SheGeeks - Part 4

Compare Your Last.FM Music With FriendCompare

Posted by Corvida on August 7, 2008 | Comments

I’ve just discovered FriendCompare, a web service that allows you to compare your Last.FM music tastes to your friends or compare two completely random users. To start, the service has a clean, and simple design on the homepage. Here, you’d simply enter your Last.FM name to get started. On the next screen, you’re provided with a list of friends and people within your neighborhood to compare yourself too.

friendcompare_friends

Once you’ve selected a friend, you may have to wait a few seconds for FriendCompare to work it’s magic. Here’s a look at a comparison from someone that I know I have a lot in common with:

Click to enlarge

FriendCompare shows the top tracks from both users and a compatibility meter at the top. I’m currently 33% compatible with Timon50cent based on common artists, albums, and top tags. We don’t have any friends in common nor any of the same recently played tracks. Links for each track, artist, album, and tags are also provided incase you’d like to do some exploring.

tracks If there had been any common tracks that we’ve both played the site would’ve shown how many times you’ve played the track versus how many times your friend has played the track.

Digging Deeper

All in all, the service doesn’t bring anything relatively exciting to the table, but it could be a useful tool when trying to find more music, which is the point of Last.FM. One thing that could make this more useful for me is to display more tracks. My top 10 tracks just aren’t enough to go by for comparisons. I’d like to see more interesting ways that I can compare myself to my friends. For example, what if we’re the only 2 people that have ever played a particular song on Last.FM? I’d like to know that. That’s a great and unique comparison. Or maybe we played a particular song on the same day? Who knows, but I’d love to see FriendCompare dig deeper into the musical styles and matches between my friends and I.

Social Media Is Far From Overrated

Posted by Corvida on August 5, 2008 | Comments

blog Today, Steven Hodson pointed out a great article in his post Is Social Media Losing Its Shiny New Luster? He pointed to a post by Mack Collier entitled Is Social Media overrated?

Mack poses two really good questions about social media and companies:

So if Social Media is overrated and overhyped, as some claim, why are all these big companies putting money into this space? On the flipside, if social media IS working for companies, why can’t they more effectively show the bottom-line results?

To me, the answer is because it’s not overrated. Social media as a term and concept is far from overrated. It’s still an infant and it’s only going to get better. Mack also provides an answer to what I feel may be one of the problems:

I’ve blogged before about how I am ‘tired’ of talking about Dell’s wonderful work in this space. Simply because I want to see other Fortune 500 companies follow Dell’s lead and get active with social media as a way to reach their customers.

That’s just it. Other services, companies, products, and tools are not following the social media lead. Like every other early adopter tool it’s taking mainstream a while longer to catch on the way we have. One reason is because we eagerly embrace these things, yet stand to lose nothing in doing so. Companies on the other hand stand to lose a ton of money if the results of investing in social media aren’t financially positive. So, on one hand it’s understandable for them to not embrace social media the way we have. On the other hand, we know that some companies are just stuck in their old ways.

Social Media Services May Be Overrated

idea I’ll end this post with the fact that social media services may be becoming overrated. I’ve somewhat elaborated on why I feel this way in my previous post The Repetition of The Blogosphere:

All the latest sites and services are all the same to me. Clones. Clones that do one feature better than the original. Clones that don’t have any of the features that the original has. Clones that are playing catch-up and clones that should have never seen the light of day because the original was a dumb idea to begin with. There’s nothing to talk about because there really isn’t any “real”" news. Innovation is at an all time low and we’re all suckers for it because something is better than nothing. Well, screw that!

Social media innovation has hit a plateau. Andy DeSoto does a nice job with Falling short of true content creation by summarizing a problem with blogging (content creation versus content commentary) that could also be applied to social media:

I think part of what can occasionally make the blogging experience less rewarding is that writing about a niche topic, whether politics, technology, food, or otherwise, is often an exercise in finely treading a line between content creation and mere content commentary. When we spend too much time creating metacontent, that is, content about content, things start to feel much less rewarding for us.

I think in the tech world, the danger of this metacontent is that tech bloggers rarely are the ones that are creating the primary source content. Personally, I think that if I had the requisite technical coding or design skills, for instance, I would be creating iPhone applications instead of merely writing about them.

Content Is King. Creation is Godly.

It’s all about creation. Content is king. Creative content is godly. The same applies for social media. The fatigue and suggestions of being overrated may lie in the fact that we keep having to search for quality stuff that’s interesting to not only our audience, but ourselves. Our searches are fruitless these days and there’s no telling how long this dry spell will last.

Overrated? Not social media as a concept. However, what’s coming out of it these days just might be.

The Repetition of The Blogosphere

Posted by Corvida on August 4, 2008 | Comments

blog For the past week, a lot of my Twitter followers have noted that I’ve been M.I.A. (missing in action). And I have. To be honest, I’ve gotten a little bored with socializing online. That’s not to say I’m tired of talking to my friends online. I touched basis with Cyndy (a.k.a. the other Louis Gray) just last night. Last week, I had not one but two conversations with my sexy-man/partner in crime Chris Miller. However, all of these conversations took place offline.

Let me state beforehand that I find this post a little difficult to write. How can you elaborate on a sentence that explains it all: I’m sick of socializing online! It’s not the entire online social experience that I’m sick of though. It’s different elements that are starting to either bore me or annoy me.

This post was inspired by Is Social Over-Hyped?

Repetitive Conversations

A friend of mine once asked my why I kept posting about the same service over and over (Twitter was that service). I told her because there were various aspects of the service that I felt were unexplored that I could add some input to……and I needed something to post about. However, her question has been haunting me lately because our little bubble of web 2.0, silicon valley, and social media can get pretty repetitive.

I couldn’t write about a different service because there was nothing out that was of interest to me. On the other hand, there weren’t many meaningful discussions to contribute to either. Either I had nothing to say about the subject, or what I was thinking had already been said. There’s no point in rehashing a point just for the sake of saying something different. This is how I’ve been feeling lately.

Reading & Blogging Became A Chore

I’ve let my unread articles in Google Reader stack up to ridiculous amounts for the past few weeks. I’m sick of reading. It’s becoming a chore that I’d rather put off for various reason.

There’s nothing new of interest.
The conversations are all the same.
I don’t feel like searching for new content.

I think I may be discovering that I’m one of those people that doesn’t like a lot of order. I like things to switch up every now and again. However, the section of the blogosphere that I’m interested in has a hit a plateau and in turn, so has my blogging. Once again, it’s all too repetitive to the point of tedium.

Plateau in Innovation and Creation

All the latest sites and services are all the same to me. Clones. Clones that do one feature better than the original. Clones that don’t have any of the features that the original has. Clones that are playing catch-up and clones that should have never seen the light of day because the original was a dumb idea to begin with. There’s nothing to talk about because there really isn’t any “real”" news. Innovation is at an all time low and we’re all suckers for it because something is better than nothing. Well, screw that!

A Hiatus on the Horizon?

No, I won’t be taking a hiatus. I still love this too much. However, content from SheGeeks will be on the slow side. I refuse to post just for the sake of posting. I want to add something new, if not original to the conversation. I want to discuss something different, something exciting, something….moving. That’s how FriendFeed and Twitter were when I first discovered them: exciting and moving. Where are the services, theories, and concepts that can accomplish that same feeling, while being of interest to me?

Where’s The Full Feature Facebook App?

Posted by Corvida on July 30, 2008 | Comments

I’ve been keeping up with the news on the amount of downloads Facebook’s app for the iPhone has received. Being an iPhone user and early adopter of Facebook since I’m a college student, it satisfied a certain amount of curiosity I have with Facebook these days. Recently, they’ve reached over 1 million downloads, which is no small feat. While I personally prefer to play Tap Tap Revenge on my iPhone these days, the number of downloads meant nothing to me for one main reason….

The Facebook Website Is Better

I feel cheated by Facebook in so many ways. How do you release a Facebook app with no ability to write on a friend’s wall, the very center of every Facebook profile? While they’ve added this feature since the release, there’s still a ton missing. The Facebook app is not a full featured client for the iPhone. You’re better off adding the website to your homescreen. There are numerous features missing such as editing your profile, reading notifications from pages you’re a fan of, accepting friend request and adding friends. I don’t even know who’s birthday is coming up unless I head to the website. Facebook is very important for remembering birthdays. It’s very limited in its functionality and really only provides you with the the bare basics. You can’t even hold your finger over a friend’s picture to save to your phone (you can’t do this on the website either).

Facebook App

Facebook Website: Friend Request

Calling All Developers

All in all, I think it’s a pathetic attempt by Facebook just to ensure no one took their spot. However, to all developers I say there’s still time and room. I will surely switch for a full featured Facebook client. Right now, I only use the app because I have two Facebook accounts. I use the app for the profile I don’t need to interact with very much as you can’t add more than one profile to the Facebook app to simply switch between one or more accounts. Sigh.

Looking At Twitter’s Latest Bump Differently

Posted by Corvida on July 24, 2008 | Comments

Today, I hopped online to news that people were noticed that their number of Twitter followers/followings were completely out of sync. Louis Gray is reporting a significant loss along with a ton of other people, myself included. However, let’s really examine this situation because people are up in arms about losing a patch of followers. Here’s why you should stop complaining about it:

1. Twitter Is Up And Running

Look at the bright side, at least Twitter is up and running. This was the biggest problem with Twitter for the past several months among others. Now Twitter is doing a much better job with their uptime and scheduling outages rather than having them randomly pop up. I’m back in action on Twitter myself and everything is almost the way it should be.

2. You Can Get Your Community Back

Personally, Twitter just did me a huge favor and did some spring cleaning for me. When the number of people you follow starts to exceed 300 you have a hard time keeping up with who’s no longer relevant to your conversations. So thank you Twitter. However, it’s not the end of the world people. You can get those followers back. While it’s annoying, it’s not the worst and I’d much prefer this than Twitter’s constant downtime any day. If those people want to follow you, they’ll find you again and if you want to follow them, you’ll find them again. Stop whining.

3. A Golden Opportunity

Now that your counts are all out of sync, this is the perfect time to explore Twitter for more friends. You people have to stop thinking so negatively. You’ll get your followers back. For now, take advantage of this moment to find new followers to add to your Twitter community. You’ll be better off doing this than simply waiting around for people to find you again.

Not A Big Deal

In the end, this really isn’t that big of a deal to me. Maybe because my most important followers are still on my list. While it’s annoying and could cause some concerns in the future, it’s a total opportunity at this point.

It’s Not Tech Blogging That’s Boring

Posted by Corvida on July 22, 2008 | Comments

Wordpress On The iPhone Needs Improvement

Posted by Corvida on July 22, 2008 | Comments