They follow thousands of people with the hopes the eventually they will follow back.  Once they get 100,000+ people following them, they proclaim themselves “A-Listers”.  Other than this, there is nothing special about them.  Well they eventually try to exercise this power by proclaiming revelations about companies like Friendfeed.  So far Friendfeed has only been affected because those that have 100,000+ followers make these outrageous statements over and over again.  You see… Most of these 100,000+ followers are people that have to work for a living and only get online from time to time.  They do not have time to be involved in every story that comes out.  They find themselves at the mercy of headlines.  Does this seem like a familiar theme?  This is the way the media works.  They will make an outrageous claim over and over again to a point that people just accept it as fact and not question it.

Friendfeed is an amazing tool but unfortunately it has lost many users resulting in it losing its popularity.  Soon afterward Google came out with Google Buzz which is almost identical to Friendfeed in function.  The same people that use to say that Friendfeed is dead are not telling the world about how great Google Buzz is.  I will not argue that Google Buzz is a great tool for aggregating stories and allowing personal interaction on them.  As I said, Google Buzz is almost identical to Friendfeed.  One thing that is troubling about these aggregators that I never thought about is their inherent power to give more power to those with 100,000+ followers allowing them more air time.  I have noticed that many times in these aggregators I get the same stories many many times from different people.  What ends up happening is that one person will say something and then a percentage of their 100,000+ followers will repost the story.

This seems a lot like some of the multilevel marketing schemes you see around.  I am sure you have heard of them.  They boast about leveraging the work of others to grow your income capability exponentially.  The same theory is at work here.  One person says something and then hundreds of others will say the same thing.  A percentage of each of the 100,000+ followers will also repost to a point where you reach critical mass.  An individual may hear the same story a dozen times in a single day from a dozen different people.  The notion that it must be true because we heard it from so many different sources comes into play.  The truth is that you really heard it from one source and it was distributed through syndication.  It may appear that it is coming from many sources but it is really coming from a singular source.  I use to wonder why a person would want to follow 100,000+ people but it makes perfect sense now.  The sheer audience makes your voice multiply exponentially.  You can say ANYTHING whether true or not and if a percentage of your followers repost your comment, then a percentage of their followers will also repost it.  Can you see how powerful this can be?  This self promoted, self appointed power could be used for good or bad.  It is my belief that this is how Apple gets all of its attention despite only having 10% or less market share.  It is pretty ingenious if you ask me.  Be careful what you hear and believe because many times you are hearing a regurgitated story and not necessarily multiple sources.  Many people gauge credibility based on hearing it from multiple sources.  They are unaware of how syndication works and do not realize that those multiple sources are really just one person.

What a pretty morning with the rain coming down.  It is only 64 degrees and rain and I love it.  For once we can turn the air conditioner off and let the outside air in.  Unfortunately having the window open means hearing all the neighbor noises but since it is daytime, I think we can handle it.

Everyone is telling me that Google Reader is more social now but the only social that I can find is in the settings it allows you to select which social sites you want your posts to go to.  Then on the bottom of each post it has a “send to” link where you can send that particular post to one of the social sites.  My Google account is paul.mccord and so if anyone can connect to me and give me a tour, I would appreciate it.  I am sure it has some nice functions but I have not had much time to play around with it that much.  As I do get some time, I will post back here about my findings.

Google Reader is going to have to be pretty good to “out do” Friendfeed.  I just love the way I can leave Friendfeed on the screen and things just automatically scroll across the screen.  I can be watching TV and see the stories scroll in real time.  This real time scroll is hard to beat.  This is one of the things that I am really looking forward to with the new Google Wave coming up in a couple months.  I watched the hour and 20 minute demo video that is on their site and it looks pretty cool.  As I said before, I will spend some time with Google Reader and give them a fair chance and maybe I will grow to like them.  About half or so of my Friendfeed user contacts also use Google Reader.

To clarify what a DDoS attack is and how it works I will try to explain.  A malicious person will find open computers around the world and upload a “bot”, or a program that runs automatically at set times.  This person will upload these bots onto other computers as they find them open.  These bots will ping a site continuously from many different victim computers sort of like what happens when you are access a web site.  These attempts to reach the site are at such a high volume that it takes up all of their bandwidth preventing legitimate users from being able to access the site.  When I say bandwidth, I am referring to a sort of a pipeline and its size.  The larger the size of pipeline, the more data that can be sent through the pipe.  If all the contents of the pipe are being consumed, then nothing else is left for anyone else.

Twitter still rules the social networking world despite what you may hear from other sites.  The reason I say this is because if you actually go to Friendfeed,  you will find that at least 50% of the traffic on there started by a Twitter post.  Of course from there, people will comment on Friendfeed.  The same can be said for Facebook because most of the traffic that I see are originally posted as Twitter.  Most of these sites have their own features that are very useful but again they depend on the traffic that is generated by Twitter.  With each news story that comes out putting down Twitter, they continue to grow.  In fact their growth is exponential with each story that comes out.  This is probably a result of people’s desire to follow the crowd.  In fact just this morning I un-followed 500 people/bots/strangers.  I will admit that I love the ability to get news from Twitter in real time even before it is on the news.  I can find out when a roll over accident is on the freeway before it is even broadcast on television.

So unless someone can come up with a tool that is so easy to use through short messaging system (SMS) they will continue to rule.  With smart phones becoming more prevalent people can update a news story directly from the site.  Instantly millions of people will know within minutes.  In some cases these posts actually result in the media’s attention instead of the other way around.  Having Twitter is empowering to the individual.  As it has been seen recently, there were individuals in Iran that were posting to the world the violence that was going on.  These Twitter posts were fed into many social networking sites and also to the news media.  In fact every major news entity in the United States has a Twitter page.    I know some people that use them just to follow news sites so that when something happens, they get a message to their phones.  It is inevitable that at some point a new technology will come out and unseat Twitter as the major social tool but for now they remain on top.  I will continue to follow these technologies and see new breakthrough tools as they develop.

My blog keeps the same address and is not subject to the popularity of a particular social network.  Since these networks come and go within a two year period it would be easy to lose contact with some people.  If you do not actively use these networks then you could lose contact with those friends since the popularity of that network could dwindle and its followers would move on to another network.  For those that prefer to use these social networks as their primary interaction with friends, I would suggest you also maintain a domain hosted web site.  This can be a blog or just a static site where you have a permanent address where people can find you.  These addresses are indexed by search engines making them easier to find.  This way as the Facebook of the day give way to the newest social network, people will still be able to find you.

Also one of the benefits of having a blog over a real time social network is that you control the content and the duration of the post.  If you use a social networking site, the content is only visible as long as no one else is posting.  As new items are posted, these posts are moved down on the page giving way for new content.  Eventually your post is moved completely off the page.  In addition to this, there is another benefit to a blog over the social networking site.  Most social sites have limitations to how many characters you can post in a single post.  Like Twitter will only allow you to post 140 characters at one time.  These limitations vary depending on which site you go to but there are limitations.

Another problem with these social networking sites is that there seems to be a erroneous cultural attitude that email is obsolete and going away.  This idea is not very well thought out because email will never go away unless a newer “mail” technology comes into play.  This is because many or maybe I should say most employers require all communications to be made using the company email system.  At my work for example, they block access to all social networking sites and web based email systems.  If you would like to communicate with someone outside the organization, you must use the employer’s email system that is subject to monitoring.  You cannot control the content of a social networking site and therefore not allowed.  For this reason, many of those on social networking sites refuse to check their email.  To them it is an antiquated system that is not worth using.  They fail to realize that every one of these social networking sites requires an email address to confirm their identity.  Email is not going away.  These people discard their email and so you cannot leave them a forwarding address if you move.  By keeping a permanent web site that is available for search engines, you can still be found after several years.  These are just a few of the reasons why blogging is better than social networking. 

If you have not spoken to someone for five years, they can always go to their favorite search engine and search for you.  Your blog or permanent domain will be found in the search engine results while many of the social networking sites may not be.  You may not like to blog but having a permanent web address can be used to point your friends and family to your social networking site that you prefer to use.  I too enjoy using many of these sites and in fact use Twitter every day.  By having my permanent domain, people can find my Twitter page without having to search around all day.  I hope I have been able to explain a few things here so that you will understand why I maintain this blog even though I do not have time to get on it as much as I like.  On a social network, I would not have been able to post my information in such detail.  This makes it easier to fully explain my point.

The big argument is that Twitter has become so main stream and on practically every news talk show around while Friendfeed has so many more features.  They are arguing whether Friendfeed will ever overtake Twitter.  I think as of right now, I use Twitter the most.  I also use Twitter to update Facebook.  Friendfeed was the first to be able to allow posting stories, messages and allowing others to post messages to them.  Facebook had included that feature lately and I love that.  Friendfeed now has a notifier so you can read your Friendfeed messages right on your desktop.

I love the live updates on Friendfeed though it is very fast if you follow a lot of people.  If you follow a lot of people, you may want to use the filters or you are going to have a headache trying to follow all the information scrolling across your screen.  The incoherence of this post is a classic example of the information overload.  I am typing this at the same time while listening to the Gilmore Gang podcast, and reading the Friendfeed posts as they pop up on the bottom right side of the screen on the notifier.  I truly love it though I remember the nature and anonymity of Friendfeed in the past where it is very easy to be attacked in a very vicious manner if you post something that is not very popular.  If you have thin skin then you may want to be careful what you post because people are very aggressive when they disagree with  you. 

At the moment, Twitter and Facebook are leading the pack and looking at current trends I would say that Friendfeed would never take the lead.  I do know enough to know that you cannot judge by current trends because there was a time when Google was a small part of Yahoo before Google really took off.  There was a time when America Online dominated the online world and most people thought they would never be surpassed in the online world.  Over time you never know what is going to take off.  All I know is that in the last couple of hours since I saw the new beta Friendfeed, and seeing the rate of information flow, I am scratching my head in amazement.  On this one story, there are new posts appearing at a rate of about two per second.  Absolutely amazing real time information.  If you are one of those that must read every post you will find yourself mesmerized and hypnotized by the information overload.

You could literally spend 24 hours a day on Friendfeed where every news story in the universe is streaming across your screen from both political spectrums at the same time.  You could find yourself involved into a religious or political fight in seconds on Friendfeed.  I do like it though because it allows you to see both perspectives on virtually any topic you can think of.  As I said before you could be in a hostile environment easily so you need to be prepared for that.  Don’t let me give you the idea that everyone is ugly and unfriendly on Friendfeed because that is not the truth.  I am just saying there are thousands of people that actively follow these threads 24 hours a day and anyone can see it.  Due to the very nature of its fast and capable social connection, your posts are read very fast and responded to within seconds at times. 

Again, I think this is an amazing interface and destined to go far.  This has only been out a few hours and the traffic is just phenomenal.  Despite this, I am not likely to try to get all my friends to go to Friendfeed because it took me forever to get some of them to go to Facebook and Twitter.  I love all of them but some people do not like all the overload.  As people drift over, I will add them.  I use all three because there are different audiences.  If you are inclined to try these types of toys, then give it a try.  My Friendfeed URL is http://beta.friendfeed.com/paulmccord.  The one thing that makes Twitter so popular is the SMS, or text messaging feature.  This would be virtually impossible on Friendfeed due to the enormous amount of information. 

Again, I would like to apologize for the incoherence of this post, because I have too much information going on at the same time.  I hope you give it a try and see how you like it.  I think you will be hooked in no time.

I enjoy learning things and Friendfeed is full of so much information that I cannot keep up. Admittedly much of it is garbage and I have to fish through to find things that are interesting to me. The social ability to interact with people and comment on their work is a really attractive feature. I can call them a moron, or they can call me one just as easy … Just joking. I just love it because you get input from all over the world from Twitter, GTalk, Google Reader, Stumblupon, Last.fm, and a whole host of other social networks. I am going to have to learn to turn this stuff off if I am to ever get anything done.

This weekend was four days and went extremely fast though we really enjoyed it. We managed to get a lot of family time. Kevin came home from church camp on Saturday so he missed the incredible fireworks show. That was a great time. I did some more obsessing on my neighbor’s tree. I chopped so many roots in their yard that I had a blister on my hand this morning when I got up. If I can juts make it 10 more months, I will be done with school and I will be able to have a life again. If you have ever gone to college full time, worked full time, and had a family, you know how demanding it is. Only 10 more months and it will be over. My work is taking a considerable amount of time to learn as well since I am going to school non stop. I start another two week school on Tuesday. Well I hope everyone had a great weekend because we sure did.
Technorati Tags: Friendfeed,Twitter,Google Talk,Google Reader,Stumblupon,last.fm

My son had some friends over last night until midnight and that was pretty fun and relaxing.  Around 10:00 pm we had a line of thunderstorms that came through and the line progressed across the same place for a couple hours and I loved that.  I am always open for a thunderstorm.  I love to keep the rain coming as late in the year as possible because once the ground gets dried out, we start heating up above 100 degrees and I am not looking forward to that.  Last year and this year we have managed to keep the ground wet enough to keep the temperatures relatively low.  I was listening to our local NBC affiliate KFOR this morning and they just told of someone here in Del City entering a funeral home and stole the belongings of the mourners at a funeral.  It is hard to comprehend someone lacking morals to that degree.  If you will steal from someone mourning the loss of a loved one, then you are a sorry human being.

I know I am usually hard on the media and rightfully so because of their political slant in their reporting.  Yesterday Tim Russert had a heart attack and died and I would like to pass my condolences to his family.  He seemed to be willing to listen to both sides of the conversation when others would not.  I heard he collapsed while at work at NBC.  I wish his family the best and feel for their loss.

I have a lot of school work this weekend to catch up on as the unit ends tomorrow.  I normally do not wait this late to finish up my work but last weekend we had some welcome family and we had a very good time.  My wife’s sister and her daughter came to see us after their home was hit with a tornado and we really enjoyed their stay.  I hope they are able to get the damage repaired without too much trouble.

This year we managed to get a lot of growth cleared out of the fence line.

As you can see from this picture, you cannot see through the fence and see the houses behind the house.  In this picture you can see how one of our neighbor’s tree fell across the fence taking the power lines down.  This was a couple years ago.  We have lost power so many times because of all this growth out of control.  Little by little, we have cleaned out this brush to where there is none left.  After the ice storm last December we decided that it all needs to go because it has been growing into the power lines and you could not work on anything.  I am pleased to say today there is no vegetation left along the fence line all the way around the property.  Hopefully we can keep our electricity the next storm that passes over us.  Well I have covered just about everything I can think of so I better get this posted. Blogged with the Flock Browser

Tags: Friendfeed, ham radio, trees, brush, clearing, Tim Russert, storm, Del City, Ustream

We had a pretty good weekend with my sister in-law, and her daughter coming to stay with us after their house was damaged in a tornado.  They had no power and we all know how miserable that can be after we experienced that ice storm last December.  I just saw on television that it is only 71 degrees at 5:00 pm in June.  Man I can take some of that!  I am sure hopeful that it stays this cool for a while but I know that is a stretch.  They also said we received 3.04 inches of rain since midnight but it is over. We are expecting fog tonight which is unheard of in June. I sure wish I could have been off work so I could have seen some of the rain.  Well I am rambling but I sure am looking forward to the next NBA game.  This post is a perfect example of how incoherent a person can be when watching TV while typing a post.  I guess I better get this posted Blogged with the Flock Browser

Tags: NBA, Celtics, Lakers, thunderstorms, Friendfeed

Since I use Twitter all the time, it shows my Twitter messages (Tweets) almost instantaneously.  I noticed one day that people had commented to my Twitter messages on Friendfeed page.  It allows people who are not on Twitter to respond to my Twitter messages, plus Pownce, Del.icio.us, Flickr, GTalk, Stumbleupon, Facebook, Blogs, and a ton of other services.  I have come to spend a considerable amount of time on Friendfeed to see and respond to people from 30 plus systems at once.

How nice it is to have a laptop with wifi because we have family staying with us this weekend and I can still get on the computer without waking up the family.  This morning I can hear the wind howling again this morning.  Anyway, back on topic…  I am amazed at how much news and information I can find in one place like I can on Friendfeed.  It is interesting how people post their comments about news stories,  happenings, and their events on what ever service they choose and I can read it all in one place and respond.  Sometimes I send a Twitter post from my cell phone and I get responses on Friendfeed.  Yes I know, I am a sucker to a new toy on the Internet.  Even this blog post will show up on my Friendfeed page.

Another cool feature that friendfeed has is the “rooms” feature.  You can create a room about any specific topic and people can join it and it keeps all posts related to this subject in one central location making the conversation easier to follow.  I know I am addicted again but it is really a lot of fun.  I hear rustling in the house so I think others are awake so I will send this and go see the family.

Blogged with the Flock Browser

Tags: Friendfeed, Twitter, Flickr, StumblUpon, Facebook, Gtalk, Del.icio.us, Pownce, Blog, Paul L. McCord Jr.