party, hosted by Twiistup on Friday night, March 28
  • FREE Redbull, food and drinks to keep you going at the conference

Speakers include Robert Scoble (scobleizer.com/Fast Company), Alexis Ohanian (Reddit, Founder), Veronica Belmont (Mahalo Daily) and more (click here for full list of speakers).

Special 10% discount for all of my friends: sign up at http://nextmedia.eventbrite.com/?discount=sweetdreams.

I’ll be there, kicking it in Hollywood. Let me know if you’ll be around, too.

Twitter is about me and you and you

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When you sign up and join Twitter it’s about a lot of things. Some say it’s an ecosystem, it’s about the simplicity, it’s about the voyeurism, it’s communication porn and so on.

I think it’s also like walking into a chatroom with just the people you want. Any other chatroom (IRC, AOL, Yahoo Games!) has a bunch of folks that are ‘noise’ and you’re not always interested in. With Twitter you can tune them out (setting: only see @replies to people you mutually follow). This is important because my experience is tailored to me and different from everyone else’s. I follow different people so even though my social circles may overlap with hundreds of people I don’t have to be involuntarily involved in those conversations.

When my experience is just about me and the people I want to interact with then I find that valuable. Facebook, Plaxo and LinkedIn have screwed this up because they’re overwhelming me with information about people that don’t always matter to me. MySpace realized that we should be able to opt-in to our friends because, of many reasons, some people change their profile picture too much, or leave groups too much, or add applications too much, or… whatever reason you want.

Twitter means the updates I receive are from the people I want, the conversations are with the people I want, and even more importantly: the content is limited to what they want (to divulge). I believe this control is missing from sites like Facebook and is why so many people hide and remove all their feed activity. In some cases, those are the people I want to ‘follow’ the most.

Track your goals for the day, week or resolutions

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I’m a huge fan of simplicity; I’ve been working on de-cluttering, simplifying, and reducing the unnecessary in my life lately (which is why I’m in love with Zen Habits). I’ve started tracking the many things I want to do by using Joe’s Goals.

Joe’s Goals is a simple site where you set a goal (positive or negative), which days it applies to, it’s weighting (1 point? 2 points?) and then you have a simple grid with days across the top and goals across the side. As you complete a goal every day you check it. Joe’s Goals tracks this for me and serves as a simple checklist (with a history).

Joe's Goals

If you’re looking to start making change in your life, set up an account and set it as your homepage. I’ve done this and, again, being greeted (aware) of what you want to change is sometimes all it takes.

Community Next Conference

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If you’re looking for an excellent conference to attend this year you’re pretty lucki you’re reading this. I’ve been helping Noah organize the premiere conference about the present and future of online network and communities. Odds are, if you’re reading this you’re familiar with websites like Facebook, HotorNot, and Threadless. This conference will have speakers and attendees representing each of them (and many more). Community Next will be held February 10th at Stanford University and the early bird prices is $195 ($20 for a limited number of students). More information and a discount code after the jump…

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Save Money in College

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I’ve been asked to review (sponsored) an awesome resource put together by Daniel Kovach of Scholarships Around the U.S. First off, his site is an amazing place for students to find information on financial aid. He has a lot of opportunities (Paul won money as a student blogger) and a lot of good information including his guide: 118 Ways to Save Money in College.

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Finding gifts online this season

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First, welcome to my new readers. I noticed a substantial spike in my traffic yesterday when the latest 9rules members were announced. Thanks to everyone who emailed, messaged, and left their congratulations- I do appreciate it. If you are new or haven’t browsed my site before be sure to check out my Archives and Articles to see what I’ve written in the last year. I’ve also built some useful Tools and pulled together some Quotes worth checking out. Welcome!

On to business: you basically have two weeks left to get your holiday shopping done. If you’re like me you’re probably one of many things: a) lazy b) scared of large crowds of determined women or c) uncreative. Luckily the internet is here to remedy each of my shortcomings. Since I shop for nearly everything online these days: clothes, toys and yes, even food why not others’ gifts? I searched for some simple gift finding tools online and here is what I’ve found.

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me.dium

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David Cohen from ColoradoStartups.com pointed to a neat tool today. It’s called me.dium and it’s a browser tool that tracks your surfing behavior and helps you determine relevant sites near you. While browsing you have the option of viewing your me.dium map. This map shows sites “near” you in terms of relevancy. The relevancy is determined by a number of things based on users’ surfing patterns (and a slew of other things, I’m sure). For example, the Wall Street Journal yields the map shown here.

As you can see, sites like USAToday, the NY Times and Washington Post show up as sites near your current page. If other users happened to be browsing these sites (or the one you’re on) you can actually communicate with them and add them as a ‘friend’.

I like this tool so far because it helps me draw connections that I (and others) might not otherwise make. Sites like StumbleUpon and digg are great but they require a human to make a conscious decision. I’d need to find something interesting or something relevant and go through some sort of process to flag that page. In me.diums case, it does all this for you.

Currently, me.dium is in private beta and constantly looking for feedback and improvements. I’ve only been surfing for a few hours but it’s a very interesting concept.. If you’d like to try it out (the more users, the better a tool like this works) then leave a comment telling me who you are, where you’re from, and how you first found my site. If you’re a CU student then you can just signup with your @colorado.edu address (me.dium is local to Boulder, CO).