Clear eyes, full hearts, can’t lose.
Julie Taylor - Elizabeth Smith
Henry Saracen - Douglas D. Smith
Jason Street - Steve Young (concussion; career ended)
Lyla Garrity - Barbara Graham (Steve Young’s wife)
Today, Stereogum launched their new Buzz Chart. I love the concept in theory (a lot!), but it’s not based in reality. It seems to be some sort of pseudo editor’s pick, not the “scientific and definitive list” they’re touting.
They claim the rank of the story represents it’s “size,” whatever that means. One can only guess that the thumbs up/down designation has to do with an overall sentiment of the story. However, whose sentiment? I don’t know. That’s not explained anywhere.
What I do know is that I’d love to see the methodology for how this is put together since it’s — you know — scientific and definitive and all.
So, I went out and retrieved the social sharing data for all the top stories listed in the chart. Below are the results — in the same order — as this week’s chart:
Click to enlarge
I gathered all of this data around 8 p.m. EST Thursday, January 5. But, you can see as well as I can that there is no pattern for determining how this chart was ordered.
Perhaps the stories I chose were wrong. It’s completely possible given that the chart DOES NOT LINK TO THE STORIES IN QUESTION (wtf people). If someone wants to send me the correct links, I’m happy to update and revise. Otherwise… bananas.
Here’s what I know: Their #10 story (presumably the relatively least important story on the chart) has almost 1,000 Reddit shares and the next closest has exactly zero (let alone the 1,000+ Facebook shares more than the next closest story). That would easily make it the most popular story here if the chart was based on sheer popularity of links (e.g. pageviews), which is where you’d probably start if you’re trying to determine bigness.
Now, I know that social shares do not reflect direct traffic for any given story. But they are a healthy indicator of the story’s value — a barometer if you will. More shares of a story tend to indicate popularity. Popularity tends to indicate reach. Reach is basically a fancy way of describing how big a story is, which is what the Buzz Chart is supposedly trying to capture.
I’d love to hear more about how the chart is put together (the specific methodology) and would be happy to revise this post if sufficient evidence can be presented. Otherwise, the Buzz Chart is bullshit.
Please note that the views expressed here are my own personal opinion and do not reflect those of SPIN Media, LLC.
I really like my iPhone 4. It’s the first piece of technology I’ve owned that has truly enabled me to do everything I need (and want) to do. I’ve booked flights, video chatted with my mom, read books, watched live baseball and World Cup soccer, played graphic-rich games, found my way when lost, and generally become more productive because of my iPhone. It’s kind of funny to say, but people really love their iPhones. Literally.
But it wasn’t all rosy.
My first iPhone was a refurb 16gb 3G. I cracked the screen pretty much immediately. Despite that it was by far the best phone I had ever owned (previously a bunch of Nokia flip phones and a Blackberry Curve). Then I upgraded to iOS 4. And, my phone became a brick.
It was beyond sluggish. Auto-correct would change text messages AFTER I TAPPED SEND. Apps crashed constantly. I was doing two or three hard resets a day just to keep the device on life support. It’s kind of crazy to think that people are trying to sue Apple because the update turned the device into “little more use than that of a paper weight.” But it’s true. My 3G had become useless to me. It was disconcerting and frustrating. I had considered getting an Android phone at that point. I tried to downgrade, but it seemed like way too much work and likely I’d eff it up.
I was six months or so away from an upgrade with AT&T, so I stuck it out and upgraded.
I tell this story because the iPhone 3G is an amazing little device that was corrupted by a software update that ruined it. That update made me resent my phone. It was like a withering relationship and we were pissed off at each other all the time. It was terrible. Apple had cheated on me. I gave up on trying new apps. For someone who’s always been on top of technology, I felt like a luddite.
It’s an odd feeling being totally defeated by good technology that goes bad. Especially when the underpinning hardware is just fine AND still much better than most devices out there.
We put our trust in technology and often times it fails us. These broken promises are what frustrates the average person and makes them skeptical of technology. It’s also why they often opt for the cheaper and inferior products.
In conclusion: great products simply work.
I hate losing files. I also hate carrying around thumb drives and portable external hard drives. In an age when we’re able to blast humans into space for months at a time, it’s ridiculous to think we can’t keep a friggin’ file from going *poof*. I’ve been lugging a bajillion pound (fact.) Dell laptop around the past five years because I had no clear path to backing up whatever files were contained on it.
So, inspired by VC extraordinaire Fred Wilson’s post on how he moved to the cloud, here’s how I did it and how you can, too. It’s a little scary at first, but trust me, you’ll thank me later. And you won’t lose any files. Keep in mind that successfully migrating to the cloud is about creating a workflow you’re comfortable with. So if these processes don’t work for you, improvise as necessary.
Step 1: The Tools
You need the right set of tools to make this work. Thankfully these are all free. Go register for accounts with Dropbox, Evernote, Instapaper, cloudHQ and If This Then That. I’ll wait here.
Ok, good. You’ll probably want to go get yourself a 1Password license as well. And, Google Chrome (taking a leap of faith and assuming you already have a Gmail account…)
Step 2: Getting Setup
Ok, so first things first. Let’s consolidate some data. If you’re like me, you probably have a work and personal computer and have used Safari, Firefox and Chrome throughout the years on each machine. Your data is probably scattered. You’ll want setup Firefox sync and suck all your bookmarks from your other machines over to your current one. Same with Safari (does Safari even have a sync? I have no clue. Use Chrome.). Once your bookmarks and passwords are all sync’d open up Chrome. Go ahead and import bookmarks and passwords from all your browsers into Chrome. The reason we’re using Chrome is that Chrome Sync is superior to Firefox and Safari syncs (again, I have no idea if Safari lets you sync across multiple computers or not. iCloud?) since it brings along extensions to any computer you’re logged into.
Alright, you will now only use Chrome on all computers. It might take a few hours of idle time for all your bookmarks to populate across browser installs you have on different machines, but once it does you’ll never have an issue with finding bookmarks. You bookmark something at work, and it’s instantly at your home. Magic.
Setup Dropbox on all your computers. Drag the Instapaper bookmarklet to your Chrome toolbar. Install the Evernote clipper extension. While you’re at it, might as well make a copy of your Google data and put that in Dropbox for safe keeping.
Step 3: Social
It’s super lovely that we have all these services out there that let you essentially scrapbook your life. It’s super not lovely that they’re scattered across a few different services. Wouldn’t it be nice to collect all those photos in one spot without lifting a finger? Yeah, same here.
I solved this problem for myself by using If This Then That, a nifty tool that let’s you create triggers to — surprise — do something when something else happens. I created a few tasks that automatically take my Facebook, Foursquare, and Instagram photos and puts them in Dropbox folders with all the metadata and date info still attached. Get the ones I created here:
I also setup a few tasks in IFTTT to take RSS feeds and dump them to Evernote as well. The best example is having my Instapaper items sent as they’re saved to Evernote. Love Instapaper, but having my links saved in Evernote gives me more control over them in the future. You can use IFTTT for just about any service worth it’s salt, so poke around and setup what you need. The goal is to consolidate what you’re doing everywhere else into as few places as possible.
Step 4: Setup 1Password
I recently got turned onto this nifty app. It stores all your username and password information for all the sites out there, then allows you to retrieve those and autofill using a single password. You can extend this further by storing your credit card and other sensitive information (like address) with it. It takes a leap of faith, but once you’re comfortable with it, you can safely use hard-to-guess passwords on all the sites you visit, and they even have a way for you to access all your information remotely. I’ve setup my account on all computers and devices using this method:
Step 5: Music and Movies/TV
I love Apple. But I’m not putting my music in their iCloud. I actually use Spotify. However, I’ve sync’d my two iTunes libraries (work and personal) to Google Music. I THEN DELETED MY ENTIRE MUSIC LIBRARY ON ALL COMPUTERS. I’m able to stream this anywhere, anytime. It’s a great companion to Spotify, which already has sync’d up my iTunes libraries. I don’t watch a lot of movies, but if I did I’d probably use some combination of Hulu/Netflix/iTunes paired with AppleTV. The streaming/renting aspect wins out over storing gigabytes of pointless data… Seriously?
UPDATE: I’m giving iTunes Match a try. So far, so good. I revived my libraries via Time Machine and have sync’d both personal and home libraries. I can now grab anything from any device. I imagine I’m going to use iTunes now for the things I care about that are not on Spotify (i.e. fill in the holes with the Adele’s and Black Keys of the world who refuse streaming services). Spotify will remain my chief tool for simply consuming, sharing and discovering music and playlists. I’m thinking Google Music will stay there as a nice backup if I’m neither at a computer with Spotify, or if I’ve lost my iPhone (gasp!). It runs in the background so it’s not much of a concern to me if it’s used, or not.
Step 6: Putting It All Together
Still with me? Good. So this is how I work… I use Gmail for email and for to-do’s using the Tasks feature. Google Docs for all my writing and spreadsheet needs. I do a one-way sync from Google Docs to my Dropbox using cloudHQ. This makes my docs available on all my devices for quick access. Google Calendar for calendering.
Facebook/Twitter/Instagram/Foursquare keeps me social, and all the photos are saved straight to Dropbox, automatically. I bookmark destinations in Chrome and use Instapaper to save articles for reading later (both on computer and iPhone/iPad), while I clip things I’m researching or collecting information about using the Evernote clipper extension (recipes are great for this sort of thing!). When I can’t use Spotify, I’ll use Google Music.
1Password works on all my devices and keeps me secure.
I plan to export my Google data once a year. And every month or two I’ll export my Instapaper (I really don’t know why I do that since it’s also saved in Evernote…). I dump this into Dropbox, too.
I lean on Dropbox pretty heavily. However, just because I have a 150gb hard drive doesn’t mean I need that much Dropbox space. I get by on 50gb. Seriously. Once you remove storing music and movie files from the equation, you open up a ton of possibilities.
I didn’t discuss them, but I use Basecamp for project management and Google Analytics for, well, analytics.
There you have it. A pretty straight-forward approach to moving your life to the cloud and having near data ubiquity across all your computers and devices. And, like Fred Wilson said, ”The sense of freedom that exists when you know your applications and files are available from any device with an internet connection and a browser is amazing. I feel lighter already.”
Enjoy.
I resisted foursquare for a long time. I didn’t really care about badges or mayorships. It didn’t strike me as a particularly interesting way to record the places you’d been, and it was too difficult to extract that info at a later time. There wasn’t a rich community of friends or conversation. The idea of getting deals, or specials, seemed neat, but it was still too difficult and often overly complicated. It was quickly dismissed from my iPhone (twice!) as just another thing I wasn’t going to waste time updating.
That was until I realized the point. And forgive me for this sounding remedial, but foursquare works in two ways: 1) the more you put into foursquare, the more you get out. Especially since the recently released feature, Radar. And, 2) foursquare is a lot like Twitter in that you don’t necessarily need to tweet in order to extract value. In this case, you don’t need to check in to use the “explore” feature for recommendations, but it helps.
Let me explain the first point: Add your real friends on foursquare. Then add some brands like Time Out New York, which curate tons of “best of” lists. Speaking of lists, follow some lists, and add places to your personal to-do list. Check in at places you like to go to (e.g. don’t waste time checking in at the laundromat, but do check into your favorite coffee shop). Turn on Radar. Done.
See, what I didn’t realize about foursquare was that once you reach a threshold of places you’ve checked into (both in terms of quantity as well as diversity), and places you’ve explicitly added to your to-do list, you’ve created an amazingly rich graph about who you are and what you like.
The recommendations get really good at that point. Foursquare has become everything I wish Yelp was. The recommendations are fantastic. I’ve found a ton of places I wouldn’t have normally gone to. The tips keep you hip to what to get/try/avoid. Oh, and there is a certain barrier to entry with foursquare that keeps the spam out (I believe the use of real identities is super important when it comes to recommendations).
I really like their Radar feature. Once you turn that on and you have your friends and lists, it’s always a nice surprise to get a little notification on my iPhone that reminds me that I actually want to stop by certain businesses when I’m in their area. It’s like I have a sidekick. Who doesn’t want a sidekick?
But if you don’t want to to go through the trouble to do all of that, you can still fire up foursquare and check out the recommendations. They’ll just be a little less personal.
Here are a few lists I created to help you make sense of the world:
Enjoy.
Next week I’m going to be backpacking in Northern California and am going to try to use the InstaMapper App with my iPhone to send hourly waypoints to this map. Let’s see how it goes…
GPS tracking powered by InstaMapper.com
As a music fan, I’ve always felt it was difficult to follow all the blogs and music sites. I know what you’re thinking, “How hard is it to go to Pitchfork?” Not very. But, it is, however, time consuming to be comprehensive about it. You have Pitchfork, Stereogum, BrooklynVegan, Spinner, SPIN, NME, MTV, Billboard, etc, etc, etc. To go to each site, scan the headlines and click into something can be time consuming.
I solved this.
I created the Ghetto Web Blaster. It crawls a dozen or so of the most important music websites and presents the user with the latest music news.
What do you think?
During the summer of 2009, I took a road trip to Washington DC and Baltimore for a weekend of baseball, beer and crab with some friends. The first stop was in DC at Nationals Park. The ballgame was pretty poorly attended so we found better seats. They just happened to be along the third base line, halfway between third base and the left field pole, four rows back. Awesome.
During the fourth inning a team representative came by looking for volunteers to participate in a dance competition. The winner would receive a recyclable Washington Nationals tote bag for his entire row.
How could I say no?
And here the second of the two student-made documentaries. This one is from May 2007.
When I was a student at Chico State I DJ’d and later ran the student-run radio station,KCSC, for two years. It was the best experience and I can attribute much of professional achievement to the time I spent at KCSC.
Here is the first of two student-made documentaries I recently rediscovered. This is from 2005.
A great chronicle of KCSC’s long history. Interview and story by Steve Metzger, one of my all-time favorite teachers.
The student-run radio station has endured—and thrived—for more than half a century
Chico State students returning to campus for the spring semester in January 1963 were met, for the first time, with their very own radio station, right on campus. Of course, the original technology, including a handmade transmitter, was rather primitive, and the sound quality of the shows, broadcast only to the Trinity Hall Student Activities Center and Dining Hall each afternoon from 3 to 7 pm, was reportedly horrendous—due in no small part to the original operating budget of $51.51. Still, it was theirs, and it offered a musical alternative to the hits of the day, including “Soldier Boy,” “Roses Are Red (My Love),” and “I Will Follow Him.”
Actually, KCSC is 12 years older than that, having first gone on the air in 1951, when, as part of the school’s speech and drama department, it broadcast old-time radio dramas over the campus public-address system. But it was not until the early 1960s that it began its long and storied history as a student-run alternative music station and home for scores of self-described misfits, many of whom went on to hugely successful careers in and out of broadcasting and entertainment. Its history includes continual haggling with the Associated Students for funding, a rivalry with the “other” campus station (KCHO), and various physical moves. More recently, the station has moved to Internet-only broadcasting, which provides reception from Memphis to Moscow. The station is also enjoying a restored relationship with the University.
Read the complete story here
I was on Cash Cab!
About a year after moving to New York, myself and three friends hailed a cab on our way to a comedy club in Greenwich Village. I like to think we did pretty well for ourselves.
How did we do?
