What if it Just Ain't True?

A few years ago one of my friends accidentally discovered that his dad was in fact not his dad at all. Ouch. At twenty seven years of age, he discovered that something he absolutely knew (not thought, hoped, or wished) to be fact, was in reality, not true at all. Let's just say that his reaction wasn't a totally positive one. It never occurred to him that his truth', may in fact, be a big lie. A well-meaning lie (his mum had tried to protect him). A noble lie (is there such a thing?). But a major deception nonetheless.

What if you were to wake up tomorrow and discover that something you've believed (thought to be absolute fact) for years, simply wasn't true? Completely and utterly false. You weren't even close. How would you feel? Mad? Betrayed? Confused? Stupid? Maybe a little of each? Could it be that some of us hold on to certain beliefs in order to avoid the above feelings? After all, imagine having to unlearn something we've believed for decades? That would be quite the mental and emotional challenge, wouldn't it?

We've spoken about beliefs many times here at me-dot-com but today I want to give you a little something to chew on, think about and discuss; if you feel so inspired.

Some questions for you:

1. Is it possible that you've learned' certain things over the years that are, in fact, false? Is it maybe even likely?
2. Is it possible that some of your (self-limiting) beliefs are the very things which stop you from fulfilling (or at least, exploring) your potential, making certain decisions, taking chances and possibly finding happiness?
3. Did you consciously choose and develop your own beliefs, or did you simply adopt hand-me-downs from somebody else? (Many people do this). But Craig, why wouldn't I believe dad? He knows and I trust him, so his beliefs become mine - consciously or not. Intentionally or not. Besides, I wouldn't want to offend him would I?
4. Is it possible that you've believed certain things (seen the world in a particular way) for so long that the very thought of questioning some of your long-held beliefs makes you feel (1) uncomfortable, (2) anxious, (3) disloyal, (4) unfaithful, or perhaps even (5) overwhelmed?
5. Have you ever been coerced, pressured or expected to believe certain things, and because of those imposed beliefs you have been compelled to adhere to certain standards, rules and behaviours? Even though deep down you resented it?
6. Have you ever felt like questioning certain beliefs (to others) but held your tongue in order to keep the peace and avoid potential confrontation? (Why bother it will only create problems?).
7. For the most part, do your beliefs empower you or limit you?

Breaking Free

Sometimes beliefs are like handcuffs or leg irons. They restrict movement, potential, exploration and of course, freedom. Freedom to learn, grow and change. They keep us in the custody of something or someone. You know what I mean.

One of the most liberating, empowering and cathartic things we can do as authors of our own lives is to question our beliefs. Not for the sake of being different, difficult or rebellious, but for the sake of learning who we are, what we are and what we really believe beyond the social conditioning, the weight of expectation, the years of mental and emotional programming and beyond the pressure of group thinking.

After all, our beliefs determine our choices and behaviours (for the most part) and our choices and behaviours determine the kind of results we produce in our world. So why wouldn't we? Is it time for you to do a little unlearning?

Tell me about what you've unlearned lately.

Craig Harper (B.Ex.Sci.) is a qualified exercise scientist, author, columnist, radio presenter, television host, motivational speaker and university lecturer. For the past 25 years he has been a leading presenter, educator, motivator and commentator in the areas of personal and professional development. You can visit Craig's blog at Motivational Speaker.FREE eBook So You've Decided to Get in Shape (Again) Craig's FREE eBook takes 20 30 minutes to read, and addresses the REAL getting-in-shape issues based on his 25 years of experience. To get Craig's FREE eBook click here, weight loss books.

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Here's the official synopsis for Matthew Gordon Long's new film:

On a sun-dappled summer day a science expedition propels two children towards an enigmatic encounter at the edge of the their known world. Arriving on an isolated beach, they discover the wreck of a robotic squid submarine. The secret it holds within changes their lives forever.

Set in the nineteenth century, the film follows the two children as they pilot the squid sub all over Canada's West Coast, which is slowly turning into a hotbed for science-fictional weirdness. We love the look of the squid, the kid's "explorer" attire and the overall steampunk-lite feel.

Visit the The Anachornism website for more information, and we'll keep riding this mechanical squid for future details.

Now picture our perspective leaving our own experiences, zooming out and up until we can see how all the different groups are interacting on a worldwide social network. That bird's-eye view could be both beautiful and horrible if the resolution was clear enough. That's what a Ramen-eating, ex-Apple engineer named Pete Warden is about to release to the public this week.

Sponsor

This Wednesday, Warden will make Friend, Fan page and name data from hundreds of millions of Facebook users available to the academic research community. It's a move that Facebook has to have seen coming, a move that many in the data-centric community have been calling on the company itself to do for years, and an event that's been complicated by Facebook's recent privacy policy changes, which have muddied the waters of right and wrong but rendered even more data available for outside analysis.

If what people call Web 2.0 was all about creating new technologies that made it easy for everyday people to publish their thoughts, social connections and activities, then the next stage of innovation online may be services like recommendations, self and group awareness, and other features made possible by software developers building on top of the huge mass of data that Web 2.0 made public. It's a very exciting future, and Warden is about to fire one of the earliest big shots in that direction.

Nerds in Space: Social Graph Analysis For Solving Large-Group Problems

Warden studied Computer Vision in college in the U.K., then got into game development. After moving to L.A., he spent six years building graphics drivers for the original Playstation and the XBox. Then he started his own independent business, where, thankfully, he open-sourced much of his work (something he's still doing today).

When he found out that starting his own business wasn't going to work with his immigration status, he was very fortunate to have also caught Apple's eye with the software he had been releasing to the public. Apple bought his company in order to bring him on board. The proceeds of that small sale are now sustaining his next project after going independent again.

After spending five years at Apple struggling to navigate the maze of people and connections and types of expertise in order to get the information he needed, Warden decided to go independent and build a company that solved exactly that kind of problem. "I can't think of a better big company to work for, but it was still a big company," he says. "It was hard to find the right people to talk to, whether for particular expertise or for contacts at external companies." And so Warden left Apple to build a company that would use social graph analysis to solve problems like that. He called the company Mailana, a play on "mail analysis" since he was initially focused on email social graph analysis.

We've written here a number of times about Mailana's tool that analyzes the social graph of any Twitter user. Enter the username of someone on Twitter and Mailana will show you which 20 other people the user has exchanged the largest number of reciprocal public @ replies with. Find someone interesting or important? Mailana's Twitter analyzer will tell you who they most regularly interact with. See, for example, The Inner Circles of 10 Geek Rockstars on Twitter.

Pulling Down the Facebook Social Graph

Now Warden is about to unveil a much larger project along the same vein. For the past six months he's been crawling public profile pages on Facebook. He now has more than 215 million of them indexed and updated about once a month. When he began he was using the Web crawling service 80legs, but over time he had to build his own crawling infrastructure.

When I talked to him this afternoon, he had already begun uploading 100 GB of user data onto his server to make it available for academic research starting on Wednesday. Warden says he's removed identifying profile URLs but kept names, locations, Fan page lists and partial Friends lists. All those fields of data are just waiting to be analyzed and cross referenced. That's one very rich resource.

Yesterday Warden posted some of his own initial observations from the data on his personal blog. Those included:

• In almost every state in the Southern U.S., God is number one most popular Fan page among Facebook users. Among people in the L.A., San Francisco and Nevada regions? "God hardly makes an appearance on the fan pages, but sports aren't that popular either," Warden writes. "Michael Jackson is a particular favorite, and San Francisco puts Barack Obama in the top spot." In the Oregon and Idaho region? Starbucks is number one.
• In the Mormon-influenced areas of Utah and Eastern Idaho, the most popular Fan pages are The Book of Mormon, Glen Beck and the vampire book Twilight, which was authored by a Mormon.
• The bulk of Warden's posted analysis yesterday was about location networks. People in the western U.S. tend to have Facebook friends all over the country; people in the southern U.S. tend to mostly be friends with people who have remained in the same area.

Taking a Deeper Look

These observations are interesting, but they are only the beginning of what's possible. Name, location, friends and interests are great data points to analyze. Warden has written a program that will estimate gender as well, based on names. All these data points can be cross-referenced with outside data, too. Members of Facebook's own staff did this kind of analysis when they compared user last names to U.S. Census data, which allowed them to estimate changes in Facebook's racial composition over time based on the likelihood of people with particular last names to report a particular racial backgrounds.

"I'm mostly thinking 'What do I try first?'," Warden says. "There's so many interesting ways to slice the data - especially as I'm starting to get changes over time. I'm also trying to map out political networks in aggregate; how polarized the fans of particular politicians are - so how likely a Sarah Palin fan is to have any friends who are fans of Obama, and how that varies with location too. One of my favorite results is that Texans are more likely to be fans of the Dallas Cowboys than God."

Warden says he hasn't talked to anyone from Facebook since he started crawling the site, but he did get an email from someone on the security team asking him to take down instructions he'd posted that exposed a security hole that made harvesting peoples' email addresses easy. So the company is paying attention. "I'd love to see them put me out of business by putting decent data out there," Warden says. He says his Amazon Web Services bill was over $5,000 last month.

Why is he indexing all this content and why is he going to hand it over to the academic world later this week? "I am fascinated by how we can build tools to understand our world and connect people based on all the data we're just littering the Internet with," Warden says.

"Nobody thinks about how much valuable information they're generating just by friending people and fanning pages. It's like we're constantly voting in a hundred different ways every day. And I'm a starry-eyed believer that we'll be able to change the world for the better using that neglected information. It's like an x-ray for the whole country - we can see all sorts of hidden details of who we're friends with, where we live, what we like."

For a great example of the kind of social impact that data analysis can make, Warden points to some of the fascinating ways that GIS data is illuminating the intersection of race and public services. Data has shed light on social injustices for decades, and measurable information about the interactions of hundreds of millions of people every day on Facebook offers opportunities to discover both good and bad news about the contemporary human condition.

Warden says he's not yet been able to interest any investors in his ideas for businesses based on this data, so his girlfriend Liz Baumann, a former insurance actuary, stepped in to help and is now running much of the crawling. He says he's now focused on "working on ways of presenting all this information in a form that answers questions for people willing to pay." His first experiment along those lines is the very interesting FanPageAnalytics.com.

What does Pete Warden hope for from this week's public release of all this Facebook data? "Hopefully I'll get to see a bunch of interesting [academic research] papers come out of it, worst case. And I'd like to be the guy people turn to when they need stuff like this."

Already well-respected among a fringe group of bleeding-edge geeks, we hope that Warden's work on social graph analysis will end up impacting a far larger number of people than may ever know his name.

• Aldiko: outstanding e-book reader (better than Kindle on the iPhone in terms of feature set; obviously the book store is not quite as good, but the integration with free eBook download sites is a plus). Currently reading Makers by Cory Doctorow.
• Amazon: search the full Amazon catalog (can use barcodes or photos in addition to typing or speaking your query), track orders in my account.
• APNDroid: useful if you want to disable your phone's cellular data connection (useful if you're often on WiFi and want to turn off your EDGE or 3G data connection)
• AppReferer: builds a QR code (a 2D barcode) that makes recommending an app to another Android user in person a one-click affair.
• Battery Graph: shows a nice chart (exportable, even) of battery usage, which is helpful if you're trying to isolate when the battery started to drain.
• Coin Flip: silly app that lets me flip a coin. Use it mostly to settle disputes between the kids. :)
• Congress: built by Sunlight Labs, a phenomenal "pocket Congressional directory" that includes contact info, committee memberships, news, and YouTube vids of every Senator and Representative.
• DroidLive Lite: Streaming radio (via Shoutcast) from 1300 radio stations around the world.
• Facebook: news feed, photos and profile info for friends
• Fandango: Order movie tickets from movie theaters so I can bypass lines at the ticket counter.
• Finance: Google Finance app
• Flashlight: turns screen bright white to use in dark rooms
• Foursquare: app for playing Foursquare, also has a nice widget for my home screen
• Gmote: turns my Nexus One into a touchpad remote (when paired with a computer running the Gmote server software). Handy for giving presentations, or just doing something nerdy and cool.
• Google Goggles: search Google by taking pictures.
• Google Sky Map: the one app that consistently blows people away. Load it up, turn your camera toward the night sky and you'll get a real-time view of which stars, constellations and planets are above you. An awesome accompaniment to a telescope.
• Jewels: Bejeweled-like game.
• Layar: Augmented reality app that displays info on screen in realtime through your phone's camera.
• Locale: very sophisticated app for scripting events to happen based on certain triggers. (When I'm at home, disable the data connection and connect to my home wifi access point. At 11pm, turn off the sound and put the phone to sleep; at 6am turn the sound back up; when I'm at work, put the phone in vibrate mode; etc.)
• Metal detector: actually works.
• Movies (aka Flixster): Lots of info/trailers/reviews about new and upcoming movies, also integrates with Netflix for DVDs
• My Tracks: built by some Googlers, great app for keeping track of runs/bikes/ski runs you've done; captures altitude, distance, etc., then uploads to Google Maps My Maps.
• OpenTable: make restaurant reservations from the phone.
• Owner: adds my contact info to the unlock screen ("If found, please contact Rick Klau...")
• Pandora: streaming music channels.
• PapiJump: great little game using the phone's accelerometer.
• Pintail: monitors your phone's SMS messages for a message that says "locate" (plus a PIN); once received, activates the GPS and replies with the phone's location. Helpful if you've got a lost phone.
• Robo Defense: addicitve game.
• Scoreboard: Tracks scores of your favorite teams, with realtime updates and notifications as score changes.
• Seesmic: Great Twitter app.
• Shop Savvy: grab a barcode, find out who sells it and for how much.
• TiVo Remote: works with any TiVo HD unit over WiFi.
• TripIt: phenomenal itinerary manager for all travel info.
• Voice Recorder: does exactly what it says it does.
• Yelp: Local reviews.

This guest post was written by Linda Kaplan Thaler and Robin Koval, authors of THE POWER OF SMALL .

In today's deadline driven, digital world, taking the time to shoot the breeze' with a coworker, neighbor, or passing stranger can seem like a waste of time. But, in reality, nothing could be further from the truth. Whether you're a Washington politician or a barista at a local coffee shop, every one of us has the unique ability to inspire change in our lives and in the lives of others around us. And small talk is the key.

When we were writing our book, THE POWER OF SMALL: Why Little Things Make All the Difference , we discovered a truly amazing story that brought our attention to the unexpected ways in which small talk' can change and save lives. In this case, it all started with a cup of coffee and a simple conversation.

The Story of Annamarie and Sandie

Every morning, when Annamarie Ausnes would head to her local Starbucks to pick-up her usual coffee, she looked forward to making a bit of small talk with the barista, Sandie Anderson, but she never imagined that those little conversations would one day save her life.

Over time, what had begun as a casual, How's your morning? or Nice weather, huh? eventually grew into more personal exchanges about their grandkids, weekend plans, and holiday traditions, until one day Sandie noticed something wasn't quite right with her short-drip double-cupped customer. And instead of ignoring it, she decided to trust her instincts and asked one simple question: Are you okay?

At first, Annamarie was reluctant to confide in her barista buddy, but with a little prodding, she opened up.

Actually, I'm not doing so well, she sighed. I was just placed on the national kidney transplant list and I'm getting ready to go on dialysis.

To her shock, Sandie would discover that her friendly customer faced a bleak future. Distraught and determined to help, Sandie announced that she would get tested to see if she could become a donor.

As luck would have it, Sandie turned out to be a match and donated a kidney to Annamarie. Today Annamarie is not only alive and well, the two women are dear friends. And it all started with a cup of coffee and a little small talk.

Of course, not all of us have the ability or courage to make the huge gesture Sandie made by donating her kidney to a virtual stranger, but by simply making small talk, we open ourselves up to new people, new experiences, and new opportunities. As children, we make friends easily. We ask for each other's names, we join in and play with one another. But as we grow older, we tend to close ourselves off, shield ourselves with technology, and forget to acknowledge the people who are right in front of us.

So put away the iPhone for a minute, look up from your laptop, and take the first step by saying hello to the stranger sitting next to you. You never know, they just might be the hero you've been hoping for.

In Their Own Words

Here's a short video clip of Annamarie and Sandie sharing their story in their own words:

Linda Kaplan Thaler and Robin Koval are co-authors of the national bestseller THE POWER OF SMALL: Why Little Things Make All the Difference , which debuted on the best seller lists of the Wall Street Journal, USA Today, and The Washington Post.

Photo by: polandeze

How do rockets blast off into space and come back home safely? Scientists and astronauts understand that the same laws of motion and gravity that guide the path of a spaceship also control the motion of golf balls here on Earth. So pilot your ball through this nine-hole outdoor mini golf course and discover the secrets of spaceflight. Visitors ages 6 and older.

Start time: 10:00 am

End time: 5:00 pm

Contact phone: (718) 699-0005

Location: New York Hall of Science (47-01 111th Street)

This morning I received an invitation to Lazyfeed, which debuted at the TechCrunch event last week. Louis Gray has been playing with it and likes what he sees. Here are my initial impressions. Screen grabs follow.

Pros:

• Zemanta plus Google Alerts plus Posterous equals I don't know. (newcommbiz.com)
• LazyFeed: Get the News, Vids, and Pics You Want Without Even Trying (readwriteweb.com)
• The One Huge Issue That Is Going To Kill Tag-based Reading Systems (cloudave.com)

See and download the full gallery on posterous

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I've noticed a strange trend lately.

For some reason, people seem to be equating social media with social networking.

At the same time, they seem to be treating blogging as something other than social media.

I find this very strange indeed.

For example, here the author proclaims that he's quitting social media and gives his reasons why. But he also states he'll continue to blog, by god.

Then there's this other post, which did a nice job of rounding up the discussion about the latest blogs are dead red herring. Problem is, the title Blogs vs Social Media seems to expressly state that the two are different and distinct things.

Did I not get the memo on this?

Blogs are Social (and Alternative) Media

First, let's look at a definition. In the case of social media, I think even Wikipedia can be trusted:

At its most basic sense, social media is a shift in how people discover, read and share news, information and content. Technologies include: blogs, picture-sharing, vlogs, wall-postings, email, instant messaging, music-sharing, crowdsourcing, and voice over IP, to name a few.

In fact, it's a fairly easy case that blogs were the first modern form of social media. I say modern because many would argue that social media started pre-web with Internet Relay Chat and BBS systems. Heck, the most popular part of lame ol' America Online was the cyber-sex social aspect.

So in the modern social media sense, blogs came way before social networking exploded with MySpace, Facebook, and Twitter. Blogs pioneered social media well before Friendster came and went (remember Friendster?).

One thing you'll notice in the definition above is the emphasis on content. Not just user-generated conversational content, but the production of content that is an alternative to traditional media AND that benefits from interlinked conversation and comments.

Maybe the fact that old media has co-opted those aspects of blogs is the reason that some people no longer see blogging as social media. I think that's a bit silly.

Media Producer Versus Social Networker

Maybe I've got it wrong, but the fascinating part of social media to me is not just the social networking. It's the fact that anyone willing to put in the work can become a media producer/personality without speaking a word to anyone in the existing media power centers of Los Angeles, New York, et al.

Blogs are simply the best way to publish new media content. And social media news and networking sites are the ways that content gets exposure. It's not money and geography that determines if your content spreads it just has to be deemed good enough to be shared by regular people.

If you want to become a music journalist, no one in LA or NYC can tell you no. If you want a shot at becoming an actress or celebrity without enduring casting couch sexual harassment, you can absolutely go for it and succeed.

From a more practical standpoint, using social media in terms of media production is what content marketing is all about. Producing content and having something related to sell is one way where free content pays for itself big time.

• It's how producing your own video show about wine boosts the bottom line of your bricks-and-mortar wine store to the tune of millions, all while making you a celebrity along the way.
• It's how you write a book and create buzz for it without waiting for Oprah to call.
• It's how you create a lucrative business with high margins and hefty happiness.

When you think like a media producer in this brave new social media world, it's your content that social networkers are sharing and promoting, and that translates into your cash. If you're only social networking, you're only someone's user-generated content, and even your digital overlord struggles to make money.

What's the Point?

Honestly, I'm not sure. I just see so much unnecessary confusion out there.

What do you think?

• Is it because people with vested interests in confusion portray social media as something radically new when it's mostly an evolution of the old?
• Should I simply quit worrying about it and stick with those of you who get it?
• What do you think about tofu? Tasty or nasty?

About the Author: Brian Clark is founder of Copyblogger and co-founder of DIY Themes, creator of the innovative Thesis Theme for WordPress. Get more from Brian on Twitter.

If you are going for an interview as a prospective employee then you should do some research. Read the job description and requirements carefully. Browse the web site to see how the organization presents itself. Search for news items and comments about the company on news sites and blogs.

For the interview itself you should dress smartly and appropriately. It is important to have some questions prepared and here are a few that could really help:

1. What exactly would my day-to-day responsibilities be? It is essential that you clearly understand your role and the tasks that you would be expected to undertake. It is easy to make assumptions and get the wrong impression of what the work would be so it is vital for both sides that there is clarity in what is expected of you. If the interviewer cannot give a clear answer then this is a worrying sign, so politely follow up with more questions. Some people even ask to see exactly where they will sit.

2. What are the opportunities for training and career advancement? This question serves two purposes. It helps you to understand where the job might lead and what skills you might acquire. It also signals that you are ambitious and thinking ahead.

3. What is the biggest challenge facing the organization today? This sort of question takes the interview away from the detail and towards strategic issues. It allows to you see and discuss the bigger picture. It proves that you are interested in more than just the 9 to 5 aspects of the job. It can lead to interesting discussions that can show you in a good light - especially if you have done some intelligent preparation. If appropriate you can follow up this question with some questions about the objectives of the department and the manager who is interviewing you.

4. When did you join? After the interviewer has asked a number of questions about you it can make a good change to ask a gentle question about them. People often like talking about themselves and if you can get them talking about their progress in the company you can learn useful and interesting things.

5. What are the criteria that you are looking for in the successful candidate for this position? The job advertisement may have listed what was wanted in a candidate but it is very useful to hear the criteria directly from the interviewer. The more that you can discover about what they want and how they will make the decision the better placed you are to influence that decision.

6. How do you feel that I measure up to your requirements for this position? This follows on naturally from the previous questions. It may seem a little pushy but it is a perfectly fair thing to ask. In sales parlance this is a trial close'. If they say that you are a good fit then you can ask whether there is any reason you might not be offered the job. If they say that you are lacking in some key skill or attribute then you can move into objection handling mode and point out some relevant experience or a countervailing strength.

7. Would you like to hear what I could do to really help your department? If you want the job then this is a great question to ask at the end of the interview. Most interviewers will reply, Yes.' Drawing on what you have learnt in the conversation, you can give a short sales pitch on why you fit the criteria and why your strengths and ideas will siginficantly assist the boss to meet their objectives. Make it short, direct and clear with the emphasis on the benefits for them of having you in the team. At the end ask something like, how does that sound?'

Many candidates take a passive role at the interview. They competently answer the questions that are put to them but they never take the initiative by asking intelligent questions that steer the interview in a helpful direction. If you are a proactive candidate who asks the sorts of questions given above then you will be seen as more dynamic and you will significantly increase your chances of being offered the job.

Paul Sloane is an author and speaker on leadership, innovation and lateral thinking. His most recent book is The Innovative Leader. He helps organizations improve innovation, creativity and leadership. He is the founder of Destination Innovation. He has written 15 books of lateral thinking puzzles and hosts the lateral puzzles forum.

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Moore is part of the amateur Puckett Observatory Supernova Search Team. According to Deer Pond Observatory:

It all came about at diner with Tim Puckett & Mike Peoples after the Friday's opening of NEAIC 2008. Tim was telling us about the search team and the fact that the team had the youngest person to discover a SN. Her name was Jennifer and she was 16 ( it turns out she was 18 but Caroline did not know that until after her find ) Hearing that a 16 year old had found a supernova, she pronounced " I could beat her". Timmy said it would take a lot of work, but if you think you're up to it I'll sign you up. So at the ripe old age of 13 Caroline started her hunt

That was the beginning of a long eight months. First she had to get a new computer and install all the software then work with Mike Peoples to learn how to get the data and what to do with it.

On November 6,2008 Caroline spotted something odd in one of the data files of distant galaxy UGC 12682, located in the constellation Pegasus. The image of the object was very faint but she noticed some pixels off to one side of the galaxy that made her suspicious, Caroline did all the checks and ran it through all the data basis. "I'm going to send it in. I think it's something," she told her Dad. It took couple nights until the team could get a confirmation image and it looked like her suspicions were confirmed.

Her discovery did indeed turn out to be a supernova, but it goes against all the rules we thought we knew. For example, it's in a galaxy that's in the process of "eating itself," UGC 12682, where supernovas don't usually occur. It's also one of the least luminous supernovas ever detected, and scientists haven't found any evidence of hydrogen, which usually turns up around dimmer supernovas. Now scientists are theorizing that the lack of hydrogen may stem from the fact that this was a massive star that lost mass. Perhaps its core collapsed into a black hole without transferring any energy to the outer layers of the star. Says Stefano Valenti with Queens University Belfast:

The implications are quite important. If this is a massive star explosion, then it is the first one that might fit the theoretical models of massive stars that lose their outer layers through their huge luminosity pressure and then, perhaps, collapse to black holes with a whimper

It's pretty cool that an amateur teenager can discover something that keeps the experts guessing.

The backrest and headrest are screwed together by a pair of aluminum supports. This unit is suspended on the seat via two connection points in the armrests. The armrests are screwed to shock mounts on the interior of the backrest shell, allowing the backrest and headrest to flex when the chair is in use. This is part of the chair's unusual design, as well as one of its biggest flaws. The rubber washers are solidly glued to the plywood shells, but have been known to tear free when excessive weight is applied, or when the rubber becomes old and brittle.

Other creative uses of materials include the seat cushions - which eschew standard stapled or nailed upholstery. Instead the cushions are sewn with a zipper around the outer edge that connects them to a stiff plastic backing. The backing affixes to the plywood shells with a series of hidden clips and rings. This design, along with the hidden shock mounts in the armrest allow the outside veneer of the chair to be unmarred by screws or bolts. The chair has a low seat which is permanently fixed at a recline. The seat of the chair swivels on a cast aluminum base, with glides that are threaded so that the chair may remain level.

...When it was first made Ray Eames remarked in a letter to Charles that the chair looked "comfortable and un-designy" (sic). Charles's vision was for a chair with "the warm, receptive look of a well-used first baseman's mitt.

Ella sez, "A friend of mine asked to put her camera on the conveyor belt at a local kaiten sushi restaurant. People's reactions as they discover that they're being filmed are fairly humorous."

Kaiten (conveyor) sushi time in real Japan (Thanks, Ella!)

In this case, following the court's decision that all documents were to be produced electronically in TIFF format with Optical Character Recognition (OCR), defendant asserted that the cost of processing the documents should be shifted to the plaintiff. In support of its assertion, defendant claimed that the cost of conversion to OCR would likely exceed $200,000 and that it does not itself seek to use the OCR process, and any extra expense would be incurred on it behalf solely for Plaintiff's convenience. Defendant offered no evidence in support of its estimate, however, and the court's own research indicated the estimated cost appeared to be somewhat inflated. Nor did defendant deny that the OCR process would make the documents easier to examine, thus reducing costs for attorney time.

In making its determination, the court indicated its intent to rely on the multi-factor test adopted in Zubulake v. USB Warburg, LLC, despite its slightly different context. 217 F.R.D. 309 (S.D.N.Y. 2003). Those factors were:

(1) the extent to which the request was specifically tailored to discover relevant information; (2) the availability of such information from other sources; (3) the total cost of production, when compared to the amount in controversy; (4) the total cost of production, when compared to the resources available to each party; (5) the relative ability of each party to control costs and the incentive to do so; (6) the importance of the issues at stake in the litigation; and (7) the relative benefits to the parties of obtaining the information.

Analysis of the seven factors did not favor cost-shifting. Adhering to Zubulake's instruction that the factors should not be equally weighted but rather considered in ascending order, the court first noted defendant's failure (beyond a statement that the request was overbroad) to contend that the information requested was not relevant or likely to lead to the discovery of admissible information. Finding that the remaining factors also do not favor cost shifting, the court specifically addressed the lack of any showing that the documents requested were obtainable from other sources.

Accordingly, the court concluded:

OCR, while perhaps not absolutely necessary to litigation, is a tool that greatly decreases the time and effort counsel must invest in searching and examining documents. Presumably, each party would perform the OCR process in a cost-effective manner to minimize their costs. Requiring the parties to incur this cost, when the OCR process is likely to streamline the discovery process and reduce the chance that either side will employ tactics designed to hide relevant information in a mountain of difficult-to-search documents is neither unreasonable nor burdensome. Therefore, after review of the Zubulake factors, the court concludes that cost shifting is not appropriate in this case.

A copy of the full opinion is available here.

The entrance wall, recently submitted to our photo group by Eric P

Ikea's new Stockholm collection hearkens back to mid-century Scandinavian roots. The coffee table in golden-brown is particularly nice. And this sofa table is so elegant, it's easy to forget where it came from until you discover it's so light you can lift it with a single hand, or the veneer chips off to reveal the particle board.

Ikea attracts some fine designers, it's a shame they insist that almost everything be at that ultra-low price point. I would have manufactured the Stockholm stuff like the old Expedit office series: in solid wood, at a mid-range price.

Fix Problems by Reinstalling Windows

As a tech blogger, part of my job involves reviewing software which is so interesting but frequent installation (followed by un-installation) of software programs also tend to slow down the computer.

To deal with this problem, I did a clean installation of Windows last weekend and re-installed all the important software programs from scratch. As expected, the boot-up time has reduced and the computer's performance has improved significantly. Luckily, this task is not as complex as it may sound but here are a few things you should remember before taking the plunge:

Pre-Installation Checklist

1. Get Magical Jelly to retrieve a list of product keys that were used to install Windows and Microsoft Office on your computer. Print this information.

2. Get Belarc Advisor to create a detailed report of all software programs, hotfixes and hardware devices available in your system. Print this report as well.

3. Uninstall all software programs that had to be activated at the time of installation (e.g. Adobe Creative Suite or Microsoft Office). It's important that you do a proper un-installation of these programs through Add/Remove Programs because simply deleting the folder from Program Files directory will not free up the license on the manufacturer's activation server.

4. Install Driver Max to create a backup of all device drivers currently installed on your system. This will come handy after reinstallation incase you are not able to locate the driver installers on the vendor's website.

5. Create a backup folder on c: (say c:\old_files) and add the following files to this folder

i. Your Outlook pst file that has all the mails, contacts, tasks and other Outlook items.
ii. If you have purchased any custom fonts, copy the relevant ttf files from the c:\windows\fonts folder. c. All documents, Live Writer drafts, pictures, music and videos from your My Document folder.
iii. Backup your custom dictionaries from Firefox, Microsoft Word, Live Writer, etc.
iv. Export all browser bookmarks and copy them to the backup folder.
v. Open your Firefox add-ons window, take a screenshot and paste that image in the backup folder. This is a good way to remember your favorite Firefox extensions.
vi. Export your podcast subscriptions in iTunes as as OPML (XML) file.
vii. Product keys (serial numbers) of all licensed software.

6. If you have a partitioned hard drive (say C: and D:), just copy* the backup folder created in step 5 to the D: drive. If you don't have a partitioned hard disk or if the size of partition is small, install Live Mesh, add c:\old_files folder to your Live Mesh account and wait until all the files are uploaded on to the web. Mesh offers 5 GB of space and it may therefore be a good idea to burn all the heavy files (like videos, music, etc) onto a DVD instead of transferring them online.

*You can copy large folders across drives through Windows Explorer or the xcopy utility.

Re-Install Windows from Scratch

Now is the time to do a clean installation of Windows. This is probably the easiest part. You can either boot your computer from the original Windows installation CD** or, while you are running Windows, pop-in the installation CD and run the setup.exe program just like you would install any other Windows app. Always choose "Fresh Installation" instead of "Repair".

**If you installation media doesn't include the latest service packs, try creating one yourself. Windows XP with SP3 is available as a downloadable ISO while you can slipstream SP1 into Vista fairly easily.

Post-Installation Tips

It can take around 30 minutes (or more) for the whole installation to finish. Now jump to the Windows Update website and let your browser download all the hotfixes, security updates, driver updates, etc. If your computer is unable to connect to the Internet, chances are that your computer doesn't have the proper network drivers. No problem as you can easily get the drivers from the dump that you created using DriverMax utility.

If your display is acting funny or there's no audio, just install the right drivers from the vendor's website (preferred approach) or use your backup media. Once all the patches are installed, Windows Vista users can free up few gigabytes of disk space by making SP1 permanent. Windows XP users may skip this step.

Now turn on the Firewall and install all the other software programs and associated updates in any order. The next important step is to clone your disk image via DriveImage XML (free software), Acronis True Image or Norton Ghost. Windows Vista Ultimate also comes with a "Backup & Restore Center" that you may use to create a complete backup image of your entire computer to another drive, external disk or a DVD.

These disk images will come very handy after few months when your Windows PC get slow again. You won't have to repeat the rebuilding exercise as the PC can be easily restored to the original state through these disk images.

Don't experiment on your main PC

If you are tech enthusiast who loves to try new software / browser add-ons, I would strongly recommend that you don't install these software on your main system - instead get Virtual PC (it's free), create a Windows XP / Windows Vista virtual machine and use that environment as your new playground.

Another recommendation - do get a cane of compressed air to remove all the dirt from components inside the computer case. Sometimes software may not be the reason behind your slow and slugging PC - the culprit could be the dust sticking on the CPU heat sink.

How to Rebuild your Computer and Reinstall Windows Without Headache - Digital Inspiration

What if I told you that you could be totally lazy and irresponsible, and still accomplish just as much? What if you could slack off, loiter, and essentially do nothing and get more done than the average person. It's a bit of an art, but you can master this skill with some practice.

Some of these things may seem like a lot of work up front, but that's the price you have to pay to lounge around all day.

1. Be effective.

The indigenous lazy tribesman knows the value of hard work. But he also knows that he can get more done easily and more efficiently by being effective. That means focusing on the things that matter. What matters more to you, having a color coded underwear filing system, or writing that world dominating book you've been talking about for the past 12 years?

Focus on being effective, instead of trying do everything perfectly. Let things slide, let your house get a little messy, let your desk be a little less than immaculate. Let your email inbox *gasp* go unchecked for a day. Whatever it takes to focus on what actually matters.

2. Do your research.

This might not seem like something lazy people like to do, but it's essential if you want to waste a lot of time doing things that, you know, you actually enjoy doing. If you want to work less, it's important that you do your research. Study trends, follow what major movements are going on in your industry. If you know the right time and place to act, you can be miles above others that were simply working hard, hoping things would turn out for the best.

3. Act from your gut.

People that work hard and achieve little spend a lot of time thinking about the best course of action. They plan and plot incessantly. What eventually happens is these come up that they never could have planned for. The lazy man knows that planning is useful, but often overrated. It's better to act from your gut then to have a highly detailed plant you'll simply throw away later.

4. Know people.

A smart, lazy fellow understands the importance of connections. He knows that he can get more done by helping others and cooperating. It's not always about what you can do, but about who you know. If you can focus on helping others as much as possible (being a mensch link) you'll naturally create meaningful connections with other people. It's always a lot easier to get help from other people who you've helped in the past.

5. Ditch meetings and other things that don't matter.

Meetings are usually unproductive and a waste of time for everyone. They're usually irrelevant to most of the people involved. The objective of most meeting can usually be handled with a simple email or phone call. If the meeting doesn't require high level, strategic decision making, opt out whenever possible.

Whenever possible, cull whatever is not working. There's certain things that just don't make much of a difference when you spend twice as much time on them. There's also things that don't make sense to do at all. Try to focus only on things that produce the most results. Cut out the rest.

6. Focus on less.

If you're lazy like me, you probably don't want to spend unnecessary time churning out ineffective work. It's much better to work on one amazing idea, than 20 mediocre ones. Focus on producing less. Don't sacrifice quality to fill an arbitrary quota.

7. Allow things to happen.

Trying to force things to go your way is not only stressful, it's not very intelligent. It's better to guide things along, than trying to marshal them in like a dictator. Try to let things happen, instead of making them happen. Remember that a small rudder directs even the most giant ship.

8. Don't do what works.

The number one dream killer is doing what works. We follow a template of what has worked for other people. But just because climbing a corporate ladder works, it doesn't mean it's the best idea for you. If you're smart and you want to be lazy, you'll follow your own path. You'll work from your strengths, instead of trying to follow a predetermined pattern of effectiveness.

It's a lot easier to apply your unique strengths, then to force yourself into an arbitrary mold.

These things might seem like they require diligent work, and they do. But they also allow you to free up the time to be as lazy and unproductive as you want to be.

This article was written by Zen Habits contributor Jonathan Mead of the Illuminated Mind blog. For more ways to defend your laziness grab a free subscription to Illuminated MInd.

Read elsewhere: How Getting Nothing Done Can Make You More Productive.
If you liked this article, please share it on del.icio.us, StumbleUpon or Digg. I'd appreciate it. :)

Gary Peare says:

When I was in Clown College they showed us Charles and Ray Eames' film Clown Face, which they made in 1971 (I went to Clown College in 79).

Charles apparently liked photographing clowns. I recently discovered this photo that was made apparently as a promo shot for Herman Miller. I don't know if Charles shot it, but the photo is cool, nonetheless.

I found the photo via Pop Art Machine, which somehow has linked into the Library of Congress image database. The image search function through Pop Art Machine (I'm not sure what it's really supposed to be for) is often better than the LOC search page.

Previously on Boing Boing:
Charles and Ray Eames stamps
Eames molded plywood leg splints
Eames Elephant film
Eames' solar powered "Do Nothing Machine" from 1958
Video: Polaroid SX-70 Commercial by Charles and Ray Eames x The Cramps
Vintage anti-porn propaganda -- Commie Terrorist Smutmongers!
Eames Demetrios presents "Discover Kymamerica"

Feedbooks is the service I highlighted as being the most interesting of the three to me since you can download one Kindle/Mobi book (more info) containing clickable links to hundreds (thousands?) of free and Creative Commons-licensed books that can be downloaded directly to your Kindle, usually in less than a minute or so. Zesty. Hello, 1984 and A Princess of Mars.

In addition to all the great stuff Andy has enumerated, these free book services have made me see the Kindle as a flawed but fascinating game-changer. More tips and buying advice coming soon (short version: it ain't for everybody, by a long shot, but it's surprisingly great for commuters and travelers who devour novels in particular).

And, if you're still hungry for more Kindle-friendly book sites, check out Free Kindle Books and Free Ebooks Online. The post contains a large collection of links that can help fill your reader in no time.

The value of Twitter, to me, comes as a tool to communicate with my chosen network of people. You only ever see microposts (limited to 140 chars) from people you explicity follow. So, no spam, ever, and you control the flow.

It's become TREMENDOUSLY useful for me to quickly, easily communicate with people I know, and communicate to them what I'm up to, or what I'm thinking. I tend to think of what I put on Twitter as microposts stuff I might have otherwise blogged, or might not have. It can be very conversational, and very ephemeral you go with the flow, and don't worry about missing something. It's a river of conversation you can participate in or ignore as you choose.

Watch this video from Common Craft, which does a great job of explaining Twitter in Plain English:

I'd suggest starting out with a small network, and ONLY add people you know in Real Life (or know well otherwise). Don't feel like you have to reciprocally follow back any people who discover and follow you. Feel free to un-follow people you feel are being too noisy. They don't get notice that you've dropped them, and won't be offended. You have the right to spend your attention as you see fit.

If you want to get an idea of some Intel people that are using Twitter, look at http://twitter.com/pulseofintel/friends and http://twitter.com/pulseofintel/with_friends (part of a little mashup I'm playing with, but haven't launched yet). There's also PulseofPDX.com (see what people in Portland are tweeting - the Stream of Portland's Collective Consciousness)

You can use Twitter via the web site, IM, SMS, or use a desktop Twitter application like Twitteriffic (my favorite, Mac only), Spaz, Twhirl, or Snitter (all three use Adobe AIR, so Windows or Mac).

Ignore the public timeline, or any tweets/messages from people you don't know. It's impossible to see the value of Twitter when you're looking at messages from strangers about what they had for lunch, or the fact that their cat is taking a nap.

It's OK if you're not interested, or if you decide that Twitter's not for you. It's hard to explain to someone, but if you give it a fair shot, you might like it. Let me know if you have any questions, and let me know if you sign up, so I can follow you!

Here's are a few of the things we've implemented so far:

Shorter work weeks

Last summer we experimented with 4-day work weeks. People should enjoy the weather in the summer. We found that just about the same amount of work gets done in four days vs. five days.

So if that's the case we could either push everyone to work harder during those five days or we could just skip one of those days. We decided to skip one of those days.

So recently we've instituted a four-day work week as standard. We take Fridays off. We're around for emergencies, and we still do customer service/support on Fridays, but other than that work is not required on Fridays.

Three-day weekends mean people come back extra refreshed on Monday. Three-day weekends mean people come back happier on Monday. Three-day weekends mean people actually work harder and more efficiently during the four-day work week.

Funding people's passions

We decided that 37signals would help people pay for their passions, interests, or other curiosities. We want our people to experience new things, discover new hobbies, and generally be interesting people.

For example, Mark has recently taken up flight lessons. 37signals is helping him pay for those. If someone wants to take cooking lessons, we'll help pay for those. If someone wants to take a woodworking class, we'll help pay for that.

Part of the deal is that if 37signals helps you pay, you have to share what you've learned with everyone. Not just everyone at 37signals, but everyone who reads our blog. So expect to see some blog posts about these experiences.

Discretionary spending accounts

We're in the process of giving everyone at 37signals a credit card. If you want a book or some software or you want to go to a conference, it's on us. We just ask people to be reasonable with their spending.

If there's a problem, we'll let the person know. We'd rather trust people to make reasonable spending decisions than assume people will abuse the privilege by default.

We'll post updates if we have them

The ideas above are active experiments. We'll report back if we learn anything good or bad about what we're doing and how it's working.

As an insufferably huge public broadcasting nerd, I was happy to hear (via our pal, Ryan) that 43 Folders was mentioned in tonight's All Things Considered story about Getting Things Done.

Since this may be the first time some folks have visited the site, I wanted to highlight a few of my favorite GTD posts from the past four years. We talk about lots more than GTD here, but it's definitely a lot of my readers' favorite topic.

Thanks for stopping by. Ton of links after the jump

• Getting started with Getting Things Done' - So you sprint from fire to fire, praying you haven't forgotten anything, sapped of anything like creativity or even the basic human flexibility to adapt your own schedule to the needs of your friends, your family or yourself. Your stuff' has taken over your brain like a virus now, dragging down every process it touches and rendering you spent and virtually useless. Sound familiar?
• How does a geek hack GTD? - So I wanted to start a conversation about how geeks handle their lists, their projects, and their agendasnot so much in terms of the tool they use to store the information, although that's fair gameas with how they segment the information and decide when to break it into pieces.
• Next actions: Both physical and visible - But, for me, turning anxieties into projects and projects into discrete physical behaviors has a lot of appeal. It takes all the pressure off your brain and puts it back where it belongs: on your eyes, on your hands, and on that fat ass you need to get into gear.
• Does this next action' belong someplace else? - I've noticed that there are often items on my next actions' list that hang around a lot longer than they should. I scan and rescan and sort and add and delete, but there's always a few stragglers who hang out there for a week or more. Eventually this starts to vex me, and I try to debug why things aren't getting done.
• Mental dialogues, yak-shaving & the triumph of the mini-review' - My mini-review falls somewhere between the glances I give my lists throughout the day and the comprehensive weekly review I do each weekend. It's basically a 10-minute metamoment where I stop working and just try to re-focus on my goals, and the tactical adjustments needed to get them moved forward today.
• What are you waiting on?' - The thread that runs through all of these is that the onus is on me to a) make sure these items represent part of a commitment I've made, and b) make sure they actually get done (even if it's not my direct responsibility); otherwise, they should get moved onto my Maybe/Later' list, right?
• A Year of Getting Things Done - (3-part series: 1, 2, 3) - I recently realized that this month marks one year since I started using Getting Things Done in earnest. With the calendar year closing, it seems like an apt time to look back at what's worked, what hasn't, and where I'd like to see GTD heading in the future.
• Choosing a daily GTD action plan - I employ an informal Getting Things Done action strategy that's similar to the one Chris lays out in his post. I often have a theme for a given day, where I choose an approach that's suited to my mood, my energy level, and the kind and amount of work on my TODO list. (I'm especially a fan of days where I knock down mosquito tasks' as Chris calls them.)
• Fractal Implementation, or, On the Dangers of David Allen's Finger - This is my stake in the ground about GTD: if you can stay focused on drawing from its best practices to get more of the important things in your life accomplished, then you'll be a happy kid. For real. But if, like a seeming majority of people I encounter these days, you allow yourself to obsess endlessly over the minutest details of implementation and maintenancewell, you're screwed. You're wasting your time.
• Inbox Zero: Processing to zero - The more email you have been neglecting in your inbox, the more drastic and ruthless your processing must be.
• Do a fast mind-sweep - By and large, you'll discover, your head is flooded with this stuff that you aren't or haven't been doing anything about. Not coincidentally, this is almost always stuff that represents some kind of incompletion, functional fuzziness, or procrastination on your part.
• Simplify your contexts - If you feel a gnaw about the loss of your old contexts, try to shunt some of the mental load into sub-projects and better verb choices in your tasks.
• Folders for organization and action - But, as ever, if you're fussing and thinking and fiddling and wondering about this stuff, you aren't doing it, and dammit, that's what this is all about.
• Priorities don't exist in a vacuum - Unless you can always satisfy the big red letter commitments you've created for yourself as well as the ones that are constantly being generated for you by others an obsession with priority alone is pointlessly stress-inducing, unhealthy, and unrealistic.
• 6 powerful look into verbs (+ 1 to avoid) - Decisions can only be delivered after you've nourished them with timely and thought-provoking information.
• Productive Talk Compilation: 8-episode podcast with GTD's David Allen - Hope you all enjoy hearing the whole series, in order, all in one place. There's some nuggets of GTD gold in there, if I do say so myself.

Let me start this by saying that many startups have tried to make a funny infomercial, but these guys actually succeeded. The fellow's phony hair and thin mustache, the oldschool computer equipment, and the recognizable 70ies yellowish tone of the video - well, it made me laugh a couple of times. See the video below, and don't forget - it's just that simple!

Overlay.TV enables you to place various text, graphics and animations over a video. The platform enables you to stream videos from popular video sharing sites like YouTube, MySpace TV, Google Video, Yahoo! Video, and College Humor. It's somewhat similar to Ooyala, and it is also partly aimed at advertising, but it also adds some interesting features in the mix. One of them is shopping; for example, you can mark an item on a video and create an online shop out of it; a viewer that clicks on it will be able to buy it directly from the video. Another very interesting feature is a very simple one: if all those stuff on the video starts to annoy you, you can turn all of it off. It all works in both IE and Firefox; Safari isn't mentioned anywhere, though. After the publishers are done with the video, they can share it via email or embed it on a website, blog, or a social networking profile.

Overlay.TV has done its homework and signed deals with over 600 marketing affiliates which at this time accept user click-throughs from Overlay.TV, including Amazon, iTunes and Wal-Mart.

And now, some marketingese for you:

By linking publishers, viewers of online video and marketers, Overlay.TV is transforming user-generated video content from a passive vehicle for entertainment or education, into an interactive vehicle for commerce, said Rob Lane, President and CEO of Overlay.TV. We're empowering a whole new generation of publishers a group we call Generation P' with a user-friendly platform that will help them discover entirely new business models. The advertising industry has significantly shifted from traditional channels to web advertising. With the ubiquity of social networks, consumer-created advertising has more power and influence than anything produced by industry professionals.

ShareThis

Here's how it will work: Dapper lets users identify and tag particular fields on any page. It then extracts the value in that field and makes it available in XML. As a result of this advertising activity, Dapper believes a substantial quantity of pages around the web could have fields of interest delineated and tagged with relevant terms. Relationships between pages and fields and terms and tags can all be extracted and analyzed from this aggregated activity.

The company has already built a demonstration semantic search engine based on Dapper activity and its ability to parse search results by semantic meaning and detail is quite sophisticated. The potential applications of a semantic index built by Dapper are really exciting to consider.

Dapper currently has 35,000 extraction functions (Dapps) created, but they are betting that a clear profit motive will incentivize advertisers to create many, many more. Advertisers will pay to have web content delineated by field and categorized.

The company argues that advertisers see substantially increased relevance and click-through if ads can be served based on very specific fields of content on a page. Early prototypes run on top music site Pitchfork and book summary site Shvoong saw 100 to 500% increases in CTR.

While Dapper's approach would likely leave the vast majority of fields on a page unindexed, it could also rack up a whole lot of semantic knowledge by riding the profit motive to discover the semantic meaning of the most monetizable fields on a far greater number of pages than would likely be analyzed otherwise. What better way to analyze the web than to ride along with ad networks? I can't think of any better way.

I think Dapper has a shot at helping fund the semantic analysis of much of the web. What will they do with the data other than use it to contextualize ads? That's another question, but an interesting one to consider.

Dappercamp was a great event this week and the tool itself is one I highly recommend. It's in startup mode and I'll be frank - many of the output formats simply don't work and there are a number of errors throughout the site. None the less, I derive significant value for my work every time I engage with it. Here's a screencast tutorial I recorded on the service. Several Dapps, Dapper-created data extractions, have become daily go-to sources of information for me - but I also recognize that only so many people are going to be as excited about this technology for research purposes. For the rest of the world, for the viability of the company, and for the potentially gigantic secondary benefit of widespread semantic indexing - I think putting Dapper in service of ad networks is a plan of simple brilliance.

Last night I wasn't at a Super Bowl party, yet I experienced the feeling of having quite a number of people around me, all consumed by what was happening each play during the Super Bowl.

Where was I? Well I spent the evening in my social media living room, with my Television tuned to FOX and my laptop tuned to twitter.

I enjoyed "watching" the non-stop play-by-play commentary being shared by my friends on twitter. And if someone wasn't commenting on a play they just saw or a catch that was or wasn't made, friends were also sharing their immediate reactions when each of the Super Bowl ads aired. Last night was my first "Social Media Super Bowl." I wonder how long it will be before broadcasters adopt an active social media strategy and discover ways to make their broadcasts both more interactive and a more intimate conversation.

Sometime during 2008 I wouldn't be surprised to learn when sports broadcasters create a twitter public timeline for an event and share with the public some of the active commentary being shared by passionate fans of the game.

And if you were on twitter during Super Bowl XLII, what is YOUR take on YOUR experience?

-----

Readers of my blog are invited to join me on both twitter and Facebook.

Tags: SuperBowl, twitter, Social+Media, Jeff Pulver

Twitter is a micro-blogging presence stream' application that's unique because it only allows you to post messages shorter than 140 characters in length!

Yet within this limitation, a whole community of over ONE MILLION users has evolved, making this one of the most vibrant, interactive and fascinating of social media channels available today.

Are you ready to explore the exciting waters of Twitter?

Let's go.

Sign up for a Twitter account

Before you go further, read this report (it's free) to see what your next steps will be:

Mastering Twitter: Click here to download the PDF

Enter your name, username, password, email address, and a picture.

The picture/photo is important. It's your avatar' on Twitter. And on a social medium like Twitter, it matters that people in your network interact with you as a person or entity. Pick a photo, picture or logo that represents you or your business, brands it, and is eye-catching.

Start experimenting.

Post a few messages to Twitter. Since no one is following' you yet, don't worry - if you goof up, no one will know!

Type a short message (less than 140 characters) into the box and click on the UPDATE button. Your post will appear below the box.

Try using a link to your website or blog. The link will be automatically converted into a short cloaked link, through the tinyurl.com service.

Here's a sample you can try out - and at the same time, promote Congenital Heart Defects awareness:

A Day For Hearts is on February 14th. Please show your support. Help save a child's heart. http://www.CHDinfo.com/chdaware/

or

You can help spread Congenital Heart Defects Awareness. See how you can help: http://www.chdinfo.com/chdaware/youcanhelp.htm

Then, check out the General Timeline by clicking on the link near the top of your Twitter homepage. You'll see a cross-section of ALL Twitter users, with posts being refreshed frequently.

Some posts will be interesting, others cryptic, and most will be dull, drab, useless musings of individuals. You do NOT want to make many posts in that last category!

Click on stuff and explore the service.

There are many cool features. You'll discover them by being curious. And for more background, check out the Big Juicy Twitter Guide written by my friend, Caroline Middlebrook - it's here

The CHD Social Media Challenge is a project to spread Congenital Heart Defects awareness. There are 4 mini-tutorials and 1 firesale making up the challenge'. You can join in and help too - click here to see how.

1. Two dice needed: one die to determine direction traveled, the second die to determine number of miles driven in that direction
2. Drive 100 miles east from Chicago, and start the first dice roll
3. Must only drive on paved roads
4. New roll = new music
5. Game to be played for at least 10 consecutive hours
6. Map can only be used in emergencies: do not backtrack or cross a path already taken
7. Three roll vetoes allowed per person
8. Must introduce yourself to at least one new person a day

My husband Robert came up with the brilliant idea after many vacation discussions with no discernible outcomes. We'd just get in the car with a few dice, he said, and see where fate would take us. This idea was perfect for us the randomness with rules would be a reassuring way to experience spontaneity. This vacation would get us out of our predictable rut of normal activities, and be the first unplanned vacation of our marriage. Five days of uncertainty, doing our favorite vacation activity the Great American road trip.

We started the journey by leaving Chicago after rush hour one morning. We jumped in the car with some clothes thrown in a bag, iPod loaded up, and no map. At the first tollbooth, Robert attempted to introduce himself to the tollbooth operator (Rule 8) but the operator wasn't having it, and just ignored him.

A hundred miles east of our house, we got off interstate 80 and the fun began. We decided to switch off on the dice rolling, in case one of us was just luckier than the other. I rolled first. The first roll of the red square die was a number one, which equaled straight. The second die roll (a funky, bright yellow, rounded Dungeons & Dragons die with increments of 10) yielded a 90 we'd drive 90 miles straight on Highway 421 South.

Robert was next to roll the dice (and my craps-playing addiction made me shout "YO ELEVEN!" as he did it) his first roll was a five left and an 80 from the yellow die. We drove 80 miles on the highway onto which we had turned left I-74 East.

Once off the highway, the rolls continued and fate drove us on a stair-step pattern through Indiana, mainly traveling east and south. We learned that Indiana is really a lot like Illinois farmland, and decidedly rural.

We stopped for lunch when a fortuitous roll brought us to Lafayette, Indiana, where we ate at Puccini's. We decided on another rule (Rule 9) must only order new menu items at restaurants, Not only were we stuck in a vacation rut, but also a same-menu-item-ordered rut. I always get the same things, and so does Robert. I ordered a veggie pizza called Humble Pie and Robert ordered a pizza with sausage instead of his usual pepperoni. Not huge departures from normalcy, but a step in the right direction. The restaurant was pretty good except for their distracting catchphrase: "Smiling Teeth" were we at a dentist's office, or a restaurant?

After lunch, our rolls of the dice brought us closer to nowhere away from any recognizable towns or landmarks, surrounded by farmlands, fields, and nothingness. Even the paved road went away into dirt at one point, and we had to turn around to discover a real live road (Rule 3).

Indiana is dotted with signs that say "Cuz Krazy Harry Sez So." After seeing a dozen of these signs, we're still unclear on who Harry is and what exactly he's trying to say.

We reached a T-intersection in the middle of nowhere, Indiana, and realized we didn't have a rule for that. The quick thinking couple like we are, we decided a T-intersection would yield a new dice roll, new Rule 10. Good thing, too, since the next seven consecutive rolls were done at T-intersections. They sure have a lot of T-intersections in the middle of Indiana; come prepared to make decisions.

Anxiety started to set in about 4pm (or was it 3? Which time zone we were in was a bit lost on us) would we make it to somewhere with a hotel, or would we be forced to sleep in the car? Would we run out of gas before we saw a gas station? Would lonely wild dogs attack us if we got out of the car? Would we become urban legends? We drove so long without seeing a town or village, or even another car, that it felt like we had entered an alternate universe. Without a map, and usually being so rigid on our road trips with planned routes, it was a departure from reality to have no idea where we would end up.

Finally, around 7pm and after 23 rolls of the dice, four diet cokes, two refills of the gas tank, 1 veto used, and no cell service, we arrived near civilization. The highway entrance signs indicated that Cincinnati was just around the corner. Our stair-step pattern through Indiana hadn't landed us in another reality. Instead, we were at the Ohio / Kentucky border. The dice brought us to a Big Boy Restaurant, and his beaming smile invited us in. I introduced myself to our friendly waitress, Pam, with whom I shared a name (check Rule 8 completed) and she took good care of our dinner. After dinner, purchase of a souvenir Big Boy bank and a friendly photo op with the oversized Big Boy statue outside, we found a hotel for the night.

The Ramada Limited was just fine for one night, but we believe the "limited" in the name stood for limited cleaning. The hotel was in Florence, Kentucky, and the nearby red and white water tower proclaimed our location with the text "Florence Y'all." We repeated that phrase for the rest of the trip.

The random path took us around eight hours of driving from Chicago to a city that should have only taken five, but those extra three hours took us places we'd never been, off the proverbial beaten path.

The next day, we took a break from randomness for a few hours and visited the local "Kings Island" Theme Park. Neither of us had ever been there, but as children had heard magical tales of Hanna-Barbera characters like Squiddly-Diddly, Fred Flintstone and Huckleberry Hound roaming the park with awesome rollercoasters. We were excited about this visit back to our childhoods, and ready to see a character in costume other than a giant mouse. Sadly, we were disappointed to learn that Kings Island had been bought by Paramount. Now the magic was gone. Instead, it was littered with lesser Nickelodeon characters.

We consoled ourselves with corn dogs and funnel cakes and visited attractions like the Eiffel Tower, a 1/3 scale replica of the real thing that brought my fear of heights to the extreme forefront. We came back to earth and rode the brightly colored Lazytown Copters (really meant for little kids), which was exactly like being in a cartoon.

After the somewhat disappointing theme park, we decided to gamble with some additional rolls of the dice. A few lucky spins brought us out of Ohio and into Kentucky, and suddenly off the highway and straight into horse country.

The roads were different and so was the landscape a nice change from the flatlands of Indiana. The hills and valleys were mainly full of horse pastures lined with black and white fencing, the horses running or grazing in the pastures ("Out standing in their fields," I joked to Robert). The farms were immense, the houses even bigger, the barns mainly black with red roofs, and the landscape out of a great car commercial. The two-lane road was full of switchbacks, sharp turns and hills. Since the road was also missing a shoulder, our car was only narrowly able to fit on the road. It reminded us of a racing Playstation 2 video game, and with the music up loud and the windows down, we felt free.

Our afternoon passed with uneventful dice rolls, taking us across Kentucky and towards West Virginia in a pretty straight path. We drove past nuclear power plants, traffic jams in the middle of nowhere, county fairs, creeks, farms, a giant bowling pin, bridges, tunnels, a UFO-type building, castles and a river that we kept crossing, over and over.

The evening light brought us to Huntington, West Virginia, a town very proud of Marshall University and full of industrial plants lining the Ohio River. Neither of us had visited West Virginia before, and as the night descended on the city, it seemed like we were in a truly different and foreign place. We stopped at a Holiday Inn for the night. The smell of the hotel brought back childhood memories of indoor pools and chlorine-scented hair.

We slept in a bit, and woke up dreaming of bacon, so it was off to Bob Evans across the street. We both ordered different breakfasts than we normally do (biscuits and gravy for me and French toast for Robert), but I couldn't stop talking about the sign outside the restaurant reading "Bob Evans Carry Home Kitchen." Would they have pre-assembled kitchens available to carry home? And how would we get the kitchen to our house? Were they mini kitchens? The sign didn't mention food.

Reflection of the past two days brought a major turning moment in the trip. We'd had enough of the randomness and rolling of dice and not knowing where we were on the map. That was it. We were done. We went to the local gas station, bought an atlas, and decided right then and there that we were driving to the ocean. It looked so close on the map! Just a few short hours and we'd be running in the waves.

Being without a map for two days had rendered us incapable of judging distance. Something that looked only three or four hours away visually on the atlas to us turned into a nine-hour journey. This portion of the trip was very unlike the previous two days, with a different kind of anxiety setting in would we make it to the ocean before dark?

Wondering about towns named Hurricane and Tornado in West Virginia, seeing giant oil refineries, witnessing tunnel and bridge marvels of modern engineering, stopping at scenic overlooks and flying along the highway all made the time go quickly. We also are fond of the road game that my dad invented (at least, I like to think he did) called "White Horse." It's pretty simple. If you see a white horse, you yell out "White Horse!" and you get one point. I am the undisputed "White Horse" champion, and the vacation just confirmed my title.

We drove into Virginia Beach, Virginia, just as the sun was setting opposite the ocean. We checked into a hotel right on the beach with a balcony overlooking the water, and made our way down the boardwalk for dinner. Tourists were plentiful, and so was the seafood. We introduced ourselves to the hostess at Casby's and the inept waiter, meeting rule 8 for the both of us. They both looked at us like we were nuts.

The next day, the alarm went off early. We woke up in time to see the sunrise over the ocean, while fighter jets patrolled the water along with Navy destroyers deep in the distance. In Chicago, we're not witnesses to an omnipresent military as in Virginia Beach. The jets were intimidating, but they roared over our hotel room like our own personal air show.

We swam together in the ocean me with a newly purchased pink floaty-ring (I'm scared of the undertow) and Robert swimming like a fish. A few sandcastles and a sun-drenched nap later, we roused ourselves and decided it was time to return home to Chicago.

Rolling the dice and getting to the ocean seemed easy. But the thought of driving all the way home seemed close to impossible.

We washed the pesky sand off, changed, and started the journey by heading to the Chesapeake Bay Bridge / Tunnel combo. The 20-mile long bridge is huge, much bigger than any regular Illinois bridge. We stopped at the restaurant on the bridge for a cheeseburger. The windows overlooked the navy ships in the bay, and we bought cheesy souvenirs in the way-too-crowded gift shop. Sunday is a popular day for souvenir shopping.

We drove up the Eastern Shore towards Delaware. The terrain was different again farmlands near the ocean growing tomatoes and sunflowers, not many trees. The road was crowded with trucks hauling millions of tomatoes away from the farms. Who doesn't love a good tomato, besides Robert?

We were surprised to learn that, much like Indiana, fireworks are completely legal in Virginia. And Virginians are proud of their ham. We saw a ton of roadside stands with enthusiastic signs, proclaiming the wonder of their hams. "I like the fireworks / ham combination" Robert remarked. You could buy fireworks alongside a juicy Virginia ham, one-stop shopping for the busy pyromaniac carnivore.

We continued our homeward-bound journey on Interstate 70 after Annapolis. We looked at each other around 4pm. "Is it crazy to drive straight through the night to Chicago?" we asked each other. Yes, it was crazy, we decided, but that's kind of how this vacation was going. Random craziness. And when was the last time we drove all night, or even stayed up all night, for that matter? Nothing seemed absurd at that point.

The sun set over Pennsylvania and we kept driving.

The heavy moon rose and we decided the night would forever be known as "Night of a Thousand Skunks," one of which may or may not have been under the hood of our car. It was that stinky.

I watched the stars turning from the car's moon roof.

Gas stations are inherently creepy at 3am, no matter where you are.

The sun rose over Indiana, and we kept driving.

We hit Chicago rush hour traffic at about 6:30am. Robert was driving, and battled his sleepiness bravely, while I fell asleep sitting up straight in the passenger seat.

It all started with the rules. The road-trip vacation was different because it was so random, unplanned and unpredictable. Who would have guessed we'd end up at the ocean? We saw many new sights, visited new states, ate new foods and met new people. When we think back, it was a dichotomy between random and rules. We started with the rules, but ended up in randomness.

Next time, we're going West.

Pamela Morgan works as a producer and reality facilitator in the corporate meeting world. Recently transplanted to the western suburbs after 15 years of living in Chicago, you can read about her new home adventures at yobotsnewhouse.com.

Lijit provides a search widget that lets blog publishers offer a way for readers to search all of their online activity -- blog posts, photos, videos, twitter updates, bookmarks, social network profiles, etc. -- as well as their sphere of influencers, via their blog roll. So, for example, say you're knowledgeable about deep sea fishing and someone searches your Lijit for the best place to catch sailfish. Your Lijit might return blog posts you've written, those from bloggers you read, charter boat companies you've bookmarked, and images you've uploaded of fish you've caught, giving the searcher a complete view of your knowledge on the subject.

When visitors arrive on your blog via a search result, the widget also prepares a menu of additional content from your network based on the keywords they used to find your page. (For example, check out this Google search and click on the first result from the "false precision" blog, which is written by Lijit's CEO. The Lijit widget is in the top left corner of the blog.)

"BigSwerve's technology helps Lijit further discover the implicit and explicit expertise surrounding a publisher," said Lijit CEO Todd Vernon in a press release. "To date, blog comments have represented a huge amount of user-generated content that has gone largely undiscovered and underutilized."

Lijit plans to integrate BigSwerve's IP in two ways. "Where a publisher leaves comments is an indication of the network of publishers he influences and is influenced by," Todd Vernon told me by email. Currently, Ligit uses information such as blogroll and MyBlogLog to figure out how publishers are connected, but adding comments to the mix will let the company see where its users hang out passively.

The company also plans to use BigSwerve's IP to expand their knowledge of publishers in general, and how they influence one another. "The community of people that leaves comments on a blog or publication often includes others that are not publishers themselves. Think of them as light weight publishers," Vernon said. "This extends our knowledge of these people and what metrics of influence they have on the publishers in our network."

One of the selling points for Lijit to publishers is that the widget provides a bevy of useful statistics about your readers: where they're from, what they're looking for, which of your content they found most useful. (Example stats.) Adding comments to the mix should help Lijit mine more useful metrics for publishers about their readers and how they interact with their blog.

According to Vernon, the average publisher in the Lijit network is connected to 17 other publishers through 1 hop, and 325 via two hops, giving them an amazing overview of how interconnected the blogosphere is and who weilds the most influence (obviously, their data gets stronger as the sample size goes up -- or in this case, as more people use the service). Further, the average publisher has 5 other sources of information, with the most popular being del.icio.us, Flickr, and YouTube, which gives Lijit insight into how publishers are splitting their time. Further, Lijit can also determine on which sources people are putting out the most useful information based on user response.

Clearly, in addition to utility offered to bloggers in the form of a rather helpful personal search product, Lijit is also a very clever data mining project (or at least, has the potential to be).

Via the BigSwerve acquisition, BigSwerve investor First Round Capital will become a shareholder in Lijit.

With the invention of modern laptops, ubiqity of broadband Internet access, and advances in communication software, there is no longer a need to be in the office. At least not everyday. Thousands of companies are rolling out work from home policies and hundreds of thousands of people are starting to take advantage of them. What are the pros and cons of working from home? In this post we take a close look, as well as discuss what lies ahead for this new, rapidly growing generation.

The Good Things About Working from Home

1. No commute

If you live in the suburbs and work in the city, it is likely that it takes you 30 minutes or more each day to get to and from work. In the particularly busy metropolitan areas like New York, Washington, DC, and Atlanta, you are lucky if your commute is under an hour each way. Commuting takes time and energy (spending time in traffic is particularly draining). It is routine and boring and rarely productive or relaxing. Having no commute simply means more time to do things that you could not do otherwise.

For most people the ability to spend more time with their spouses and children is invaluable. Even a simple thing like having lunch and dinner together is big and game changing. In addition to spending time with your family, working from home makes it easier to exercise. It is a no-brainer to trade off the hour that you spend squeezed on the bus for an hour lifting weights or running on the treadmill.

2. Flexibility

Working from home likely implies flexible hours. Unless you have specific meetings scheduled you can take off a few times during the day as long as you get things done. Taking kids to an activity, getting shopping or errands out of the way, and enjoying a run outside or in the gym are the things that can be incorporated into the work-from-home schedule. For a lot of people, combining exercise and work is a challenge because their bodies do not respond well to a morning exercise regimen and they get home too late to go to the gym in the evening. Having flexible hours is a huge benefit for these people because they can exercise during the time of the day which suits them best.

3. Saving money and the environment

In addition to being able to spend more time with the family, having no commute has another big benefit - financial savings. With the cost of gasoline going through the roof, not having to drive is important for everyone. And we are talking big savings. If a tank of gas costs you $50 and lasts a week, cutting that in half gets you a cool $100 a month. The work-from-home folks also save money on food. Even in the cheapest corporate cafeterias lunch is generally going to cost around $7. At home, if you are stingy, you can spend $2 on a tasty lunch. This is easily another $100 per month is savings.

Working from home also has a global environmental benefit. By commuting less we save energy and reduce pollution. This is one of those rare moments when humans are in harmony with the planet - what is good for us, is good for the environment as well.

4. Increased productivity

Perhaps one of the most suprising benefits of working from home is that it can actually increase productivity. Assuming that your home office environment is conducive to work and you are able to focus, more work is going to get done. If you can't focus on work with home distractions (kids, lure of TV, etc.), you may want to rethink working at home in the first place.

A typical office environment is noisy, people are talking, phones are ringing, co-workers are coming by to chat, and there are always crowds near the coffee and soda machines. At home, these distractions are not going to be present. In addition, when working from home you will be focused more on your work instead of office politics. Playing politics and kissing up to the boss is not easily done over the phone, so people will get more work done instead.

The Bad Things About Working from Home

1. Brainstorming is difficult

Probably the biggest challenge in working from home is communication. When humans communicate a lot of information is conveyed via body language and that is lost when communicating via phone or Skype. This is particularly challenging for creative types and during brainstorming sessions.

Regular, more dry things like status updates and simple informational conversations are not a problem, but the activities that require passion and a blackboard are still better done in person.

2. You never leave work

Another danger of working from home is never leaving work. Since work is always right there, some people will be tempted to check email and work whenever they have a chance. And it is not because these people are workaholics, but rather, it is because there is always stuff to do.

For many, this is not going to be an issue, but for some people it will become one. This may offset the benefit of spending time with your family, as they will only see you next to your computer.

3. Entropy is after you

No matter how much of a misanthrope you are there is such a thing as entropy and it will catch up with you sooner or later. The dynamics of an office work environment stimulate us in ways that are not going to be present when working from home.

Each interaction brings in human subtleties and brings an opportunity for creative thought and innovation. When working at home these stimuli will not be there and everyone is going to get bored, sooner or later. The antidote is to get out of the house - work from a local coffee shop that has wifi, and once in a while go to the office and talk to your co-workers in person.

What's Next?

There are certainly challenges to working from home, but the benefits out-weigh them for many people. More companies and people are beginning to discover that working from home does more good than bad, as it introduces flexibility into people's schedule without impacting their productivity. The bottom line is that things get done and people are happier.

In terms of innovation and the technologies that are likely to evolve to help support work from home environments, there are several areas. We have previously written about basic software for virtual teams, as well as how to assemble an online office. But there is still certainly a lot of room for better tools for the at home workforce. From better brainstorming tools to video conferencing there are opportunities to innovate to make virtual collaboration smooth and painless.

And now, as always, we'd love to hear your input. Are you working from home now? If not, would you like to? What do you think are the pros and cons of working from home?

Your Email Signature

Stick a link to your blog or podcast in your email signature. Here's a hint, though. If your email signature looks like the titles at the end of a movie (7-15 lines long), people are going to glaze over them, not pore through them in great detail. The second thing in my signature after my name is a simple text pointer to my website. Everything else, including my title and phone number, are downstream from that.

Subscription Tools

If you're not using FeedBurner, you're missing a ton of tools that help people get your media the way they want it. FeedBurner is a tool that enriches your RSS feed. But it does more than that. It adds ways for people to subscribe by email, ways for people to get your media on their reader of choice, and tons and tons of other add-on services like republishing widgets, and more. If you're not comfortable editing your blog's template and files, you might ask around for help (Twitter would surface a lot of willing helpers- or go to a PodCamp and someone would help), but swapping out the built-in RSS feeds on a website for FeedBurner's even-more-detailed feeds would be helpful.

Blog and Podcast Directories

There are tons of places where blogs and podcasts are listed. Rather than recreate the wheel, I googled for some directories list posts:

Blog directories

Podcast directories

I recommend subscribing to a bunch, though I've yet to receive a message or comment from someone saying, I found you on Super Blog Directory dot com! But hey, it doesn't hurt.

Oh! One point to make sure you've done it. CLAIM your blog/podcast with Technorati. It looks like you need to get an account, and then you can claim it here .

Comments are Your Friend

Reading big blogs and podcasts that you admire, and commenting appropriately is a great way to build some awareness of your blog or podcast. I've had lots of people surf over from a comment I've left on a big and amazing site, only to retain that person as someone who thinks what I'm blogging about is of interest to them. Never spam a blog. Never sound overly self-promotional. But if you add a conversation point or two that people resonate with, there are tons of folks (like me!) who will follow through, and consider adding your blog to the feed reader for a while.

Use Social Bookmarking Tools

Most blogs allow you to add on 3rd party applications, and one that I *highly* recommend is AddThis. If your blogging software supports AddThis, I'd say use it. (You might use a similar tool, and it's probably okay). Add This gives you 36 social bookmarking sites all in a teeny tiny button. Thus, if your audience uses a bookmarking tool on ANY of 36 sites, your post can be added to their information quite easily.

Some of these sites are GREAT traffic adders. The #3 referral mechanism to my site is StumbleUpon, so I can tell you for sure that these tools drive awareness.

Facebook

I was just about to scrap using Facebook entirely, but then Steve Rubel sent me a quick message telling me that he first discovered my blog through Facebook. The minute he said that, I realized that Facebook's big value to me would be to redistribute my blog so that even more people might discover it and come back to the mother ship.

I'm using an application called Flog Blog, and also Blog Friends to promote my own stuff. I also use Feed Heads and some other tools to discover other people's work. (Remember, this SHOULD be a two way street).

A Short Note on Digg

Not sure why, and not sure if it's just me, but Digg has never really done much for my blog. I've made the Digg front page a few times now, and the folks who usually come over from Digg don't stay, and often tell me what a piece of crap my site is. Not that I mind critics, but I also don't rush out to invite them in. Your mileage may vary.

Value Matters

At the end of the day, the reason why people will or won't subscribe to your media is that they find some value in it. In a few small cases, they might subscribe because they know you and just want to stay in touch. But for attracting people that aren't your friends or relatives, you need to offer something of value. I've had people ask me how to promote their blog, only to read nothing but random posts about why they liked last night's episode of Dancing with the Stars, a YouTube video of dogs singing, etc.

It's not that your blog HAS to be about any specific thing, but if you're looking for tons of traffic, the blog should have some value outside your own interests. If you want to stay blogging about whatever it is that appeals to you, that's perfectly cool, and I'm not saying don't. But if you want to take your media up to tons more folks, try to deliver something to others, and try to do it succinctly.

How Are YOU Promoting Your Media?

Guaranteed that I've missed some good ideas, and that you've got some great ones. What else are you doing to get your media out there and seen? How are you finding your audience? We'd love to hear your ideas. What's worked for you? What hasn't?

The Social Media 100 is a project by Chris Brogan dedicated to writing 100 useful blog posts in a row about the tools, techniques, and strategies behind using social media for your business, your organization, or your own personal interests. Swing by [chrisbrogan.com] for more posts in the series, and if you have topic ideas, feel free to share them, as this is a group project, and your opinion matters.

Get the entire series by subscribing to this blog.

All economists know that when American jobs are outsourced, Americans as a group are net winners. What we lose through lower wages is more than offset by what we gain through lower prices...
Suppose, after years of buying shampoo at your local pharmacy, you discover you can order the same shampoo for less money on the Web. Do you have an obligation to compensate your pharmacist? If you move to a cheaper apartment, should you compensate your landlord? When you eat at McDonald's, should you compensate the owners of the diner next door? Public policy should not be designed to advance moral instincts that we all reject every day of our lives.
In what morally relevant way, then, might displaced workers differ from displaced pharmacists or displaced landlords?...
If you're forced to pay $20 an hour to an American for goods you could have bought from a Mexican for $5 an hour, you're being extorted. When a free trade agreement allows you to buy from the Mexican after all, rejoice in your liberation -- even if Mr. McCain, Mr. Romney and the rest of the presidential candidates don't want you to.

Well, for one thing, this isn't a matter of morality, it's a matter of equity, not to mention enlightened self-interest. And for another thing, it's entirely consistent to both rejoice in being able to buy cheaper goods, and attempt to help out those who have lost their jobs as a result.

But it doesn't really matter: I suspect that Landsburg lost about 95% of his readers when he found himself forced to start his argument with an "all economists know that" sentence.

Update: Rodrik weighs in.

A couple weeks ago, my hard drive went belly-up and I had to restore everything from backups (thank you SuperDuper). Restoring from a crash is like moving to a new apartment. You can cargo cult and just move everything from point A to point B, or you can take the opportunity to reevaluate what you should keep and what you should toss.

This reminded me of a tip Jason told me for unpacking from a move. The idea is you dump all the packed boxes into the middle of the living room. Then you take things out one-by-one only as you feel the need for them. After a couple weeks of unpacking only what you need, you discover the rest of the pile is prime material for donations or the dumpster.

I loved the idea. And my hard drive crash was the perfect chance to test it on my overgrown music collection.

So here's what I did.

1. I made my living room pile. I found the iTunes Music Library folder on my backup and copied it to my Desktop as a folder named Music.

2. I opened iTunes and kept it completely blank. I set it to Album View to replicate my CD shelf of yore. Then I waited for an itch.

3. When a craving hit, I opened my Music folder on the Desktop, found the Album I wanted, and dropped it into iTunes.

Two weeks later, I have a beautiful hand-picked selection of Albums in iTunes. And since that Music folder only takes up 4848 pixels on my Desktop, I'll leave it there as long as I want as an Archive in case a rare itch hits.

You don't need a hard drive disaster to replicate this tip. Just copy ~/Music/iTunes/iTunes Music/ to your Desktop and rename it Music. Then inside iTunes, delete everything. Wait for the itch, and start cherry-picking your own small music collection. Enjoy!

NOTE FROM DANNY: We've talked with Wired about the situation, and they are putting a robots.txt block on links coming out of the wiki so that links won't pass credit. Also, our apologies to Wired in that we've ended up causing a run on the wiki with new pages being created. That was definitely not our intent -- the headline of getting a free link, and the article itself, was more tongue-in-cheek about how the system was and might further get abused, rather than advice for people to really misuse the wiki for promotional purposes. I don't agree with that type of abuse in general, and as someone who has had to deal with it in comments or submissions to our forums, it's no fun. In hindsight, we probably should have just dropped a note pointing out the vulnerability. We've also asked that our test page be completely removed -- it has served its purpose now.

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