06 Aug 08 FriendFeed
I like FriendFeed. No, I really like FriendFeed. It’s been compared to Facebook, but it’s different in my opinion, way different.
How does it work?
Unlike Facebook, you don’t have to sign up to anything. You can simply go to FriendFeed, and search for people. If you know their FriendFeed name you’ll get a page come up with everything they’re doing.
It works by collating all the feeds from all the networks that they’ve addd to their FriendFeed account, so you can can see what video they posted on YouTube, the images they uploaded to Flickr, what they just posted on their blog, and so on. There’s no advertisments getting in the way.
You can join FriendFeed yourself, and add in all your social media networks too, and then folks can see what you’re doing by looking at your page. You can find mine here.
One big difference in the way I use FriendFeed to Facebook is how I define friends.
Facebook encourages you to add your ‘real’ friends and family. Ok, that’s nice, but lets be honest here, while some of them are very nice people, some of them are also very boring online. Do I really need to know what color socks my friend Igor is wearing this morning, or how long he had to wait for the bus? I don’t need, and don’t have time for 101 invitations to dig your ‘patch’. Ok, throwing sheep was fun for about five minutes, but it’s way past old now.
On FriendFeed, on the other hand, I ‘friend’ those that are writing stuff I find interesting, even if I don’t know them very well, or at all. I also, don’t expect them to return the compliment and follow me. A few folks seem to have an issue with that, but all I can say, is, get real!
It’s nice if some people do, as we all like to think we might be mildly interesting to at least a few folks in the world, but the high flying head of an SEO team that writes really useful stuff, probably doesn’t want to read about my relatively mundane existance.
Right now, I’m using FriendFeed a whole lot more than Facebook, for two reasons. Firstly, one click on a bookmark and I’m there. Secondly, there’s simply more interesting, easier to access stuff out there.
Of course who knows what’s around the corner, in the ever changing world of Social Media!
Tags: advertisments, blog, compliment, existance, facebook, fir, five minutes, friend feed, friendfeed, friends and family, images, invitations, media networks, nice people, opinion way, real friends, sheep, socks, whole lot
07 Feb 08 Other Blogs Of Mine
OK, so I’m a geeky type. I don’t care. I like technology, and what its advances can offer us all. I often find new ideas, applications, or gadgets interesting, fascinating, or inspiring. I’m very much a “value-for-money” type of person though, so I like to cut through the inevitable hype surrounding new products (especially those from the giant corporates), and weigh up all the pros and cons for myself.
To that end, I have another blog, where I post all the geeky stuff. I don’t write in it every day, but when I try something out, or find out about something new that I think I might find a use for, I put it in there. You can find it at http://ian.may.name
I have a flickr account. I’ve had one for quite some time now. I think it’s a great way to share photographs, and also a place to store some away from my computer (a kind of emergency backup). Right now, I’m a little concerned, now that Microsoft has reared it’s ugly head towards Yahoo. Microsoft have a tendency, in fact a reputation, of doing things their own way, often to the detriment of the rest of the IT world at large. It’s a good job Microsoft don’t own the majority of the net, or we’d all have to used that darn awful, bug ridden, security-holed, w3c non-compliant, web designers nightmare called Internet Explorer.
Anyway, sometimes, I’m chatting to friends online. I’m a long-time user of IRC, which pre-dates IM, and the Web too. I find an interesting photo in my collection and I want to share it. There is a way to do this in IRC, using DCC (direct Client to Client). However, many IRC users don’t have the correct ports open on their firewalls, and it often fails. So, I set up another blog. In here I’ll post images that I want to share on the spur of the moment with my online friends. They’re all family-friendly, nothing to shock, or revolt, but as it’s unplanned, they’re just a random mix. It’s called Eyebee’s Pics. Eyebee, in case you’re wondering is my online nickname, and is derived from my first and middle name initials which are I and B. You can find Eyebee’s Pics right here
Finally, those of you who like music may like to check out the NAB Radio blog that I maintain at http://nabradio.us/blog
Tags: compliant web, corporates, correct ports, detriment, emergency backup, fir, firewalls, good job, hype, internet explorer, irc users, nightmare, pros and cons, random mix, revolt, share photographs, spur of the moment, time user, ugly head, web designers
