Archive for the 'internet' Category

Get Twitter Replies Sent to You Automatically

Published on November 25, 2008 in geekiness, internet and thing-o-the-day. 5 Comments

I’m addicted to my Blackberry. I’m addicted to Twitter. I’m on TwitterBerry all the time. Unfortunately, one of the things I find myself doing repeatedly (other than reading my Friend’s Timeline, which is never NOT new) is loading my @goaliegirl replies. It would be really nice to be able to get an email (or SMS) notification rather than repeatedly loading it in Twitterberry.

I have never been able to get SMS to work right, and even then it’s only for people you select to follow with SMS, and I don’t really need that either.

I tried a few RSS-to-email services before I found the right one that worked well. Thanks to Dave Fleet (@davefleet) for pointing me to Notify.me.

Here’s what I did:

1. Go to Advanced Twitter Search.

2. In the People section, the “To this person” field, enter the Twitter name. (Optionally you can also put the name in the “Referencing this person” field, or whatever search method you choose!)

3. Search.

4. Click on the “Feed for this query” link and copy the URL.

5. Sign up at Notify.me Enter a username, password and email address.

6. Click “Skip Account Setup”. Then click on “Sources” and add the URL from Step 4.

7. Click on “Your Account”, then Destinations. Use the “validate” link to validate your email address (or set up SMS if you like). They’ll send you a code.

8. Once validated, make sure email is turned ON in the Account/Destinations page. (Even after I set up my email, it wasn’t on by default.)

6. Voila!

You may have to wait a bit for it to “catch up”. It took a few hours for me, but once it did, it’s working great. I’m now getting all @goaliegirl Tweets in my Inbox.

Update: Emails don’t show who sent the @ and SMS updates are cut off, but it’s still WAY faster than TweetBeep.

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In-tweet Ads: The downfall of Twitter?

Published on November 19, 2008 in internet and rants. 4 Comments

Magpie, Twittad and the like will be the downfall of twitter. At least, if they are widely adopted.

(No I did not sign up.)

Sure, it looks like you can earn lots of money. But what happens when it catches on because all the Cool Kids are doing it? And believe me, the Cool Kids are the only ones that will be able to command any type of monetary value out of it. Your Twitter stream will suddenly be filled with ads. First it will be ads for related social networking sites, then ads for contest for the latest gaming system or game, then onto weight loss and hookup sites.

Jeramiah Yang (@jowyang) said, “Can you imagine Magpie in real life? At coffee with your friends, then all of the sudden they blurt out “BUY PUMPKIN FRAPPAMOCHA NOW!” in a Tweet today. It’s funny…but it has a ring of truth in it, doesn’t it?

Magpie and Twittad want to put words in your mouth. Tweet content for you. Imagine if the majority, or even a large percentage, of the people YOU follow joined their services or others like it.

Boycott Twittad and Magpie. Keep the noise down. #notwitter ads - Please retweet!

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How not to be spammy on Twitter: a customer’s point of view

Published on November 19, 2008 in geekiness and internet. 1 Comment

I don’t use Twitter to promote my business. (Although, if I add a few non-location based services I just might.) I primarily use Twitter to feed my ADD tendencies and fulfill my social-networking addiction.

I’m not nearly as picky about who I follow as I should be, but I’m more selective than most (I think). “To follow or not to follow” is a topic for a whole new post. :)

One of the number one most important qualities of a “good” Twitterer is to not be spammy. That is guaranteed to make someone either NOT follow you, or UNfollow you. Here’s my short, practical tips on gaining faithful and interested followers.

1. Don’t send uninvited links via DM. This is probably my number one pet peeve on Twitter. Someone will follow me, then I’ll take a look at their twitter stream and I’ll follow them back if they seem okay. Five minutes later I get a DM, “Hi, thanks for the follow! Check out my website at www.coolestproductsever.com!” Well, DUH. I could see that in your profile. But thanks for making me feel like I signed up for a newsletter. So, I unfollow.

If someone is interested, i.e. asks you a question, and you have a relevant blog post or product, THEN it’s okay. Otherwise it’s uninvited (read: SPAM).

2. Interesting content in your Twitter stream. Don’t just post links to your products or latest blog post. If I go to someone’s Twitter page and there’s nothing but links, on EVERY post, I’m most likely not going to follow. Talk about what you’re doing that’s not business related too. Be personable! Which leads me to the next topic…

3. Make friends. Find like-minded Twitterers and follow them. Learn from them, share your own experiences. Don’t forget, these friends can be non-business related as well. They can be local, they can be interested in some of the same hobbies as you, follow people who you’re interested in.

4. Don’t worry about your follower/followee ratio. Who cares if you follow someone and they don’t follow you back? Did you follow them just to be followed back, or did you follow them because you were interested in them?

5. Promote others. If you have a Twitter friend that’s really cool, or is doing something really cool, spread the word! Although, don’t go hog-wild, that’s spammy too. Be selective.

6. Target your audience. Do you know who your audience is? Don’t say “everyone” because that’s not true. Who is most likely to benefit from your service or product?

7. Don’t just use Twitter. If you’re only using Twitter to promote yourself, you’re doing yourself a disservice. Diversify where you advertise yourself. Join other social networks, use Google Ads, trade links with those in your industry, and leverage SEO.

Feel free to follow me (or not!) on Twitter: @goaliegirl.

Have I missed anything?

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Please Don’t Replace Text Articles with Video

Published on October 29, 2008 in geekiness and internet. 3 Comments

I’m increasingly seeing short videos replacing actual written articles. Not complementing, “replacing”. And I’m not a fan of it.

I can’t skim a video. With all the content out there on the Internet that I’m aching to consume, I don’t have time to watch even a 60 second video. I currently have 11,162 unread items in my RSS reader. Now, granted, I’ve become pretty good at filtering out what I don’t care about. I drop feeds I don’t read and skim through the feeds I do for information that interests me. (Sifting through the noise can be a whole new post, I thnk!) But when I click through to the website, if necessary, and I’m presented with a video, I’m just annoyed. If I *know* it’s a video, I’m actually less likely to visit the site.

Online video certainly has its place. I frequently visit YouTube with my 5 year old and watch videos of sharks. I’ve watched a TV show or two online, although I normally download them. I’ve looked for video content of “how to” do some hardware repairs. But in all of these cases I’m seeking the video out, not being bombarded with it upon entry to a site.

What do you think?

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3 basic rules for your business website

Published on December 4, 2007 in geekiness, internet and rants. 1 Comment

I am one of those people that loves to research before I buy, particularly if it’s something that is high-priced. Thanks to the wonderful WWW, I can waste many hours in this particular hobby. ;)

I’ve discovered that I’m a bit of a snob when it comes to services and their web presence. There are three things that will guarantee that I will contact someone about a service or product. The absence of one or more decreases the possibility of me even making the first contact.

  1. Have a website — I need to be able to find that you exist, what services or products you provide, and if necessary, if you’re local.
    1. Exist! The hardest part is actually finding quality places to shop or get services. Google Local sucks. Sorry, but they do. I find myself turning to yellowpages.ca more and more, but that’s for another post. At least in yp.ca a place can advertise if they have a website or not. For non-local items, I still tend to want to find someone local, or at least in Canada. (Not such a problem for the US.)
    2. Information. I don’t want a crappy website with no content. That does nothing for me. What do you DO? What products/services do you have? How are they delivered? And nine times out of ten, I check the about page. Seriously.
    3. Where are you? I always look, even if it’s not important to the research. Being in Canada is a bonus. Being in Ontaro is a super bonus. Being local is a warm-fuzzy. The same rule would apply if I were in Kalamazoo, Michigan.
  2. Have a nice website. Not some Frontpage crap design. And not one of those horrible graphic-laden templates. A nice, simple website that is very user friendly. This means you know what your customers need and want, and you’ve thought about how to help them in more than just your area of expertise.
  3. Respond via email. If you have a contact form, or advertise an email address, or any type of e-conversation at all, for the love of God, respond. If I contact someone, and they don’t email or call me back, what’s the use? And if they respond right away, or in a reasonable amount of time (less than 24 hours!), I’m 50% sold already.

Having one of these is good. Having all is the best.

There are exceptions. I’m looking for a local snow-removal service and a house-sitter for while I’m away during the Christmas holidays. For that, I turn to Kijiji.ca. The same principles almost apply: Have an ad. Have a nice ad. Respond via email. Although the latter becomes much more important. The presentation is almost equally important. And well, you have to have an ad. :)

I hope I practice what I preach in my own business (Picobits) . :) (Yes, that was a completely shameless plug.)

What’s important to you when you’re researching something online?

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Websites I Use Daily

Published on July 27, 2007 in geekiness and internet. 0 Comments

I stumbled back onto Tumblr today and signed up. I’ve typically tried to limit the number of online tools I use. Tried. As I was adding my feeds into Tumblr, I realized that I actually use quite a few, and fairly frequently.

What I use:

del.icio.us (my feed) - this is by far one of the most useful websites. I can save anything quickly and easily. I use the del.icio.us extension for Firefox to save stuff, and I fairly frequently go back to find something I’ve saved. It’s also good for finding stuff that other people tag. I also subscribe to the del.icio.us/popular feed in Bloglines. And my username is “angela”. How cool is that?

(my feeds) - I have so many RSS feeds in Bloglines that I never have time to read them all. I almost daily have time to peruse the del.icio.us/popular feed and the Digg feed. When I have more time I go down the list with the Blogs and Gadgets directories being my next reading choices.

Twitter (my feed) - This is more of a fun thing for me. I do it when I get a chance, and it only takes a second or two so it’s easy to pop on over to the site and update it. I’ve got it added to gTalk to get updates for those I follow. Since I have gTalk on my Blackberry, I can update it from anywhere. Like when I’m stuck in traffic.

Digg (my profile) - I never post and rarely comment on Digg, but I still visit it every day nonetheless. I like it for the information and entertainment, but the community is rather…dumb as a collective.

What I’m testing:

Tumblr (my profile) - seems cool. Signing up was amazingly fast and easy! The interface rocks.

Pownce (my profile) - I also have just signed up for Pownce. Not sure what I think of that yet.

What I have tried but don’t use:

StumbleUpon - I installed the Firefox extension and played around with it a little. I never really used it that much so the next time I reloaded my system, I just didn’t install it. I never ever go to the website.

Magnol.ia - There’s not really much point in using it if I’m already using del.icio.us, and I’m too tied to del.icio.us to make the switch.

Worth mentioning, but usually warrants weekly visits, not daily, are:

Facebook - I really try hard not to go on Facebook. It’s such a timesucker. I think I’ll only go for a minute, next thing you know it has been half an hour.

LinkedIn (my profile) - I’m probably on LinkedIn every other day or so. More so lately because I’ve been updating my contact information to reflect my recent changes.

Technorati (my profile) - I should probably visit this site a lot more often, but I just don’t find the time. Pretty useful for watching trends and researching though.

I’m sure there’s more to this list. What do you use?

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Movable Type 4.0

Published on June 5, 2007 in geekiness, internet and thing-o-the-day. 0 Comments

There’s a new MoveableType version out. I dumped MT for pMachine, then pMachine for WordPress. I’m not ready to dump WordPress for the new MT, but I think I’ll use it to set up a test photoblog.

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What if the Internet Mob isn’t right?

Published on May 2, 2007 in geekiness and internet. 0 Comments

I had been seeing “spread this number” posts flying around on a few RSS feeds I follow for trends. The number the Internet Mob is trying to spread is a code that will allow you to decrypt almost any HD-DVD. After reading one post on it and what it was, I never really gave it much thought other than, “Wow, this is everywhere.”

A quick search for spread this number shows the numerous posts on Digg and elsewhere, and even displays the code in the search results. (Edited to add: Google has now received it’s own personal Cease and Desist letter from AACS.)
TechCrunch has an article (Digg Surrenders to Mob) on how Digg responded to a takedown notice (by removing the post and suspending the account) and the Mob revolted by posting and reposting the number. Digg invariably gave in, with this comment on their blog:

“If we lose, then what the hell, at least we died trying.”

So my question is…what would happen if Digg does die trying? Then what will the Mob have to say? And where would they say it?

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Better than LaunchCast; discover music with Finetune.

Published on March 1, 2007 in geekiness, internet and thing-o-the-day. 0 Comments

I started using StumbleUpon a few days ago, and the first site it recommended to me was so awesome, I’ve been afraid to let it suggest anything else to me. Finetune.com does social networking for music the right way. I’ve tried Yahoo!’s LaunchCast, which is okay but doesn’t seem to vary enough with it’s suggestions.

The first cool thing about Finetune that I noticed was that it was very intuitive. All I had to do was plug in a name of an artist/band I like (I chose Cake) and off it went. It started up a song by Cake and continued to play similar artists until I changed it. It didn’t even require registration. You can change the artist at any time by going back to the home page and entering a new artist. The site displays a small player on the left hand side of every page with the album art and linkable text (when you hover over the album) to the artist, album, or song page.

The second, and what the site builds itself around, is the ability to create your own playlist. Take that LaunchCast! Not only create it, but once you have at least 45 tracks, you can share it. You can name your playlist, upload your own icon for it, and give it a description. This feature requires registration, of course.

That leads me to the third Cool Thing about Finetune. When you’re browsing artists, you can claim yourself as a fan of that artist as well as see other users that are also fans.

Cool Thing number four - they have pre-made stations. I used some of these to add more artists and songs to my playlists.

Finally, number five, although the list is a tad bit longer. The design is pretty intuitive, although I had kind of a hard time figuring out how to create a second playlist after the default. You have to close your current playlist and then attempt to add a song using the + icon; then it will pop up a menu asking if you want to add it to an existing playlist, which is listed, or add it to a new playlist.

[Update: Cool Thing number 6, which I forgot, is the "related artists" feature. This does exactly what it says, lists related artists for the band/artist you have selected. If you have eclectic music tastes, this might be a little lacking, but I only expect their lists to get better.]

The site is still a little buggy. For example, using your back button in the browser can cause some playlist issues if you’re adding songs to different playlists, and there’s no seemingly intuitive way to go back to your previous selection. My second complaint is the lack of a “don’t play this song/artist” feature. Sorry, but I just don’t need to hear yet another U2 song. They do allow you to skip forward, however, just as long as you’re not going nuts on the forward feature.

And I wish they had more of The Format and Delerium.

Here’s my profile. If you check it out, let me know what you think.

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Greasemonkey Alert

Published on July 20, 2005 in geekiness and internet. 0 Comments

If you have Greasemonkey installed, remove it! This is why I’m glad I don’t have time to play with the latest and greatest (or not-so-great) web technologies. :)

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