I never expected my iPhone would be a gaming device.
Earlier this week, as I did my civic duty, I found myself bored to tears in a jury room, waiting to be called. It was actually a bit funny. The day started with a video about jury service, including interviews where jurors said they were excited [...]
I’ve been in software product management for about ten years now.
Connect, my latest product, has reached a critical stage in its life. It’s the first product I’ve managed from its inception, so I’m getting interesting new experience as it grows.
It’s pretty robust and has most of the big features people need in a social platform. [...]
Hard to believe it, but the Walkman will turn 30 on July 1.
Thanks to the ‘tubes for reminding me of this, specifically to this 13-year-old kid’s review of the Walkman, compiled after using it in lieu of his iPod for a week.
Well worth the read, if only for a laugh, and an interesting study in [...]
The events surrounding the reporting of Michael Jackson’s death last week bring up issues with news reporting that I think are worth discussing.
Granted, this discussion isn’t new, but it’s interesting, at least to me.
Twitter offers a new channel to reporters, due to its immediacy and network effects, i.e. it’s very quick to publish and easy [...]
Twitter has a pretty impressive list of news stories its users have broken and covered more accurately than mainstream news outlets.
To name a few:
Hudson River plane crash
Iranian election riots
Several earthquakes in multiple countries, e.g. Southern California, Mexico City
Wildfires every year, e.g. Fall 2007
Terrorists attacks in Mumbai
Virginia Tech shootings
The immediacy and speed of updating Twitter when [...]
I’ve been yammering on about trust as the key component to encouraging participation in online communities for a couple weeks.
Today, Facebook opened its walls to allow search engines to index anything you publish, meaning the layer of trust can be removed, and all your updates *could* be released into the wild.
The change has been rolled [...]
The debate about whether FeedBurner’s inclusion of FriendFeed subscribers is a good or bad thing has me thinking how to determine a person’s reputation and influence.
As I keep saying, trust is the key component to New Web. Without trust, it’s difficult to build a community around anything.
Reputation and influence are the next big things in [...]
Did anyone notice a larger than normal bump in their FeedBurner stats last week?
Last week, the FeedBurner numbers shot up from about 1,000 readers to more than 1,500. I’m behind on my reading, but so far, I haven’t seen this covered anywhere but on the FriendFeed blog.
Some movement in subscribers is common. However, this was [...]
So, Tim mentioned last night that Oracle Mix had launched this year’s iteration of Suggest a Session.
There are big changes from last year’s inaugural run. First off, it’s no longer called Suggest a Session, but rather Vote for Sessions.
From the name, you can get an inkling of the biggest change, i.e. you won’t be suggesting [...]
Last week’s post on the 90-9-1 rule was pretty popular. It bounced around Twitter and FriendFeed, and thankfully, Disqus’ Reactions feature allowed me to track comments on it.
So, like any good blogger, I’m going where the traffic is.
The 90-9-1 rule interests me for a number of reasons beyond the obvious applications it has to driving [...]
I really do love new stuff, especially when it comes to software and has a “developer release” or “alpha” or “beta” tag on it.
I can’t help it. I’ve tried to stay away from buggy releases, but I always come back, if only to feel like I’m playing with the latest, greatest version.
Are you like that?
Anyway, [...]
It’s been a while since I blogged over here, the last few months have been intense adding new members to my team in the national security group. We’ve been working on some really great projects that I’d love to talk about but I’d have to kill you. There is something new on the horizon that [...]
If you read here, you probably know I’m a fan of geolocation and its possibilities.
Yeah, it’s creepy and risky, but then again, broadcasting your location is always risky, whether you do it via geolocation or Twitter, just ask Israel Hyman.
In fact, if you tweet from an iPhone Twitter client that uses the location feature, Twitter [...]
Mark your calendars for June 16.
The Oracle OpenWorld Blog announced today that Suggest a Session will be back on that day for this year’s mega-conference (which will be October 11-15, 2009 at Moscone in San Francisco as usual).
If you recall, last year’s Suggest a Session for OpenWorld was a big hit. Confused?
Here’s a recap:
If you [...]
I saw this post about how to provoke an argument with a geek from Wired on Digg, just as I was formulating this post about the escalating browser wars.
Good timing, since debating which browser is best will undoubtedly start an argument.
Anyway, the release of a developer version of Chrome for the Mac has definitely got [...]
You’ve probably heard of the 90-9-1 rule of communities, outlined here by Jakob Nielsen.
If not, here’s the summary:
In most online communities, 90% of users are lurkers who never contribute, 9% of users contribute a little, and 1% of users account for almost all the action.
News over the past couple weeks underscores this theory. First, [...]
As promised, Rich’s session from Google I/O has been posted, and I’ve embedded here for your viewing pleasure.
It’s a panel so, if you don’t want to invest the full 60 minutes, you can skip to Rich’s demo, which happens between 13:24 and 20:59.
He gives a quick demo of Connect and shares some OpenSocial gadgets that [...]
On Friday, I received a summons to appear for jury duty.
First, let me say that I’m in favor of civic duty, the right to a jury trial, all that.
I don’t think I’m the only one who dreads a summons to jury duty though. This is the first time I’ve been called in Oregon, and they [...]
Some of the sessions from Google I/O have been posted, including the Wave breakout sessions.
I know one of these conflicted with Rich’s panel session, “OpenSocial in the Enterprise”. Rich was both bummed he had to miss it and worried that after the morning’s rousing keynote, no one would show up for his session.
Although he didn’t [...]
Rich dumped his impressions and thoughts on Google Wave yesterday. Now it’s my turn.
In a weird coincidence, I heard Soundgarden’s “My Wave” earlier today and immediately thought of Friend of the ‘Lab Floyd’s penchant for beginning his posts with song lyrics. Not sure why he’s stopped doing that, it’s a great little calling card for [...]
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