When Mom's Away, Dad and Twins Play

My wife is in the middle of crunch time to complete a massive paper for her Masters' Degree program in World History. With her facing a 30-page submission due in the middle of this upcoming week, I've been pulling extra time covering Matthew and Sarah, including virtually all of the last 30 hours or so. Not that I mind all that much, as it's afforded me the opportunity to get more pictures on the record, post some short videos to YouTube and sync up with SmugMug. And while the most ardent followers on FriendFeed (and Twitter or Facebook) have seen much of the content already, I thought I'd share some of it here as well, retaining some of the personal nature of this blog, even as we've swayed heavily toward tech, and you've seen new writers crop up.

As not everyone is as digital as we are, we've had requests from the extended family for more formal photos of the twins, so they can share them in Holiday letters and such. But when everything is digital, it's hard to explain to my grandmother just why there's no such thing as a negative any more. So... we trucked off to J.C. Penney's last Saturday and got the twins photographed in studio. As most parents will no doubt tell you, they were worst behaved when we needed them to be good, and were smiling most just five minutes after we left. In between the cries and complaints, the team managed to snag some pretty good photos. One is below, and all are uploaded to SmugMug.


Sarah and Matthew from the Recent Photo Shoot
As Matthew and Sarah get bigger, approaching five months, they have filled out quite a bit, and are no longer needing to be constantly held. This affords for more "tummy time" and they are now interacting more with one another, even if it is just a quick poke or stare.

Their growth also affords us the opportunity to try out new toys. My favorite (and theirs) is a new jumper to bounce in our doorway. Padded with blankets, due to their small size, both Matthew and Sarah have spent some good time in the jumper, bouncing to and fro, and expending energy until they tire out and beg for food.


Matthew in the Jumpy Swing
As has been true since their very birth, their growth is being chronicled and shared with you. Some might fear for safety and privacy, but we're knowing that transparency and openness is the way to go. Kay Ballard even called it "Family 2.0". All I can say is that as we got two kids at once, maybe it's fitting.


Sarah in the Jumpy Swing
To see all our baby videos, check out our YouTube channel at: http://www.youtube.com/user/asypta.

Web 2.0 and the 21st Century Gypsies

By Mona Nomura of Pixel Bits (FriendFeed/Twitter)


I contemplated sharing this, since 1) it's quite embarrassing and 2) I'm a private person, but the past few days have been so bizarre, I just had to share.

Short version: I'm a hobo. Long version: I was moving out of my old place, and into a long term sublet November 6th, while I took time to search for "the perfect apartment". The subletee backed out last minute, my old place found a new roommate, a friend of mine agreed to let me crash last minute, but his new girlfriend decides to fly in to surprise him, so I had to leave, STAT. To top it off, my credit cards are in transit, so hotels were out of the question, which led to well... Hobo status.

Enter Web 2.0.

When my friend told me I needed to find another place to crash STAT, my first instinct was Craigslist. He saw me browsing and said: "Are you insane? Craigslist is full of freaks. Go to couchsurfing.com." and couldn't believe what I saw. From their site:

What is the CouchSurfing mission?
When we incorporated CouchSurfing International, Inc. as a non-profit, we filed our official mission statement as:: "CouchSurfing seeks to internationally network people and places, create educational exchanges, raise collective consciousness, spread tolerance, and facilitate cultural understanding."
-- via couchsurfing.com's FAQ

Basically, couchsurfing.com is a network of 21st Century Gypsies.
It's a site filled with travelers and people who host - world wide. It's not about finding a place to crash, but connecting people and not as dangerous as it sounds. Participants:

1. Create extensive, detailed profiles.
   
2. Engaging in local activities, discussion groups, chats, are the norm.

There are several precautionary measures to ensure a person is not a crazy.

Call me insane, but desperate times calls for desperate measures, and I sent out a 911 message and found someone willing to put me up for a night, while I exhausted options, looking for a new sublet. The experience? Interesting to say the least. I met a nice young gentleman from Spain, new to San Francisco, and very very single. Don't get me wrong, he was far from creepy, educated, and well mannered. I chose to take this gentleman's offer, since my request was extremely short notice and I jumped on the first person that responded.

It's been a few days since signing up and posting the 911 message, but the community is still getting back to me. Couples, singles, females, males, groups... I'm really amazed at people's hospitality. Granted, this site is not for everyone, but a great networking tool for students, avid backpackers, and budget travelers.

If it weren't for this predicament, I would've never found this site, got to see a different element of Social Networking, and thought it would be neat to share.

Now please excuse me, I'm going to try and sign these folks up to Twitter and FriendFeed.

Read more by Mona Nomura at Pixel Bits

Event Calendar: Panel on Emerging Media (November 11th)

For those of you located in the San Francisco Bay Area, you may want to check out an interactive discussion coming this next week, presented by PR Newswire, titled "Focus on Emerging Media - Where Are We Now, Where Are We Going".

Chris Heuer, Social Media Strategist at Social Media LLC, Tom Foremski, Editor of SiliconValleyWatcher.com and I will be participating on a panel, and it would be great to have you in attendance, so long as you sign up by Friday, November 7th.

Date:
Tuesday, November 11, 2008
Breakfast and Registration: 8:00 AM - 8:30 AM
Presentation: 8:30 AM - 10:00 AM

Location:
Hyatt Regency Santa Clara
Bayshore Room
5101 Great America Pkwy
Santa Clara, CA 95054

Description:
Communications professionals have more opportunities than ever before to reach target audiences in the communities in which they congregate, but the trick is knowing what tools will help you reach these audiences and how to engage them once you've made contact. This interactive discussion, led by PR Newswire's Director of Emerging Media Michael Pranikoff, will explore the new tools and technologies, and how to best utilize them to communicate an organization's message to its intended audiences.

Want to Attend?
Sign up before November 7th here.

See you there!

Forget the Bradley Effect. What About the "Get Off My Phone" Effect?

To say that Tuesday's election is long-awaited is a massive understatement. It's been called historic by most, and otherwise labeled the most important election in our generation by the many who take into account the controversial last few years, our economic struggles and continued challenges abroad. And while Democratic candidate Barack Obama is largely expected to end the day with enough electoral votes to ensure his capturing the White House, some are concerned the "Bradley Effect", a phenomenon showing voters are less likely to vote for a minority when in the booth in private than they professed to be when surveyed in public, will have enough impact to knock him off the pedestal. But aside from the presidential election, how many of us have lied on a survey, just to politely get it over with? I know I have, including multiple times this evening, just to get the pollster off the phone.

When a political operative somehow manages to get through our Caller ID and gets me on the line, the fastest way to get the call completed is to agree to everything. If I'm not in the "hanging up on them" mood, I always agree to every single thing they're proposing. Yes, I'll vote for that guy. Of course I am in favor of your proposition and measure. "In fact, my wife and I already voted by mail!", I told one hapless gentleman a few hours ago, much to his delight.

My underhanded evasiveness no doubt gets a checkmark on his clipboard, and with one stroke, he and his backers can put two more votes on the board, as they try to rally enough last minute support to push their person and their measures over the top. But to be honest, most of the time, I couldn't tell you one person from another, especially in the local races, and will be doing my research online.

So how often is this happening? Are pollsters around the country, and at the local levels, finding overwhelming support for just about every bill, only to see tomorrow's election results be swung the opposite way? As much as the political pundits may wonder if America is ready to have an African-American president after all, I wonder about the telemarketers hitting their numbers and wondering why things didn't actually go their way.

Don't worry about me. Tomorrow, I'll vote. And I am sure on how I'm voting for just about everything, before some last-minute cramming tonight, but if you called my house this evening, sorry if I misled you. It won't be the last time.

Today Marks Ten Years Working In Silicon Valley

On October 25th, 1998, during my senior year at UC Berkeley, I started my first job in Silicon Valley, as an eCommerce Analyst for Internet Valley, a small startup focused on search engine optimization, technology trends and eCommerce. Today marks the tenth anniversary of that first day, making me one of those people who can sit around the table and claim a decade's worth of experience. Though my role has changed quite a bit from the first time I sat down for work in Burlingame, California, growing to take on traditional outbound marketing roles, including public relations and demand generation, the initial journey is worth commemorating.

As my senior year at Berkeley commenced, I knew I would need an off-campus job to help pay for rent and books, having left my position with the school newspaper, where I was Online Editor and a news reporter.

Not entirely sure what I wanted to do, I drafted two versions of my resume - one to be a journalist, and the other, to be a Webmaster. The journalist piece I sent to places like the Mercury News and MacWeek, and the one for being a Webmaster went just about anywhere I thought made sense, provided it was close enough to Berkeley, and offered flexibility that let me finish out my coursework and get the dual degree in Mass Communications and Political Science.

It being 1998, it was no surprise the Webmaster position found the most traction. That Internet Valley took a chance on me, an unproven kid at the age of 21, without a formal degree, helped lay the groundwork for my making a home in Silicon Valley and starting on a track toward a career that later encompassed Marketing. To give you an idea of how things have changed just in the last ten years, here's an excerpt from a note home to my dad, titled, "First day of work":

The company has ordered a Micron PC for me at work, and while it is a Windows 98/NT machine, it has some strong specs, such as: PentiumII 400 MHz processor, 64 MB RAM, 6.4GB of hard disk space, a 32x CD-ROM, and built-in Zip Drive.

That's right. In 1998, 6.4 GB of space and 64 MB of RAM was considered "strong specs".

I had interviewed at Internet Valley on October 13th of 1998, somehow getting from Berkeley to Burlingame without a car, using a combination of public transportation and my own two feet. And interestingly, my initial impressions of the Internet Valley site, and its methodology, provided some interesting hints for the way the future Web would be consumed.

From a previous e-mail, after 2 a.m. on October 14th of 1998:

(My boss) said that when he organized the site, he had done it with the intent of separating from print media, instead focusing on users who do not "read" documents, but "scroll" them. The typical Web site containing basic text was not to be found. The site instead contains words in a variety of colors, font sizes and heavy use of the bold tag. Some might call it ugly. ... He laughed about how he had dropped half of his age in a week if the letters were to be believed. But when scrolling down the site, a user can have their attention caught by the unorthodox methods, and will stop to read. Otherwise the words highlighted will give an idea of what the topic was being covered.

While the site itself was tough to digest, it brings to mind the way many of us consume news now, through a "river of noise", or scanning RSS rather than reading in full.

The stay at Internet Valley was not all that long, as the seed investor would have preferred revenue more quickly, but I managed to stay on with their sister company, 3Cube, reporting to the team's new vice president of Marketing.

Working at 3Cube during the dotcom boom, and eventually, through the bust, set the stage for how I approached business. Whether in operations, engineering or marketing, the team worked late, and was focused on doing what at times seemed to be super-human work, as we could ask a pair of coders to do what had taken a team of dozens at a competitor more time. And at age 22, I was responsible for running the Web site, and much of the copy, including FAQ's for these new products, even as I found myself sitting at the table with people who had been in the software industry since the time I was born.

As a young employee at both companies, and where I work now, I often found myself intimidated by my colleagues' experience and history. When they could talk in decades, I could merely talk in months, or maybe a year or two. With time, this has changed, of course, as I took on more responsibilities, including direct reports, gained experience, and have found myself at a place where many employees are younger than myself.

After the dotcom bust, I worked through the 2001-03 recession, and came out the other end with more knowledge on how to operate when times were lean. It looks like we may have that opportunity again, with the global markets being tossed to and fro. But even as we see our day to day challenges, or try and hit milestones that lie directly ahead, I can do so knowing that, after ten years of trying to make a difference, it's me who has a decade's experience in the Valley, the first of what should be a handful. I can't even imagine trying to work outside of the Valley. It's all I know, and all I want to know. Here's to thirty more years.

My Kids' Early Lives Are Already Entwined In Social Media

So far, I've held off on doing the silly thing, signing up my 4-month old twins, Matthew and Sarah, with user names to popular Web services, even though others thought I would. I haven't purchased them domain names, dedicated servers, or purchased them their own digital devices - yet.

This is because I expect by the time they're ready to use them that many of the brands will have changed, and because to have yet another login (or two) would be too tempting, and I'd find myself tweeting as an infant, and that would be completely silly. Also, who knows what kind of user names these kids will want once they've realized they have a choice? Surely not the fuddy-duddy version I'm bound to select.

In March, I said loudly, Our Unborn Kids Will Wear Your Web 2.0 Schwag. And while they're still small, and haven't grown into everything, they're doing their best. (Not that they wouldn't mind more logo clothes - e-mail me if you're interested.)

But, consider the following, all of which are true:

• FriendFeed co-founder Paul Buchheit and his wife knew we were pregnant before my family did.
• I posted the announcement that we were pregnant to the blog, before telling many family members.
• Travis Parsons of Browzmi was the first person I told that we were going into labor, and I told him via Facebook.
• The labor process was posted to both Twitter and FriendFeed overnight and into the day.
• When Matthew and Sarah were born, I was wearing a Disqus shirt.
• Matthew wore a newborn Google onesie when only two days old.
• Matthew was hired, and subsequently, fired, by Allen Stern at CenterNetworks.
• Matthew has been featured in his Strands onesie on the Strands blog.
• A YouTube video screenshot featuring Sarah was posted to CNET last Friday.
• Both kids have been over-exposed on FriendFeed, having their pictures posted frequently.

All this has happened before the pair have learned to crawl, talk, read, or walk. But they're growing up in front of laptop screens, they've been pictured with the iPhone, and have attended Silicon Valley gatherings. Sarah met Loic Lemeur of Seesmic, and both met Drew Olanoff of Strands and MG Siegler of VentureBeat.


Matthew Goes LOLCat for Strands
Whether they realize it or not, as social media becomes more intertwined with every aspect of our lives, they too have become intertwined with social media.


Sarah Gets Chatty Last Thursday On YouTube
Today, Matthew and Sarah turn four months old, so they are effectively 1/3 years old. While I've gone light in terms of dousing the blog with their pictures, you can stay updated in a few places:

Internal FriendFeed postings on my feed:
http://friendfeed.com/louisgray?service=internal

Our SmugMug page (needs updating):
http://louisgray.smugmug.com/

Our YouTube page:
http://www.youtube.com/profile_videos?user=asypta

What's Up With All the Guest Posts?

Warning: Some Internal Navel Gazing Ahead

Over the last three months, regular visitors to the site may have noticed a good number of posts to the blog that weren't from me. In fact, starting on July 8th, of the 175 new stories posted to the site, 34 have been from guest posters, representing approximately one of every five new entries, with me covering the other eighty percent. These 34 items have been submitted by a number of diverse writers, each of whom brings their own background and expertise to the table.

So what's going on?

Given the proximity of the first guest post, from Cyndy Aleo-Carreira, on July 8th, to Matthew and Sarah being born, on June 20th, some have thought the guest posts were the equivalent of bringing new parents food, to help during the busy times. Others have hypothesized that this is the first step in a plan for world domination, as I try to catapult the site into the realm of GigaOM, ReadWriteWeb or other big-name brand sites.

But the truth is somewhere in between.

The visibility of louisgray.com, thanks to consistent posting and the increased activity on some of the social sites where I participate, grew more than I expected in the first half of this year. I recognize that the subscriber base here is a tad higher than that for other great writers I respect, and I thought it would be a win-win to bring these voices to a new audience, while also making the site a more trusted, consistently updated source for news and commentary.

So in July, after trading e-mails with Cyndy, I asked her, and later, a few others, to contribute, as they wanted. I set no criteria on their subject matter, frequency or length, and I've been very lucky to see many of them really step up and provide their very best work here, outdoing my efforts a number of times. The result, I believe, is a more diverse set of opinions, increased engagement, and an increased profile for those participating. I have also made the choice to stop calling my partners in crime "guests". They have the full keys and are active writers in their own right.

In this quota-free environment, you can see some have grasped the opportunity and posted frequently. Others saw it as a one-off and went back to their own sites. But all still have the open door policy. In fact, it's my hope they continue to feel comfortable here. And, if you think you have something to contribute, and would be interested in adding your voice to the mix, let me know. Just remember this is all for fun and excitement around tech, so there are no ads, and therefore, no revenue. So send me an e-mail to louisgray@mac.com if you're up for it.

I've taken the time to highlight the guest posts below in case you missed any. I'm sure you'll find a topic you like. And, don't worry, I'll still keep posting here. But maybe by the next update, I'll be pushing out less than 80 percent of all new stories.

---

Charlie Anzman

• Google at 10 - a Decade of Innovation - But Challenges Ahead

Colin Walker

• Is There A Way Back From Free?

Corvida Raven

• The Importance of Setting Goals To Grow Your Network

Cyndy Aleo-Carreira

• Late-Night Seesmic Desperation Yields Results
  
• Walking the SEO Balance Beam
  
• The Hubris of the Twitterati and Twitterati Wannabes
  
• Everybody Wants to be Internet Famous
  
• For My Next Trick, Watch This Comment Disappear!
  
• Selling Ourselves Short as Women In Tech

Hutch Carpenter

• Bloggers' Interactions With Readers Decrease With Prominence

(Jeff)isageek

• Trimming the Fat On RSS Feeds - You Could Lose 99%!

Jesse Stay

• To Blog, or Not to Blog - That is the Question
  
• Identi.ca Launches SMS Support, Sort Of.
  
• New Facebook Design Confuses Many, Obscures Features
  
• Exposed: Blogging's Secret Next Generation
  
• Identi.ca and the Power of Microbranded Communities
  
• Twitter Implements Threaded Comments, Sort Of
  
• The Following/Listening Ratio - Are Your Followers Actually Listening?
  
• The iPhone's Missing Link: User Profiles
  
• OpenMicroBlogger Shows Steady Growth in First Month
  
• With Facebook Connect, Google Has Unique Integration Opportunity

Mark Dykeman

• Nine Ways to Enlarge the Social Media Audience
  
• Netvouz – A Quality One Man Bookmarking Show
  

Mona Nomura

• Top Resources to Help Stay Informed In a Crazy World
  
• Web 2.0 and Democratization of Data - Say What?
  
• Microblog Megaphoning: Informative or Irresponsible?
  
• Microsoft and RIM? I Don't Think So.
  
• Silicon Valleywood?
  

Phil Glockner

• What Google Chrome Gets Right
  
• Google's Suggest And Search: Never Completely Private
  
• iPhone Application Review: Mobile Fotos

Rob Diana

• Throttled By the Twitter API? Try Something New.
  
• Can Microblogs Just Talk To Each Other?
  
• Where You Get Your Tech News Shapes Your Tech Views
  
• Is There Less Funding Or Are Startups Just Cheaper?
  
• Increased Activity Streams Boost Social Median's Chances
  

Robert Seidman

• Google Has Leveled the Internet Playing Field
  
• Statistics Are Your Friend, Even When They're Bad

Podcast: Interview With Talk Social News on Innovation, Startups

Sunday morning, I had the opportunity to participate in a podcast with Wayne Sutton and Kipp Bodnarf for their Talk Social News broadcast. During the discussion, we talked about how the economy could possibly be impacting Web companies, whether or not living in Silicon Valley has its benefits for tech bloggers, how to use multiple social media networks, and to still find time to take care of family and work obligations. The conversation also touched on what could be coming next in terms of social media innovations, and the accumulating pressure to perform as you become more visible. The duo also, less successfully, tried to get me to pick which companies might be in real trouble during a global economy downturn.

As I find it's good practice to listen to podcasts you participated in, to learn from them and do better in the next round, I found myself listening to the Talk Social News recording yesterday, while on the plane from San Jose to Texas, where I am staying through Thursday. Luckily, I still found the discussion interesting as an audience member.

You can download the podcast here or read their recap on their Web site. The interview with me starts about 10 minutes in after Wayne and Kipp do some upfront work.

After you've listened, let me know if you think my opinions were wrong or off base. And we're always looking for feedback. On the next podcast, what do you think I should try and get discussed?

A Recession's Impact: Lower Expectations Across the Board

The stock market is a disaster.

Banks are going under, and massive financial institutions are being bailed out. Companies are announcing hiring freezes and layoffs. And just about everybody has less money now than they did last month, or the one before that. While many of these perceived losses are quantifiable (on paper), more widespread are the losses that cannot be quantified, as people and companies cast off their optimism, and exchange it with a dark reality.

Those of us who made it through the last recession have seen this play out before, and others, a few times as bust follows boom, and back again. This time, the bust just might be deeper, and its impact further felt. I made a handy chart to see how people here in the Silicon Valley might be adjusting their expectations - from personal goals to family, possessions and career. In every aspect, I think it's safe to say that many are choosing door number three.


How a market changes one's goals - in chart form...
(Feel free to reuse the image on your blog)
With all the bad news out there, have you already made some of these choices? I'll likely be keeping my 1998 Mercury Tracer going just a bit longer, and despite the twins, I don't see us moving out any time soon, as demand for housing has cratered. Stocks I held just last week are worth 80 cents on the dollar today, and it could be time to buckle down unless things turn around soon.

Is There a Long Tail to My iTunes Library? The Stats Tell All.

Having long ago passed the point where I could realistically listen to all my music on my iTunes library in a matter of days or weeks, I set up a number of smart playlists that help me to rediscover old music, sorted by the most recent time I played the song. (See: iTunes: Old Music Is New Again from March of 2006) By solely listening to this constantly re-generating playlist, I find myself avoiding repeated songs, and am constantly finding great music that's fallen by the wayside.

But as this playist has continued to expand, and I can't keep up, despite avoiding new purchases, for the most part, we now can further break down the list to see if there is a long tail to iTunes. Am I getting to every song, and what percentage of my songs have been listened to over specific time periods? Also, given I only have a finite amount of time, how many of the songs have been listened to only once?

Let's find out.

First: As of Midnight PDT on Tuesday, September 23rd, 2008:
There are 5,773 items, representing 23.7 days and 35.42 GB.


My iTunes Library, Songs Sorted by Last Played
Of these nearly 6,000 songs, I've managed to get to over 1,000 of them in the last three months, and an additional 500 or so in the prior three months (with no overlaps). But that means more than 4,000 songs have not been touched in the last six months, representing more than two and a half weeks of solid music.

While I've tried to get to every song with some regularity, there's still almost a day's worth of music that hasn't been listened to in more than 10 months.


My iTunes Library, Songs Sorted by Play Count
Additionally, of the almost 6,000 songs in my iTunes library, about 1,000 songs have been listened to greater than 12 times each since iTunes started counting. This compares with about 3,200 songs that have been listened to between 5 and 12 times apiece, and more than 1,500 that have been listened to between 1 and 4 times.


Using a small utility called iTunes Timer, the accumulative play totals for the songs in my library suggest that I've listened to iTunes for more than 195 days and 2 hours. Surely, if I stay connected to the laptop or my iPhone with some good regularity, I can power through those songs I haven't heard in more than six months, or listen to those tracks that haven't gotten enough airplay. But realistically, I shouldn't be letting the statistics drive my listening habits. It's common for people to find their favorite songs and play them a whole lot more than those that don't quite strike their fancy. But with iTunes, and the power of Smart Playlists, I can actually dive in and find out. And to watch me try and catch up, check out my Last.fm page.

What do your iTunes stats show?

So, By "Overnight" You Mean Something Else Entirely?

It may seem trivial, but for me, the biggest disappointment of this year's Blog World Expo is that I didn't come fully prepared. Many of the peers I'm meeting for the first time are handing out fancy custom business cards with their blog URL, Twitter account, and other services, like LinkedIn or FriendFeed. Meanwhile, I'm left handing out my business cards from the office and having to explain the blog address or that my data can all be found online. And the blame squarely falls on my trusting an "overnight" prints service to do exactly what its name implied.

Early last week, knowing the event was coming, I made custom business cards from Moo.com, but quickly saw they weren't going to make it on time. So on the 17th, I went to OvernightPrints.com, and used a template I'd built several months ago. Their site said they would start printing as soon as 20 minutes after the order, and with overnight shipping, there'd be no doubt I'd have the cards by the 19th, when the show started, and when I had my first panel.

But... no. This is what "overnight" means to OvernightPrints.com.

September 17th: I make an order and get a confirmation.
September 18th: They print the business cards. (Allegedly)
September 19th: The cards ship from their headquarters.
September 20th: The cards arrive in Las Vegas.
September 21st: It's Sunday, so UPS is taking the day off.
September 22nd: The cards are expected to arrive.

That would be five days. Meanwhile, the Blog World Expo will have come and gone, ending today, and my cards will show up to the hotel, no doubt confusing the shipping and receiving department, as I'll be back in the Bay Area. And given the OvernightPrints.com cards are of lesser quality than those of Moo.com, I'll never need them, so they should just be destroyed. But it sure is frustrating.

You could argue that I should have been better prepared, and had them ready to go earlier, which is true, but I trusted what OvernightPrints.com said in that it would be "overnight" shipped on "next day air", and they would start almost immediately. Instead, I'm left talking around my cards that having nothing to do with the blog and my online presence. Silly, I know, but really annoying. If you're needing true overnight prints, I don't think I'd ever recommend this company.

Find Me at Blog World Expo This Weekend In Las Vegas

Even as the blog has gotten more visible through the last two years, I've largely stayed behind the scenes (or behind the monitor and keyboard). I haven't attended large industry events, or tried to make the story so much about me. I'd rather keep the highlights on the many services I enjoy and the people making the Web and technology better. But this weekend, the gravity pull from being requested to participate in two panels was too great, and you can now find me at the Blog World Expo in Las Vegas, Nevada, from this afternoon through Sunday.

At the expo, I am participating on two panels, with esteemed peers, including Matt Dickman, Neil Vineberg, Brian Solis and Stowe Boyd, discussing changes in the blogosphere, and how microcommunities are impacting where we participate, share ideas, and communicate.

Panel One:
Micromedia: The Next Big, Small Thing:

Description: "This session shows marketers what the true power of services like Twitter, FriendFeed, Pownce, Flickr and Facebook have on a micro level. Also known as "micro blogging", micromedia has exploded with the growth of mobile technology and lets us look into the future of platform-agnostic marketing. Don't be left behind."

Time: Friday, Sept. 19, 2008: 11:30 AM - 12:45 PM, 222

Panel Two:
Are Bloggers Losing Control? The New World of Distributed Conversations:

Description: "With content spanning across social networks, miro communities, and media aggregators, comments, conversations, and responses are taking place on and around the original blog post. This panel will explore distributed conversations, fragmented expertise, and also the challenge of being everywhere - and whether or not it's not only necessary, but also feasible."

Time: Sunday, Sept. 21, 2008: 12:15 PM - 1:15 PM, 229

Outside of these panels, my schedule is not 100 percent set by any means. I've already started to hear from many online friends who I will be seeing for the first time, and look forward to finding many more, through seeing presentations, walking the exhibits floor, and through getting abused by e-mail and cell phone. If you're going to be attending, it'd be great to see you at either of these panels, or any other time. Please do reach out by phone at 408 646-2759 or by e-mail at louisgray@mac.com.

My BlogWorld Expo bio can also be found here.

Transparency, Disclosure and Opening Up the Kimono

On Wednesday, I was pleased to announce my beginning a new, formal, relationship with the ReadBurner team as an advisor, where I'll be looking to help provide guidance and strategy and be more of a colleague with the already-successful team, who is looking to make the site a one-stop destination to find the most popular content online, today starting with RSS feeds, and maybe tomorrow, much, much more. Who knows?

In advance of this announcement, I reached out to a pair of folks who I perceive to be competitors of ReadBurner, and told them exactly what the plan was - that I was going to be helping ReadBurner out, and that I wasn't going to be paid, but instead, would essentially have a small potential equity stake, just like any employee, advisor or board member at a private company. ReadBurner's success, essentially, could be my success as well, should the stars be aligned.

Crossing the chasm from a completely neutral party to a biased party, or at least having the perception of bias, isn't something I'm used to. My enthusiasm for ReadBurner, as well as my enthusiasm for FriendFeed, AssetBar, Social Median, Feedly, Ballhype and other services over the last few years, has been seen here, and in each case, it has been done so without compensation, or expectation of compensation. Now that this has changed in one specific example, it of course raises questions. Will competitors of ReadBurner ever talk to me again? Will other companies try and guess where ReadBurner is headed, and trusting me less, go a different route? Maybe they will, and that's a risk that's assumed.

Only hours after my first post did I get a question like this from one developer, asking if ReadBurner should be considered competition to their work, and should they "be careful about sharing things we're working on"? Well, in all truthfulness, you should always be careful about sharing pre-release content with anyone, to start with, and second, you should always think about whether that person will have pre-conceived biases, or will be abusing your trust. And it makes sense to protect your proprietary data.

With that said, over the last few years, I have tried to be as transparent as possible, and it is important to me to be trusted. I have never written a single post on this site for pay, or in exchange for goods. I've also tried to be reachable by anyone, occasionally to my detriment. My cell phone number and personal e-mail address have been on this blog since early 2007, and even in the footer of every RSS feed. In one example where I was concerned there could be a perception of bias, I told you when I won an iPhone from Social Median and asked you to judge me to see if I unequally gave praise to the site as a result. And I expect to keep telling you if I can be found in any way to be uneven in how I view a site, person or anything else.

In 2008, especially, I've worked with developers and entrepreneurs, getting early access to sites sometimes weeks or months ahead of their roll-out, and have done so without leaking their information early, and often, worked to provide informal QA to help get their product ready for announcement, with Feedly being the best example. As I said this evening in a fun ReadBurner podcast, if I can help make the products and services we use online better, then I've done my job. I often want these products to succeed, even if I'm not their target demographic and am more than happy to keep things close to the vest, and often offer advice for free. It's what I'd been doing with ReadBurner off and on before they asked for more of my time and make it official.

But truth be told, in the online space, sites that look completely different today could look similar tomorrow. The LOUD3R family of Web sites offers many different topic-driven news aggregators, as did the Ballhype/Showhype/Beltway Blips family, each of which I covered. SocialMedian, similarly, can offer an aggregation of news on the same topics, and sites like MyBlogLog, Fav.or.it and Technorati use topics to bring similar bloggers and posts together. In theory, so could FriendFeed, ReadBurner, Feedheads or RSSmeme. And each of the last few sites could be rejiggered to take on more horizontal plays like Google News or Techmeme.

Allen Stern of CenterNetworks, on the podcast, made it clear that if he were a competitor to ReadBurner, not only would he not want to share any information with me, but he recommended to us on the call that we should be especially careful, so no entrepreneur could claim we had stolen their ideas. Allen is a smart guy whose ideas I respect, and he's right. But you shouldn't expect that overnight I'm going to start saying ReadBurner every other word and talking smack about their competitors. And I've never received anything like a confidential roadmap from anybody - so that's not an issue.

To help with clarity, I am going to add details about the ReadBurner relationship to my "About" page, and I'm going to get even more transparent so that anybody who does have questions can get those answers. There is one more small company I've been helping in an advisory role since early this Spring, and soon, they will be public, so I can talk about it, and again, be transparent. But that's in a space I don't write about, so much of the above doesn't apply.

Since starting this site, I've very visibly eschewed advertising, and haven't been making any money for what I write or where I participate. Maybe working in a consultancy or advisory role to companies like ReadBurner is where I end up "monetizing the blog", even if that isn't my sole goal for being here. As previously mentioned, I enjoy the conversations and the camaraderie, and have been doing a lot of "advising" for free for a lot of different sites. That's why I wrote "10 Suggestions to Improve Google Reader" back in March of 2007, and offered "10 More Suggestions for LinkedIn" that same month, as well as 10 Suggestions for FriendFeed last December. That's why I asked What Is the Future Of MyBlogLog?. In none of those cases were my suggestions requested or compensated, and I hope to keep thinking out loud and offering advice for free.

My activity with ReadBurner, in actuality, will be very small, compared to everything else I'm doing. But if there's ever a chance where I could be seen as being biased, or needing to disclose that relationship, I will absolutely do so, and I both expect you to and want you to keep me honest - as I've tried to be so far. And if or when I screw up, call or e-mail. Transparency is the best policy.

I've Taken a New Advisory Role With ReadBurner

If you've been a long-time reader of this blog, you'll know that one of the most frequent topics I've discussed is that of RSS readers, and innovative tools to determine "hot" or most popular items - either on a broad measure, or by specific topic or vertical. One of the most fun stories to follow, for me, this year, was the stealth debut of ReadBurner, followed by its rapid ascension into visibility, its later changing hands and continued efforts to add new features and make it a standard for determining the best content across the Web.

As of today, I'll be taking a more direct role in helping the team at ReadBurner succeed, working with them in an advisory role, where I can spend a few hours each week talking strategy.

So what does this mean for the other companies in this space, who have played a crucial role in our coverage this year, such as RSSmeme, Feedheads, and LinkRiver? To me, it doesn't change a whole lot. I've made it clear that I really like this arena, and see that it has great potential, and I've maintained a good relationship with the developers at each site.

In fact, I reached out to both Mario Romero and Ben Golub in advance of this post to let them know of our making the ReadBurner affiliation more official, in case they felt I had a new conflict of interest, or would be treating them differently going forward. As I told both of them, I would absolutely love to keep being updated and spreading the word, but understand if they felt more competitive, and if any future coverage of either will need a formal disclosure of sorts.

So why ReadBurner? Because the team of Drew Olanoff, Adam Ostrow, Thomas Connors and Alexander Marktl has recognized the potential in a democratically-oriented site that can bring the day's top news to people, regardless of its source, or its topic. They are looking to springboard ReadBurner out of the hobby phase and help it grow. I'm hoping I can help, and I'm honored they extended the opportunity.

And in case you're curious, this doesn't impact my day job, which remains the same, as outlined on LinkedIn. But even if I can help the ReadBurner team in a small way, I'm excited to try. It's already been fun watching the site grow from its infancy earlier this year.

You can follow our efforts at http://www.readburner.com/. Looking forward to updating you with more, including on the ReadBurner podcast, tonight at 10 p.m. Eastern, 7 p.m. Pacific. (Watch the official blog.)

Ten Ways Having Twins Has Changed My Tech and Online Life

The one thing that change always promises to bring is more change. And bringing twins into our household has definitely had an impact - changing how we manage our time, our sleep, our travels, and our activities. Now that Matthew and Sarah are seven weeks old, and with my being back at work for three full weeks, we have something resembling a routine. While I had always kidded that adding to newborns to the family would be "mildly disruptive", there has certainly been an impact to what I've been able to do with tech, both online and offline, since they arrived.

1. Whatever I'm Doing Has to Be Able to Stop At Any Time

So far, I haven't been able to teach Matthew or Sarah how to use an alarm clock, or how to make requests using a pad or paper, let alone e-mail. This means that their best way of requesting attention is crying, and I, or my wife, have to be on alert at all times. This means, for example, that I can't participate in any online gaming, even if it's as simple as hearts or cribbage, because I'd never know when I'd have to bail, and therefore, concede. Whatever I'm doing has to have the ability to be paused, or closed, without impacting somebody else.

2. I'm Not Getting Nearly As Much Online Activity Done In the Morning

Prior to having kids, I could spend a good hour answering e-mail, reading feeds, and getting caught up on the social networks before getting ready to head into the office. Now, that option is clearly gone, as I'm more likely to be awakened by someone who is hungry or needs attention than by my alarm clock. That activity now usually has to take place once they're taken care of and I've driven to the office, leaving my poor wife behind to fend for herself with a pair of ungrateful infants.

3. Scheduling Time for Evening Conference Calls Is A Lot Harder

As I don't typically wait around for press releases to hit my in box to write a story, most of my posts about new technology comes from engaging with developers early, trading e-mail, chatting on Google Talk, or taking a phone call. Now, while my intentions may be to take a call and get updated, it's absolutely likely that call will land in the middle of my feeding somebody, or our phone call could be interrupted by crying. So far, Sarah and Matthew have made their voices heard to Travis Parsons of Browzmi, Eric Marcoullier of Gnip and ReadBurner's Drew Olanoff, to name a few.

4. My iPod Touch Usage Has Gone Way Up

With the addition of the iPod Touch's 2.0 software, the product became much more useful - due to the push e-mail capability, Exchange integration, and of course, all the new applications. But the iPod Touch also has another advantage - stealth use, and one-handed browsing. It's not uncommon these days to be flat on my back with a kid resting on my chest, or sitting up and holding a bottle. This effectively eliminates my use of the laptop, but a WiFi-connected iPod Touch is a great backup plan to read e-mail, browse FriendFeed, access Safari bookmarks, and update Twitter. An added bonus? I can turn off the sound, so using the keyboard is completely silent - again, totally unachievable on the laptop.

5. Backing Up My Data Is Now More Important Than Ever

Despite having much of my life online, I've never been all that great at backing it up. I used to back up my mail and personal docs, or have an archive of company data, on a previous-generation iPod, and also used Apple's Backup program that came with .Mac. But my false sense of security went away a few years ago, when I stupidly left my iPod in the seat pocket on a plane between Chicago and Baltimore, never getting it back. So that wasn't good. Also, as my primary storage space (my laptop) has gone through its share of bumps and bruises, including getting crushed in a rented convertible this last Spring Training, I know that's not 100% reliable. Over time, as I've moved from machine to machine, I've lost very little, but it's been known to happen.

That said, I've moved our family photos to SmugMug, relying on the cloud as a backup to my own local storage, I've posted some early videos to YouTube, and I'm looking seriously at Apple's Time Capsule for home storage backup, because if I lose photos and videos of Matthew and Sarah at this stage, I'll never again get the chance to retake them.

6. My Online Activity Is More Purpose-Based Than Time Wasting

Jeremy Toeman once commented on FriendFeed that my activity on the service after having kids would never again approach the level it was prior to having kids. And while in the first few weeks after Matthew and Sarah came, I kept the same pace, if not increasing it, returning to the office and having that time eat into my schedule has probably made his prophecy true. While I'm still reading the same number of RSS feeds in Google Reader, still keep the blog updated, and still scan FriendFeed, Social Median and Twitter, I'm likely engaging in less idle chit chat and arbitrary "liking", which makes my statistics lower than before.

7. I've Dusted Off the Camera In a Big Way

I don't pepper the blog with photos of myself or my wife all that often, as I've never been much of a photographer, and quite honestly, I want the blog to be more about what I'm observing and thinking than my daily doings. I've also kept my wife's visibility low for her privacy. As a high school teacher, she doesn't exactly want her nosy students knowing her every move. That said, the twins are a lot more photogenic than either of us, and so far, friends online have really eaten up the pictures, so I'm rarely too far from our camera. And after seven weeks, I finally got Matthew and Sarah on video, and posted to YouTube. Videos of them should get more prominent going forward.

8. The Online Social Circle Is Seeing Change

Whereas previously, I would consider single guys or newlyweds my peers, I'm having a lot more opportunity to share stories and jokes with Web-savvy moms and dads who are similarly managing their time. I'm now talking a lot more with parent pals like Cyndy Aleo-Carreira and Carla Thompson or Jesse Stay and Jeremy Neal. Even uber-blogger Robert Scoble and I are probably talking as much about kids' weights and behaviors as we are debating social network behavior.

9. Blog Posts Often Get Interrupted

While I can still, on occasion, sit down and power through a post in 20 minutes or so, it's now just as likely that it will take two or three stops at the laptop to get some of the longer ones done, especially if screenshots or reviews are needed. This means a lot of saving, re-reading what I had started, and posting when I can, not exactly when I wanted to. I've even told people who want stories embargoed, when I do go that route, to get me the data well ahead of time so I can plan better.

10. No More Leaving the Cell Phone In the Other Room

If you have young kids, you know that the last thing you want to do is wake them up after some serious effort to get them to bed. That means better management of potential noise is required. Now, I can no longer casually put my cell phone down, with my keys and wallet, and walk away. Instead, I need to cart it, and the handset for our landline, with me whenever I've got the kids, or if they are sleeping, to avoid prolonged ringing and unnecessary wake-ups.

I knew having kids would be more than "mildly disruptive", and any disruptions so far have been far outweighed by the many benefits of being a father, for sure. But I know that having crossed that chasm means that how I used to operate online is never going to be exactly the same. It should be fun to keep watching as Matthew and Sarah get to 6 months, a year, 2 years and beyond, to find out what activities stay, and which go. Change always begets more change, and I know more change is coming.

Stupid eTrade, Are You Trying to Bankrupt Me?

I've been a loyal eTrade customer since February of 2000, and during the height of their instabilities last fall, I actually went against the grain, moving my checking account to the service, away from Wells Fargo, and even flipping their stock a few times for short-term sales when many thought they were headed to zero. But that's not to say the relationship is perfect. Over the years, there have been occasional annoyances, and today, errors on their part make it look like I'm about to file for Chapter 11.

This morning, Rackspace went public, the first technology company to IPO in quite some time in what's been a quiet year. And while, so far, their debut hasn't been all that amazing, I did manage to get some shares through gaining early access via my eTrade account, a usual sign that the stock would be headed down and not up, given my spotty track record.

(See also: Top Eight Worst Stock Moves I Ever Made)

But the fact Rackspace hasn't gone through the roof isn't the issue. The bigger issue is that prior to 5 a.m. this morning, I not only received confirmation from eTrade that my bid was accepted, but I received confirmation six times in the space of two minutes. And checking in with my account online, eTrade, despite only allocating to me the shares I had requested, actually looks like it withdrew the total amount of the stock buy for each confirmation. This means that instead of being cash-positive in my brokerage account, I show a deficit of more than $36,000.


eTrade Confirmed I Received Shares. And Again. And Again!
While I tend to believe this will be sorted out without any intervention on my part, I'm sure that this "glitch" will impact my ability to make trades if I wanted to. Not only is the actual cash I believe I should have unavailable, but if I sold other stocks in the account, I wouldn't have that cash available for different trades, as it would undoubtedly look like it was being used to pay down my debt.


eTrade Tells Me I Owe Them Some Serious Dough
eTrade doesn't get to participate in IPOs all that often, and it looks like they haven't quite gotten the process down. I just hope I don't start getting notice after notice that my account is "on margin" or that I get locked out. It's happened before due to stupid clerical errors like this, and I'm not interested in playing that game again. So eTrade, please get your act together and give me my money back. Thanks!

Matthew's Story: From CenterNetworks' Future to Fired In A Month

Finding a writing position at a brand-name blog is hard to do, especially without having a significant resume, not to mention any references. So when Allen Stern of CenterNetworks offered my newborn son, Matthew, a position on his excellent blog, we of course struck at the deal. But in just a month, what at first seemed like a dream come true turned out to be a sordid tale of broken promises, unsafe working conditions and tears. A week after Stern publicly announced Matthew's firing, as a family, we've decided to tell our side of the story.

The fierce competition between East Coast and West Coast blogs these days is rivaling the old time feuds between East Coast and West Coast rappers. Based in New York, Stern has long been seeking the opportunity to open a Silicon Valley bureau, so this spring, when he learned we were expecting twins, he struck early, asking to sign up "whichever of the two kids was bigger". I naively accepted, not knowing that his request was due to the incredible stress that blogging and filing stories can be for a newborn.


Matthew Signed On to CenterNetworks In Days
Matthew and Sarah arrived on June 20th, he weighing a robust 5 pounds, and she, trailing at 4 pounds, 3 ounces. That made Matthew the candidate of record. The next four days were a whirlwind of deal-making, contracts being faxed from coast to coast, with little being given up on either side. Finally, the agreement completed, Matthew announced his signing, and was photographed with the world-famous CN sticker. The next day, Stern announced it to the world, and while he said "Of all the people I've hired over the years, this negotiation was the toughest," his listed demands were later proven to be a slap in the face.


Stern's Initial Set of Promises Included a New iPhone

But Stern Later Went Back On His Word

Over the next two weeks, Matthew made significant headway with C