The Gulf between the Geek and the Users

Image by Francis Storr via Flickr

Like many of you, I spend a portion of each day pouring over RSS feeds, blogs and pod casts to get my daily tech and news fix.  Tech is a passion for me, and there is always something new and interesting to read and learn.  And I guess it is always cool to be the only guy in the room that knows about the latest Apple product, or the sales figures on the popular Apps stores, right?

OK, yes it does sound a little pathetic if you put it that way, that is why most of us have blogs, twitter accounts, and other ways to express geeky ways without too much ridicule.  If only this stuff was more interesting to the general public.  The problem is that it is not.  Despite the end user being more technologically savvy, that has not translated into them being interested in the technology they use.  I guess the good thing is that those of us in the service industry will always have a place, but the issue here is that the users will now be the driving force behind the future of technology, and if we can't pack the user base out with the savvy geeks, then the future is going to be heading in the direction of Facebook, Apple and Nintendo.

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Google's Anti-Buzz

Image by dpstyles™ via Flickr

If you're wondering why I haven't chimed in on Google Buzz, it would be because I'm not really sure what to make of it.  Like many, I started to play with it when it was available, but even a week or so on, I'm still not sure where Buzz sits in the social landscape.

It aims to do a couple of things right, like aggregate your friends/contacts/social feeds.  But then it does a couple of functional things wrong, like making it a part of Gmail, and not having an easy way to view your followers Buzz feed outside of your Gmail page.  Of course there is also all the privacy issues, but if the product doesn't work or isn't functional, then no one will be using it, and the privacy issues will go away.

Buzz thinks that we want to follow the activities of those in your address book.  The problem with that is that my address book is full of clients and family and such.  Or to put it more clearly, full of people in which I have absolutely no interest in their online activities.  The few that I am actually interested in, I follow them on Twitter or Facebook.

Is it just me or is Buzz a copy of Friendfeed, albeit a bad copy? I'm not the only one asking that question, and I would be interested to know if Friendfeed has been getting more interest as a result.  I know that I have taken another look, as Friendfeed still has the best functionality when it comes to "the conversation" and getting involved in it.

Regardless of this, it looks like Google has a failure on its hands, despite them having an almost instant audience.  The big lesson here is that there needed to be a Beta logo on it, until you have the mind share.  This makes me wonder what Google have waiting in the wings that made them try and force Buzz.  

Jason Remnant

...if it's not Broken, then where is the button to turn it off???

Threadsy: Email, Facebook, and Twitter fixed

Image via CrunchBase

Some time ago I signed up for a beta for Threadsy after I heard it mentioned somewhere. Well this morning I was invited to the Beta and thought I would jot down a few first impressions.

What is Threadsy?  Well, you know how it is a hassle to have your Gmail window/or email client open, and your Facebook window open, and your Twitter client open, and you find yourself trying to track and/or conduct conversations across all three? Threadsy allows you to merge all three into one stream/window.

This is kinda cool.  It adds Facebook updates and Twitter replies/direct-messages into your mail, or allows you to watch each one separately without changing windows or programs.  In short, providing one interface to rule them all.  And, yes it is all in the interface.

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Tipping point: Online Services v popularity

Image by luc legay via Flickr

Why is it that the more popular you are as an online service and/or application, the less you can change?  Does this have anything to do with the fact that as you rack up million after million of users, you start to find that you have run out of technical users and start to be working with the common non-geek?  Or as I like to say, the real people.  (I don't really, I am just trying to appeal to a wider audience...)

We are living in interesting times, and I'm not talking about how millions of people worldwide are going to be affected by an economic depression.  Rather, how millions of people worldwide are going to be affected by Facebook's interface change.  Out of all the things going wrong in this crazy world, why is it that I hear Facebook devotees screaming the loudest?

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Broken Internet

OK, I'm a family man with two beautiful girls aged 5 and 2.5, so when I talk about the proposed "Clean Feed" filtering system our government is looking to put on our Internet over here in Australia, I have a vested interest.

Even though I do a lot surfing, I seem to have missed the whole story re: the Great Aussie Firewall.  Or maybe I just dismissed it as another of those crackpot schemes thought up by bored Governments, that will never see the light of day.  Either way, the concept of a non-communist country deciding to lock down the Internet sounds ridiculous, not just from a freedom of speech angle, but also from a technical angle.

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