Archive for the ‘Life’ Category
Philosopher’s Drinking Song – I Love This November 2nd, 2009
Best song ever?
Immanuel Kant was a real piss-ant who was very rarely stable.
Heideggar, Heideggar was a boozy beggar who could think you under the table.
David Hume could out-consume Wilhelm Freidrich Hegel.
And Whittgenstein was a beery swine who was just as sloshed as Schlegel.
There’s nothing Nieizsche couldn’t teach ‘ya ’bout the raising of the wrist.
Socrates, himself, was permanently pissed.
John Stewart Mill, of his own free will, after half a pint of shanty was particularly ill.
Plato, they say, could stick it away, half a crate of whiskey every day!
Aristotle, Aristotle was a bugger for the bottle,
And Hobbes was fond of his Dram.
And Rene Descartes was a drunken fart:
“I drink, therefore I am.”
Yes, Socrates himself is particularly missed;
A lovely little thinker, but a bugger when he’s pissed.
There is nothing in that but greatness.
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Writing For A Major Blog October 16th, 2009
This just got tweeted about, so I feel the need to add a little. I wrote the below text when I was but a spry new member of TNW. Now probably 200 posts or so into my time with TNW, what do I think that is different?
Speed is more important than I thought - and write dickish headlines.
The faster you get to the important nugget of news, say that Apple has blown its nose, you have probably four to eight minutes to get a post up on it. That’s doable. Plenty of time to hammer at the keys, and sling invective.
But once your wonderful post, which thousands will read via the website and RSS, how do you title it? Take the title, remove 10% of the truth, and crank the hype to 11. I declare it the Alex Ratio. Trademark.
But more than anything the tech blogging world is very competitively friendly. The team to break the story very nearly gets the lion share of the traffic. But everyone must cover it, assuming that it is of suffiecient importance. Or it is Apple related. Same thing to most people, comically.
Oh yes, comment baiting works. Like this: -> write your opinion. Wait.
That’s all, see everyone on Twitter.
– — – — – — – –
If you are reading this, you probably know that I used to write actively for TechGeist. I have since moved over most of my writing to TheNextWeb, with Zee, Boris, and the whole crew. It has taken some of my time away from midVentures, but that is just the way life works. After writing for TNW for a while, and a few dozen posts, I wanted to share a few insights about tech blogging, and blogging in general for a large blog.
TheNextWeb is a major European technology blog, and I represent one of the two US authors, bringing in the perspective from the States. I write between three and ten posts a day for them, depending on what exactly is going on, and how quickly I get to the story. Mike Bracco is the other US blogger. Nice guy.
Technology blogging is all about speed. When a story breaks, every major tech blog pounces pretty much at the same time. How fast you get to the story can determine what share of the traffic that will surround that particular story. This means you need t o write quickly, or fall behind even more quickly.
I’m not sure how this post is going to go, in all honesty, I fell like it is devolving into some sort of paragraphed bullet points.
Another distinction, who are you writing for? It truly depends. Digg? Your RSS subscribers? Every audience needs its own special niche. Its own content flavor, etc.
Do you like sleeping? Then blogging is not for you. Up late, up early, laptop in your teeth.
Also, do you have a thin skin? If so, you are not cut out to blog, just take a look at this.
Does any of that help? I’m not sure what to share. If you had asked me 10 months ago, before TechGeist or TheNextWeb, I think that I would have known what to ask. As it stands, I am far to close to know what to say. I love blogging, how is that?
Tags: blogging
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Power Interview – @BigRichB Talks Twitter April 3rd, 2009
- originally written for techgeist
Twitter user @BigRichB is one of the most powerful people on Twitter that you have never heard of. He has more followers than Om Malik and all the individual TechCrunch authors nearly combined, 76,000 plus, actually. I asked him a few questions about how he uses Twitter, and where it is headed. Words from the mouth of the expert, lets go.
Questions are bulleted, followed by a completely unedited response from @BigRichB.
- You have had a meteoric rise in your following on Twitter, yet you state that simple mass following is unproductive, do you think that content/value creation is more powerful?
Mass following IS a waste of time. It simply takes too much time because it’s inefficient. Since it’s inefficient, you have to follow and unfollow way more people repeatedly to get more followers.
But here’s a tip to save you some time (wish I did this when I was under 10,000 followers)… use TwitterKarma to do mass unfollows with 1 press of a button. Unfollowing people is where the majority of your wasted time happens.
As far as content/value creation… that is pretty much unnecessary for getting tons of followers. Building relationships and interacting with people is more important.
- What do you find the most useful in Twitter? Is it the ability to meet like minds, or do you find a utilitarian value in such a large following?
I came on Twitter to network. My massive following has allowed me to hang out with and/or talk on the phone with over 5 millionaires. You get noticed and get attention by having a lot of followers. They’ve helped me out a bunch.
Sure, there’s not way to have truly meaningful relationships with everyone when you have 50,000+ followers, but the lines of communication are open. Just about every time I make a post at Twitter, I get over 100 replies.
A large following is pure social proof ala Cialdini. Why not take advantage of social proof to establish your authority? Some people seem to have moral objections to following a lot of people. Seems weird to me since I’d personally object more to celebrities who follow 20 people but have over 100,000 followers.
- What are your methods for reciprocating to the community that you derive so much value out of?
I don’t look at it in the big picture sense like that. I see it simply as this… if you talk to me, I’ll talk with you. If I talk with you, I hope you talk with me. I see it as a 1 on 1 thing, not me VS all 76,000 of my followers lumped together.
But I can also say this. I didn’t set out to create a Twitter product. It just happened. I created Brute Force Twitter because I kept getting 10-15 dm’s and posts a day from people asking me how I got so many followers so fast.
Since a lot of people are interested in that, I created it for them. It’s not like I can explain it in 140 characters. So I made a product out of it.
- How do you monetize your following, if you do, and if you do not, why not?
I don’t monetize the following on my @BigRichB account. That account is strictly for networking and just hanging out and getting to know people. I have a separate Twitter account that nobody knows about for monetizing followers. In fact, I now have 3 accounts.
- Where do you see Twitter in the next six months?
Twitter is the big rage now. It’s becoming mainstream fast. In 6 months it’s going to be HUGE. I just read an article that says Twitter will have 50 million people on it by Christmas. NOW is the time to build up a big following… before millions of people flood onto Twitter. You want to be ahead of the crowd.
- Where do you see yourself on Twitter in the next six months?
Brute Force Twitter will establish me as a top authority on Twitter. I’ll get pushed out of the top 100 because Twitter is promoting celebrities via its suggested users list for newbies that are just getting started. Being in the top 100 is basically meaningless now since those people are hand-chosen by Twitter. I just read Twitter just hired a concierge whose only job is to make celebrities happy on Twitter.
Gee, as a normal person, I really appreciate that (sarcasm). We build up the site and get no appreciation. Celebrities just come on it and have their assistants make posts for them and they get promoted. Ok, rant over.
Me… I’ll still be doing my thing… asking lots of quirky questions and being very random. It’s fun.
- If it is not right now, when will Twitter become mainstream? When will it be fair to say so, and why?
Twitter is almost mainstream. Look at CNN and FoxNews… they regularly mention their Twitter accounts. You keep hearing about Twitter from everywhere. It’s growing like crazy now, but I think over the summer is when Twitter will kinda announce its arrival.
- Do you have any tips or tricks that you would like to share with the readers?
Tips… use your followers. They’re a big asset.
For example… I had problems with my car. I posted about it and got tons of helpful replies. That kind of support is awesome. Another example… I was trying to figure out how to transfer my desktop files to my laptop… I posted the question and got a bunch of replies that solve the problem for me. So for me, Twitter helps me to solve problems.
Another tip… be yourself. Authentic. Don’t be uptight and hide who you are or your personality. That’s boring and not fun. It’s hard to build a relationship and trust a person who “plays it safe” in order not to offend people. Be real.
Tricks… I’ll give you 1 trick, but not 1 of the main ones from my Brute Force Twitter system. Follow the followers of spammers.
Look, everyone hates spammers, me included. But they’re there. Before Twitter kicks them off, follow all their followers. Why? Because if someone follows a spammer, surely they’ll follow you, right? Think about it.
You can find out more about @BigRichB, real name Richard Bryda on Twitter.com/BigRichB. His Twitter system as mentioned above can be found at http://BruteForceTwitter.com. A big thank you to Rich for taking the time to share his insight with all of us.
Posted in Featured, Life, Startup Reviews, Tech Blogs, Twitter, Web/Tech | Comments (3)
Flying To SanFran March 21st, 2009
I am flying to SFO in an hour, and will be there until the 29th. If anyone is thereabouts, it is awkwardley a week before the Web 2.0 conference, we should grab some lunch or hit up a party.
Talk to everyone when I land.
Posted in Life, Non Tech | Comments (0)
The WordPress iPhone App March 12th, 2009
I gave it a whirl, had my post all ready to roll out, and for the life of me could not get it to post. I am sure that I am just missing something simple. Other observations:
- The app is very well designed (aside from where the “publish” button is.
- Works with Wordpress.com and self hosted blogs, had no problem finding mine.
- You cannot use the keyboard in a horizontal manner, which is annoying, but survivable.
- It loads all your categories, making it simple to file your post in the correct place.
- You can select publishing times (says the website, I did not play with this yet).
In general, the app is well designed, free, and simple. It is a godsend to any blogger on the go. There are times you just don´t want to pull out the laptop. For those temporal periods, and short posts, this app is exactly what you want.
Posted in Life, Tech Blogs, Web/Tech | Comments (1)
Why I Am With NextTech – Guest Post March 2nd, 2009
Forthcoming NextTech blogger JC Hewitt wishes to give his two cents on our growing network:
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Posted in Life, Non Tech | Comments (0)
How Much Do You Communicate? March 2nd, 2009
This could be titled, ‘Do we communicate too much?’ but I thought that that would be accusatory. And as I am not sure that we do, it seemed presumptuous. So, how much do you communicate? Between Skype, IM, Twitter, Facebook messages, SMS, email, phone calls, and voice mail, how much do you talk? The problem thought hit me this morning when I woke up two hours and about two hundred pieces of communication behind. [This is akin to waking up with a migraine.]
I always dread look forward to waking up, there is new news to digest, new people to talk to, new problems to solve. Lately, however, the inundation of communication has been keeping me from getting to the parts of the day that I love. I woke up to 75 emails, seven Twitter DM’s, 12 @’s on Twitter, two Facebook messages, three SMS messages, one voice mail, two missed calls, two Skype IM’s, and 40 people on Gtalk [three of which I needed to talk to]. What had changed so much during my short sleep that required so much talking? Nothing, really. Yet I had to hit the ground running in nothing but boxers and a toothbrush [he who Tweets needs no pants].
I love to communicate. I love to talk to people, which is why I am a compulsive follower on Twitter and have racked up several thousand updates. But the backlog is beginning to kill me. I now have over 11,000 unread emails in my inbox. That is cumulative, but still indicative. How many communications do you dodge on a daily basis? And this is only communication that is directed at you. Then add in all the news, blogs, and podcasts that you consume. Information seems to be fashionable to glut on.
Is this gluttony a sin? Not if you can keep up with it. But as my life becomes more and more hectic, I am rethinking the way I work. Perhaps I will listen more and respond less. But if we all do this, then there is only silence. Perhaps we need a new way through the noise. Things like TweetDeck, despite my dedication, only add to my our overload. For now, I am changing nothing. But in the middle of this post, I had three IM interruptions, a Skype call, and had to send three emails. None of it could wait until I finished this.
What does that tell you?
So, I am curious, how much do you communicate? I could be the exception. I have a “talk to anyone” policy that seems to get me into trouble. How do you handle this?
Posted in Featured, Life | Comments (0)
Saturday Thought Pile November 15th, 2008
New concept here on this blog, the “Saturday Thought Pile.” A collection of thoughts from the week. Links galore. Let’s begin!
- Funny funny look at the matrix, if it ran on windows.
- God’s Facebook.
- GigaOm’s NewTeeVee <a href=”http://newteevee.com/2008/11/13/newteevee-live-
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Fail November 14th, 2008
Sometimes life is just like this:
So swim dammit!
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Google Video Chat! November 11th, 2008
I am religious about using Gtalk as my instant messaging client. I love not having to flip between chat and and a browser. Saves me time.
And I hate Skpye. Long story short, they were making me pay something like $.5/min to call my now ex-girlfriend’s cell phone in Italy.
But now, Gmail has video chat! Ive tested it, and it works quite well. No need for me to run chat/mail/skype at the same time. Convergence is always a win for the consumer.
Although, this does put TokBox on the ropes. Link is here.
Posted in Life | Comments (1)
