The Sign Up Dilemma

One thing many people love about the web is the fact that it is simple and easy start almost any project. I can create a blog on WordPress, a podcast on Mevio, then syndicate it using Feedburner so I get stats and a nice customized feed, and then I can back to it on my WordPress blog, and suddenly I’ve created a TV/Radio show with a website to boot. Now all I have to do is advertise it on Twitter, Friendfeed, and iTunes. The entire process of doing this sort of stuff is really easy, because the entire thing is automated. But is it a good thing that it is automated? What do we lose by making this entire process automated. We lose quality but gain quantity.

TechMeme – The Best Tech News Source

Most everyone has been violently itching to get away from TechCrunch lately, following the endless fiascoes led lately by Erick Schonfeld. I have been repeatedly asked in the past few weeks, where do I turn for news if TechCrunch is slowly going the way of the Buffalo? Simple, I turn to TechMeme.com If you have never used TechMeme, you are in for a treat.

8 things to do when you can’t post.

Some people get in a jam, or something happens in their life that they can’t blog a lot for a certain period of time. For people who read their blog, this can be annoying because you expect new content from them. Here are 8 things you can do to help make sure you always have content rolling on your site, even when you are in a hard time in your life.

How many of you are out there?

Due to WordPress and the fact that their stat collecting really stinks, I’d like to ask: How many of you are out there? How many of you read my blog often and find my content interesting? I think that many authors need to ask this question every so often, because it is a good chance to find out who is visiting your blog?

But in a quick update: Chacha102.com just passed 5,000 total views, which I think is a pretty good milestone. I will probably be switching this over from WordPress.com to a hosted server, and with it will come a Feedburner feed, along with things like a new theme, better statistics, and probably a whole bunch of cool stuff I can’t think of right now.

So, if you can spare the time, please put your name, blog, and any links you wish in the comments. I’d love to see your blog, social networks, etc. (I promise, I will write a blog post tomorrow)

App Store as a Software kit?

 

Althought most of Apple’s products are very well thought of, sometimes we find that parts of it are too simple to actually add functionality. One person saw this in the way the icons on your iPhone are arrranged. Currently, the only way to get an App onto your phone is to sync it to the device. Not very handy, and doesn’t really encourage you to be using applications. What one person envisions is a way to edit your home screens directly through iTunes. This includes the ability to sort applications by name, use, etc. It also allows for you to reorder home screens and the icons on them. Here is the YouTube video.

What makes you social?

What happens when Facebook locks you into their chat that you have to be on their specific page to view your contacts? What about when you have to use the Twitter site because you have ran out of API calls? When you are inconvenienced, it takes away from the true purpose of whatever network you happen to be on. You aren’t social any more.

What are your Tweets worth?

People have been asking what their tweets are worth for a long time. ‘How much value do I bring to the people who subscribe to me?’. You have 140 characters, and those  characters are what people base whether they listen to you or not. For people not following many people, if they follow you, they expect an actual value out of it. But how do you actually know?

This, I cannot answer. I cannot tell you how to find out if you are providing useful content for people. One thing many people do is follow everyone who follows them. This allows you to see what the people who are listening to you are saying. Things like Twhirl with its expanded @reply finder makes it extremely easy to catch your name anywhere on twitter. 

Today I Win.

That is right. Out of everyone else and all their achievements I win today. Why did I win? I just broke 4,000 views on my blog, and with the recent new post about America’s Lost Curiousity, while getting some bad comments, pushed me almost to 5,000 views. But that isn’t the point. Who will win tomorrow?

Lost Curiosity

Tonight while doing homework, I was fascinated by my new kitten. She is about 5 months old, has a few orange spots. Her name is Aspen, and she was playing with a string hanging off a door knob. Just fascinated with this piece of string. She played with it for about 10 minutes, constantly trying to pull it down. She then moved to a little rat tow and proceeded to try to tear it up, the best a kitten could do. She was extremely curious of the string and the rat. She continuously wanted to see what would happen if she pulled on the string, wondering what it was, and what was inside of the rat she was attempting to kill.

Issuu – Glorify Your Documents

There are a few services that allow you to upload your documents and distribute them through a flash document viewer. None of them though do it quite as beautifully and creatively as Issuu does.

Think of of Docstoc and Scribd the Wal-Mart of documents and Issuu the IKEA of documents. They both have products that are useful, but IKEA has the higher quality.

Issuu supports three major file formats, Word, PDF and Powerpoint. For my review I will be using a powerpoint document.

Is Power Overly Concentrated?

Any blogger is painfully aware that to grow traffic you have to make a front page somewhere. When bloggers come together they wistfully talk of that one day they got Dugg by accident. Traffic exploded, the server nearly melted, but the people just poured in. They kept coming and coming, seemingly endless. Who knew there were so many people on the internet? A few cups of over-priced coffee later, someone will state a pact that everyone should upvote each others stories. Heads nod.

Weekend Off

Just wanted to give you all a heads up, I will be off for the next 4 days skiing. Except there will probably be more Jacuzzing (Is that how you spel Jacuzzi? ). None the less, Alex Wilhelm from alexwilhelm.com, and Holden Page from lostthetech.com will be guest posting in the next 4 days. I trust that they will give you interesting content. Please also take this time to go over past posts like my Complete Guide to Windows 7, 25 things you didn’t know about me,  and how I suggest listing your friends on Friendfeed. 

Until Tuesday,

Chacha102

Free doesn’t work anymore

One of the topics going around the web is this idea of Micropayments. The idea that you could have easy ways for people to transfer small bits of money over the internet. Would you be willing to pay 1 cent to read this blog post? Would you be willing to pay 3 cents every day that you use certain web applications? Even after a month, you wouldn’t even have  paid a buck. Over a year? $11 for this one simple web application that you use alot. Plus, it is beneficial because if you don’t use an app a certain day, your cost goes down. 

5 Ways to Push your media.

One question I stumbled onto this week, is where am I sending my content to? I know I’m sending it to Friendfeed, Twitter, SocialMedian, but where should I be sending it to? And how should I be sending it? What are the best practices to make sure that my content is know, without being labeled a spammer?

Here comes list time!

CCBS2009: Survey

It time to take the Chacha102 Content Blogging Survey! This is a survey that is not nessicarily annual, that asks bloggers questions about their blogging habbits, and their blogs. Everyone who participates will get a link from me, and I will also probably subscribe to you on Google Reader, if I am not already, and share your interesting articles. I plan on putting it up for a week and advertising it, and hoepfully I can actually gain some knowledge from the questions. To take it, click here.

The Complete Guide to Windows 7: Beta

Welcome to the Complete Guide to Windows 7: Beta. This will take a look at a vast amount of features in Windows 7: Beta, now referred to as simply Windows 7. (This is a guide from Chacha102 at http://chacha102.com.)

Gmail Updated .. Again!

Google is constantly adding new features to their Google Mail through the labs project they implemented a while back. The latest edition is labs. A little while back they created task , and everyone said ‘Hip Hip Hooray!’. I really didn’t find it completely useful, because I get Gmail through my iPod Touch via the built in app, and hardly ever look directly in Gmail unless I am replying to something. Now Tasks is Mobile. And now instead of linking emails to tasks that you have to do while your sitting at your computer, you can also link them to things you want to be reminded about in the real world, when you check your iPhone. I like it

And incase you weren’t on your toes, they did it again! Yes, Google Updated it, again!

What does Google Really need on the iPhone?

(After typing that title, I have officially added iPhone to my writer’s dictionary.)

Google has been optimizing applications for the iPhone for awhile now. Many people feel that it’s RSS reader is superior to any application they can find, and I’m pretty sure that many people prefer the Gmail interface to the iPhone’s built in mail functions. But I think one thing that Google is missing, is something that it created it’s own browser just to get: Google Gears.

We…. experienc….. ing… Tec…. nical….Diff. lties

We have experienced some technical difficulties alongside the launch of SocialWhois, and our post about them. For a short period of time we had to change the theme of our site to something that better coped with the layouts of certain posts. The main theme is back now, and if you want to find out the exact story, click through to read it. Otherwise, enjoy reading Chacha102.com.

Superbowl Commercials (Yes, it could be considered linkbait)

So, the Superbowl has once again came and passed, and I am sure that all of you you were glued to the TV. Except those who proudly decreed on Friendfeed and Twitter that you were NOT watching the Superbowl. Whether you watched it or not, everyone has something to gain from it. The entertainment that is the Superbowl Ads.

Hulu put on a special event for Superbowl 2009. They updated their website during the game with all the ads. Well, unfortunately the really under delivered, and many of the ads seen on TV weren’t even on the site for a while. But, it was still a great place to watch the ads. You can find all the ads here.

But back to more relevant, and ego inducing things. What were MY favorite ads?

SocialWhois: Who you should follow, and why.

Robert Scoble has said multiple times that the key to getting the most out of places like Twitter and Friendfeed is following the right people. You have to follow the people you are interested and the people that give the best information. This must work well for him because he spends up to 7 hours a day on Friendfeed, and has 5,400 subscriptions to keep him interested in the latest news.

But what about the rest of us? The people that don’t have 7 hours a day to go through everyone and find the best people to give us information. I want to be able to follow someone and know they are going to give me information on a certain topic. That is where Directeur’s new application comes in. SocialWhois