I just realized how much Facebook is integrated into my life now. My dad just passed away (it’s still not real as we haven’t had the funeral yet) and I used Facebook to pass the word. In one sense it’s kind of freakish – as that’s an impersonal way to communicate.
For me Facebook was frankly a very efficient way to get the word out – to interact with people. One of the reasons I like Facebook is that it allows you to connect with people in an easy way. I can post one item about my life that’s share with so many people. And it’s better than just a broadcast e-mail – as you can interact with each other. I don’t want it to replace all relationships in my life – but it’s very useful for people who live far away. This may make feasible to keep up easily with those friends that move away.
It may also appeal to the geek in me – which I got from my Father. Writing something online seems so natural – so second nature now (isn’t that strange how quickly that’s changed). Facebook also fills that asynchronous nature of communication – in that you can communicate with many people – just not at the same time. That’s also why texting has become so popular – as you can better time manage your communication.
In some ways this makes the world so much more impersonal – but in others more personal. I can understand the smaller items of your life by what you share – in ways we probably wouldn’t do otherwise.
This was pretty much a rambling – but that’s about the energy and intelligence I have this week…
This book – The Future Arrived Yesterday – by Michael S. Malone – is a proposal by the author (I keep writing doctor as I’m in the hospital and I’m tired when I writing this) on how to re-structure corporations to handle the changes in the future. He proposes a new structure – the “Protean” corporation – as an organizational structure to better adapt to the changing conditions in the future. A “Protean” corporation, according to the Michael S. Malone, is a corporate structure that has a more “permanent” core along with a more nebulous “cloud” that serves that core. Read more »
Here’s a cool site on how to embed video on your site – which handles HTML 5, Quicktime, Flash downgrading gracefully: http://camendesign.com/code/video_for_everybody
I’m starting to see the writing on the wall that HTML5 (H.264 likely) will overtake Flash for video in the future. Google and Apple are pushing hard for it – and in theory it works a lot better. I don’t have a lot of experience with it myself – but I’m learning. I just put a YouTube video on one of my clients sites: http://www.bradbuyshomes.com/. I originally made this video as an AVI and uploaded it to YouTube (which took a while). Unfortunately it didn’t work – so I then exported it as MPEG-2 and that worked better. Probably MPEG-4 is now the best choice – buy my Roxio Videowave doesn’t have any MPEG-4 at anything other than very small resolution outputs. I should have used Pinnacle Studio to create the MPEG-4 file….
Facebook is reportedly turning off app notifications from the news feed: http://mashable.com/2010/02/26/facebook-app-notifications-gone/
What would Facebook be like without these – more usable or something? Of course, I wonder then if I’ll ever hear from some people – as it seems that’s all I see is app notifications (those I haven’t blocked yet…). I know Facebook apps are money makers – but they’re kind of annoying. If I see one more Fishville notification….
I was reading (and watching) about the Bloom Box – http://mashable.com/2010/02/25/bloom-box-videos/ – a new “fuel cell” technology. Apparently the concept is that you have a variable stack of these fuel cells (i.e. more means more electricity) and you pass fuel (such as natural gas or biogas) along with air and it produces electricity with less emissions. The goal is that in the future they could sell a “box” for about $3000 that could power an american home (less for other countries). Already some companies are using this technology – principally in California due to the subsidies involved (and the positive PR). Read more »
A friend shared with me a new Twitter account: http://twitter.com/COMMON_SQUIRREL At first glance this seemed pretty innocent and funny – but the part I don’t get is how this account is following other people. If this is just a fun, but strange, idea what is the point of following other people? Is something going on here?
I’m wondering if Palm has a future – given the intense competition in the smartphone market. There was a rumor they were shutting down production but I still wonder about the long term. I’ve been a long term Palm user – back to the Handspring day so I’m actually a fan. I’ve been using some Palm apps for quite a few years – and was an original fan of “Grafitti” I’ve been thinking about upgrading from my Palm Centro to a Palm Pre for a while -but am wondering if that’s a good long term strategy. Read more »
I’ve used this tool on a few sites and wanted to recommend it – Fancy Zoom. This is a pretty neat tool that will let you link a thumbnail to a larger picture – but it will zoom it up in the current window/tab instead of in a new window/tab. It works pretty simply and effectively: http://www.cabel.name/2008/02/fancyzoom-10.html
I finally have a good recommendation for a Twitter/Facebook Client: Seemsmic Desktop. I’ve tested Tweetdeck, Hootsuite and Seesmic and found they all have good features. For me the Seesmic Desktop had the set of functions I needed to be effective:
- I needed access to the following.
- 2 Twitter Accounts
- Personal Facebook Account
- Multiple Facebook FAN pages Read more »
I’ve played with Google Buzz some the last few days and have some first impressions. Frankly I’m still trying to find my equilibrium with social networks – the best way to interact with them. I had heard about Buzz (from Twitter) so I decided to try it. This involved doing something I hadn’t done for some time – log into Gmail. I’ve never really been a Gmail user – as I’m used to my Outlook client and the multiple e-mail addresses I have. In fact recently I merged 2 different outlook files together – plus and archive file. I’m a pack rat when it comes to e-mails – keeping just about everything. Read more »
March 4, 2010 8:49 pm | 
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