a starting point.

What is a Browser? (via jibyollee) 8% of people interviewed knew...

Mon, 12 Oct 2009 09:28:00 -0400

What is a Browser? (via jibyollee)

8% of people interviewed knew what a browser was.

On the plus side, I guess that means there probably isn’t a lot of public support for keeping IE6 around.

iPhone 3G white screen of death – solution! « Phaktor7

Tue, 29 Sep 2009 15:26:29 -0400

iPhone 3G white screen of death – solution! « Phaktor7:

This is why I love the internet. I would never have come up with this combination/order of button pushing (the up-volume button, really, Apple?!) and I would have wasted a bunch of time at the Genius Bar during a week when I really don’t have that kind of time.

But once again, I was saved from technology failure by strangers on the internet.

It warms my little community-manager heart.

The American Prospect on why GeoCities mattered...

Sun, 13 Sep 2009 15:24:38 -0400

The American Prospect on why GeoCities mattered...:

…and what we should do when online communities are put out to pasture.

Kru Research does a Twitter experiment for pharmaceutical companies

Wed, 29 Jul 2009 14:51:00 -0400

Kru Research does a Twitter experiment for pharmaceutical companies:

There’s been a lot of conversation about Novo Nordisk’s recent partnership with Charlie Kimball to tweet over on @racewithinsulin, and many folks questioning whether or not pharmaceutical companies can (or should) get involved in social media at large, and Twitter specifically.

So, Kru Research did a neat study to learn more about how people decide who to follow on Twitter: they came up with a fake drug, designed to treat insomnia, and then they created four Twitter profiles, each following approximately 100 people on Twitter who had tweeted about living with insomnia. Go read the whole thing here.

I think the most interesting part of this study is that someone actually took it on in the first place. It’s an intriguing approach to a problem that doesn’t have a lot of solutions right now.

That being said, I’m not entirely sure how much stock I’d put in these particular results - they’re certainly very interesting as trends, but I’m not sure they’re concrete data points.

The authors make that clear themselves in the final paragraphs, and draw attention to a point which I think is also crucial: what was true of insomnia may not be true of all other health conditions.

While there are many similarities between health communities - they’re ultimately unique ecosystems, living on and off the web.

I’ll certainly be on the look out for the follow up posts to see what they found (and how successful they were), in their attempts to promote an unbranded website, and convert coupons into prescriptions. But on the whole, I think studies like these will be of limited usefulness; in order to conduct a strong study, they’ve had to follow a particular process that isn’t really how people use sites like Twitter (professionally, or personally).

How successful would you be at building a Twitter-following if you only tweeted once?

And how can you tell the number of people who followed you because they were interested in your one tweet, versus the number of people who happened to have auto-follow set up.

That seems to be the weakest point (to my mind) of this information; I’m not sure there’s a way to correct for auto-followers, and that seems pretty important when you have a sample size of approximately 100 people (per account).

As a self proclaimed “social media nut”, and avid Twitter user/defender, I do hope this sort of information will encourage companies, particularly in such highly-regulated industries as pharma, to get involved in social media. But ultimately, I think this is something you learn by doing.

At some point, you just have to accept the risks, look at the benefits, and (hopefully) jump in.

Inspired dinner idea: Salad of mixed greens with roasted beets,...

Tue, 28 Jul 2009 20:38:02 -0400

Inspired dinner idea: Salad of mixed greens with roasted beets, fennel, apple and blue cheese.

Roommate says I’m so trendy I should just move to Napa Valley.

She also says I shouldn’t roast beets on 80* days ever again. She might have a point on that one.

lefauxfrog: Geography FAIL. (via MediaMatters) This is...

Tue, 28 Jul 2009 15:43:51 -0400

lefauxfrog:

Geography FAIL. (via MediaMatters)

This is extremely disturbing.
Surely we can agree that there is value in knowing where these countries actually are.

"We’re a sue first, ask questions later kind of an organization"

Tue, 28 Jul 2009 15:09:07 -0400

““We’re a sue first, ask questions later kind of an organization””

- Tweet about apartment mold draws lawsuit—Chicago Sun Times.

I had no idea people said things like this outside of the movies.

Apparently I would have looked like a nerd in the 60s too.

Tue, 28 Jul 2009 14:03:35 -0400

Apparently I would have looked like a nerd in the 60s too.

xkcd - A Webcomic - Sheeple xkcd never gets old.

Fri, 24 Jul 2009 11:14:59 -0400

xkcd - A Webcomic - Sheeple

xkcd never gets old.

Airports on Twitter?

Thu, 23 Jul 2009 17:25:21 -0400

I love that my city’s airport has a twitter profile: @BostonLogan.

Can’t believe I didn’t find this until now!

Awkward is back

Thu, 23 Jul 2009 10:33:59 -0400

For a while I was blogging over on Blogger about all the awkward thing that seem to happen to me. Then I kind of stopped.

The awkward things didn’t really stop, but writing about them got harder, and I got out of the (totally unfortunate) habit of recognizing when certain things would make good blog posts.

At any rate, I’m back at it, to appease my adoring public that consists almost exclusively of family members.

If you’d like to feel better about your social skills, I present the queen of awkward for your ego-boosting pleasure.

"Zappos and Amazon sitting in a tree..."

Wed, 22 Jul 2009 17:16:32 -0400

"Zappos and Amazon sitting in a tree...":

Exceptional email from Zappos CEO Tony Hsieh on the Amazon acquisition. Kudos to all involved!

Yelp and Its Discontents | The Big Money

Thu, 16 Jul 2009 11:32:21 -0400

Yelp and Its Discontents | The Big Money:

Great piece by Paul Smalera about Yelp and all the recent hullabaloo. Love ‘em or hate ‘em, it’s worth a read.

Steffan Antonas on ways to say "Thanks" on the social web

Tue, 14 Jul 2009 16:35:00 -0400

Steffan Antonas on ways to say "Thanks" on the social web:

Just because it’s the internet, doesn’t mean we should forget our manners. Perhaps that should be particularly because it’s the internet, we shouldn’t forget our manners.

Great insight in the comments already - a conversation to watch.

Client wondered why “bit” was one of the words showing up next to their brand name on...

Tue, 14 Jul 2009 11:21:10 -0400

Client wondered why “bit” was one of the words showing up next to their brand name on Twitter. Just realized it was because of bit.ly…doh.

People who already have their coffee forfeit the right to walk slowly in front of me while I’m...

Tue, 14 Jul 2009 09:56:25 -0400

People who already have their coffee forfeit the right to walk slowly in front of me while I’m on my way to Starbucks.

Getting a little dinner with @AdrienneLB. Love that a weekend full of good people & good food...

Mon, 13 Jul 2009 20:14:50 -0400

Getting a little dinner with @AdrienneLB. Love that a weekend full of good people & good food could continue into Monday!

Sometimes I do actually enjoy working in DTX.

Mon, 13 Jul 2009 12:57:21 -0400

Sometimes I do actually enjoy working in DTX.

Um, this is a little weird: http://twitpic.com/a52gv

Sun, 12 Jul 2009 15:36:46 -0400

Um, this is a little weird: http://twitpic.com/a52gv

Watching Whales Watching Us

Sun, 12 Jul 2009 14:00:29 -0400

Watching Whales Watching Us:

If you’ve ever had even a passing interest in whales, go read Charles Sibert’s article in the NY Times. It’s weird, fascinating, disheartening and hopeful, all at the same time.

In posting this, I confess that I was a bit of a marine biology nerd growing up. Whale watching was always the highlight of our family trips up to New England, so when I learned about “Whale Camp” in middle school…I simply had to go.

I had never been to an overnight camp before, and I haven’t been to another since, but I imagine it was pretty similar to whatever the Platonic Ideal of summer camp is. Except better, of course, because there was whale watching involved. On a schooner. In the Bay of Fundy.

We were learning about the North American Right Whale (so named, by whalers, because they were the “right” whales to shoot. Lots of blubber) and worked with the marine biology institute on the island to help them count and observe the whales in the bay that summer.

One foggy morning, we were out in the middle of the bay, a few hours from land. As our boat drifted slowly through the water, we began to hear noises, heavy sighs. Suddenly we realized we’d sailed into a group of right whales. They were logging, just resting, motionless on the surface of the water.

It was, and remains, a surreal moment. We were so completely out of our element and largely at the mercy of these whales, not unlike the moments that Sibert describes.