The Social Networker

by Chris Miller at 12:20:50 PM on Friday, October 31st, 2008
It all begins with a nice light bit of music as the Twitterified client launches. Yes, you can turn that off but it is the start of a great experience so far. A sleek back background with a bit of hidden treasures. Let's dig in from there.
The application itself is responsive, and it launches you right into your normal mode of watching those you follow and being able to send tweets. There is a collapsable tweet feature which is nice to see more of the timeline, but really is not that important to the UI since you can scroll. If they blended this with the ability to always hide that persons tweets until expanded again, now that is almost a way you could "ignore" someone for a while and you have an immediate win with me. Clicking on a persons phot gets you their Twitter profile information as well as how many people follow them. That is a nice touch also.

Twitterfiied Main

One of the most interesting abilities is how they handle long strings of entry over 140 characters and the ability to grab links for video as well as take a webcam image. This adds a nice quick ability to sending instant snapshots. Now it does use photobucket for the storage and linking, so be careful what image you take :-).

Twitterfiied video

One other nice feature is how the viewing is done for the friends and followers as shown here. While you cannot do much more with it that look and click on people, it is a nice touch they will have to build features into. They have an alterante view I point to in the image below that puts all your followers in amost a flower shape. But that was quite distracting as you could not point to anyone individually.

Twitterfiied,Twitterfiied

You can set the opaqueness of the client, but that is really about it for now in terms of UI changes. I would imagine some other skins would be needed at some point to either offer a lighter or customized background.

Overall this is a winning client that has plenty of features and room to grow. I think is it a tight competitor with the basic Twitter function of Twhirl. They need to add some other social services to really win users over and suck them into this client. Once again we don't see where the monetization comes from, but what the heck, we love free!

by Chris Miller at 03:04:00 PM on Thursday, October 30th, 2008
This week is Sobees, Gawker Stalker, enterprises and social networker, CloudContacts, Updating.me and Highlight Midwest.

The triangle (no need for round or square) discussion with Wayne Sutton, Jeff(isageek), and myself (IdoNotes). Just under 43 minutes in length.

Find articles on our topics by following our groups bookmarks on Diigo here.




by Chris Miller at 11:33:21 AM on Wednesday, October 29th, 2008
I have started to notice a recent trend in Twitter activity and communication.  While we, as early adopters (no matter what we all think we really are), use it on a daily basis as a knowledge engine and constant hose of information.  Many of the new followers and even comments I saw flow past have moved it back into a chat client.  The amount of information you can easily search is dropping as people begin to have private messaging conversations using directs, of course.

The only thing missing for that to take off in a wider arena is the idea of group private directs, much like a Skype, Google or AIM chat group would be.  All of you sit in one channel and have an open, multi-private conversation that is removed from the public stream.  Retweeting is then not necessary as you have already shared it appropriately.  This would be an excellent feature on one side of the argument , but would further fragment conversations that Twitter has moved back into the mainstream for all eyes.  Even someone that protects their stream can have it viewed using a simply call that was recently exposed in a Valleywag article I read.

So what does this due to an already fragile system that had exponential growth, then leveled and now as press heats up grows again?  It means that this becomes yet another chat client that has no downloadable client.  Think about it.  There is no current monitization from Twitter and with no client that they produce and can wrap advertisements around, they have to find other means.  People are beginning to write numerous clients, some with ads showing up recently (to supposedly pay for the development).  If the 3rd party developers can monitize and include features that draw you from the main Twitter channels, then the social value of using the service starts a downhill run.

How often do you backchannel on Twitter?  Lets have a backchannel conversation about it.
@IdoNotes

by Chris Miller at 10:47:09 AM on Saturday, October 25th, 2008


I have been paying with CruzApp since I was told in email this week that the former Mecca Browser, that we discussed in Episode 9 of TheSocialGeeks, is now renamed and available.  So I did a quick screencast on my thoughts.  Go download a copy yourself (for Mac only)

by Chris Miller at 01:01:56 PM on Friday, October 17th, 2008
This week is FriendFeed live, MobaTalk, Social Mention, enterprise Twitter, Mecca Browser and UserNameCheck.

The triangle (no need for round or square) discussion with Jeff(isageek), Caleb Elston and myself (IdoNotes). Just at one hour in length.

Find articles on our topics by following our groups bookmarks on Diigo here.



by Chris Miller at 02:19:32 PM on Thursday, October 16th, 2008
A new project was launched by me and Lisa a couple weeks ago but we had to get some postings up and running.  The idea was developed, solidified, registered and launched all at a high school gymnasium and born into SocialStalking.com.  The basics of the site are that due to the proliferation of information being tossed into profiles and social sites, you are able to find just about anything on people at this time.

The end result is a building reference site into privacy policies, controlling ones identity and also giving live presentations at schools about SocialStallking, what it means and using live school data as examples.  The effect on parents, teachers and administrators is astounding.

You can start getting the RSS feed here

There is a sister site coming along shortly, but under wraps for the moment.

by Chris Miller at 10:52:06 AM on Monday, October 13th, 2008
Let's get right to the figure they state for the market between the years of 2008 and 2012:
The Radicati Group forecasts the overall Enterprise 2.0 Software market to reach $842 million by 2012

You must be kidding me?  The report looked at more than a handful of leading vendors and compiled the enterprise software market as:
  • wikis
  • blogs
  • social bookmarking
  • social networks
  • "and more"
With the push to get more of this ability into the enterprise, I cannot see why this number is so low and it totally eliminates all the smaller vendors making inroads into the companies.  When you only look at a few leading names, there must be an account for the consumer push and adoption rate of getting tools to broaden employee knowledge and expanding the sharing of ideas and hidden content that has always been stored in email and chats.

Software development is expanding at an incredible rate and it is bringing all the data and thoughts that people have during the day to the top like cream, being surfaced through Enterprise 2.0 applications.  When the CIO goes home and gets him or herself on Facebook or MySpace, you can bet that the company will soon be doing the same.

by Chris Miller at 11:49:57 AM on Tuesday, October 7th, 2008
SocialMedian just launched the addition of a Facebook application.  If you are unfamiliar with SocialMedian there is plenty of reviews including a podcast I did, but to summarize it allows you to find and follow people that can also find news you are interested in.  There are groups as you would expect.

 With the addition of Facebook integration, the default behavior is to automatically follow your Facebook friends as they join SocialMedian (as shown here).  Well as you add an application, so does a ton of your friends to be just like you, who follow you who then have other friends add the application and so on.  So if you have a lot of Facebook friends you did not know had tested the waters with SocialMedian, then you get a ton of invites right away.

Image:Explaining the SocialMedian growth explosion today and the downfall
So how is this a downfall?  I already mentioned it during the podcast.  I have no way of telling who tracks good news and stories versus he lays out a bunch of junk.  I have no way of establishing a reputation, outside of being popular like Louis.  So how do I qualify myself and others as a news maker?  I like the idea of the site and enjoy peeking in time to time, but there is something missing that keeps me from being there everyday.

by Chris Miller at 02:51:28 PM on Monday, October 6th, 2008
In a recent discussion, the topic of the value of face to face meetings over strictly virtual meetings came around.  My thought is with the proper definition of virtual, you can have the same effect as f2f (face to face for simplicity sake) in most, read that as not all, scenarios.  With the growth of audio/video capabilities, knowledge sharing sites, profiles and presence, what is gained by f2f meetings?  Not much a this time.  There was a point where all sales calls were made in person, with someone flying or driving all around a region.  Burning time and energy just to have a conversation?  With the advent and advancement in technologies, whiteboards, brainstorming, document sharing and conversations are all possible, just as if you were sitting right there.  Humorously in theory, only one person in a room can work on a document while in person unless it is shared online.  If so, you are right back to the point of why are you all in the same room?

Massive amounts of communication and collaboration are occurring online throughout thousands of social and sharing sites as far too many of us sit in meetings all day long accomplishing nothing.

Saying that, certain scenarios inherently beg to be in person.  The final stages of project readiness, isolated conversations to remove distractions.  Many times while we are on conference calls, instead of focusing on the conversation, we find ourselves Twittering, instant messaging and basically trying to process mass amounts of data, including news feeds.  The isolation factor of a f2f removes that problem.  We have a rule in "hot" meetings that you do not even bring in your phones or computers.  A phone that rings in one of those could end your day.  If you cannot simply stop tapping your pen and pay attention, then the meeting is too long or the topic has strayed.  Or worse, you shouldn't have been there in the first place.  I personally have been part of those and politely excused myself stating that there were no topics I could contribute to.  Online makes that so much easier.

Now we enter the combination of the two where two groups, or a group on one side and individual on the other, take advantage of both virtual and f2f.  With this, you combine one side in an isolated meeting with no distractions and a virtual person that might be screensharing or simply listening and conversing.

So I lean towards virtual winning over f2f with the understanding that there aer some slimmer instances where f2f is required, versus requested.

by Chris Miller at 02:16:47 PM on Wednesday, October 1st, 2008
Visit the Widget Gallery


Insert test code here...  and wow.. it works


Conference/Article Materials

My Files

Yes this is a blatant theft of the outline that Jess uses on her page, but I asked permission. Why?? Because I am a hardcore admin and can make ugly tables to make you developers frustrated, but this was too nice to pass up.

Also Known As: Chris Miller (when awake)

Boring Certifications: (only because someone asked twice)

  • Workplace Collaboration Services 2.5 - Team Collab and Messaging
  • Domino 7 Certified Security Administrator
  • PCLP ND7
  • PCLP ND6
  • PCLP R5
  • PCLP R4
  • CLP Collaboration (soon to be retired Aug 2006)
  • random former R4 exams
  • CLI for numerous admin areas including Domino, Sametime and Workplace
  • CLP Insane

Yes, I write some of those dreaded admin cert exams you take. I won't say which ones so you don't come looking for me, but I will say they are the real good recent ones that have been coming out.

Weapons/Equipment:

  • At work an IBM 2 GHz
  • At home a plethera of 6 machines with various Windows versions and Red Hat on a wired/wireless LAN
  • A Toshiba E740 with 802.11b (yes geek toy)
  • An Apple 40GB iPod that is filled to the brim
  • Compaq RioPort MP3 player (now in storage)
  • An EBook (REB1100) also for travel (Love that darn thing)
  • Verizon and they always seem to know how to find me, damn cell

Animals:

One dog, a Pug. He has been on this world before and seems to understand slippers and a fine cigar. Mind you that is him in the chair and not me.

Let us now also add a deranged cat that is in the process of being toilet trained. Update: Toilet traning was very very close.

Music:

Non-stop. At my desk, in my car, walking to work and back to my car downtown. In the house there is a crazy zoned set-up for you home automation geeks.

I am a self-proclaimed MP3 fiend, to which I have tried rehab 4 billion times to no avail. Next is the MP3 hard-drive for the car that I found. Now what kind of music you ask? I will never tell.

Languages:

  • Incredibly fast English
  • Very slow Spanish
  • Emoticon-ese
  • Learning Korean
  • HTML
  • Advanced Sarcasm

Geek class special abilities:

  • Notes/Domino overdrive
  • Workplace
  • Sametime
  • Active Directory (huh? kidding)
  • Quickplace
  • LMS, LVC and the other L's of elearning
  • Windoze junk
  • MS Exchange versions
  • LAN
  • TCPIP
  • Server Iron
  • Yeah, yeah it goes on some

Skills:

Get back to you here

Spells:

Hershey’s Stomach of Holding: Jess and I are fighting over who eats more chocolate. TWDUFF can help me out and vouch for me.

Character Bio:

This will take far more time than I have today. I will start with I was born and still live in St. Louis, MO. Even though for a couple years I was never, ever here and always on the road, this is smack in the middle of the US. Everything is just a few hour flight. That part is nice. No beach/ocean/coast isn't the best. But with the travel I make up for it.

Don't Panic

Looking to find me in person? Here is where I will be.




DatesEventLocation
delayedcustomer visitMinneapolis, MN
Mar 31 - Apr 4Lotus Notes and Domino 8 Upgrade SeminarCopenhagen, Denmark
Apr 30 - May 2Admin2008Boston, MA
May 10 - 15Lotus Notes and Domino 8 Upgrade SeminarLondon
Jun 4 - 6Irish Lotus User Group 2008Dublin, Ireland
Jun 16 - 19Lotus Notes and Domino 8 Upgrade SeminarSan Francisco, CA
Jun 21 - 29VacationSome island I am not telling you
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