Random thoughts on random days

Robert Scoble wrote a post entitled How late adopters get into social media that really hit home with me. I enjoy exploring and engaging with the latest trends in technology be it Twitter, FriendFeed, RSS, blogging, podcasts, widgets, etc. because I am a geek at heart and I love the rush of enablement these tools provide. I can create and drink in as much information as I want utilizing the latest techno tools. But my wife doesn’t give a rat’s patootie because “those things are too hard to deal with” and “why do I need to know all of that stuff anyway?” Which was Scoble’s point when he called it a “Google World” where late adopters are concerned. And my wife is as late as it gets.

What does this really mean to anyone anyhow?

It’s too damn hard for most people to really get involved with every new wave of technology that seems to come into being almost daily. Information overload is unreal for me let alone someone like my wife. It’s easier for her to just Google what she’s looking for and hope the page rank algorithms magically give her the answer she is seeking. She only joined Facebook because our kids hang out there and it’s a good way to see what they’re up to. Sort of.

Yet, there is a wealth of information just waiting to be discovered that I know would interest her and Google ain’t going to show her. Once there are filters that are easy to implement and are for the most part transparent then people like my wife will find value in the Twitters of the world.

She just won’t know that’s where the little gem of information came from nor will she care.

A friend of mine has resisted the notion of blogs from his marketing perspective for as long as he and I have been trading barbs about “new” media and its impact on communications. Jim is a very smart man who I have respected and admired for some time now. I’ve always enjoyed stirring the pot where Jim is concerned as it always draws out the best in me while defending my position.

Here’s hoping Jim really gets into writing his blog, Left Brain Creative so a lot more people can enjoy the way his mind works as I have had the pleasure of doing for so many years.

Have fun Jim.

As I’ve mentioned before I really love the track feature in the SMS version of Twitter and have wished many times that it were available in the web interface. Lo and behold today I came across a site called Summize that allows you to do exactly that in a web interface. And it comes packaged with a simple API! Basically you enter a search term and the site returns the result allowing you to subscribe to it as a feed. Just fire up your RSS reader and track topics through Twitter all day long without eating up those text messages.

But the best part of this site: it comes with an API that is quite simple to use. Here is the entire API:

http://twitter.summize.com/search.atom?q=<query>

Mainly you need to urlencode the query and be able to handle the Atom results in your program.

Connecting the dots.

UPDATE: There is another tracking/search mechanism for Twitter called Tweetscan that does the same thing but alas has no API. For that matter there are probably more that I don’t know about but all I want to deal with are ones that have APIs.

Sort of my own set of Legos.

Yesterday was a travel day for me as I write this from sunny and cool Raleigh, NC. While running through an airport a tweet came across from Scobleizer about a new little service built on top of Twitter called Tweetlater. Basically it allows you to schedule tweets in the future which is reminiscent od Dave Winer’s Mail To The Future application he ran quite awhile back. The one thing I noticed was missing at Tweetlater is an API for developers although the service is probably pretty simple to reproduce. IwantSandy.com offers a service that sends you reminders via email, text message and of course Twitter. It’s actually a pretty clever little app that ties together a couple of technologies via APIs.

On another Twitter note one of the topics I started tracking was the TRICARE Military Health System to see if anything was being tweeted about it. Nothing had come across the wires until yesterday when ArmyWivesTalkRadio tweeted about TRICARE answering your questions tonight.

Interesting where Twitter is popping up.

Admittedly I am addicted to Twitter. (Hello, my name is Gary and I’m a twitterholic.) Now I don’t contribute much to the Twitterverse but man do I love to follow conversations. The track feature that is only available via the text message interface on my iPhone allows me to follow ideas and topics not just people. This is really powerful stuff. Throughout the day I get tweets from sources that I wouldn’t know existed save for the fact they talk about the subject I am interested in. I find new and interesting people to follow through tracking.

There was an interesting article over at ReadWriteWeb about companies using Twitter in their customer support effort. It mentions Mike Arrington of TechCrunch fame and his experience with Comcast. I happen to follow Techcrunch on Twitter and watched his story unfold over the course of a few tweets. I have to admit I was surprised that Comcast would even know about Twitter let alone make good use of it. Then I read the ReadWiteWeb article and realized that in a little over a year a new communication channel had emerged from a simple idea. Granted this channel is still pretty much used by geeky types but companies that want to engage with their customers in new ways could learn a lesson from Comcast.

I can’t believe I wrote that last sentence. Comcast for god’s sake. The same company who was ridiculed on Youtube almost two years ago by over 1,000,000 viewers.

Connecting the dots.

It’s been a long while (six months) since I last posted anything to my little corner of the blogosphere. A lot has happened in my life since we last chatted that would take way too long to go through… and probably bore you to boot! The amount of time it consumed in my life (and still does) leaves me little time to write. But I decided today I was going to figure out how to find balance in my life and see if I can get the creative juices flowing once again.

I haven’t been living in a vacuum. On the contrary I have been consuming news that interests me in all forms and from all sources. RSS, Twitter, blogs, social networks, newspapers… I can’t get enough! Which is part of the problem of finding balance. The more I learn the more I learn which leads to more addictive learning. Which consumes time. Of which I have little.

Now I don’t pretend to be some big time blogger who is constantly writing eventually reaching the point of no return. Nope. Not me. But I do find reading blogs, tweets, RSS, and newspapers (yes those printed pieces of dead trees) just as demanding. I’ve watched the landscape rapidly change over the last six months with everything seemingly becoming “social” in some manner or another. The enablement of individuals to share with each other is phenomenal. Granted you need to be somewhat geeky when new ideas come along (Twitter comes to mind) but eventually their use becomes more mainstream. Of course that mainstream is still a long way from my father or for that matter my wife ever wanting or needing to use them.

But… somewhere along the line there comes the time when these late adopters will find themselves using these new concepts and won’t even realize it. Not that they will ever use Twitter or FriendFeed or any RSS reader. They will use an app that makes their life better and simpler never knowing they are built on top of these technologies. The APIs these technologies expose allow forward thinking developers to come up with ideas the original companies never even thought about.

Connecting the dots.

Lot of things going on behind the scenes in my life these days. But it hasn’t stopped me from watching what has been going on high-tech world that I love.

Google buys Jaiku which is a Twitter competitor of sorts. Google isn’t say what the plans are for Jaiku but there are rumors about them announcing a Facebook killer of sorts around November 5th. Of course with Jaiku having an API as does Twitter who knows what new ideas will grow from these “life streaming” technologies.

I read one of the best articles about Twitter from someone who was a naysayer when it first appeared on the scene. Head over to Adam Engst site and give it a read. If you don’t really understand Twitter or never heard of it this article will open your eyes.

Facebook musings

Here’s an article pitting Facebook against LinkedIn which has been happening anyway as people  discover the possibilities in Facebook land.

O’Reilly Research has released a report about the current state of the Facebook platform. From the O’Reilly Radar:
The good news has already been widely disseminated: there are nearly 5000 Facebook applications, and the top applications have tens of millions of installs and millions of active users. The bad news, alas, is in our report: 87% of the usage goes to only 84 applications! Only 45 applications have more than 100,000 active users. This is a long tail marketplace with a vengeance — but unfortunately, the economic models (for developers at least, though not for Facebook itself) all rely on getting into the very short head.

I find it interesting though not surprising that this has happened initially. Most users of Facebook aren’t really there to spend money per se. Hell the site is free! They enjoy the relationships of their friends and rely on the trust between them. Which if you think about it makes Facebook one big (potentially) recommendation engine. Of course if you have a bad product, service or idea you could go down in flames possibly not to ever recover.

O’ Reilly goes on to say:

This doesn’t mean that Facebook won’t become an important platform for developers, just that a throwaway Facebook app is not the ticket to quick riches. Embracing the Facebook opportunity requires more than just optimism.

and

While the report focuses on the market for current Facebook applications, it seems to me that the future opportunity is less in Facebook applications per se, and more in the development of applications that use the social graph embodied in Facebook for entirely new purposes.

I agree with this premise but we’re in an entirely new world here and finding the “killer app” make take many iterations of failure and garbage before someone hits paydirt although the current successful handful probably aren’t complaining.

The complete report costs $149 which isn’t cheap but companies or consultants trying to understand this emerging social market would probably find it a good investment. I’m toying with purchasing it myself as I believe this concept is just beginning to twinkle. There’s a free 5 page preview of the report available here.

Here’s an interesting article in Wired about the Facebook founder’s vision for the future of his creation. The Facebook platform has great potential for either creating another ugly MySpace mess or enabling some very powerful communication. Their API along with their developer site gives you the tools to build, integrate and make money with the Facebook audience. The problem already is most of it is garbage similar to when desktop publishing first appeared on the scene. Everyone was a designer then. Yeah right.

There isn’t a killer app yet for the Facebook platform so opportunity is ripe.  I believe there has to be a different approach to how one makes money on the heels of Facebook. After all the site relies on trust among the friends. The normal approach of marketers and advertisers will more than likely fall by the wayside.

Anyway I will have more about Facebook in the future.

How Mark Zuckerberg Turned Facebook Into the Web’s Hottest Platform

Here’s another article over at Business 2.0 about the platform.

A very talented friend of mine, Larry Geiger, has contributed a very stunning header graphic to my ever growing collection. Albert Einstein has always been a hero of mine and knowing this Larry created a graphic based on one of my favorite Einstein quotes. Sometime when you stop by Larry’s graphic may have bubbled to the top. Of course you can always hit refresh forever until you discover his gift to me.

Thanks Larry.