ryan l.

Got a little behind with all of the holiday distractions. Hope those of you who graciously take the time to visit my blog had a wonderful holiday full of good food, friends and family. Now, back to business, hopefully without upsetting anyone this time.
Steve Rubel, apparently my favorite blogger to link to thus far, again has some interesting thoughts — this time on the future of RSS. He says of the next year in RSS’s future: “It will be bolted into all kinds of connected devices, from cell phones to Sling Boxes to point of purchase displays. In addition, all kinds of new information will find its way into feeds, not just news and blogs.”

It’s that last part that really has my attention. Real Simple Syndication’s focus has been in the news arena - whether that be blogger written news or that from the “professionals”. But what else can be incorporated into feeds? Seemingly any kind of information, right?

This point was on display upon my most recent visit to Best Buy. I’m assuming I was just naive to the fact that RSS has made headway in retail, but I was shocked to notice that it was built into the store’s inventory systems. I had a hard time finding a specific music cd and had an employee check its stock for the particular item and, when searching for it, the results were displayed by RSS. Pretty cool stuff.

Real Simple Sydication, however “simple”, seems to be revolutionizing the way we track and find information. It’s just a shame that not that many Internet users are utilizing this increasingly convenient tool.

I will say this much though: If blogging is to find a permanent place in the world of news and information, then RSS is the ticket. Pajamas Media, which has caused a bit of a blogosphere ruckus lately, has the right idea, but the news portal model will die and aggregation will overtake it. It’s only a matter of time before news sites exist solely to provide the feeds of information instead of a standalone site dedicated to such.

I think I just made a prediction! Don’t crucify me.

Technorati Tags: RSS, blogging, pajamasmedia

Just wanted to do a quick post to clarify one point. Here I am, four or five posts into this new blog and I’ve already seem have gotten under someone’s skin. Sorry about that Matthew. I didn’t say that comment search hadn’t been considered. If I did that, I would basically be saying it was my original idea, and we know that is far, far, faaar from the truth. I will admit, after re-reading, it does seem to imply that. However, I did end what I said with “it’s coming, I know,” as seen below.

In my mind, the logical progression was, first, internet search, then blog search, but with that did not come comment search. They’re part of the postings, blogs, and most importantly, the conversation. This means they have to be part of search, and they definitely have to part of measurment. To ignore comments is like listening to a telephone conversation, but only hearing one end of it and not asking what the person on the other end said. We know what the long tail is, so why can’t we measure it? It’s coming, I know.

As a consumer I have a right to expect, or at least hope for certain things, however unreasonable the expectation may seem to those who help make it happen. I don’t work in blog search or have knowledge of the technical side of things, but it was just my opinion as a consumer. I’m just sorry you were offended, or so it would seem.

Thanks for the link though, even if it was to call me out.

Before I get to the point of this post, I just have say that I really like the Performancing extension for Firefox, but for some reason it stopped functioning. Performancing came out with their 1.0.1 version with some nice new additions, but when I downloaded and installed it, it didn’t work. The little pad of paper and pencil in the bottom right of the browser is gone. The right-click “blog this” functionality is gone. And, it still says that the extension will be installed when I exit the browser and re-open it. Right, did that already. Oh well. Not that big of a deal really. It’s a nice extension, but I can certainly get by without it. We all did before, no?

Anyway, on to something else. I was doing some lazy day reading today, catching up on some of the blogs that I usually follow but just haven’t had the time to keep track of anymore and took the time to read some of Steve Rubel’s thoughts over at Micropersuasion on what we can expect in 2006. Not bad, Steve, not bad. I especially agree with this statement:

“Still, shockingly, every single blog search engine is missing out on the next great opportunity. They’re focusing solely on searching blogs. They’re building great tools for bloggers, but they’re failing to recognize that what we all need is a way to search the entire conversation. This is where the blog search war will be fought in the months ahead.”

This could not be more true. In some blogosphere monitoring we do for various clients, comments are a huge part of measuring the pulse or sentiment of those writing about the company or product. Is it a tedious process milling through all of the comments to find those two or three nice nuggets? You bet it is. Are comments invaluable sources of feedback that only extend the long tail of conversations in the blogosphere? Hell yes they are.

It is almost an understatement to say that someone already in the game of blog search - Technorati, Google, Yahoo!, Ice Rocket (come on Mark!) - or some new startup or other innovative company needs to step up and fill a great need. Mining blog posts for valuable comment content is a process that we surely will see simplified in the future, maybe even next year. But I still can’t get away from one question: what is taking so long?

In my mind, the logical progression was, first, internet search, then blog search, but with that did not come comment search. They’re part of the postings, blogs, and most importantly, the conversation. This means they have to be part of search, and they definitely have to part of measurment. To ignore comments is like listening to a telephone conversation, but only hearing one end of it and not asking what the person on the other end said. We know what the long tail is, so why can’t we measure it? It’s coming, I know.

On a side note: when speaking of measurement, how come there is such a notable difference between the results of “trend” searches on Ice Rocket and that of Technorati? Maybe what is needed is a little bit of collaborative innovation. Psh, that probably won’t ever happen, but one can hope.

Technorati Tags: Performancing, blog search, blogging

Ok. So, a couple of posts back I was critical of the new Performancing blogging extension for Firefox. But I must say, I’m using it now and quickly reconsidering my initial thoughts.

Originally, I was critical of the lack of tagging, but that’s been fixed. Check. I was also critical of dragging and dropping text from a Web site into the blog editor because when you do pull something into a post it’s just as if you copied and pasted — there’s no noticeable indentation or indication that they aren’t my words. Nit-picky on my part? Yeah, probably a little.

Spell check is still missing, however, after checking out the Performancing site I see that you can download a plug-in or something to remedy that issue. I will go ahead and ask the obvious question here: why not just integrate it with the extension? **Jed, I would assume you’re all over this.

So, I’d say by not giving up on the extension after my initial knee-jerk reaction, it’s paying off. Performancing is a very nice, and quite polished blog editor. Needs improvement as does any other extension or software, but I understand that will come in time.

As far as potentially hurting other browser’s chances go, I’d venture to say that people should think bigger picture. Firefox is fantastic, there is no denying it, and clearly it carries with it a large community of innovators who are presumably continually re-writing code and attempting to improve the Firefox browsing experience. But that’s just it, I think what others are trying to get at is the bigger picture, not just extensions. It seems that they’re trying to integrate everything into the browser to make surfing the Web and contributing to it as seamless as possible. It’s just a shame that with the arrival of this new extension everyone feels the need to create controversy when there really is none. Open source people, open….source! It’s the nature of the beast.

Me? I’m a big picture kind of guy, and I’m perfectly content testing out everything. The browser market has plenty of room to grow after having been stagnant for so long. I’ll sit back in anticipation of what is coming next and from whom.

Technorati Tags: Performancing, firefox, blogging

I’m using the new Performancing blogging extension for Firefox to post this entry. In my last post I was critical of the extension because it still lacks some of the features I feel is necessary for an in-browser blog editor. Nevertheless, I’m giving it another shot, because, to be honest, I didn’t even post with it. Anyway, time for discussion of something else.

I’m SO tired of the entire debate about “Intelligent Design” versus evolution. It’s tired. Why can’t people just get over it? I’m not a religious man. I was raised Catholic and received my first communion, but have since decided to remove myself from the entire scene because I think religion is too manipulative. Religion was created for those who need it, not everyone. So, I don’t see any real reason to practice because I’m stable, happy, successful, and not left with a wanting feeling at the end of the day. Fine. Good for me, right? Well, yes, good for me. I’m different though — I don’t think there are many people like me. I was raised with religion in my life, not in it now, but don’t have a problem with indidviduals or groups that value it.

I actually believe that having an understanding of our World’s religions is infinitely important knowledge to possess. I believe there is a place for it in schools. Educating our youth about religion does not mean the teacher or educational institution is advocating one ideology over another. Our society has turned into a hyper-sensitive piece of crap. The minorities have become more powerful than the majorities and, in my view, that is very dangerous.

The debate between Intelligent Design, which is a beautiful piece of wordsmithing, and evolution is unnecessary. Religion has been engrained in human existance for more years than anyone living has seen. Why debate it? Let it exist in an educational environment, but control it. There is no reason why Christianity, the World’s most popular religion with 2 billion followers, should be anything less than the focal point in classroom discussion — but it isn’t. Liberal psychopaths in our country’s educational system have co-opted the entire thing and altered the landscape. This needs to change, but unfortunately, there isn’t a real Conservative in office that has the balls to actually change the World. Dissappointing? Absolutely.

Religion is religion, always will be. Most religions have been around for at least a couple thousand years, so why not ensure that our children understand the beauty and shortcomings of the World’s religions? Isn’t that what education is about? Well, not in present time. Education is warped — it’s the Liberal bootcamp, preparing our kids for adulthood full of misguided thought and destructive behavior. Where did morality go? Why do we have to care about everyone’s feelings, like religion haters, when the vast majority of people are religious? Perfect example: “Happy Holidays” OR “Merry Christmas”?

Merry Christmas.

I heard about the Yankees signing Johnny Damon to a four-year, $52 million deal to play center field for them yesterday and just couldn’t believe it. Talk about sacraligious. How do you go from winning a World Series with the Bo-Sox to the F’in’ Yankees? I’m sure I speak for a lot of people when I say that I’m so tired of the Yankees. They spend all the money and teams like the Oakland A’s spend a fraction of the price and, minus the titles, does pretty damn well for themselves. Steinbrener needs a few classes in spend management before he drives himself into bankruptcy.

Anyway, on to the main reason I wrote this. Johnny Damon, as we have all noticed, went from clean-cut, young hustlin’ ball player to Jesus look-alike / caveman wannabe in a matter of a couple years. I think it was that collision in Oakland during the playoffs a few years back that knocked a screw loose. Well, I’m not sure how many people have realized this, but Mr. Damon is going to have to take the old razor to his full beard and the scissors to his past-shoulder-length hair if he expects to play for the Yankees. George doesn’t play around, Johnny! They have an image of overpaid “gentleman” to uphold afterall. Just look at how Giambi cleaned up (hair-wise, because we know he was still juicing) when he started with the Yanks. You’re in for a trip to the barber Johnny.

So three cheers for baseball’s latest traitor, Johnny Damon. Great player, seemingly nice person, money-hungry center fielder. Time to go from caveman to a clean shavin’ 12-year-old.

I spent the majority of last night playing around with the StumbleUpon extension for Firefox. And man, what a riot. I had such a good time cruisin’ around, checking out all of the sites I was randomly sent to.

It’s quite simple really. You just download the extension here and install it and you’re all set. Upon restarting the browser the Stumble! button appears as part of your toolbar. You can customize a little bit by specifying some basic interests like online games or open source and the results you receive when clicking through are tailored to your input.

I found so many fun little online games that I ended up spending the last two and a half hours of the night messing around with them. Sure, not my most productive two+ hours, but fun nonetheless.

In other extension news, the Flock browser just took a mild blow to its competitive edge over Firefox which, from my view, is the only browser that is out there that can compete with the Flock browser. Essentially, Firefox (Barry Bonds of 1993) versus Flockfox (Barry Bonds of present day), make sense? Read up on Flock for a little bit more context than I’m in the mood to give right now. Ok, the point: the Performancing boys took a crack at replicating the functionality the Flockers were brilliant enough to already include in their browser. They made an extension that allows a person to blog directly within the browser.

Although a great extension, it has a long way to go in order to render Flock useless. The Peformancing for Firefox extension doesn’t allow you to create new tags, nor does it include the drag and drop utility like Flock. With Flock, when you drag text from an article or any other Web page, it automatically creates a block quote, and with this extension you don’t get that. Their version of drag and drop is just as useful as ctrl+c –> ctrl+v, a.k.a, copy/paste. I would imagine though that improvements to the extension will be made over time and these missing utilities will be added. So, Flockers, what says you about this? Anything interesting up those sleeves, or should I say under those feathers?

So here we are. This is the fourth blog I’ve created and, thus far, the reason for me burning through URLs and services like some men burn through relationships is because I’m just not disciplined. I have plenty of spare time, but never seemed to prioritize maintaining a blog into the agenda. Usually the priority list goes: sleep, work, tv, “extracurricular activities that aren’t blogging”, sleep, otra vez. I’ve finally decided that I can’t keep going like that with as young as I am and with as much life I still have ahead of me. As of now, I’m just wasting the days and nights doing unproductive things. Yes, blogging might not always be the most productive use of time. However, the way I see it, I’ll at least be fine-tuning my writing and keeping my mind active instead of shutting off when I walk through the door.

Considering my habit of not conforming to typical ideals or habits, I’ve decided to continue that trend by starting a blog where I will not reveal my true identity, nor will I discuss specifically my career and the clients whom I work with. I will say this much: I work in public relations for a hi-tech firm. This may seem trivial to most, or even down-right immature or stupid, but I’m not one for being controlled. As of now, I can’t guarantee to my employer that they will love or even like anything I contribute to this blog, so its existance is frankly none of their business.

Will I try to make the content respectable and interesting? Sure. Will it always be rated G, PG or PG-13? Probably not, but who knows, maybe I’ll share this with my family or friends. I suppose I should share it with them, considering this blog has no topical direction, thus limiting the possible audience I could hope to attract. So, I’ll leave it at that for this first boring and nearly pointless post.

Til’ next time, kiddies.