Latest articles on cruel to be kind:
Most of the times I do not bother installing facebook apps of services I am using because they have the tendency to do 'more' stuff than the original intent. Also I try to be very careful about what I do to my profile(s) and set up 'information flow rules' in how I put information somewhere.
Friendfeed is a collection of your streams, or in my case the streams I find 'worthy' enough to be displayed as mine. Meaning I will not give you my every Upcoming entry, nor Amazon wish list entry etc, and I will heavily try to avoid duplicates. Up until now that meant routing my twitter updates to status updates on
my Facebook profile, as it makes sense but for example not include my jaiku stream in Friendfeed because jaiku just receives my twitter updates.
And while friendfeed has a lot of relevant features missing, I somehow like them and I see how they improve their offering.
The (un) expected benefit
I basically installed the Facebook app because I wanted the Facebook profile link
in my friendfeed profile plus wanted to have a look at the way it displays in my profile.
It puts all the entries of my friendfeed page into facebook and while I would have preferred to have an option of a 'clean' feed without liking / comments, I can see why they provide it. I added this to my facebook profile because it makes sense to show what I am doing in other spaces.
I did expect to be able to find the friends on Facebook who also use the service, and to be able to subscribe to them. Which it did, and I now doubled the number of people I am subscribed to - in other words, roughly a third of my facebook friends seem to be on Friendfeed with the app installed.
What I did not expect was the automated subscription (nice) plus the subscribing back - it seems as if everybody who has installed the app on facebook now is automatically subscribed to me. I have a hunch that they did not get the information via mail like they would have gotten if I manually subscribed to them (bad), but they should see me suddenly popping up in their friendfeed.
So if you like an easy subscribe / subscribe back, use the facebook app. If you rather would not like to see it pollute your profile, just remove the box afterwards, but make sure to add a link in your "profiles in other spaces" section in facebook, because people like myself love to explore where you are in other spaces.
Different for example to the stumbleupon facebook app, where I up until today do not know how to subscribe to my friends without spamming everybody else, this is a nicely done and usable facebook application! :)
Used tags: facebook, friendfeed, lifestream, review, stumbleupon
30.03.08 - tools - 5 comments / TB ( ) - permanent link
The phrase of 'power to the people' and 'you don't need to deal with IT' always sends chills down my spine about the implied ignorance and misconception of how enterprise function. And the stupidity of these startups / companies in believing, that they are oh so clever. I have three word for you: Firewalls. Data Mining. Come to think about it, it could hurt Google Search as well.
So this is a must read especially for any startup who tries to get customers from the enterprise, but also for everybody else:
Google Sites the Next Sharepoint? Maybe Not....Why Google Apps Could Lose the Enterprise Market.
Oh heck, for the ones not willing to read through, just this is enough to say no to Google apps in the enterprise for
anything:
By submitting, posting or displaying the content you give Google a perpetual, irrevocable, worldwide, royalty-free, and non-exclusive licence to reproduce, adapt, modify, translate, publish, publicly perform, publicly display and distribute any Content which you submit, post or display on or through, the Services.
And because normal users, like little children, more often than not have no clue what they are doing, nor what is good for them, IT has to take this role and make it work. Because while in part it of course is about power structure and control, it is so much more about running a business.
And sadly, the level of knowledge regarding IT even in top management is frightening (which in reality is not about IT but way more about processes, structure and such). If your business runs on 'high tech', you need to understand the principles of it and be able work with them, period.
The article has many valid points, but I' like to pick this one for a comment:
[continue reading ...]
Used tags: enterprise, global_it, google_apps
29.02.08 - default - 6 comments / TB ( ) - permanent link
People interested in privacy and data protection in Germany seem to be much more likely to be open to english / international than other areas in Germany, so it comes at no surprise that the
Identitycamp in Bremen is setup to be a bilingual one from the beginning.
Identitycamp Bremen will be the first Barcamp in Germany that focuses on identity 2.0, single-sign-on, reputation management, relationship management, privacy 2.0 and related issues. It will take place in Bremen in Northern Germany ... currently, we aim for a capacity of about 100 participants.
IdentityCampBremen is being prepared by an informal network around Identity and Privacy in cooperation with the Bremen Innovation Agency BIG - Die Wirtschaftsförderer.
Who should come?
- web professionals
- developers
- identity architects
- Startups
- researchers
- enthusiasts
- privacy protectors
- people who run social networks
- Community Manager(s)
- IT lawyers
Yes, we no know that the European Soccer Championship starts on the same weekend. We will make sure the soccer fans will not miss the games.
We are still looking for kind folks who want to help us with planning of content, documentation (videos, pictures, streams), with setting up and with everything else that needs to be done.
This will be an interesting event, especially in relation to recent 'advancements' introduced by the German government which are handled in court now.
Co-organizer Ralf Bendrath
blogs about his "
thoughts and observations of a privacy, security and internet researcher and activist" in much better detail and eloquence than I will ever do, so please head over there. ;)
And while I have my issues with German Barcamps (more with the lack of interest by many to evolve and be challenged / challenging), this is one I am looking forward to, as this content wise should an event like a Barcamp are supposed to be: go in, have fun, but also learn a lot and be challenged in your thinking.
Used tags: barcamp, events_in_germany, identitycampbremen
29.02.08 - conference - 0 comments / TB ( ) - permanent link
Some people think
friendfeed is great. And they
think of themselves this way:
At FriendFeed, our goal is to make content on the Web more relevant and discoverable using a combination of social mechanisms and innovative technology. This is a big problem, and we're just getting started. We'll be continually improving FriendFeed for years to come as our technology, our user base, and the Web grow.
If you are a simple person, that may very well be. As in 'if you only speak one language' or 'do not have a lot of input' or "nothing to do" or so. Yes, I am grumpy and it is not just about the language thing.
To show you what I mean by that is have a look at my
friendfeed. you might notice something unfamiliar in there, especially the lower part. That are links to my german blog. Which is part of what I publish online, so it is a valid entry. But as much as you (most likely) do not want to see German entries, I do not want to see anything except English and German.
Shall I now go on and add
- my german and english amazon wish list?
- my german and english twitter?
- my german and english bookmarking service?
- my german and english audio or video?
- my english and german shared readers entries from google?
- my stumbleupon link which receives partly german, partly english entries?
- an entry every time I add something to the english upcoming or the german venteria?
I think you know where that is heading.
Why can't I define in my profile which feed is in which language?
Why can't I say in my profile "only display these languages"?
Btw usually people with this problem just add the english stuff and be done with it. Nonetheless, there are more than enough people who speak more than one language.
That set aside, where did I read it would be so superior to Plaxo Pulse? Well, with Pulse at least they understood the "i do not want to see this" part. Note the 'subjective I' part.
I for example do not want to see twitter, jaiku or pownce entries on such thing, as they are chatting. I don't want to see social bookmarking links, because the people I am likely to subscribe to will do this heavily, so it will just be a mad stream of things which I can handle much better in each application, thank you. I do not want to see any kind of last.fm like stuff, I just don't care. And Amazon wish lists? No thanks.
Why oh why do developers always like to think about including stuff, but never about a decent way to exclude it?
I don't want more, I want better filtering, better options of managing the information and making better use of it. One may say it is for the more casual user, and for them it may be great. But even they in some years will face the problem heavy user are at today ...
Come to us and interact with us
The same as with Plaxo and many others, Friendfeed wants me to comment on their site, do interaction at their database. How many services am I supposed to be following? When will startups realize that there is the chances of them being the superior player are extremly slim and as such trying to lock me into their service is just plain annoying?
*sigh*
Used tags: friendfeed, international_customers, plaxo, plaxo_pulse
27.02.08 - european view - 3 comments / TB ( ) - permanent link
While I am going through all kind of information I though I list them for you as well ... Some of these you should put directly in your phone book or save them as a document on your mobile phone.
[Now, collecting was the easy part. *sigh* now to bring that all into my systems cause I don't get mobile access *grrrrr*]
Information from the official site:
Useful information from SXSW baby
Also happening
- Barcamp Austin
- Blog Network Camp (upcoming)
- sxswbaby: the other festival:
Everyone knows about the SXSW Music, Film and Interactive festivals. Pish, they’re old news. But alongside the big three, there are some other SXSW-sanctioned events you might not be aware of.
- ScreenBurn: Now in its third year, the Screenburn Festival shows off the latest innovations and future directions of the gaming industry with a mix of panel discussions and the ScreenBurn Arcade. ...
- SXSWclick: An online/mobile media festival, showcasing short-form storytelling created using or for mobile devices or the web. This film-focused event is entirely virtual. ...
- Flatstock: Co-presented by SXSW and the American Poster Institute, Flatstock brings together works by music poster artists from around the world, representing all sorts of artistic styles and music genres. ...
Links which help you manage the event / information overflow
- the official page has a kind of 'pick your panels / films' system which results in an ical file, start from this program overview
- collection: SXSWi 2008 ical schedule panels + evening events
- Upcoming SXSW Interactive 2008 thankfully the people attending sxsw use upcoming as it is supposed to be used ...
- Additional tip if you live in another timezone and use MS Outlook: right click on the timeline in your calendar, pick "change timezone" and add a second with Austin time, helps you put stuff at the right place ...
- google blog search request on south by southwest / sxsw / sxswi (3 because or does not work yet)
- twitter search on sxsw
- SXSW Videos with youtube import (although I am more likely to go with OVI as it seems)
- Connect: Twitter wiki with attendees' twitter ids
Additional infos from the wiki:
- great BBQ near the Convention Center. Look no further than Iron Works BBQ at 100 Red River.
- There are two WiFi Networks, each on a different frequency band. One is identified by SXSW2008 and the other SXSW2008 5GHz. The SXSW2008 5 GHz network is the higher performance network with more channels and faster speeds. If a WiFi device sees the SXSW2008 5 GHz network please select it. These are the only official networks for internet access at the Austin Convention Center
- http://sxsw.ning.com/
additional information from there: Use craigslist http://austin.craigslist.org/sub/ to find a place to stay
Found on the way, also looks interesting:
[continue reading ...]
Used tags: austin, sxsw, sxswi
27.02.08 - conference - 2 comments / TB ( ) - permanent link
Asking for advise for which prepaid card or other option to get; while the questions seems specific to me, other international visitors will appreciate your answers as well, especially since the T-Mobile prepaid does block premium SMS = twitter.
I am thrilled to finally be sure to say: Yes, I am going to Vegas and Austin, thanks to Microsoft. (More news on that and my thoughts about that later.) Now, the usual problem arises: Which prepaid to get or which other solution to look at?
The problem:
As you might know (or not), getting a sim in the US with any kind of data possibility seems impossible without a SSN or getting a 24 month contract. Available prepaid cards don't do data. Which is bad for a mobile lifestyle where you depend on being connected to the net. My world is connected and does not care about roaming.
What do I want to do
While
Mix08 will have a dedicated BlogZone and I expect the wifi there to be working, Sxsw will be a mess. Either way, I would like to be independent in regards to simple things like mobile twitter and mail access, plus calling national and international numbers without getting broke. In a perfect world I have some hundred MB for sending videos from the events direct to online.
What am I looking for
Ideally I would like a prepaid card with data allowance on it, knowing that is not possible I do look for a prepaid which I can manage to keep after the events to have a constant number for the US without needing too much money to top it up or use a number like skype with call forwarding. If there is a chance to get a data sim, please let me know.
Why T-Mobile sadly does not work
Any news if that has changed? So last time I decided "no problem, I will go SMS" and got myself the T-Mobile prepaid because it has the option to top up with 100 dollars and it would be valid a year, so I could keep the number and do not need to spam my friends as soon as I am over there with a new number.
Imagine my chagrin when I had to learn that I neither could send nor receive a twitter sms with that! I can receive SMS for free on my german mobile number ...
So, suggestions needed
- Any option for foreigners out there for data?
- Is there a site where I could easily compare the major prepaid cards in regards to conditions to learn about topping up and such?
- Any news on T-Mobile card working with twitter now`?
- Are there cheaper options than skype for forwarding calls?
Used tags: mix08, prepaid, sxsw, t_mobile, usatrip
27.02.08 - default - 10 comments / TB ( ) - permanent link
Is Twitter going to set up a credit based system for sending / receiving messages? A screen I saw the other day suggests so. It was from my mobile, so I did not react in time to make a copy, but it basically said to me: "Not enough credits to send message".
At that moment I just saw the error message, but now I think they will be testing that way to monetize soon. It also makes sense now to first increase the user base to a critical mass and to get them addicted, and then find a way to charge for it.
I am not denying twitter a way to monetize it, I am just curious if they will manage to set up a system which will not screw up. I assume that it needs to be a system charging me to send out messages (but then I am going to be more careful about what I send to the world) or depending on my user base (1K users per 1 credit).
It has been done before
Back 20 years ago, I had my first encounter with Chat, in a pre-internet system called BTX (comparable to Minitel in France). Many may look back with desire to the days because then there was working micropayment plus the killer application: chat rooms. And it was monetized too: For every message you would send or receive, you were required to pay money.
Today we kind of have the same with SMS: In America both parties pay unless you do have a unlimited plan, in Germany for example the receiver never pays unless it is some premium subscription thing (I even receive SMS for free in roaming).
The net crowd however seldom uses SMS, we do use online chat / IM systems from our mobile phones if at all. Twitter probably changed that more than others, but only because it resembles something obviously unknown to many: the system of a chat room on IRC.
Why a chat room is a different conversation than IM
With an IM system, I need to talk one on one - and you would not just ping a person and throw in some comment if you would like to start a conversation. In a chat room though you can: With your usual crowd, you either see somebody picking up the conversation or you don't. It is okay to just join a channel and say "Stupid / Great day!".
I never understood why all IM systems neglected this absolute basic lesson from IRC, and only later would include "group chats". To this day most systems like Skype etc do not have the feature set of IRC clients from 10 years ago!
Why Twitter is more convincing than other IM systems
As IM systems are based on fancy stuff, they all either require some installation or flash on websites. Too slow and not usable for many. Entering Twitter: Simple web page, simple registering process, interactive badges for the website to display the conversation, mobile access.
It is simple enough, yet does exactly the opposite of what IM does: enable group chat. Given, in a very clunky way and everybody is screaming - wait for it - for functionality one knows from IRC (separate channels, ignore and highlight), but way better than the rest. It is faster than SMS as it allows for group messaging, and it gives me online access as well.
Will users pay with a per credit system?
I started using it due to group pressure ;) about a year ago and like many others my blogging has declined as the attention span goes down with chat. Which btw is one of the reason I stopped using IRC and am often not plugged into Skype, and only rarely into Gtalk - it is a distraction to me.
Twitter is a guilty pleasure, but also easy to set up for events and other uses. The last numbers I received where like 750K users, but as I alone have 5 users and I know of many others who do the same, I would guess the real number lies lower than this. But still, it can grow especially if they manage to position themselves as a working group SMS system.
What could work
Twitter is giving me some value and to a certain degree I will be willing to pay money for it, but I doubt they can monetize it as much as for example mobile carriers earn on SMS today. SMS earnings depend on people not caring that they pay something like 20-40 dollar cent per message over here; or they have an unlimited data plan.
I am assuming that Twitter would go with something similar: Credit based for lower output and a flat fee for heavy users. How much is twitter worth to you? 5 dollars per month, 10? Free to use together with a plan from mobile carrier XYZ or as an added benefit package, preparing the users for even more spending on their mobile phone bill?
I use Twitter mainly from the web page and the mobile web page, as the SMS alert system is not easy enough to control and setup, they have limited it to 250 SMS anyway, suggesting I will be able to by a package with more SMS.
Which leads me to the usual:
The international question ...
Up until now, everything I wrote above makes perfect sense for the American market. And American carriers. They are already paying for Twitter, either through receiving SMS cost or part of their data plan. Yet I know a lot of people who are not in the US and who use Twitter extensively. I can only imagine that Twitter - as most other US based companies - will be blind towards the implications running around this issue.
Yes, SMS alert is way more expensive when sent internationally - which for example is why many people use the mobile option, it is way cheaper for me to go on a data tariff than send an expensive SMS to the UK to update my twitter. (Due to the US system of how SMS works I also receive my twitter SMS on my German mobile phone number in roaming mode, as it does not cost me anything, but my US prepaid will not receive those ...)
My assumptions
Charging money changes the dynamics
It will be the question how much users value the convenience of Twitter charging money or if they will start using other systems like Gtalk pushed to the phone. Currently there is no reason to go to another system, but charging money changes that fast. I only can imagine that they will be able to bill for credits to send out messages, as otherwise a lot of people will unsubscribe from most of their subscription list as well as to everybody just blabbering.
Other mothers have nice looking sons too
Second, we may be locked into Twitter as no other service provides the convenience, then again, services like Jaiku exist. They are not as sexy now - but adding a credit charge to twitter makes a tool like Jaiku suddenly waaay more interesting.
Ad sponsored twittering?
In the past, Twitter has highlighted events where somebody more or less commercial uses twitter to do mass updates to spread out information. Will I be able to buy credits to spam x thousand users with this demographic soon? (People have wondered about the 20 missing characters, but this is used for "says xxx"). Or just a general blast for all the users not paying money to Twitter, or both credits for sending and receiving advertisement?
My personal conclusion?
Whatever they do, I expect them to be stupid enough to only work with / for the American market. Which may lead to an increase domestically, but neglects the millions of possible users internationally. This will lead to international users switching to local copycats or other competitors like Jaiku etc. Been there, seen that.
That aside, it will depend a lot on what they are charging. I am not sure yet what I would pay for it, but the one thing I know is this: As soon as they are starting to charge money, I will start demanding features and stability.
How much will you pay for Twitter?
Additional Link:
NYT: If You Can’t Let Go, Twitter puts the users of Twitter in a very narrow demographic and even if just a small sample, not at all with the teenage crowd, the most likely to go bezerk over a service like this.
Used tags: buying_international, jaiku, twitter
14.02.08 - european view - 6 comments / TB ( ) - permanent link
Yes, it is this time of the year again. More female speakers, etc, but bear with me, there is a new twist to it. And some questions at the bottom plus a suggestion where you actually should start using your 'consumer power'.
This time brought up by Lena West in "
X Chromosome Web 2.0 Rock Stars". I have made my points clear in "
Decisions are made by those who show up" but looking at Lena's answers something else popped up for me.
Maybe I have been watching too much enjoyable pickup artist reality shows (hei, I really found them amusing!), but Lena's answer to my comment made something very obvious to me:
So, the question is...how do we make it easier for women to apply for available speaking gigs? Or, maybe even more basic than that, how do we get women to put speaking at the top of their priority/marketing efforts list? Or maybe, how do we get 'the establishment' to recognize/find people who won't exactly promote themselves?
If you ever saw any of the 'PUA' stuff, you should know what I saw: Easy.
I do not think it should be easier. It should be more obvious what men do to get this kind of stuff - what women neglect to do. It should not be made harder btw just equally hard. That already sets the bar much higher for many women.
And why do we have to find people "who do not to promote themselves" to recommend them when obviously that is not what they want? I appreciate
Jeremiah's posting on this, but basically it is again doing work for somebody who seems not willing to do so.
[continue reading ...]
Used tags: conference_organizing, female_speakers
04.02.08 - cruel to be kind - 9 comments / TB ( ) - permanent link
This article is a result of a question from the Global Business Women forum about advise and tips for preparing a new venture presentation to a bank, but should be usable for any kind of prepping for presentation.
With any kind of business venture, there will be presentations about your company and your product. The following probably sounds like a lot of work and time consuming, but in most cases you will find yourself doing these steps automatically after an initial learning.
Looking specifically at a presentation to a bank or a VC, I would advise the following extra 'rounds':
[continue reading ...]
Used tags: entrepreneur, pitching, presentation
03.02.08 - coaching - 1 comments / TB ( ) - permanent link
When you want to do business with 'international' or have an application used by others than just in your language realm, it is not about translating everything for example to German but about the small details which one frequently does not know about and makes mistakes in.
Today: The separators comma and point for numbers.
As you know, I like conferences because they are usually the easiest way to get to know people. As such I was interested to see that there are some search oriented conferences coming to Germany (I am an Analytics and Logfile addict of course), and had a quick look at the price of the "Emetrics Marketing Summit". And to my surprise, the regular price is just 2 Euros, great!
What happened? Obviously somebody native english worked with this for the regular price, and a non native, non aware editor did the editing for the rest. Because all the other prices are correct - at least to my eye. Well kind of, because having the Euro in front of the price is also specific to the dollar.
Different to English, where the separator for thousands is comma and the decimal point is a point, for me the decimal separator is a comma and the thousand separator is a comma. Which is why also the so called CSV files (=comma separated values) is a semi-colon separated file in German usage.
| english | german |
| $ 1.1 | 1,1 € or Euro |
| $ 1,000 | 1.000 Euro |
| $ 1,000.11 | 1.000,11 Euro |
Do you want the brain of your customer to signal "Error!!!" on your prices?
Application which require me to enter numbers the english way run against two things. nearly 4 decades of training how my mind works. Even reading these figures is confusing in a way - because the brain is trained to notice exceptions, it is additional effort to process this number. Do you really want customers to pay extra attention with a "warning, something is wrong!" sense to prices?
What I read out of "We have 300,000 users!"
My brain does not parse this as three hundred thousand but 300 at first. After a split second though I get the addition. Although you may think different, this is preferred over using the number 3000000, because that takes more time to get the information, like in see, think, get annoyed and using the mouse to count the numbers.
The effects of that are deeper than you might think.
- How do you enter your numbers?
I would guess with your numeric keypad. Have a look at it - what do you see next to your zero?
If it is a point, imagine what it feels like to have a comma there and be required to enter the list of numbers in the table above. The reason why the separator is there and not both point and commas is simple: Everything processing numbers like spreadsheet has special, automated formatting to your value.
In examples from the currency formating tab from Excel
- #.##0,00 € means: Format the number with two decimals and separator per thousand with trailing Euro sign.
- [$$-409]#.##0,00 does the same with American Dollar style - notice the dollar in the front and not back
- [$€-1809]#.##0,00 this is the format for Euros in Ireland notice the front Euro
There is no special number assigned to the first formatting, because these infos come from a German Excel and it would be weird to the eye to see this kind of formatting - which is why Microsoft only displays these information with other currencies. In the file of course it gets marked with "Germany".
- How do you order one and a half?
If I want to order 1.5 times of something, I will enter by default 1,5. This already lead to many cases of "do you want to order 1500 items" - which is why a confirmation page before sending the order is so important.
- How do you copy and paste values?
Copy and pasting values between applications is a very frequent operation. If I want to work with numbers or sheets I get from others, I need to c&p those values. If there is no difference between the display of a number (1,000,000 but internally the value is 1000000), this will not work.
Why Google and Microsoft rule the market.
"But I did not know about it! Now it is too complicated to implement." If this is your answer, I am sorry but you did not do your homework. It is also one of the reasons why so many applications never really make it out of the small American market and why companies like Google and Microsoft are so successful over here: Besides the reqally superb localized versions of everything Microsoft (I know, due to the size of the German speaking market), Google is one of the few competitors to 'get' it.
Best example: Google Spreadsheet. I dismissed the first version immediately because the numeric keypad problem is one of the first things you test on such an application. And low and behold it was useless due to expecting the numbers separated by point. But quickly this turned and now Google Spreadsheet is the default place to have an online spreadsheet.
In both cases there are large companies behind these efforts, but honestly: you can learn a lot from them and apply it to whatevery you are making.
(Speaking of learning from each other - could the Windows Live Writer Team please pay a visit to their colleagues and make sure I can set a default language per blog in regard of spell checking? Thank you.)
Do you have other stories around these separators? Please share. :)
Used tags: localization
29.01.08 - european view - 6 comments / TB ( ) - permanent link
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