Surprise: Traditional Blogging Platforms Still Reign Supreme, comparative activity metrics across blogging platforms using some data from Postrank. I think if they included WP.com users with custom domains we would be double or trip where listed — even more if they included self-hosted.
Travel Minimalism
The best part about traveling is the forced minimalism. My life at home, as it has evolved, is quite complex and full of stuff. On the road I’m reduced to what I carry in a small backpack and hand bag — clutter becomes a physical burden. I really enjoy this simplicity as it helps me focus. One of my favorite things to watch as a friend or colleague travels more is how their bag gets smaller and smaller with each trip.
Vision
“The difference between a vision and a hallucination is that other people can see the vision.” — Marc Andreessen from a talk at Stanford a few days ago. Hat tip: Niall.
Beyond Consumer Culture
[P]sychological evidence suggests that is is close relationships, a meaningful life, economic security, and health that contribute most to well-being. While there are marked improvements in happiness when people at low levels of income earn more (as their economic security improves and their range of opportunities grows), as incomes increase this extra earning power converts less effectively into increased happiness. In part, this may stem from people’s tendency to habituate to the consumption level they are exposed to. Goods that were once perceived as luxuries can over time be seen as entitlements or event necessities.
By the 1960s, for instance, the Japanese already viewed a fan, a washingmachine, and electric rice cookers as essential goods for a satisfactory living standard. In due course, a car, an air conditioner, and a color television were added to the list of “essentials.” And in the United States, 83 percent of people saw clothes dryers as a necessity in 2006. Even products around only a short time quickly become viewed as necessities. Half of Americans now think they must have a mobile phone, and one third of them see a high-speed Internet connection as essential.
Emphasis mine. From the State of the World 2010: Transforming Cultures. They also have a nice, WordPress-powered blog. (A necessity.) You can see the context of the quote in Google Books.
University of Houston profile
University of Houston, which I attended for 2 years, created a profile of me for their “You Are the Pride” campaign. In the list I am currently alphabetically sandwiched between Carl Lewis and Hakeem Olajuwon.
State of the Word
Here’s the official video of the “State of the Word” presentation I did at WordCamp San Francisco this year. I hope you all enjoy it!
https://videopress.com/v/wp-content/plugins/video/flvplayer.swf?ver=1.21
(Video from WordPress.tv and powered by VideoPress.)
New WordPress Tattoo
John Hawkins is now the second person with a real-life WordPress tattoo. You can see it finished here, and two in-progress shots. John used the variation of the logo they did for WordCamp Las Vegas which he also organizes. Perhaps we should create a new category on Code Poet for 9seeds. 🙂
Automatticians in SF
Just a few vignettes, snapped by Sheri.
Chrome Checker
I’ve been back on Chrome pretty much full-time, especially since I figured out some proxy stuff, so the new After the Deadline checker for Google Chrome is a lifesaver. See also: Download Squad.
Automatticians around SF
Photos of Automatticians and friends around San Francisco, guest photographer Sheri Bigelow.
Groupcard Acquired
One of my first angel investments, GroupCard, has been acquired by InComm as announced on their blog, VentureBeat, and TechCrunch. It’s been a pleasure watching their team and business grow and I look forward to seeing what they come up with in the future. Hat tip to my consigliere, Matt Bartus, for the original introduction.
Twitter API
I think the opportunity has passed for the Twitter API to become a lingua franca for the real-time web. WordPress.com, Tumblr, Typepad, SocialCast, and Status.net all added support for the API in a way to make it as easy as possible for Twitter client developers — all they had to do was change the endpoint. The clients would then become a hub for users across different services, and had the ability to flourish regardless of the direction of the service they originally built on.
However because of perceived lack of market or a rush trying to keep up with each other and new features in Twitter’s API, like geo-location, we’re now close to half a year later and support for alternative endpoints in the major clients is haphazard at best. One of examples we all used to point to, Tweetie, is now owned by Twitter Inc. and doesn’t have much motivation to support other services in the future. Neither do the other official clients they’re rolling out. (Twitter.com/downloads is now a 404 page.)
For the record I completely support Twitter creating or buying official clients for every platform, including desktops. It’s what I would do in their position. However the third-party client developers that contributed immeasurably to Twitter’s success thus far are now in the awkward position of no longer being useful to their parent. It makes no sense for Twitter to have its user or signup experience mediated by a third party. None of the third-party clients have innovated enough in the user experience (for the most part they do not look or work significantly different from when they launched) or in cross-service support and flow.
If any of the clients had added seamless third-party API support when the opportunity first arose we’d all be pointing to them and promoting them. Now we’re more in a situation where, like Twitter, it makes more sense to build and promote our own because our users are demanding a multi-modal experience.
WordCamp San Francisco 2010 Photos
While I was running around WordCamp San Francisco 2010 getting ready for the keynote, guest photographer Sheri Bigelow had my D3S and was snapping all around. Here are the photos from that day.
WCSF 2010 Pre-party
Hanging around apartment with some Automatticians.
Mirroring Censored Blogs
Global Voices Advocacy has a new guide: Mirroring a Censored WordPress Blog. They continue to be the best source for using WordPress to democratize publishing in places restricted freedom.
Twenty Ten starting
The new Twenty Ten theme is now live on WordPress.com and the default for all new blogs created on the service. As an aside, WP.com (11 million sites) was switched over to 3.0 over the weekend. I love it when we’re able to do that early because we find a ton of bugs in the integration and merge, and then we have 11 million beta testers banging on the software before we do the shrink-wrap release.
WordCamp San Francisco 2010
We’re now about a week away from WordCamp San Francisco 2010. I am extremely excited about the speaker lineup this year (6-7 not listed yet), we’ll have a jazz performance, awesome shirts… best WordCamp SF yet. Get your tickets ASAP if you hope to attend.
Great Oaks Manor
Visited the Great Oaks Manor bed and breakfast outside of Houston with Erica O’Grady and a number of other H-town peeps.
Drop-Out Entrepreneur
Mia Saini did a video interview and article on Forbes called Drop-Out Entrepreneur.
WSP and Chinese
Flowers in Washington Square Park and dinner at Grand Sichuan St. Marks.