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Buffer Helps You Avoid The Flood

// December 7th, 2011 // No Comments » // blogging, Social Networks

I have over 250 feeds in my RSS reader, and I keep up with a TON of news that way. I also often find things that I want to share. Unfortunately, due to my schedule, I often plow through hundreds of news items in one sitting, and if I were to share everything I wanted to, I would flood my Facebook and Twitter timelines and all my friends would unfollow me. I had often wished there was a way to have these sort of trickle into my timeline periodically, to avoid the flood.

Enter Buffer. Buffer is an awesome service that does exactly what I was looking for. You can load your ‘buffer’ with up to 10 posts (you can pay a small monthly fee for more, if you need them) and then those posts will trickle out to either Facebook, Twitter, or both at various times throughout the day.

The times that Buffer publishes your posts can be chosen in two different ways. By default, Buffer will analyze your Twitter and Facebook timelines to determine the best times for your individual usage. You can also specify certain times, if you prefer.

There are two main reasons I love Buffer:

1. It’s a ‘set-it-and-forget-it’ type service. Once I set everything up, I simply click a button to load content into my Buffer and that’s it – everything else is automated. I even get an email from Buffer when my queue is running low – a great reminder that I have room to add content, if I wish.

2. Multiple Posting Options. Buffer offers a handful of different ways to load content. You can use a Chrome plugin, a bookmarklet, integrate it into Google Reader’s ‘Send to’ option, or use email or the Android app. It’s genius, and it makes loading my Buffer completely easy no matter where I’m consuming content.

There are a few limits to Buffer, though. For starters, the free version only lets you load up 10 items at a time, and you can only have 1 Twitter and 1 Facebook account connected. If you want more of any of those, you’ll need to pony up $10/month for the ‘Pro’ service. The other downside is that Buffer auto-populates itself with the meta data of the page you’re looking at. Most of the time, this is NOT optimized for sharing via social networks, so I find myself having to tweak the post before I submit it to Buffer, which is somewhat annoying. It would be great if Buffer could automatically reformat its content to include just the headline of the post and the link, at least.

There are TONS of tools to help you be more productive and efficient with social media, and quite honestly, many of them are good, but many of them also require quite a bit of upkeep. Buffer solves this one problem for me, and it solves it really well. I would highly recommend Buffer if you’re a prolific sharer and want an easy way to spread that out a little bit.

Disclosure: I really honestly love Buffer. The links above are referral links – if you sign up through these links, I’ll get an extra post (and you start with an extra post, too!). Honestly, the free 10 posts are good enough for me.

Churches Going Social

// November 13th, 2011 // 1 Comment » // communication, Social Networks

I wrote previously about my church using SMS to add to the sermon experience, so I wasn’t too surprised to see this added to the information card that’s part of our bulletin:

In addition to the regular information that you’re invited to share, our church now has fields for you to fill in your Facebook or Twitter username, which is quite interesting. I immediately wondered how they would use this for outreach, which led me to wonder if our church has a Facebook or Twitter profile. Turns out, they have both Twitter and Facebook. (Personal note: I need to find out who manages these). Interestingly enough, there is no mention of these accounts in the bulletin, nor is there a link from the church’s website (http://www.mckinneychurch.com). It could be that they’re in ‘soft-launch’ mode, but still interesting.

So, back to the original thought: What would I expect to ‘get’ from the church by sharing my Facebook/Twitter username on this form? If I had thought more about it during service, I would have put my usernames down to see if they would follow. I’m interested to find out how they use this info. If YOU had put your information down, what would YOU expect to get from the church?

And, back to the second thought, what would I expect to see on the social profiles of my church? Reading through, it looks like they just share reminders about various events, prayer requests (when appropriate to share), and some teasers to get me in the door on Sunday. Good stuff, but a bit light.

How does your church use social media?

Why Is Netflix So Anti-Social?

// June 21st, 2011 // 3 Comments » // annoying, Social Networks

I’ve been a Netflix subscriber since September of 2008 – that’s nearly 3 years – and I’m a heavy user of the service. I actually use the streaming feature more, but I do the DVDs occasionally, as well (I’m horrible at remembering to return them). Thus far, I’ve rated over 200 movies, and I’ve spent quite a while telling the service my preferences, using the handy (if not a bit limiting) ‘Never, Sometimes, Often’ rating scoring system. I really thoroughly enjoy testing Netflix’s ability to recommend movies that I’ll really enjoy, so I use that feature the most.

Unfortunately, there’s one thing that Netflix absolutely sucks at – being social. By that I mean that the service makes no attempt whatsoever to allow me to connect to my friends. There is some rudimentary Facebook support, but it’s only used (as best I could tell) to share my ratings. It’s not enough, and it limits the fun of the service, especially in bringing the community feeling back to movies.

How Could Netflix Be More Social?

For starters, Netflix could offer me the ability to find friends of mine who are also using Netflix. Many other online services make it easy for me to connect my Google, Twitter, or Facebook accounts to see if I’ve already connected with someone there, and then let me add that person as a contact on the service. This is a great feature that I often use to quickly build a contact list on a new service.

There are a handful of reasons I might want to connect with others on a movie service such as Netflix. For starters, I’d like to see what movies my friends are watching, as well as what rating they gave the movie. Clearly if 5 of my friends watched a movie and all rated it 2 stars, I’d rather avoid that film, even if it would otherwise match my preferences or viewing habits. Likewise, if several of my friends gave a movie a 5 star rating, but the movie didn’t really match my preferences or viewing habits, I might like to check it out, since so many of my friends liked it.

With an established buddy list in Netflix, I could also recommend movies to my friends individually – services like GetGlue and GoMiso already allow me to ‘check-in’ to various media – such as a movie – and a contact list in Netflix could offer me a similar experience. With Netflix’s Stream Instantly service, I could be offered the chance to share my movie selection to Facebook/Twitter/etc. either at the beginning of the movie or at the end with just a click of the remote.

As it stands, Netflix is a complete island. The movies that it recommends are solely based on me and my past history. While this often results in some good recommendations, it’s entirely limited.

Welcoming Microsoft Into Your Livingroom

// June 13th, 2011 // No Comments » // technology

I bought an Xbox 360 with Kinect a few months ago, and have done my best to fully embrace the idea and technology. The Kinect is definitely the future of how we interact with our in-home entertainment – gestures, voice command, facial recognition, it’s all there. Music and video content is readily available, too, with Netflix, Hulu Plus, Zune, and Last.FM (I don’t have a Zune account yet, to be honest). In fact, we were able to disconnect our TV service, saving nearly $70/month. The only time thus far that we’ve noticed is when there were bad storms around and we didn’t have reliable news – a problem that could be fixed with a $30-40 antenna from RadioShack.

At E3 last week, Microsoft revealed quite a bit of information about the future of Kinect – TV service is coming soon, as are additional video content providers. Microsoft also introduced a new feature, called Kinect Fun Labs. It’s an experimental area where you can simply play around with the Kinect sensor through a number of different random minigames. For one of these, you can create a bobblehead of yourself, adding some fun costumes, stances, and voice recordings. Once you’re through creating, the game gives you the option of uploading your creation to KinectShare.com, which I thought was rather interesting, so of course, I opted in.

KinectShare.com is themed similar to the Kinect part of Xbox, and seems to be a web-based storage area for your creations, as well as your photos/videos from other Kinect games, such as Kinect Adventures or Kinect Sports. Annoyingly (albeit unsurprisingly) the site is built on Microsoft’s Silverlight technology, which means I wasn’t able to use it from the iPad (yes, I have an iPad, more on that in a different post).

The first thing I wanted to do was share my bobblehead creation with my friends on Facebook and Twitter (because you know, I’m a social guy). Sadly, the only sharing button I saw was for Facebook, and it was a bit clunky to share. First, you have to use the KinectShare app – no use of the bookmarklet here. Obviously, I can really easily let the app make the post and then go through and remove the app from my approvals list (which I often do), but most consumers aren’t going to go through that hassle. Once it did post, you can see below that it wasn’t even optimized to really give good details:

I wanted to share my bobblehead with my friends because I’m still convinced that many more of my Facebook/Twitter friends have Xboxes, but somehow, I can’t seem to find a way to confirm that. I’ve posted my Xbox Live username several times on my stream and only gotten a few requests as a result, so my friends list is rather small, and therein lies my biggest problem with the Xbox thus far. I’ve owned it for months and have only played online twice, and only one of those times was with someone I actually knew (the other was a random online matchup).

I have a few friends, but to be honest, half of them I’m not sure precisely *who* they are. There doesn’t seem to be a way to find out someone’s *real* name through Xbox Live, so you have to either have them tell you their Xbox Live name (through some means other than Xbox Live), or you have to guess. My name is ‘rcadden‘, so I’m pretty easy to find, but I’ve noticed most people have completely random usernames that have nothing to do with the rest of their online presence.

If Microsoft is really going to take over the entertainment duties for my household, they’re going to have to do better than that. I have an HTC HD7, which is powered by Windows Phone, so why can’t I let the phone scan my contacts to see if there are any matches? Why can’t I tweet or update my Facebook status automatically when I unlock achievements? If I have a game that one of my Xbox friends starts playing, there should be an option to let me know that, either via email, SMS, or an in-game alert, so that I can decide if I want to invite him/her to play.

The Xbox with Kinect is easily one of the most fascinating, entertaining technology purchases I’ve made in a long while, but I’m disappointed to see that it’s so disjointed still. I can’t wait until Microsoft takes full advantage of the opportunity they’ve created and makes the experience more social and connected.

(Of course, as I request these social options, I should also make it clear that I also need granular access to toggle these settings. Let me be in control and you’ll find that I’m much more likely to share.)

What Worked At SXSW 2011

// March 17th, 2011 // 2 Comments » // Mobile, toys

I just got back from SXSW 2011, the annual nerdfest that takes place in Austin, Texas each spring. It’s a pretty harsh environment for someone to remain constantly connected. SXSW is spread out over several venues and covers most of the downtown area of Austin, so you’re constantly walking between hotels and meeting rooms. Despite the efforts of companies like Samsung to setup charging stations, there’s a pretty severe lack of power outlets available. Also, because you’re constantly on the move, you don’t really have time to sit there charging your gadgets, anyways.

The situation is quite similar to any other concert or festival that you would go to – wanting to stay online and connected to your friends pretty much constantly, and sharing things like photos, videos, and location with your friends, as well. What with summer coming soon, I thought it would be a good idea to share with you the things that kept me connected while at SXSW 2011.

HARDWARE

1. T-Mobile G2 – this is by far one of my favorite smartphones ever. It’s small, powerful, has a great battery, solid keyboard, and mine’s running Android v2.3 Gingerbread via CyanogenMod7. With the throngs of iPhone users at SXSW, it was rather nice to be using T-Mobile’s wacky 3G network – in fact, I was on HSPA+ (what they call 4G) pretty much the whole weekend, which was awesome. The G2 is so versatile that while I brought my Asus EeePC 1000HE netbook, the only time I used it was to charge up my phone via USB.

2. Samsung Galaxy Tab – another Android-powered device, this was a loaner through my new job at RadioShack. While similar to the G2, the Galaxy Tab’s bigger 7-inch display made browsing the panels on the SXSW GO! app much easier, and Sprint’s network was decent, as well. The Galaxy Tab’s front-facing camera works with the built-in QIK video application, too, so I could easily make talking-head videos to share with you guys.

3. Portable Power – this is the real trick, honestly. Portable power packs like this Enercell one from RadioShack are basically a big fat battery, cased in plastic, with USB output. My phone’s battery capacity is 1300mAh, so the 2300mAh Portable Power from Enercell can refill my phone fully once, and still have plenty left to get me through the rest of the day. Even better, it’s super compact, so I can stuff it in my pocket without having to bring my whole backpack (or toss a few of them into my backpack, for longer trips).

4. Belkin Portable Power Strip – I bought this a few years ago, and it’s definitely great to travel with. You can easily convert a single power outlet into three 3-prong outlets and 2 USB charging ports, all with surge protection. It’s a bit bulky, but completely worth it when travelling.

Software

1. Beluga – I set this up the other day, just after it was bought by Facebook, and was pleased to see how good it worked. I was able to setup multiple ‘Pods’ to keep track of different groups of people, and we were all able to keep in touch easily. This is much better than sending SMS to everyone in a group, and the added multimedia capabilities are awesome, as well.

2. Twitter - I’m a Twitter nut (you can find me at @Rcadden) and used it extensively at SXSW for several reasons. Primarily, it’s a great way to keep track of all my friends who are at the event. Twitter is also great for keeping up with the various panels and sessions at SXSW. Some of the speakers setup a specific hashtag for their session, so you could chat about what they were talking about, or pose a question.

3. Foursquare – I know, I gave up Foursquare a few months ago, but the service really shines at events such as SXSW with multiple venues. In addition to the cool badges, I was able to see where the crowds were and where my friends were. The new version of Foursquare for Android gives you notifications of your friends’ checkins, too, so I could know if I was nearby someone. I’ll probably continue to use Foursquare at home now, but in a much more limited capacity.

4. SMS – plain-jane text messages also proved useful, especially when the data networks got overloaded. It’s also great for friends with different phones that may not support Beluga.

5. SXSW GO app – when I went to SXSW back in 2009, we didn’t get an app, just an iPhone-only website, leaving me and my Symbian-powered smartphone holding a hard copy of the session schedules. This year, SXSW had an app for most platforms, and it worked really well. Despite some long load times, I was able to star the sessions that I wanted to attend on my computer and then sync that back to my phone. I could also search for various keywords, to make wading through the options so much easier. My only complaint was the interface – panel titles were only given one line and only showed 3-4 words, so I had to click through every one just to see if it was interesting.

Next year for SXSW, I’ll probably leave the netbook at home and just bring my phone, a tablet, and a few portable power units. This will make my backpack even lighter, which is also a huge plus. If you made it out to SXSW this year, did you find anything else, hardware or software, that was simply indispensable?