Entries from May 2008 ↓

     If you haven’t heard @jacklhasa and @scarab are taking their Twitter tails on the road.  These two crazy guys have set off around the United States to meet up with folks they know and even some they don’t.

     I asked Jack if he’d take time out of the busy road trip to answer tell us about this project.  Don’t you want to know what makes these two tick?  Well then read on. Jack took a few minutes out to answer some questions about the project.

1. What is this traveling road show about? What’s the purpose?

     Well, when we started out, we set the lofty goal than many American journalists attempt at least once in their lives: to find the American Dream.  But I think as we’ve traveling and things have evolved, we might already be living the American Dream.  We started out with nothing, and we are able to do most of the things we want to.  Now it’s more about exploration and discovery.  We want to see as many new places as possible, and meet as many people as possible.  We’re trying to unite an online community(Twitter) in the real world.  We’re also trying to give something back to the real world cities we visit, like we did in Florence, AL.(http://tinyurl.com/3oyz3f)
 

2. What brought this idea to light? And who?

Scarab and I dreamed it up one day when things weren’t going so well for us.  I came home that night and told @darkgracie about it, and she wrote the first post every about Twitter Travels in her tumblr (NSFW) that night.  Just a few nights later, we would do a podcast with @markdavidson that would really kick things off. 

3. How are you financing the trip?

At this point we are financed almost entirely by donations.  We both put in some starting money from selling most of our worldly possessions, and we both bring in a little each month for writing for various websites and magazines.  We’ve been fortunate enough to receive the backing of a huge community, and it grows more everyday.

4. Tell us about the website and how folks can help.

The website is http://twittertravels.com.  It hosts our travel plans, articles, and thoughts from the road.  People who want to help out can donate on the website in several ways, or they can blog or micro-blog about us to get more people interested. 

5. What are some of your upcoming stops that you’re most excited about?

Well, plans changed quickly last weekend when @gregbarnett said, “Jack, you have to be at TweetUp LA.”  So we spent that weekend raising money, and we are flying out to Los Angeles on May 28th!  After LA, I know we are both looking forward to New York City, where we’ll be @BrooklynBeast’s road crew for the Vermont 100.(http://www.vermont100.com) 

6. Where can we find photos from this journey?

I’ve got a flickr account that holds all the photos, organized by city at http://tinyurl.com/5f2kty

7. Will you be putting together a road trip book when you’re done?

We certainly hope so!  My first book will be published sometime this summer, and we are hoping to get a travel guide and restaurant guide out after this is all over. 

8. What can someone do to get their favorite city on the list?

Just drop us a line.  It’s as simple as that.  If we have not been there yet, we’ll put it on the schedule.  If we’ve been there already, but missed a few Twits, we might be able to schedule in a return trip.

     Wow! Jack and Scarab sound like they’re having a great time, experiencing a dream come true.  Missed out so far?  You can catch up on their site, http://twittertravels.com/.  Want to show moral support?  Then follow and tweet with @jacklhasa and @scarab.  I’m sure they’d both appreciate it.

     Have more questions you’d like to see Jack and Scarab answer? Let me know!  We’ll get them together.
     What cool social networking project are you working on?  Let me know and I’ll get you on the front page here at The Broad Brush.

     Starting up a new blog is tough.  You hear me saying that, but then you look and see I’ve started more than one.  But it’s still true.  Oh yeah, you can drop out three or four posts in short order but what happens next?  The idea well runs dry.  That or you lose interest.  It’s tough.  Been there.

     Chris Garrett, pro blogger and more, shared a great idea with some of us to get through those days.  It’s a brainstorming idea focused on using a Mindmap.  Now some of you have never heard of a mind map before.  Here’s an example of a real one I’m working on.

 *

     This map, titled Flickr, demonstrates the basic idea of a mind map well.  Flickr is the main theme.  Off of that are nodes or branches.  In this case different topics of interest about Flickr. Each of those branches has its own branches as well.  These further break down a topic or area of interest.

     In the example above Groups is a specific topic about Flickr.  Under that there are several sub topics, such as recommended groups, what moderated means, and the privacy of sharing in a group.  You’ll notice that I didn’t use full sentences in the map.  The key is to provide enough information to be able to recall that topic without writing a novel.

     How does a map like this differ from an outline?  The most obvious difference is the level of detail.  Mind maps are often no deeper than the above, or perhaps having one or two deeper branches.  Also, the organization of the map is more fluid, and topics may overlap.  You can see that privacy is mentioned under How To as well as Groups.  Notice also that sets is under Privacy and How To.

     Your map is done and your ready for the next step.  This hopefully is much easier now, and that’s picking your blog post topic.  Using the mind map above  I can see several potential blog posts already.  As a matter of fact, I can picture a series of Flickr How To articles in my future.

     Seeing the ideas laid out might tempt you to write them all at once.  Here’s where another great idea from Chris comes in handy, a blogging planner.  More on that in a future post.

     What tools are you using? Mind maps? Outlines? Random post generator? Waiting on your Twitter pals for inspiration?  Share!

* JPG generated from actual mindmap at MindMeister.com

Shashi Bellamkonda, from Happenings, advice & other technology thoughts, brings us a man on the scene interview with ‘JJ’ from Jim Beam, the whiskey makers. The video was recorded during the SOBCon08 weekend in Chicago.  Enjoy the Jim Beam interview.

     Robert Scoble, most prolific geek on the net, shares his thoughts of Friendfeed and why it will or won’t go mainstream. His first post, Why FriendFeed won’t go mainstream, obviously covers the why nots.  The second part is Why FriendFeed will go mainstream.

     I’ll not spoil the articles for you, but did want to talk to one or two from each article. First from the Why it won’t article, #8, “It pisses bloggers off because all their comments are moving onto FriendFeed rather than staying on their blogs.”

     Scoble mentions that your blog post is likely to get more comments on Friendfeed than on your blog.  Why?  Because your friends and readers are no longer just following your blog.  They are following your videos, all three of your blogs, and your Pownce and Flickr streams.  They’ve found it easier to catch you in one place, Friendfeed, than checking all of those separately.   The concern is that your visitors will go down. Truth here.  All that Friendfeed shows is the link.  Folks still have to click over to read the article.  So maybe they aren’t commenting directly on the blog, but being on Friendfeed makes you a lot more visible.

     Then there’s #6 on the why not list, about finding new friends.  The argument being that it’s tough to find new friends there, unless you want to find Scoble, Dave Winer and some other uber geeks.  I’d contend though, that with this service, as others, that folks aren’t coming without their friends. Oh, they might be the first in their peer group, but rarely are they the only.  This is true for me.  Early adopter but now a swarm of my contacts is using it.  And believe it or not, finding my blog posts and stuff there instead of directly from my RSS.

     Now about the will go mainstream side. #5 is one of two favorites from the list, “It is freaking fast and much more reliable than Twitter.”   This is so true.  I’m often seeing Friendfeed show tweets before I get them on the client I use.  Reliable, even more so.  Twitter seems to be offline or bugged a noticeable part of the time.  Friendfeed is managing incoming data from a slew of sources and yet it seems to handle and keep up with them without error.  However, I wonder how dense the user base is yet.  Does it have the many thousands of users that Twitter has?  How will it fair in six months?

     Then my other favorite, #9, I’ll call it the all the cool folks are there item.  It’s the fact that many interesting geek and non-geeks alike are on FriendFeed.  Scoble mentions a few interesting ones, Barack Obama, and Gary Vaynerchuk. Hey, you’re there too right?  This is a deal maker for me.  I follow friends of course, but thought and discussion leaders are definitely folks I enjoy following as well. Are some of them just Internet rockstars? Sure. But some are well known in other arenas and just happen to be blogging, and making other social media.

     Where do I stand? I’m in the will go mainstream camp. My reasons? It’s only going to get easier to use, and people will become aware of it from mainstream sites, such as Obama’s campaign page.  Right now it doesn’t have the eyes of millions, but as it grows and changes, it’s user base will grow and mature as well.   The feedback is just beginning to role in for them.

     Where do you stand? User? Never heard of it?  Following a slew of folks? Or just your real life friends? Bloggers? Politicians? Your neighbor?

from Case-Notes from the Artsy Asylum.

     Susan Reynolds, one of my favorite online people, shares the story of a great artist networking project. She and several other artists have been part of this project, inspired by the Flat Stanley Books*.  I won’t steal her thunder here, but lets just say it involves flat people representations of the artists and a traveling bus.

     You might already be one of those artists, or been in a similar project.  The project has been extended by reaching out to not just people they’ve met in person or worked with, but to their online contacts.  The next artist might be you.

     Another great person, Ann, @annOhio to some, is all about social networking online and off.  She’s got a brand new blog up dedicated to it.  Check it out.

     So what social projects are you engaged in? Pen pal? Postcards? Sending flat people cross-country in a bus?  Driving or flying there yourself?

*The Flat Stanley Book Series by Jeff Brown has become a huge educational boon, encouraging kids to read, write and think creatively. They send Flat Stanley to other people who take photos of him doing different interesting things. Then Stanley and his photo-journal gets returned to his home base. Flat Stanley has been on every continent and it is entertainingly documented on an ongoing basis.

     The postcards have been put out again. As in previous weeks, 1, 2, 3,and 4 the opt in was closed on Friday night. The postcards are written, stamped and out. They should be leaving my local area on Monday, the 19th of May.

Twitter pals to get postcards this week are:

• LizaJne
• laurak
• etherjammer
• mokum
• moritherapy - again

     Twitter pals of mine are given the chance on Friday night to DM me and ask for a postcard.  I’ve been of the mind that social networking needs to have more social involved.  In that spirit I’ve been trying to visit in person, talk on the phone, send personal video messages, and doing this postcard project.  At about 6 folks per week, this will take forever but it’s fun.

     I’ve been asking if folks will at least tweet about the postcard or write a blog post.  There’s no obligation though, and I hope no one stops themselves from asking over that worry.

     If you’d like to do the same thing, jump right in.  Whatever you do though, I strongly encourage you to not make Twitter your only social medium.  Get in there and connect with people.  Talk to them, write to them, send them a video or a song, but definitely make the effort.  People will notice.

     What are you doing to connect?

Woopra is a real time web traffic monitoring tool.  It collects live data from your blog, and allows you to view it in a desktop client.  The coolest thing is the real time part.

What you see above is a shot, capture live, of an actual blog reader at The Broad Brush.  This person as the 5th visitor that Woopra had recorded.  What is blotted out above is the IP address of that visitor.  As you can see, it captures all of the visitor data one could possibly want, from browser and system type, to location and screen resolution.

If you look closely you’ll see not only which pages were visited, but the length of the visit. Pages visited are listed in order of visit, and if a page is visited twice, it appears twice, in the proper order.  Total visits for that user are noted as well as total page views.

This data is captured and viewable at the Analytics tab.  There you can view the collected and aggregated data to date.  The analytics include tabs for Visitors, Systems, Pages and Referrers.  Each tab provides thorough collections of data, and supports viewing the data in various modes, bar chart, pie chart, and download to csv.

Woopra is not just another blog stats tool.  It does more than allow real-time viewing of blog action.  It allows direct interaction with the blog readers.  Direct as in live chat.

As you can see in the capture above, I was chatting with Mousewords. During the chat, the readers information is displayed. The chat is very straightforward, and has no ‘features’ as you’d find in IM clients.  You basically type in the box at the bottom and hit Enter/Return. When chat is initiated, the reader sees a small window in the corner of the browser.  They must accept the chat before it is engaged.

Woopra is still in beta. Some or all of the features you’ve seen here might change before final release.  From my perspective, this is a tool I see myself using.  There is just one caveat though.  The chat feature has the potential to surprise visitors.

The chat does pop up a small box/window in the bottom of the browser, but seeing it from the other side, I might be wary of clicking on it.  If the reader is not familiar with it, they may think it’s an ad pop-up.  Some education on the blog might be helpful, but I’m not sure how to go about that at this time.  Your recommendations are welcome.

In summary, I’m giving it a try and think you should too. Let me know how it works out and your thoughts on it. Too creepy? Too cool?

Jonny Goldstein is hosting a haiku contest.  The prize? A collectible Mimobot a designer collectible USB flash drive, courtesy of http://www.mimoco.com/.

encourage people to adopt puppies from their local shelter. If you are thinking about adopting a puppy, I encourage you to get one from the animal shelter. And make sure you get that critter fixed. 

The contest page is here, on Utterz. Visit, see Jonny’s own haiku, and find out what the requirements are and where to submit yours.

Just another great thing from Jonny, one of the nicest guys on the net.

As an aside, our dogs have been shelter puppies, yours? Got any good stories about bringing your dog into your household?  Did the internet play a part? Find your dog or cat online?