It’s the blog, stupid! May 23, 2008
Posted by geoffwolfe in : On Topic , 3comments
The title is apropos for the election season, but I'm going to propose an idea here and I hope to get some feedback. Lots of people are talking about the disconnect with comments and conversations happening on Twitter, FriendFeed, and their blog. For example, you make a blog post and (with MessageDance automatically) it goes to Twitter (and thus to FriendFeed), people can comment about it on your blog, Twitter, and FriendFeed (and on MessageDance.com). Big-time fracturing of comments. Since you started with your blog, shouldn't you be able to stay on your blog and see all of the comments come back to your blog? There should be no reason why you have to monitor everything to see what people think about what you said — just have it fed back into your blog.
Your blog is the center of your universe
When you post your blog entry, wouldn't it be right to have it say on Twitter that it came "from {your blog name}"? Not from Twirl, the web, or MessageDance — it is actually you and your blog that created the content — you should get the credit! When someone comments on FriendFeed, shouldn't that go back to your blog as a comment, regardless if it was your original post or on a Google Reader reblog by someone else? Same is true for a Twitter reply. Heck, why not make tweets, @ replies, and FriendFeed posts directly from your blog for that matter.
To steal a late 90's term, your blog should be your portal. You start with it everyday and you don't need to leave it to keep up with your friends and your conversations. Your blog is all about you. Keep it all together.
Blogged with MessageDance using Gmail | Reply On Twitter
An argument for the opposite of Plaxo Pulse and FriendFeed April 22, 2008
Posted by geoffwolfe in : On Topic , 6commentsDon’t get me wrong, there is absolute value in knowing what my friends, colleagues, and people-I-pine-to-be-like are talking about. But not everyone who is in my circle uses an aggregator to follow me. I have friends who see my Twitter tweets. Some people see my updates on Facebook. I’d like to think people see my stuff on MySpace, but I doubt it (except maybe Lola and Cheyenne). I also have this blog, which is how my mother keeps up with me when I don’t call and return emails. Separately updating each social site, morphing the content to fit each format, is painful, tedious, and unlikely.
Inward-Out
Publishing my rich content and messages to all (or just some) of my social destinations in a single post is the opposite of the aggregators. They are Outward-In (not that there is anything wrong with that). MessageDance is Inward-Out.
The Middleware of the Internet
The key to this sexy processing comes from an unsexy tool — email. Email is still the killer-app. It is the most ubiquitous, under-utilized, and abused tool in everyone’s toolbox. When most people think of email, they think of spam. The beauty of using email in the context of MessageDance is that an email inbox is never the final destination of a message or content that has been shared. MessageDance uses the really good part of email which is its ability to transport data in the simplest of fashions. Along its journey, MessageDance transforms the format of the content for its final destination.
Portable and Powerful Email Address
Now there is great power in just an email address. You don’t need to start your sharing from an email client. Start in Facebook and send your extra-facebook messages, blog posts, tweets from the native Facebook messaging app. Stay on YouTube.com and share a video to Twitter by just using your MessageDance email handle. Hell, blog from Amazon.com if you must. Besides signing-up and adding a few settings, you never really need to use MessageDance.com or your email client — and still reap powerful Anywhere to Anywhere sharing.
Blogged with MessageDance using Gmail