Considering I recently upgraded my Nokia flip to a Blackberry Curve, I'm quite happy with it; so all this talk of iPhone this iPhone that is quite annoying. - Ari Herzog
"Here's a thought for the C-10 group and anyone else seeking regulatory changes: Contacting the NRC is great, but as commission members are appointed by the President, may I suggest filling out as many "contact us" forms as you want at http://change.gov?
As the President-elect defines his staff and determines priorities of his administration, you'll get a quicker answer that way than through the in-house hurdles of the NRC." - Ari Herzog
"My mom's read my blog for several months -- and while some of my banter goes over her head, she understands most of it. Perhaps your turkey dinner conversation would have been smoother had the folks read your blog. An idea, anyway." - Ari Herzog
When an online conversation between a business and a customer (or B2B or C2C) ends, does that indicate social media doesn't scale? Beth Harte offers ideas. What do you think? - Ari Herzog
For what it's worth, I've never had a problem with tinyurl not working. In recent days, I've seen tweets that twurl.nl was not working, though. - Ari Herzog
via FriendFeed MT Plugin
“Why are you telling me to have a "Happy Holiday"?! It's non-denominational - you CAN say Happy Thanksgiving! What, you don't think Jews celebrate it?! For crying out loud. . . .”
Hmm... when I'm leaving work for just about any holiday weekend, I tend to say, "Have a great holiday!" to folks. But in any other context, that just seems... weird. - Ladybug Heather
Man, you live in this country. You know folks are dumb. How many times in the past few decades have I seen Americans as British people how they celebrate the 4th of July. I'm black and I've had people surprised that I celebrate Thanksgiving. - Anika Malone
Here is a bigger question,, why is it offensive to wish someone good wishes for a holiday they don't celebrate? Assuming the wish is made with the best of intentions why is it an issue? - Sean Reiser
lol, we don't celebrate, but I know it's not a Muslim thing, it's just most immigrants like my family may choose not to. Then again, some do, like some of my friends and cousins who are also immigrants. - Mohomed=genieyclo
I refuse to say Happy holidays to anyone. At Christmas, it's Christmas. It's largely a secular holiday nowadays anyway. - Ian May
@Sean, I'm with you. Whether I celebrate the holiday or not, I appreciate the good wishes of the other. Unbunch your panties, everyone, and accept that some people actually know how to be NICE. - Ladybug Heather
it assumes an awful lot. not sure that it's offensive. but it is a bit... arrogant perhaps? plus it can lead to some really awkward conversations. dude: "merry christmas." me: "gee. not a christian." dude: "well what are you then?" me: atheist with buddhist tendencies. dude: "you're going to hell." - tiffany
@Tiffany maybe it's the fact I'm a NYer so I'm constantly surrounded by folks who believe differently then me. If someone wishes me good wishes for a holiday whether it's Christian, Jewish, Muslim, Wiccan, or anything else, I assume they mean the best and thank them and wish them the same. - Sean Reiser
and Tiffany if I had that conversation it would go something like me: "merry christmas." you: "gee. not a christian." me: "Then have a wonderful day!" - Sean Reiser
I say Happy Holidays. I don't celebrate Christmas, most of the people in my circle don't either, so why would I presume anything about anyone? - Anika Malone
The thing about Christmas is that there are now two entirely different holidays happening on the same day. There is a completely secular holiday, with Santa and trees and gifts, and there is a Christian feast day. And many who celebrate the secular holiday have never darkened the door of a church. So when one is wished a Merry Christmas, it doesn't necessarily imply that either of you is a Christian. </rant> - Ladybug Heather
exactly anika. it's the "presumption"/assumption part that's offensive. @sean, i'm a NY native who has been in exile in Dixie for 8 years. for me, "happy holidays" is the best way to go. i don't know which holidays you celebrate, if any. i'd rather get it right by being vague than offend you by assuming sh*t. - tiffany
and sean, i don't want to presume your faith, but i really wonder if you'd feel differently if someone wished you a happy eid, or happy ramadan in september, or a happy diwali in october. - tiffany
@Tiffany, I know that when I was greeted a few years back on the Jewish High Holy Days, I smiled and asked more about the day. It really touched me and made me feel included rather than excluded. - Ladybug Heather
@ladybug heather: the best parallel i can come up with here is being "hetero-normative" towards gay people. it's not a neat parallel, but it's a similar concept. it's about visibility and recognizing that your definition of "normal" has to mean that my beliefs are "abnormal" and, yeah, that's kind of offensive. - tiffany
You just become conditioned to say it. In my world are Christians, Muslims, Jews, Buddhists, etc., especially in business. I once knew somebody who celebrated Yule. Just gets to be habit to blanket statement it. - Patricia
I noticed that yesterday too and it wasn't businesspeople - ticked me off - Jeff Quinton
Is Thanksgiving a holy day? Why call it a holiday? It's not like you can't eat turkey with your family any other day of the year... - Ari Herzog
Somebody wished me a happy something, so I guess I should enjoy it. I just dislike the generalization. It's not like Christmas where there are other potential holiday choices (even then, someone wished me well, and I don't think they are ignorant and unaccepting of other cultures just because they picked the one they celebrate). In America, the 4th Thursday of November is Thanksgiving and ONLY Thanksgiving. What other potential holiday could I be possibly celebrating? - Peter Ghosh CISSP
I pinged Biz before the post went up so hopefully I'll get something more solid, but I couldn't believe it when I heard it in the car. They had an "India" expert and tech guy on at the time, so although they were both removed, both were reading from what I presume were Twitter reports. I'm still digging for them, but I definitely heard what I've got in the post from them. - Duncan Riley
Dont think twitter is big enough in India to be of any effect on this. They have just the geeks and early adopter crowd and that also a very small percentage. Maybe biz knows more about the number of users - Sidharth Dassani
I echo the above. I tweeted the issue when it pinged around, and heard back that local authorities didn't want terrorists monitoring the feed and reading alerts about police/military activity. Nobody was suggesting Twitter be blocked. - Ari Herzog
How is it different from watching what the news is reporting? - Chris Dahl
This is bemusing in the most crucial way. Why would ruthless terrorists be following on Twitter? For one, Twitter's not big in India. It's not even that big in the USA. Only the early adopters and those that come after really know about it. It's not a mainstream tool yet. Besides, I believe there is a Desi version of Twitter... GupShup maybe? Don't remember... Anywho, I'd find it to be more likely that the media people were following Twitter than terrorists.. - deepikaur
If you want to read RSS feeds, add them manually; and it blanks the feeds if no new content. Intriguing concept; with it could be automatically added. - Ari Herzog
"It has nothing to do with generations, Don, but everything to do with the status quo. As Howard Dean and Jim Duncan agreed when talking to the National Press Club on Nov. 5, carried live on C-SPAN, technology will only become more ubiquitous. Dean spoke of the power of YouTube, due to his earlier use of Dean TV. And Duncan, the RNC chair, said he uses a Kindle.
I don't think the millennials or any other generation will force Obama to do anything; one only needs to run a Google search on "Government 2.0" (as Newsweek uses) to see the conversations and ideas from all digital-connected generations.
I do agree with your take. Moulitsas sounds disconnected." - Ari Herzog
I use a Mac and I looked at this program two years ago. Just when I was getting serious about my family's genealogy, Geni http://www.geni.com/ came on the scene and since then I've settled for using it as my first choice for family tree work. - Christopher Harley
@Christopher... How do you compare the two? What made you choose Geni? Thanks. - Carlos Granier-Phelps
I stayed with Geni so that I could introduce social web apps to my extended family. It's worked well. Since the environment is closed it allows for some trial and error so those inexperienced with social networking online can feel a little more adventurous than they would out in the wilds. Interaction is great but serious genealogists would opt for better tools. If you're serious about the work of mapping your family's history, Reunion looks like a good choice. - Christopher Harley
@Christopher, thanks. I'm thinking of using reunion to hold a master copy and off-load some of it into Geni later on. - Carlos Granier-Phelps
B/c I prefer to use software that's cross-platform and can program in Java (if need be), I've only used GenealogyJ; last iteration I tried was v2.4.2 but it is at 2.4.4 now @ http://genj.sourceforge.net So when I used it felt bare UI-wise w/no frills but it did what I needed. Basically it's a Java program comprised of both a viewer and editor for genealogical data, suitable for a wide range of users, & supports the GEDCOM standard. - Angela E. Taylor
Great video Robert - I completely agree, and is the reason I prefer ff over twitter. Would be very helpful if ff could aggregate all related posts in some way to ensure you can get the whole conversation as well. With more information though, we need better filters. - Alistair
You know, what really gets me is how we've come to call anything that happens "News". It's not. When my friend's cat does something stupid, that's not "news". My reaction to a new cell phone isn't "news". - Ken Sheppardson
There are, what, 6Bil people on earth right now? Let's say half of them are asleep, half of those that are awake are bent over in a field somewhere or in a factory where they can't hear the person next to them, that leaves, like, 1Bil people making "news" at any given moment. I'd hate to see what your feed looks like, Robert, once they all have iPhones and microblogging accounts. - Ken Sheppardson
Interesting to note this Twitter post is drawing more conversation than the post exclusive to FF. Also draws in more voices to this thread. - Missile-TOW
KevyKev: yeah, that is interesting. Especially since this one doesn't have a graphic associated with it. The FriendFeed-to-Twitter feature is definitely bringing people over to FriendFeed. - Robert Scoble
Good stuff to start off a Monday morning, Robert. It's really amazing how much good information is being produced today, andI think FriendFeed is helping all of us to filter the inevitable noise around it. - Jorge Escobar
Even if we can lengthen the conversation, who is doing that? For example how much time do you spend on current topics vs. older? - Rob McMurtrie
Part of the problem may be that many new bloggers/tweeters haven't been around long enough to know any different. - Ari Herzog
Isn't half-life a personal thing?! depends on how fast you process your feeds. +1 to FF's threads increasing half-life part. - Shivanand Velmurugan
Shivanand: nope. Conversations aren't controlled by one person and I've been watching this for a while. The amount of time we, as a community, give to any one issue is getting shorter and shorter. - Robert Scoble
"Heh. Some people lack opinions. How many times are you asked what sort of food you'd like to eat for dinner as people are planning a party and you respond, "I don't care. Anything but seafood."" - Ari Herzog
"Tonight was my first time venturing into the bar (I think a bar fits the bill nicely; restaurant doesn't exactly cover a place with a long wooden bar) with a group of about 10 people. We ordered a…" - Ari Herzog
Depending on my audience, I\'ve lately interchanged between \"social media\" and \"social web.\" People are more attuned to the former -- if only because more people understand the definition of media than the web.
The web is changing - Ari Herzog
Dan Schawbel provides great advice in this article that one's social networking profile, however protected it is, means nothing compared to the gossip someone else writes about you. Which begs the question: Do you know how people perceive you? - Ari Herzog
"Great advice. I'd add a thought to focus on titling pages for people over search engines. Ultimately, engines index pages according to content and linkage. Neither will come without people in mind who would read the content." - Ari Herzog
"You mention at the bottom that you were contacted by the company. How's that? The in-house marketing team of 20th Century Fox emailed you?" - Ari Herzog
what does Command-Shift-T do? It does nothing for me. - Seth Gottlieb
via IM
Actually, if you're not on a Mac there's no Command button, so why worry? - Carlos Granier-Phelps
Ooh, nice. And all this time, mine's been Ctrl+T. Thanks for enlightening me. :-) - Jenny R.
Command-Shift-T (and it's Windows equivalent) re-opens the last tab you closed (along with its navigation history). Keep clicking it and closed tabs will re-open in the (reverse)order you closed them. - Carlos Granier-Phelps
@Jenny: these are the ones I use most -> Command-T: open new tab, Command-W: close current tab, Command-Shift-T: re-open that one I just closed but didn't really mean to. - Carlos Granier-Phelps
While we're at it, might I just add that I Love Firefox! - Jenny R.
My other favorites are Command-1 through 8 to access the first 8 open tabs (from left to right) and Command-9 to access the leftmost open tab. (Use Ctrl key instead of Command if you're on Windows). - Carlos Granier-Phelps
Ctrl-Tab and Ctrl-Shift-Tab will cycle through you open tabs. Command-` will cycle through your open windows. - Carlos Granier-Phelps
If you have a blog, do you routinely thank the people who write comments? Every month, blogger David Mullen thanks every commenter (linked to their blogs) from the previous month. As you can see, I'm among the many from October. - Ari Herzog
