Techmeme, Digg and BoingBoing – Which Approach is Best?

Aggregated News SitesWhen I take a step back from my daily reads I realize through the magic of Techmeme, Digg and BoingBoing I can get a pretty good feel for the news I am interested in even before I descend into the time-sucking mire that we call feeds.

When you add a quick skim over Twitter (without getting caught up in the banter, he says optimistically), and BBC News, it is possible to feel like you are pretty up to date.

These mega news sites are just the ticket for catching up on a subject area, but each uses a different approach … which strategy is best?

It seems the three news sites I have mentioned vary in the amount of automation or editorial control involved. Other sites, such as Slashdot seem to be hybrids.

Fully Automated

Techmeme and the sister sites, memeorandum and WeSmirch (politics and celebrity), are designed to be fully automatic and rely on a closely-guarded algorithm to choose what to display on the homepage at any time. This means while other site owners are sleeping, Techmeme is pumping new stories up constantly.

How stories are displayed on Techmeme is quite different to normal sites also. Rather than just a straight newspaper-like layout, stories are clustered to show a group of publications all talking about the same thing. Take todays Gmail story for example. First up is what the system regards as the most important article, followed by others also contributing to the conversation. It is a great way to get good coverage of breaking news.

Sites get into the system by either being one of the sites on Gabe Riveras leaderboard or they get referenced by others already in the system. Apparently Techmeme monitors a good couple thousand feeds already so get noticed sufficiently by already trusted sources and you ought to show up.

Reality though suggests it is not as easy as all that so people do comment about Techmeme being elitist or serving to fuel a “blog echo chamber”. Another issue is when those chosen blogs all talk about a story, Techmeme covers it, no matter how relevant. This leads to stories such as Robert Scobles baby announcement getting headlined on Techmeme!

Democracy

One of the dreams of the web is to use “wisdom of crowds” to produce new and better approaches. Does it work? Well … kinda. Digg has a democratic approach where anyone can submit a story and everyone can vote it up or down. Also there is a busy commenting component that further ads to giving everyone a voice.

Unfortunately as most people who have ever been to a soccer match will tell you, crowds ain’t that wise. Human beings have a herd-like instinct and also tend to be quite aggressive when protected by both anonymity and safety in numbers.

Having said that Digg is on my daily reads for good reason. A great many of the stories that get through the system are interesting, even managing to bring you news earlier than you would see through other channels unless you were constantly monitoring hundreds of sites. Providing the story gets enough positive votes and does not get marked down as spam there are no limitations to getting to the front page, A-listers through to Z-listers. Yes, some sites are there all the time, but many others get their 15 minutes of fame too.

Editor Control

Rather than use a computer algorithm or the audience to select what is important, many sites take the BoingBoing route and just write up what interests them.

The big advantage is you can get up to speed far more quickly. With the automated system you have to build the system up to a decent spec before people can find it useful. Democracy only works when you have a decent sized audience, which is a kind of catch-22.

Obviously the main downside is you have to personally work much harder and would require a team spread around the globe to publish 24/7. This means you do not get the coverage, timeliness or scale of the other sites.

From the readers point of view though, when it works it really works. There are not quality control issues, the system can not be “gamed”, and the audience can even submit stories for review (with no guarantees they will appear).

Summary

So which is best? I think it depends on the subject area and what you need. I have found on many occasions reading Digg before BoingBoing means I have already seen many of the stories before I get to them on BoingBoing and the authors often miss things, so I could cut out BoingBoing a lot of the time and not miss much. Having said that the authors do occasionally add value by supplying their own commentary. Techmeme gives the best overview of an individual story by bringing together all the viewpoints in a conversation, something you do not see so much in the other two (in Digg you might lose the others covering an issue because it would be seen as “old news” or a duplicate). This gives you depth and breadth.

For my money if you want the best system you would take the automation of Techmeme and the editorial control and added commentary of BoingBoing. Funnily enough, the site that most matches this hybrid idea seems to be the much-overlooked Slashdot, if they added an automatic component it might be the perfect news site.

Which type of site do you prefer and why? Have I missed out something? Let me know in the comments …

Enough of the Facebook Feeding Frenzy!

Face HypeDo you feel as I do that Facebook is becoming just a touch over-hyped? I tried to avoid Facebook in my feed reader and twitter stream today but unfortunately the only other news was all hype too.

OK, Facebook has a lot going for it, but is it really that big a deal? Are companies developing Facebook apps making more money off it than they would investing the same capital in building any other web property?

It smells like a bubble to me. When people are investing just because other sheeple are investing that is a sure sign, right?

I’m not picking on Facebook with this. There is another community that I think gets far too much attention also, Second Life. It’s the same story there; “But look how many registered users they have! A captive audience for our marketing! We will make revenue eventually, somehow!”. How many exactly are making a profit, hmm?

While this does come across as negative and cynical, I am prepared to be proven wrong in this. If someone could point me to where someone is making actual profits in either case I would be happy to see it. I want the web to continue being a great place for all of us to make some dough. It’s just I fear over-hyped services that get so much mainstream media attention and VC dollars actually work against that rather than for it.

Show StumbleUpon Ratings in Search Results

Over at TechCrunch I read with interest that StumbleUpon can display ratings right in your Google search results. This may or may not be news to you, it certainly was to me. Apparently it is an option when you install the toolbar but this seems to be something that I missed.

To switch on the feature select Tools / Toolbar Options in your toolbar and click the Configuration tab. The tickboxes you need are at the top.

Set StumbleUpon toolbar to show stumbles in search

Once you have enabled this feature you will see ratings and any friends who stumbled a particular result embedded in the search result page as in the screenshot below.

My blog tagged as pr0n??

Notice something strange about the second result? You might need to click to see the full thing.

That’s right, some StumbleUpon user has marked my article as pornography! Any ideas how I can report that?

Anyway, back to the toolbar feature. It seems they are going to be rolling out to other search engines and sites soon. See more at TechCrunch

Now, StumbleUpon is expanding that feature to search results for AOL and Ask, as well as for Google News, Yahoo News, Flickr, Wikipedia, and YouTube. StumbleUpon calls these SearchReviews. In addition to the general star ratings, members will also be able to see whether any of their friends have recommended or reviewed a particular site or page.

“We are doing social search,” says StumbleUpon founder Garrett Camp, “but instead of creating a completely new search engine where you have to change your behavior, you can use the same search engine you use now.” As long as you have the toolbar, StumbleUpon’s ratings get layered on top of other search engine results and Web pages. “We should be able to do this for any site on the Web,”

Is Technology Now a Commodity?

Computer Repair BoingBoing

My friend Damian recently gave up his public sector job and unleashed himself on the world of freelance programming. We have both been shocked at what he is experiencing.

It seems you can now get programmers willing to work for the price of a latte.

Back when I was programming we saw the signs this was coming, but I never expected how dramatic the effects would be until someone I knew personally was exposed to it.

Damian is dedicated and has serious coding experience but he can’t compete, his lowest “barely pay the rent” prices are way too high. Fortunately he gets work through word of mouth but the outlook isn’t great.

Rentacoder style sites now have such an overwhelming population of cheap-but-decent-enough programmers that just having skills and experience is not enough to lift your perceived value above the guy who will do your work for beer money or the oversees coder with lower earning expectations.

These coders list skills and knowledge a mile long. They are not all patching together copy and paste code, some have hard core abilities and qualifications.

Asking around it seems IT is going the same way. Technical support is not mostly done outsourced to several degrees, and installations have been priced down to bare minimum. Only the most highly specialized fields have resisted the downward pressure.

My advice to Damian has been to bolt on skills and widen his network. Not be “just” a coder, be a “coder plus”. Anything that can add perceived value, from usability and information architecture to project management. Also he should write articles, give away free software and hang out in communities to get himself known. This won’t help him win the coder auctions but will allow him to increase his marketability.

Do you think technology is a commodity? What is your advice for freelance techies? Please share in the comments …

Image Source: BoingBoing 

Freelancer’s Hyper-Drive: 131 Productivity Boosters for Email, Instant Messaging, Word, Excel, and More

Freelancers often have to wear many hats: accountant, boss, quality control, marketing department, and beyond, which can leave you feeling like there’s just not enough time in the day to do everything you’d like. Fortunately, there are a number of tools designed to help you speed up the process of working. Check out these productivity boosters for documents, communications, and more.

Email

Email itself is a productivity tool, but it often turns into a monster task that must be tackled. These tools will help you tame your inbox.

  1. ClearContext: If you have a hard time getting through email you’d rather ignore to get to the good stuff, ClearContext is about to make your life a lot easier. This information management system prioritizes your email, organizing it and assigning color codes. You’ll be able to identify your most important senders and let newsletters or less important senders get pushed down below your VIPs.
  2. Mail Templates: If you often reply to a number of emails on on the same few subjects, consider creating template responses for each one. You’ll save time and be consistent.
  3. copy2calendar: Appointment setting doesn’t have to be a time consuming process. With copy2calendar, you can automatically convert text containing appointment information into calendar entries.
  4. Actioneer: Use actioneer to speed up your Outlook actions like appointments, tasks, contacts, and mail messages.
  5. TimeToMeet: Arrange meetings quickly in Google, iCal, or Outlook using this easy program.
  6. Conversation Preview: Gmail users can view the first few lines of an email with Conversation Preview, even while they’re still in the message list view.
  7. iGTD: Mac users can take advantage of iGTD, a tool that organizes tasks straight out of your inbox and saves a link to the original email.
  8. CSV Exporter: Use CSV Exporter to import your address book contacts into Gmail.
  9. FlipMail: For email on the go, sign up with Teleflip’s FlipMail, a service that forwards email as a text message to your phone.
  10. Chilibase: Don’t spend 20 minutes trying to find that email Bob sent a month ago. Use Chilibase to see complete conversations from your contacts with a single click.
  11. l8r: If you’re working at 2AM but prefer that your client thinks you keep normal hours, you can use l8r to delay sending messages until a specified time. You can also use it to schedule emails that you know you’ll send, like reminders.
  12. SpamSieve: No one likes spam, especially when you have to wade through it to get to important emails. Combat this junk mail with SpamSieve, a program that zaps spam out of your inbox.
  13. Copernic Summarizer: If you find yourself wishing that your email correspondents would just get to the point, Copernic can lend you a helping hand. This tool summarizes mail messages and other documents, highlighting key concepts and sentences.
  14. Saved Searches: Check out this user script that allows you to save searches you’ll need to access frequently.
  15. Gmail Loader: If you’ve switched to Gmail, but still need to access your archives without going back and forth to your old email provider, check out Gmail Loader. It imports existing emails to your Gmail inbox so you’ll have easy access.
  16. Office Outlook Forum: Get quick answers to your pressing Outlook questions on this forum.
  17. emailStripper: To quickly get rid of email clutter that accumulates in long back-and-forth conversations, use emailStripper. Just paste your email into the tool, and it will clean up all extraneous characters.
  18. MailTags 2.0: This plugin for Mail.app allows you to add keywords and notes to your messages for quick retrieval.
  19. GmailThis: Send web pages quickly to anyone using GmailThis. The tool makes it easy to instantly send a message with a URL attached through Gmail.
  20. Getting Things Done Add-in: Productivity Leader David Allen has created an add-in that allows you to better accomplish his recommended workflow methodology.
  21. Microsoft Office Outlook Team Blog: Find out how to improve formatting, get rid of junk mail, organize, and more by reading the MSDN Outlook blog.
  22. Gmail Manager Add-on: Firefox users can take advantage of this Gmail add-on that displays email data at the bottom of your browser. This tool can show information from multiple Gmail accounts and is easy to customize.
  23. 10 Minute Mail: Save your real email for clients and other important people with 10 Minute Mail. This service allows you to sign up for a temporary email address that’s great for forums and other sign up forms that you think might sell your address to spammers.
  24. AmikaFreedom: Receiving email on your mobile device is convenient, but sometimes, you’re hit with an information overload. Use AmikaFreedom to trigger emails to forward to your wireless device when specified key words and phrases are used.
  25. Destroy beacons: Beacons are small images embedded in spam emails that, when downloaded by your email client, let spammers know they’ve got a hit. Avoid advertising your email in this way by blocking images from anyone not in your address book.
  26. Take Back Your Life Add-in: Get organized with templates, appointment prompts, and more functionality tools from Sally McGhee.
  27. Fuser: Use Fuser to consolidate your email accounts into one central place.
  28. ActiveWords: If you hate switching back and forth from Word to Outlook just to look up a contact, you’ll love ActiveWords. This tool makes Outlook “hot” in any Windows application, which allows you to look up contacts from a number of different programs.

Instant Messaging

IMs are a convenient communication tool, and there are a number of ways to improve their functionality. Read on to find out how you can share documents, schedule meetings, and send SMS messages using IMs.

  1. Acronyms: Use texting and chatroom acronyms to get your point across in fewer keystrokes. Of course, remember your audience: if you’re speaking to a client, you’ll need to tone down on the netspeak.
  2. Meebo: Share files with your contacts using Meebo’s IM.
  3. IMified: Access lots of web apps from one place using IMified.
  4. TodoBot: By setting up your own TodoBot, you can IM to do list items to yourself.
  5. Gaim: Use Gaim to chat on a number of instant messaging platforms at the same time.
  6. MyCyberTwin: Let a chatbot answer your IMs while you’re away.
  7. gTalk Sidebar: Firefox users can add on Google Talk as a sidebar, so you can chat while surfing web pages.
  8. AOL Mobile: With AOL Mobile, you can send a text message to SMS-enabled phones using the AOL Instant Messenger.
  9. Merge IM Contacts: Check out Lifehacker’s lowdown on how to get your AIM, MSN, Yahoo! and other contacts on Google Talk.

Word

For most users, Word is a fairly simple tool to use, but when you’re drowning in lots of documents, revisions, and lots of editing, it can be a mess. Clean it up with these Word boosters.

  1. Word Hyperlink Checker: Use this tool to make sure that all of the links in your Word document are active.
  2. Word Hotkeys: Check out this guide to find hotkey codes for common tasks.
  3. Boiler: Avoid excessive copying and pasting when combining Word files. Mesh multiple Word Files into one central file using Boiler.
  4. Save as PDF: With this tool, you can save any Word document as a PDF for easy reading.
  5. RapidoWrite: RapidoWrite makes it easy to cut down on repetitive text. Check it out for a good text replacement utility.
  6. Microsoft Office Word Team Blog: Check out the MSDN Word blog for tips, news, and more from Microsoft.
  7. Recover Lost Files: This guide offers tips for recovering Word files that would otherwise be lost forever.
  8. Fore Words Pro: Analyze your words for word echoes, differences, and more.
  9. Turn Off Word Features: For tips on how to turn off annoying and unnecessary Word features, be sure to take a look at this guide.
  10. Compare File Versions: If you’ve had someone edit your document, but they left you with no way to track their changes, you can find yourself spending a lot of time trying to find them. Use this tutorial to make comparing file versions a lot easier.
  11. Word Kit: Use Word Kit to produce frequently generated documents with ease and consistency.
  12. WordFast: Quickly translate text in Word using this handy tool.
  13. MS Works Converter: So your word processing file turned into more tabular data than you expected it to be? Not to worry, you can convert everything into an Excel file with this tool.
  14. Speed up Word: Word often loads lots of templates and add-ins that you may not need, which slows down the program. Read this tutorial from Lifehacker to find out how to stop them.
  15. Wordware: Wordware’s productivity pack has 45 tools designed to help you save time when using Word.
  16. AutoSummarize: If you need to summarize a large amount of text, don’t go through the tedium of reading it yourself. Check out this tutorial on how to use AutoSummarize to highlight key points.
  17. SumsBox-W: Improve Word’s number and tables functions with this handy tool.
  18. Docx Converter: So your client has Word 2007 and has started sending you .docx files that are incompatible with your Word version. Make them readable by using the Docx Converter.

Excel

Excel is a great tool for wrangling lots of data into one convenient place, but it can get out of hand. Find out how to streamline your spreadsheets, create easier graphs, and find time-saving templates with these tools.

  1. Daily Dose of Excel: Check out Dick Kusleika’s Daily Dose of Excel for help with formulas, functions, and lots more.
  2. Mr. Excel: Bill Jelen, Mr. Excel, has over 18 years of spreadsheet experience, and he’s more than willing to help you figure out how to better use Excel.
  3. Marketing Charts: Download Excel spreadsheet templates and marketing charts with this resource.
  4. Copy Text to Multiple Worksheets: Find out how to copy text from one worksheet to many others in this answer thread.
  5. Conditional Formatting: Formatting in Excel is a great way to make data easier on the eyes and highlight important information, but it’s a lot of work. Find out how to set up conditional formatting to make the entire process automated.
  6. ASAP Utilities: Use ASAP Utilities to automate frequently used tasks in Excel.
  7. Excel Forum: If you need help using Excel, check out these forums for information on worksheet functions, programming, and more.
  8. Excel Keystrokes: Save yourself some time and the perils of carpal tunnel syndrome by checking out these easy Excel keystrokes.
  9. Nuts About Microsoft Excel: On this blog, you’ll find loads of tips and solutions for MS Excel.
  10. Excel AutoFilter: Use AutoFilter to sort by selected criteria without changing any data.
  11. Dual Excel Worksheets: Find out how to view two Excel worksheets at once at Digital Streets.
  12. Excel Templates: Save yourself loads of time by using these Excel templates instead of starting from scratch.
  13. Excel In-cell Graphs: Check out this link for a tutorial on how to easily create a bar graph inside Excel cells.
    14. Excel Split Views: Read this tutorial to find out how to split your Excel screen so that you can view and edit two different areas at once.
  14. Excel Gantt Charting: Turn Excel into project management software using this tempate from David Seah.
  15. ExcelUser: On ExcelUser, find Excel news and tips, create Excel Dashboards, and learn how to better use Excel in your business.
  16. Excel Experts: If you’re in need of an Excel Expert, check out this directory.
  17. Microsoft Excel: Check out the Microsoft Excel blog for beta news, improvements, and more.

PDF

PDF is a versatile, functional document format that offers more than meets the eye. Find out how to save time and stretch your PDFs to the limit with these resources.

  1. PDF Converter Professional: Streamline your data input from clients by creating fillable PDF forms with this tool.
  2. Combine PDFs: You can use Adobe’s Insert Page tool to combine PDF files, but if you’ve got a few to do, that can prove to be time consuming. Instead, use this tool to merge multiple PDF files into one with a few easy clicks.
  3. Sumatra PDF Viewer: For a lighter, faster PDF viewer than Adobe Reader, check out Sumatra.
  4. PDF Download: If your clients send you a lot of PDF documents, you probably have to figure out how to deal with them on a regular basis. Using PDF Download, you can specify how Firefox downloads these files.
  5. Adobe Reader 8 Optimization: Get Adobe Reader 8 to boot up faster by following this tutorial.
  6. Skim: Take notes on your PDF file as you read it using Skim. Some features include highlighting, circling, and more. You’ll also be able to see your notations and jump to them more easily.
  7. PDFill PDF Editor: This utility corrals lots of common PDF manipulation actions into one easy interface.
  8. ScanR: Snap photos and turn them into emailable PDFs using ScanR.
  9. Adobe Reader SpeedUp: Adobe Reader is known for its slow load times due to unnecessary plugins. Use Adobe Reader SpeedUp to selectively remove plugins that you don’t need.
  10. Notepad Generator: Create personalized PDF notepaper that you can print out and take to meetings using this generator.
  11. PDF to Image Converter: If your client can’t quite grasp the concept of downloading Adobe Reader, save yourself the time you’ll need to explain it, and just use this tool to send them an image file instead.
  12. Shoka: Corral all of your PDFs in this library manager. This tool makes it quick and easy to search, share, and tag your PDF documents.
  13. PDFCreator: Don’t spend time finding ink and paper when you can just print to PDF. Use the PDFCreator to print PDF files from just about any Windows application.
  14. RSS 2 PDF: Take your RSS newsfeeds offline by converting them to PDF that you can read at your convenience.

Phone & Text

The phone may seem like a tool that operates more slowly than its digital counterparts, but it has a number of time-saving tricks to offer, too. Use phone and text messaging to budget, take notes, navigate traffic, and more, all on the fly.

    Reminders: Set up reminder messages that arrive on your phone at a scheduled time.
  1. Expense Tracker: Read this guide to find out how to use K7.net’s free voicemail to send yourself messages for expense tracking.
  2. Yahoo! Mobile: Don’t go searching around for your phone to send a text message–just send one using Yahoo! Mobile.
  3. YouTube Mobile: Share videos on YouTube on the go by using YouTube Mobile to upload via your cell phone.
  4. Pinger: Forgot to send an email? Don’t worry, you can send an audio email message to your recipient instead using Pinger.
  5. MoneyManager: Track transactions on your phone with MoneyManager. Reports can be generated and sent to your email.
    6. Yahoo! Local: Don’t worry about taking the time to print or write out directions from Yahoo!–just send them as a text message to your phone.
  6. Popularity Dialer: If you know your client meeting is going to run long but you have things to do, you can use Popularity Dialer to schedule a call to your cell phone that will allow you to excuse yourself.
  7. The Traffic Line: Call the Traffic Line to find out what traffic is like in your area so you’ll never be late again.
  8. CallBurner: If you need to keep audio records of your Skype conversations, it’s easy to do it with CallBurner. Using this tool, you’ll be able to go back and review what you’ve said without having to do a lot of work.
  9. Disable Skype Notifications: Check out this guide to find out how to keep Skype messages and notifications from popping up constantly.
  10. CallWave: With CallWave, your voicemails are transcribed, highlighting only the key information.
  11. Jott: Send yourself a note by recording a message with Jott. The service will transcribe your voice into text and email it to you.
  12. SmartCam: If you need to use video chat, but don’t have a webcam, you can turn your Smartphone into one.
  13. Dodgeball: Assure your clients that you’re on the way to your meeting by broadcasting your location via Dodgeball.
  14. Dial DIR-ECT-IONS: Dial this number, and you can get a text message on our phone with driving directions.
  15. Blog From Your Cell Phone: Send a text or photo SMS to go@blogger.com, and you’ll be able to make posts to your blog.
  16. Google info: Send Google a text message to find listings, dictionary definitions, and more.
  17. Skylook: With this Outlook extension, you can record calls, get text alerts, voicemail in your inbox, reminders to your phone, and much more.
  18. Pickle: Share videos and photos with clients using your phone and Pickle’s service. You’ll just send your files to a special email address and it will publish them to sites like MySpace, Blogger, or your own site.

Other

Check out these tools to find even more boosters for documents, travel, collaboration, and more.

  1. AutoHotKey: Using AutoHotKey, you can turn any block of text or keystroke sequence into a hotkey that will perform repetitive tasks.
  2. Google Presentation: Google’s answer to PowerPoint makes it easy to do simple manipulations of PowerPoint files without actually firing up the program.
  3. Delivery Intercept: Control what happens to your package once it leaves your hands with this feature from UPS.
  4. Ditto: Corral your copy-and-paste function with this handy clipboard manager.
  5. TripIt: For entrepreneurs on the go, check out TripIt, a tool that automativally organizes your travel itinerary using email.
  6. Guide to Hotkeys: Hotkeys are keyboard shortcuts that allow you to execute an action without using your mouse. This guide has hotkeys for email, messaging, file management, and more.
  7. Audio Documents: Learn how to record written documents to audio for “reading” on the go with this tutorial.
  8. Mango: If you need to learn a foreign language, but don’t have time to hit the books, check out Mango for courses in conversational language.
  9. DocuFarm: This Firefox add-on makes it quick and easy to preview documents in your browser without having to take the time to open up a new program.
  10. QuickLogger: Keep track of your workday by logging tasks into QuickLogger.
  11. Scriblink: Collaborate with others on a digital whiteboard with Scriblink.
  12. Mini Map Sidebar: If you’re reading an email invite to a meeting, but have no idea how to get there, you can fire up the Mini Map Sidebar to map addresses and get directions without ever leaving your browser’s email client.
  13. Google Alerts: Keep track of your online reputation, favorite news items, and anything else you regularly check online by setting a Google Alert. You’ll be notified of any new pages that include your key words.
  14. Backpack: This productivity tool has lots of great features, including the ability to send scheduled or unscheduled reminders to email, SMS, or both.
  15. Snapter: With Snapter, you can scan photos of business cards and documents using your digital camera.
  16. Airport Parking Reservations: If you’re always getting to the airport at the very last moment possible, check out this service so you’ll save time parking.
  17. Virtual Folders: If you’re using Vista and find yourself often searching your machine for the same thing, you can save your search results as a virtual folder. Find out how here.
  18. FileTaxes: Who needs an accountant? File taxes for your employees on this site, and the service will generate forms, submit them to the IRS, and mail them to recipients for you.
  19. Office Jargon: Check out this handy guide to office jargon from Lifehacker and Brazen Careerist to spend less time trying to figure out what in the world your corporate clients are talking about.
  20. Digital Filing System: Read this tutorial to find out how to take your filing system online, creating a time saving, easily searchable database.
  21. Online Sign Off: Streamline your document approval process by taking it online with this service.
  22. Mailbox Map: Don’t spend time searching for a mailbox–just check out Mailbox Maps, a tool that finds nearby mailboxes and provides pickup information on each one.
  23. Windows Keyboard Shortcut of the Day: For time-saving keyboard shortcuts, check out this ongoing blog.
  24. Monkey On Your Back: Remind coworkers and clients of deadlines using Monkey On Your Back, a tool that sends scheduled email reminders to others.

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Google Reader Causes RSS Revolt

My feedreader was alive with chatter about Google Reader recently. What was initially heralded as a cool feature has turned into potential fuel for mutiny. Watching from the sidelines, it is all fun, but does have an impact on bloggers, particularly those wanting to sell advertising.

What is this controversial feature?

If you add a feed in Google Reader but rather than set an explicit URL you do a search, Reader will come back with a list of potential matches along with how many people are subscribed.

Google Reader

Google Reader

Knowing that a good percentage of people are now using Google Reader as their main feed reader, up to 20% at times according to my own blog, means you can extrapolate readership for any blog now without those numbers being made public by the blogger.

Of course we all know bigger is not always better but you try telling that to the kids who are getting upset at the counts.

Unfortunately, it is not all that accurate. While it does broadly work for some blogs, other blogs are getting their subscriber numbers heavily discounted or bloated. There are two main reasons:

  1. Multiple feeds – Many people have various RSS, Atom, and category specific feed options. Some even allow you to subscribe to both full and partial versions of the same feed.
  2. Feed Bundling - Most feed readers “helpfully” recommend feeds you might want to subscribe to. Most users do not delete these default feeds. This makes some subscriber counts look way better than they really are.

The thing many people are forgetting is RSS reader counts are inherently unscientific. With an email subscriber list you know who has subscribed but not much more with any confidence, with RSS it is even worse, you just know a certain IP address has requested your feed at some point. You don’t know if the article has been read, by whom, nor if they liked it.

I wrote about what I called RSS+ a while ago, I think this Google Reader debacle proves we need something new to replace the whole RSS/Atom/Feed thing. Let’s get feeds that work for both readers and publishers.

More coverage:

Stop Drinking from the Fire Hose

Years ago people talked about information overload, information anxiety, etc. At the time I thought “Pfft, can’t get enough of that information!”. Now, I think they had a point. Darn I hate it when I am wrong.

Watch this video from the productivity guru Tim Ferris …

Tim Ferris video on YouTube

(found via Remarkablogger)

I have spoken about pulling back from time leaching activities, but my recent enforced absence from the internetstubes made me truly realize how much time wasting I actually do in a day.

My facebook is full of non-friends, I browse flickr ostensibly looking for CC licensed images but really just wiling away the hours. Twitter is 90% friendly banter, self-promotion and banality.
Knowing there was a charge associated with this displacement activity brought how wasteful it was into sharp focus. It was like the bad old days of dialup where each minute was slow and pricey!

Withdrawing from suckling at the web-teat has given me a new perspective of what I do and do not need to access on a daily basis. I recommend it to anyone.

Here is a challenge for you, try going one day only accessing the internet when you absolutely have to. For every minute online you spend, put a dollar in a tin and give the total to charity at the end of the day.

My guess is like me you will spend more time working and less time on less productive tasks :)

Is Disintermediation Finally Here?

Back in the early 90′s one of the things about the web that got pundits all hot under the collar was the idea of disintermediation. This is a fancy word for “cutting out middle-men”. With recent events in the music industry, and other long-tail success stories, could it be we are finally there?

Why Disintermediation?

The proposed benefit of disintermediation is the consumer and provider of a product interact directly, no inflated pricing and supposedly better service because there are no confused or missed messages being passed along the chain. Obviously there have always been services that work this way, but the issue has always been the challenge of scale. The Internet brings about the opportunity for direct service to huge numbers.

For a time it seemed we had gone backwards a few steps. Early hopes for disintermediation were holidays, insurance, loans. But what quickly happened were a new type of middle man appeared, the “price comparison” service. People booked holidays through Expedia and the like. Signed up to loans through online supermarkets. These companies were just brokers in a flashy new suits.

The Google Effect

The first signs of the true dream came with the power of Google and their Adwords program. For the first time vendors had the ability to respond to big numbers of customer searches with the exact product they were looking for.

While this all sounds well and good, customer-side advocates of disintermediation as well as lusting after lower prices often just like “sticking it to the man”. With this in mind you can quickly understand why the music industry is worried about it. If ever there was a poster child for “the man”, the RIAA is it!

Rock the Man

With the ever-tightening grip of record labels “rock” on one side, and the ever-growing piracy “hard place” on another, you can understand why the squeezed bands and artists were looking for a way out, and the internet was the solution. It took a brave (and desperate?) band to lead the way.

First there was Marillion. I’m a big fan but I am guessing I am in the minority. Many bands today are releasing the grip of labels but Marillion took the brave step of completely opening up to the fans mercy. They were the pioneer, or at least best known of the time. Fan pre-orders funded their 1999 album Marillion.com and they have not looked back since. You can imagine the creative freedom and financial control this affords them.

Fast forward to today. Prince released his album on the front of a newspaper. Most recently there has been Radiohead, with their website-crashing release, and Nine Inch Nails. Bigger names, bigger loss to the major labels.

A Blip or the Future?

Will this trend continue into other markets? What will the world look like with no brokers, arbiters, resellers and middle-men? Is that just a pipe dream?

Who knows, but it will be interesting to find out!

Top 10 Tools I Can’t Live Without

We all have our own unique ways of working. A large part of any persons individual productivity is the tools they use. Here is my top 10 Must Have Tools (and why), please add yours in the comments!

  1. FirefoxFirefox – I started out with Mosaic, then Netscape. For years I was an Internet Explorer user but then Microsoft dropped the ball and the Mozilla team ran with it. Firefox is stable, extensible and fast enough. One of the killer features that made me defect was the tabbed browsing. Of course most web browsers now have that feature. Firefox plus Greasemonkey takes an already rockin’ browser into a world of its own.
  2. ScribeFire – One of my main jobs is writing on blogs. This means lots of linking, bookmarking, making notes and of course the actual writing. I would say using Scribefire I can do it all in half the time. Scribefire is a Firefox plugin that provides blogging tools including a centralized word-like text editing interface.
  3. SkypeSkype – Many of my calls are long distance as it is rare for me to have a client in the same country as I live. Skype makes these calls free or much cheaper and allows me to roam around and not be tied to a land-line. With my trusty headset I might look like a geek but I can hear and be heard right across the globe.
  4. Fastmail – While many people swear by the free Google GMail my web email service of choice is the paid service at Fastmail. The main advantage is as well as having a web client you can also access your email using imap, allowing me to sync my desktop client and see in a web browser exactly the same email store.
  5. WebDav – Talking of web based storage, a fantastic way to get your files on the go is WebDav. Drag and drop your files and folders just like you were working locally. Check out your web host to see if this is an option.
  6. SSH – This is an extremely nerdy choice but it has been a life saver in the past. SSH allows you a secure command line login to your remote server. On Windows of course you can use Remote Desktop, and other platforms will have VNC, but when the proverbial hits the fan you can rely on SSH and old school commands to get the job done.
  7. WordPress – I love WordPress, I wouldn’t recommend any other blogging platform for the individual or small team. But WordPress can be so much more than a blog! Use it for publishing your corporate website, internal project documentation, team collaboration, making notes, bookmarking, even as a discussion platform.
  8. Photoshop – There are cheaper options. I will probably never use even half the features. Photoshop still rules. There is little it can’t do, and if you wander into any design studio you can be sure there will be at least one machine running it. Productivity means being able to do what you need to do well and fast. Once you have learned it, Photoshop makes that happen for working with images.
  9. BlogBridge – I need my RSS feeds and I need them with me. While many people can argue in favor of their fave web clients I keep returning to BlogBridge happily time after time. It is a Java based desktop application so works wherever Java works and stores your feeds offline so you can read on the train, in the air or bus home.
  10. Flickr – Flickr for me is more than just an online photo gallery, it is a photography archive, a community and a source of royalty-free images (Creative Commons Licensed pics). It’s useful, fun and a constant source of education.

OK, I have shown you my must-have tools, what do you use on a daily basis and why? Let me know in the comments …

Lessons From an Internet Blackout

Over the last week I have been in a state of internet-withdrawal. My telecoms provider botched our installation leaving me with only cellular access or “borrowed” wifi. While there have been the obvious set-backs to my productivity, I have also been given an important lesson in how I can get more done when the line is finally back up.

  1. Schedule, batch and organize – While I have my PDA and 3G connection that is only useful for priority emails. My plan is ludicrously expensive and charges by the megabyte. In order to do any sizable downloads right now I need to drive to my parents house. This has meant I have had to be careful to do all my downloads in one session. Planning my activity this way has taught me to be more organized with my work and also highlighted how much flitting about between tasks I ordinarily do. I might not go to the extremes Tim Ferris recommends but I will definitely be scheduling email time rather than being “always on” from now on.
  2. Quit Yak Shaving – This is a phrase I picked up a while ago from Seth’s Blog and it certainly rings true for me.

    Yak Shaving is the last step of a series of steps that occurs when you find something you need to do.
    “I want to wax the car today.”
    “Oops, the hose is still broken from the winter. I’ll need to buy a new one at Home Depot.”
    “But Home Depot is on the other side of the Tappan Zee bridge and getting there without my EZPass is miserable because of the tolls.”
    “But, wait! I could borrow my neighbor’s EZPass…”
    “Bob won’t lend me his EZPass until I return the mooshi pillow my son borrowed, though.”
    “And we haven’t returned it because some of the stuffing fell out and we need to get some yak hair to restuff it.”
    … And the next thing you know, you’re at the zoo, shaving a yak, all so you can wax your car.

    Even though everyone has been understanding about my predicament I have gone to stupid lengths to maintain my normal schedule, getting more and more mired in the process. Rather than descending into such a spiral of events we need to be aware of the phenomenon and allow ourselves to be less than perfect occasionally in order to not get trapped.

  3. Arrange resources before they are needed – My cell connection has been a life-saver but the fees are stacking up massively and the sudden lack of internet connectivity should really not have thrown me a curve ball like it has. I need to sort out a backup line with sufficient bandwidth and without the Don Corleone style payment plan. What resources do you depend on day to day and what can you put in place as a backup? Better to sort them out now before you need them!
  4. This is why we have offline tools – I recently wrote about how Web2.0 was breaking into the market of desktop applications. Wow has this experience taught me that we still need offline tools!
  5. Laptops are wonderful, but make sure you have all your data – I have fully transitioned to using my MacBook for everything. This was already a trend before this most recent connectivity debacle but now I am sure I don’t want to go back to the desktop machine. This does mean though that I need to start carrying more data around so I will be investing in external storage and rigging my older machine up for remote access. Much as I am trying to be more organized it is inevitable I will hook up to the Starbucks wifi only to find I have left something behind.

How do you cope when your line goes down? Do you have contingency plans? I would appreciate any advice you have in the comments!