Tuesday evening, 27th of January, 2009, at the London Geek Dinners, in Hummus Bros in Covent Garden, a bunch of techies and geeks gathered, waiting expectantly to hear some inspiring words of wisdom, and learn from Jeff Pulver, headlined as “Technology Anthropologist; Entrepreneur; Early-Stage Seed Investor; speaker, Living in Social Media”..

Arriving at Hummus Bros a little after 7pm, I was glad to find that I had arrived earlier than the guest speaker.  Digging into a warm apple juice with cinnamon, some tabouleh, and some hummus and avocado, gave me a chance to catch up with some familiar faces, and enjoy a satisfying dinner, before Jeff’s arrival.  Apparently, he was coming, straight from the airport, and arrived a short while after I finished ;) Nice timing indeed!

After Jeff got a chance to get settled, and have some dinner, he gave us a short 20 minute speech, sharing some interesting insights, and giving us some of his thoughts around Social Media.

He related some of his childhood stories, of being a Ham radio operator, as a child, and how his persona as a shy child at school was a completely different identity to the person that he could be on the radio.  The two worlds, allowed him to experience being “himself” – without people being able to go on anything more than his voice, and what he talked about.  That liberating freedom, to hide behind the technology, back when Ham Radio’s were mainstream, hasn’t really changed too much, to this day.  That ability to be yourself, with technology dealing with the job of masking the real you, has really become something of an everyday reality.  In fact, so much so, that I remember turning up to an event, where I was sat right behind someone, who I had befriended virtually, but until that moment, didn’t even know who she was ;)  It’s crazy that you can hide yourself, so well, behind the technology, and if you’re just a little afraid, you don’t have to worry about being yourself, until you’re hidden.  Then you magically discover the courage to be yourself.  Scary, yet empowering at the same time :)

Jeff related a story of his high school reunion, which he attended, and went equipped with a video camera, to ask people what they remembered of him, and the first three folks he asked couldn’t even remember who he was, and then the fourth person he asked remembered him, saying something like – ah yes, you’re the one with a cool dad!  Jeff’s take, on that, after reviewing the videotape, after the reunion, was to remember, that it’s not about how you remember yourself to be, but about how others remembered you to be.  An interesting point, I think, we can often forget about.  When creating an impression, it’s not about what you do, or say, it’s about how the other perceives what you’ve said or done..

My final take, from Jeff Pulver’s talk that evening, was about how he would never want to have, on his public facebook identity, pictures of his children.  He discussed the way in which there were clear segments of groups of people, and the ways he related, and connected to them, meant that to different groups of people he wanted to share different things, or disclose different bits of information.  That challenge alone is enough to realise the shortcomings of our current tools of communication..  This point, was, more saliently touching upon an idea that I’ve been playing with for a few years now, and been refining, and synthesizing, through my own needs.. Having the ability to segment, and selectively email groups of people has been in my list of targets to accomplish for a long time now..

Imagine that you have personal pictures that you want to share with your family, pictures of your work colleagues, you want to share with your work friends, and pictures of you out on the town, with friends, that you want to share with just that group of friends.. Right now – there’s no easy or simple solution to that dilemma.. but rest assured, I’m working on it ;) – If you want to talk more about that challenge, hear about some of the innovative solutions that have been thought of already, or help develop the next generation of information filtering and distribution, then get in touch, or comment below, and let’s get the conversation rolling ;)

Jeff, ended by sharing his take on the future… He saw the future as being even more converged, even more connected, even more interconnectedness across our world… He also talked about how technology is making the world smaller, and mentioned a bit about how the ability to stay connected, to have an ambient awareness of everything your friends have been upto.  He described how his childrens generation stayed connected with their friends, even through the school holidays, and that they each know what the others have been upto, thanks to facebook, myspace, and similar platforms..

Imagine who you might still be friends with, or connected with now, if you’d had these tools at your disposal when you were younger??  Our children are growing up in the world, where it’s normal to have travelled to another country, have friends around the world, and stay connected through technology.

Food for thought eh?? Or Fodder for your dreams!!  Night all!

No related posts.

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

– What Does the New Year Hold in Store for the Web?

I decided I was going to take a stab at what’s going to be hot and what’s not, in 2009 with regards to the Web, the Internet, Social Media, Social Networking, etc. etc.

Most people, these days have heard of Social Networking giant Facebook.  What most people probably don’t realise, however, is that Facebook is not generating any real Value for money, for it’s advertisers.  As a once frequent customer of Facebook, I used to spend countless hours on Facebook, discovering old school friends, uncovering the past, and reconnecting up with those people, but now that that’s done, and we occasionally communicate with each other, it seems like all that fuss has just gone away..

Instead, it’s been taken over by Twitter – that provides more immediacy in the conversations, more instant engagement, and more real feedback, and sense of community…  It’s like blogging, in short form – but even Twitter has yet to monetise – and therein lies the challenge…

In 2009 – I predict we’re going to start to see a number of self-monetising startups.  Built on the back of services like Twitter, and Facebook, they will increase user engagement and provide a platform for real conversations to take place, that lead to tangible results.  Peer to peer marketing,  and WOM marketing, is going to slowly start creeping into the marketplace, replacing the traditional CPC and Keyword based advertising.

Online/commercial advertising is also going to slowly start to change.  With metrics, and measures for ROI on social media, and community impact assessments starting to emerge, people will be able to directly see the difference in a pound spent, buying keywords, vs. a pound spent, thanking a vocal supporter of a brand/product.

With all this public display of conversations around brands, and products, consumers will start to get a real life line into the companies they consume from, and through concerted peer pressure, and publicly mocking, and naming and shaming those organisations with bad practices, and unsustainable models of business, there will start to be a greater shift towards companies publishing more openly and more transparently what they consume, produce, and re-sell.  Consumers will also more strongly advocate, and support companies, and examples of people doing things “right”, so the early adopters will get additional kudos, as well as experience significant positive gains, from being ahead of the curve.

Equally, this lifeline will allow companies to understand more accurately, what the clients are looking for, and prepare them to share useful information, about their work, or their services, or their products, which will then get translated into a sale.

One of the biggest changes that will come about during 2009, will be the rise of the educated, empowered consumer, who, armed with the right knowledge, connected to the right friends, can co-ordinate and organise mass rallies across the country, and internationally, whenever a wrong is enacted, or some organisation acts in a way that is inappropriate or uncalled for.

Video will see a downturn, whilst mobile micro blogging services will become even more mainstream, and start to be offered as integral to the package, as SMS, or Data.

Advances in micro-blogging will extend into the developing world, where more people with cell phone usage will be able to communicate using a hybrid blend of asynchronous communication, via a twitter like service, something akin to SMS, and a mobile handheld device.

We may also start to see more handheld devices, that act as “internet” gateways, providing access to services like Qik that let you stream audio, or video directly online, for all to see, and also permit the easy access to email, social networks, and status updates.

There will also be a clear convergence in the market place between online social networks, and messaging/email platforms, that will mean people will log on, in once place, and from there, they will be able access all their rich conversation streams.

Information will start to be referred to as flows, with different streams of information providing information about different topics, and subjects.  Individuals will start to be trusted as sources of reliable information, and their streams will be more publicly in demand, whilst people with polluted information streams will start to be more openly ignored, and blocked.

Managing information streams, and selectively filtering and distributing information flows, will become an art unto itself, and experts in various fields and different disciplines will generate these information flows, and start to publicly publish them.  As a consequence, not only will these experts be known for the quality of the work they produce, but also the quality of the information streams they generate.

Marketing, and advertising budgets will slowly start to be spent increasingly on cultivating communities around the customers, and people recommending products, and services, will start to see incomes being derived from referring, and recommending products and services, based on genuine experiences, and real authentic recommendations.

So in 2009, keep an eye out for services like SocialMedian who allow you to crowdsource your news from your peers.  Any service that can tap into your networks wisdom, and share with you the “best” wisdom as determined by the people you choose to associate with, will definitely be a time saver, and a crowd pleaser, in a world where increasingly information overload is the order of the day, watch out for more crowdsourcing tools rising to the fore in 09.

Also, watch out for services like Gist, and Xobni – who purport to save you time, in your inbox, and help you create context around, the chaos that is “email”, and messaging.  What they do, is start from your inbox, and help you find and organise, and sort the people you’re talking with, allowing you, to an extent to start to identify either other useful information about a person, or to start to help you find more of what a particular person you’ve spoken to has said.  I think these tools will have a limited shelf life, as they mature, since they aren’t necessarily tackling the problem of email in the most elegant of ways, but props to them for attempting to engage with such a behemoth of a challenge ;)

What will really start making a real impact in 2009, will be services that start helping you navigate your social graph, across social networks.  There’s potential in services like PeopleBrowsr who are looking to start bringing some of those information streams from different platforms, through a single service, and then tagging and grouping information streams, and republishing them..

But the real winners in 2009, in my eyes, are going to be the services that can help you effortlessly navigate your social graph, across any platform, and keep the information flowing, without relying on you having to set up the context of groups, and people you know in each platform.  A single login screen, that brings you all your content, in one place, and lets you see all the content from your friends in one place.

Friendfeed sort of works, in that in theory you can bring all your content into one place, but it’s interface, and usability leave a lot to be desired.

2009 is going to be the year of the “Social Browser” – helping us organise, filter, and co-ordinate our information streams, regardless of where they come from, or how they are generated.  When we want to know what people are upto – we’ll be able to find out.

So watch out 2009 – “Surfing the Web”, is soon going to become a thing of the past, and people will increasingly start to “Surf their Communities”..  Now let’s see how the year plays out..

No related posts.

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

I’ve recently been invited to a few “no-twitter through your status update” groups on Facebook by a dear friend, who’s been getting increasingly frustrated by my use of the twitter app integrating on Facebook.

The complaint is that my updates on Facebook are drowning out the updates from his other friends on Facebook.

Given that I have very different circles of friends, and acquaintances, as well as tweeple(twitter friends) I know online, and that I engage with random conversations with any one of potentially 1k+  different people, it’s entirely possible to anyone listening in on my twitter stream to find it all a bit overwhelming, compared to the the average status updates of a user on Facebook.

I guess if I were using just Facebook, and were being so pro-active, and engaging with people through Facebook, I would just as quickly fill up other people’s status updates with my activity.  The problem, whilst seemingly connected to my twitter profile and facebook status updates being linked and connected, goes significantly deeper.  It is what lies at the source of my quest for the “ultimate tool”.  For a way of broadcasting information and talking with others that I know, in an ever increasing “intimate” and “direct” manner, through all the electronic mediums that are popping up all over the place, providing increasingly more valuable content to engage and interact with.  Of course, it’s only a matter of time, before my attention gets completely saturated by it all, and then I have to start making a choice to wean myself off of all the potentially wonderful sources of electronic goodness, or die being sucked in by it all.

The problem is that right now I have to pay attention to the medium through which I communicate, as well as to whom I’m communicating to.  It’s a double effort..  When really, what I want to do is focus on the people I want to talk with, and get the message across to just those who are interested.  I don’t want to have to figure out who’s on which tool, and who I have to include or avoid where, for each topic of conversation.

For me, the solution lies within understanding the Social Graph, that lies at the heart of our virtual and physical lives.  Finding tools to piece together the fragmented pieces of our lives, as we start to create a semblance of wholeness and completeness, through being able to express ourselves freely, find like minded souls, and share adventures, and ideas, with friends the world over.

The internet is not simply for “connecting” people, it’s creating an infrastructure of sorts.. A communication gateway, that will eventually allow, or give access to anyone who wants to speak with anyone.  For now, cost, access to people’s details, and the choice to remain public or private play a large part in how available people are to each other.  But slowly, as more and more people start using tools and technologies like Twitter, and Facebook, and LinkedIn, and other tools that “connect” people together, and show each other in different lights, the more increasingly challenging it’s going to get to stay disconnected from everyone else.

Even in the most remote regions of the world, cell phone penetration means that you can reach pretty much anyone, anywhere, as long as you know that access code, and phone number, and have the means to fund the connection..

Soon that will change..  Soon everyone will be able to connect to anyone.. Unless they choose to not communicate with certain people.

For now, the gatekeepers are clearly helped, with the failings of integration of these communication mediums, and our fragmented social graphs, but as we start to put the pieces together, we’ll start to get ever more access to the people we meet, or the folks that they meet…

It’s entirely possible, that we, as a generation have become the most enabled citizens of the world, with voices, and messages that can be amplified to any part of the world.

“We will leave a digital legacy behind us that will be larger than any previous generation” according to Benjamin Ellis

[source http://redcatco.com/blog/communication/we-are-amplified/ as at 28 Nov 2008]

I have a feeling he could be right.  It may not happen straight away, it might take us some time for us to learn to sing like a choir, in harmony with one another, but give it enough time, and once we figure out how to sing in tune with each other, we most definitely will be able to amplify each others voices..

For me, the biggest challenge facing us, is the disparate nature of technology and the web as it stands.  I believe the solution is going to emerge when we stop putting technology first, and start looking at, and then solving the human needs that exist.  Only then, can we truly be able to pull together the “solutions” that will make a difference.  For I still remember, in the late 80’s and early 90’s how as part of our studies, we had to cite examples of how people were “afraid” that computers and technology would take away their jobs, and make them redundant, and unnecessary.

That may be the case in more mechanical processes, but unfortunately, most people, especially those working with information, and services, will probably agree that now we’re spending more time with these tools than ever before.  Instead of being liberated, and having more spare time for ourselves, we end up wanting to consume ever more, and ever more, until perhaps it’s consumed us, or we have nothing left..

The only way to change that is to start with our daily habits, and look at ways of getting more focussed, more disciplined, and starting to cut out the things that are irrelevant and invaluable.. How? I don’t know.  But I know that it’s something that will require us as a society to start relying upon each other and supporting each other in new and different ways.  Because fundamentally, I believe there to be real power in synergy, and real untapped potential in the space that exists when two or more people come together.

Perhaps that’s why it’s generally taken teams of two’s and three’s to create the great powerhouses of technology that exist in our world today.  I look forward to seeing, these systems, software, and machines of old start to crumble, and be recycled into a world that finds ever more efficient, synergistic and meaningful ways of getting things done, with a clear desire to bring the basic essentials of life to everyone, and then be able to choose one’s life path, not be thrust into it through necessity of our most basic human needs, of food, clothing, shelter, family, and community.

Now it feels like we have to pick up the fragmented pieces of our 20th century society, and start to figure out how, together, we can map out a new, uncharted social graph, that ultimately will connect all the dots, and create a new picture for all that choose to be in it.

amplified08 amp08 facebook twitter social graph

No related posts.

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

This morning, I’ve finally figured out why I so rarely get any real work done.. Because I’m always so busy trying to “fix things”!!

I guess it’s just part of the growing pains of technology, and getting your systems up and running.  Normally, whenever I start with a new computer, there’s some basics that I have to do to any machine, before I can be comfortable using it.  That includes installing some decent open source tools to be able to get my work done.  One of the reasons I prefer to use Open Source software as much as possible, is simply because I can then use it on any platform, and I don’t have to start learning a whole new interface… And with a zero cost to acquisition, the learning I put into installing and configuring the software repays itself, pretty quickly, once you’ve had to install and use the same piece of software on two or three computers… (if you’re reading this, and thinking two or three computers?? Just remember, being a techy, I’ve been using computers for ages, and as I’ve upgraded from an x386 to a 486, to Intel Pentium, to Macs, and Linux, and now am on pretty much everything (except Mac – gotta get myself a Mac again soon!!))

So anyways, Open Source software tends to be able to do the same job as closed source, but has the same interface on pretty much all the platforms, and usually, being open source, if a platform isn’t available, you can usually get the code, and make it work on your platform, if you want to.. I like having that freedom, and knowledge.. Not that I would necessarily do it, just yet – but one of these days, I’m going to get stuck in under the cover, and when I do, I want to make sure that I can contribute and give back to those who gave me so much benefit, and value early on when I started off using the tools to try to stay productive, and useful, with my work, using those tools..

So, for email, I’ve long been a firm advocate of Thunderbird.  Even on a Mac, back when I had the luxury of having one at my disposal, I used the default Mail App, and just had to get out of there, and get my dear lovely Thunderbird working on my desktop as quickly as humanly possible!!!! It’s just painful, when I think of the pain points, but not wanting to bash any software, and not remembering what the points of pain were, suffice it to say, it was something simple and easy enough for me to think, this really should be able to do this, and it couldn’t so I left behind the default Mail client.. (I’m sure Mac’s Mail app is constantly being updated and improved, but you just can’t beat open source for speed of deployment, and just getting the functionality faster, and sooner!!)

Anyways, I’ve used Thunderbird, for as long as I can remember – and the few times that I’ve “had” to use Outlook, or some MS equivalent, I just cringe, and long for the sanity that comes with the open source alternative..

Well, going back a few years, one feature that I thought would be really useful, would be to have a calendar, so enthusiastically I started using Google Calendar, excited that I could export my calendar, and publish it places – (I’m a techie who wants to know I can take my data with me and share it everywhere :)

So I figured, if I can export, and I can publish, I should be able to use it with a desktop client “somehow” – and the bane of being an early adopter is that you really don’t get to choose your apps, with just a point and click style approach – there’s usually some “coding” or integration that needs to happen, to make things work.  No problem – I’m a techie, I don’t have a problem with getting under the hood and making things work, after all that’s what I thrive on, the challenge of making systems do what they’re meant to, so that I can just get on with my life, without having to constantly tell everyone, or repeat stuff that should be easy to replicate, share or just make available.

But alas, the best Google Calendar could do, is let me import my external calendar, into my computer.  (Ok, as I’m writing this, I distinctly remember it being iCal format into iCal on a Mac – so I’m guessing this was quite a few years ago, pre-Lightning and Sunbird – the Mozilla Open Source counterparts for Calendaring).  There was no way that iCal would let me write something into this calendar that I could then sync with my online calendar.. Not that I was using multiple computers at the time (back then it was just a form of online backup in my mind)…

Eventually, with nothing really working quite right, I ended up just leaving it, and never really used calendaring at all, just because life wasn’t too complicated, or busy, and I didn’t need to see every little thing that I was working on, or keep track of, or be on time or as punctual back then…

Fast forward a few years, and a few countries later, and being back in London, and having discovered and now that I’m starting to regularly attend some interesting and cool events, conferences, networks, communities, and groups, I’m often and quite frequently asked about other events that I could suggest and recommend to others.. I guess being someone who’s quite interested in these things, I’m often discovering events through word of mouth, or just happen to know about the places to find things, like meetup.com or upcoming.org…

But I guess that’s not always the case.

So anyways, I was getting a touch annoyed, at just always finding events, or seeing events I wanted to add to my Google Calendar, and tired of Google Calendars lack of integration with Firefox, to be able to just clip an event, and tag it for my calendar, the way I can do for my bookmarks with Delicious, I thought I might be able to save some pain and hassle, by having at least a desktop based client that I can then later sync up with Google Calendar… And as I’m writing this I’m also getting an idea for something, which I’ll share in a second…

So anyways, I set up a bunch of calendars on my google account, which I’ve set up as public calendars…
If you happen to be interested in seeing them, before I’ve properly integrated them into this blog, you can check them out here for now:

For all events even vaguely Spiritual that might be of interest to me:
XML, iCal, HTML

For all Talks and Workshops in London, that might inspire, or engage people working in New Media, Technology, Social Change, Innovation, Culture, or just generally anything else that I think might be interesting to attend:
XML, iCal, HTML

For all Networking Events, Unconference Events, MiniBars, MiniCamps, basically any “unstructured” event, where there’s an opportunity to meet people, connect and network, that I’m generally interested in knowing about. These can be related to Technology, Social Media, Web 2.0, New Media, Startups, Entrepreneur Stuff, Innovative Stuff, pretty much anything that I think is cool, and suited to the general ConsciousComms Community (more about ConsciousComms in the near future):
XML, iCal, HTML

And I’ve only have set these up, because I have found a simpler way of capturing the “events” to add to the calendar, because the pain of trying to add events to Google Calendar was just too great a burden to make me even start taking the first step towards getting the events onto public calendars in the first place..

It’s at this point, that I want to say a huge, huge, thank you to Jonny Reeves, a contributor to a blog called simply bfish.xaedalus.net for taking the time to write his excellent article on Integrating Google Calendar into Thunderbird using Lightning!!  Admittedly, I figured, that I should be able to just add Google Calendar to one of the Mozilla Calendar tools myself, and found the plugin for Gcal from the Mozilla extensions repository.  But if it weren’t for his article, I might have had to experiment with Thunderbird and Lightning, to make sure things worked, and then to figure out how to make it work.. If it weren’t for this well written and properly documented entry, I wouldn’t have been able to just make these tools just work, and get on with my work, so thank you Jonny!! I love that you’ve gone and done what I would have done, had I known it so long ago, and had the time to go through and document so clearly and simply what needs to be done… (It does make me wonder though how comes I didn’t use Google Cal integration with a desktop until now?!?)

I’m pretty sure that article alone will bring down the barrier to entry for so many competent technical users who might not have adopted the hybrid solution to get their systems working otherwise..  It’s nice when you see such clearly documented stuff, and having benefitted so greatly from it, I’ll be sure to remember to share things in as clear a manner as possible, in the near future around some of the things that I’m a bit of an expert on, and feel like there might be people who could be interested in having more help with..

For now, I just had to write this, to express my gratitude, and thanks to scribefire, I just had it pop up, and it let me start writing.. now I just need to catch up with all the other articles that I’ve been working on..

And as an afterthought… I’ll just share an idea that’s occurred to me.. based on the way delicious works – how about a product that lets you “clip” events, to a calendar??  Does anyone thing such an idea has legs?? If you could be at a web page, and just want to record the event, in a calendar format that you could easily share with others.. would you want to use something like that?? Obviously modelling the style of delicious, i.e. having plenty of tagging, networks, etc.. but having a uniquely “Farhan” spin to it.. if you’re interested drop me a note in the comments, or just let me know what you think of the idea through the blog’s comments… (and don’t worry, if you happen to post me your email address in your comment, I’ll make sure I don’t publish it..)

thunderbird, lightning, google calendar, desktop, london events

No related posts.

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

In the UK there’s a thriving group of non-profit techies, (also known as Circuit Riders) who stay connected through a mailing list, that regularly keeps everyone engaged with helping each other, and supporting each other, through those trying times when you need someone to call upon, as well as those not so trying times, when you just want to let people know what’s happening, or sound out ideas.  That’s great for the virtual contact, but I’d always felt that there was something lacking in the face to face meetings and events that could also occur, and that I’d experienced during my time as a Non Profit Volunteer Techie in San Francisco during 2006 and 2007.

Working with a model that seems to work well, of meeting on the first tuesday of each month, Amy began the first of London’s Net Tuesdays this week, and by all accounts it was a roaring success!!  You can read a nice detailed account of the event at Amy’s Blog. I don’t think it would be fair to even begin to try and give a better summary than Amy’s already done.  Clearly a seasoned blogger, with a great writing style, she’s done an excellent job of reporting the output from our Bloggers Discussion Panel, which involved Type Pad, Moveable Type, Wordpress and Community Server being represented. One of the members of the Panel, Miko who wore the slightly more technical hat for TypePad, as well as representing Community Server, has written up an excellent summary of the key blogging platforms, and a great summary of some of the differences between them.  I thoroughly recommend if you’re starting out to read her summary, and use those to help inform your decisions about which blogging platform to use.

We then ended the panel, having answered some great questions about the features and functionality of the tools, and then started to come up with a list of considerations to take into account, before getting started.  The blogging “strategies and approaches” part of the conversation was designed to verse people a little in the thinking that goes into making a successful blog, and after brainstorming from the room, we crowdsourced the following 5 key points, of :

1. Setting Goals
2. Write with Passion and Knowledge
3. Practice writing blog posts for a few months
4. Use your community to come and comment
5. Integrate your blog with everything you do

The premise behind this conversation was that in order to be successful with your blogging, there’s some key pre-requisites that are needed.  Especially if you want your blog to be engaging and participative.  With that in mind, Miko shared her own take on starting blogging, and what you should do, to prepare to succeed.

Some Of My Own Thoughts on Blogging

I’m certainly in agreement that blogging doesn’t just happen, on it’s own, in isolation from the world.  I think often people look at a blog, and think “I can do that”. They might even assume that just by installing or getting a blog set up, that they too can start to reap the engagement and conversation that occurs in the blogosphere.  Unfortunately, it really isn’t all as simple as that.

Speaking, from my own experiences, and I wrote my first blog post in 2004, I can say with all certainty, that blogging for me has been something that evolves over time. I’ve undoubtedly been learning a lot about the medium of blogging along the way too, and that journey educates and inspires me to continue to always try out new things, and then some.I first started my blog, as an experiment, using Blogger.com, and started out thinking of it as a place to capture my thoughts and interesting things that I would come across on the internet.  You can even see at Blogger.com my original blogs, as they were until I left them, and integrated them all into my current Blog, which is now a self-hosted installation of WordPress, and where you might be reading this from.

Back when I first started blogging, I decided on some key areas of interest for me in my life, and thought I would use a blog to collect interesting websites that I found and bits of information that I thought were useful.  I considered my blog to be a place to store my thoughts, and as a record of my travels through the internet. I even started a few different blogs, because I thought that other people might be interested if I started collecting enough interesting websites, relating to a specific theme, or idea, or topic, and that in time, people would start finding my blog and commenting on it, and leaving their thoughts and ideas, if I were to capture the “best of” along the way.

You must remember that this is back in those days when del.icio.us and other social bookmarking websites hadn’t yet come out, and I was itching for a way to start collecting my bookmarks online, so I wouldn’t always have to use the same computer, but would always have access to the cool links that I found along my travels.  I also wanted to be able to share with friends, and family some of the cool stuff I would find online, and thought that naturally in time, a blog would be the perfect solution.

And to an extent, it did work, for a few months, and it certainly warmed me to the idea of blogging, but it didn’t really take off, in a big way. I still didn’t quite understand, back then of what I might be able to use the blogging for, and I definitely didn’t maintain the discipline of keeping my blog updated with all the interesting and wonderful things I discovered along the way.

I think back then, part of the challenge for me was that everytime I wanted to post something I would have to log into the blogging platform, and then create the entry, and couldn’t just use a plugin, or bookmarklet script or external blogging client to write to my blog.  Now after experimenting with a number of great tools, I’ve decided that I’m in love with ScribeFire, a plugin for Firefox, and since using it I’ve also started blogging a whole lot more too.  But I digress..So after a considerably non-productive use of blogging, with little real interest in keeping it alive for the sake of keeping it alive, and with this terrible feeling that no-one in the world was interested in what I was writing about, or posting about, I laid my blogging to rest.  Not consciously, but I just didn’t feel the need, or a desire to write about stuff as much.  I wasn’t feeling particularly inspired, or excited, and I guess I was going through my own challenges in life, understanding what I wanted to do, and how I wanted to engage with the world.

Then in the summer of 2005, I ended up travelling to Peru, in South America, and all of a sudden, I had something that I wanted to share with all my friends and family back home.  After a few attempts at writing out long emails, with details of what was happening, in response to people’s emails, I realised that most of the time I was writing pretty much the same set of details in response to people, and spending quite a bit of time repeating the same stories over and over to people, on a one to one basis.  Spurred on with the knowledge and experience of using Blogger.com, quite successfully in the past, I decided I would use that wonderful medium of “blogging”, to write about my travels.  Suffice it to say, it didn’t take long before I took great pleasure in sitting in internet cafes, writing up my notes of the day.  I even became really diligent in writing in my pocket diary, a summary of the days events, so that my time in the internet cafe would be spent just writing up what I’d already thought about and reflected upon, at the end of each day.  I thought that sharing my travels, and experience in that intimate manner would be a great way to keep everyone updated on what I was upto, and how my travels were going, and it meant that I wouldn’t have to write the same email to everyone that kept asking me how things are going, and what I had been upto.

It also started to fuel my desire to write, since I knew I had a captive audience.  I’d received so much support and encouragement from people as I’d left London, that I figured most of those people would probably enjoy reading about my travels, and my adventures.  I later discovered that my cousin had also been sharing my blog out to his fellow co-workers at work, and even though I never received much email, or saw any visibility of how many people visited my blog, and hardly anyone ever commented on it, I felt like it was being read, and I kept it updated, just so if nothing else, at least my family and friends would know how I was doing, and that I was ok.

Of course, once I left Peru, and returned to London, the blogging on that trip to Peru didn’t seem like a natural thing to continue, since I was back home, and things in London just didn’t seem as noteworthy, or as interesting and different as they did out there.  My only regret with my blogging back then, was that I didn’t take a digital camera with me, and take photos… Some of my travels were just so scenic and beautiful, and some of the people I met such loving souls, that I wish I had captured them all on camera.. But instead I got the joys of having fond memories that I shall keep with me instead :)

Again, the blogging had seemed like a great idea, it had become really useful, and productive for me, when I needed it to communicate, and now that I was done with that trip, it didn’t seem like I had anything left to write, and so I just let it fizzle away.  Back then, I didn’t really have any comments on my posts, and I didn’t really understand, if I had emailed all these people that knew me, why didn’t anyone comment on anything I wrote??  And so, by not having much engagement from the audience, I ended up leaving it as a record of my travels, and nothing more.

Uncovering Your Voice

I guess all along, the biggest challenge I had, when writing for my blog, was to get clear in my mind who I was writing for, and what it was that I wanted to communicate.  I would have moments of sharp clarity, and specific things that I thought were noteworthy, and then the enthusiasm would wear off, reality would set in, and I would come to the conclusion that actually I didn’t have anything significant or noteworthy to share with the world. (At least nothing that seemed to get the whole world clamouring at my doorstep, and wanting to comment on).

I’d finally understood, that blogging is a very personal choice, and that if I chose to publicly share myself, I would always be able to do it on my terms, and didn’t have anyone to answer to but myself.  I think partly because back then I didn’t have a clear audience in mind, I used the blogging as a way of tracking my own thoughts, and adventures out into the world of the internet, but never leaving that comfort zone of writing into an empty vaccum where no-one seemed to be listening.

Now, almost four years on, a lot has changed.  My understanding of the internet, and it’s role in my life for one.  My ability to engage and connect with people for another.  And also how I’m using the internet, and what I’m seeing myself using it for are all changing too.  I think part of the online social networking phenomenon of seeing your network online, in platforms like facebook and linked in means that you slowly start to see your “community”.  Wheras in the past, the most visibility you would get is the emails you got and sent, and the IM chats.  The online social networks that have come into existence now, are slowly starting to make us all acutely aware of the fact that we now have “captive audiences”.  Be it we might use those captive audiences to chase, as werewolves, or to write on each others walls, but innately , we have people we are engaging with, and who are engaging back with us.

This is where blogging comes into play, and starts to become useful.

Whilst you can certainly send an email out to everyone you know, using bulk emailing platforms, once that email is sent, it’s gone.  There’s no permanency to that message or conversation.  It disappears into the ether, and you can only track the results, and await the response from people to know what people felt or experienced.  Whilst it makes it possible to communicate intimately, and personally, it detracts from the public presence that could be enriched by sharing the contents of those emails in public.  Especially if it’s non-sensitive information that goes towards establishing your brand, your credibility, your cause, your needs, or your experiences with others.  What people can’t see about you, people can’t know about you, and whilst email newsletters are great in principle, in practice, there needs to be something being added or updated to the blog, or the news section of your own website too, so that those people who don’t currently subscribe to the newsletter could also have the choice, based on the content.

Nowadays, I’ve come to understand a little more clearly my audiences, and my different voices when blogging.  I can’t say I understand or know them all clearly, but I do know that I have a number of different threads or streams of ideas flowing through this one blog.  I have very distinct and different communities of people that I’m communicating with through this blog.  (Albeit, those communities may only exist in my mind for now, but they are very real nonetheless).

I can see, as I re-read my own blog, and see the train of thought, and threads of conversation that I’m weaving together, that I have some very distinct and seperate groups of people that I’m talking to, or in conversation with.  And I think more importantly, I’m starting to understand how powerfully, I can start to engage in the conversation on the internet, through the blogosphere.

It never truly dawned on me, until the Net Tuesday event we had in London, but commenting on other people’s blogs has really started to make me realise and appreciate how important it is to give before you receive.  If I want people to comment on my blog posts, I have to go out there and comment on other people’s blog posts first.

If I want my blog to become successful, I have to make it more focussed, and targetted.  This is something I’ll write about properly another time, but for now, suffice it to say, that the internet is a big place, and the more targetted and focussed your writing is, the easier it will be for you to become an authority in a particular niche.  What that translates to, is that everytime someone googles something vaguely related to your topic or area of expertise, you’ll come up at the very top.  As long as you know what it is you’re passionate about, and what you genuinely know about, then chances are that you’ll eventually be able to become an established authority in that niche.  Until you get that focussed, your own thinking and writing will suffer, as well as the community engagement, and participation to your blog, your website, and your cause, or field of expertise.

Conversely, the more focussed, and targetted you are in everything that you do, the more you start to add real value for others.  You become capable of voicing the unvoiced, on clarifying assmumptions, on becoming an authoritative voice, and opinion.  You also become capable of synthesising and expanding upon the ideas and thoughts of other people, and actually further the conversation in the blogosphere.

But first, you must know who it is that you will be writing for?

Then what is it that you’re going to write that this audience is going to want to know about?

Once you can answer the above two questions, clearly, and you have people regularly asking you for, or your regularly telling people the same bits of information, then, and only then, will you be able to uncover your blogging voice, and start to contribute in a meaningful manner through your blog.  Until then, you’ll be finding your feet, through the possibilities of what you might be able to voice, and who you might be able to express your thoughts to.  That’s not a bad thing either, because until you start trying, you’ll never figure out your space, and most definitely not find the flow of your blogging voice.

Related posts:

1. Time to Focus My Diverse Interests So, it’s been a long time since I’ve written on...

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

Would love to hear your thoughts, on why you prefer WordPress over other blogging platforms, and also, a link to your WP blog, would be appreciated.

If you happen to also think WP isn’t so hot, or doesn’t meet your needs I’d love to hear why??

My rough notes so far (mainly from wordpress.org and wordpress.com):

wordpress founded in 2003
largest self-hosted blogging tool in the world
Open Source
Requirements:
* PHP version 4.3 or greater
* MySQL version 4.0 or greater
(The mod_rewrite Apache module)

http://wordpress.com/stats/
4,581,919 blogs on wordpress.com

9.8 million WordPress publishers:
4.2 million blogs hosted on WordPress.com plus
5.6 million active installations of the WordPress.org software.

3,249 plugins – 14,532,117 downloads
601 themes – 1,232,704 downloads
1,906 ideas, 51,228 votes

In September 2008, an impressive 236 million people visited one or more WordPress.com blogs, and they viewed close to a billion pages on those blogs:

Almost everything on WordPress.com is free, and things that are currently free will remain free in the future, but we do offer paid a la carte upgrades for things like CSS editing and custom domains. How do we pay for everything? WordPress.com is run by Automattic which currently makes money from the aforementioned upgrades, blog services, Akismet anti-spam technology, and hosting partnerships.

WordPress Links
WordPress Pages

Full standards compliance — We have gone to great lengths to make sure every bit of WordPress generated code is in full compliance with the standards of the W3C. This is important not only for interoperability with today’s browser but also for forward compatibility with the tools of the next generation. Your web site is a beautiful thing, and you should demand nothing less.

No rebuilding — when changing templates
Changes you make to your templates or entries are reflected immediately on your site, with no need for regenerating static pages.

Easy Importing — We currently have importers for Movable Type, Textpattern, Greymatter, Blogger, and b2. Work on importers for Nucleus and pMachine are under way.

XML-RPC interface — WordPress currently supports an extended version of the Blogger API, MetaWeblog API, and finally the MovableType API. You can even use clients designed for other platforms like Zempt.

Multiple authors

Spam protection

Comments

Cross-blog communication tools— WordPress fully supports both the Trackback and Pingback standards,

Bookmarklets — Cross-browser bookmarklets make it easy to publish to your blog or add links to your blogroll with a minimum of effort.

Ping away — WordPress supports pinging Ping-O-Matic, which means maximum exposure for your blog to search engines.

Workflow — You can have types of users that can only post drafts, not publish to the front page.

No related posts.

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

Well, there’s not long to go, and as the debates and campaigns are coming to a close, with people already pre-voting in parts of the US, and voting queues taking hours at a time, you can tell that this clearly is an election like no other.. With the webosphere, blogosphere, and twittersphere alive with people actively watching and reporting on this election, the chances of there being a “fix” like there was in Bush vs. Clinton, is getting slimmer and slimmer.. let’s hope these elections represent people’s voting properly, and accurately.  Not that I believe in the democratic process leading to much, but heck, it’s got my interest, and so I’m going to blog about it, and share some of the “emergent” results, I’ve seen from the web 2.0 world of the internet so far.. It’ll be interesting to see how these metrics weigh up once the actual results come out.

Most of the inspiration to uncover these stats below came from reading The Wisdom of Crowds by James Surowiecki, a book that talks about how diverse groups, which represent some key criterion, of individual self interest and diversity, amongst other things, are capable of accurately predicting outcomes.

So with that in mind, lets see what the Web and the Internet have to say about the current US elections, and let’s see after the elections how the figures and ratios match up..

This all started when for some strange reason, I googled Obama, noticed the total number of entries listed, and thought, I wonder how many pages on the internet exist for McCain?

Well the results were interesting to say the least [just to contextualise, these facts were collected on the 1st of November, 2008, from 16:40 GMT]

Entries on Google.com (I initially used Google.co.uk, but found the US numbers to be a little higher, so possibly more accurate?):

Obama = about 202,000,000 results
McCain = about 144,000,000 results

From Google News:

Obama = 472,359 results
McCain = 425,271 results

From Google Blogs:

Obama = 13,610,226 results
McCain = 7,984,667 results

From Yahoo.com:

Obama = about 1,430,000,000
McCain = about 1,130,000,000

From Live.com:

Obama = 528,000 results
Barack = 894,000 results
McCain = 3,750,000 results
Mc Cain = 6,690,000 results

From Alexa.com, when comparing the traffic Ranking of barackobama.com and johnmccain.com (the official websites of each candidate), note that the smaller the number, the better:

barackobama.com = 753
johnmccain.com = 2,580

Then on TwitVote, a mock opinion poll for Election2008.

Obama = 4247 votes
McCain = 908 votes

(note, that since twitvote is available to the entire twitter community, this may not represent the views of the american people as accurately, this is also being updated in real time, by people in twitter, so the figures will have no doubt have changed dramatically by the time this is published).

Also, on 7-election.com, where voters can vote, based on their choice of cup, when ordering coffee, in 7-eleven’s across the US, we can see:

Obama = 60%
McCain = 40%

From the CNN Election Tracker Poll of Polls:

Obama = 50%
McCain = 43%

and also the CNN Electoral Map Calculator, where the crowd gets to predict the results:

Obama = 291
McCain = 160

Finally, Technorati.com, a blog aggregator predicts:

Obama = 675,621 results
McCain = 494,815 results

If you can find any other examples of crowdsourcing the election results before they happen, do add them to the comments below, and I’ll edit and update the page accordingly.  For now, it looks like Obama is clearly in the lead, across all the media, except, oddly enough, Live.com.. Perhaps that’s a reflection of either the information Live.com relies upon as being inaccurate, or the users there, being of a different demographic.  I’d hate to think there was any intentional fixing going on..

Please do share your thoughts, and insights, in the comments below.. Thanks!

No related posts.

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

Not least, because of how self-reflective the book is, and how it forces you to examine your life, from so many different angles, and so many different perspectives, and so many different lenses.  But also, just because it truly is heavy reading.  Perhaps, it’s just me, but whilst certain chapters just flowed, and I was able to read, easily and effortlessly, other chapters just totally bogged me down, and sometimes, it would take me a few days to repeatedly go over the same words, until I could move on.  Ironically, as soon as I put the book down, or got past that part, I would be just fine.. which makes me wonder.. is it the book or was it me, that was putting up the resistance??

Being outside of the US, I only got an electronic version of the book, but straight away, I could feel this book had a very significant “conscious” element to it.  I didn’t calibrate it, to the levels of consciousness, using Kinesiology, like David Hawkins does, in Power vs. Force, but intuitively, I’ve often noticed, that certain books, websites, and other written materials often carry a certain energy, especially if there are purposeful intentions behind what’s been created.  I’ll write more about my experiences, and understandings of energy and intention around written works another time, but for now, suffice it to say, that this book felt a little “lighter”, and had an energy around it, that was perceptible.

As I started to make my way through the book, having already read the table of contents online, I was acutely aware of the correlation between the 3 Core values of Truth, Love and Power, and the overlap, between these and the core guiding principles that I’d encountered in the work of The Pachamama Alliance, and the Awakening the Dreamer Symposium.

The work of the Awakening the Dreamer symposium, is to bring forth an “environmentally sustainable, spiritually fulfilling, and socially just human presence on this planet”.

Within the symposium, Environmental Sustainability captures the essence of living in balance with the physical world, being honest about what’s really happening, and in light of that honesty, taking new actions, as a consequence.  Something which having read Pavlina’s book, I believe is signifantly connected with being Truthful, in terms of what’s happening, and having an open and honest evaluation, with the forthrightness to acknowledge what’s really at play, regardless of whether it’s good or bad.

The component of the symposium that deals with Spiritual Fulfillment, deals with our own inner connection, or lack therof with others, in our day to day lives.  The component of Love, that Pavlina talks about relates to the notion of connectedness, and how, once we are in our loving space, we automatically feel the connection between ourselves, and others.  It is that connectedness, or absence of it, that is talked about in the Awakening the Dreamer Symposium, when addressing the component of Spiritual Fulfillment, which gets discussed as the lack, and emptiness… Being devoid of meaning and connection.. Living empty and meaning less lives, which is often attributed to not “doing what you love”.

As for the Socially Just human presence, I believe that to be directly connected the the element of Power, that Pavlina discusses.  A socially just world, is one in which people claim their power, and the capacity for injustice to occur is non-existent, since everyone is equally empowered.  Power is not the same as force, which comes into play, when a situation becomes unjust or is unfair.  And it is this very absence of Power, that is touched upon during the Symposium.  Admittedly the handling of social justice, during the symposium, leans more heavily towards looking at the inequalities in the world, between people, between the rich and the poor, the haves and the have nots, the differences that exists because of race, and culture.  To me, that is but the flip side of Power, for when power is absent, true power, then such inequalities are indeed possible.

Whilst the symposium may present each of these issues in a more global reaching light, looking at the plight of what is, and current status quo, the symposium, having been birthed a few years ago, started a conversation in the world, which I believe is being refined, and rephrased by Pavlina, in his book.  Whilst I doubt there’s any strong connection between him and the work of the Pachamama Alliance, consciously, I know the two strands are directly connected.  Why do I say this? Because both were born out of the same call from the earth, from Pachamama.  One originated, in the Amazonian rainforest, the other in the consciusness of an individual seeking growth.  Both mirror the fact that we are in a changing time.  As people connect with their own innate wisdom, their own innate consciousness, they start to be able to access the consciousness of the planet too.. That is not something which is different from country to country, or by race, language, or religion.  The world over, we as a humanity are sharing the planet we live in, and as we start to bridge the chasm, between the world we are in, of individual, seperate, disconnected beings, to realising that actually, we are all part of a blueprint woven through the ether of life, that collectively sustains life on this planet, we will have to look out our place in this world anew.

It seems that increasingly more and more people are waking up, in a crisis.  Their lives, amounting to nothing, having acquired all the material trappings of wealth, status, and success, yet feeling hollow, and empty inside. This isn’t just co-incidence that this is happening all over the world, in this unprecedented manner.  More and more people are choosing to say no.  Are stepping away from what was once thought to be the “only” way, and asking anew, how can we do this differently??

From the emergence of online portals such as Kiva.org that allows you to lend money to people in developing countries directly, to Zopa.com, which allows you to lend money to each other, challenging the traditional lending cycle of the banks, people are increasingly engaging with the world on new terms, and technology is allowing them to do so in a way that breaks down the old structures, that were fixed, and impermanent.  Life no longer has to follow the same patterns of previous generations, and with that comes a recognition of the fact that what has happened in the past, is not going to be sustainable going forward.  With increasing global populations, and reducing available resources, it’s time to re-think the equation of life, and Pavlina’s book does a great job of thoroughly dissecting everything in your life, and helping you reconstitute it in a new direction, based on some core, and fundamental principles.

Is it the only book out there that does this? I don’t know.  But it is one of the few that I’ve read that really brings Personal Development into the realm of Science, not art… Taking things step by step, in a methodical, and meticulous manner, Pavlina ruthlessly dives into each of the core values, and then builds upon them, until you’ve been cut open, and forced to bare yourself, so that you can see what’s really under your skin.  Then, in the second half of the book, he slowly starts to re-build the very thing he’s dissected, providing suggestions, experiments, and his own experiences of what’s worked for him, to help find a new road out of the chaos, and confusion that might ensue, when you see your flaws for what they are, and find yourself to be openly honest about living a life that is far from ideal, in every sense of the word.

I can’t say that I’m “taken” by his style, and approach.. It’s perhaps a little too linear, and logical for my liking.. At times, it seems to lack heart.  But then it’s perhaps also at the same time, providing me with an accurate mirror of myself, and my own reality, which makes it all the more unbearable, and untolerable.  It’s definitely not another one of those wishy washy, self help books, or flowery, spiritual books, that’s for sure.  And I’m pretty convinced, having experienced Steve Pavlina’s wisdom for a few years now, that following even just a small part of the book, will lead to tremendous growth, and success, in any area of your life.  The real challenge is going to be sustaining that change, and transformation, in a world that increasingly is crumbling apart, and reading this book, could very well shake you, from your very core, destroying any sense of  success and accomplishment you thought you had, whilst forcing you to openly and honestly, set a new course in life.

For me, there’s definitely many many great parts to the book, and whilst I found certain chapters unbearably tough to read, with moments when I was just falling asleep, whilst attempting to read the words on the page, I think there’s enough value in the book, that even if you only read the bits that interest you, you’ll get enough value out of it, to have made the book a worthwhile investment.  I for one, will always suggest, when in doubt, listen to your heart.. Feel your way through something.. If it feels right, pursue it.  If it doesn’t don’t.  Simple as that.. And in time, you may be able to intuit your way through life in a more enriching and meaningful manner.  For now, I don’t have a perfect answer.  My life is no where near perfect.  I don’t have all the outer trappings, or inner richness of perfection by any stretch of the imagination.

But I have a spirit that’s willing.  Willing to live, and try, and experience.  Experience life in all of it’s colours.  And with that, and that alone, with my heart guiding me as my compass, I can honestly say, I’ve only ever been off course, when I’ve stopped listening to this guidance.  And in time, I learn to listen to my heart again, and start to push off in a guided direction, and as if by magic, life starts to flow again.  It’s not magic, it’s not co-incidence, and it’s certainly not crazy nonsense.  But then my world view allows me to understand my heart as being more than just a physical organ that pumps blood around my body.  I’ll definitely share a more deeper and richer understanding of my heart, and what it is for me, in a future article, but for now, let me recommend you go out and buy yourself a copy of Pavlina’s new book, if you’re at all interested in personal growth, and personal development. And if you just have something in you’re life that you want changing, or you’ve found yourself facing challenges that you just can’t overcome, then perhaps it’s time to order this book too, and who knows, six months from now, you’ll be as grateful as I am now, for Steve having taken the time to synthesise and channel his thoughts, perceptions, and experiences into this wonderful book. Personal Development for Smart People: The Conscious Pursuit of Personal Growth, I recommend you order your copy today!

No related posts.

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

In that lucky grouping are Huddle, a London based startup, that leads the way, with being the first European startup to be represented in LinkedIn.  With over 30 million professionals using LinkedIn, Huddle are strategically positioning themselves well ahead of 37 Signals, with their BaseCamp offering.

In fact, when it comes to online project management, Huddle have probably beaten everyone else in the web space, given that most of the 30 million professionals on LinkedIn, probably haven’t gone deliberately looking for services that would offer such tools..

I know recently I discovered the Action Method, approach to tasking and project management, but only since I took an active interest in finding better tools to get this job done… Now it’ll be interesting to see what sort of an impact the OpenSocial integration is going to have with other services that equally integrate with OpenSocial, and will start to be offered through existing online social networks, such as LinkedIn and Plaxo..  Let’s just hope that what happens is that only the best tools rise to the top!

No related posts.

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

Well, it seems, since my travels around Peru, in 2005, I’ve yet to find a perfect solution for this dilemma…  Back then, I was travelling around Peru, and wanted to share some of the more personal stories, with select groups of family and friends, whilst the more general updates were meant for everyone.. But it seems, that there wasn’t an easy solution to the challenge, and so I ended up just not sharing some of the more intimate and personal stories, of my adventures, with the ones I wanted to share my stories with.  3 years on, and we don’t appear to be much closer to solving that challenge.. I suppose if I was only staying in touch with 4 or 5 people, this wouldn’t be a problem.. But being an active member in a number of different communities, and wanting to share stories, pictures and adventures with friends and family, being able to choose who gets to see what, seems to be a complex challenge, with no real practical solution.

I tried using Facebook recently, to share photos from my wedding, with some of the more personal, family moments, to be shared just with close immediate family, and it seems that Facebooks privacy settings, are far from perfect…  Short of excluding everyone, and then only including certain family members, you can’t just choose who to share photos with..

This challenge is one I’ve been grappling with for more than 3 years, and whilst I know the solution lies in starting with the social graph, and then managing access to information based on the relationships between people, it seems there’s very few if any services, that truly are able to execute this infrastructure, based on the needs of the person, with a real community in real life.  Facebook is trying as hard as it can, but being event driven, and advertising focussed, it can only ever truly be a glorified advertising platform, that lets people see what is happening in the most coarsest, and heavy handed manner.  For online tools to be able to come close to allowing the average person, with a multi-faceted life, to safely share the content that matters, with the people that matter to them, and to be able to keep work, family, and personal lives seperate, as we have them in our daily lives, in real life, will require a different order of thinking.  Something which Billioninayear.com has managed to do.   Once we have our development budget in place, then we’ll be able to see in a more direct manner, just how a tool, designed to keep you connected to the people you want to stay connected with, can really be a blessing, and save time, instead of becoming a curse, and adding to the information stream you have to stay on top of.

No related posts.

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.