Linkworthy – Ma.gnolia, Gnomedex, Budget surprises

August 23, 2007 • Joseph Thornley • No Tags

Why Ma.gnolia is one of my favorite social bookmarking tools

Thomas Vander Wal’s post caused me to take a second look at Ma.gnolia as my preferred social bookmarking tool. Thomas says,

“In the past year or less [Ma.gnolia has] become more social in insanely helpful and kind ways. Not only does Ma.gnolia have groups that you can share bookmarks with but there is the ability to have discussions around the subject in those groups. Sharing with a group is insanely easy. Groups can be private if the manager wishes, which makes it a good test ground for businesses or other organizations to test the social bookmarking waters. I was not a huge fan of rating bookmarks as if I bookmarked something I am wanting to refind it, but in a more social context is has value for others to see the strength of my interest (normally 3 to 5 stars). One of my favorite social features is giving “thanks”, which is not a trigger for social gaming like Digg, but is an interpersonal expression of appreciation that really makes Ma.gnolia a friendly and positive social environment.”

Chris Pirillo reflects on Gnomedex past and future

I attended my Gnomedex for the first time this year. And like many others, I found it was a fantastic conference on the basis of the quality of the participants and the interactions in the hallways and lobbies. An eclectic group of smart, interesting people.

The experience in the conference proper was something different. It had some fantastic highs – Darren Barefoot, Guy Kawasaki, Gregg Spiridellis – mixed with some sessions that just didn’t cut it. So, a very uneven program.

Chris Pirillo (who has poured his heart and soul into giving people a great experience) has a very thoughtful post about this year’s conference and how to build on the experience to deliver a relevant, challenging conference next year. Chris’ intelligence in looking at the larger picture and his penchant for looking at things from a fresh perspective make me want to attend Gnomedex again next year. Even if you’ve never been to Gnomedex, link over to his post. I think the odds are that, when you do, you’ll find yourself subscribing to his feed. To read even a smattering of Pirillo makes you want to read more.

How to avoid budget over-runs

One of the worst experiences for both a creative firm and the client alike is to have a budget exceeded. It’s unpleasant to have to raise this with the client and definitely unpleasant to receive a call about this. The Canadian Marketing Blog offers some practical advice on how to lay the groundwork in advance to ensure that budgets don’t get blown away.

Get more out of your Web Browser

May 22, 2007 • Joseph Thornley • No Tags

Firefox Firefox and IE7 are the first applications I open when I turn on my computer every morning. And they are the last applications I close when shutting down at the end of the day. I use them far more than any other software on my computer.

Yet, like most people, I didn’t read any help files for these applications. I relied on intuition and trial and error to learn how to use them.

So I’m pretty jazzed that Lorelle VanFossen is publishing a series of posts that will provide a Web Browser Guide for Bloggers. She’s providing detailed advice for both of the two most widely used browsers, IE7 and Firefox. So, this series should be helpful to almost anybody who uses a browser (that means all of us.) Her second post this morning provides a good overview of the parts of the browser, including a number of useful tips for using them more effectively. For example, thanks to Lorelle, I now know a number of keyboard shortcuts for frequently repeated commands. No need to move my hand from the keyboard to the mouse.

Internet Explorer So, if you are like me and spend a good part of your day using your browser, do yourself a favour and follow Lorelle’s Web browser series.

And if you use WordPress for your blog, take a look at Lorelle on WordPress, where Lorelle provides intelligent and clear advice for WordPress users. I highly recommend it.

(Oh, and you were probably wondering why I have two browsers open all day. I use Firefox as my default browser. But I need IE7 for a custom time recording application that 76design optimized for IE7.)

Windows Vista – The horror! The horror!

April 1, 2007 • Joseph Thornley • No Tags

MS Vista As I write this on my notebook at 11AM Sunday morning, I’m watching my the black screen of my Dell 9200 Desktop as it attempts a clean install of Windows Vista Business.

I started to upgrade from XP on Friday at 6PM using the Upgrade Assistant disk supplied to me by Dell along with the Vista upgrade also supplied by Dell. I’d been waiting since late November to receive these disks. And although I was impatient to upgrade, I was happy to wait two months after the consumer release of Vista in the hope that Dell would have matched all the drivers to my system and I would have a smooth upgrade.

But it didn’t work out that way. So, 41 hours after starting the upgrade and three support calls to Dell, here I am, doing a clean install.

This is not a “Dell Hell” rant. The system seemed to work OK upon first being upgraded. At least until I shut it down and then tried to start up again. Actually, the Dell support centre people were great. They helped me work through all possible problems that might result from a Dell-installed driver before opting for the last resort – a clean install.

It just appears to me that Microsoft released software that simply wasn’t ready for prime time. One of the drivers on the software I had installed on XP – Adobe Acrobat 8; Adobe Phososhop Elements 5; Adobe Premiere Elements 5; Mozilla Firefox; iTunes; Canon ip6700D printer; Linksys-G Broadband router; iomega USB Hard disk drive – must have conflicted with Vista. And that’s it. Two days and I’m back to square one. A clean install and adding the peripherals and software one at a time.

So, if you’re planning to upgrade to Vista. Beware! Beware!

UPDATE: Chip Griffin emailed me to tell me that he has worked through similar problems. Only not with an Upgrade, but with OEM Vista from Dell.

My Link Blog – Thornley's Shared Items

January 2, 2007 • Joseph Thornley • No Tags

Several months back I attended a blogger dinner in Chicago with Robert Scoble. During the discussion, Robert mentioned that he had just switched to a new blog aggregator, Google Reader. He talked about how it had helped him to manage and read the large volume of blogs to which he subscribed. He also mentioned a great feature that enables users to share items from blogs they’ve read so that others can also find these posts.

I’ve set up My Link Blog to share items through Google Reader that I find particularly interesting and think others might also find interesting. Please feel free to subscribe to it. I hope that you find useful information in the posts that I share.

Tod Maffin shows you how to use Google Notebook

December 26, 2006 • Joseph Thornley • No Tags

Do you ever want to bookmark specific sections of Web pages for future reference? Google Notebook is a great way to save the exact sections that interest you along with links to where they originally appeared. You also can access them from any computer and share them with friends.

Tod Maffin discovered Google Notebook a while ago. And he’s posted a great how to video for anyone interested in seeing how Google video can be used for online research.

Thanks for sharing with the community, Tod. This is a great addition to your Secret Google Tips for Researchers series.

Have you had experience with Expertclick.com and the Yearbook of Experts?

December 6, 2006 • Joseph Thornley • No Tags

Have you had any experience with Expertclick.com, which publishes the Yearbook of Experts? If so, please tell me whether it was good, bad or indifferent.

Expertclick offers its paying members an opportunity to list their biographies and areas of expertise in a searchable database and a printed Yearbook of Experts. In addition, they also offer their paying members the opportunity to publish monthly news releases on a release wire which they claim is distributed to over 11,000 journalists. Finally, they claim more than a million hits per month on their website.
One of my clients has asked me whether he should pay the $2495 US listing fee to appear in the Yearbook of Experts and to use their weekly news release service. I haven’t used this service before. So, I’m hoping to get some feedback on whether the actual results justify an investment of this type.
If you have used this service, I’d appreciate it if you could leave a comment or email me to let me know if it met your expectations. Did it yield any real results for you or your clients? Did reporters actually use it to identify sources for articles?

Thank you to anyone who can help me with this research.

Can you see the future of blogging?

October 27, 2006 • Joseph Thornley • No Tags

Matt Mullenweg and Liz Lawley closed out the Blog Business Summit with a look ahead to The Future of Blogging: Tools and Trends.

Liz Lawley:

Transparent functionality will be built into all tools. The easy integration of photos, videos, books, audio and collections that is offered in Vox, launched yesterday by SixApart, represents the new standard.

Liz also looks for a trend to Low Overhead Blogging: tools that enable you to easily add information into your blog. An early example of this type of tool is ShoZu, which enables you to easily move videos, photos and music while you are on the go.

The idea of Global Input will be hugely important. The ability to input from a mobile device. She points to Microsoft Aura! as the type of tool that will support this.

Selective Sharing will become an essential function. Sharing based on user defined groups. This also relates to Selective Publishing. As more people blog, they will demand a tool that enables them to selectively publish to one or another of their blogs.

Socially Filtered Search, the ability for me to filter my search results through my social network. When I am searching, I care more about what the opinion leaders in my space or my network think that I care about the universe as a whole. We need tools that let us build our own network for this purpose. And early entry into this space is the “Add me to your network” badge on del.icio.us.

Matt Mullenweg:

Blogging technology was developed ten years ago. What is different today is that there is a mass audience that is using and reading them.

It’s not about the technology. It’s about the audience. And with the larger audience, we are increasing the opportunities to publish.

Before, the publishing Internet was restricted to 1%. Now, more people are able to join in.

And this expanding audience and subset of authors will shape the future.

Discussion:

Liz Lawley: I predict that within five years the word blog will become as irrelevant as the word homepage has become. This will simply be a part of what we do.

Dave Taylor: The future of the web is conversation and social networking. This will not be tied to any single tool.

Matt Mullenweg: If we are successful, in five years you won’t know what WordPress. It’s elements will be incorporated in all platforms and their operation will be invisible to the user.

And the final word on design goes to ZeFrank.

The Social Media Big Bang – IE7

October 18, 2006 • Joseph Thornley • No Tags

Can you hear it? The Big Bang for social media.

With tonight’s release of Internet Explorer 7 the other 85% of the world is about to see that orange icon appear on their browser toolbar. And when they see it change from grey to orange, the clicking will start. And no one will care what RSS means. They’ll just be subscribing.

Microsoft may not be the “Great innovator.” But they definitely can play the role of the “Great Popularizer.” And that’s good for social media.

Today, social media arrived “for the rest of us!”

Blue Dot: Better than del.icio.us?

October 9, 2006 • Joseph Thornley • No Tags

Blue Dot is a new social bookmarking site

I’m a regular user of del.icio.us. I use it to bookmark postings for later reference and to share these with others.

At first glance, Blue Dot seems to offer a useful improvement over del.icio.us.

Users can add a note to an item that they save. This small enhancement would be most useful to researchers and team workers, enabling them to add information regarding their thoughts about the item, to place it in a larger context, or even to draw attention to specific content in an article.

My Blue Dot home page

One area in which Blue Dot could be improved is sharing. Blue Dot enables users to share their items selectively – making items available only to themselves, to everyone, or only to the people who the user designates as “friends.” However, most people have different circles of friends who cluster around different interests (e.g. work friends, family, baseball league). Blue Dot would be even more useful if it recognized this and enabled a user to designate different subgroups of friends who would share in different Dots reflecting the focus of their “friendship circle.”

UPDATE: Oops. After playing around with Blue Dot some more and adding some friends, I discovered that I can indeed create different lists of Friends that can either be private – seen only by me and the members – of public. There’s a lot more to this service. I plan to use it alongside del.icio.us for the next while to compare the two sites.

Thanks to Robert Scoble for having pointed to Blue Dot.