Hey Gina, Lifehacker talked about managing your online reputation the other day.  I have a bone to pick with you…

The buzz about attention data has come up again and here with Google Reader announcing its trends feature. Should your data be your own or owned by the company that is providing the free service? It is a tough question. One that I have been on both sides of the coin and thought long and hard about. Its a free service and the price you pay might be your attention data and eventual ads targeted very specifically for you. On the other hand, it is my data and it is about me. I wouldn’t want my medical history shared. Why should my reading habits and interests be a whole lot different?

Who ever owns the data is not what I am getting at. If it is data about me why can’t I use it the way I want to? Nick and Google Reader team, et al. In my news reader you are collecting data about me and data about others, why can’t this data be culled to do recommendations? I shop Amazon, specifically for this reason. I love finding out new books and products that are geared towards me and my interests. Why can’t blogs and websites be the same way?

Google is a great web search tool, but this is “Web 2.0″. We are beyond simple searches. Social web sites are nice, but can be skewed and played. What I want is simple statistical recommendations not just search. What blogs and sites are like those that I have interest in? Based upon what I am reading now, what other topics might be of interest? What are others like myself looking at? These are the things that would be useful and more in line with the digital lifestyle.

The data is there and has been for a long time. Let’s do something with it that enhances the users experience. The marketers have had their shot with it and they missed the boat hard. It’s the users turn now.

Technorati Tags: Google Reader, Feed Demon, Attention Data, User Experience, Web 2.0

Rajesh Setty talks about blogging and making content timeless. In context, he refers to making your content be able to stand up on its own long after you have written. It doesn’t expire because it is no longer current news.

You can and should take this one step further to refer to your career. What skills can you acquire that will be timeless? These are the skills that will benefit you the greatest in the long run.

Some examples are writing, presentational skills (speaking, written, and visual aids), user requirement analysis, software architecture, and networking.

What timeless core skills do you have and which ones will be your goals for next year?

Technorati Tags: Career, Development, Core Skills, Timeless Skills, Networking, Audience

The web has come a long ways in terms of usefulness. The interfaces are much easier and nicer. It is easier to search and share information. But has it become too easy and too mainstream?

The comments there are a good example of why I don’t get much value from Digg. Too much noise and very little knowledge. Robert Scoble

Robert’s comment strikes a chord that I have felt for awhile now. When a medium is opened to the public and becomes mainstream, it starts to loose its effectiveness and perhaps its authority. Look at the history of the Internet. BBS, newsgroups, forums, live chat, social networking, and social bookmarking. When it was a limited group, it had some use. As it grew the voice of the masses’ was heard and it became more useful. It then became popular and mainstream. All of these mediums suffered similar histories. When they became popular and mainstream the noise grew to deafening volumes and blocked out the knowledge.

It is easy to comment and do a straight mind dump or stream of thought. No filtering needed. Who is going to know who you are. Better yet, look at myspace, et al., most don’t understand or care that their lives are an open book for those who know how to look. If you don’t care that other’s know your personal details, why would you care that they find out that you trashed talked about something you knew nothing about? We are or are becoming an open society that hides behind fake annonynimity of digital life. There is no accountability and when you can sign up for a yahoo or other anonymous email account, there isn’t likely to be any anytime soon.

It isn’t as much fallen from grace as it has gone the way of most mass media and popular Internet services.

Technorati Tags: web2.0, social networks, social bookmarking, Digg, MySpace, Responsibility, accountability, audience

I have been loosely following the conversation about River of News, between Robert Scoble and Dave Weiner. I am biased. I like my desktop applications. I always have. But I saw Robert’s comments about trying it and seeing how much easier it was to keep up with the news. Like most, I have a bunch of blogs that I keep up with or try to. Like most, I find that keeping up with it to be difficult. So I wanted to try something that would help me with that.

On first try and look, it took a little bit to get used to. But once I adjusted to how the river worked and google reader handled it was easy to fall in love with it. It works very much like a desktop application. I use it from home and from work, with no configuration and little trouble. I started to use it religously, keeping up with things and finding news items of interest. I could easily share items and mark them to read later, I can even categorize them. All was good.

Today I had read an article and wanted to get back to it. Problem, I forgot to star it and/or tag it. How could I find it again when I wasn’t even sure what feed it was from. I’d have to sort through hundreds of new items to find it. I needed a search button. This made me think about what I use news aggregator for. I tend to skim the news and mark it for later read. I also categorize stuff for easier retrival. So far so good. I also like to use the computer for repeated tasks; I want the computer to search for items that I might want to read. A watchlist. I can’t find either of these functionalities on Google Reader. Things that I would consider to be essential.

Also, my problem with online applications in general still is that for something like this, if the site is down or I am not online I can’t read news. If I use feed demon, I still have everything I need.

Overall, I like what the Google Reader team has done. It is very easy to use and well laid out. The functionality of mobile phone use and bookmarking etc are nice, I’d rather have seen search and watchlists more. Hey Google team, get the search and watchlists working and away to download your news if you want to and you’d have a smash hit.

Technorati Tags: Google, Google Reader, Review, News Aggregators