First, they began emulating Twitter with statuses and redesigned feeds, now location-based services are being integrated with the rollout of Facebook Places.

I’m curious as to whether they’re “following trends”, or simply copying everyone else. Facebook started as an easy way to keep in touch with people you know, yet they’re straying more and more from that core competency.

Foursquare and Gowalla serve very small niches, in that everyone I add or accept is there solely for the purpose of sharing location. However, when you bring the massive amounts of Facebook friends into the loop, you run into an issue of not only privacy, but also relevance.

I check in quite frequently, so my (currently nonexistent) use of Places would quickly become annoying to friends, somewhat akin to linking all Twitter posts to Facebook. Plus, I’d rather check in on Foursquare, where I can earn points, mayorships, badges, specials, and other cool schwag.

It’s also strange that the outrage surrounding this launch isn’t near as bad as the blowup a few months ago. I’d think the average user with the notion of “Facebook knows my location” would raise a lot more red flags than a few tweaks here and there. Just goes to show how much of an impact bloggers have on public perception.

The big picture

Places is taking location to the mainstream. We’re seeing the same trends repeat themselves as with the shark-jumping of Twitter. Depending on opinion, this could be seen as good or bad, but, from a somewhat selfish perspective, I think it’s more of the latter.

I remember when none of my non-tech friends were on Twitter, and to be honest, I kinda liked it that way. Twitter was my happy place. Now it’s location apps.

Oh, wait.

Do you use Facebook Places? Is the mainstream push of location good or bad?

As touched on in a previous post, I use my inbox as a larger part of a task management system; most of the emails I receive are directly related to things that need to be done.

Because I’m running Google Apps, every message is archived; deleting an email doesn’t mean that it’s not accessible if I ever need to look back for reference. Of course, at times, a certain email may contain pertinent information to an ongoing project. I’m not recommending deleting emails like that – have a folder system set up where you can move the message, then flag or color-code according to the task it relates to. But don’t leave it in the inbox.

Upon completion, deleting the email equates to checking off on a to-do list. Maintaining a clean inbox doesn’t waste time, it ensures prioritization and proper use of the time you have. And if you take care of messages as they come in, worries of a pileup are nonexistent. When you’re faced with a massive heap of emails, not only does a sense of desperation set in, but it’s difficult to know where to start – especially if there’s notifications from Twitter and Facebook all over the place.

I’ve had nothing but positive results from inbox zero.  What works for you?

Day 1

Flickr: jay_tennier

Upon registration, attendees were able to pick up a copy of Seth Godin’s Linchpin, as well as various other stickers and giveaways. After a hilarious intro, the talks kicked off around 10:30. The lineup for the first day consisted of the following amazing speakers:

• Cameron Moll (AuthenticJobs)
• Chris Wanstrath (GitHub)
• Saul Colt (Thoora)
• Dan Martell (Flowtown)
• David Hansson and Jason Fried (37signals)

I especially enjoyed Cameron’s talk about finding inspiration in design. The difference between influence and inspiration was an interesting concept: influence is actively sought, while inspiration is not. Valuable insight was also given on how to capture inspiration when it surfaces; Cameron mentioned setting up a wall of paper next to a workspace, as well as keeping a dive slate in the shower. As someone primarily focused on front-end web development, I was able to gain new perspective on how to approach a project by taking a step back and becoming passively engaged. The revelation also hit me that good design shouldn’t always be focused on logic, but on how you feel.

Lunch was a great networking opportunity; my associate Adam and I had the chance to sit down with the Grooveshark team and exchange ideas. Shane’s Rib Shack catering provided by Balsamiq was also much appreciated.

The afterparty was held at Whiskey Park, inside the W on 14th Street. It was a prime location to talk with Shane Reustle, Geoff Hamrick, Chris Wanstrath, Julia Roy, and many more awesome people. Like everything else associated with the conference, it was about as off-the-hook as it gets. Loud music, dim lighting, flash photography, and free drinks (sponsored by MailChimp) made a perfect close to a day full of intelligent geekiness. It’s just how New Dorks roll.

Day 2

The second day of the conference started with bacon-infused pancakes, sponsored by Storenvy. After a good half-hour of catching up from the last night, the second round of speakers kicked off with:

• Alex Hillman (IndyHall)
• Peldi Guilizzoni (Balsamiq)
• Clay Hebert (TribesWin)

Clay’s talk about becoming a linchpin was extremely inspiring; the value of resumes was discussed, with him outlining that a traditional PDF leaves little room for creative expression. A great example was shown through a Foursquare mockup resume, in which badges represented positions and achievements. In short, be so good they can’t ignore you.

The education portion of the talk also spoke to me; Clay expanded on how the current educational system trains the factory workers of tomorrow, primarily instilling the ability to follow instructions in graduates. From my personal experiences, I can unilaterally vouch for these observations. Question the status quo. Break rules. Be a leader.

At 11 that night, the final afterparty kicked off at Noni’s Bar and Deli, where Regator’s Kimberly Turner was DJing. I was interviewed by BZD Films about both Rank ‘em and the conference in general, and also had great conversations with Jessica Barnett, Janette Crawford, Chris Turner, and everyone else who made it out. I really didn’t want the two days to be over, but had an outstanding time and look forward to next year.

Final Thoughts

LessConf rocked. The end.

What is Ignite?

IgniteATL 2009. (Flickr: timdorr)

Presenters talk about a topic using 20 slides and 5 minutes. The concept originated in 2006 in Seattle, and has since taken off in cities across the globe. It’s a great way to get an overview of something without sitting through hours of material, and if you get bored, five minutes still goes by quickly. The format’s a refreshing change from the typical setup of most conferences.

Thoughts on Speaking

My talk was about Hackintoshing, the process of running and installing Mac OS X on a standard PC (slides available here). I’ve been interested in the topic for years, and thought Ignite was the perfect opportunity to share my knowledge and experience. I was also inspired by Chris Morrell‘s talk about overclocking last year – a technical topic paired with a passionate presentation seemed to be the right mix.

What surprised me was the humor with which the content was received. Apart from a semi-planned joke about Hackintoshing being “insanely great”, everything I said was in all seriousness. But the audience started laughing (hopefully not at me), so I ran with it.

Venue and Logistics

Oceans Ballroom (Credit: Wolfgang Puck)

For publicity purposes, the Georgia Aquarium was a great option. A cash bar and spread of various fruits and cheeses was nice, as well as the ability to carry them into the presentation area. However, I still don’t hold anything against last year’s choice of GTRI (Georgia Tech Research Institute) due to individual power and Ethernet ports.

IgniteATL also teamed up with Rank ‘em, a startup I’m working with, to provide a site for attendees to rank presenters by dragging and dropping. The rankings were then averaged to provide a list, top-to-bottom, which represented the crowd’s opinion. At the end of the night, I was fortunate enough to end up being ranked as the top speaker out of the 18. Post hoc ergo propter hoc.

Takeaways

From the perspective of a speaker, I had a great time. The experience of sharing my passions in front of a large group of people was really invigorating, something that I hope was conveyed by the talk. I’d love to put something together for future Ignites, in Atlanta or elsewhere.

Have you ever been to or spoken at an Ignite event? What did you think?

And then came Foursquare.

I’d heard about Foursquare well before I signed up for an account. I held off, mainly because I didn’t want to deal with the unnecessary hassle of integrating yet another site into my online presence. However, the buzz eventually became too large to ignore, so I broke down and set up an account.

The Good

As a user, you’re constantly engaged with badges, mayorships, and points.  At some places, the checkin race for mayor can be quite competitive, leading to Foursquare’s true value for businesses: customer loyalty. I’ll occasionally drop by a Starbucks when I might otherwise not, simply for the sake of protecting my mayorship. Recognizing this value, Starbucks has teamed up with the Austin startup to provide a badge for checking in at 5 different locations. Hopefully this will lead to a special offer (discounts provided by venues rewarding frequent checkins and/or mayorships).

It’s also helpful to be able to see when others are checked in at the same place – a refreshing way to meet new people. The ability to view a record and trends of everywhere you’ve been is also interesting; there’s a site called CheckoutCheckins that authenticates with Foursquare, allowing you to view a heat map of your history.

The Not-So-Good

Unfortunately, once most of the basic badges are unlocked (Newbie to Super User), it can be difficult to gain some of the more obscure ones, so most of the gaming element shifts to mayorships. Also, opponents claim privacy as a major issue, especially with the recent launch of PleaseRobMe. However, that’s dependent on people knowing where you live – users just need to be responsible in their friending and accepting, as well as in the pushing of checkins to other sites. You control the data that’s put out there. I won’t accept a request from anyone that:

1. I haven’t met in person.
2. I don’t have any idea of who they are.
3. Isn’t local.

It’s nothing personal, I just don’t see the value in having hundreds of friends that I either haven’t met or don’t have a chance of meeting. You can’t treat Foursquare like other social networks; you need to be mindful of everyone that will be seeing checkin data, which, within the site, only friends can view. And don’t add your house.

Overall

There’s definitely ups and downs, but Foursquare is still an exciting platform to be on. It’s tough to put my finger on the single element that keeps me hooked: a combination between the competitive nature and connectivity between friends. The platform’s certainly not for everyone, but if you’re the New Dork type, I recommend giving it a try.

Are you an active Foursquare user? Does the good outweigh the bad?

What it means for users

The app will be offered for free – a nice change from the current $2.99 in the iTunes App Store. Tweetie will be rebranded to “Twitter for iPhone”, and will provide a much better experience to many users who might not otherwise pay the price. An iPad app is also on the way, which’ll be a nice alternative to my current choice, Twitterific.

However, no mention was made about Tweetie for Mac. I find it hard to believe that such great software would be thrown aside, especially since Loren Brichter will be continuing to work on the project. Update: It’s been confirmed that it is indeed on the way.

What it means for other apps

The future of unauthorized paid Twitter apps will be shaky, as Twitter for iPhone’s robustness, free pricetag, and existing mindshare will likely diminish other sales. There’s still a need for more involved, Tweetdeck-like apps, but a noticeable dent will be made nonetheless.

What it means for Twitter

I’d like to think that an official app would equate to a larger userbase, but I don’t see much difference in how potential downloaders will perceive “Twitter for iPhone” versus every other imaginable app containing the word “Twitter”.

More realistically, existing users who’ve dabbled only in the web interface will become more open to using a client. No longer will the use of a Twitter app be for power users and geeks; this is a significant milestone in the road to mainstream adoption.

What’s awesome about Twitter is that most of their keystone elements (retweets, hashtags, clients, etc.) have first been implemented by users, gained momentum, and then been officially adopted. As Andrew Watson of OtherNum put it:

It’s a great way to build an ecosystem, something more startups should do.

We saw it with the new retweet feature, and we saw it with the linking of hashtags to search results. This is just the next step in the process of recognizing crowdsourced features, something I’m excited to see (yes, because of the free app), but also because of the positive impact that this will have on the social network I’d have a hard time living without.

What do you think about the acquisition?

I’ve never been to an Apple product launch before, and was excited about experiencing the unique culture surrounding Cupertino’s releases. I arrived at Atlanta’s Lenox Square to be 16th in line – not too bad, considering the hundreds of people that showed up. At first, I was a little hesitant about having to wait a few hours for the doors to open, but the time passed really quickly, fueled by great conversations with Mark Bowling, Taft Watson (the first one to get the original iPhone in Chicago), and other like-minded technology enthusiasts. At 8:30, the doors to the mall were opened, and we were herded to the outside of the Apple Store until 9:00. Right after 9, the lights were turned on, followed by all the store employees running from both directions – clapping, cheering, and high-fiving. It’s about as close to sports and tailgating as I get.

The crazy thing is that very few of the customers were chiming in, but it still felt like a huge deal. Geniuses held HD cameras high above the crowd as the first group of us were filing into the store, scrambling to get a look. I first played with a demo unit, went to grab a case, and then was approached about my reservation. For as many people that were there, the entire process was surprisingly smooth. After getting checked out, I headed home to unbox and start using the device.

Impressions

Unboxing

As with any Apple product, the unboxing was an phenomenal experience. The iPad sat atop a USB cable and power adapter, separated by a few foldout documentations. When first powered on, an iTunes connection was required, although the presence of a full charge got me through the day. There’s been some buzz surrounding issues with USB charging, but I don’t see it as a pressing issue – especially considering the fact that the iPad’s battery life is excellent. I went ahead and synced my music library, podcasts, movies, and a selection of apps I downloaded the previous night. After making sure all content was synced cleanly, I went through the Settings menu to personalize everything to the same configurations as on my iPhone, as well as to enable MobileMe syncing.

Apps

There’s a few great apps for the iPad, a solid amount of good ones, and a lot of bad ones. The majority of the outstanding ones are a bit more expensive than their iPhone counterparts, but (especially with games) the prices aren’t terrible considering the amount of development work involved. My wish list’s currently at around $150 worth of apps – something that’s not happening anytime soon. Here’s a few favorites that I’ve already installed:

• NetNewsWire
• Evernote
• WordPress
• Twitterific
• Pandora
• Netflix
• Fieldrunners
• Tap Tap Radiation
• RealRacingHD

NetNewsWire is much faster than the iPhone version, and Netflix’s streaming capabilities are pretty cool. But as great as the first iteration is, it’d be nice if Netflix would offer a richer experience than just a site-specific-browser.

Running iPhone apps, however, is an overall bad experience. When scaled down, I feel cramped to use the app with the presence of a large screen surrounding it, but enlarging the app yields to pixelation. As suggested by Ajai Karthikeyan, antialiasing would be a great solution.

The Big Picture

The iPad will succeed in extremely general and extremely specific uses. There isn’t a better device for surfing the web on the couch; the same goes for using Twitter at a conference or doing a one-on-one presentation with Keynote.

But when it comes to day-to-day use and significant productivity, there’s still a huge need for the form factor of a desktop/laptop, not to mention their distance from the technical specifications of the iPad. In short, it’s a luxury item right now. Yet the tablet sector’s really starting to take off, and following the release of devices such as the HP Slate and JooJoo, the luxury factor will begin to decrease.

What’s your opinion on the iPad?

Just as last year, the event kicked off Friday night with a networking dinner at the Cumberland Maggiano’s. Different tables were set up around the room for various topics, such as video, B2B, Twitter, et al. I sat at the entrepreneurship table hosted by Appcelerator CEO Jeff Haynie, who moved from Atlanta to the Valley a few years ago. During these discussions, I had a great chance to meet Travis Allen, a fellow young entrepreneur, as well as reconnect with Sanjay Parekh, Richard LeBer, and Jennifer Bonnett.

Flickr: leighauerbach

The event continued the next morning at KSU’s Social Sciences building, where a continental breakfast was a great opportunity to continue the networking from the previous night. After about an hour, Leonard Witt began the official conference by introducing the first keynote speaker, Carol Kruse, Vice President of Interactive Marketing at Coca-Cola. Kruse created the MyCokeRewards program, and also is a part of the company’s Facebook fan page initiative. The talk started with an explanation that Coke prefers for the consumers to lead the company’s social media campaign, leading to Kruse’s mantra: “Fans first”. She revealed that the page is moderated out of necessity, but that only around .8% of content is required to be taken down. However, any posts which may be negatively directed towards Coke remain. Also fascinating was the fact that any employee who wishes to be a part of the company’s social media marketing can undergo basic training and be let loose.

Flickr: leighauerbach

Dan Siroker of the Obama campaign then took the stage as the next speaker, explaining the huge impact that web marketing had on the President’s election and fundraising strategies. John McCain was able to raise $201M total through combined social media outreach and traditional publicizing, while Obama’s team (with the input and guidance of Siroker), raised over $500M solely through the Internet. Multivariant testing played a large role in this monetary gap; Siroker showed how a button entitled “Learn More” paired with a family-oriented image achieved the highest conversion rate, competing against tens of other combinations. The importance of taking advantage of circumstances was also stressed, as the campaign was able to raise roughly $10M simply through the sending of an impromptu email.

We then breaked for lunch, heading over to KSU’s newly-built student cafeteria. I caught back up with Travis and had the chance to meet Christina Stallings, a new media/tradeshow enthusiast. Lunch conversation varied from basic introduction of everyone to psuedo-representation (fake profiles)  in the virtual world.

After lunch, I attended two breakouts, the first being by Newell Rubbermaid’s Bert DuMars about implementing a community around an online brand. He talked about the marketing associated with Sharpie, and stressed the fact that community is a great resource and should be genuine, but shouldn’t be grouped to direct content towards one individual.

The next session I attended was by Chris Turner, Kimberly Turner, and Scott Lockhart of Regator, a blog aggregator sorting through and helping publicize the world’s best posts. They talked about their experiences in bootstrapping a startup, explaining what individuals would need to have in order to successfully launch:

1. A good idea.
2. Money.
3. A technical founder.
4. Commitment.
5. A polished product.
6. The ability to generate hype.

And their slides were hilarious.

I always leave conferences like this feeling energized and motivated to continue doing what I do. The sense of community here in Atlanta really is incredible, and the ability to connect with like-minded individuals is something I’m thankful to be able to do. Can’t wait for SoCon11.

When I first saw a post on TechCrunch claiming that RSS is dead because of Twitter, I was surprised that people would come to this conclusion so quickly. Twitter’s an incredible tool for networking, but I don’t think that it’s ready, at least yet, to become a standard for content distribution. The collective nature of feeds outweighs the random, stream-type nature of Twitter, not to mention the fact that RSS is a protocol, while Twitter’s a central entity. People can deploy RSS wherever and whenever they please regardless of the existence and reliability of Twitter. What happens when we get a fail whale? Does everybody’s news distribution just stop?

Twitter’s great. Don’t get me wrong. And if you’d like to stop using RSS, that’s totally up to you. But I’ll keep my Google Reader account for now.

Desktop

I’m a firm believer in keeping a clean, minimalistic desktop, both physically and virtually. The only icons present are hard drive partitions and a link to my Dropbox folder. I do use GeekTool to monitor the ps command, as well as a live feed of /var/log/system.log, but apart from that – nothing. If it’s on the desktop, it hasn’t been dealt with (the same concept as a full inbox). Plus, I find wallpapers to be much more visually appealing without the clutter of icons.

Dock

Across all of my machines, the dock looks exactly the same. More than anything else, this is just a result of my compulsive habits, akin to never having anything in the Trash. Yet there’s a deliberate workflow in the order of applications:

1. Finder & Dashboard. Basic OS X functionality.
2. Safari & NetNewsWire. Information and aggregation. Serves as a base for everything else.
3. Mail.app, iChat, Skype, & Tweetie. Communication. Allows for expansion and distribution of information.
4. Pandora. Music. I almost always have music playing while I’m working. I see Pandora as a buffer between the fundamental apps of information/communication and task management.
5. Things. Task management. Everything else in the dock points to Things.
6. Terminal, Activity Monitor, & System Preferences. Backend and configuration apps; appropriately placed in the back of the dock.
7. Currently running apps. Other applications that don’t permanently reside in the dock.

Obviously the dock has its share of shortcomings. Quicksilver‘s a much more effective way to open apps without leaving the keyboard, although I still use the dock to help with the order of open applications.

Spaces

I don’t know what I would do without Spaces. I was disappointed that Windows 7 did not include a native virtual desktop solution, although that makes me appreciate Spaces all the more.

If you scan across the top two spaces, you’ll see windows open in the same order as they appear in the dock (NetNewsWire, Mail.app, iChat, Skype, Tweetie, Pandora, and Things). Regardless of what I’m working on, these apps always stay open and in the same position. The 6 spaces below are temporarily delegated depending on what tasks I have going at the time (this blog post is currently in space A2). Some projects, such as coding, will usually take up multiple spaces (one for SSH/FTP, one for HTML/CSS, one for WebKit, etc.). At the peak of a good workday, I’ll have everything filled up with different tasks. When they’re finished, they get closed out and checked off in Things.

Applications

NetNewsWire

Until a month ago, I was a staunch user of the Google Reader webapp, but NetNewsWire’s switch to exclusively sync with GReader turned me on to a desktop app. I’ve never been against a local feed reader, but the availability of a webapp was more important to me. Now I can have both.

I subscribe to 26 feeds sorted into 6 folders.

1. Tech News
2. ATL Startup
3. Entrepreneurship
4. Web Design
5. Misc
6. Media

The first thing I do when I wake up every morning is catch up on feeds. On average, I get about 200 each day, although I don’t necessarily read every word – just enough to get what’s going on. Due to the distracting, anti-productive nature of RSS, I usually close out of NetNewsWire after the early morning, and don’t open it again until late at night.

Mail.app

Unlike RSS, I handle email as soon as it comes in. Since most of my emails are closely related to productivity (Google Group alerts, Goplan notifications, etc.), it wouldn’t make much sense to block myself from email while working. I’ve even gotten to the point where I’ll be asleep, hear the Mail.app bling, and wake up to check my inbox.

I try to practice inbox zero as much as possible. When an email comes in, I either deal with it immediately if it’s a quick fix/reply, or file it into the appropriate folder and add it to Things. Nobody likes an overflowing inbox.

Tweetie

Classification of Twitter as productivity might be a far stretch; I’ll let it slide with the justification of a networking tool. I’m a former Seesmic Desktop user – I liked the ability to scale it full screen with columns of tweets, @replies, and DMs. After a while, I just got tired of dealing with Adobe AIR’s resource usage, plus, Seesmic’s UI was a bit clunky. There’s not many Twitter clients that don’t run on AIR; two that come to mind immediately are Nambu and Tweetie. I’ve been extremely satisfied with Tweetie on the iPhone, so I figured I’d give it a shot on the desktop. I still don’t hate Seesmic, but every day with Tweetie makes it increasingly difficult to go back.

Things

I can’t stress enough how large of a role Things plays in my GTD system. It’s by far the best task management solution I’ve come across – with a syncing iPhone app to boot. By default, tasks are divided into:

1. Today
2. Next
3. Scheduled
4. Someday
5. Projects

I’ve added a few projects ranging from web design to my grocery list. Projects are simply larger items that consist of many tasks.

Below that, I have 10 “areas of responsibility” that differ slightly from projects. They don’t get checked off – it’s more of a grouping/tagging feature. I classify remaining tasks as:

1. Personal. Not directly related to traditional work – items such as getting a haircut, filling up gas, or going to the store.
2. Entrepreneurship. Career-oriented work, like updating my resume or shooting off an email.
3. Blog Posts. A list of ideas that I’d eventually like to turn into full-fledged blog posts, frequently paired with notes or links.
4. Purchases. A list of stuff I’d like to buy. This is the one category that’s never empty.
5. Social Media. Mostly related to this blog without being straight-up ideas for posts. Includes tweaks ranging from adding plugins to reformatting permalinks.
6. Matt-3. Media Center PC. (Matt 1-3 are the names of my computers. Usually these categories don’t get clogged up; although if I need to install some software or, as of now, install Snow Leopard, it goes in the appropriate computer’s area of responsibility.)
7. Matt-2. MacBook.
8. Matt-1. Main machine.
9. General Computing. Anything that doesn’t specifically fall into Matt 1-3. Right now the only task in this area is some troubleshooting that I need to do with my router.

It’s taken a while to get a definite system set in stone, but I’m satisfied with my current workflow. I haven’t felt the need to change anything over the past few months, although I’ll reevaluate everything roughly twice a year to see if there’s a more efficient way to work. Comments and suggestions are welcome ; I’m always looking for ways to increase productivity.