It is a cloudy cool Monday morning and the list of things to do is just growing and well as thoughts around the following.
July and August on the Freeways. Once July rolls around the commuting time around here sometimes doubles. Everyone hits the road for the summer weekends and summer holidays. This morning CUWarrior tweeted “It’s easier than you think, people: stay in the right lane unless you’re passing someone”. He is right. What I love is those people that never use their rear view mirror and are oblivious to the line-up of vehicles behind them. Couple that with an extended cell phone call by the driver and you start thinking about alternate transportation such as bicycles.
Video killed the radio or Tweeting killed the blog. It does seem that conversations keep getting limited by the 140 character limit. Last week someone commented on a blog and before you knew it everyone had attached lengthy diatribes about the matter. It does seem if you have something to say that hits a nerve people will write something. Just typing this blog compared to quick Tweets does present a different challenge. Maybe blogging will become refined with people blogging because they really like to write. Maybe the next killer product will be a hybrid between Twitter/Blogging and Facebook.
The Olympics. I have to admit I am not a big fan of the Olympics. After the 1968 Olympic games in Mexico City with the Tlatelolco Massacre, the Olympic games in Munich, and now the huge pool of tax dollars being spent in Vancouver for next year’s games, it seems it is something of a facade. If its intention is to bring athletes together, something is getting lost in all the money spent and problems surrounding these Games. What I would like to see is a list of all the individuals who attend the opening ceremonies that make up the 47% of tickets that were not available for public purchase. Our provincial housing minister stated that the homeless problem might be solved with $100 million which the government currently doesn’t have. Yet the bobsled run was built for $104 million. Here is your choice, homeless or bobsledders, bobsledders or homeless. We will end up paying for the event but thank God I am not forced to watch any of it.
BC Lions. Friday’s nights game was very entertaining. Sure we lost but it went down to the last minute. It isn’t everyday you get to see the backup quarterback and a receiver kick the punts. A smaller but very noisy crowd.
Beta testing. Got picked to be a beta tester for a wonderful program. It is always fun to really spend some time taking a program apart and thinking about its possibilities. And sometimes you get to uncover the easter eggs.
Tinfoiling 
a product in between twitter and blogging and facebook?
you’re kidding, right?
as if that space wasn’t already saturated enough.
Let’s start “Squawker”…just like Twitter, but you get 400 characters. 🙂
Although I’m kidding, I do agree with you that as micro-blogging evolves it will look different than Twitter. Full-blown blogging has certainly taken a hit from the attention MySpace, Facebook, and Twitter have attracted. Still, I think it has a place in the world of communications. I realize it may not be as “cool” as new technologies, but it’s still neat to be able to share complete arguments, insights, and comedy with the masses from your own little piece of the internet. I know I enjoy yours.
I can’t see any of these products as completely satisfying. Twitter because of the 140 limit, Facebook because of its overwhelming noise and blogging because it is fast becoming a minimal art. If you were to ask anyone 5, 10 or 15 years ago about the possibilities of these products your answers would be very different given the expectation of people and the extent of the technology to a large group of people. Just as people move from one technology to another the change is gradual and not overnight. I think Jaiku was a better “twittering” process than Twitter but it never made it. LIke Beta and VHS. Something inevitably will start and we will move on. Don’t expect technology to stand still for very long. It is not in its nature.
“Something inevitably will start and we will move on. ”
Very true. But what I find interesting is the countervailing forces: Somebody (or firm) starts something that offers the opportunity for the latter part of that statement — the “move on” part — BUT, then tries to prevent further “moving on”.
In other words, it’s ok for you to “move on” to MY product (or platform, or technology), but once you do, don’t “move off”.