Trying Something New

Real Estate Rainmaker: Trying Something New

Don't disregard something new as being impossible to do or a waste of your time.

Keeping it Clean

Real Estate Rainmaker: Keeping it Clean

Thoughts on correlation between email productivity and a clean inbox.

GReader - Facelift. But is it Faster?

Official Google Reader Blog: Square is the new round.

Looks like GReader is getting a facelift.  I hope it plays better with the Nokia browsers than the current version.  I use Reader all the time at my PC, but am forced to use the mobile version when away beause the MicroB browser on my n800 crawls so bad it's unusuable.

I can't wait to try it out!

Really Simple Syndication. No, REALLY.

"Why is it that websites that are good end up bloatware? They put so much stuff on the same page it doesn't load right. IGN's page has gotten really bad, going their page is just cheese." -- E.A.Q.

The above was said by a good friend of mine in a chat last month. My initial response to him was confusion, I really hadn't noticed IGN had changed their page at all. I read their stuff, particularly their reviews quite regularly. Before I switched over to using Chrome, I had Firefox so extensioned up with JS-disabling, Ad-blocking, and page modifying extensions, that at that time it would have been a normal response. Chrome most certainly does not block Javascript or ad's, so what was the problem? How could I miss something that such a problem to my friend?

The answer is simple. I rarely go to the main IGN page. I pull everything in via RSS into Google Reader. When you use something so much and so often, you start to take it for granted that everybody does as well. Think: asking someone for their phone number, expecting a mobile and getting their home phone because they do not have a cell phone. Shocked, you wonder, how can they not have a cell phone?

I wondered the same thing, how can someone who spends time visiting various news sites on an on going basis, get by without RSS? This goes hand in hand with the recent Forrester report on consumer adoption of RSS. This report has been mentioned on various other blogs and news sites following it's release, including various suppositions as to why it's the case. Are you ready for another?

From my experience, people don't use RSS, even after it's been explained to them, because they do not see the point. There are so many out there that would benefit from using a dedicated feed reader, and yet they insist time after time that they can just visit the website. They need to be shown what a great tool it is.

A first hand example of this is my brother-in-law. He works in IT, programs on the side, and visits the standard tech-news sites on an on going basis (Slashdot, Gizmodo, etc, etc), and had Google account. Yet, never opened Reader up once. He just didn't get it. I logged him into Reader, subscribed to the sites that he could remember off the top of his head, and within 5 minutes everything clicked. One place to get all of my news. So much time saved. He couldn't believe that he'd never done it before.

In order for RSS usage (in the sense of consumer's using dedicated readers) to grow, the practical use needs to be demonstrated. People already acclimated to seeing MSNBC pop up as their start page in IE, what if you replaced that with an online feed reader pulling in the content from MSNBC, People, and any other site that visiting. RSS moves from a Huh? to a Can't-Live-Without.

Twitter: You Either Get it or You Don't

This blog post sums it up very well:

http://www.rexblog.com/2008/02/14/17501/

Blog-smchlog! I'm Too Busy to Blog

Too busy to blog? Count your keystrokes. « Jon Udell Annotated

Was the email message you wrote to three people possibly of use to thirty, or three hundred, or thirty thousand? If so, consider blogging it — externally if that’s appropriate, or internally otherwise. Then, if you want to make sure those three people see the message, go ahead and email them a pointer to it.

This is a very good article, especially for people who feel that they are too busy to blog, or even that there is very little business sense in doing so. All too often do I see people write some great peace of marketing advice and send it off to a client. Then a few days later, they are looking for it in their email so that it can be copied and pasted, and then sent right out again.

Getting your name or your companies name out there, especially in relation to your specific field, is never a bad thing. Why not practice keystroke conservation?