Disqus - Friends of noahcarter

Re: Techmeme: A Flawed System

CyndyA — Tue, 08 Apr 2008 18:27:06 -0000

Gah. I need to complete a thought.

That should have said "As a writer, I shrug it off, knowing that's how Techmeme works, but as a person..."

Re: All For The Sake Of Page Views And Money

CyndyA — Fri, 11 Apr 2008 19:07:21 -0000

This is a general comment, because I spoke to Corvida last night via IM as it was happening.

Unfortunately, this is your baptism in the world of tech blogging, and it's one of the main reasons why I love working at Profy so much. In the year and change I've been writing about Web 2.0 specifically, I've seen many situations like the one you experienced, most times when there was no press release or email and it was just a small company who launched with little more fanfare than a comment on a few blogs or in a forum somewhere.

The reality of the world (and not just here) is that most "big" names get where they are not by being kind and helping others, but by stepping on every last person that they can to get there. It's the main reason why I know I will never be any bigger in this industry; I can't be that way. When I'm reviewing an app, I try my darnedest to see if anyone "broke" the app or if it was a blanket launch. I also try to see if I have anything new to add to the conversation if it was a blanket, because I don't believe in regurgitating a press release. I'm someone who dropped the COMM/J half of a double major because I couldn't be "media" enough to lose my always-outspoken opinions. If I don't have an opinion on something, why bother blogging about it?

That being said, I've also been taken to task for how I attributed a source because I didn't use precise wording. The big people don't want the little people to forget their place.

Regardless of whether or not Mashable did see the piece first (and why follow people if you don't look at their Tweets, may I ask), the smart thing for public relations purposes would have been to say "You know what, you are right. We didn't give you proper credit when you obviously went all out on it. What can we do to fix it?"

In contrast, I can tell you a story about TechCrunch. Yes, I said it, TechCrunch. I found an app on Hacker News that in itself wasn't much, but posed an interesting theory in making social news less of a gamed system and more merit-based, so I blogged about it. Now, I know Mike Arrington reads Hacker News; he mentions it every other sentence so you know he's hip to the programmer kids. But when he also blogged about it, he credited my article.

He could have skipped it, and I wouldn't have batted an eye, knowing he doesn't follow me, probably doesn't read my feed, and reads the same source I got it from. Yet he credited it anyway. A surprise considering it's TechCrunch, right? But goes a much longer way in my public perception, as well as theirs.

Re: From the Pipeline - 4.12.08

CyndyA — Sun, 13 Apr 2008 04:32:58 -0000

It's not so much about control, but pointing out how useless most of these apps are going to be. If everyone keeps moving on to the NEW-SHINY the conversation will be everywhere and nowhere.

Re: Which Do You Read More: Tweets or Blogs?

CyndyA — Sun, 13 Apr 2008 05:35:12 -0000

Are we talking about sheer quantity? Then sure Twitter will win, with everyone blathering about their breakfast choices. In terms of time and quality and where I'm getting my information from? It's blogs, and if it were any different, people would spend far less time Tweeting URLs to their blog posts, no? ;)

Re: What is a blogger worth - what are my words worth?

CyndyA — Sun, 13 Apr 2008 23:14:10 -0000

As soon as I have 15 spare minutes, I'm going to write up instructions for how to allow full feeds for those using a regular old RSS reader, who mainly use it for skimming all articles, clicking through to join the conversation when they are interested, and then truncating the feed for a "service" like Shyftr.

Re: You Don’t Own ANY Conversation

CyndyA — Sun, 13 Apr 2008 23:26:16 -0000

On the content issue, yes, you do own it, and copyright law is there to back that up. The attitude that it's there, so people will take it and that's all there is to it is EXACTLY why we have the RIAA so far up our butts they are peering out from behind our eyeballs. I'm not going to buy into that for one second, whether you are writing for fun or profit, and saying "well, you asked for it by putting it out there where anyone could see it" sounds like what?

As for the conversation end of it, you are right. It's going to be everywhere. But as more and more apps move more and more of the conversation away from the blogs, what point is there in writing the blog? You yourself said you wanted your comments "back" from aggregators only a few posts ago, as well as saying you were here for conversations, not traffic. So which is it? You want the conversation accessible to you or you don't care? You want your comments or you want them fragmented on 45 different sites?

Re: Why today’s solo bloggers may not see Scoble-like fame…

CyndyA — Thu, 17 Apr 2008 23:54:05 -0000

Would you want to be Scoble? I sure wouldn't. All that constant famewhoring and being "on" all the time. Don't get me wrong; I love tech, but I don't live it and breathe it, and I certainly don't want to have to suck up to the Twitterati constantly.

Re: louisgray.com: What's Your Twitter Noise Ratio?

CyndyA — Sat, 26 Apr 2008 19:26:54 -0000

See, Louis, this is what I'm talking about. Describing me as a megaphone is inaccurate. Look at people with tons of followers, few that they follow, and rarely reply to @s unless it's from someone they follow. THAT is a megaphone. If you take a look at my Tweet Cloud without stripping the replies, the biggest blocks of text start with @. My Tweet count is high, but that's because I use it for conversations. I'd be willing to guess that more than 2/3 of my Tweets start with @. A megaphone implies blasting information at people, not increasing dialogue.

Re: louisgray.com: What's Your Twitter Noise Ratio?

CyndyA — Sun, 27 Apr 2008 05:08:47 -0000

Yes. ;) If I hadn't met you now, I'd probably have been doing some Duncan Riley-esque cussing. :D

I have my Twitter account set to only send me replies if I follow both people. I'm still not inundated with posts that way but am able to participate in conversations. I think if you removed all my replies, which have quite a bit of back-and-forth to them, my number would have been WAY lower.

Web 2.0 Expo killed my numbers, though. It's pushed me higher than Arrington for the month. I've already put my phone away. Time to be back in home mode!

Re: louisgray.com: Disqus' Excellent Customer Service Enables Comments Integration

CyndyA — Sun, 27 Apr 2008 05:31:49 -0000

Sebastian, I have to say that no matter how loud Louis can be (is it the weekend? He must be on Techmeme *wink*) everything I have heard from bloggers using Disqus has said the same level of response.

Yes, any good start-up would do everything they can, but many of them don't. The standouts definitely go out of their way, even for the most bizarre installs, not only because it's good for keeping customers, but also because it helps them in the long run. You can't imagine every use case when you are designing and testing, but your users sure can. ;)

Re: louisgray.com: More Noise About Twitter Noise

CyndyA — Tue, 29 Apr 2008 12:48:29 -0000

Oh stop it. You did too know! Call people megaphones and they aren't going to be all PO'd. I refuse to believe you are THAT naive! ;)

Also, what everyone forgets with all these metrics is that it's a subscription service. If you don't know like what, how, when, and how many, there's always the unfollow button. I also subscribe without the replies. I don't need to see half the conversation, so I'm guessing anyone subscribed to me that way sees as many or fewer as you Tweet. ;)

Re: WebKut: Quickly Capture Website Screenshots for Your Next Project

CyndyA — Tue, 29 Apr 2008 23:43:05 -0000

Meh. Skitch is going to be releasing their Windows version very shortly (I have it on good authority!) and all you poor Windows users will wonder what you ever did without it. Name it whatever you want, resize on the fly, send it up to the web, Tweet it, whatever. So hold onto that Awesomesauce badge. ;)

Re: Another Way to Classify Twitter Users

CyndyA — Wed, 30 Apr 2008 08:27:53 -0000

@matt They may be friends, but how can any human reasonably follow 60,000 people? You can call it spam or whatever you like, but if you are following more people than you can physically follow, it's not conversation, that's for sure. I don't even think you can follow 20,000 people. It's more about egoboo than conversation, and the number of contests for Twitter followers is evidence. As with just about everything else, it becomes more about who has how many and it on what list than it is about actually meeting people and having any meaningful sort of dialogue.

Re: louisgray.com: Should Bloggers Open Up Their Statistics?

CyndyA — Wed, 30 Apr 2008 14:53:32 -0000

There aren't any good stats anywhere anymore. I don't care who is keeping them! When I was asked last week about analytics, my first response was "Do YOU really trust one set of analytics or are you tracking more than one metric?" Advertisers may love this stuff, but what does it impact? If I look at Compete, I can see where our blog as a whole looks to fit among other tech blogs, but that doesn't necessarily correlate to what's hitting Techmeme or what's hitting Google News or what the "influencers" are reading. And without that whole picture? The numbers are meaningless anyway. It's like noting which CEOs take a $1 salary without looking at how much they get in perks and stock options.

Re: Why Can't Microsoft Close The Deal?

CyndyA — Thu, 01 May 2008 08:03:33 -0000

But if it was Google buying Yahoo, the ultimate fate of the company would probably have been the same. They talk a good game, and so far, everyone is still blinded by the "Don't be evil" mantra that is quickly showing to not be as true as everyone thought.

The reality is that Xobni walked, and Microsoft will probably hire or re-assign a few developers, build it themselves, and put Xobni out of business. It's a feature, and who else will buy them if Microsoft doesn't? This isn't the type of company with an IPO as an exit in their future unless they completely re-invent themselves.

Re: Why Can't Microsoft Close The Deal?

CyndyA — Thu, 01 May 2008 10:32:03 -0000

Joe, how quickly do you think Google could code something like this? Acquisition is faster, but isn't the only option. And look at the IPO stats from the past two years; no one is going IPO without a product that sells. And when Google can build it themselves almost as fast as someone else can acquire it, striking when the iron is hot should be the MO for any of these companies.

A big screen tv and a fun culture doesn't always pan out. Lord knows there were a lot of those in 1.0.

Re: To Robert Scoble: Give Me Louis Gray Back!

CyndyA — Fri, 02 May 2008 22:03:06 -0000

Corvida,

You shouldn't be so selfish. You know how much it can make or break a young writer's blog to have Scoble take it on as a foster child. It's hard being one of the orphans left behind when Annie goes off with Daddy Warbucks, left here scrubbing the floors, but sometimes he comes back for one more. Just keep thinkin' about tomorrow.

Re: What is cloud computing?

CyndyA — Fri, 02 May 2008 22:22:13 -0000

The only difference now is in the transparency of what's happening. It's been the rare company who's actually owned their own servers; how much has historically been outsourced to companies like IBM and EDS? EDS was running the servers for a good chunk of Blue Cross/Blue Shield as far back as what? The 70s? 80s? And they had your medical information. ;)

Re: What’s Mainstream Technology? Ask Joe Average, The Spouse, Grandma, and Dave Letterman

CyndyA — Sat, 03 May 2008 16:55:33 -0000

AMEN! Poke Louis back to the part about FriendFeed! I think he's avoiding my own rhetoric about it, but I agree, and would even take this one further to point out that if your spouse IS involved in tech yet avoids it? It's probably not heading mainstream any time soon. My husband is that yardstick for me, considering he's one of those "I could code that in a weekend" skeptics. Although he HAS decided that he likes Twitter for picking fights with me. I don't think he Tweets anything else.

Re: Twitter 101: Clarifying The Rules For Newbies

CyndyA — Sat, 03 May 2008 21:58:35 -0000

Bahahaha. 10-20 a day. I saw you there listed OVER me as a megaphone on Louis' post. ;)

Re: Twitter 101: Clarifying The Rules For Newbies

CyndyA — Sun, 04 May 2008 00:55:13 -0000

Just as long as you didn't mean me. On a bad day, I have 10-20 before BREAKFAST!

Re: Movie Notes: La Vie En Rose

CyndyA — Sun, 04 May 2008 10:51:02 -0000

How would it fare for someone who knows nothing about Piaf? My husband isn't a huge Piaf fan, although he agreed with "our song" as La vie en rose. I'm dying to see it, but not sure if he'll buy into it.

Re: What’s Mainstream Technology? Ask Joe Average, The Spouse, Grandma, and Dave Letterman

CyndyA — Sun, 04 May 2008 11:49:39 -0000

I was thinking of someone else (was it Louis?) who said that their SO didn't "get" RSS. A couple of my feeds? Are the Sunday sale ads. I don't get the paper anymore and it's nice to have the Target sales pop into my reader every Sunday like clockwork. That may be the way they start gaining acceptance. ;)

Re: From the Pipeline - 5.4.08

CyndyA — Mon, 05 May 2008 07:25:59 -0000

Steven, I have Evernote on my list of things to review but I've been, well, lazy? busy? ;) I'll compare the two when I do write it up; thanks for the suggestion!

Re: louisgray.com: The StatBot Debuts Series Analyzing Techmeme Sources

CyndyA — Tue, 06 May 2008 00:06:46 -0000

I missed the Last Podcast post at the time, but judging by what I've found lately in "discussion" half the time the stories linked there have NOTHING to do with the headline post. See also: my interview with Ben Golub.

The reality is that Techmeme is a great way to see what stories are getting traction, but not a great way to discover news. No matter who is on the leaderboard.