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Web 2.0
Diigo vs. Delicious: Social bookmarking cage match
12 years ago
The last post on mrmerlot.com explained the apparent demise of the Yahoo!-owned delicious.com social bookmarking service. As a popular alternative to delicious, Diigo.com experienced a mass influx of new users (the author included), requiring them to make system upgrades to meet the demand.
While this delayed the importing of users’ delicious bookmarks for nearly a week, Diigo’s upgraded service now means new converts can import their delicious bookmarks in under an hour.
While it doesn’t seem imperative that users jump the delicious ship, here’s what you need to know if you’re considering moving to Diigo.
As one social bookmarking service fades away, another gladly takes up the reins!
2Read a follow-up post outlining the advantages of Diigo over Delicious.
This past week, many tech media outlets reported that the social bookmarking service delicious.com was going away (see here for example). 
They based the story on a leaked internal Yahoo! presentation showing delicious in a “sunset” column (sunset is the IT project management term for retiring a technology). After a huge outcry from loyal delicious users, the delicious blog posted the following:
…we are not shutting down Delicious. While we have determined that there is not a strategic fit at Yahoo!, we believe there is a ideal home for Delicious outside of the company where it can be resourced to the level where it can be competitive…
This seems like a paltry attempt to try and retain users in the hopes they can salvage some market worth for whomever is considering acquiring the service. On the other hand, since Yahoo! acquired the service, no real innovation has been made, so sticking with the site may be good for users.
Unfortunately, I don’t think many will stay around.
Forming your child’s online reputation
02 years ago
I’ve posted pictures and stories of my kids on my family website, on Facebook, and republished to various other platforms for a long time. In fact, since before they were born.
And it seems I’m far from alone.
A study by the internet security firm AVG found that 92% of U.S. children aged two and under have a presence online. The cause, obviously, is a generation of parents familiar with the web enthusiastically leveraging it to share information with friends and family regardless of geographic and temporal boundaries.
What does this mean for our kids as they grow older? Will having a historical record of their childhood preserved online – without their consent – give them another reason to seek counseling?
“Flip-thinking” movie production: engage the fans, build the funds
1I’m watching and participating in a fascinating experiment unfold in the movie industry. The main character in this case is Donald Miller, author of a number of best-selling books on life and nontraditional Christian faith.
The first book I read by Miller was Blue Like Jazz. If you’ve never read it, I highly recommend it. BLJ instantly hooked me on his take of the modern church and his journey of faith. In a series of essays, Miller discusses events from his life and how they impacted, or were impacted by, his faith and involvement with church. His journey is, at times, thoughtful, funny, sad, and inspiring. Occasionally, all at the same time.
But this story is about more than just a great book being transformed into a movie. It’s about witnessing what might be the next major shift in the film industry. A shift that includes putting fans back at the center of the process and flipping the way they interact with films.
Social media blackout at Harrisburg U? Bad idea…
02 years ago
Some ideas are just plain bad.
According to Inside Higher Ed, the provost of Harrisburg University of Science and Technology (in Harrisburg, PA) is pulling the plug on popular social media sites for one week at his college. This “experiment” – I use the term loosely as he has no control or defined parameters – is intended to find out…what, exactly?
For a school centered around technology and at which social media is wholeheartedly embraced and used, this seems like an odd activity to pursue. In addition, the provost chose to block the following sites: Facebook, AIM, Twitter, and Myspace. In addition, he has ordered the collaborative functionality of the internal learning management system to be disabled.
W.T.H.? (what the heck?)
I’m by no means alone in my confusion about this story. A writer at Crunchgear offers these observations on why this study is doomed to fail:
- Smartphones. “ Provost surely recognizes that much of the social web is accessible via smartphone, and text messages have largely replaced instant messenger applications”
- Filter failure. “…blocking all social access…isn’t really even possible except by eliminating internet access altogether.”
In addition, I’ve come up with just a few more reasons to abandon this useless study:
- Ethics. How often do you hear of experiments where the “test subjects” do not give their consent?
- Out of touch. Why choose those social networks? If recent surveys are any indication, kids don’t use Twitter, Facebook is rapidly becoming passé, and MySpace is basically moot. And AIM? Really?!
- Productivity. By disabling the Moodle learning management system, the Provost is taking away effective work tools…and during the beginning of the semester when communication and organization is most needed!
- Disrupting business. You can bet that at a technology-centric college, there are more than a few students who have thriving online businesses. Businesses that probably rely on social media engagement. This “experiment” could negatively impact real-world moneymaking.
What am I missing here? Is there some redemptive aspect of this idea? What other “studies” have you come across that seem to completely miss the mark?