Despite that, I never really felt that I “got into” the whole twitter phenomenon.  I experimented with different interfaces for it… the basic Twitter web UI, the original Twadget sidebar gadget.  It was largely functional, but not the prettiest thing and had its bugs.  Eventually I stopped using it.

I’ve always had the SMS setup enabled for a small group of my former colleagues, but it was really just our own private backchannel, not the true “twitter” experience as most would describe it.

For a little while I tried various iPhone apps, like the PocketTweets web app, and later Twitterific.  But none of them really stuck.  Now I’m trying out TwitterFon and rather liking it, so maybe, just maybe I’ll start becoming a regular Twitter’er.  Why do I bother?  Well, I’ve attended three “tweet-ups” now hosted in Issaquah by my friend Chris Pirillo, the most recent of which was Thursday evening and featured special guest Chris Brogan.

This afternoon I tried to check on the state of Twitter gadgets for Windows.  Sadly, I have to say it’s not very good.  Of the slim pickings, I’ve installed one called Tweets – which to be fair is labeled as an early beta / preview release.  In terms of appearance, well, we’ll go with “acceptable” which puts it far above the competition.  In terms of features or options, well, it just doesn’t have any.

Now I’m starting to think of just writing my own.  One of the existing gadgets is a CodePlex project called Chirpr, but it looks pretty far from what I’d try to build if I just started my own.  In fact, I’d be tempted to cheat and just write one that uses .NET, or perhaps use it as an excuse to go play with Silverlight.

So now it’s time to get your feedback.  Do you Twitter?  What apps or interfaces do you use?  Do you try to read everything?  Or everything from certain people?  Or do you just respond to interesting tweets if you happen to be looking when one floats by?  Would you use a Windows (i.e. “sidebar”) gadget if there were a good one?  What features or options would be important to you in a desktop Twitter gadget or app?

I never really had any experience with PHP until I started dabbling in WordPress, but it was easy enough to pick up the basics, and the WordPress “API” documentation for building “themes” is quite good.  It provides all the infrastructure for the site and great tools for content editing and publishing, leaving me to only worry about the design and layout of the site itself (and in turn letting the content people worry just about content). 

As an example, the new site I’m working on has a “featured content” slideshow on the home page that I designed using JavaScript and a little PHP.  The PHP code calls into WordPress and grabs the latest 5 pages tagged with “featured” by the editors, and it pulls an excerpt and image from them to display sequentially in a nice little slideshow to show off new and featured content.  WordPress made this easy for me to develop, and makes it easy for my less technical friends who do the content to make use of it.

Now don’t get me wrong, I love ASP .NET.  If I were writing a web service or any kind of complicated web application I’d use that without a doubt, if only because I’m more comfortable in C# and the relevant tools than with their open source / Linux alternatives.  In fact, that’s why BrandonTools.com runs on a Windows server – I had (and still have) some plans to dabble in some web service projects, and so I put that site on a Windows server so I could at least host prototypes there.

Unfortunately, the Community Server software powering BrandonTools.com hasn’t impressed me at all.  In fact, I’m probably going to ditch it soon if I can find a good alternative and can find a reasonable way to migrate as much content as possible.  It’s a shame really, and for me proof that the effectiveness and utility of applications are often more important than the details of underlying technology, or the philosophy with which it was developed.

So for straight-up web site design, I’m hooked on WordPress, and not afraid to admit it.  At the moment it’s clearly the best tool I’ve found for the job.  I would love to see an equivalent platform get developed for Windows / ASP .NET, and who knows, maybe something like Oxite will get there some day.  But so far WordPress seems to be in a league of its own, not just as a blogging platform but as a very effective content management platform – particularly with their latest 2.7 update which really raised the bar.

Oh and did I mention that in 2.7 its web configuration tool has a one-click in-place upgrade option that pulls down the latest version directly from WordPress.org and applies it to your site?  Yeah, it’s seriously slick.

On the other hand, these posts are entirely seasonal, and will most likely end completely after barely more than another month.  If you can bare with them, you may actually find value in my perspective, even if you don’t share it or agree with my political ideology.  I strive to make sure each of my posts has some unique value and is not just a link or “Go Obama!” cheerleading.  In fact, I greatly value the opinions and perspectives of others, so if you do disagree with what I write, my preference would be for you to respond!  Tell me how you see the world, and perhaps we can learn from each other’s perspectives =)

Facebook has all sorts of awesome privacy options, but there’s no way to have my status updates shared with everyone, which is what Twitter allows. Even unauthenticated users can see my Twitter updates. So there is a difference after all. It’s like Instant Messaging, but everyone can see it and jump in whenever they want.

If I wanted to come up with some kind of gimmicky Web 2.0 buzzword for it, I might go with “OpenSource Conversations.” And if I were really shameless, I’d go back and stick it in the title of this post.

What I can’t decide is if Facebook should go in this direction. It’s definitely very close to what they offer. On the other hand, part of what makes Facebook be Facebook is that it’s all about your friends and not so much about how much attention you can get from complete strangers.

I’m curious what other users of both services think. Do you use both Facebook and Twitter? What unique aspect(s) of Twitter do you find appealing?

However, tonight I was hanging out with some of the MVPs (mostly the young, hip Windows Live ones) and finally decided to sign-up. With MVPs looking over my shoulder, the sight of the words “Welcome back, Robert Scoble!” proved to be an irresistable temptation.

Anyway, I’m on Twitter now. It’s pretty much the Facebook “status” feature, ripped out and offered as a standalone service. The real difference is the network of people. Facebook has my friends from high school, college, and most of my 20-something friends all on board. But Twitter has… the entire blogosphere. Or maybe that’s just Scoble’s Twitter followers.

All that I believe has been said publicly is that the next release of windows “won’t take 5 years” and that it won’t be a “minor release.”  Anything else is speculation or misinformation.  In this case, it appears to be speculation based on some old plans and ideas.  Astute readers should have realized that the moment they saw the name “WinFS” appear (for those that haven’t kept up, the oft-misunderstood WinFS is no more).

Parts of it did make me chuckle, though.  Like the non-sensical suggestion that WinFS would replace NTFS in “Vienna.”  Nevermind the fact that WinFS is dead – that’s like saying Avalon will replace DirectX*

*  Avalon requires DirectX (or some rendering technology) in order to render to the screen, much as WinFS requires NTFS (or some filesystem) to store its database.

My first reaction was, “Whoa, cool.” Which quickly was replaced with “What the hell!” I was really only bothered a little bit, mostly thinking that the execution was the problem and not the idea. That didn’t stop me from posting status messages like “Brandon is going to the bathroom. This update brought to you by Facebook, your one-stop stalk shop.” Because I’m just too damn clever like that.

But really I don’t think these features “go too far” as others have said. But I would have done things differently. For example:

1) No warning. No one knew this was coming. There was no chance to provide feedback.
2) A lot happened at once. These kinds of changes should have been rolled out gradually (which is what people are used to with Facebook features), so they’d be less overwhelming.
3) It was retro-active. So status messages, updates, etc that had happened in the past (and most users thought were gone forever) were suddenly visible in a nice little timeline for the world to see. If they’d said “Okay from now on your changes will show up here unless you turn this feature off” I think it would have softened the blow. Instead, you logged into your profile page and saw a list of things you’d done on Facebook over the last days or weeks that you had no idea were being tracked for public view.

4) Not everyone uses Facebook the way it’s intended. Judging by their response to the uproar, it sounds like they want Facebook to be a place where your friends are really your friends – and each of them is just as close a friend as the next. In reality, many users (myself included) have people as “friends” on Facebook that we haven’t talked to in years. And while every once in a while it’s interesting to check up on what old high school acquaintances are up to, it’s another thing to see a daily account of everything they do delivered to your Facebook homepage.

What would help them a lot would be if they’d implemented this on a group level. Instead of having a News Feed of everything all 120 of my “friends” do, it would show just updates from my closest circle (or circles) of friends.

That said – I do see their point. Even though there are a lot of people on my Facebook friends list that I haven’t talked to in ages, they’re all people I knew personally at one time. This is in contrast to MySpace where I think the paradigm is a bit different. In some ways, this move is almost counter to the MySpace direction – as it distinguishes Facebook as a place where you keep in touch and share with your close friends – whereas MySpace is a more public-facing view of your online social life.

Here are some more links about the changes:

Fred Stutzman on Facebook as an “Identity Archive“

Liz Gannes says Facebook makes itself useful.

I just downloaded their beta and I’m posting this entry from it now.  Pretty sweet app!

Screenshots, info, and download at their blog.

Check it out!

Second, I’m about to head off to Gnomedex 6.0.  I’m running on less sleep than planned, so caffiene will have to get me through the day.  Hopefully I’ll get online during the event, but no promises.

You can listen to it here.

If you listen close you can actually hear the Marketing guys whipping the presenters anytime they inject the slightest hint of emotion or even think about saying a single word off-script.  Seriously guys, you sound like robots.  Try listening to one of Major Nelson’s podcasts and see if you hear the difference (heck he even interviews a VP in that one).

At least two of my friends (Steve and Chris) met their sweethearts via Match.com.  While my own dabblings haven’t been quite so fruitful, I did have some positive experiences and certainly gained a new appreciation for the medium (especially as someone who transplanted his life a few thousands miles last year). 

Beyond that, the effect of IM on people my age is undeniable (even though I still consider it to be wholly impersonal).  And now MySpace has taken the phenomenon started by LiveJournal to a whole new level. 

It all makes me wonder just how much modern technology has influenced (both good and bad) my dating life, and whether there are some traps I should be learning to avoid.  One I’ve always tried to watch out for is having IM become the primary (or exclusive) means of communication with someone I’m dating.  Recent experience only reinforces that concern.

Alright, here’s the real scoop:  That site redirects to www.msreadr.com – a site (plus RSS feed) that aggregates a whole bunch of Windows Live blogs!

I think there’s no doubt it’s a loss for Microsoft, and maybe somebody could have done more to keep him around.  However, I think Robert has picked a reasonably good time to leave.  Not because I think Microsoft has trouble ahead – quite the contrary.  I think Robert set out to make Microsoft a better place and a better company – and I dare say he succeeded.  In some sense, I think a part of Robert felt that “his work here is done.” 

Still, Channel 9 won’t be quite the same without him.  As for conferences and the like, I’m sure we’ll be graced by the Scobleizer’s presence courtesty of his new role at PodTech.net

Good luck Robert! 

I logged into StatTraq today, and instead of the usual 3-4 entries in “Search Terms” for the day, I saw a WAY longer list!

They found me!  Sure, it took them about 7 months after every other search engine on the planet… but better late than never!

Another interesting bit – my first day in Google’s index, and this site is already #4 in my ego search.

Co.mments uses a “Bookmark-let” just like CoComment, however they apparently turn every comment thread into a seperate feed that you subscribe to.  This seems like a killer feature that CoComment is missing.

The real question is… does it work in Maxthon?