"Write now is good."

Keeping up with Twitter

While I haven't blogged in awhile, I have been busy writing and reading (some online, most brick-and-mortar). One example: I'm closely following news about Twitter and mobile phones because I think they have incredibly potential for communication and creativity.

To keep track of this information for myself and to share with anyone else who is interested, I have started a Twitter articles page. It features links to noteworthy Twitter articles. From the page's intro:

Twitter, the free microblogging service started in 2006, has been used to influence elections in the United States and Iran, break news about natural disasters and political happenings, and gather donations to assist Haitians after the devastating January 2010 earthquake.

While critics deride Twitter, I continually find merit in it. It is powerful in a ground-level way, giving private citizens, companies, organizations and thought leaders (potentially influential) voice on any subject (significant and trivial) they desire. I look forward to seeing how it evolves.

So, will Twitter disappear, as other social networks have? In my opinion, no. It has substantial market share, and while anyone can create their own 140-character microblogging network, terms like "tweet", "tweeting", "followers", "Twitterville", etc. will most likely be synonymous for describing microblogging — referencing the only substantial, well-populated microblogging community existing today.

I read anything I can find about Twitter. Below is my list of noteworthy Twitter articles, including news on new developments, trends and uses of Twitter. It has been sifted to remove much of the fluff: while it's a noteworthy trend that many celebrities have found a comfortable, digital way to constantly communicate with tweet-reading fans, I won't report on it — they are easy enough to find on their own, and are often only "ego-casting" or "life-casting" (brief missives on what they ate for breakfast, what they're wearing, who they're hanging out with, etc.). 

I'll add to this as I find more articles. Questions and comments are always welcome.

(If you want to follow me on Twitter, click here. I don't life-cast, instead focusing on providing useful tech- and creativity-inspired tweets.

I'll announce new articles added in quick posts on this blog.

Regarding life-casting, I found a gem: the Museum of Modern Celebrity Tweets, which shows celebrity life-casting in a humorous light. Above is an illustration of a recent tweet by musician Nick Jonas. Odessa Begay is its illustrator and, I suppose, head curator. Found via Holy Kaw! at Alltop

FYI: My mobile phone articles page is in the works.

PSFK Conference on April 2nd, NYC

Heads up, Creatives! The PSFK Conference in New York City, this Thursday starting at 9AM, offers an inspiring lineup of speakers in digital publishing, tech trends, green design, the arts and communications. A bit about its background:

Tailored for creative professionals, strategists and the media, we will host 12 lectures and panels on topics that include arts & culture, design, digital & mobile technology, marketing & advertising, sustainability, social media and publishing.

Attendees come to our events to share ideas with likeminds, so beyond the talks we will curate interactive experiences in the venue that bring our core themes to life.

PSFK Conference New York is the 8th conference hosted by PSFK following successful installments in London, Los Angeles, New York, San Francisco, and Singapore.

Past speakers and panelists include creative visionaries and innovators from companies like Apple, BBC, Microsoft, MTV, NASA, Panasonic, Starbucks, Wieden + Kennedy, and the Guardian, and globally-recognized and inspiring creative minds including Shepard Fairey, Kate Moross and Jeff Staple.

Tickets are still available. If anyone reading this attends and blogs about it, drop a comment back by here so I can (a) read your blog post, and (b) link to it so others can read it. Thanks!

Want to improve education? A news hunt may lead the way

Photo: "365÷52 Day 4: My Year in Playmobil 1/52"  by brotherxii

This week, I am co-hosting an education news hunt over at NewsTrust, a site which rates quality journalism. Through February 8th, readers and reviewers at NewsTrust will submit as many articles on education as they can find for the entire community to review and comment on.

Question: So, how could a hunt for news actually improve education? 

Answer: Increase knowledge on a topic = increased power to affect change.

Throughout the news hunt week, people who participate read many articles and greatly expand their knowledge about education. By submitting and reviewing the articles, reviewers become more discerning about which articles are best, and which information is most relevant. Participants read others' reviews, also, taking in other community member observations and opinions, adding another dimension to their own understanding of the topic.

By the end of the week, reviewers have immersed themselves in a week-long, community-led exploration into the current state of education worldwide. Because so many people participate, the collective mind critiquing these articles covers vast ground, learns more and becomes "smarter" about the topic; thus, so do participants.

If we become more knowledgeable about the complex issues behind education, we become empowered to help our local schools. Fortified with newly found facts and viewpoints on education, news hunt participants could participate more in their local communities. NewsTrust provides a continually refreshed resource of the best, most current education articles as a reference.

The state of education affects all members of society. With a landmark education stimulus package in the U.S. on the cusp of being implemented, now is an exciting time to focus on crucial issues which certainly will determine the quality of our future.

Interested? Click here to submit articles and start reviewing.

Also, on the right-hand side of this blog, I feature a NewsTrust widget. If you're a "news hound" (Thanks, Dale!) who would like to feature links to quality journalism on your blog, click here to get this feature.

Any questions? Leave a comment and I'll answer them.

Election t-shirts build community for candidates

A quick FYI: For those interested in the U.S. presidential election, social media, and t-shirts, I have a new post on The Huffington Post's OffTheBus which may interest you:

"Election T-Shirts Build A Community of Supporters"

To read my other Huff Post/OTB pieces, click here.

Twitter Vote Report: Insuring voting works, one tweet at a time

My new post "Insuring Voting Works, One Tweet at a Time: Interview with Allison Fine, Co-Creator" is now live on The Huffington Post's OffTheBus.

The all-volunteer group Twitter Vote Report will be monitoring tweets from now through November 4th and beyond to look for those which report voting problems. When TVR finds them, they figure out which of their vast coalition of election protection groups can help fix them.

With record turnout predicted during this historic presidential election in the United States, many believe there will be problems and system overwhelm as droves turn out on election day. Indeed, Twitter Vote Report has already found problems in early voting states and have worked to get them corrected.

TVR is an example of how social media, technology and an energized constituency can contribute to making a democracy function at its best.

If you're a U.S. citizen who can vote, read to learn about how Twitter Vote Report can help make sure your vote counts. If you are a U.S.-presidential-election spectator from outside America, check to see one way citizens here are participating to make the democratic process work.

Related posts:

° Tech-connected youth use new media to access presidential debates
° It's time to get on "OffTheBus"
° Will the next U.S. President be a blogger?
° Politweets — Political expression, in 140 characters or less
° Artists and Obama: Images + Technology = Votes

UPDATE: This piece was featured in The Huffington Post's "Voting Problems" section. Its tagline: "Some news is so big, it needs its own page." If you are interested in election protection and voter disenfranchisement, this page is your link to current happenings in this area, so do check it out.

Tech-connected youth use new media to access presidential debates

This U.S. presidential election season continues to draw massive interest from both the American voting public and others around the world. One of the most fascinating aspects to me, as a writer focusing on media and tech, is how Web innovations and platforms are increasing political expression and participation.

Social media platform Twitter has blended with user-driven cable network Current TV to offer a venue for tech-connected youth (primarily 18-34) to be involved during the three presidential and one vice presidential debates; it's called "Hack the Debate". My post about this, "New Media Forms Boost Youth Participation in Debates", is now live on The Huffington Post's ground-level election coverage, OffTheBus.

If you'd like to read about this innovative media experiment, get a preview of how technology will change media for future elections, and perhaps even participate, click here.

Related posts:

° It's time to get on "OffTheBus"
° Will the next U.S. President be a blogger?
° Politweets — Political expression, in 140 characters or less
° Artists and Obama: Images + Technology = Votes

My techy daydreams

Photo: Manky Keyboard by Jason Cartwright

As I worked today, my focus wandered to thoughts of what would make my online life an absolute dream. If only these reveries would materialize:

1. A cleansing dip which will scour the inner realms of my keyboard, replace faded keys, and instantly return it to that crisp clicking and clacking sound, just like when I first removed it from its original Apple packaging.

2. A fortified Twitter, able to process, sort and send a billion SXSW-related tweets so I can hear about all the news, conversations and amusement I'm missing this weekend.

3. More hours in the day so I can intensively cram in my attempt to perfectly balance home, work, tech and fun.

4. A monitor as big as the wall above my desk, which should be wide enough to display the infinite number of Firefox tabs I like to have open as I surf.

5. A Facebook without all the icky stuff, like privacy-invading stealth software and random-friend recommendations. Something opensource, perhaps. (Anyone currently working on this?)

I will continue to dream on.

What are your techy daydreams?

The best bookshelves EVER!

Bookshelf furniture always catches my eye. I feature it on my blog whenever I find it and have created a category for it.

The blog freshome inspired me to do a little bookshelf-loving happy dance with their post "30 of the Most Creative Bookshelves Designs". Got books? Do check out this comprehensive, photo-packed list. (It even features a couple of the bookshelves you may have already seen here.)

A blurb about the bookshelf image above from freshome:

This quasi-hexagonal pattern bookcase ( Opus Shelving by Sean Yoo’s ) is made with “expanded polypropylene”- same material used for the car bumper and motorcycle helmet. It is very light but very strong, can be used indoor or outdoor and 100% recyclable. It wasn’t designed specifically to be used as a book case. I’ve seen some people use it for storing wine bottles, children’s toys, CD’s, DVD’s, records, and even an occasional book or two.

*** Contented sigh ***

Found via NOTCOT — the source.

What is really behind Door #3?

Photo: Door. by BrittneyBush

I love social media. I blog in a variety of places, I read and comment on many other's blogs, I check Twitter at least once (alright, twice) a day. I think social media has revolutionized the online experience. It has made information more accessible to more people worldwide. It has given many a voice — and an audience — who would not have one without its tools. More great things will definitely be created in this sphere.

New social media outlets continually crop up in Blogville. All of them offer to take online interpersonal networking and hanging out to ecstatically satisfactory levels. These networks make MySpace, Facebook and Digg look like way-ancient old timers. Soon these new kids will be eclipsed by something else, however. In the Wild Wild Web, it's only a matter of (extremely short) time before a site or a technology shows its age. Someone always shouts, "Hey! What's next?" It's simply tech evolution, and it will not stop.

But I am growing skeptical about what these new sites offer. If I join more of them, what do I get? How will they improve my online life? And what will they do to my life off-line?

Other Blogville residents have been thinking about these issues. I've been emailing with Drew McLellan about all these digital distractions and keeping up with them. He has asked his blog readers if all this stuff is really about work or just play. Greg Verdino has asked his readership, as we spend our precious time on soc nets, if it's coming down to Tweet or change the world. What are we really spending our time on? And yes, all joking aside in David Armano's spot-on list, some of us do really need a "Twittervention".

Is there a social media backlash growing? Many participated in the first "International Delete Your MySpace Account Day" in January. After a stint of bad PR, Facebook has finally agreed to let users completely delete their accounts and erase all their personal information. While these actions represent the more vocal folk's choices, how many of us have joined a social network just to let our accounts rot from neglect? Perhaps this is some subconscious, silent protest on our parts.

Still, why do many of us feel compelled to join more soc nets? With more to join appearing almost weekly, what should we do?

This recent New York Times article, "The Advantages of Closing a Few Doors", has some answers. Dr. Dan Ariely of M.I.T. has written a new book called Predictably Irrational. In it, he claims that people take on too many projects and say "yes" to so many things not to keep their options open, but for another reason entirely. In a computer simulation Ariely created, subjects continually clicked on doors to keep them open — even though they lost points for doing so. Here's why:

Apparently they did not care so much about maintaining flexibility in the future. What really motivated them was the desire to avoid the immediate pain of watching a door close. [my emphasis]

“Closing a door on an option is experienced as a loss, and people are willing to pay a price to avoid the emotion of loss,” Dr. Ariely says. In the experiment, the price was easy to measure in lost cash. In life, the costs are less obvious — wasted time, missed opportunities. If you are afraid to drop any project at the office, you pay for it at home.

“We may work more hours at our jobs,” Dr. Ariely writes in his book, “without realizing that the childhood of our sons and daughters is slipping away. Sometimes these doors close too slowly for us to see them vanishing.”

The complete article is fascinating. You can even play Dr. Ariely's "closing doors" game here. See how you react. 

After reading my fellow bloggers' posts and this timely article, I feel energized to do what my instincts were telling me. My time is precious, and I will not join any additional social networks at this point. I don't think I am losing anything; I've got some vital home and work projects that need my primary attention. Doing so will improve the quality of my life, without question.

Bonus link: Read Kathy Sierra's post "Is Twitter TOO Good?" for more insight into what we digerati face in balancing online and "real world" demands.

Learn how to podcast your writing this Tuesday

   

On February 19th (this coming Tuesday night EST), there will be a unique opportunity for you writers out there to learn how to podcast your fiction — via a group video chat online — with noted sci-fi/horror author Scott Sigler.

Interested? There are still a few spots left to talk directly with Scott through an innovative new video chat technology called ooVoo, which allows up to six people to video chat together at one time (see sample screenshot above). This should make for some invigorating online conversation. To sign up:

1. Go to My ooVoo Day to download the ooVoo software and get an ooVoo ID.

2. Click on the sign-up button and look for Scott Sigler's link. Click on the "See Schedule +" button on the right across from Scott's name to sign up for a spot.

Here's a bit more about Scott, who has combined storytelling and technology to reach new audiences and to propel his writing and creativity to new levels:

A creator of novels, short stories and screenplays, Scott Sigler's work revolves around modern science's dichotomy of simultaneously producing good and evil.

Scott reinvented book publishing when he released EarthCore as the world's first "podcast-only" novel. Released in twenty weekly episodes, EarthCore harkened back to the days of serialized radio fiction and picked up 10,000 subscribers along the way.

His next podcast novel, Ancestor, drew 30,000 listeners and saw 700,000 episodes downloaded by fans. The Ancestor buzz caused Sirius Satellite to pick up the novel, making it the first audiobook serialized on the satellite network. Combined with Scott's other two podcast novels, Infection and The Rookie, Scott's fans have downloaded over 3 million files of his fiction.

If you participate in the video chat this Tuesday, definitely drop back by and let us know your experience with it.