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Someone Important Cares What I Say

posted in: blogging, ramblings, relationships (Tags: , ) - 5 Comments

3:56 pm 3:56 pm

Okay I know I was ‘complaining‘ sorta about the noise yesterday, BUT…

So I was on twitter last night… just catching up on friends and stuff. And like I occasionally do on facebook, I was checking out who is friends with my friends… (sounds complicated I know) That would be friends on Twitter not Facebook.

Anyway… I discovered that Barack Obama is on Twitter. I click the button to follow him since I think it could be interesting. Now this morning I get an email letting me know that Barack is following me.

ME!

My voice is not really that important to the Obama campaign… trust me on that one. (I’m Canadian) And it’s probably not even Barack but someone on his staff that (wo)mans the Twitter account. But even so, there was something emotionally satisfying in the thought that a presidential candidate just might care what I have to say (or tweet). (okay he’s a potential presidential candidate.. I do have some clue about American politics)

Looking through my twitter friends I realize that there are a few others there that I might consider higher level individuals (don’t read anything into that statement). It means something that they are following me. Doesn’t that somehow satisfy a human urge for significance. IT DOES FOR ME. Maybe technology really can contribute to our emotional health not just waste our time and resources…. and add to the noise around us.

I know there are all types of social media out there. Facebook is certainly connecting people who wouldn’t otherwise be connected. My wife discovered a brother she hadn’t really known before.

I’m really starting to like Twitter. It feels more like a conversation than correspondence. Maybe if a blog felt more that way others would get involved. Who knows?

So tell me… would you say things differently if you knew someone you respected was listening?

Is It Getting Really Noisy In Here?

posted in: blogging, ramblings (Tags: , , ) - 10 Comments

7:15 pm 7:15 pm

I was starting to think it was just me. I had planned to ask others about it but in the busyness of life I didn’t. It seems like every day I get another spam comment that looks like it could be real until I click the return link…. bamm…. spam.

What is it? Are the machines getting smarter???

“ENTER THE MATRIX“

I suspect that some well meaning person is being paid a sub par wage to troll the net and leave almost relevant comments on blogs around the world.

Bamm…. just got another one. Stuck in moderation but not going to get posted.

noiseSeriously… is it just me or is there more spam?

On the other hand… it also seems to be getting harder and harder to find original content. Seth Godin noted that yesterday. Too much noise… not enough signal.

Brings up an interesting phenomenon I think. When given too many choices, people often opt out of the whole decision.

What’s gonna happen when you have a million blogs to choose from? How are you going to choose? What about when your feedreader has 200 feeds in it? What do you do?

Facebook?

Twitter?

Ning?

Skype?

Too much noise… ?

Do you shut the power off?

Liz what do you do? I know you are trying to prioritize your social media.

Chris, I get a lot of tweets from you. How do you control the noise?

What about the rest of you? How do you control the noise?

WordPress 2.5 Upgrade

posted in: blogging - 1 Comment

5:50 pm 5:50 pm

Well… after a few minutes of deciding whether to upgrade or not, I jumped in and what can I say?

Wooohoooo…. there are lot’s of fun new tidbits in this version.

While I haven’t taken much time to explore, I will say that the new backend looks great. Much easier to navigate and looks more…. uh.. web 2.0 maybe. I’m excited to see just what new goodies I can discover. Peter Westwood let’s us in on just how major this upgrade is.

The upgrade went pretty well. Only one plugin ended up not working. The Popularity Contest plug-in from Alex King produced a fatal error that WordPress graciously warned me of and refused to let me activate the plug-in. I guess now I’ll be looking for something else to fill that spot in the sidebar.

Other than that, WordPress 2.5 seems to run a little faster especially in the admin section. Who knows… maybe I’ll get inspired to write a bit more often. But then I’ll have to upgrade from the lousy hosting plan I have right now to a server who’s MySQL server moves at more than a glacial pace. Now that’s a whole ‘nuther story.

Read Matt’s post for all the details on this new version nicknamed “Brecker”