Archive from November, 2008

Who to follow on Twitter

Nov 28, 2008 by Dan Taylor

Posted under: Technology

Twitter. There’s a lot of conversations going on, but who’s good to listen to, and who’s not? This is a common question I get when talking to others about the benefits of twitter. Who the heck is Robert Scoble, and why should I listen to him? Seth Go-who-din?

Agreed. There ARE a lot of conversations out there and it IS often difficult to pick out the good ones from the well, let’s just say, less than interesting ones. One of the best ways to get started is by following the ‘biggies’. A quick google search of top 10 twitter folks brought up a number of names that I’ve already heard of, regularly read, and/or know at least something about. I like to think of these folks as the movers and shakers of twitter. They’re really driving and having great conversations – all out in the open for you and you and you and me to read. My recommended top 10 twitterers are:

Ok, a bit of self promotion, but it’s my corner, and I’ll promote if I want to.

So we’re off to a good start by following some seriously good tweeple. What I did when starting off with twitter is to watch conversations, specifically the @ conversations. In twitter, an @ signifies a response to someone else, whether they’ve asked a question, posted something, etc. By watching these top 10 folks and their responses to other tweets, you can being forming a base of people that have similar interests. In my case: Tech, Marketing, Social Media, blog owners, etc.

Tools

A handy tool in who to follow selection comes via TweetDeck. TweetDeck is hands down the best Twitter client I’ve ever used. I thought Twhirl was pretty good, but lacked instant search and investigate features. TweetDeck allows me to instantly view someone else’s profile in a new window with a simple click. Sure, I could theoretically do this in a browser, but TweetDeck gives it to me all in one easy to manage window. This way, I can keep on top of current tweets in action, while checking out someone’s profile, and if I want to follow them.

Directories

Eric Eldon (@eldon) from Venture Beat recently reported on some very interesting new search and social abilities via twitter. He points out that while twitter is great for keeping the world up to date on what you’re up to, there’s a severe lack of social context to fuel further expansion of your personal network. He recommends giving MrTweet a try.

The way it works is that you follow Mr. Tweet’s company Twitter account (@MrTweet), and it sends a link to a personalized report that it has generated for you. The report shows you meta-data about other users, like how often they post Twitter messages (called “tweets”), how likely they are to follow people who follow them, and more. In one part of the site, you can see rankings showing who “influential” Twitters are, partially based on whether they’re tweeting about the same topics as you, and also if they have a lot of followers.

Eric points out that the system does have some flaws including Mr.Tweet suggesting someone he’s already following and fails to find interesting people who aren’t already following him, and aren’t necessarily popular. Twubble is a similar service that tries to automatically matchmake based on similarities, but again…no way to import your current twitter list in order to avoid duplication.

Twitter focused blog Twitterrati does provide some help in pointing us to some directories which help you sort tweeple by common interests.

Twellow is a twitter search service that allows you to search people by category, such as “Car buff” or “Xbox gamer”. A similar service is offered by JustTweetIt.

In summation, twitter is a great tool that allows you to connect, broadcast to, and stay in touch with friends that you already know, and friends you’re about to meet. Bringing it altogether in one cohesive “hey I know that guy, didn’t know he was on twitter” motion is/will be the holy grail.

Did I mention Facebook’s Connect? Until next time…..

Shaq on Twitter

Nov 22, 2008 by Dan Taylor

18 Comments

Posted under: News, Technology

I’m not the biggest fan of the hardwoods, but I AM a fan of watching real world superstars engage and utilize technology to directly converse with their fans.. So it came as a big of a surprise to me yesterday when I got a direct message from a fellow tweeter telling me to check out the_real_shaq, and give him a follow. Like most, my first reaction was, Ok, fanboy here that thinks he can lay down the law like the Phoenix Suns starting center.

Well, shut my mouth, ‘cause a quick lookup on mashable shed some light on the fact that this might in fact be THE actual real live Shaq jumping into 21 century technology and actively engaging in conversations with his fans. Are you kidding me? OutSTANDing Mr. O’Neil!

If this wasn’t enough to make a social media advocate jump up and down, the story gets even better, as reported by Adam Ostrow yesterday afternoon. To make his claim to twitter fame solid and permanent, Shaq actually reached across the great divide and actually called a fan that was in doubt as to the authenticity of ‘the real Shaq’.

Bryant Blount, aka Lord_b heard about Shaq’s tweets on a sports website and decided to give him a follow. Shortly there after, much to Blount’s surprise, the_real_shaq returned the follow. Blount then sent the message out, “Shaq has requested to follow me…boy is he gonna be disappointed.”

A bit later in the day, Blount then updated with, “still 30% skeptical about shaq tweeting…will continue to investigate and report back with any new findings.”

So far so good, nothing really wild and crazy to report here. Well, strap your seatbelt on folks; this is where the ride is about to get started. Apparently around 1am, Shaq wrote back with, “LORD B, DNT B SKEPTICAL, ITS ME GIMME A NUMBER I WILL CALL U.”

Oh SNAP!

Blount’s account is set to private (meaning his tweets aren’t public to the entire world), so he took the bait and posted his phone number. Blount was sitting at is day to day, just doing his job when a blocked number showed up on his phone. He answered and got the call of his life: THE real Shaq put the rumors to rest with one phone call. After a 3-4 minute conversation that included chit chat about Twitter, the ‘fake’ Shaq, and Blount’s hometown, New Haven, CT, where Shaq played ball with some peeps, the two ended the conversation.

A few minutes later, Shaq updated with, “I just talk to my good friend lord b, hes cool, im a invite him to a game, him and his family.”

Shaq’s online marketing manager, Kathleen Hessert commented on the original Mashable post with, “Shaq is a joyful person and a riot to be around. He not only gets attention but actually attracts people – he’s magnetic and genuine. That’s why I recommended that he twitter. Frankly it suits him and he’s one of a select few who actually do care about his fans. He’s learning twitter on the run and tomorrow I’m showing him how to respond@ to a fan.”

This is outstanding. This is putting the value and interest of fans and no-fans alike on a real world map. Shaq’s managed to rack up 3000+ followers in just 3 days! His first Twit pic had more than 1300 views within the first 10 minutes of posting. If this isn’t a wake up call for any and all businesses and marketable properties that still don’t believe in the power of social media and marketing, I don’t know what is. Kudos to you, Ms. Kathleen Hessert!

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TSheets takes the tough sheet out of your time sheet

Nov 21, 2008 by Dan Taylor

4 Comments

Posted under: Technology

A while back, before the great database debacle, I won a writing contest with TSheets, which ultimately led to my employment with TSheets. I got an email the other day from a reader that was asking what happened to the story. I promised to re-post the original article (dated April 30th, 2008), but I also want to mention that if you’ve not heard about TSheets’ Freshbooks integration (certain passages written by yours truly), go give it a read. Pretty cool stuff for small business owners and self employed professionals. Without further adieu:

TSheets takes the tough sheet out of your time sheet

3000 BC: Fred Flintstone ends day by listening for high pitched squawking bird. Quarry Foreman spends hours pouring over timestones at the end of the week.

1634: Bells signal farmers to and fro the fields. Hungover bell maid causes hours of lost wages as farmers stand poised at edge of fields.

1868: Steam whistles pierce the industrial landscape. Drought results in days of lost productivity.

1913: IBM introduces the first ‘Punch Clock’. Band Aids become standard working apparel.

2008: Tsheets simplifies your life and brings employee time tracking to a new millennium.

How many times has the wife/husband/significant other heard, “Babe…I’m so right there with you….just as soon as I get these time sheets calculated.”? How many times have you missed the game because, let’s be honest, assembling timesheets for payroll, while important, is as about as exciting as watching the grass grow?

Tsheets was born from the best stuff on earth: necessity. Whether you’re tracking 5 employees or 5000, tsheets is a simple to use, LAMP based app that can keep track of all your employees.

Running a single office? Keep track of all your core employees, consultants, developers, freelancers, etc. all in one location. You can even monitor real time. Running multiple locations across the city, state, country, world? Man, you should own stock in Excedrin, as that has nightmare written all over it. Fear not young captain of industry…tsheets can take the tough sheet out of your time sheet.

Employees forget to clock in/clock out (when…when dear lord will they learn)? No problem, anyone you grant admin rights to can clock an employee in/out at any time. What about the subcontractors I’ve got running the electrical today? Bossman got a blackberry (and you KNOW he does) or other web-enabled device? No problem, give him the URL, and he can clock in/out from anywhere in the world. Better yet, your code ninjas strutting around with their new iPhone? Tsheets has developed the TGadget that not only works as a Google widget, but functions flawlessly with an iPhone. What about that hacker we just hired to test our security features, I just have a feeling he’s going to change the clock time on his home machine, and cheat me outta 20 hours of ‘work’ while he’s off fragging somewhere. Consider that hacker PWND, ‘cause all times are stored in centrally in UTC time.

Whether you’re running a tiny (read self employed) business, or charting your way to the stars (read the guy in the armani), if you’re dealing with ye old adage, ‘time is money’, tsheets is a product you can’t afford to be without.

For more on TSheets, their products and services, check ‘em out at TSheets.com.

CW 47 Friday Funnies

Nov 21, 2008 by Dan Taylor

2 Comments

Posted under: Humor

Comin’ back atcha with the weekly installment of Friday Funnies. Without further adieu:

http://www.nytimes-se.com/ – ah if only the NY Times really would read like this.

http://adam.pra.to/public/pics/Killer_Biscuits_.JPG – note to self – NEVER buy biscuits in San Diego.

http://blog.twitad.com/ – Hmm, this requires further review. If you’re not already – Follow me on Twitter

http://www.davezilla.com/wp-content/uploads/2007/12/wonder-sauna-hot-pants-lg.jpg – Seriously, who thinks/thought up this shit?

http://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/news/scottish-news/2008/11/19/google-voice-browser-baffled-by-scottish-accents-86908-20906707/ – having lived in the UK for a year and spoken with a number of North Englanders and Scots, it was only a matter of time before this came to the forefront.

http://ranajune.com/post/58196230/omfg – did someone mention Cheezburger?

http://www.ridelust.com/road-rage-101-tips-to-piss-off-other-drivers/ – Are you fucking kidding me? As a seasoned driver of the Belt Parkway, the Long Island Expressway, and the New Jersey turnpike, all I can say is Are you fucking kidding me? Douschbags. the rest of the site is kinda cool though.

http://static.pyzam.com/img/funnypics/2/busted.jpg – Becks is like any other red blooded male. With an ass like that who WOULDN’T look?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HJUBFkVrk9s& – are you KIDDING me? What marketing team was stoned at 3am and came up with this brand name? Say it with me now….Tiddy Bear.

http://www.yesbutnobutyes.com/archives/2008/11/candy_wrapped_b.html – mmmm…Bacon. I love bacon, is that site still around? Apparently so, but sadly, a pail comparison of what it used to be. That was one of the first sites I landed as a client while working at bla-bla.com.

http://www.freakingnews.com/pictures/41000/Gonzo-Journalism–41262.jpg – will the real Gonzo please stand up?

Enjoy and have a GREAT weekend! Ooo look, it just started snowing outside. Which is better than snowing inside.

Movie Review: Quantum of Solace

Nov 21, 2008 by Dan Taylor

16 Comments

Posted under: News, Video

Alternate title: Quantum of Whatness?

Spoiler alert: I will be discussing scenes and topics from the film, so if you’ve not yet seen it and/or don’t want to know about it, move on to the next article.

Before I even begin, let me make this clear: I LOVE JAMES BOND films. I have some very found memories of Bond films, and I’m pretty sure that For Your Eyes Only might have included on of my first views of a semi-naked woman, while Mr. Connery introduced me to Baccarat, fine whiskeys, and men that can drive like experts, and run marathons, all while smoking a pack of cigarettes a day.

So with much enthusiasm and vigor I headed out to see a Quantum of Solace with a small group of friends the other night. Where to even begin with the problems here. One of my favorite things about a Bond film is the opening credits sequence. The opening of Octopussy ranks high on my list, while Die Another Day might come in at a close second. These intros often have cutting edge effects, and can hold their own as artistic short works. These opening credits did very little for me, with only the sand shifting into nude female silhouettes providing any interest at all. The rocking camera inside a longitude/latitude globe has already been over used, and I was left baffled as to what the film was/is even all about before the opening sequence. Not so with other openers. Ah, que sara sara – perhaps the rest of the film will explain it all to me….

Cut to the opening scene. Ok, NOW we’re talkin’! James Bond doing what James Bond does best: Driving fast cars fast while being shot at through impossible situations. Hot damn, now I feel like we’re getting somewhere. If this is the opening scene, I can’t WAIT to see the main car chase featured (usually about an hour or so into the film). The problem is – it never came. It’s almost as if the car chase shot it’s wad within the first 5 minutes. Come to think of it, that’s exactly what happened. Ok, no biggie, car chase down, bring on the double entendres, super bad guys and smokin’ hot babes!

Super Bad guys, check. This was one of the highlights of the film for me: the variety and depth of the villains. One crazy assed French (was he French?) guy scheming to control vast tracks of land in Boliva via supporting and facilitating a coup d’ etat, advisors to high British officials, and corrupt Bolivian generals to name a few. And while there was plenty of action involving Bond v. Villains, I found the lack of witty dialogue a bit of a letdown. If you think back to Connery or Moore, some of the best and most memorable scenes often involved a pun or two and some scintillating back and forth. And having seen Casino Royale, I’m quite sure that Mr. Craig is capable of not only delivering, but also delivering with Bond style. Ok, bad guys, check…bring on the smokin’ Bond girl.

Hello? Bond Girl…enter stage left. Bond girl????

And herein lies the problem. There was no Bond girl. One might argue that there were actually 2 Bond girls in the film, but to be honest, neither one of them are memorable, there was absolutely no steamy hot sex scene, and to top it all off, no beautiful bare breasts, or even super skimpy bikini (love you Halle Berry).

Is it water? Is it Oil? Is it Quantum?

With car chase blown in the first five minutes, no sex, and pithy dialogue thrown out the window, all we’re left with is the decent amount of Bad Guys. Even this gets a bit twisted and wtf’d as I’m still unclear about what exactly environmentalist/evil villain Mr. Greene was really after out there in the desert in Boliva. After one weak plane chase (I’m assuming this was the substitute for the car chase?) we find Bond and Bond girl #1 at the bottom of a cave where they soon discover that Greene is creating dams and planning to monopolize a nations water supply. But then later in the film we’re confronted with Bond girl #2 turning up dead in Bond’s hotel room covered completely, and presumably drown in, Oil. So really – what are we after here, water or oil?

Oh, and then we’ve got a retired MI6 agent living the good life in Italy, only to be dragged off to South America by an ‘on the run’ Bond, who then later turns up dead at the hands of the Bolivian police only a short 20-30 minutes later. I’m assuming that this plot line involved framing/implicating Bond in an agent murder, but fails to really deliver the point of this sideline.

All in all, I’m pretty disappointed. Casino Royale was an outstanding debut for Mr. Craig, and Quantum of Solace is a severe letdown, almost to the point of being an embarrassment to the Bond genre. Quantum of Solace is the 22nd Bond film made, and well, Let’s just skip over On Her Majesty’s Secret Service, and call 20 out of 22 outstanding pictures. Hopefully the video game will be better than the film.

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CW 46 Friday Funnies

Nov 14, 2008 by Dan Taylor

4 Comments

Posted under: Humor

Back before the great database meltdown I used to have a Friday Funnies category. I thought it might be time to resurrect this fun, useless category. Without further adieu: Fun stuff I’ve found in my travels this week, pithy comments included.

http://www.livenews.com.au/Articles/2008/11/12/Nirvana_baby_recreates_album_cover__17_years_later – but wait…he’s fully clothed?

http://antigayblacklist.com/ – douschebags.

http://shouldiusetablesforlayout.com/ – view the source code for added fun.

http://www.alwayswatching.org/features/25-fantastic-indie-gems-made-less-1-million – for real? No kidding!

http://www.ishkur.com/articles/trancecracker.php – esp. for Smartula

http://www.boreme.com/boreme/funny-2003/s_heathrow-p1.php – right up there with Heywood Jablowme. But Better.

http://www.xymbiot.com/ – WTF? Great…just encouraging litter and irresponsible non-recycling. Douschbags x2.

http://www.iwatchstuff.com/2008/11/jerry_garcia_biopic_coming_in.php – awesome! Remind me to dust off the bong. But in all seriousness…I’m looking forward to this.

http://www.oneplusyou.com/q/v/caffeine – I scored a 207. Beat it.

http://www.sonomawireworks.com/iphone/fourtrack/ – speaking of beat it.

http://www.threadbombing.com/data/media/48/obama_puppy.jpg – yes we did, and yes I AM!

http://www.obamacto.org/ - I voted for Godzilla.

Have a great weekend peeps!

Snackr – renewing my faith in RSS

Nov 13, 2008 by Dan Taylor

2 Comments

Posted under: Technology

Zoinks! Look at all these unread articles that are simply piling up in my RSS feed reader. How the heck am I going to read all of these? You know…I wish there was just something that could make a minimal footprint and still give me all the tasty RSS feed that I love. Meh…this sucks and I feel like I’m wasting my time with this overloaded RSS feed reader. Minimize, never open again.

Does any of this sound even remotely familiar? Well stop using my voice as your narrative. But seriously, when I first became aware of what RSS was/is and how to use it, I’ll admit I went a bit overboard with the subscriptions. After a while, it got to the point where I’d read 5 or 6 feeds a day, and watch the unread items notification pile up. At one point I finally got fed up with my self-inflicted guilt, and just abandoned RSS altogether, and just went directly to the site to catch up. The problem with this is distractions, bills to pay, random acts of WoW, etc.

Enter stage right (left, top or bottom if you prefer): Snackr. Thanks to Ritchie over at Datenschmutz, my faith in RSS has been restored. I stopped by his laboratory the other day and happened to notice this slick little news ticker running up the left side of his second monitor. A closer inspection revealed that the news was actually coming from a variety of sites. “You don’t know Snackr?” says Ritchie. A short 20-minute subway ride home, and I’m all over Snackr.

Snackr is missing an e. Yes, snackr is missing an e, but hey, flickr gets away with it, and I think this tiny little app might have the same appeal to me as the world’s best photo sharing site, as I believe Snackr to be the worlds best RSS feed reader. The concept is simple enough: Snackr is an RSS ticker that pulls random articles from RSS feeds you select (i.e. news you want to read). You can then select where you’d like the ticker to be displayed. I personally have it running up the left side of my screen, as I slightly offset all windows to the right anyway, it made perfect sense.

I’ll admit that the system is not perfect, it’s a heckuva lot more intuitive than logging into a feed reader and sitting there idly and reading. Instead of having to stay on top of the feeds 2-3-4 times a day, I’ve not got news scrolling along in the background. Not to mention that I’ve now got any breaking news right in front of my eyes as it happens. Once I see a title that grabs me, it’s a simple click to open the feed, and depending on the source, either read the whole article or just an excerpt. Snackr always provides as link at the bottom of the window to the entire story, should you want to comment, blog about it, or view images.

The preferences panel couldn’t be easier to navigate, with options for scroll speed, keep snackr in front of other windows (something I don’t need as I set the ticker off to the left so that it’s always in view), don’t show items older than (insert number here) days old (I personally set it to 1 day, as I want the most recent news), automatically check for updates, and position of the ticker.

Adding an RSS feed to Snackr hasn’t been exactly easy, as my default RSS reader is set to AppleMail, and to be honest, I haven’t really figured out how to change it. Instead, I normally copy/past the RSS feed address into Snackr. Removal of a feed is just as easy. In the preferences panel all your feeds are listed. Simply click on the feed and then select Remove. Presto. Gone.

Another drawback is that Snackr won’t automatically remove a feed from the ticker that you’ve already viewed. It will turn the text a slightly darker shade of grey, but I’d love to see the feed removed and replaced with another article from the feed.

I’ve been testing Snackr for the past week, and as the title states, Snackr has renewed my faith (and use of) RSS feeds. I’ve found myself glancing over at it while programs load, emails download, or during flight times in WoW. Truly an awesome utility that I recommend without question.

Bonus: Snackr allows import/export of RSS feeds in OPML format. If you’re installing snackr, you can simply import my faves right on top of yours. If there are a few you don’t like…feel free to delete away.

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