April Fools… again…

I was browsing around and wanted to get an update on whatever happened in the CrunchPad story..  and somehow I had missed this one when it first came out.  I’m thinking..  ”$49 times 800… huh?” and “why on earth would people do this…”, then it struck me.

Maybe Google can tweak their index?

Introducing The Do-It-Yourself CrunchPad Kit [Video].

The new Kin commercial – Dude or Chick?

Take a look at the new Kin commercial.  The immediate reaction might be “what was Microsoft thinking, encouraging people to sext” but then a much more interesting question comes up – was that a dude or a chick?

What about Tweet Fraud?

Twitter provides more details on their monetization plans.  From the TC article: “Promoted Tweets will be sold on an impression-basis at first (CPM)“

I wonder if retweets contribute toward the impressions charged? Then instead of click fraud we will have tweet fraud!  Then again, it seems like the Twitter forces are eager to point out that CPM will be temporary.

via Twitter CEO Ev Williams: Revenue Is A Feature.

Twitter’s Ryan Sarver Calms Developers, Leaves Callback #

Making big moves in the Twitter ecosystem is a good way to spread some FUD if not properly explained. That’s why I’m really happy that Ryan Sarver posted this message on the Twitter Development Talk Google group.  Of course it’s much better to prep the development community before making any wild swinging motions, but better late than never.

But I did want to point out one very big statement Sarver makes when describing the previous description of the new Blackberry client:

We will also admit our mistakes when they are made and the Blackberry client should never have been labeled “official”. It has since been changed and you won’t see that language used with Twitter clients in the future.

(Ryan Sarver)

NO official Twitter clients, ever? Now, it’s entirely possible that there could be an official Twitter client that is never called the official Twitter client.  Maybe we’ll just have to wait and see on this one.

But one thing that really caught my eye (maybe he does this all the time, I don’t know) is that he left a phone number where you can reach him.  In case you missed it, it’s 617-763-9904.  This must be a temporary throwaway number; I can’t imagine how useful a phone number is when you give it out to hundreds of thousands of developers.  But still a nice touch!  I’m trying to think of an original enough question to warrant a phone call.

TechCrunch Design Fail

As a TechCrunch fan, I love the succinct articles, sense of humor, and intelligent filtering and focus they apply to the thousands of storylines that circulate the net every day. I can go up and in a few minutes scan the headlines and spot where things are moving in tech that day. It’s fast and easy, which is why the new headline widget at the top is a horrible addition.

Not only does the new widget move slowly, but the transition effect is visually confusing (especially in the morning).. Maybe just a simple down arrow in the lower right to cycle to the next three most popular stories at once would do it? Don’t get fancy on us, TechCrunch! It’s all about the writing!

iPad and Cloud 2

 Just read a Benioff post on TechCrunch, and overall I agree and appreciate the enthusiasm, but it reads like something I would write after the first time I saw an iPhone.  I do think touch is the future, and the iPad form factor will usher in a wave of applications, but there will still be places for other kinds of devices, applications, and even companies in the future. (And if and how Facebook remains unchallenged remains to be seen).

Take touch on the desktop. It’s more about the position of the human body, and length and reach of the arms and how it relates to the optimal position of the screen for viewing… there are many reasons why touch might not dominate the desktop (though certainly, as we see today, it does and will on handheld devices).

And video versus chat? How many of us multi-task while chatting? That just doesn’t fit into video.  Video conversations are great but it is a more dedicated form of communication where multi-tasking may not be welcome.

One thing I whole-heartedly agree with: the industry is fun again. There is an amazing about of innovation in both hardware and software. And one of the most interesting developments to watch is the upcoming (it’s already started) battle between Google and Apple for ownership of the app market.

Benioff talks about rewriting apps – from a developer perspective, Android is open, Apple is not. It’s a little like the early 90′s, when I could write against the Windows API and have an app working on every PC, or target Apple’s OS, which only ran on Apple hardware.  There’s no doubt that the iPhone/iPod/iPad are among the most beautiful products ever (both hardware and software) but Android will gain ground and once it does (and even now), developers will have to choose where to spend resources.

I do think all key apps will be rewritten, but there will still be a mix of platforms, devices, form factors, user interfaces…just like today. Only, a lot more exciting.

Hello, iPad. Hello, Cloud 2..

Lots of creativity out there

Thanks to Mashable for posting this – via Huffington Post via YouTube – worth the few minutes to watch it. I’m always impressed with the creativity of humans. Very creative species. Just when you thought that Chatroulette was all guys in tank tops lying on the couch, this guy comes along with his piano. Bravo!

Of course, this has been going on for months, just check out the rest of the Chatroulette channel..

Privacy and Publicity

A couple days ago I posted an image from FailBooking because I was amazed that people talk about their drug use on Facebook (I know, I’m naive).  There’s a recent post over at TC detailing a keynote at SXSW by danah boyd, a Microsoft researcher, that is along the same lines.  She succinctly sums up something we have all observed (quote via TC, I did not see the speech): “I can’t help but notice that more technology companies think it’s ok to expose people tremendously and then back pedal when people flip out.”

That’s something I’ve come to expect. But mostly because as a civilization, we’re still in the very early stages of the network. I don’t think anyone knows how connectedness and speed will ultimately affect society – of course the speed of access and exchange of information will continue to increase, and networked devices will become more integrated with our daily life. But what will remain private remains to be seen.

Companies like Facebook and Google are aware of what they are doing when they release new features. I think part of the calculation when a new feature like Buzz or Beacon is released is to purposely overextend, and see what meets resistance. Because no matter what the latest study says, no one really knows how the public will react to a new feature until someone tries it. (Not that the knowledge attained by such an approach makes it right).

boyd mentions another strange characteristic of social media. Even though people on Twitter know it is public (for the most part – not including direct messages, etc.) there’s still plenty of racism being tweeted about. Is it that people don’t realize how easily identifiable they are, or that they just don’t care if they are identified as a racist?

I think that many of the people tweeting racist comments would not be so quick to stand up in the town square and recite their posts. To me, that is the biggest sign that people don’t understand the web. Before we can fully define the best approach to privacy online, people – the end users – have to realize that the web is the public square. From apps that ask for your location to services like Wave that record every sentence, backspace, edit, and deletion while writing a post, we are more and more entrenched in a live mesh of information.

This is where augmented reality will really benefit us, as people see that what they do online can be seen and heard, just like in the “real world.” But that is for another post.

Critical Mass

As social networking sites and related services continue to multiply, it’s easy for our contact lists to get out of hand.  Let’s say you keep in touch with a hundred people regularly, plus have contact with a larger number from time to time through business, or friends of friends, etc.  Even with what seems like mass acceptance of Facebook and Twitter, there are many other services that are just as important (to lots of people like me anyway), like Flickr, LinkedIn, personal blogs, bookmarking sites, music sites, playlists, videos, etc.  With all the different addresses, it’s hard to keep track of the definitive “who/what/where” for your contacts.

I’ve thought for years that this would be an interesting problem to tackle, and recently started modeling an application, and even picked up a domain I thought might work out. Part of the difficulty of starting projects like this is that it’s usually pretty easy to get the big strokes done, but that last 10 percent always takes much longer than planned. Of course, there are exceptions to every rule, and it is the dream of the web tinkerer to create a website over a weekend and have millions of people using in within a few weeks.

This particular idea – a centralized store of different contact points – has been done plenty of times before. An earlier incarnation (eons ago in Internet time) is Plaxo. But Plaxo was a little heavy, and bothered almost everyone with the amount of emails it sent out.  It would be great to have a really lightweight, definitive list of contacts, with a neat list of all their public accounts.

The key problem is simple.  To make something like that really successful, a LOT of people have to use it.  If no one uses it, we’re just saving contacts the old fashioned way: a few here, a few there… sometimes largely dependent on where our lives intersect online with our friends.

But still, it’s a fun idea to play with, and one that continues to see interest around the web.  A recent version of this is Flavors.me, a site that not only allows you to list your accounts, but gives your contacts a way to see your posts in a simple, compact way.  Plus, does it in an elegant way that looks pretty nice, which doesn’t hurt.  Jason Kincaid over at TechCrunch set up a profile which shows how simple and attractive it can be.

Even with services like Flavors.me, our contact lists are probably destined – for the foreseeable future at least – to remain spread over a mix of address books, email services, social networks and the like.  But, at least some of them can look nice.

Check out the Flavors.me directory to get a feel for it. Some of them are striking; giving new life to an address card.

Maybe this is the new calling card?

Are people insane?

Just doing some browsing around, saw this.. People DO realize that others can read this stuff.. maybe someone at their job..

see more funny facebook stuff!