Web

I joined Twitter in February of 2009, and it seemed like I was late to the party – a party I wasn’t just skipping, it was something I was actively avoiding. If you are against joining Twitter, I ask that you consider what this article has to say with an open mind and we’ll go from there.

Twitter isn’t for everyone, but it probably isn’t what you think it is either. In short, Twitter is for you if you have a hobby, interest, friends who share content, or a topic you follow or share about. Sound hyperbolic? It really isn’t.

Facebook has been making waves lately, tidal waves in fact. After $19 billion for WhatsApp and $2 billion for Oculus, some are left scratching their head and asking some very good questions. Why? How are these related?

I think the answer is simpler than many have offered. I believe it boils down to Facebook wanting to stay relevant long term, no matter what technology or platform enables it.

WhatsApp #

Messaging is a (or the?) primary means of communicating for billions of people, and Facebook Messenger was largely a flop. In a sense, messaging is the simplest highly private social network; you share very specific things with very specific people. I firmly believe that messaging with reign supreme as a top, if not the top, use of mobile phones for the foreseeable future.

If you use Dropbox, this matters. I’m shocked that they added this arbitration clause to the Terms of Service, but they did. Here’s the short version:

No matter what they do (delete your data, privacy breach, overcharging, whatever), you don’t get to sue. Instead, THEY get to choose the arbitrator according to whatever criteria they want, and thus any dispute is decided by someone they’re paying.

Also, you can’t join a class-action suit against them.

It pains me to see the free tier getting discontinued, but I understand it. I have used LogMeIn for many years to manage my always-on PC server at home, to remote into my laptop if a security camera appears offline, and more. I paid $20 for the app before they offered a free one and never regretted it.

Thankfully in today’s market, there are free options to replace it.

An excellent follow up piece (to his original post) on where Chromebooks fit into the tech world. Also read his link to Vance McAlister’s response, both are very insightful.

From Vance:

The true value in ChromeOS is what it DOESN’T have. Critics say “a Macbook or Windows laptop will give you the same Chrome browser, plus a lot more as well!”, but that misses the point entirely. Those laptops don’t come with the killer feature of ChromeOS: the LACK of a traditional OS.

On Yahoo Tech… David Pogue heading it up does give them a chance at making this work. It is still a bit of a comedy with how miserably Yahoo has failed in the tech industry as of late that they’re attempting to become a tech news source.

Omission of the “!” is, and always will be, intentional. Perhaps that’ll change if there is ever something exciting going on at Yahoo.

There are numerous things frequently found online that are inhumane, evil, wrong, and just plain annoying. Here are a few that come to mind. 

• Gallery views of trivial lists of trivial things. I don’t want to wait 8 seconds for a mediocre “revelation” to load 25 times. If you use a gallery, your content should be nothing short of revolutionary. 
• Popovers where I can’t see your page without clicking ‘Close’ first. See: Tab Closed; Didn’t Read.
• Multipage articles. Unless it is John Siracusa’s epic saga outlining every detail of Mavericks, there is no reason the content should span more than one page.
• Auto-play content. Partial redemption if it is muted by default, but not much. If your site auto-plays audio or video then you may as well just have your domain forward to your MySpace page. Make sure to leave your pager number on the Contact page.
• Persistent prompts that ask you to take a survey, if you want to live chat, or anything similar. If I scrolled down and didn’t click on your abomination, then there is a very good reason.
• Mouse-over ads. Going to a website shouldn’t be a tedious minefield while scrolling down hoping to avoid the double underlined words that popup ads when your mouse touches them. 

Any suggestions? I wouldn’t be surprised if this became a regular segment.

Very poor decision making over at Feedly.

Services that make choices like this only exist because people keep using them. People make mistakes, I am glad they undid it, but anyone who thought this was a good idea to start with is not someone I agree with or trust.