Post by David Pierce. Find me on Twitter.
The advent of the Web has brought on ways to create content that are better and more available than ever before. That’s a great thing, and has led to an enormous amount of great content being produced. It’s also, unfortunately, led to the production of so much terrible content that it’s harder than ever to find the good stuff.
Books, movie-theater movies, and record-label albums are vetted for quality, and you can more safely bet that those things are worth your time (though those processes are obviously a long way from perfect). Blogs, YouTube and the like have no such pre-evaluation – again, pros and cons, but it can make the great stuff harder to find.
Thankfully, all that noise has led to the rise of some excellent curators. Whether they’re people, apps or services, there are a number of sources that do their best to point out the best of the Web, while weeding out all the junk crap nonsense videos that hurt my eyes and ears other stuff. These resources bring to light the best, and keep us from getting overwhelmed and distracted by the rest.
Post by David Pierce. Find me on Twitter.
For years now, there’s been constant discussion of how the Web is changing how we live. Communication is faster and simpler, it’s easier than ever to find information, we’re overloaded with information, and so on and so forth.
But what’s only beginning to be studied and discussed is how the Internet and digital technology are changing us. I mean us not in the sense of democracy, or we the people, or how we do our jobs – I mean our actual physical and chemical makeups, the way our brains work, the way we live and function every second of every day.
In the last few months, there’s been an enormous amount written on this subject, all by people much smarter than I. So, instead of weighing in on the subject, which would be me parroting the smartest things I’ve read in the last three months, I want to share with you a must-read list. It’s got information from (hopefully) all sides of the debate, and I’ll throw in a choice quote or two from each one.
Post by David Pierce. Find me on Twitter.
I love gadgets. I know—surprising, right? I love ‘em, I read about ‘em, I talk about ‘em to the point where everyone hates me, and I buy ‘em in droves. Some say it’s a problem to have four screens, three laptops, too many phones and not enough money for a cup of coffee, but I say it’s all about priorities.
Over the last few months I’ve figured out there’s one thing I’m terrible at shopping for: cell phones. I bought a new phone in January, and over the last four months have hated it so furiously and fervently that I’m seriously debating buying a new one already.
The problem isn’t that the phone is broken, or defective, or just a bad device. The problem is that it’s absolutely 100% the wrong phone for me. 98% of the time, I need a phone for three things (other than, you know, phone calls): texting, checking email, and getting un-lost 39 times a day. Pretty much any phone out there can do those things by now, so I thought the world was my oyster. I went for cheap and small, and bought a Droid Eris.
Post by David Pierce. Find me on Twitter.
Podcasts are a funny technology: they’re incredibly simple, but for some reason no one really understands what they are, what they do, how to use them, or why you’d want to be in a pod or a cast in the first place. So what’s a podcast? The best way to explain is AP test-style: TiVo is to television as podcasts are to radio and Internet video. That is to say it’s a way to get it on demand, consumable whenever you want. Fast forward and rewind to your heart’s content, and keep as much content as you want – until your hard drive gets full.
You can listen to podcasts on your mp3 player, on your computer, or anywhere else you so desire. They get downloaded over the Internet, and are just simple RSS feeds, so anywhere you’ve got the Internet, you can get podcasts. iTunes is becoming the gold standard, though, and provides a great store for finding podcasts (“store” here is used loosely, because they’re mostly free). Many radio stations are syndicating their stuff to podcasts, and there are a huge number of podcast-only “stations” out there now. Unlike producing a TV show, creating a radio show of sorts, whether it’s video or audio, is relatively cheap and simple to do.
Post by David Pierce. Find me on Twitter.
I rarely have long periods of time with nothing to do – there’s not typically time to read a book, or watch a movie, or take a nap (granted, “take a nap” requires at least three hours in my world). What I do have, multiple times a day, is somewhere between three and ten minutes with nothing going on and nothing I can do about it. Whether I’m on the subway, waiting for food to come, or at my desk trying to look productive at work, these brief periods pop up all the time.
To be honest, I don’t want to be terribly productive during these periods. What I do want is to learn something, be entertained, or just have a way to goof off while I’m waiting. At the same time, I don’t want to be completely wasting my time (if I’m doing that, why aren’t I sleeping?) – the key is to find the balance between useful, interesting, and feeling like work.
Post by David Pierce. Find me on Twitter.
There’s this new fad, in the last six months or so – it’s called “location-based social networking.” Applications like Foursquare and Gowalla are growing in popularity, Yelp has added a location-based network, Twitter lets you tag your tweets with information about your location, and everyone from Facebook to Google has thrown their hat into the ring.
All these apps work on your phone (and most work on pretty much any Internet-connected phone), letting you check in and look around wherever you are, no matter where it is. They all work essentially the same: you go to a place, and tell whichever network you choose where you are. “I’m at Starbucks on 61st and Lexington Ave,” you might say. Then, FourGooYelLoopTwitWallaFace tells you information about your location – who’s there, what’s there, and more. At first blush, that’s actually a frightening thought. Google already knows everything about my online presence, do I really want the Web to know where I’m having coffee?
Post by David Pierce. Find me on Twitter.
A good bit of my day, every single day, is spent reading on screens. I’ll read news on my computer, and then save some interesting stuff to Instapaper to read while I’m on the subway. I’ll read RSS feeds when I get to work, read blogs and news throughout the day, catch up on ESPN when I’m bored, and maybe end the day reading a book on my iPod Touch or my laptop while I’m sitting in bed.
All of that would be fine, except that computer reading is a nightmare. There’s the obvious problems, like “you’ll go blind,” as well as a host of other annoyances. Between blinking ads that pop up over the first nine paragraphs of the story, ads about some girl’s nasty yellow teeth I’d really rather not see, and the “hey there, want to subscribe to my newsletter?” notes that seem to be plastered all over most blogs, reading on your computer (or any screen) just sucks.
Post by David Pierce. Find me on Twitter.
On Twitter yesterday, I asked my followers for some of their favorite blogs. I got some great answers, which I’ll share, but what was more interesting to me was how many people were in my situation: liking reading blogs, and finding it harder and harder to find new good ones.
I’ve also realized that, for most people, blogs are still a totally foreign concept. We don’t know how to find good ones, how to use those to find others, or how to connect to this whole crazy blogging world. I think that’s why the reactions to my lists of great business blogs and great blogs for foodies were hits.
