I completely understand why people like Podcasts, but I don’t see why there is so much buzz about them. It’s nothing new for people to record some speech and post it on the web, but I suppose nothing was “new” with blogging besides permalinks and trackbacks.
This entry will simply be my thoughts on why I don’t see podcasting being as big as blogging. I am probably going to be wrong about every single thing I say here and next year podcasting will become the item that saves the world’s social climate, but until then here is what I think.
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Signal vs. Noise
It is easy to dazzle the world with catchy cliches such as “Getting Real†and whatnot, but come on…
The goal is to find the balance that best suits you and your customers, but don’t always assume more customer control is the better choice.
Is this not common sense? I am sure Adobe, Microsoft, and Macromedia have entire teams devoted to finding this “balance”. Of course, you may counter that with another catchy cliche - “thinking small†or whatever it was. It seems you are recycling what is already out there, rewording it, and adding a bunch of links to Basecamp and Backpack.
I am not trying to be harsh or insulting, but this blog has taken on a infomercial/sales pitch atmosphere that was not noticeable a year ago. Do you think we subscribe to this blog because we want to know how Scoble thinks 37signal is the shiznit? Chances are, we already know of Backpack, and Basecamp, and that is why we are here.
– Chuck Norris (don’t ask me) comment on SvN
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Unlike yesterday’s Start.com, Technorati is a site that I want to enjoy. It’s a boon to bloggers because that is what it focuses on. It’s our own little Google and it gives us a chance to see how our content connects with others.
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One of Microsoft’s latest ventures is their Start.com portal site. This is an easy target for this series, but I felt the need to write about it because I can’t stop seeing links on how cool the site is with its AJAX featureset. Going to the site you will see this statement in the footer:
this site is not an officially supported site. it is an incubation experiment and doesn’t represent any particular strategy or policy.
I am going to try and keep this in mind when I go over the site, but seeing how it’s Microsoft and they control more money than the Roman Empire I find it hard to believe that even non-official sites have to be this crappy.
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This week I will be looking at five companies/websites that seem to get a lot of publicity yet do not “do it” for me. As bloggers there are times where we might get too caught up in the hype of something new maybe because it uses Ajax or some other cool technology or maybe just because it was made by someone that we all revere.
These entries are not meant to bash the people behind the projects, but to look at them a bit differently than what the masses have been writing about. This series was partially inspired by an entry on Anil Dash’s site titled, How Do We Judge Our Tools?.
I currently have four sites lined up and am looking for a 5th so if there is any website/web application out there that makes you wonder what the big deal is then let me know.
Fortunately or unfortunately I haven’t been that involved with the design community for the past couple of months besides what I notice in my newsreader. Last year I wrote a post about the movers and shakers in our industry and thought it would be cool to see who you thought is making the most noise now.
Gone are the days of Shea, Bowman, Zeldman and Cederholm. In their places are who, who, who and who?
What I find interesting is how many people have entered the standards community field causing us to have less and less “leaders” and simply more speakers. I don’t know if we need leaders anymore since the path was pretty well-laid out by Zeldman, but it would be nice to have a place to go where we know good things would happen. Sort of like how ALA was a while ago.
Here is my short list of who I see as the innovators today and it’s no small coincidence they are part of the 9rules Network:
- Particle Tree: If most websites could accomplish in two years what these guys have done in two months everyone would be happy. I am going to take a risk now and call them the next 37signals (but better).
- Jonathan Snook: Simply a web dev genius developing right before my eyes. In a sense I like to refer to him as the web renaissance man because he does it all and he does it damn well.
- Mark Boulton: From articles on Grid Systems to deep thoughts on Typography is there anyone else in our community today that sounds more like they know what they are talking about than Mark?
No doubt I have missed a few, but those are the five that stood out immediately. Who do you have on the list? And please note this has nothing to do with the (fabled) A-List as none of these sites would be considered on it.
I am sure everyone has heard the expression “jack of all trades, master of none” before, but it usually applies to individuals. Today I would like to apply it to web applications and products to see which is the best direction to take.
Over the past couple of years the independent developer has made a huge comeback due to the power of the Internet. From del.ic.ious to Flickr to Blinksale we have seen what happens when you have one (or a couple of developers) focus their efforts on working on an application that does one thing really well. These type of applications build excitement and are the ones that you always seem to hear about, so is this the way to go?
It’s definitely easier to create one product that does one thing well, but very rarely does that application ever stay as master of one. Users ask for new features that begin to expand the reach of the application and within a couple of years you are no longer left with something that does one thing really well, but a product/service that does many things.
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