ryan l.

Just an additional thought on Google Reader … maybe more of a request. As Reader gains more marketshare, it would be great if the team could create a way to aggregate the most shared items. Much like Digg or Techmeme does for hot stories. Now that is a feed I’d subscribe to or a page I would visit constantly. Instead of subscribing to individual feeds of shared pages, why not figure out a way to consolidate all of the stuff that people find interesting or compelling? Maybe I’m rehashing an idea someone else has already thought of, but if that’s the case, then it can be looked at as a request.

It would be a more interesting and insightful Techmeme (imho) since it would pass through the filters, surely, of many smart people.

Blockbuster is struggling. We all know this. Companies like Netflix are putting an end to a business, and business model, that has proven successful for the last 23 years, but has failed to evolve appropriately with the changing marketplace. The company is now desperate.

We all read, viewed, and experienced the “no late fees” campaign, which actually ended up being misleading. The company made some changes, tried to communicate more clearly that “no late fees” didn’t actually mean “none.” Awesome.

Well, Bryn and I rented a couple of movies a week or so ago. Like most people, we got lazy and didn’t return them for maybe three or four days past the return date. We thought everything was cool.

Today, I checked my account balance following the payment of some bills and noticed a $23 charge from Blockbuster. How amusing. The charges were for … wait for it … late fees.

The company is clearly desperate; clinging to any and all opportunities to steal from its customer base.

Now Blockbuster, is that any way to turn it around? I think not. Now I just need some recommendations for which package is most appropriate from Netflix because I’ll never go back to Blockbuster. The company can go bankrupt for all I care.

Good luck.

I love Google Reader. It’s simple, effective, and has very few issues. But this post isn’t about Reader, but rather it’s sharing feature, which so many love, myself included.

I do a lot of reading, both blogs and traditional stuff, and love to share the posts/articles I find interesting, even if no one reads them. It’s just a nice way to catalog things I either want to read again in the future or just keep track of if I need to cite a source. The problem comes when I’m not subscribed to the feed of an outlet that produces one of these posts I want to share. For instance, this one. I want to share it, or bookmark it if you will, but since I don’t subscribe to that particular RSS feature, my options are limited. I don’t want to subscribe just to share, it’s not that important, but it’s something I’d like the ability to do.

I wish the Google Reader team would create a bookmarklet, or something similar, that would enable to me to share posts that I don’t subscribe to. It would totally increase the utility of the product, at least for me.

But maybe I’m missing something that already exists (?).

You know, it’s funny, usually when you’re in the process of making a buying decision you seek out the most expert advice you can possibly find in an effort to narrow down the choices. You go with knowledge, experience … expertise. At the same time, you usually don’t rely solely on one person’s opinion. You also ask around - friends, colleagues, other people you know own and use the product for an additional perspective. This is usually where the power of word of mouth really comes to the fore and becomes an impactful thing.

I experienced this first-hand recently. I was in the process of making the leap from a standard point-and-shoot camera to a DSLR. A big jump if you even have the slightest clue about the differences between them. So, of course, this wasn’t a decision I took lightly - we’re talking a $900+ decision, after all. What did I do? I first went to the person I knew would have a strong opinion and solid facts (and experience) to back it up - my father-in-law, a veteran photographer with 25+ years in the biz. Surely he would provide me with the “most expert advice I could find,” right? Of course the man came through with some solid recommendations. So, off I went to the next step: to find the users. This didn’t mean  I found my father-in-law’s advice useless, it simply meant that I knew his opinion had to be slightly biased (he said himself he made a manufacturer decision back in the day and has become a loyalist) and I wanted to hear from the people using an alternative to, say, a Canon 30D or bettter.

I looked for the Nikon users because that, in my view, was the next best (if not better) manufacturer after Canon. Luckily I work with a few Nikon users and was able to get some great information out of them.

It was with all of this information and opinions in tow that I then moved to my next box to check: quality. My father-in-law had mentioned that the difference for an amateur between Nikon and Canon was negligible and that I’d be safe with either manufacturer, but that he also favored Canon due to his many years using cameras made by the company. Fair enough. I took to flickr in search of some comparisons - both price and image quality - and he was right. I couldn’t tell much of a difference between images taken with each camera and actually came to realize that it’s more the lens and the photographer that make the photo, not necessarily the camera.

This left me with one last hurdle: price. Since the differences for me were negligible, where could I find the best deal and what could that deal get me (I really didn’t care) became the next question. Turns out that B&H had a great deal on a Nikon D80 that came with two lenses. This price and package bested any other I found (and I wouldn’t have to pay sales tax). Based on all of the information I had gathered, expert and amateur, I made my buying decision. The Nikon D80, in all of its too-much-camera-for-me-to-handle glory, now sits on my coffee table just begging to be used.

In my case, the deciding factors for this purchase in order of weight and importance were as follows: recommendations based on use and experience, quality, price and package.

Despite, not in spite of, my father-in-law’s vague advice (he mostly outlined my options with a slight leaning to Canon) I went with Nikon not only because the price and package were right, but mostly because I talked to (and read reviews from) more than five people who wholeheartedly endorsed the product as solid, trustworthy, and of high quality.

How could I ignore that? It’s not to say that Canons are no good, it’s simply that the power of recommendation is … well … powerful. Plus I have access to more lenses this way.

In this case, a word of mouth concept motivated a buying decision. Could it be that Nikon’s efforts at jumpstarting its blogger relations reviews program for the D80 had influence or sway over the recommendations I was given? Possibly. Point is, if you’re a company trying to sell a solid product, you shouldn’t have to do more than empower your users and sit back and watch them evangelize for you. This situation is optimum, and hard to achieve, but when the product speaks for itself, even the so-called expert’s can sometimes (most times) find themselves unable to sway opinion.

Bonus: I’m an elitist asshole (it’s what I do best, right?) Apparently when you don’t follow “expert” advice, you anger the person that gave it and instantly become an elitist in their eyes because you chose what they view to be an “elitist camera”. Huh? An elitist camera? Why is it that in calling me out, the expert sounds like the elitist?

WOM trumps expertise every time, son.

With the rise of Twitter and the like, it seems that bloggers, to a great degree, have forgotten that short blog posts can be just as valuable and effective when literally published to a blog as they can in 140 characters or less. It’s with that thought in mind that I put this simple yet intriguing (imho) question out there:

When does “new media” become un-new?

Ok, so I made up a word here, but new media may never become old since it’s constantly evolving, but as time goes on and more and more people begin picking up on social media concepts and tools, when do these things move from being considered new to not new, or un-new?

The best example I have is found in how long Voce has been in the social media game - we’re going on four years now, or so - and it makes me wonder why we need to continue referring to concepts that are relatively dated, at least to some, as ‘new’.

Maybe we should just settle on “social media” as the blanket descriptor of what we do and start referring to those just getting started as “new to social media”? Ok, maybe that’s a little condescending … you get the idea.

After nearly eight years of a president I, admittedly, helped put in office, I can agree with everyone else that the ‘08 election couldn’t come faster. But, on a day like today, when many state electorates hit the polls, it’s certainly healthy to think about your motivations for voting and for whom.

Following my ill-fated alignment with so-called conservatives, I went indie this year in an effort to free myself from the mental obligations of voting for “my party”. Why be constrained by what you’re “supposed” to do, right?

So, on this Super Tuesday, vote with your head and not your heart. We need government that has heart, but governs with its head.

Why shouldn’t we vote that way?

And, no matter who wins, no matter whether I voted for them or not, they will be my president. You won’t see any nonsensical bumper stickers on my car …

Part of my life reset starts here on this blog, but in order to get started I need to repost some of my old stuff that I actually deleted when I was trying to overhaul everything … yes, I deleted about 90+ blog entries and was only able to save those from the early days, but I do have an archive of a few more recent ones. So, those are going up, especially one about my wife’s friend that died last Summer. The most upsetting part about deleting that entry was losing the comments left by her friends and family that, in effect, turned the post into a memorial of sorts.

I have to find a way to get back to those. Maybe the internet archive has them by now … we’ll see.

UPDATE: Well, what a shame. I thought I still had Ecto installed, which is where these alleged posts were living offline, but turns out I deleted it because I wasn’t using it. Totally forgot. On to Archive.org … nothing. Only stuff from April 2007 … not what I was looking for. Damn it.

Starting over sure does feel good. Whether it be in life, at work, in your love life, or just resetting your routine. It’s nice to start anew. The problem is that it’s easy to talk about starting over, but harder to follow through and actually do it. Often you fall back in to what is comfortable and familiar, afraid to leave your normal path.

Well, I’m sick of the normal path. I want to start over in the way I define it. I just need to remind myself that today is different than yesterday and to not get too comfortable.

Change is coming. Too bad it won’t be a politician that actually brings it.