Google’s AutoText vs. Microsoft’s SmartTags
Scoble has been ranting about how evil Google’s new AutoText feature in the new version of its toolbar is. I think he’s way off base on this one, and here’s why (I posted the following as a comment in one of his posts about the matter):
SmartTags were, in fact, evil - not because of what they did, but because the user had no real choice in the matter. They were to be a pre-installed “feature” of the pre-installed browser on the most common operating system on the planet. Microsoft was proven in court to have been evil in its approach to the browser wars; SmartTags was an extension of that mindset.
AutoText, while not my preference, is in no way evil. Why? Because I don’t have to do anything to avoid being affected by it. I simply don’t install Google’s toolbar.
It’s simply the whole opt-in, opt-out argument. Opt-in is fine; opt-out is evil.
Some Migraines Caused by Hole in the Heart?
Sciencenews.org has a very interesting story about the accidental result of surgery to close a patent foramen ovale (PFO), which is a hole between the upper chambers of the heart that all fetuses have, but that are supposed to close over on their own after the baby is born. In the U.S., complete closure doesn’t occur in 25% of the population.
The accident is that the patients report being cured of migraine headaches. Although comprehensive studies have yet to be done, the theory is that the hole allows foreign objects in the blood like air bubbles, clots or dissolved chemicals to bypass the lungs where they would be exhaled or broken down, and head straight up to the brain, causing migraines, and eventually, strokes. It’s the stroke victims that have had this procedure done that are reporting migraine relief.
I’ve suffered from headaches and migraines my entire life; I can’t pretend not to find this extremely interesting.
Scoble’s “How I Read 1000 Weblogs a Day” Presentation
I went to Scoble’s “How I Read 1000 Weblogs a Day” session at NorthernVoice hoping to glean a few strategies about dealing with all of my RSS feeds from the guy that reads more of them than anyone I’ve heard of. I was disappointed.
The meat of his presentation boiled down to a 5 minute overview of how RSS works, and why it is more efficient than visiting weblogs and other content in a browser. If you’re already familiar with RSS, then he didn’t have anything new to share.
Scoble is able to read 1000 weblogs a day simply because he wants to. He wants to a hell of a lot more than I want to, and that’s how he’s able to do it. He doesn’t have any slick system (he uses NewsGator, like I do), and if the demonstration of the Tablet PC’s functionality is any indication, it slows him down rather than speeding him up. (Note, I have lusted openly after a Tablet PC, so it pained me to write that last sentence.) I realize speaking at a conference like that is a perfect opportunity to show off the Tablet, but it really did not work in this case. I came away feeling that the Tablet PC is clunky and difficult, and I’m sure that’s not what Scoble was trying to show. Next time, ditch the Tablet demonstration when speaking about a different specific topic.
What was most frustrating for me was to hear him apologize at the end of the session for having over 500 unread emails in his inbox. For a guy that purports to be an expert in dealing with information overload, this does not bode well. What it really boils down to is that he prefers reading his RSS feeds to reading email that is sent directly to him. And that’s a shame.
I’ve spent the past week personally lamenting the number of emails piling up in my inbox, but truth be told, I can get it down to zero pretty fast if I choose to do so. Anyone can. Scoble has mentioned David Allen’s Getting Things Done enough times that I know he knows how to, too.
The first rule of dealing with information overwhelm is deciding which information is most important to deal with. The rest is secondary, and can be removed from the equation if need be.
With that in mind, I would have preferred to see Scoble talk more about his linkblog, and how linkblogs in general can help humans to filter information for each other. Personally, I have been able to remove quite a few feeds that I wasn’t getting around to reading from my feed reader, knowing that if anything interesting pops up on them, they will end up in Scoble’s linkblog. He can’t teach anyone to read 1000 blogs, so instead why not show them how he can do it for them, so they don’t have to?
I think linkblogs have yet to mature into the indispensable tool that they eventually will become. If I could pay someone to read all of my favourite blogs and filter them down to the stuff I would most likely find interesting, I would do that. And I seriously doubt there is a technological solution for this; I want human judgement in the picture.
Next time, Robert, talk about that.
NorthernVoice: Promoting Your Blog and Building Traffic Notes
Below are the unedited notes that I took during the “Promoting Your Blog and Building Traffic” session at the NorthernVoice blogging conference in Vancouver last weekend.
Introductions
Chris Pirillo
- Blogging before blogging was blogging - using email
- Won ’shameless self promoter’ from Business Blog Awards - award is named after him
- Easiest way to drive traffic “be involved”
- become involved in conversations about topics you’re interested in
- increases traffic in a qualified fashion related to things you’re interested in
Jeremy Wright
- Sold himself on eBay for blogging services
- High profile guy that got fired for blogging
- Sold his blog for $15,000 US
Suw Charman
- Chocolate and Vodka - personal blog
- New Media and Journalism - ex music journalist
- Business blog: ‘Strange Attractor’ for Corante
Derek Miller
- penmachine.com
- a website has to be useful to the people visiting it
- building traffic: why?
- you need to know what your reason is for wanting to build traffic
Darren Barefoot
- Moderator
Questions
- Is there any advantage to being on multiple blog hosting platforms?
- Chris: stick with one. Make sure your URL stays the same
- Derek: the theoretical benefit of having multiple sites linked together to boost pagerank is not worth it
- Suw: a community site like blogspot, typepad or livejournal may work for you depending on your needs
- Jeremy: there is a benefit to having highly topical blogs, which leads to multiple blogs, and that’s ok
- Isn’t having multiple blogs diluting the brand of the author?
- Jeremy: No. The topical information allows people to find what they need, and by mixing different topics, you dilute who you are in the context of what the reader is looking for. Jeremy’s personal blog is his ‘braindump’, but he maintains different blogs for different topics.
- Chris: ‘I’m big into making money’. He says he breaks the branding rule regularly. Gnomedex in Seattle this year.
- Darren: What is a reasonable expectation of rate of growth of traffic?
- Suw: Statistics can be fetishized; cool it.
- Derek: Impossible to predict.
- Darren: Traffic can be serendipitous as much as anything.
- Jeremy: 20% growth - perfectly diagonal.
- What do you do if you get slashdotted?
- Darren: Adwords, linkback to blog
- Jeremy: Provide context (linkback to blog)
- Suw: work out a deal with your hosting company
- Jeremy: Make sure your site gives more information than just the post info on a page, to try to retain readers ***
- all: You *won’t* get slashdotted.
- How much do you segregate your separate blogs (keep them under one domain)?
- Jeremy: Can be argued from both sides. From the users’ perspective they probably don’t care about your other stuff.
- How do you track your statistics?
- Chris: Pubsub, Technorati, Feedster - Google Adsense
- Suw: server stats, statscounter
- Derek: use stats for trends, not for absolutes
- Darren: be consistent; stick with your stats package
- How do you market your site on a local basis?
- Chris: Meetup.com - it’s where bloggers meet in ‘meatspace’.
- (audience member) urbanvancouver.com
- Suw: “The world is not entirely online.” Use offline resources that are locally targeted
- Darren: Has had Vancouver Meetup sessions
- Marketing has a variety of facets (online, offline, etc.) - how do you mix the online and offline world to build traffic?
- Chris: Started out as a simple newsletter with a strong personal voice. Personality is what ’sells’; it’s the thing that people remember. Built trust, and was able to take that trust offline to speaking, radio, tv, etc.
- Suw: “blogs are not about stickiness” - the most valuable blogs give links to other valuable resources. “The best way to get people to stay is to let them go” because they will come back.
- Derek: Google is most popular site in the world, and all it does is send you somewhere else.
- Audience member: T-shirts, business cards, etc. (his site is toastmedia.com)
- Suw: URL is your currency; use it in your signature, business cards, etc.
- Jeremy: “If you as an individual person can connect with people using blogging, than it’s for you.”
- (audience member): Stick at it for a long time to increase readership. (related to Long Tail)
- Suw: the more readers you have, the easier it is to get new ones
- Derek: content doesn’t have to be new. If it’s valuable, put it up.
- audience member: do bloggers actively exchange links to build pagerank:
- Jeremy: not in a traditional sense. Build a relationship, trust, authenticity. Link to other people, and they will link back.
- Derek: Link exchanges don’t hold a lot of value, since the person on the other end is probably just linking to a bunch of people randomly anyway. The best way to drive traffic is to offer something valuable/useful
- Suw: Take part in the conversation, using comments, links, trackbacks. Do it genuinely.
- Chris: “Leave a comment, not a plug.”
- Jeremy: “If you talk about me, you get yourself a link on my blog” but if it’s not genuine, you’re gone.
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General Notes
- Geeky T-shirts seen so far - ‘been there, downloaded that’, ‘blog widow’
- High percentage of Macs in the audience - blogging thing or Vancouver thing?
- Saw a very cool laptop stand (like a mini music stand)
- Long Tail article by Chris Anderson of Wired referenced continuously
Firefox 1.0.1 Update Fiasco
So yesterday I pointed you to the Firefox 1.0.1 beta release. Today the final version of 1.0.1 was released, but as Marc over at the Office Weblog notes, the Firefox team made an extremely bad decision not to make it abundantly clear that installing this version of Firefox over your existing version will cause Firefox to crash every time you try to type an address into the address bar.
Yes, you read that right: Installing this update over your previous version breaks Firefox.
The Firefox team must have really been feeling the pressure to release quickly to let something like this out the door in this condition. What a mess. I’ve reverted to my previous version - and I’m lucky I was able to, since I backed up my entire Firefox directory before installing the beta update. I’ve been burned by Firefox updates in the past and am now always extremely careful.
But for me, installing from scratch is something I’d rather not have to do, since I install a myriad of extensions, arguably one of the best things that Firefox offers. Firefox team, please don’t make me do a clean install. Clean up this mess, your mess, soon please.
On a (not so) completely unrelated note, has anyone tried the latest version 8 beta of Opera lately? Talk about fast…
