Dimen Designs

Aggregating My Online Presences

Thanks to Joe Lazarus, who I stumbled upon via Fred's Tumblr song circle post, who hooked me up with a invite to FriendFeed, which is is my first attempt to aggregate all of my online profiles into a single page or feed. I was able to add these services:

• Flickr
• Last.fm
• Twitter
• deli.icio.us,
• Tumblr
• Google Reader shared items
• LinkedIn
• Amazon Wishlist

You can view all of these aggregated services on my FriendFeed page.

This is just my first attempt at aggregating these online presences into one page but the next logical step is consolidation of the services. While some of these services do cross-post automatically but I'm still hesitant on this always working and not enough services cross-post so I end up updating with the same information multiple times to ensure I cover every service.

The problem with this? Well beyond the annoyance of having to manually re-post everything to multiple services, I then have redundant posts when I am able to aggregate of my online presences into a single page like FriendFeed. You'll see some overlap between Twitter and Tumblr posts. Maybe that's my fault but it would be much better if I can send one update, whether it be to Tumblr, Facebook, Twitter, or wherever, and know that the information cascades down to all my online presences.

FriendFeed isn't the ultimate solution but it's surely a step in the right direction and now that they addressed the aggregation solution, I hope that they're thinking about the consolidation question next, e.g. how can we reduce redundancy in online presences through open APIs and RSS.

One last thing. Since I've had so many great musical recommendations come from Fred and Joe shares musical tastes with Fred, here's Joe's Yahoo playlist that I'm listening to right now as I finish this post:

My Blogging Habits: Twitter and Tumblr Are Gaining Ground

Me in Switzerland, circa '98

It may seem that I don't post here on Dimen Designs as often as I used to but to be honest, I feel that I'm writing and blogging more than ever.

So what gives?

Other platforms have taken over Typepad; with my mobile and Twitter, I'm posting there much more often and now there's my Tumblr page, where I can post photos and videos that don't quite fit the purpose of the blog.

I haven't posted a consolidated list before because I was worried about having everything linked-- not  that this was even possible when I started blogging on my free Tripod blog back in late 2003 (yes it's been five years, amazing). But now it's definitely impossible because I have cross-posted items so often over the last two years that a simple Google search could connect the dots. I suppose listing all of my online presences is finally a formal admission of radical transparency that Scoble and Chris Anderson talk about.

More correctly, it's that I'm posting in so many different places now that I need tools that better consolidate my online presences. I mentioned the need for reducing redundancies when I posted yesterday about widigtizing my reading list. Just saw FriendFeed on Joe Lazarus' site and that seems like a good first step in consolidating everything.

Lastly, you only get out of blogging what you put into it. So do I get paid directly to put myself out there? Of course not but I'm compensated in non-monetary ways and that what's important to me.

  tumblr 
  Originally uploaded by cherbert.

So here it is, a mostly complete list of my online outlets:

• Twitter
• Tumblr
• Facebook (on MySpace but don't check it often)
• Del.icio.us
• Flickr
• LinkedIn
• Disqus

Don't feel that you have to check all of them all of the time but feel free to reach out to me at any of those places. As part of my New Year's resolutions (no you shouldn't make these, you really should have daily, weekly, yearly goals instead because we so often fail at keeping our New Year's resolutions), I'm trying to stay in better touch with my friends, family, and former colleagues. Posting all of my online presences will be a good test for me so take me up on the offer.

But I'm not going all the way and publishing my mobile number, like Calacanis or Scoble, that's just a little too transparent for me.

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Now playing: The Cribs - Men's Needs (CSS Remix)

Harvard Debating Open Publishing: Yet Newspapers Still Don't Get It

Everyone knows the newspaper industry is in trouble: circulation numbers are down and there a lots of staff layoffs (most recently at the NYT). I talked about it soon after Sam Zell bought the Chicago Tribune and blamed Google for killing the newspaper industry.

While the mainstream media/publishing still don't get it (free your content, syndicate it everywhere and then make money from the ad revenues and from the publicity/consulting/speaking engagements that come from having the best (and most well-known) talent), the ivory towers of academia are starting to get it.

NYT reported earlier in the week that Harvard is proposing that its professors publish their scholarship free on the web. This is a big step because we all know the entrenched motto for professors of "publish or die," so the fact that a university, Harvard no less, is debating this type of monumental shift towards free and open is amazing.

  Free Birma 
  Originally uploaded by (Erik).

What's truly important here is not the money that Harvard professors might lose from the royalties they make from publishing their article in those fancy (read: expensive) academic journals. And it's not about the fact that we witnessing the potential demise of those academic journals (we've heard that defense from the RIAA and MPAA, I note this in my list of takeaways below) because of the web yet again destroying a traditional, old media business model.

What's important here?

The formal recognition that what makes professors and their scholarship truly valuable (in the economic sense) is their knowledge and the recognition of that expertise by the greater world at large.

When publishing and writing on the web is practically free, then your reputation as an expert in a given field becomes the scarce good, not the physical good that used to be a scarce good (because of the high price of academic journals; publishers could limit supply through the need for peer-based reviewing, the costs of the reviewing processes, and the costs of producing hard copies of the journals, all of which artificially drove up prices).

None of this is ground-breaking if you've been paying attention to the market forces at work on the internet but the newspaper and publishing industries don't seem to get it.

Other key points (some which I already touched upon):

1. Free is even hitting the ivory towers of academia, a place typically slow to change-- that's a sign of the tide changing


2. This would be an opt-out system; as Lessig has advocated for copyright renewals, it makes sense that the content goes free unless you make a specific note to the contrary


3. Destroying a business model is no defense for maintaining a closed, proprietary systems


4. The opponents of open publishing are using the same arguments as RIAA and MPAA-- that should scare you


5. As John Perry Barlow has argued, The Grateful Dead didn't make money off albums, they made money by performing-- the same thing for professors. Aside-- I had the lucky chance to join a classroom conversation with Mr. Barlow my senior year at Colorado College and wish I had kept in touch with him.

Now playing: Doves - Walk In Fire

Laptop Stickers Can Make You a Better Networker

  More Laptop Stickers 
  Originally uploaded by kev/null.

I try to network whenever I can and that's not because I believe it's who you know versus what you know, your own hard work determines much of your life, but connections always help.

After reading Inc.'s article on uber-networker, Keith Ferrazzi, I read his book, Never Eat Lunch Alone and try to keep improving my networking skills, both offline and online. It's not hard work intellectually but it requires diligence.

I find my networking prowess comes in spurts, depending on my mood and work load at the office. But the problem is that most of us fall into that exact trap, only networking when you need something (a new job, financial advice, etc.). Thats the exact wrong approach to networking: it must be a mutual beneficial- two-way street.

If you want a simple to way to start conversations and network with people, put stickers on your laptop. My four-year old Dell used to be a plain jane, naked laptop but at least now it's a plain jane Dell with some color and personality.

We all add widgets or bling to our blogs and Facebook profiles, why not do the same with our laptops?

Granted, this trick only works if you, like me, go to the coffee shop frequently with your laptop but it can work in any public place, the airport, the library, practically anywhere.

This morning while sitting at Murky Coffee reading/emailing/blogging, I struck up two conversations thanks to the stickers. The stickers on your laptop gives people an immediate sense, not a complete picture of course, of what you like and who you are. It breaks the ice and makes the initial question that much easier. Once you start talking to someone, you've gotten past the hard part.

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Now playing: Josh Rouse - Streetlights

Why Can't I Easily Widgitize My Reading List?

  SynCh Adaptors 
  Originally uploaded by Ross Burton.

I’ve been doing a lot of reading lately, which is why I haven’t posted as much lately. No excuses so why not merge the two and write about my reading list.

The problems is that I can’t easily use my Amazon wishlist on this blog to show you what I've been reading.

I can send people that link above and they can see my wishlist but I want a widget that displays my wishlist on my blog without having to navigate to Amazon. More than anything, I want a visual representation of those books, which is a lot faster and easier for people to grasp instead of a simple text list.

While I have a few of recent books in the left-side bar of this blog, I have to manually update that via Amazon and my Typepad typelists. It means going into the code and updating, which is a pain. But on Facebook, Shelfari takes care of this for me. I simply add the books I’ve read and then have an easy widget displaying my books. Amazon, why can’t you do that?

Amazon does have widgets but it’s not a simple click/export from my wishlist page, I have to go to my Associates profile, log in again, and choose the widget there. Shelfari wins this battle for simplicity and ease of use but there’s still one stumbling block: Shelfari on Facebook is closed.

I can’t export that Shelfari widget to my blog, it’s locked into the Facebook world. So I still do have a solution to a simple question, how can I use a widegt to display my books on my blog?

The solution?

Spending 10 minutes copy/pasting and ALT+TABing between browser tabs to synch my Amazon Wishlist and my newly created Shelfari account. Note, that’s my new Shelfari account via their website, not my Shelfari account/page via Facebook. Can I sync my Facebook Shelfari account with my non-Facebook Shelfari account? I don’t know but it’s not obvious (and it should be- that's the problem).

Here’s the result of that work, a widget that visually displays my recent and plan to read books:

Shelfari: Book reviews on your book blog

In conclusion, here are my takeaways and remaining questions:

• Amazon- have a one-click feature for widigitizing your wishlist or reading list. You patented the one-click purchase feature (which is IMHO completely ridiculous), why can’t I make widgets with one click?


• Shelfari- can I synch my Facebook widget list with my non-Facebook widget list?


• Facebook apps are still closed to the outside world, creating redundancies for anyone trying to synch their multiple online presences or social networks.


• There’s money to be made in reducing redundancies and improving synchronization between online profiles and social networks. Hopefully OpenSocial or maybe even OpenID are addressing this exact problem. Jason and Mahalo are even addressing this challenge/opportunity by allowing people to view all of their social networks from one page.

Valentine's Day, Management Consultant Style

My colleague emailed me a great Valentine's Day consulting presentation. I don't think you need to be a management consultant or even a dork to appreciate this but it helps. Not sure who you are Andy Meyer but thanks for the laugh.

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Now playing: Stars - Your Ex-Lover Is Dead (Live)

The Utah Ski Trip Was Epic

  DSC_0091 
  Originally uploaded by cherbert.

It's hard to describe the almost bottom-less powder that we had for all three days of the Utah Ski Trip. I joked about needing a snorkel but it wasn't that far off.

This photo sums up the trip nicely, it was amazing, truly epic.

2/16/08 UPDATE: Didn't want to link to all 300 photos so here are a few via a photo Facebook album.