Thunking, It is what it is ...

My work, travel and random ramblings!
 

Just a few photos, an iPhone spring cleaning.

Decided it was a good time to delete/clean off my iPhone and the ridiculous amount of crap photos. The ones listed here are either so-so or ok.

Random winter shots around the inlaws this past winter. 

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Moving on to some coffee shots. I drink far too much of this most days, so much that the caffine no longer does anything for me. 

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and now for some random shots around Halifax and from my balcony. 

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and the last of the photos I will bore you with are from around Pictou County and may involve some flowery shots.

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and that is all I will subject anyone to for one day.

Posted May 12, 2012
 

To follow or not to follow ...

A question was recently raised, one that I thought I would address. I was asked why I wasn't following person X, even after repeated attempts to get me to follow. 

Well it is simple, I have a few rules I adhere to when someone follows me on a social network. 

Starting with Twitter: 

  • If you have 20,000 followers and you have followed 25,000, then likely you are playing some stupid game and have no interest in actually participating any any sort of conversation.
  • If I go and check out your twitter account and it appears all you do is spew links and bull sh** then I will likely not follow. 
  • If you have some vomit enducing bio that makes me want to delete your account for you, then I probably won't follow.

and last but not least ...

  • If your stream is full of Klout, Runkeeper, Foursquare or other foolish bull sh** ... Then I likely won't follow.

Some exceptions to the above rules apply. 

Now as far as Facebook goes, If I don't consider you a friend, family or someone I have actually met and like, odds are I won't accept.

And then all of the other channels I particpate in, which include: Path, Linkedin, Chime.in, Google+ (Well I have an account), Kiltr, etc etc etc. The list goes on. I try the new, the latest and the reccomended, until I have no time for it or it becomes not worth it. 

And that's about it. Simple rules to try and reduce the noise in my social spaces.

How do you determine if you follow someone or not?

Posted May 8, 2012
 

Microsoft, AOL, Facebook, Instagram ... etc etc ...

The news maker today or the one making the most noise appears to be Facebook with their collosal purchase of Instagram for $1 billion. Mind blowing how such a young company with merely 30 million users and no revenue can be worth $1 billion. 

Here's a question ... If Instagram is worth a billion, what the hell is Kodak worth? 

Moving on ... Instagram and Facebook, while interesting, is not the news peaking my interest. The news that caught my attention is the sale of patents by AOL to Microsoft. Most interesting is the patents includes those for browsers, voip and online communications. Be interesting to see what exactly will happen with those patents and how Microsoft will use them. 

Is Microsoft gearing up for some sort of legal challenge or merely taking the opportunity to enhance their current patent portfolio. 

Can't wait to see how this plays out. 

Posted April 9, 2012
 

Celebrate Whisky. A fun evening.

A few of us decided to take in all that was available at the recent NSLC Celebrate Whisky event, followed by further consumption of fine crafted products around the city.

Here are a couple of pics before and during the event.

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The evening was a success and enjoyed by all, even those that vanished through the evening due to a healthy consumption of Whisky. 

Looking forward to the upcoming Twhisky gathering in Guysborough.

Posted March 11, 2012
 

Some winter pics ...

This is just a small collection of photos from my iPhone taken around my inlaws this winter. 

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Posted March 11, 2012
 

Remember that tweet? Someone just bought it.

Over the last few days the news has been making its rounds that Twitter will be allowing whoever to purchase old tweets and the coverage so far seems to be everything from "outrage" to "who cares". 2,000+ mentions on the subject since the press release went out. 

Personally, I could care less if Twitter sells my past public tweets. If I was concerned with the content of said tweets, I wouldn't have made it publicly available on Twitter in the first place. So I'm really not sure what is causing users to be upset, the data is public and it has likely been stored by 3rd parties for quite sometime. Look at the search engine deals, or companies like Radian 6, they all access the twitter stream and I'm going to bet they have been creating a database for quite sometime. Twitter has just caught on and is now monetizing the practice even further.

Now, where I would have an issue is if Twitter started selling private data, DM's to be exact. As long as they are not granting access to this stream, I'm ok with it. That data is private for a reason, obviously cause you didn't want your neighbor reading he was a knob or something similar. 

What are your thoughts on this?

 

Posted March 3, 2012
 

Influence measurement, not quite ... Maybe a marketers dream.

The question a few people have been asking themselves ... Just how popular am I? Enter the new and exciting world of social influence. A way to measure ones presence on the internet, well a small portion anyways. A somewhat flawed metric that analyzes a handful of channels and spits out some magical number that make people everywhere giddy with excitement.

But really, Social influence as defined by companies like Klout and PeerIndex. What is social influence and at the end of the day, how will it impact you? 

Well the short answer, improved targeting. People have granted access to these social influence companies and they have gathered tonnes of information on you and the only real benefit (other than inflating an ego or two) is advertising targeting. People are willinglly handing over every bit of personal information they have on the net and the end benefit to that user, more accurate marketing.

The likes of Klout and PeerIndex are a marketers dream. They know where you shop, what you buy, how often you go out and what you want to do on your next vacation. This is an excellent source of data for any company targetting consumers. Outside of that ... ego boost.

In a time where people complain about privacy, we still seem willing to share it quite easily. 

What do you think about the social influence space?

 

Posted March 2, 2012
 

A variety of thoughts ... Buses, CMS and Social Media.

As most of my posts in the past have been driven by the news I read, the activities I do or the bizzare actions of others, this post will not change.

Lets kick this off with the transit strike in Halifax and well other than being tired of it, the general conversations around it are somewhat puzzling. I can understand the cities position as the current structure is just not cost effective and well that has to change. The thing I don't understand is the demand by some to classify the transit workers as "essential services". When I think of essential services I think of firemen, police, doctors and similar. In no way can I think how a bus driver can be classified in the same space. What am I missing?

Moving on and this is more related to what I do for a living ...

Content management systems, everyone could use one running their website. What I fail to grasp is why so many companies decide using a CMS from a small business is a good idea. Two things to consider when your web developer says "hey we are going to build your website on our bespoke content management system that no one but us can support" ...

  • One, the odds of your site or content easily being mobile should you leave the provider. 
  • Two, the odds of a small provider going under.

I suggest companies review the solution they select carefully. Getting locked into some no name CMS could end up costing you quite a bit down the road. Wordpress, Joomla, Plone and many more, all great options supported by many. 

And finally, my last random thought of the day.

Social media. It appears that Twitter and Facebook are producing experts daily. For any small business the only social media expert you need is yourself. If you have ever networked, then damn you just might survive in social media. Engage with people, participate and try and refrain from saying anything stupid that could reflect poorly on your business. 

That is about it for today and like I have said on a number of posts ... I need to blog more often. Someday I will find the time to do this. 

 

 

Posted February 18, 2012
 

A 7 day Twitter snap shot on @Webconomist and #SOPA ...

Taking a look at two items over the last week and the activity on Twitter. 

The first being @Webconomist (Giles Crouch) and the data below shows the run up to #PodCampHalifax and the number of mentions in relation to the Atlantic Canada social media usage study released. This data pretty much takes us up to 5PM today. Quite the spike, in comparison to a normal day.

Webconomist
Moving on, yet another popular discussion item within the social media space (among many others), is #SOPA. 

Sopa

The data above was collected through http://manageflitter.com. 

Posted January 22, 2012
 

Random thoughts on coffee, the news and other unimportant items.

Haven't posted here in a while and thought I'd come back with a post on a few random items.

Starting with coffee ... Halifax generally lacks in quality of coffee with only a handful of places producing a product worthy of consumption. The top coffee spots for me include:

In Canada:

  • Java Blend on North Street
  • Smiling Goat on South Park 

The UK:

  • Usually I end up at Costas or Nero. 

and well that is about it. If I'm not drinking coffee at any of those spots, then I'd rather make it myself. It seems that a number of coffee shops enjoy creating less than palatable substance that resembles coffee but tastes like bitter swill.

Moving on ... The news. Locally I use to read the Herald online and now I can't be bothered. Design changes have essentially rendered the website useless. I can't be bothered to try and make my way through a site that is a visual mess and has poor flow. What do I like to read:

Just a small selection. My Google Reader has in excess of 100 sources that range from Engadget to Search Engine Watch.

Thinking I will continue this post at another time. I can include the demise of RIM or Canada's next Nortel and maybe a quick vent on municipal politics. Who knows, depends on how much coffee I drink and what items of stupidity are in the news to get me thinking.

Hope everyone had a happy holiday!

 

Posted December 28, 2011