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Hey Joe Blogger, Diversify!December 30 2008

You may have heard of Joe the plumber and Joe Sixpack.  I want to speak directly to Joe Blogger.  This post is for the average Joe or Jane Blogger.  It pays to diversify.

There are plenty of life streaming venues around.  FriendFeed and other lifestreaming services allow submission of your blogs RSS feed.  When I blog post the post gets pushed via RSS to FriendFeed, Twitter, Facebook, and Social Median to name a few.

It pays in page views to diversify.  I am also a member of Strands, Plaxo, and MyBlogLog.  Making content available via full text RSS and submitting to multiple services gets your content out into the wild.

From a personal standpoint I mainly see traffic being driven by FriendFeed.  Yesterday I posted what I thought was a great post titled “

Leaders In Internet Social NetworksDecember 29 2008

When you gather people together in any sort of group, a social structure most always arises. Leadership is something that comes natural to some, and others have it thrust upon them.

A small group may never appoint official leadership but receive leadership in some form from one, two, or a few. Unofficially or not, leadership roles are filled.

Leadership is defined by Wikipedia as the…

“process of social influence in which one person is able to enlist the aid and support of others in the accomplishment of a common task.”

As I began to write this post, I thought about several things. First, my assumption was that leaders definitely exist in social networks. Next, I believe leaders have certain responsibilities within the social setting. I have an expectation for a leader. Is this unrealistic or just simply unfair? These are some the things I want to discuss.

Do leaders exist in social networks?

Large scale social networks are filled with many groups, cliques, and small pockets of users. The users may have affiliation with each other via real life or only online relationships.

Often groups or cliques are simply people of similar int

Rinsing My Bad Taste for FriendFeedDecember 22 2008

I love FriendFeed do not get me wrong.   I mean it is the premier life-streaming service.  I have tried others and found them all lacking.  FriendFeed is a great place of news, research, and generally friendly smart ideas.

But, over the last few months I found myself participating less and less.  The bad taste I gained for FriendFeed still lingers.  These negative feelings arose in the weeks preceding election day.

FriendFeed was not friendly.  It was totally pro one candidate.  Dissenting opinions were not only frowned upon but some users were verbally abused by the herd.

The abuse was even supported by members of the frienderati pushing their political views.

You know how when you see celebrities on television at some awards show being very political just because they can.   These celebrities have no more intelligence or insight than you or I.  The person with the spotlight simply pushes their own agenda or beliefs.

The Frienderati acted in the same way.  T

8 FireFox Extensions That Are New To MeDecember 19 2008

With a new job came a new computer, new work OS, new Screen resolution, and a new number of screens.  So a new computer and OS includes a fresh Firefox install.

In this post I will describe my current Firefox extensions.  In my new job I am currently doing web development primarily.

Some of these addons are very new to me.  A new Firefox install is a good opportunity to find out which extensions you can not live without.  I will always install Tab Mix Plus.  It is the first extension I install.  The very first one.

Please do not forget about other gems like Ad-Block plus, Copy Plain Text, and Feedly.    First here is my list of new extensions to me.  These are new ones that I have personally used only in the last couple of months.  My total list of installed addons totals 24.  As always the lists are easily generated with InfoLister.

New To Me Extensions

• All-in-One Sidebar (Gives the sidebar power.  It ha

Introducing Product Recommendations from Kallow.comDecember 3 2008

As an early adopter and tech enthusiast I am often questioned by friends, neighbors, and the occasional stranger at the big box store to recommend a product.  The choices in consumer electronics can be overwhelming.

Kallow.com looks to make product recommendations pure and simple.  The site is co-founded by  Caleb Elston of Toluu.  This new project was born out of the need to help people pick the right items from those big box stores.

Caleb says,

“(We) were inspired by how often we have friends and family contact us asking for recommendations for tvs, cameras, or speakers.”

Simple is the name of the game for Kallow.com.  Caleb and his co-founder and friend Jordan look

“to take the clutter out of electronics buying.”

The site is simple.  Go to the Kallow home page.  Pick a product and there will be one recommendation that you can not go wrong with.  One product in that category that Caleb and Jordan have personally tested and recommend.