The Progress Bar

Twitter is blowing up in a big way. Serious media coverage happening. Early adopters are going from majority to minority in a short period of time. I don’t like relying on 8-12 external services to make Twitter as comprehensive as I prefer it to be.

And why aren’t more web properties accepting OpenID, Facebook Connect and assorted Google services? Straightforward to implement, what’s keeping websites from making these services available?

Twitter could easily become a primary marketing channel. Kind of Like Myspace leapfrogging over Facebook. Back to basics.

Tech Crunch says Whoa, Twitter Mania.

http://www.techflash.com/Google_exec_Twitter-like_service_more_interesting_with_more_data_41218642.html

VentureBeat expounds: Your mom is leaving MySpace for Facebook (but you aren’t).

ReadWriteWeb emits: Facebook’s New Public Profiles: Good for Businesses, Bad for People

Today, the new Facebook Publisher box asks you “What’s on your mind?” The change is a nod to the rapidly growing social network Twitter where users answer the question “what are you doing?” and then respond with text, links, photos, videos, and more, thanks to an ecosystem of integrated third-party applications that let users share more than just a simple thought.

Facebook is becoming insanely complex, like a 234 button remote control. Apple, some help here, please.

The new Facebook profile, is too lifestreamy, agree or disagree?

Hype Machine

Pitchfork 50 Best Albums of 2008

Pitchfork 100 Best Track of 2008

I hardly ever visit Facebook directly, if someone does something like friend me or invite me to something, the Facebook toolbar lets me know about it. Ever since I upgraded to Firefox 3.0.5 for Mac, my Facebook toolbar doesn’t work. I’ve emailed a developer I know at Facebook and am hoping they can fix the issue.

Just in time for MacWorld, Apple Introduces Revolutionary New Laptop With No Keyboard , via The Onion.

Get out that iTunes gift card, Pitchfork has selected their top picks for 2008. I just found Flying Lotus, which is spectacular for background music while working. The future of hip-hop some call it. FL is related to Alice Coletrane.

Good TechCrunch overview of how Google and Facebook may win the Comment Wars. This upsets me on several levels. If we had a decent centralized comment management system I could easily link to the comments I’ve left at Disqus, TC and other places. Someday this will be possible. For now, we wait for FB and Google to grow up and make nice.

VentureBeat says that Twitter has made Dell $1 million in revenue.

Dell (NASDAQ: DELL) says Twitter has produced $1 million in revenue over the past year and a half through sale alerts. People who sign up to follow Dell on Twitter receive messages when discounted products are available the company’s Home Outlet Store. They can click over to purchase the product or forward the information to others.

I think corporate accounts will pay for millions of free users, along with the usual ads thrown in once they figure that out. Targeted ads should be pretty straightward to implement.

I just left a comment on TechCrunch after signing in via Facebook. Very cool, although I have to go check the FB privacy settings to make sure TC doesn’t spam my wall. I’m installing Google FriendConnect on one of my other blogs today to see how that works.

Longtime readers know that I love to fish and have posted photos here of some fairly large striped bass I’ve caught over the years. My friend James “Stickman” Waldron spent the last few years putting together a documentary about Plum Island fishing, where I do most of my striped bass fishing. The video is in high-def and features some great footage, new and old, of fishermen hooking up with some amazing fish, and sharing great stories about one of the best bass fishing spots in the world.

Reel People: Fishermen of Plum Island is now for sale. As a bonus, yours truly is featured on the cover. If love striped bass or know someone who does, this is a great holiday gift.

Make Your Own iPhone App.

Too lazy to come up with your own status updates? Try Generatus.

Wonder why nobody is visiting your site? Usertesting.com.

Upgraded blog to Thesis theme.

Whether you’re operating online or off, creativity is the key to your future success. Messing with code, switching themes, and constantly changing the variables of your work environment are all things that stifle creativity and force you to fight uphill battles.

Stop settling for inefficiencies, and instead, start focusing on the creative things that you can do to extend your reach and your own effectiveness. If you’re running a Website to help you accomplish this (and you darn well should be!), then you can use Thesis to remove these fundamental site-building obstacles, and this will leave you with more time to focus on the things that will yield higher returns down the road!

Get Thesis, and quit fighting battles that are already won!

Amazing underground cavern Stockholm Data Center.

OpenID and oAuth Summit.

For years now, blog comments have been treated like second-rate citizens. I was an early user of SezWho on TheProgressBar, then moved to Disqus, and back in the day played around with CoComment. All of these systems are ok in one way or another, but they also have their faults.

Recently I read about Reblogging on Disqus.

Now on comments throughout DISQUS, you can find a reblog link where you can publish a quotation of the comment to your blog. This quote is cited with the original author, the blog where it originally appeared, and a link back to the original comment to give the discussion full context.

Take a look at BackType, which aggregates comments from blogs and makes them searchable.

Via TechCrunch.