[With apologies to Rod Stewart] You’ve heard the saying that a picture is worth a thousand words. Twitter, the new online social phenomenon, lets people tell their story – 140 characters at a time. But there are no pictures.

Now, there’s been a healthy debate about Twitter here at 901am. Duncan asked does Twitter have substance? David told us why he Twitters, Muhammad gave us a contrarian view, and Sharon suggested the top 5 ways smart people use Twitter. Twitter won’t replace blogs, yet it’s market share is up 55%.

Although I tried Twitter out, for me it’s more interesting to follow what others are saying than to offer my thoughts 140 characters at a time. And being the ultra geek that I am, I have more fun analyzing the content of social spaces than actually participating.

So I thought I’d mashup a Twitter feed and play with it. My first thought was to use a Yahoo Pipes pipe to replace the tiny amount of text in each Twitter message with a flickr image. Punk legend Henry Rollins‘ Twitter feed was my first try. While I like reading his feed, Pipes’ content analysis module didn’t produce enough variety in his Twittering to generate different flickr images. I tried Nick Wilson‘s Twitter feed (he who was a former co-owner of Performancing). Same problem.

It’s not that either is boring, just that Pipes’ content analysis and the available flickr images didn’t jibe with either’s Twittering. To get more variety, I used Twitter’s recent public updates, and voila, it worked. A very different type of time waster: a slice of flickr driven by Twittering, fueled by Yahoo Pipes: Every Twitterer Tells A Story (potentially NSFW). Though I couldn’t view it from my custom Teqlo feed reader.

Of course, the resulting flickr partition might be more interesting if the original Twitter message text were included. However, the Yahoo Pipes annotate module does not work properly when you try to view the images outside of Pipes builder interface.

Originally posted on March 23, 2007 @ 9:41 am

Back in the 18th century, you basically had 3 choices of jobs–you could be a blacksmith, a butter churner, or a carriage driver.

Okay, so maybe there were more choices than that (how about tailor, butcher, barber, milk maid, footman), but the point is that there were well-known job titles already in existence for every occupation.

If you were hangin’ out at the local tavern and someone asked you what you did for a living, all you’d have to say is “I’m a blacksmith”, and you’d instantly be greeted with nods of acknowledgment and understanding.

Not so with the internet jobs of today.

To folks who aren’t online much, the internet seems like a sketchy place where folks look at porn and gamble at online casinos :) –sort of a boulevard of broken dreams and sleazy get rich quick schemes, not a place where you conduct a reputable business.

As a result, many of us who are very active within the blogosphere or work online run up against a lot of blank stares and misjudgements when we try to explain to our offline family and friends what in the world we do for a living or why our blogs are so important to us.

This isn’t surprising–we web workers have some of the freakiest and most confusing job titles on the planet.

Off the top of my head, ones that make sense to me, but I know would puzzle 99.9% of mainstream society are:
[Read more…]

Originally posted on March 22, 2007 @ 4:00 am

The fact that you can find some awesome singers who write their own music encourages me. And while Mark Cuban and Viacom can sue the pants off of Google, what are the Viacoms and the Mark Cubans of the world doing to help the little people achieve their dreams?

Umm. Yeah. No comment. Thanks Google for empowering the dreamers.

Here’s Ana Free, I Listen.

Originally posted on March 20, 2007 @ 5:05 pm

To be honest, my first impression of Twitter was that it was for folks who had way too much time on their hands who narcissistically wanted to broadcast every random thought that crossed their brains.

While this may be true in some instances, there are also some very smart, professional, forward thinking people whom I respect who are using Twitter intelligently.

Yep, you heard that right–I just used the words “intelligently” and “Twitter” in the same sentence. :)

Like cell phones, email, and blackberries, Twitter is a tool that can either add value to your working life or become the perfect interruption machine, depending on how well you use it.

To keep yourself from falling into the Twitter abyss, it might help to focus on these 5 smart uses of Twitter:
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Originally posted on March 20, 2007 @ 4:00 am

Recently redesigned eMoms at Home have some great tips up on things to think about before hiring a designer. If all my clients had read and followed that list, my life would have been a lot easier. Luckily, most people know what they want.

Check out the post.

While I agree to most of the things on the list, I would also like to point out that sometimes it’s a good idea to trust in the designer. While s/he still needs to know what you’re after with your redesign, you should accept the fact that the designer is the expert. At least let’s assume s/he is… Anyway, be open-minded to suggestions and do your best to give constructive criticism when you disagree. In the end, the choice of design is yours to make, but the sooner you realize that you might (or might not) be the weakest link in the chain, the better in the long run. [Read more…]

Originally posted on March 19, 2007 @ 12:33 pm