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Stephen Pickering

Category: Tech

  • The Web Ain’t Dead. Blekko.com Has Come to Save It.

    This is  a VERY cool, and very paradigm shifting new site: Blekko.com. I caught this on John Battelle’s Searchblog tonight, got a beta invite, played with if for a few minutes, caught on quick and already found tons of new cool things that I wouldn’t have found before based on my interests and the ability to filter the searches to give me more accented, tailored, specific results.

    Example:

    My favorite musician, Josh Rouse. Now with a simple / “slash” I can search for Josh Rouse say only on blogs like so: Josh Rouse/blogs or only in forums like this: Josh Rouse/forums (Click those links to see the results of said searches. I also just Tweeted a link to those results. You get the picture, and that’s just scratching the surface.

    New interesting information which is valuable to me as a fan, as an aficionado of said artist, immediately begin popping up at the top, based on my filters.

    This is making me feel that giddy, ‘irrationally exuberant’ feeling I initially felt when I tried Google for the first time back in 2000. I felt I had the World at my fingertips back then.


    But some kind of sludge in search has slowly happened. Some have blamed it on SEO/SEMs gaming the system so much that the results have slowly deteriorated.

    I have no doubt that’s part of it, but shouldn’t Google have been innovating like mad to keep up with the onslaught of deterioration?

    I’ll be the first to say that I LOVE so many of Google’s additional services, Gmail, Docs, Voice, all their wonky, data, cloud stuff (not their social) and that to say they shouldn’t have extended their reach beyond search would be like saying Amazon shouldn’t have extended its own reach beyond books, but it does sort of seem like, especially in the last three years of the Social Media threat, that Google has not innovated enough on their main product. It’s kind of like Microsoft jealously chasing everyone else’s success so much, they dropped the ball on their Golden Goose. (They did rally and sell 200m copies of Windows7, but still, no one would deny the mindshare, at least in the U.S. lost to Apple.)

    I mean filtered searches seem like such a no brainer that you would have thought Google would have had them in right from the beginning. (Well actually they do, but no one can figure out how to use them, and usually the results come back blank for some reason as if the data base and or code running it act like you’ve done something wrong. It’s like when a car back fires, and you hear what you think is an explosion. Except this explosion is not a band, but a ‘whimper.’

    Remember the movie “The Fugitive” with Harrison Ford? One of the best Movies ever. Remember that scene in the Hospital when he’s searching the database for records of people who’ve received prosthetic arms? His first search delivers hundreds, maybe thousands of results. Then he keeps narrowing the search by filters (I can’t remember what the exact filters were, dates other types of subsets) and finally gets down to a manageable number of results, and more importantly, results that have meaning.

    Granted it was a movie, but still, that was 1994! People understood even back then before the internet was mainstream, that one of the most valuable automations of computers was search, and that one of the most important features of search were filters.
    It’s mind blowing Google hasn’t at least already initiated these kind of easy filters for its flagship product. I assume they will soon and or buy Blekko.

    I’ve only used Blekko for a few minutes. I want to use it lots more in coming days, but it already has such polish, and it feels silky smooth and fast, the kind of silky smooth quickness I haven’t experienced since FriendFeed, which for the life of me I can’t figure out why no one can duplicate, not even Facebook itself, which purchased FriendFeed and has one of its founders as its new CTO, Brett Taylor.

    Remember how last week Wired published a story about how the Web was dead? Well I didn’t buy it. Thought it was link-baity gibberish for the most part, but it did have some valid points. Steve Jobs didn’t leave out flash because flash was dated. Steve Jobs left out flash to close off, to a large extent, the media distribution ability of the Open Web.
    More and more stuff is happening through apps and other such ‘silos’ which does tend to negate the open web.

    Well, although Boing Boing had a great rebuttal to the Wired piece, I do believe that if there is a sort of , how shall we say, ‘jaded’ feeling for the Web itself, I do believe a large part of the problem is this lessening of the ability to find the really interesting, cool, exciting stuff. It’s out there, but for some reason our discovery engines, the main one being Google, have somehow become clogged and stale.

    I think Blekko, for one, can be like Roto Rooter to this clogged drain. These filtered searches are going to re-invigorate the joy of discovering on the open web, and in turn re assert the open web’s, if not dominance, at least equal importance to “apps” in this ever evolving, every life changing, and ever standard-of-living-increasing thing we call the Communications Revolution.

    Google said their mission statement was to uncover the Worlds information, or something to that effect. Well they are doing a lot of other good things, but their eye, at least lately, has been off that ball at least in the long tail stuff, which are the hidden treasures. Maybe its time for a new leader. Maybe Blekko’s it.

    Oh, I’ve got 5 invites. Just email, tweet, or leave a comment, if you would like one.

    Update 9/2/10 From my incoming traffic I found this page that is loaded with good information about Blekko over the last few days. Links to 10-15 stories written about it in blogs and a ton of ‘real time’ reactions based on the hash tag #blekko. I wish I could just copy and paste everything from this page and post here, but I wouldn’t feel right. Here is the full URL:

    http://www.skrenta.com/2010/09/blekko_coverage_and_twitter_gl.html

    You know I was just thinking, I wonder if you could create a cool page like that in Paper.li or really just using Blekko.com itself using the “/” syntax.

    Yeah you can. Just check this out:  http://beta.blekko.com/ws/blekko+/twitter

    Oh here’s a Paper.li I just created for the hashtag #Blekko. Pretty cool, although not filled with as much content as I would have expected.

  • What is Social Media?

    Well it can be a lot of different things. Which is one reason it is so exciting and presumably so valuable. From the point of view of a business or an individual who has their own personal website or blog, one thing that Social Media is, is advertising. In the 90's I owned and ran a retail furnishings store. We advertised mostly in the local newspaper and to some extent on local television and radio. In the webspace, to a private website owner, the simplest way I can describe Social Media is that it is like new media's version of the local paper. And your blog or website is like your 'store' if you will.
    Simply put, social media is exposure, a way to extend your web presence to a larger audience with the scaling help of automation (electrons) and the virtues of the communications' revolution itself (photons).
    Translation: A little bit of intent and pushing a few buttons equals a ton of leverage and distribution. You pay for this exposure, not with money, but with content. You and the rest of the network of members are providing the social media site its content, and in return it is providing you with exposure and extending your reach, along with a platform for making new connections. On Google's algorithmic, non-human network your website or business is passive, and the prospective customer, if you will, is active. Actively searching for something that you or some other site or business may have. On the human, social network, you the business, website, or promoter, if you will, is the one being active. And the prospective consumer is in a passive mode, using the network as a river to dip in and out of, as entertainment, news, communication, emotional outlet, or just plain fun. I think there is not only room, but a need for both types of networks, and that the rise of Facebook and Twitter doesn't mean at all the demise of Google. There are times when we want our network to be flowing, serendipitous, and fun, and there are other times when we are in a more deliberative, utilitarian mode. We need (or want) answers, and we need them now. Except with Social Media you are not selling your wares directly. You are indirectly selling your self as a real person, a genuine person with real interests. It's a way to scale your 'legitimacy.' Trust is one of the biggest factors in making a sale. And social media is a way to scale the communication of your trust. From a business standpoint or even just a human friendship standpoint, one's activity in Social Media is comparable to the "Opening of the Sale" where the goal is to talk about anything except business. In sales this is what is known as the "Schmoozing" process. But before you start thinking how creepy it is to think in these terms, "Schmoozing" only really works if you are truly interested from a sincere standpoint in the subject you are "schmoozing" about. Any insincerity in this process, either in real life or in the venue of Social Media, and one would have been better not signing up for Twitter or any other such service. So one way to look at Social Media, is as an advertising medium, a free way to extend your reach and your message. But in social media the message is your personality, your real point of view, and what you are selling is your integrity, your trust. Let's take one example that I remember coming up recently. Lisa Bettany (@MostlyLisa) is a professional photographer. She posts much of her work on Flickr, the most popular Photography Social Media site. She doesn't post her work there with each caption screaming "Buy This Now Because I'm Great and I Need Money!" along with a Paypal link. She posts there because she loves photography and loves sharing her work and the tips behind her work with others. Such actions build trust and integrity. She feeds the site with its content. The popularity of the site feeds her with exposure. She recently told the story of how this photo, which she posted on flickr over a year ago for no money, was recently purchased unexpectedly by Penguin, the book publisher, for use as the artwork for a book cover. Penguin only found the photo because it was on Flickr. They knew flickr to be the most popular photography sharing site. So they went there to search for the right potential content for their project. If the photo was only posted on her private website, it would not have been found. No transaction would have been made. So, the Social Network, in the virtual world, is like the Commons or Marketplace of a University or City in the 'real' World. It extended her personal work's reach into the public sphere for consumption, enjoyment, and productivity. That's one example of the Social Network's virtuous cycle. The users provide the content for free. And the network provides the user with free exposure. This is just one thing that a Social Network is from the decided point of view of the business/website/blog owner, or anyone using the internet itself to scale a message. Ads that you pay real money for are the ones for direct selling, talking about your product, its Features, Advantages, and Benefits. Social Media is like hob nobbing at the Country Club or local Charity Fundraiser but without having to get into your monkey suit and drive down to the venue. Still, you need to be truthfully interested in that person you are chatting with, and really care about that charity you are raising 'funds' for, and not be in it just for you or the 'sale.' I think most would agree that's a more fun way to live anyway.

  • Fail Whale: The Shadow Side of the Social Media Experience

    Update Thursday Aug. 26th 2010 – As you can see I wrote this Sunday the 22nd the day after Leo’s blog post. I was a bit too negative and ranting. So I sat on it a few days. Read the always non- controversial Louis Gray’s piece that was also in response to Leo’s original piece Soaked it in. All in all, I’d rather have had Twitter and Facebook over the last few years than not. They are exciting in many ways. Facebook’s like rediscovering old friends. Twitter is new friends. There have been a lot of positive experiences. Still I’ll publish the original rant I felt and wrote Sunday pretty much unchanged, because going forward these negative issues are important and need to be addressed and kept in mind.

    Original Post from Sunday, August 22nd, 2010

    Leo Laporte’s post yesterday “Buzz Kill” about how Google Buzz had failed him recently, and more importantly how Social Media had failed him in general, really got me thinking.

    A) I totally agree with him. He nailed it. You should read the piece. We put all this energy into “Social Media” and what do we have to show for it? That information and energy goes into a vacuum, a black hole, if you will, and never comes back out again.

    It’s our energy that’s creating the value in these networks, the content, and not only are we not compensated for our energy, we’re practically slapped in the face for it. “Who the heck are you, you pion with your 50 followers? You worthless piece of nothing loser! Why can’t you be more like Aplusk or John Mayer with their millions of followers or at least a porn star with their thousands? Yeah, you heard me, you’re not even worth what a porn star is worth in our eyes!”

    Dial it down, Stephen. Dial it down! OK, I’ll meditate on it a few days before posting this, but isn’t that what Twitter, if not literally,  seems figuratively to be screaming at us all day long?

    If they hadn’t had the followers number highlighted would the service have taken off? I don’t think so. So Twitter had to appeal to a lowest common denominator “High School Popularity Contest” mentality to, not only make it work, but for it to keep working.

    When I first joined Twitter in early 2007 thanks to following early adopters like Leo and Scoble, I thought, “How cool is this? Even though no one in my small town knows about this, I can do all kinds of cools things.” I had always noticed how inspirational or ‘insightful” thoughts would come to me when I least expected them, usually when I was out somewhere in my car, at dinner with friends, etc. and now I could simply text such thoughts to my Twitter account and retrieve them later for expanding. Or if I simply wanted to remember something cool that I saw or heard while out. Just tweet and retrieve. A repository of my daily life, my existence, my continuum, my stream of consciousness.

    But where are these insights, these things I wanted to remember, this digital outline of my life that I so dutifully recorded the last 3 years? Gone. I can’t retrieve them. I can’t search them. I can’t find them. And even though one hears that Twitter has been working on such a feature that will be released ‘sometime’ in the future, its like “Gee thanks Twitter, it’s my information, for God’s sakes. I don’t need it some time in the future. I need it now, and every day since I’ve been using your service, feeding your service, so that you could sell me out down the river to Microsoft and Google with your ‘firehose.’

    If instead all of this info had flowed into my blog, it would still be there, searchable, mine, the true archive and repository that it was meant to be. Some will say, “Well that is the price you pay for ‘free'”

    Oh yeah really? You know, I’m not the biggest fan of Ma.tt in the world, but look at WordPress.com. Totally free. Holds at least a thousand if not a million times more information than Twitter or Facebook, and it yours, you control it. You can put it in and you know you can always get it out. He’s not selling your information to third parties for his gain. He’s upselling (the freemium model) on additional features and using the popularity of the WordPress site and name to make a cut on Web Hosting purchases for those who choose to self host their wordpress blog. He’s Smith Barney. He’s making his money the ‘Old Fashioned’ way.

    But look, this is not an attack on Twitter, per se. Facebook is 10x as bad. At least Twitter is semi part of the ‘Open Web.’ Facebook hides behind its wall, not because it wants to protect the privacy of its users, but because it wants to protect its monopoly at the expense of its users. You post a picture into Facebook, it ain’t comin out again. You post a video into a Facebook, not only is it not coming out again, you can’t even SHARE the damn thing with the internet. I mean, how evil is that? That is crazy evil. All the comments and exchanges and time you put into writing messages on the Twitter or Facebook platform? They’re not yours. They belong to these companies. And they can and do disappear at the drop of a hat.

    Not to single out Twitter and Facebook. Tumblr, Posterous, Foursquare, Flickr, (just go to Scoble’s Google Profile to see a list of every Web 2.0/Social Media company that’s every existed) just to name a few are all the same. ‘Evil’ gets thrown around a lot. That’s too strong. ‘Evil’ is Hitler. How about ‘Unethical’? More interested in building a brand, a critical mass or ‘network’ effect as they call it, ala the Zeitgeist of the ‘Start Up’ crowd, so they can have a profitable ‘exit’ and IPO rather than being ‘into’ it and wanting to build something cool to benefit the user him or herself.

  • Great Resources for How to Use Twitter

    Update: 6/23/11 - How To Answer The Question “How Often Should I Tweet?”http://j.mp/kyTYGR http://www.mediabistro.com/alltwitter/how-to-answer-the-question-how-often-should-i-tweet_b10529 I saw a tweet today by Chris Brogan called "50 Power Twitter Tips." I want to remember this post and go back and read it often. As a side note about blogging: A lot of times I think of my blog as a self serving tool, a second "brain" if you will, for storing stuff that I may need months later. I had this happen twice today. I was trying to network my Linux machine to my Mac to transfer some files. I had dug up the techno info months ago and made it a blog post. I can't keep that stuff in my brain all the time, especially when its something I use a few times a year, and its not a task that's in my everyday profession. So today, using WordPress's search function, I easily found the post and got my task done quickly and painlessly, because I had done the painful leg work of finding the info months before. Now, yes, I could just as easily store that same info on my Computer, no doubt. But the additional benefit of the blog platform is that it makes the information available simultaneously to anyone in the world who may have the same problem. The blog becomes a "scaling" solution as well as a self serving one, simultaneously. The great benefit of computers and the internet is not only in processing mundane work, but offloading mundane but necessary information onto your "second" brain, so as to free your organic brain to be more spontaneous. I'll keep adding to this list as I discover more great resources. Do you have any of your own you would like to recommend? Leave a comment. I'd love to read it.
    • 50 Power Twitter Tips - ChrisBrogan.com - I need to read this list every day, or at least every week. These tips are succinct (they are all short enough to be "tweeted" individually) , and they can be put into practice immediately. These tips will not only help you to get the most out of Twitter but also make it more fun and additionally increase your "influence" in the Twittersphere in a natural, authentic way. Chris Brogan is a special guy. He's a bonafied internet, blogging, twitter "celebrity" but he has no hubris. He really likes people. He really likes to help them. He's genuine, down to Earth. He's not trying to impress or be part of some "elite" class of individual, although as a by product of his activities he has become part of that group, maybe even at the top of it, through acting in a way that's the exact opposite of most of the Twitter "illuminati." A genuine "Trust Agent" as his book goes. And one of the most enjoyable speakers you'll ever watch.
    Update: 09/17/10: Just saw this blog post by Brian Solice: "The Science of Retweets on Twitter" It's a very interesting post about how to construct tweets to give them the most chance of being re-tweeted. Interesting read. I just tried it myself on a tweet I just did: I wrote a blog post and tweeted: "Please Retweet: New Blog Post: The Best Way You Can Use Twitter http://bit.ly/d9bgUi Stephen Pickering"  (link to tweet) I asked for the Retweet. I used the words Blog, Post, and You in there. I used a bit.ly shortened link also. But judging from the post, I should have waited until about 4pm EST to tweet it, instead of 6:30am. But according to the report Friday is the best day, so I did get that right. We'll see if I get any retweets. Update 9/18/10 Ran across this today. It's a similar topic as Brian's but more quixotically taken on by Tim Ferris: Blogging by Numbers: How to Create Headlines That Get Retweeted It's mostly about how to write headlines, headlines for blog posts, but then as those headlines also become Tweets, it fits nicely into this study.

  • Just Added A New Customer to My Rackspace Cloud Site: What I Learned
    Update 6-18-10 : I did add that 2nd Customer. Yeah! They emailed me yesterday. Set up their site in about 2 minutes. Now they are rocking in the Cloud with no extra effort. Actually, I thought I would add 2 customers, but I haven't heard back from the other one. Since I started re selling Rackspace Cloud Sites last summer, I've had lots of inqueries, some of which have become customers, some of which have not, but all have asked good questions, questions that many times I would have to call Rackspace Techs or Ping Chad Keck or Rob La Gesse on Twitter to answer. I just realized, "Why have I not been writing all these down to build an FAQ page?" Well, I'm going to do just that. I'll start with these most recent two inqueries, and then maybe I'll dig through my email and find the rest and slowly add to the page, or just start from scratch and start documenting fresh questions as they come in. Q: We have been looking at your basic rack space package & wonder if you could clear up how many separate domains we could host? Is it one domain per package or a set amount? A: You can put as many domains as you want on there, and I would only charge you extra if you're account as a whole exceeded the limits. (Here are the plans and the amounts for overages.) (Here's a good one! Solid, basic, and to the point!) Q: Are you still reselling rackspace cloud sites? A: Yes! Q: If I start off with the basic plan and find its not big enough, can I move up to an advanced plan without taking my site off line? A: Yes, I can change your plan without it affecting your site. I just click on your site, change the plan that's applied to it, and that's it. Nothing touches your site or database. Q: How big are the mailboxes? A: The mailboxes are 1GB each standard. I was just told by Rackspace they can be increased to 3GB upon special request, and they said it's no additional charge. Well, those are 4 good solid questions to start things off with. I'll add them to my FAQ page now, and continue building it as things roll along. Q:  Hi,  I saw that you are reselling couldsites for Rackspace. I'm interested. I have three or four websites right now. I'd like each of these to have its own public IP address. Is this possible with your hosting? A: Unfortunately no. With Cloud Sites, the ip address given is the ip for the server and not just the domain in question. This feature is available with Rackspace's "Cloud Servers" product, however. Here is the page with the details of my Rackspace Cloud Site hosting packages that this post refers to. Here is the page with the information I need to get you started hosting your site or blog in the cloud. Here is the FAQ Page I'm building for My Re-Selling Rackspace Cloud Sites Packages And as always you can email me at [email protected] or call or text me at +1(501)291-1375. You can also ping me on Twitter or Facebook.