Month: March 2006

I’m going to try to start posting weekly with some things you may have missed on the Internet.

First up, del.icio.us has just reinstated their import feature for bookmarks. That means you can back them up by just uploading a file from Firefox (or IE). They are private by default unless you want to share them. Great if you have several bookmarks, or need to access them from a variety of computers.

Google Reader became more open this week. Now you can share multiple subscriptions to people easily. It’s opt in, and you can even post a list on your blog or website.

That’s it for the first week. Expect the next post to be more lengthy next week. If you have any tips or articles I should read, you can always e-mail me.

I recently purchased Tetris DS. It’s pretty slick, and it’s drowned in Nintendo 8 bit nostalgia. It made me think. I can say without a doubt that Tetris is one if not the best puzzle game ever to hit the video game market. Have there been any newer games that you know will have the lasting power that Tetris has had? Nothing comes to my head. Is it possible for any new classics? Or has everything already been done?

If something sends a “bad message to society”, does that mean society can’t think for themselves? Or is society just that stupid?

It’s seriously amazing what you can do on the Internet these days. There’s at least a handful of sites for everything. I’m always trying new services, seeing what they do, how well they do it, and whether or not they continue to grow and compete. There are several video sharing sites, photo sharing sites, and a multitude of other social sites on the web. Here’s some things I think you should consider before adopting anyone of them.

Is the site one of the best you’ve seen?

An example of this would be comparing Hotmail to Gmail. Simplicity, controls, how is advertising (if existant) displayed on the site? People stick to Hotmail because it’s all they’ve known.

Who’s backing the site?

While not necessarily important as anything else, you can be sure that services provided by Google, Yahoo, MySpace etc are going to have the lasting power over startups. However, great startups get noticed and get funding to have the staying power and name recognition like the big names.

Is it open? Can you share your site/media/thoughts with the world. Is it easy? Do people have to sign up to view your content?

Most people don’t want to sign up for a multitude of accounts. And the ones they do sign up for are the ones most of their friends already have accounts for. There’s a downside to this. After signing up for one site, most people will not want to switch their account over to something else, regardless if it’s “better”. Having something that’s open, where you can move your content easily to another service is what we need, so that when something better comes along it will be almost painless to upgrade.

There is a lot going on with the Internet. Things are becoming free and easily accessible which allows you to open up a new world to share your thoughts, ideas, philosophy, humor, and anything else to practically everyone.

So my main point here is this.

EXPLORE

There’s a bunch of great things out there, and if you don’t have the time or just lazy to experiment, there’s a lot going to waste. Don’t expect the status quo… expect more.

Myspace just recently started a new instant messenger service. My question is why? You may wonder why I support Google Talk as a new instant message service, but not Myspace.

“It’s because it’s by Google, whooptie do”

Actually, the thing Google Talk is going for is interoperability and so far they’ve made progress. You can use Google Talk to communicate with several open networks like Earthlink, and the Gizmo Project .

Is the Myspace service going to be interoperable with AIM, YAHOO, and MSN? Most likely no.

Is Google Talk? Potentially. It’s going to take time, but I think we might see something in the next few years. Interoperability is important because that allows the user to choose any service they want and still be able to communicate with other users on other networks(think about email, cell phones, text messaging, shipping providers). Instant messaging has proved to be a major form of communication, so we don’t to have several closed networks. We need several open networks.