2008:
1,565,266 total published words from 4,763 posts
12,402 comments

Wow, here we are and it seemed like yesterday that I published the first post, 4,762 posts ago. If you look at the monthly post counts along the right of the home page, you’ll see the writing has slowed somewhat this year, but I’m feeling good about the quality of posts being published. It’s a different blogging world than it was in 2003.

What the numbers above don’t show are the 77,835 total unpublished words from 318 unpublished posts. These numbers continue to rise with each passing year and one of the biggest things that makes me go hmm is what to do with these posts. Someday hopefully they can be published in some form or another. I think about this now and again.

The state of blogging in 2008
Today there are too many blog posts that cover areas already blogged. I hope over the next five years more bloggers will stop before hitting publish and ask themselves if they are truly adding anything new to the web. Some bloggers are and they deserve to increase readership. Others are adding to the post landfill in a blatant attempt to grab ad views. There are very few quick bucks that hold value over time in the world.

Tip for readers with blogs: put a little more of you into your posts. Blogging became popular in great part I think because of the individual voice. Refine your voice. Making sure each published post has you in it somewhere helps to separate your posts from thousands of others that are similar.

Today there is also way too much emphasis on fragmenting discussions around posts. Giving readers the ability to comment somewhere else is a good thing in concept but puts unnecessary reliance on third party sites to stay up and running. One only need examine the scaling woes Twitter has been having to analyze that this isn’t always a good thing. I’m still not convinced the current generation of commenting elsewhere will stand the test of time, but we’ll see. I reserve the right to change my mind.

Today on a positive note, sharing on the web is all the rage. It’s great to see so many different ways to share ideas, thoughts, blog posts, pictures, videos, podcasts and so on with others. The spirit of sharing has never been louder than it is today. I just hope with all this sharing with relative strangers online, that people don’t forget about spending time with the people who aren’t strangers offline.

I have been spending more time with family and friends offline in 2008. I started playing guitar again regularly and practicing with a band offline Sunday nights. This has eaten into my blogging and online time but it’s giving me perspective that will help fuel my future writing. As human beings, we need to experience new and/or different things to make use of the valuable time we’re given on this earth.

My wife was teasing me that I have been “reliving my high school days” lately. There is a kernel of truth in this observation. Sometimes it’s good to go back and find things that gave you pleasure in the past and see if you can incorporate them into the present.

Now let’s walk back through time here at MakeYouGoHmm.

2007: 1080p Yowsa!

1,371,277 total published words from 4,354 posts
9,867 comments

In 2007 there was a focus on trying to videoblog or podcast five days a week. I made it a good nine months before being buried by video editing time. Probably would have made it if I skipped the whole HD video experiment. But who can forget the series of SAW Hmmcasts including the one below:

Of course the whole ThurSAWday project turned out a failure, but it was fun building up the promotion.

2006: Families more fragmented these days?

2005: v4: Cheap Tablet PC car stand

2004: v3: Day 1-2 in Silverwood

2003: Tabasco Scratch Cards

The future of MakeYouGoHmm
Today and throughout the weekend I’m going to kick back and party with the family. Next week it’s back to work. Oh, and yes, let’s do another 5 years of blogging here at MakeYouGoHmm? I mean, come on, did you expect me to quit already?

Thank you for reading MakeYouGoHmm.com.

“and miles to go before I sleep …”
- Robert Frost

Disclosure: As of June 1, 2008 I’ve been helping with Zune podcast submissions in the Zune Marketplace. Do you need help with your Zune podcast submission?

I’ll get back to this disclosure shortly since it’s new to readers. It’s the first time I’ve mentioned this gig in a blog post here. This news has been part of the new MakeYouGoHmm about page added last week.

Zune links
A Friendfeed everyone search for keyword ‘zune’ just led me to a new Zune feature this morning: Zune links.

To use the tool, just enter in keyword(s) and the tool will return matching links to: artists, albums, playlists, music videos, podcasts and videos. I’m curious how the playlist search works especially because I have my privacy settings set to allow “everyone” to view my Zune social settings, but don’t see any of my playlists. Maybe that will be a future feature?

Here is an example link for the the Hmmcast (stale, I know, it’s been over 5 months since last update), which I added border=’0′ to it:

Hmmcast

You will need the Zune software installed on your computer to follow that link.

As Sean Alexander, a Microsoft employee, points out, the iTunes Music Store has had this feature for awhile so it’s nice to see the Zune team add it. Sean adds:

My personal favorite, the Zune Social experience. The links take you directly to Zune Social where you preview the songs, see stats on listenership, read a review and more.

Sean also makes a good suggestion for somebody to possibly create a Live Writer plugin. Developer readers, there’s an opportunity.

Why are you helping with Zune podcast submissions?
It shouldn’t be a huge surprise to long time readers that I’m helping out in the Zune podcast area. I have been podcasting and writing about podcasting since the word was penned and this gives me an opportunity to get knee deep in podcast submissions all over the world. I also have written positively of the Zune player since launch (do a search for past ‘zune’ posts). Also, my whole family has been beta testing at Microsoft HQ in Redmond for several years, although I think we won’t be able to do that any more (?).

Rob Greenlee who is the lead for the Zune podcast area, invited me to guest co-host several of his WebTalk podcasts some time ago and mentioned that they could use my help reviewing podcast submissions. I jumped at the chance and as of the first of June 2008, here I am. If you are a podcaster and reading and need help with a podcast submission pending in the Zune Marketplace, please feel free to drop me a line either through Skype, Twitter, email (Gmail to my name works great) through the Zune Social of course or any of the dozens of other ways to contact me online where I’m currently active. I’m also regularly checking the official Zune forum podcast area and have already gone through the 1,400+ posts made there.

I’m also doing keyword searches for zune podcasts and tracking conversations elsewhere on the web (hence the genesis of this post), so don’t be surprised if I show up in your comment area if you’re talking about the Zune Marketplace podcast area and/or blog here and trackback to you.

Without getting into too much more detail, this is a contract gig for our online business and will be additional work, not something that replaces any of my current jobs. I still very much co-own an offline business and our online business and have been happily self-employed for 14+ years. I am also happy to be helping in the Zune podcast area and helping the podcast community at large, which I hope is crystal clear in this post.

Accordingly, I’ve added a ‘Zune’ category and will be adding the disclosure at the top of this post to any Zune-related posts where relevant going forward so that readers are clear of my professional involvement with the Zune team. I think you’ll see me promoting more new podcasts I’m discovering in the coming days more than writing that much more than I have in the past about Zune, but felt it was important to make the professional connections clear.

This new Zune link feature will make it easier to post direct links in the Zune Marketplace to these cool podcasts other people share with me and I discover through helping with the podcast submissions. So far I’ve already found some really well done podcasts that I didn’t know about.

Remember Amanda Congdon who had a popular gig at Rocketboom and then went onto presumably bigger, better things at ABC, only to last less than a year. Enter example two, Veronica Belmont, the initial video host of Jason Calacanis’ current video brainchild: Mahalo Daily. Belmont ditched Mahalo Daily awhile back and is starting June 5 as the new videoblog host for Qore, a paid subscription-based videoblog show which sounds to me like paying to watch commercials for games on the Sony Playstaton 3.

In fairness, let’s review what the official PS3 blog says will be part of the Qore subscription:

Qore has been developed to give PS3 users early access to game related content at a level of quality, interactivity and depth. Everything is filmed in HD. Qore will feature exclusive news, developer interviews, in-depth game previews and behind-the-scenes looks at PlayStation games and special access to game demos, special beta invitations, game add-ons and other downloadable game-related content.

Calacanis was smart enough not to charge viewers for his paid advertorial for Mahalo, what is Sony smoking? Why are they are charging for “special access” to game demos? Some commenters on the PS3 blog post are rightfully complaining while at least one commenter says this is in line with print game magazines which charge too much for information you can usually find on the web already. Nevermind that many of these print game mags are struggling to stay afloat. This is 2008, not 1998.

Shooting the video in all HD is smart and the game add-on part might be worth paying for if they are giving away songs to games like Rock Band and Guitar Hero but my guess is most of these add-ons will be lame things like different characters or backgrounds. Yeah, yeah, maybe it will be only [sarcasm] $24.99 a year for a Qore subscription of 13 episodes, but I’m skeptical that it will be worth $2.99 (single episode price) per episode. For Sony’s and fellow gamer’s sake I hope I’m wrong. I will happily buy in if they put some good exclusive add-on content in there.

Let me throw Sony a bone. Get us access to HOME — for free. Quit delaying and give us more games in the Playstation store. I’ve only been saying this since launch day and doubt any gamers will disagree. Sony could have bought Atari (ATAR stock had been floundering) dirt cheap and put all of their games in the PlayStation store and didn’t do it. No, instead they want to charge us for the privilege of being teased about some bright gaming future (Look at what’s coming in months … years). Advice to Belmont: don’t put all your eggs in the Qore basket. As popular as the Wii is (where can one buy Wii Fit at anyway? Sold out everywhere), she would have been better doing a Nintendo Wii show — perhaps an exercise show to go along with Wii Fit — that was offered for the special price of — drumroll please — free. Strike that, horny gamers would pay $2.99 to see a good looking girl doing Wii Fit workouts.

Come on, Sony. Really.

I’m not into ‘why I haven’t blogged’ posts and try to spare you the exercise. For future reference, I write when:

1. I have the time
2. Something external (another blog post, news story, new site/service, etc) moves me and/or
3. I have something (fresh, preferably) to say or share

With #3 I’m being more challenged lately. This blog has well over 1.5 million published words and has covered a lot of different web terrain. Fortunately it isn’t niche, so finding something to make us both go hmm for the rest of my lifetime shouldn’t be rocket science. It’s not as easy any more, though because I keep getting literary deja vus. I’ve got to get back to more deeper web exploration.

You don’t care, I get it, just publish mon, publish!

I’ve found the editor in me getting much more picky about what gets published though. That’s really the problem. I just looked in the draft queue and see I’ve written around a dozen posts since April 2. Blame the editor, that’s it.

I digress. Recommendation: use the Hmm search or click the archive links from the home page to revisit the keyword(s) of your liking. There’s a lot of gold in them thar hills. I’ve been thinking about creating a couple pages with links to heavily trafficked past posts. Maybe one for the highest rated ones too, as that function is getting used more than expected. We tried a rating post feature here before and it bombed. I wouldn’t say the second time is a huge improvement, but more readers and visitors are using it. That helps determine what you like and dislike, so please take the time and rate every post that you read all the way through.

Providing fresh material should be every writer’s goal and I’m seeing — right or wrong — this blog as more like a book than a place to repeat something said days, months or [gasp] years ago. The five year anniversary for this site is fast approaching (July 4, 2008) and then I’ll need to make the call what to do the next five years, health willing of course. A few ideas are percolating. I might bring in some hired guns, what do you think of that?

Missing you
I do miss reading some of my friends when they don’t update their blog for awhile and wonder what they’ve been up to. I’ve been asked: hey, why no Hmm? Is everything ok? What’s going on? Those are questions that a 21 day off period don’t answer. I remember giving blog buddy Kent a friendly stick shake when he went AWOL and he’s been kind enough not to return the favor during my blackjack period.

The picture at the top of this post should answer where I’ve been — at least in part. Yes, I’ve been practicing playing my guitar instead of publishing blog posts. I have been writing a little bit here and there, but time where I’d normally be doing the blog exercise, I’ve been practicing so I can jam with the boys on Sunday nights offline. I’m hoping we get good or bad enough to shoot some compelling video because the Hmmcast is starting to grow some nasty looking cobwebs. It’s not much fun watching video, even in HD, of an average garage band, so that footage might never come to fruition.

The calluses on my left (playing) hand haven’t been there and needed to practice time to build up. This has turned me into one of those guys you see carrying around their guitar everywhere. I’ve always thought that was neat when I see people doing that. Every musician knows that practice is the only way to get better. Heck, any skill takes lots of practice. I’m stealing my writing practice time for guitar practice.

Oh, and couldn’t stand for playing live my 20+ year old electric guitar any more, so threw down for some Gibson Les Paul studio action at one of my new guilty pleasure stores: Guitar Center.

I’m a sucker for red guitars and this red wine style is a beauty. Oh, and it comes with a sweet case too.

What do you think? How many Hmm readers play guitar? I must admit with some embarrassment that despite buying this new guitar a couple weeks ago, it is still unplayed. I brought it home, told my kids they’d be cursed for life if they touched it, set the lock on the case and stored it away in a safe, dry place.

Now before you get on me too much, I bought it to only play live, not for practice. Maybe I’ll feel differently later on, but I’ve never owned a pro quality guitar. All my gear has been fairly low budget. I’ve wanted a really good guitar since I was 14 years old and the timing was right.

I also had a pickup installed in my Washburn acoustic guitar and it sounds great. I’m planning on bringing both of these guitars to our next jam session this coming Sunday night. I’m hoping to become regularly invited to the group which involves three other guys (two are younger, one is older). They asked me to play back after the first session so that’s a good sign. Much too premature to speculate on if we’ll ever get out of the garage. Last time I played in a band was back in high school, so lots of rust to knock off for me.

I’m compiling a list of songs I can play either in part or all the way through. Here’s the current list as of this writing:

Electric
AC DC - Back in Black, Dirty Deeds, Walk All Over You
America - Horse with No Name
Ben E. King (on bass) - Stand By Me
Black Sabbath - Paranoid
Blue Oyster Cult - Don’t Fear The Reaper
Dokken - Alone Again
Iron Maiden - The Trooper
Judas Priest - The Hellion, Livin’ After Midnight
Metallica - Fade To Black, For Whom The Bell Tolls
Ozzy Osbourne - Crazy Train, I Don’t Know
Styx - Suite Madam Blue
Ted Nugent - Cat Scratch Fever
Thin Lizzy - Jailbreak

Acoustic
John Mellancamp - Pink Houses
Five Man Electrical Band - Signs
Ritchie Valens - Donna

Have you got some good guitar song suggestions to add? There are a bunch of songs I’d like to learn how to play and, in some cases, learn how to play again. The song list shrinks if you don’t keep practicing.

Bought a bass for son
You might have noticed in the list that I snuck a song on bass in there by Ben E. King. Stand By Me is a great bass riff and fairly easy to play. My son was having trouble learning the guitar so I bough him an Ibanez bass. He’s learned a few songs on there and seems to find it easier to play with his smaller fingers.

Our third Guitar Center purchase was a set of Simmons electronic drums and drum amplifier. They sound great and we’ve been jamming a bit with bass, drums and guitar. My son who plays bass is also working on playing the drums too. We got a double bass pedal for it.

Rock Band full albums
I think what has gotten me started back into this was the game Rock Band which I’ve given high marks in the past. And speaking of Rock Band, Harmonix which makes the game yesterday started offering the first complete album: Judas Priest most excellent Screaming For Vengeance available for 1,200 Microsoft Points on Xbox Live. We bought this and played last night for a little while. Great stuff, this could give the music industry something to cheer for as I can see fans buying their album multiple times.

Worked for Judas Priest. Last night we took our youngest to dinner for his birthday and then we went and bough a CD. Which one? Screaming for Vengeance, of course.

Not sure I mentioned it, but we’re on our third set of Rock Band drums now. The newest one seems more heavily reinforced and maybe (hopefully) will last more than a month or two.

Time for me to jump back into my reading list which shows 1,000+ in Google Reader and 1,446 in reBlog and grows by the hour. Before the day is done, I might cheat and mark all as read, but we’ll see how things go.

Please share in the comments below what you’ve been up to, especially if you’re a blogger. Are you publishing less blog posts these days? Playing music or some other hobby offline? It’s good to have some variety in your life.

1. linkblog

Some call this social bookmarking, but it’s only social if you’re sharing the links with others. e.g del.icio.us

2. moblog

Sending pictures from a cameraphone or mobile device. e.g Flickr

3. podcast

Audio recording, typically in MP3 format and served through RSS feed enclosure. e.g Utterz, Odeo

4. videoblog / vlog

Video recording offered in one or more popular video formats like mp4, wmv and served as enclosure in RSS feed. e.g blip.tv, YouTube

5. microblog - a short text message which may or may not contain a shortened URL. Popular with mobile users (SMS). e.g Twitter, Jaiku, Pownce

6. miniblog / reBlog - using a more significant amount of content from a third party in a post versus creating original material. Typically these posts are shorter than a regular blog post, but don’t have to be. e.g Tumblr, reBlog

7. liveblog - covering some type of live event like a sports event, press conference, tv show, etc. e.g Engadget live coverage of Macworld 2008, coveritlive (tool)

8. blog - a collection of other types of blogging mentioned above and/or typically longer, more detailed postings that could also be labeled as articles. Some blogs offer series or collections of posts around a topic. A blog can be self-hosted using software like Wordpress.org or by using a third party service like Google’s blogger.com. e.g. the blog you’re reading this on: MakeYouGoHmm.com.

Missing/corrections/updates
If I missed a key important point that somebody newer to the world of blogging might need to know, please include below. This is not intended to be an exhaustive reference but something that will point somebody new in the right starting direction.

Has some other new niche developed that I’m not following?

Whew! This post and me thanking you, friendly reader, for an exciting 2007 at this blog is way past due. The last couple weeks I’ve been more in holiday mode than working mode and some dust is kicking up as my nose gets back down and hits it.

1. RSS aggregator: who and what’s being used as a reading list
Like many others the new year switchover has me re-evaluating the prior year goals. Let’s start where we did in 2007 with how I plan to handle RSS subscriptions this year. Am I subscribed to you? Should I be? How can I be?

From 2007 in reBlog:

to 2008:

Yes, I’m still using reBlog as my primary RSS reader. Feeds subscribed here are my regular reads and will be likely to be jumping points or segways from new posts in 2008. Last year I waved “goodbye” to my current subscriptions and started fresh. This year I copied over the subscriptions at the end of 2007. It was a relatively small number (74) and quite manageable. Down to 73 as of this writing because I unsubscribed from one source.

In 2008 as part of my ongoing Twitter experiment that began 82 days ago (see left sidebar of homepage for counter), I’ve spent the last few days subscribing to 500+ blogs, podcasts or vlogs of those subject to the following criteria:

1. Must be primarily original content. No reblogs, spam/splogs, automated, etc.
2. Blog/podcast/vlog must primarily be in English (only language I speak fluently).
3. Must follow me and remain following on Twitter (I try to follow more than follow me).

Many of these are brand new, first time subscriptions for me.

I subscribed to these Twitter contact feeds in Google Reader and am using that exclusively to go through the feeds on a daily basis. I’m planning to treat reading these feeds similar to how I follow Twitter: a let it flow, let it flow strategy, which should scale (hopefully). The posts that I find interesting will be shared in my Google Reader shared feed, which gives Twitter contacts the ability to see which of their posts I enjoyed in a very transparent fashion. If anybody reading this doesn’t want their posts to appear in the Google Shared feed then let me know and I’ll unsubscribe from your feed.

In an attempt to provide similar information last year I played in the Hmm Labs with a digg-style system that used posts seeded from reBlog, but that was based on the pligg software and was too slow and buggy. That system is going to get the axe and I’ll probably use the domain for something related to promoting the posts of my favorite reads.

2. The state of Hmmcast
Some of you have probably noticed my goal to do the Hmmcast every work day save for vacations worked out good until September when I got better equipment and attempted to create and share more high quality video. Quality of the video went up dramatically but days went by and soon weeks and finally all of last month without new Hmmcasts being published.

I’ve come to the realization that until I can either focus on this nearly full time or am retired, it’s not realistic for me to do this type of videoblog with the production values I wanted on a regular posting schedule. Perhaps if I had help, but not primarily by myself and while Hmm does turn a profit, there isn’t enough money yet to hire somebody to help with a videoblog that wasn’t bringing in any revenue. It’s not that the Hmmcast is about money to me, I love doing the vlog, but I have two businesses to run and can’t spend hours — literally — producing something every day that doesn’t give back at least some form of revenue.

This doesn’t mean the Hmmcast is dead by any means in 2008.

It does mean that it will likely go back to a frequency of weekly instead of daily, starting in the not too distant future (how’s that for vague and murky?). I’d like to do something more spontaneous like I did yesterday with Modulus. A live video with perhaps a little less production value covering Hmm-related items. Or maybe it will go back to an audio-only podcast covering favorite comments from you, posts or reads from the Google Shared feed perhaps, of the week. I like the idea of using the Hmmcast to further promote/highlight good comments and reads from others.

We went from having 30 Hmmcast episodes to 180 and I learned a ton about how much work goes into producing a daily videoblog. I already had a lot of respect for daily vloggers which work hard at their craft. Anybody can go in front of their webcam and say a few things and hit publish, those aren’t the vlogs I’m talking about. It takes time, good equipment and skill to create and edit something entertaining in high quality and publish five days a week. Tip of my hat to these vloggers.

Here’s your chance to give some feedback on the future direction of the Hmmcast. What would you like to see from it? Do you like the idea of infrequent videos with high production values? How about more spontaneous live stuff like yesterday? Do you miss the weekly podcast (audio-only) version?

3. Hmm Labs
I was a bit surprised by the activity in 2007 of the seldom mentioned, seldom updated Hmm Labs. While only one of the experiments in the lab actually was implemented live on the site in 2007, some favorable feedback was received to the concept which encourages me to explore in greater depth in 2008.

Some of you were more interested in the tinkering behind the scenes than I expected. I think at least one major new project will appear in 2008 in the Hmm Labs first and if all goes well rolled out here on the site.

As mentioned with the Hmmcast, there isn’t a budget which allows for anything too large in scope, but there are a few key things I’d like to see done with MakeYouGoHmm that would encourage more interaction and sharing of hmm-inspiring content around the web.

4??? And the surprise announcement … is ….
Last year there were five items, but I’m keeping my goals fewer in number this year.

Now back to that surprise announcement I teased about at the start of this post: if all goes through things should be finalized by the end of January. I don’t want to say anything yet because it’s not a 100% done deal.

It is something that will impact this blog to some degree in 2008 which is why I’m bringing it up here. I don’t think it will impact the actual blog output (# of posts / frequency) too much, but it could impact some of the content that I write about, or at least how I write about some things. It could also pull this blog in a very interesting and unexpected direction and open up some avenues not previously available to explore.

You’re welcome to speculate in the comments below and I can play politician (hey, it’s that time of year) and deny the rumors and speculation. Try to keep it somewhat clean though, as it’s not anything scandalous. Even if this deal should fall through, I will post about the details in full either way.

In closing, thanks to those who keep reading and subscribing and welcome to the new people I’m meeting both here, on other sites and offline. Without you it’s like writing on an out of order bathroom stall.

Scraping without permission is wrong. Sorry, yes, even scraping your own data from a third party site.

We’ve rallied in the past against how some websites devalue our time, using us to make them money (digg) and trying to handcuff us to the door by limiting export options (Facebook). One thing I’ve come to appreciate with Twitter is their API which when it’s working gives any Twitter user the ability to export just about everything you do there. Even if you think Twitter is stupid, it’s hard to argue against an open API like that.

The problem many have with Facebook is how easy it is to get information in there and how difficult it is to export. Go there, interact with your friends, but be careful what you do when leaving. They also insist that you must use your legal name, but only seem to apply that to non-popular people. If you’re not a web celebrity and not using your legal name, expect your account to be dropped.

Back to Scoble who decided to demo an unauthorized script from Plaxo that scraped his Facebook contact’s name, email address and birthdays which is against the Facebook terms of service (TOS). Facebook discovered the script running and promptly suspended Scoble’s FB account.

As I pointed out to him on Twitter, Scoble has a history of violating the TOS of other websites/services. I was disappointed to see from the many different bloggers writing about this on Techmeme so few pointing to Scoble’s history of openly admitting TOS violations. Are memories this short or is data portability more important than basic respect of agreements you make? When you agree to a EULA or TOS, you are making an agreement for how you’ll conduct yourself. Scoble makes these agreements and uses and evangelizes the services and then decides when he doesn’t like something it’s ok to violate it on principle because the company is wrong.

ScanIam remembers:

It’s very remeniscient of the time he let his underage son play in 2nd Life even after being told that it was against the rules.

1) hissy fit
2) apology
3) profit.

Steven Hodson also remembers when Scoble brought his son Patrick into the adult grid of Second Life? Whether or not we agree/disagree having a separate grid for adults and teens is a good idea that’s the agreement. While generally I think Scoble is a likeable human character, complete with imperfections like all of us, this is one side of Scoble that I don’t care for at all. He openly violates agreements because he doesn’t agree with them. He seems very wishy washy with his word. Take how he kept his Plaxo NDA under wraps until he “was released” and yet he doesn’t hesitate violating TOS?

Dare Obasanjo completely agrees with Facebook:

So if Facebook allows you to extract information about your Facebook friends via their APIs, why would Robert Scoble need to run a screen scraping script? The fact is that the information returned by the Facebook API about a user contains no contact information (no email address, no IM screen names, no telephone numbers, no street address). Thus if you are trying to “grow virally” by spamming the Facebook friend list of one of your new users about the benefits of your brand new Web 2.0 site then you have to screen scrape Facebook.

Now let’s read the Facebook Terms:

By using the Service or the Site, you represent and warrant that you are 13 or older and in high school or college, or else that you are 18 or older, and that you agree to and to abide by all of the terms and conditions of this Agreement.

The ethical choice if Scoble disagrees with the TOS isn’t to openly violate and then use it as an opportunity to further promote himself and agenda even if that agenda is worthwhile. This is what Robin Hood did, right? He robbed from the rich (Facebook) and gave to the poor (the vast majority of Scoble’s gathered 4,999 contact names, emails and birthdays).

Nick Carr makes an excellent point about how Scoble may have thought this information was his, others may not feel the same way:

I have no doubt that Scoble didn’t mean any harm, but in what sense are names, email addresses, and birthdays not “personal information”? The important question isn’t what Scoble intended to do with the information. The important question is this: Will others who use such scraping scripts necessarily have benign intentions? And the answer is: No.

What Scoble did by allowing his teenage son into the adult grid of Second Life was neither professional or polite. He knew there was a teen grid and yet he intentionally allowed his son to use the adult grid and promoted this fact. He admitted he knew this was against the rules but he did it anyway.

And here he’s doing it all over again with this Facebook drama. Yes, he’s right that data portability is important, but he’s wrong to use sites/services where he openly disagrees with the TOS. And then when the company takes action against him, use it as a platform for self-promotion.

Scoble pointed me to opensocialweb.org as a response to if he approached Facebook directly before violating their TOS. The Open Social Web lays out the following principles:

Sites supporting these rights shall:

* Allow their users to syndicate their own profile data, their friends list, and the data that’s shared with them via the service, using a persistent URL or API token and open data formats;
* Allow their users to syndicate their own stream of activity outside the site;
* Allow their users to link from their profile pages to external identifiers in a public way; and
* Allow their users to discover who else they know is also on their site, using the same external identifiers made available for lookup within the service.

These are noble guidelines and I agree with them all. However, because Facebook apparently doesn’t agree with these and has a TOS defining this as a violation the choice is clear: use the service and live with it or leave. Scoble decided he wanted to leave, but the caveat is he wanted to leave with the information he had already agreed to leave with them.

Wishy washy.

Don’t worry about Scoble’s squeaky wheel, it will get grease
Mark my words, Facebook will back down and reinstate his account not because he didn’t violate the TOS and deserve having his account suspended. Not because FB actually believes and supports data portability, but because it’s Robert Scoble going on CNBC and running off at the mouth about it.

Scoble gets my support for the fight for data portability, but he gets two thumbs way down for the tactics he’s employed.

Update 2:02pm PST: Predictably Facebook has already caved and reactivated Scoble’s account. They say it’s part of the normal appeals process and since Robert as agreed not to use a script like this again, that’s why they are reactivating his account.

2:34pm PST: Scoble held an impromptu live video with chat show/blogger press conference where he answered questions from the crowd using Mogulus. Good demo for their video and chat service actually.

I asked Scoble if he respected TOS and he responded by asking if I drive 55? Strange analogy considering I know he doesn’t drive by cops giving them the middle finger while speeding, but whatever.

Before we get too far, it’s important to understand I like podcasts. I’ve also created podcasts since the early days, as well as hosted a live weekly web streaming radio show since May 2000. This Friday will be episode #361. There are some very good podcasts out there and I fully believe someday internet live streaming and pre-recorded material (podcasts, vlogging) will replace satellite and terrestrial radio.

But that day isn’t here yet.

This morning I suggested to WickedGood to give satellite radio a try after seeing his message:

Radio everywhere is awful, unfortunately. That’s why I never leave the house without my iPod anymore.

I’ve been a satisfied Sirius subscriber since September 2006 and see where WickedGood is coming from. One very big problem is he hasn’t actually tried satellite radio before to experience the content firsthand. It’s too easy to question why others would want something if they have never tried it. His response: why should I pay for satellite radio when I can get podcasts for free?

Now let me share why this is the wrong question to ask.

You need the internet to sync podcasts
Firstly, podcasts aren’t always free. You still need an internet connection to get to them and unfortunately the internet isn’t always free and isn’t always available. Yes, there are some free WiFi hotspots, but unless you find one of those to sync up new podcasts, you’re listening to the past and not anything live. In some rural areas like Montana, you’re lucky if you get much internet coverage at all.

Live talk radio
Truckers and people who travel a lot and enjoy talk radio know how fun and interactive these shows can be. It’s a type of content that rarely happens with podcasts, but is more associated with live web radio streaming or video. Stuff like you’d find at justin.tv or ustream.tv with lifecasting. Problem there is always internet connection required and bandwidth available. We have an EVDO connection and while it works great in our surrounding area, if we travel too far, we’ll lose the connection and the feed.

The same thing happens with terrestrial radio. You are listening and getting into a talk radio show and then the signal fades as you drive away. I’ve been in situations where a talk radio show was getting good and had to crank up the volume and reduce treble to try and hear the signal as we … drove … away.

That never happens with satellite radio. Satellite works almost everywhere. No, it won’t work well when there are tall buildings or overpasses or concrete structures that block the satellite which can make some city driving frustrating, but if you’re on a long car trip through rural areas there is no better live radio fix.

Live sports
If you’re an NFL or MLB fan like me and want to hear the home broadcasts for different games, satellite is currently the only answer. Yes, you can listen to MLB games through mlb.com (I do that since I don’t have XM) but again, you’re restricted to having an internet connection. NFL games aren’t available (legally) in the United States streaming through the web. So those with XM can get live MLB games and those with Sirius can get every NFL game broadcast in both home and away broadcasts as well as some foreign language broadcasts. Podcasts? Forget about it.

And when, not if as I believe, the Sirius + XM merger goes through, subscribers will be able to get both the NFL and MLB under one subscription. This is a sweet deal that the internet doesn’t (legally) offer, and even if it did, the connectivity concerns would still be there.

Commercial free music serendipitously
There are lots of good ways to discover new music online. If you want to listen to genre music streaming live on the web there is shoutcast and icecast offering tons of stations, most of which are commercial free. However, if you don’t have the internet, you’ll have to preload onto that portable music device music. Some podcasts will deliver some outstanding indie music via podcast.

Pandora is one online music service which would be great to have with EVDO if only EVDO would work everywhere, I wouldn’t need satellite to fill this gap. Satellite offers a bunch of different commercial free radio stations. About the only area satellite music is weak where podcasting is strong in is indie music.

Bottom line: finding new music in genres you like with live DJs spinning the tunes (old school) while driving around with the least amount of hassle, satellite is strong. Terrestrial radio is too watered down with commercials.

Live news, traffic and weather
If you need live news and are connected to the web, either through your cellphone or PDA that’s great, but podcasts don’t deliver timely news very well. By the time the podcaster has recorded and uploaded and shared the podcast the news is growing stale. Some news in specific niches like tech don’t stale as fast and a podcast tech news show might work assuming you sync in the morning before going to work and sync at work for the drive going home.

As for traffic and weather, there are numerous websites and services that can help. Satellite radio for traffic is a pale replacement for a GPS like the Garmin c330 or better yet: Garmin c340. I’d much rather have a GPS with live traffic service than satellite radio. However, if you’re looking for major city traffic reports, Sirius offers the following channels entirely dedicated to traffic and weather in: NY Traffic (148), Philadelphia & Boston (149), Los Angeles (150), St Louis (151), Baltimore (152), Atlanta (153), Dallas (154), Las Vegas (155), San Francisco (156), Phoenix (157) and Orlando (158).

Exclusive live and prerecorded content
WickedGood might not care for Howard Stern, but a lot of people do. The only place to listen to Howard live (legally) is on Howard 100 on Sirius. If you miss a show live, it continues in a loop throughout the day. That’s 5+ hours of high production value content four days a week (Howard isn’t live on Fridays), save for vacations and holidays. 20+ hours of exclusive content, and that’s only Howard.

For the adults in the crowe, there is also Playboy Radio (channel 198) which offers frank discussion on that fascinating three letter word that begins with an s and ends with an x.

Podcasting provides an almost neverending source of new material, mainstream and adult, to listen to without any subscription fees. You still need to sync up the episodes which isn’t a big deal, but there is a much smaller number of high production value podcast content that exceeds 20+ hours a week per show. High production value almost goes against the grain and spirit of podcasting, since it’s often amateur based, I get that, but if you are looking for some quality high production value radio, satellite has a very compelling selection. In the podcasting space you can find it, but it requires more work on your part.

Terrestrial radio still has some great exclusive content, particularly local station DJs, but again these stations are ruined by way too many commercials and there is the FCC which means you’ll hear neutered conversations. You won’t hear that on podcasts and satellite.

Satellite subscribers don’t have to worry about what content to subscribe or unsubscribe to, that is taken care of by Sirius or XM. That could be a benefit or detriment depending on the individual. You only have to remember what channel and time. Some receivers allow programming reminders and/or even recording shows at certain times.

What have I missed?
I wish somebody would have pointed to a post like this before I subscribed to satellite radio, which would have helped me understand the differences. If you love radio it will be hard to deny the value in satellite. One of the other turning points that made me pull the satellite trigger were the people I talked to who already had it. I encourage you to talk to other satellite radio listeners. There is overwhelming amount of passion around and between satellite subscribers. They get what makes it so appealing and while I speak only for myself, I don’t mind paying for this service at all.

Podcasting is great, live streaming web radio is great and so is satellite radio all for different reasons and listening scenarios. There is going to come a time when internet is available almost everywhere like satellite is as of this writing and that will begin the end of satellite radio. A lot of people are talking like that time is already here. It’s not. Yet.

Why can’t we like them all? What have I missed about comparing satellite radio and podcasts? My ears and eyes are ready in the comments below.

Anyone have any tips for Twitter information overload?

I checked out how many people Jim is following as of this writing: 195. While he might have cut this number back, I’ve been using Twitter regularly for the last 45 days or so and am up over the 300 follows mark, so I have an idea of quantity of message flow Jim has been receiving. I still consider myself a bit of a Twitter newbie and learning more about how to tap the signal and let the noise flow by, so if you’re looking for tips from more established Twitterers please keep this in mind.

My piece of advice for Jim and others who feel similarly burdened by the number of messages (Twitter vernacular: messages = tweets)? Setup a system where the messages flow freely like he might tune into a favorite radio station. I have satellite radio in the background and tune in here and there. Don’t let Twitter eat up valuable business flow space like your email client. Jim tried that and found some 800 messages waiting which made him feel overwhelmed.

In the comment section of Jim’s post he’s receiving tips like cut down the number of people he follows. That’s a bit silly if you’re also trying to use Twitter as a networking tool. If that’s a worthwhile goal, the idea should be to grow your network, not reduce it, correct? I think Jim’s problem is he is attributing too much priority and importance to every message. Twitter isn’t like reading a blog or news source you’re subscribed to, it’s more like being part of an IRC channel. I’ve made this comparison to IRC before and people have disagreed, but to me the two are very similar as far as the flow.

With that in mind, my preferred Twitter client is part of an IRC bot I wrote which brings me the messages as a private message in the channel. The bot also keeps track of the number of messages and some other stats so if I’m away and want to catch up on messages missed — again, I don’t feel obligated to do so — all I need to do is navigate to the number I left off at and read forward. I’m planning on refining this system even further to be able to quickly search through messages from people I’m following. This way I can follow interests within the messages of those I follow, similar to subscribing by keywords to RSS feeds. This way I won’t miss things that are of more interest to me.

One thing I’ve decided in my Twitter experience was that I didn’t want or need to read every. Single. Message. Readers might remember that my original reaction to Twitter was like many others: what’s the point? It was less than two months ago that my eyes opened to a way to utilyze the service that seemed worthwhile. Since this time, I’ve been using the service regularly and am growing both the number of people I follow and those following me.

So I don’t feel obligated to read every single message from every person I’m following, nor do I expect every person following me to read all of my non direct or non reply messages or follow all the links I’m sharing. Is this the best way to utilyze the service? For me it’s working.

My system has the messages flowing by and while I will go back and read many of the archived messages, I stopped feeling like I must read every single message after following 200 people. I do watch for and try to respond to every reply so if I’m following somebody reading this and you want to be certain I’m seeing your really important message, send it as a direct message or reply. Otherwise, expect me to be tuning in periodically throughout the day. I don’t feel the slightest bit guilty treating Twitter message flow like what’s playing on the radio.

Liberate your flow.

Good signal Twitterers
Occasionally I see people asking for recommendations of good people to follow on Twitter. My preferred follows to date are people who are interactive.

If I send you a reply and you reply or acknowledge in some way, that’s interactive. Conversely, I’m not as interested in following people who don’t reply and/or have a lot more people following them than they follow. There are exceptions like people I’ve met in person, but for me anyway, communication and microblogging tools like Twitter don’t work nearly as well if communication is only one way. In some ways, I’m treating Twitter like trackbacks at this blog: two-way trackbacks are preferred.

Another plus for people to follow are those who are actively using the service. The reason somebody being active is important to me is because what if I’m looking for feedback or something or vice versa? The likelihood of getting a good response is better with people who are actually using the service.

One of my friends asked me what was too many messages? I replied that there wasn’t a solid number as far as I could tell, it’s subjective, but a message an hour (24 messages a day) would be considered very active by most people. Maybe too active for somebody in Jim’s situation who is reading every message. Since regularly using Twitter I’m averaging around 15 messages a day but suspect this number will fall off a bit when my experimental time with the service ends (3-6 months planned).

Take control of your stream
To recap: it’s important to remember that it’s your flow. You, and only you, get to choose how much attention and time gets attributed to your flow. While I don’t consider myself selfish, I am definitely selfish when it comes to how much of my time and where is spent. I encourage others who are interested in being more productive in their lives do the same. This doesn’t mean you’re being like Guy Kawasaki and too busy to read other people’s blogs but want them to read yours (having a high follower to follow ratio might mean that). Rather, it’s a way for you to be able to read and follow in a way that fits your life. I’d rather have somebody reading my non-direct non-reply messages who doesn’t feel obligated to read them as opposed to somebody who does and critically judges every message. Life is too short, really.

For Jim and others feeling overwhelmed: take control of your microblogging reading and make it convenient for you. Make it fit your schedule. Don’t become a slave to the stream. For those who enjoy Twitmas Music: let it flow, let it flow, let it flow.

Nature’s eraser showed up to wash away his work:

Kind of reminded me of how blog posts, messageboards threads and so on are wiped away by time. What we’re doing today, how long will it last, really? One of the strengths of blogging remains the immediacy but one could argue that most blogs have a high rate of decay.

The last time we went to the coast, I wrote about beach blogging and the guy writing in the sand immediately reminded of this. If you’re traveling down the Oregon coast, Lincoln City is recommended. It’s good to go AFK once in awhile.