Webcolumn

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Chuck Skoda talks about his disdain for the term "blog":

When I tell people about this website, I still hesitate whenever referring to it as my blog. The thing is, I really hate that word. ‘Blog’ incites visions of the nearly endless wasteland of garbage.blogspot.com sites that were started in March of 2004 and fell into disrepair a half-dozen posts and two pageviews later.

[…]

When I try to boil down the broader category of websites that technochocolate falls into outside of the context of the Internet, they could be pretty accurately described as self-published, editorial columns. Wouldn’t that be a mouthful. But hey, column isn’t bad. Is that too misleading? How about webcolumn?

I also loathe the term "blog". When I tell people I write, they inevitably ask where. I tell them, "My site". And then I hear, "Oh, so you're one of those bloggers". I hate that.

I am not a blogger. I am a writer. When I sit down to type out my thoughts, I agonize over structuring my thoughts correctly into something of value to others.

Webcolumn sounds absolutely fantastic.

My name is Chris De Jabet, and I publish a webcolumn.

[Thanks Ben]

Facebook Messenger

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For a while now, I have been dogging Facebook's iOS app to my friends for being buggy, crazy, and generally slow. Honestly, the quality of the Facebook iOS app would lead one to think Facebook was a three person outfit handing development of the app to a volunteer intern. And ever since Facebook revamped their Messages infrastructure, the iOS app hasn't been playing as nicely with that particular area of the service.

Well, a while ago, Facebook acquired Beluga, which was an app for sending and receiving messages, pictures, and locations between two people or a small group. Say, that fits right in with Facebook's reimagination of Messages, doesn't it?

Yesterday saw the first fruits of Facebook's Beluga acquisition, as they released Messenger for iOS and Android. This new, separate app is pretty much a wholesale replacement for the current "inbox" area of the Facebook app, doing one thing and doing it very well.

In a couple conversations I've had using Messenger, it facilitates quick messaging very quickly and easily. One friend I was chatting with said it was a little crazy how it was sending duplicates of the messages to his email address and texting his phone in addition to notifying him via push notification for the app. I don't have this problem as I have disabled Facebook from sending me any emails or texts. I prefer to keep Facebook's communication within Facebook's own ecosystem. If I want to check Facebook, I'll go to Facebook.

Overall, the Messenger app is solid and performs well. It's much more stable than Google's competing Huddle feature within the Google+ app. If you're a Facebook on the go, I can't see why you wouldn't want to use Messenger over having Facebook always email you.

I can only hope that Facebook is letting the Beluga team rewrite their primary app accordingly.

Twitterrific 4.3 Syncs Timelines

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When it comes to third-party Twitter clients, each one usually needs to find a way to set itself apart. Tweetbot recently added its own push notification service, even offering the ability to set a daily quiet time for when you are asleep.

My favorite twitter app, Twitterrific, has long held its niche with being minimal and offering a unified timeline, showing tweets, mentions, and direct messages all in one continuous timeline. Today, though, the Iconfactory unveiled a new feature to set the blue bird apart from the rest: Tweet Marker.

Tweet Marker works like pure magic. You read some tweets on Twitterrific for Mac, and decide you need to leave your desk for a bit. Simply close Twitterrific, and it sets the top-most tweet in view as the last read tweet. Next, open Twitterrific on your iPhone or iPad, and your timeline auto-scrolls to that marked tweet, signified by a purple bookmark. Read some more tweets, and exit the iOS version of Twitterrific, and then go back to your Mac, and pick up at the latest marked tweet.

This doesn't just work between Mac & iPhone or Mac & iPad, but it works between iPhone & iPad as well.

Twitterrific 4.3 also brings other features to the table, such as initial support for decoding t.co links. Picture services such as TwitPic, yfrog, img.ly, and Twitter's Photo service that have been hidden behind t.co links will now open in the photo viewer.

Be sure to read the full changelog (Mac, iOS) and, if you don't already use Twitterrific, pick it up for the Mac or iOS.

Lion Recovery Disk Assistant

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Apple just released Lion Recovery Disk Assistant via its support site. This little app eases some of the anxieties of Lion's digital distribution on the Mac App Store.

The Lion Recovery Disk Assistant lets you create Lion Recovery on an external drive that has all of the same capabilities as the built-in Lion Recovery: reinstall Lion, repair the disk using Disk Utility, restore from a Time Machine backup, or browse the web with Safari.

This will be handy in case a user wants to reinstall Lion after, say, upgrading or replacing the hard drive in their Mac.

A New Look for Full-Screen Browsers

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One of my favorite features in Lion, as a laptop user, is its take on full-screen apps. This works especially well in apps like Mail & iCal, where the interface gracefully uses every pixel of the screen.

However, not every app utilizes full-screen fantastically. These apps pretty much just expand all their UI elements to fit the screen. Safari, while I enjoy using it full-screen, has too much travel when using the mouse to reach certain areas. Also, having the address and search bars separated is so 2008.

Henrik Eneroth took it upon himself to reimagine the full-screen browser into something more usable. It's ideas like this that should be coming out of Cupertino. His mockup is fantastic, and I think almost everything he touches on is spot on.

[via The Brooks Review]

Twitter Parties

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Lately I have noticed the proliferation of "twitter parties" on my favorite communication service, Twitter.

Here is how twitterpartyguide.com, the first result on Google when I searched for "twitter party", defines it:

A twitter party is a fast and fun virtual party, using the twitter platform. Usually held in the evening, twitter parties typically last 1-2 hours and are a wonderful way for people to connect and discuss a topic of choice. Most twitter parties have an expert panelist and party host to keep the party on topic.

And how it works:

Twitter users tweet with a specified Hashtag (#) for the party. The party host will announce the hashtag prior to the event. If you look at the twitter party calendar, parties are listed by the hashtag (#). Users use their tweet chat client to search for the hashtag and join in the conversation.

Basically, a twitter party acts as a private chatroom. Participants are focusing in on a single hashtag via search, so for the duration of that party, they only see tweets related to that topic.

I don't like twitter parties. Sure, twitter is a great way to communicate with people, but while people you follow are participating in a twitter party, you have to see their dozens of tweets about it, which are usually not following a context apparent to those outside the party.

The people I follow (or rather, followed) who regularly participate in these have often retorted to me that I should switch to a client that supports muting a hashtag. Yeah, great idea. Tell me, do any of Twitter's official branded clients support that feature? No. (TweetDeck doesn't count. Yes, it is owned by Twitter now, but it is not, as of this writing, branded by Twitter itself). When Twitter rolls this out as an official feature of the service, then this argument can be made. Until then, don't assume every client supports it.

I consider twitter parties to be spam. Their participants rarely pay their followers the convenience of announcing, "Hey, I'm going to be flooding your stream soon, you may want to unfollow for a couple hours". Instead, my time and yours is wasted by having to scroll through party-related tweets, trying to discern whether or not each one is nonsense or not.

The only real solution at that point is to sever ties with the unfollow button. Which blows, because then you do miss out on the good stuff from that person at other times — you know, the kind of stuff that made you click the follow button in the first place.

A Better Solution

Twitter is a great platform to communicate. But I don't think it is the best vehicle for large scale private chatrooms. You know what is? An actual chatroom. It is private to only those that wish to participate, doesn't disturb the rest of the community that you've established, and you can probably get a transcript for further reference.

Heck, even AIM supports chatrooms. And I know you can export a transcript for that.

Wouldn't it be easier for an organizer of a twitter party to announce a site or the name of a chatroom within AIM to host these events? That way, only interested participants are talking amongst each other, and not polluting the streams of all their followers?

Surely using a service that was designed for being a chatroom is much better suited than a service that was meant for casual conversation between two or few people at a time. Seriously, you can only tag so many people in a mention before you don't have room to say anything.

Devil's Advocate

It would be unfair if I didn't point out one criticism that twitter partiers have made against me when I have made my criticism of their parties. I often go a little on the excess with tweets when there is an Apple event.

You see, though, I often do several things leading up to Apple events:

  • I send several tweets at different times of the day prior to the event saying I will be tweeting a lot about the event.
  • I welcome people to unfollow for a day if they don't want to read my tweets about Apple's new stuff.
  • I use a single hashtag for the event, so, in case someone's client does support muting, they can do that. I don't tell people to switch clients to accommodate me.

Also, it's worth noting that I end up having these tweet splurges about once every four or five months. Not weekly. And, if you're following me, it's likely because you want my thoughts on Apple and technology, or you know me personally, which, if you do, you know that's pretty much my thing.

All of this is to say that Twitter is not the best medium for a massive private chatroom. A private chatroom, however, is. Let's not unintentionally waste our friends' time.