Archive for the 'Blog' Category

Why I think Apple OS X 10.6 “Snow Leopard” is for upcoming Atom-based devices

Published
by
Josh Bancroft
on June 7, 2008
. 10 Comments

It’s the week before Apple’s Worldwide Developer Conference (WWDC). That means the rumor mill is in overdrive. I’m not immune - it’s fun to speculate! :-) Take this post for what it’s worth. I don’t have any inside information, I don’t know any secrets, I’m just guessing and having fun.

Besides the new 3G iPhone (which is almost a certainty), the other juicy tidbit that surfaced this week was news of a new operating system revision - OS X 10.6. Jacqui at Ars got the scoop, letting us know that it’s supposed to be called “Snow Leopard”, move completely to Cocoa (dropping legacy Carbon support), and that it will be for Intel processors only (dropping support for the PowerPC chips in older Macs), and not contain any new features, only enhancements to stability, performance, and security.

But a few things just don’t add up to me. It sounds plausible that a new operating system would get announced at the Developer conference (as opposed to a consumer event), to give developers time to get ready for its release. I could buy that it’s Intel-only - they’ll probably drop PowerPC support at some point. But it does seem a little soon to be talking about the next OS release - OS X 10.5 Leopard has barely been out 8 months. And people would be reluctant to plunk down the $129 that Apple has always charged for a new release of Mac OS X if it doesn’t have any new features.

Then, yesterday, it hit me. What if this new version of Mac OS X, 10.6 “Snow Leopard”, isn’t intended for Macs at all, but for a new class of device altogether? Say, the long-rumored Apple tablet device, a Mobile Internet Device, based on the new Intel Atom processor?

I’ve been chewing on this for a while, and it all makes sense. I can’t find anything that refutes the idea. And the more I think about it, the more I think I’m right. :-) I haven’t seen anyone else speculate along these lines (though I could be wrong), so if that’s the case, I may get to say “you heard it here first!” :-)

Here are the reasons I think the new OS is for a new class of Atom-based, non-Mac devices:

  1. A “tablet” device, bigger than an iPhone but smaller than a MacBook, has been rumored FOREVER. How many appearances has it made it to John Siracusa’s WWDC and MacWorld Bingo cards? ;-)
  2. An Intel Germany executive was recently quoted as saying Apple would be launching an Atom-powered mobile internet device at WWDC (this was later denied by Intel).
  3. Banners were spied at the Moscone Center this week with “OS X Leopard” and “OS X iPhone” on them. Some have speculated this might mean Apple is going to license OS X to 3rd party manufacturers. But what if it means there will be a new class of device that runs OS X that’s not a Mac computer, but isn’t an iPhone either?
  4. It doesn’t make sense to do a whole new OS release (10.5 –> 10.6), with a new code name (”Snow Leopard”), but not add any new features. If they were just going to improve performance, security, and stability, that’s what point releases, like the recent 10.5.3 update, are for. For every one of the six “full” releases of OS X, up through 10.5 Leopard, they’ve charged $129 for the upgrade, but each version has added significant new features. People won’t want to plunk down money for 10.6 without new features, but if 10.6 IS for a new class of Atom-based devices, it would make sense to classify it as a whole new release, with a new version number and code name, since it won’t be sold on its own. The “Snow Leopard” code name also seems to indicate something related to Leopard, but different. No previous OS X code names (Puma, Panther, Tiger, etc.) have had such a close correlation.
  5. Dropping support for legacy technology, like the PowerPC processors, and dropping Carbon for Cocoa, has to happen sometime. But the timing makes perfect sense if 10.6 is for a new class of device that won’t even have those technologies. No need for PowerPC support if the devices that run the OS are going to have Intel Atom processors. No need to maintain legacy Carbon applications if Apple wants to encourage developers to write new applications in Cocoa for this new class of device.
  6. As I was talking about this idea on Twitter a while ago, @davechen pointed out a Gizmodo article that says 10.6 will still support PPC chips. But what caught my eye in the article was this little tidbit: “A number of drivers didn’t load on a Core 2 Duo MacBook, because it was using a 64-bit kernel and the drivers were only 32. The kernel was not only 64-bit though.” I could be completely wrong here, but I think the Intel Atom processor doesn’t have the 64-bit capabilities that the Core 2 processors do. So the seeming backwards step of not having 64-bit drivers could make sense for Atom.
  7. Maybe developers will use a new version of the iPhone SDK to write apps for these new devices. Perhaps that’s why the SDK has been Intel-only from the beginning. Apps for the iPhone are compiled for its ARM processor, completely different from either Intel or PPC architectures. But why complicate things with PowerPC stuff if you wanted to expand the SDK to create apps for the Intel x86 architecture in Atom (which could compile and run natively on Intel CPUs).

Like I said, it’s just a lot of guessing and speculation at this point, but I think it holds together pretty well. If Steve Jobs wanted to say “oh by the way, we’re introducing a whole new class of device” during his WWDC keynote on Monday, he’s want to give the audience full of developers a heads up so they can start writing apps.

Think I’m on to something? Want to debunk my thinking, and tell me I’m full of crap? You’re welcome to. Maybe this will attract the notice of the Macalope or Daring Fireball’s Jon Gruber, and I’ll get the full “you’re an idiot, and here’s why” treatment from them. *swoon* Either way, it should be fun! Only a couple more days until WWDC, and we’ll know if I’m right or wrong! :-)


I Was Born to be a Native Citizen of the Internet

Published
by
Josh Bancroft
on June 5, 2008
. 11 Comments

I’m re-reading the Cluetrain Manifesto for the nth time (grabbed the text from the website, dropped it into a text file, and threw it onto my Kindle). There’s something distilled and concentrated about the ideas it contains. They just ring true, even though the book was written 10 years ago (ancient history in Internet Time). I can barely get through a few paragraphs of it before my mind is swirling with ideas and things I want to write about. Maybe I should just do a “book report” on it, chapter by chapter, and write up everything I’m thinking as I go along.

I feel like I was born to be a native citizen of the Internet. I was reading the Introduction and part of Chapter 1 of Cluetrain, where Christopher Locke talks about how telling stories to each other is an ancient, intrinsic part of what it means to be human, and how when the Internet (and the Web) came along and started to flourish, people who were used to being isolated in their own homes and used as targets for broadcasters flocked to it by the millions. Why? To BE with each other. To laugh and argue and tell stories and learn and be human together.

I was born in 1976, and computers (and later, the internet) have been a part of my life for as long as I can remember. Much longer, I suspect, than most people of my age and my experience. I credit my grandfather, Dr. Ron Hansen, for that. He’s one of the smartest, most connected men I know, and from a very early age, he took it upon himself to make sure I had opportunities that most other kids just didn’t. He knew that “computers” were going to be a Big Deal(TM). And not just in the vague sense that someone might look into the future and make that (now obvious) prediction. He was a retired Air Force officer, university vice president, and research scientist, with a PhD, and his own research institute that “spawned many high-tech spin-offs, including WordPerfect, Novell, and Dynix”. He really knew what he was talking about.

I got my first computer when I was five years old. I was in kindergarten, it was 1982. It was an Atari 1200 XL (the top of Atari’s 8-bit line at the time). It had a whopping 64 kilobytes of RAM, and it took cartridges. That is, if you wanted to play Dig Dug or Pole Position, you inserted that cartridge. If you wanted to program, you popped in the BASIC cartridge. Without a cartridge inserted, the only thing the computer could do was display the Atari logo in a phasing, shifting rainbow of color. Programs were stored on and loaded from cassette tapes (later, I got a 5.25″ floppy disk drive, which was the size of a large toaster). My grandfather gave me the computer, a few games, and some books on BASIC programming, and I went to town.

I have a very clear memory of one of the first things I ever tried to do with the computer (which is what sparked me to write this). This was before the era of the personal computer, when a computer in the home, using the TV as a monitor, was still a novelty. I remember getting that first command prompt, and typing a question. Something along the lines of “who was daniel boone?” SYNTAX ERROR was the response. I was reasonably sure that wasn’t the right answer. So I tried again. When my parents (who to this day don’t own a computer) saw what I was doing, even they understood why my query wasn’t working. “A computer only knows what you tell it, what you program it with.” That made sense, and I accepted it. But I what I remember so vividly is that before someone told me otherwise, I instinctively grasped the idea of interacting with computers in the way that’s second nature today to us as “citizens of the internet”, living in the Age of Google.

I spent the following years in the isolation of pre-Internet computerdom. Playing, hacking, learning what I could. But it all felt so limited, looking back. I was restricted to book or software that I could get my hands on through my grandfather, or people he knew (many of his associates in the high tech world had a part in my geek upbringing). Entering in BASIC programs (games, mostly) by hand from books and magazines. But somewhere, in the back of my mind. there was always the insistence that we should be able to ask a computer any question, or use it to talk to any person we wanted, and it should just magically obey.

My grandfather continued to supply me with opportunities to use, play with, and be around computers, long before that was a common thing. He got me a “Franklin Ace” (an Apple II clone with a bad ground somewhere in the power supply, that delivered a healthy shock if you touched the right place on the metal case), a huge 20 pound Zenith 8086 “laptop” (one of the first with a hard drive, and a blue-and-gray 4 “color” LCD), and a succession of PCs. He made sure I got to attend summer programs, and learn a few rudimentary programming languages (I remember Pascal and Turtle Graphics). I learned DOS and Windows by messing around, reading help files, and by playing. By the time I hit my teens, he got me access to Brigham Young University computer labs during the summers. The very places that the pre-commercial, pre-consumer Internet was thriving.

I spent the summer of 1994 learning HTML and the basics of the internet in a computer lab at BYU with Paul E. Black and some of Dr. Phil Windley’s graduate students (yes, that Phil Windley). I created the very first website for the BYU Alumni Association, completely by hand. This is the current site - the Wayback Machine at Archive.org doesn’t go that far. Later, in high school (1994), I was the webmaster for the first school in the state of Utah - Springville High School - to have a website, and helped to build a site for the Springville Art Museum.

That was my first exposure to the world of connected computers, and shared access to more information than you could dream of. Web pages that could magically take you to another page just by clicking the blue underlined text. “Surfing” from one link to the next, and when you found something cool, trying to remember how you got there, so you could get back. Exchanging messages with other people, anywhere in the world, via email. Having so many choices, and so many pages to choose from, that you had to start using a directory site like Yahoo! to find what you were looking for (there were no good search engines yet - this was way before Google, and the idea that you could index the WHOLE web in one place). And, looking back, perhaps the most significant of all, in the context of connecting human beings to each other - the reason we all flocked to the Internet in the first place, before companies figured out how to make money off of it - USENET newsgroups. Precursor and grandfather to discussion forums, blogs, and social networks.

I’m going to pause the story for now - this has gotten quite long. I feel like I’m writing a book. Maybe I am. If a few little pages of the Cluetrain can draw out this much, perhaps you and I both had better prepare for a lot more writing like this. I feel compelled to write it, and it’s fun. I hope someone, anyone, wants to read it. It makes me feel more human. Maybe it will help me find and connect with people who feel the same - other native citizens (and immigrants!) of the Internet. :-)


I’ve had it with the Intel Cafeterias. Full boycott in effect.

Published
by
Josh Bancroft
on June 4, 2008
. 11 Comments

My relationship with the cafeterias at Intel’s Jones Farm campus (where I work) has been declining for a while. Or, more specifically, with the company that runs them, Bon Appetit (warning: Flash crap and music on their site). I’m now officially boycotting them.

At first is was just the constant price increases - every few months, the price for everything would just creep up a little. Way faster than the rate of inflation. 90 cents for a bag of chips. A buck thirty for a Rice Krispie Treat. Eight bucks for a salad (as reported by Michael Brito).

Then there’s the guilt trip they try to put on you. There are always posters and table tents and all kinds of stuff all over the place about how you’re killing the Earth if you don’t eat the nice, sustainable, locally grown, Gaia-approved stuff that they serve. Maybe that’s why they keep raising prices - all that fancy organic local stuff must be more expensive. Nevermind the fact that I always felt like they were browbeating me for my eating habits. I don’t want a sermon from the cafe. I just want lunch.

Earth Day was the worst. It was one of the few days that I decided to go over to the JF5 cafe for lunch. They have a grill there, and I can get a cheeseburger and fries for lunch, without having to leave campus. It was a circus on Earth Day - they were charging extra for paper cups, had a big display showing “this is how much cardboard JF throws away every day!!!1!” It was a Big Deal(TM). I got in line for the grill, and when it came my turn, I asked for a cheeseburger. Only to be told that they weren’t serving beef that day. “Why not?” I asked. “Because it’s Earth Day” I was told.

What? What does beef have to do with Earth Day? I still don’t know. The best I can come up with is that cows contribute to global warming through their, um, methane gas emissions. But if that’s the case, wouldn’t it make sense to EAT MORE COWS?! That day, that’s what I decided to do. I jumped in my car, burned some gasoline to go to McDonald’s, and did my part to reduce greenhouse gases from cows by eating a Double Quarter Pounder with Cheese. I’m happy to do my part. :-)

That was the last day I tried to eat a meal in an Intel cafeteria. Up until today, I’d still pop over there in the morning for an occasional bagel or a donut or something. But that’s been getting worse and worse, too. They’ve been stocking less and less stuff, with the end result being if you don’t get there bright and early (before, say, 8:30 AM), they’re probably going to be gone. I’d understand if they just occasionally sold out, but it’s pretty consistent, and I’ve corroborated it with others who have noticed the same thing.

The last straw came this morning. I was quite hungry, hadn’t had breakfast, and it was 9:30 AM or so before I got a chance to walk two buildings over to see about getting something to eat. When I got there, the donuts, bagels, and other breakfast items were completely gone. “No problem” I think. “I’ll just get a string cheese or something.” Nope - the cooler case was completely empty, too. I was pretty hungry, and didn’t want to waste the trip, so I ended up with a bag of chips and a Rice Krispie Treat, both priced about a quarter more than if I had bought them from the vending machines. *sigh*

So, I’ve decided to expand my cafeteria boycott, and just not go there anymore. I’ll go out for lunch, or just skip lunch (which I do half the time, anyway). Burn a little more gas, probably eat a little less healthy, but I’ve had it with them, and I’m voting with my wallet.

I realize I’m complaining about pretty petty stuff here. Please take this in the spirit it’s intended - I’m venting, ranting. Not expecting to change the world. On the other hand, I’d love to hear any “you think YOU’VE got it bad” stories in the comments. Let’s commiserate! :-)


I want to write more. Do more. Hack more. Learn more. So I gotta read less.

Published
by
Josh Bancroft
on June 3, 2008
. 6 Comments

There aren’t enough hours in the day. I’ve been trying to juggle several side projects, plus all the stuff I have to do at work, plus all of our family stuff which is ramping up for summertime, and still keep up with all of my sources of information crack - RSS feeds, Twitter, books, etc. And it’s not working. A couple of things are crashing down around my ears. Something has to give.

I read a LOT. I used to be subscribed to over 1500 RSS feeds. That was WAY too many. About a year ago, I cut it down to around 500 feeds or so. But that was around the same time that Twitter really exploded in my life, proving itself invaluable for not only connecting and talking with people, but as the fastest conduit for breaking news, the most efficient source for answers to questions, and general serendipitous gems of things that were interesting and made me smarter. So I think the overall level of information overload stayed about the same.

Today, I decided action was needed. Drastic action, maybe. So I went and pruned my Google Reader feed subscriptions down to around 250 - I cut them in half. I have a pretty structured system for organizing feeds into various attention tiers (which I really should write about one of these days, but I haven’t had time - see my problem!? ;-) ). But even that wasn’t enough. So, after backing up my OPML, I got out the machete. Chop chop!

I feel pretty good about what I have left. I have a serious disorder - FOMO (Fear Of Missing Out). I’m always afraid that something cool or interesting or significant is going to happen, and I’m not going to be among the first to know about it! I had to battle that tendency, and be ruthless about what I really needed to keep in my aggregator, and what I could get rid of. We’ll see how it works out.

I pacified my FOMO by reminding myself how effective tools like Twitter, TechMeme, and Digg are at letting the interesting/cool stuff bubble to the top. A few years ago, there really wasn’t anything like them that information addicts like myself could rely on. Now that they’ve matured into what they are today, I’m more comfortable relying on them, and not needing to subscribe to the many, many sources of news myself. It was funny and ironic to tell myself “I don’t need to subscribe to that feed. I’ll just go to the site if I want to see what’s new.” Me, Mister Orange RSS Shoes, lives in his aggregator, etc. You can laugh now if you want. ;-)

Anyway, I hope to force myself to have more time to write (long form, as in blog posts, and maybe other stuff - 140 character microposts on Twitter don’t really count as writing!), and work on some side projects. I’ve been getting the itch to do more programming and hacking. I want to sit down and teach myself Python, or PHP, or build something cool on Google App Engine or Amazon EC2 or something. Create. Build. Hack. Teach. Do.

And as much as I love reading, something’s gotta give, so we’ll see how long I can last on this feed diet…


Come See my Amazon Kindle in Portland Today

Published
by
Josh Bancroft
on May 29, 2008
. 1 Comment

I’m going to be showing off my Kindle in downtown Portland today. I noticed on the Kindle site that they set up a “See a Kindle in your City” forum, where people can volunteer to show off their Kindle. It’s a brilliant idea - I end up doing a public demo of my Kindle almost every time I pull it out in public, and I love to talk about it. Most Kindle owners are natural evangelists, and the Kindle is the type of device that you almost have to see and put hands on to really “get” it. Absolute genius on Amazon’s part, facilitating these “show and tell” meetups.

Here’s my thread in the “See a Kindle in your city” forum, with the details: I’m going to be at Pioneer Place Mall in downtown Portland at 2:00 PM today (May 29, 2008). I’ll be in the little atrium at the bottom of the escalators, near the Apple Store and the Gap. Look for the orange Crocs. :-)

If you come to the meetup, or otherwise decide now is the time to buy a Kindle (they’re in stock, and just got a 10% price drop, down to $359), I’d appreciate it if you use this Amazon affiliate link. I get a small percentage from Amazon, which goes to help pay for all of the dang Kindle books I find myself buying and reading these days. ;-)

For some background, here’s my video “unboxing” and initial impressions post, a post I wrote about why I think ebooks are a great entertainment value, and a really old post I wrote as a rebuttal to Kindle critics. Let me know if you have any thoughts or questions on any of that - like I said, I love to talk about my Kindle!


Today’s your last chance to submit Ignite Portland 3 presentation ideas

Published
by
Josh Bancroft
on May 28, 2008
. 0 Comments

Holy cow! Ignite Portland 3 is sneaking up on us, fast! The event will be held on June 18, at the Bagdad Theater in Portland (same place it was last time - RSVP at Upcoming). Know what that means? It means that today, May 28, is the last day we’re accepting presentation idea submissions. Cutoff is midnight (PDT).

If you’ve taken part in Ignite Portland before, you know that the mix of 5 minute, 20 slide presentations is all over the map - pepper to rockets, Dr. Seuss to David Hasselhoff. That’s what makes it so awesome! But we are totally, 100% dependent on YOU for all of those cool ideas and presentations (I sound like a public radio fund drive, don’t I? ;-) ).

We had a shorter submission window this time, and I think we’ve gotten a lower number of ideas submitted (I’d have to check on that). Know what that means? It means the chances of YOUR idea getting selected to present is HIGHER THAN EVER.

So head on over to the submission page before midnight, give us a summary of who you are and what your presentation idea is, and help us to make Ignite Portland 3 even MORE awesome than the last two! We’ve got a reputation to uphold here, people, and we’re counting on you.

Don’t let the Portland geeky crafty bacon-y crowd down! ;-)


WebVisions 2008 was Awesome

Published
by
Josh Bancroft
on May 23, 2008
. 1 Comment

I’ve spent yesterday and today at the WebVisions 2008 conference, at the Oregon Convention Center in downtown Portland. I was asked to speak on a panel about Open Source and Open Content with Ward Cunningham (most famous for inventing the wiki), Deb Bryant (OSU Open Source Lab), and Bryan Jamison (Open Sourcery).

I was late yesterday morning, because I had an appointment at the Apple Store Genius Bar to see about getting my iPhone replaced (it had a dead strip where touch stopped working - it’s a known hardware issue, and they replaced it for free, no hassles. It was awesome!). I went to Marshall Kirkpatrick’s session on advanced RSS ninja techniques, and I learned a ton (mental note: need to spend a LOT more time playing with Feed Informer, AideRSS, Dapper, and Yahoo Pipes). I thought I knew a lot about RSS and feed tools, but Marshall is the king, and I bow down before him. It was great stuff.

I spent some time in the hallways, chatting with old friends, and meeting new people. One of the things I love about geeky conferences is the chance to associate a real human with a Twitter handle or blog URL or an email address. :-) Last night was the WebVisionary Awards, which I wasn’t able to attend. Emma had her preschool graduation last night, and I wouldn’t miss that for the world (it was great - she was so cute, and looked so grown up! I can’t believe she’s starting kindergarten soon).

Today started off with my panel with Ward, Deb, and Bryan. I was by far the least experiences person on the panel, I think, and I felt a little nervous. I hoped that I would have something to contribute. The panel turned out just fine - we had some great questions, some great discussion, and I think I did an OK job of sharing some interesting stuff. I got to throw out a couple of good quotes, like “if your business model depends on controlling access to something (software, media, etc.), then you don’t really have customers. You have hostages.” Couple that with a few references to Cory Doctorow, Creative Commons, and 1000 True Fans, and I think I did OK. The best part of the panel, for me, was hearing what my co-panelists had to say. Ward had some GREAT insight on the perils of artificial scarcity, and after the session, we were chatting about his Three Reasons Companies Want To Try Open Content (1. because of buzz, 2. because they want slave labor, or 3 because they really want to build community). I have lots more thoughts on that, and I’m sure I’ll be posting more on the topic soon.

After lunch I went to Andy Baio’s (@waxpancake on Twitter) session on “the anatomy of a meme”. He covered the basics of what makes up an internet meme (you know, LOLCats, All Your Base, badger badger, the Numa Numa dance, Chocolate Rain, etc. - Google for examples). It was a great talk, and I tweeted lots of quotes and ideas while I was there. I was all excited, because a new internet meme broke just this morning - less than a couple of hours before Andy’s session. The band Weezer released a music video for their song, Pork and Beans, that was totally made up of various internet memes and YouTube stars. I thought maybe I could get a little bit of “first-to-share” cred by telling Andy and the room about it, but he’s too fast. He had already worked it into his presentation, and showed the video to the room. It’s hilarious - you should check it out below. How many of the memes/references can you spot?


Now, I’m catching up on email and a few other things, then headed home for date night (going to take Rachel to see Iron Man tonight! Yay! :-) ). Have a great weekend!


Serious Cat Sez: The Internets are Serious Business

Published
by
Josh Bancroft
on May 16, 2008
. 4 Comments

Just hung this in my cube, to remind all of us at Intel Software Network of our solemn responsibility:

The Internets Are Serious Business

Happy Friday! :-)


Whoa. Wired (Condé Nast) bought Ars Technica?!

Published
by
Josh Bancroft
on May 16, 2008
. 7 Comments

Update: Here’s Ken Fisher’s announcement of the deal on Ars.

It is with much pride and pleasure that I announce that Ars Technica has been acquired by Condé Nast. Ars Technica will now grow with the tools and resources of Condé Nast’s WIRED Digital unit. WIRED Digital oversees the business operations of not only WIRED.com, but also Reddit, WebMonkey, HotWired, and other technology destinations. Ars Technica will remain an independent publication, with the same editorial leadership in place. I will remain the Editor-in-Chief, and Jon, Eric, and the rest of the editorial team is staying on board, too.

Ars Technica is now focused on increasing its coverage by bringing more experts onboard to fill out our technical mojo. We’re going to get broader, but also more in-depth, in areas of IT and science. We are going to be opening offices in San Francisco and Chicago in a matter of weeks, and we are rearranging our editorial team slightly, with Jon Stokes now running Reviews and Features as Deputy Editor, while Eric Bangeman will continue running News and Journals as our Managing Editor.

Saw this break first on Twitter, from Marshall Kirkpatrick first, then Mike Arrington himself on Twitter. They’re reporting that Wired (Condé Nast) has purchased my favorite geek news site and online community, Ars Technica:

Condé Nast has acquired popular technology blog Ars Technica, we’ve confirmed. The site will become part of Wired Digital (which in turn is under CondéNet, run by Sarah Chubb). Wired Digital assets include Wired.com and Reddit (acquired in 2006). The acquisition price will not be disclosed, but our sources say it is in the $25 million range, which is what Condé Nast paid for Wired.com in 2006.

Effectively, Ars Technica is now part of Wired. Look for an official announcement next week.

This marks a new beginning for Ars Technica, which was originally founded in 1998 by Ken “Caesar” Fisher (based in Boston) and Jon “Hannibal” Stokes (based in Chicago). They, along with their 8 or so employees, will remain with the company as it is integrated into Wired Digital.

Wow. I’ve been a huge fan of Ars for several years, and a PAYING subscriber (for access to certain parts of the forum community, but mostly to show them my support with my wallet) since 2001.

The “news” part of the site, the front page, has always been OK, and lately has bloomed into one of the best tech news sources out there (and I’m not just saying that because I’m friends with several of the writers and editors).

But the forum and community there have always been the heart of Ars. They are my “gold standard” for how to do an online tech community right. Amazing signal to noise ratio, fun, friendly, super-knowledgeable people. Before we all started saying “if Google doesn’t know it, nobody knows it”, I was saying “if Ars doesn’t know it, nobody knows it.”

I have to admit that my fear is Wired will do something to screw up this forum community. Overrun the place with ads (it has them already, but they’re tasteful and non-obtrusive), do something to the forum software that breaks it or makes it even more unstable (the load the Ars forums puts on its host is absolutely massive), or something worse.

I started a thread about this on Ars itself, in The Lounge forum (and was beaten by ONE MINUTE by another poster, so my thread might get locked in favor of not having two threads on the topic- UPDATE: yup, mine’s locked, use the other one). I’m sure this is going to get discussed to no end in the coming weeks. The people on Ars are nothing if not outspoken and opinionated (in a good way). ;-)

I hope this all works out. Congrats to Ken, Jon, Jacqui, Clint, Ben, David, and all the rest of the Ars crew. Hope you get a nice fat cut, and get to keep rocking the tech coverage!


Advanced Twitter Fu: Become a Master

Published
by
Josh Bancroft
on May 13, 2008
. 31 Comments

Everyone talks about Twitter. It’s hard to describe why people like it and use it so much. You have to use it, and connect with some people, to really see why it’s worth it. If you’re looking at it from the outside, like watching the public timeline, it’s going to seem stupid and useless. That’s because, used like that, it is.

BUT.

If you know what you’re doing, Twitter is a REALLY POWERFUL and REALLY COOL way to connect with people. You can find basic, “entry level” explanations about why you should use Twitter everywhere. I even wrote such a post a couple of months ago (which includes the excellent “Twitter in Plain English” video, which you must watch if you haven’t already). The rest of this post is going to assume you have a (very) basic understanding of what Twitter is, and how it works. If not, go read my previous post, watch the video, and come back. I’ll wait. :-)

The Twitter Fu is Strong With This One

What I want to talk about here is some advanced “Twitter Fu” - techniques for “power users” (I hate that term), and people who are ready to start taking advantage of some of the really remarkable things you can accomplish with it. This isn’t comprehensive, of course, but I do speak from experience. What I’m going to write about comes from my daily use and experience with Twitter (which started in July 2006, making me an old timer in the Twitterverse. Most importantly, I want to show some ways you can use Twitter to accomplish something REALLY remarkable - connect up people in a community (or build a new community) with strong ties.

Here’s the reason I think all of this is so important. My job, and Intel Software Network’s mission, is to build community. Community grows from connections made between people with a common interest. One way people make connections is through conversation. Real conversation in their natural human voice, with another human. You can’t have a conversation with a corporation. You just can’t. This is why I’m always harping on conversations, conversations, conversations! Twitter (and blogs, and other net tools, too) makes it easy to have more conversations, and thus build more connections, with other humans. You increase your “human surface area” - the ways people can connect with you. If you’re a software person, think of it as exposing a new API endpoint for people to hook into and use. And when you have more and more of these human connections, a really cool thing emerges - community. See how that all ties in?

Enough philosophical background. Let’s get on the the real, practical things you can do to become a high level Twitter Fu Master.

Grow Your Network, Carefully

Twitter is useless without following people. But it’s worse than useless if you follow people you don’t know. The public timeline, while it may be an entertaining peek into what the entire world is saying, isn’t going to do anything to connect you to those other people. Your network is the heart of Twitter. Guard it jealously. Follow people you know (either in real life, or through online interactions, or whatever). Don’t follow people you don’t know, or who you don’t have any reason to follow, other than because they followed you. In other words, don’t follow someone if you have no idea who they are. Reciprocating a “follow” on Twitter is NOT required, and no one is going to get offended if you don’t follow them back just because they followed you.

I did this in the beginning, and I found that it just added noise to my Twitter stream. So I pruned my “following” list down to people I had either met in real life, or knew from some other interaction. Basically, it came down to “do I have to think for more than half a second to know who this person is?” If they don’t pass that test, I don’t follow. You’ve got to keep the signal to noise ratio of your Twitter stream as high as possible. It’s hard enough only following people you DO know.

However, as commenters below have reminded me, it can be fun and useful to add new followees based on who the people in your network are talking with. You’ll naturally get to know new people through Twitter, and your network will grow. This is a good thing. I just think you should be careful, and no go crazy and add everyone and their dog (or cat) without a reason. Or, as @scobleizer says, “You are defined by who you follow.” ;-)

Use a Desktop Client and Your Phone

There are two times you’ll want to use Twitter: when you’re at your computer, and when you’re not. For when you’re at your computer, I highly recommend using a desktop client application, which makes your Twitter stream kind of like an IM conversation. It’s always there, you can pay attention to it, or hide it in the background. But having a desktop client has lots of advantages over using the Twitter.com web page to engage with your network.

There are lots of desktop clients to choose from. I personally use and love one called Twitterrific, from Craig Hockenberry and Icon Factory. It’s Mac only, but I love it because a) it’s beautiful, b) it uses Growl for notifications, and c) I’ve been using it since it came out, and I’m used to it (inertia is a powerful thing). If you’re not on a Mac, or for some reason you don’t want to use Twitterrific, there are some awesome clients that use the cross platform Adobe AIR runtime (Windows, Mac, and now Linux). Spaz, Twhirl, and Alert Thingy are worth a look. They all do pretty much the same thing, but some offer features like integration with FriendFeed, Jaiku, Pownce, etc. Try them all and find one you like.

A desktop client is for when you’re sitting at your computer (which, for me, is most of the day). If you’re anything like me, you have a whole bunch of browser windows or tabs open at any given time. It’s worth it to have Twitter outside of that, in its own place. You can see the stream of conversation in your network flow by, hop in and tweet or reply to something, and get alerted when there’s a reply or direct message directed at you. If you need to concentrate, and avoid distraction, just hide or close the app.

When you’re away from your computer, use Twitter on your phone. Any cell phone that can do text messaging is a great Twitter client. Just enable your Twitter account to work via text messages on your phone. You have full control over what alerts/incoming messages you receive (all, direct, etc.). I follow so many people that the volume of tweets is just too much to deal with in text messages (not to mention expensive!), so I only get a text message from Twitter when I receive a Direct (private) message. But, even if you get no text message alerts at all, it’s important to set this up, so you can SEND tweets from your phone. Then, get in the habit of doing it.

If you have a phone with a web browser (iPhone, BlackBerry, Windows Mobile, or whatever), you can use the Twitter mobile web interface at http://m.twitter.com. It’s fast, light, and provides an easy way to both read your tweets and post new ones from your phone. Depending on the device you have, there are other options. iPhone owners should check out an amazing web-based Twitter interface for iPhone called Hahlo (and rumor has it there will be an iPhone version of Twitterrific as soon as Apple launches the iPhone App Store - I can’t wait!). For BlackBerry and Windows Mobile devices, there are free applications you can install on your phone to use Twitter. I haven’t used any of these, so I can’t really make a specific recommendation, but do some Googling, ask around on your Twitter network, and you can probably find one that you like.

Integrate Twitter With Your Online Life

Remember how I said that the whole point of all of this is to increase your conversational surface area, to make it easier for people to connect to you by conversing with you? To aid in that, you’ll want to include hooks/links to your presence on Twitter from the other places where you interact with people.

At the very least, put a link to your Twitter page on your blog and in your email signature and on your business cards.

Beyond that, there are a ton of great options for integrating your Twitter “microposts” (as I call them) on your blog, from a simple javascript badge to more complicated integrations (like the way I do it on my blog, which I explain “how and why” in this post). You can make this as simple or as complex as you want. Go nuts. But do it.

If you use social networks like Facebook, chances are there’s a way to integrate your Twitter conversations. Facebook lets you connect your tweets with your “Status” updates on Facebook, and vice versa. I haven’t used them, but there are ways to integrate Twitter with your MySpace page and I’m sure there are more. Again, do some Googling, and ask your new most valuable knowledge sharing tool, your Twitter network.

Don’t Miss Any Conversations

Twitter lets you direct a message at a specific person in two ways. First is the direct “D” message, which sends a private message that only the recipient can see. This is kind of like a short email. The second, and far more common way is the @reply. You can indicate that a tweet is for a certain person by typing @theirusername. Twitter turns that into a link to that person on Twitter, and TRIES to bring that message to their attention. But they way they do it is broken. It doesn’t work if the @username part isn’t at the beginning of the tweet. It doesn’t work if they don’t have their Twitter settings configured to show them “All @ replies”. If you want to be a Twitter master, you have to take a couple of extra steps to make sure that you don’t miss any messages directed at you using the @ sign.

This is where third party search tools like TweetScan and Summize come in. I’m assuming you’re using a feed reader/aggregator like Google Reader (you ARE using an aggregator, aren’t you? If not, we need to have a serious talk). If so, you can use TweetScan or Summize to do a search for your username, then subscribe to the feed for those search results. Presto - you’ll know every time someone even mentions your name on Twitter, whether you’re following them or not. At the very least, you need to do this. But search is powerful, and can do some other cool things, too.

For some reason, people often misspell my username on Twitter, or just make up some @username that has parts of my name, but isn’t anywhere near correct. No problem. I just set up search feeds on Summize to look for jabancroft (the correct name), bancroft, jbancroft, and joshbancroft. That way, I hear what people are saying about/to me, no matter how badly they butcher my name. If you know of common misspellings of your username, you should subscribe to search feeds for those, too.

Also, if there’s a specific topic, company, or product name that you want to track on Twitter, to see what people are saying, you can simply create a search feed for that word/phrase and subscribe to it. Twitter has a “track” feature, but it only works if you get updates via text message or IM - it doesn’t work if you use the web or a desktop client app. I have a few search feeds on Twitter - one for “Intel“, for example - that let me see everything people are saying, good and bad. Can you think of something that would be useful for? If you can’t, you’re probably not trying hard enough.

But Wait! There’s More!

Wow, this post got long. But I still have more to say. Specifically, some techniques about building groups and communities of interest on top of Twitter (something it lacks the native ability to do) using some simple tricks, and mashup tools. The online shoe seller Zappos.com has been getting a lot of press lately for their use of Twitter, and I’ve been involved in a couple of really cool mashups in the Portland geek community, like PulseoFPDX.com. How is this useful, rather than just interesting? Besides being a peek into the “stream of collective consciousness” of a particular group of people on Twitter, it’s a great way to find people to connect with. You know, build community by connecting with other people you know and have something in common with.

And I’ve got a few more tricks up my sleeve, too, so stay tuned! :-)