Once again, Google is making me crazy

Dave

Google’s announcement today of Google Buzz reminds me once again that they are on the way to owning our online life. We’re rapidly approaching the point where your single most important online identifier will be your Google username.

And what’s mine? dbt001.

I signed up for that back in the days when we were still being semi-anonymous on the Web. I’m sure I could have gotten davidbthomas as my username back then, but that seemed a little too specific, a little too revelatory. Why, that’s how I’m listed in the phone book! Who knows what might happen?

Now I’ve got a dozen or more services tied to my username. It would be a nightmare to change. But I want my online identity to include my name. Vanity? No, practicality. We’re all overwhelmed by information and incoming messages. I want to make sure that when someone sees something I’ve shared or directed their way, they know it’s coming from me.

So now I’m back to trying to figure out what I can add to the front or end of “davidbthomas” to make it unique, without sounding too ridiculous. And I’ve talked about this already online in several places, and with several people. My wife has suggested I consider medication, and she didn’t sound like she was kidding.

Is there a medical term for someone obsessed with their online identity? I mean, other than “dork,” of course.

Posted via web from David B. Thomas

My first unconference

Dave

I went to my first unconference this past weekend, AnalyticsCamp, held at the Kenan-Flagler Business School at UNC-Chapel Hill. I really enjoyed the format. For those of you unfamiliar with the unconference/barcamp model, there’s no schedule in advance. Speakers propose their sessions on a wiki, then on the day, they stand up and pitch their ideas, then post them to a board. If you want to go, you make a mark on the sheet. Some of the sessions were packed, some had only a few people, but it was very democratic. It’s also handy in that you get a sense of the speaker before you commit your time to his or her session.

I also just registered for IgniteRaleigh, which follows the same format but allows you to vote online. The topics range from social media marketing to what zombies reveal about society and psychology. So far it looks like the most creative and unusual topics are getting the most votes, which is great. If there’s one thing I’m tired of, it’s hearing the same old thing at conferences.

Once again I’m reminded why I love my job. My colleagues and I are breaking new ground every day, and finding new ways to communicate that people enjoy and want to participate in, not just endure. Unconferences are the real-world equivalent. If we all keep this up, we may never have to read another boring, jargon-filled press release again, and we may never again have to fight to stay awake while someone reads their PowerPoint slides to us.

Refocusing on my blog and trying new tools

Dave

When I spent some time with Chris Brogan in December, we talked about blogs and sharing tools like Posterous, and the different ways people use them. Chris thinks people are diluting their web presences by posting in too many places. “You can watch him say this yourself.” “Home is where the web page is,” he summed up nicely.

I had a blog on Typepad for many years. When I finally decided to move to this self-hosted WordPress blog you’re looking at, I realized I could import all my old posts, but all my photos were stuck. I looked into methods for bringing them over and found one small company that will do it for you, but admits it’s such a massive pain that they charge a lot, since they don’t really want to do it. “They even provide the step-by-step instructions, which run to about 50 steps.”

I really like Posterous, its simple interface, the web-based tools that allow you to share pictures and videos quickly, and the ability to post by email to multiple places. But I’m afraid that if I get too tied in to Posterous, one day I might have the same issue that I had with Typepad.

So here I am once again, using precious toddler napping time to mess with my blog. I just installed the TweetMe plugin, which should send out a tweet announcing this post once it goes up. “This whole post started out as a test of that function, but I got carried away.”

I like this blog. I like the idea that it will continue to grow, and that it will continue to be my home base as new tools emerge, rather than just another outpost I used for a while and abandoned when something more exciting came along.

By the way, my thanks once again to my friend Jeff Cohen from socialmediaB2B.com. I posted on Twitter that I was looking for the right tools to do this, and he called me within a few minutes to talk me through it. Good man.

I almost miss cable. But only today.

Dave
A few months ago we turned in our cable boxes to Time Warner and went completely to Internet TV. I bought a Mac Mini to be the HTPC or media server or whatever you want to call it: the computer that stays plugged in to the TV and stereo all the time. “I pretty much killed an older HP laptop trying to make it do that.”

We’ve been watching a lot less TV, which was certainly a big reason we did it, along with saving a hundred bucks a month. Most of the shows we like are streamed via the network Web site or Hulu. The one exception was Mad Men, and we bought that per episode from iTunes, which I will probably do with Top Gear, the BBC car show, once the new season is available. All in all, apart from some glitchy periods “possibly due to the fact that we live in an unusually-high-bandwidth-using neighborhood”, it’s worked well. Until the snow.

We’ve been stuck inside the house for almost 48 hours. We’ve watched everything in our Hulu queue. We watched the Netflix DVDs we had in the house and, cruelly, discovered that the copy of “The Hangover”; we received is unplayable for some reason. Last night, desperate for some form of mindless entertainment after a long day trying to keep The Boy amused, I delved deeper into the Netflix and Hulu archives.

Let’s just say there isn’t a lot of deep there to delve in. There’s a reason you haven’t heard a lot of people standing around the water cooler talking about most of these shows. A lot of them have that quasi-Euro crossover look that means they were probably filmed in Vancouver by a director who was shortlisted but ultimately rejected for a series on The WB. I’m sure a lot of them have cult followings. That may sound like a good thing to you. It may not.

The sun is out and the snow is thinking about melting, but I’m not optimistic we’ll be going to work tomorrow. Which means I may soon be catching up on old episodes of “McMillan and Wife.”

The Boy in the Snow

Dave


We got about six inches of snow overnight Friday, which is a heck of a lot for North Carolina. I was hoping Conrad would enjoy it, but so far, not so much. I think it’s the uncertainty of the footing that bothers him. We went out yesterday and he immediately fell over about five times, then wanted to be carried. Can’t say as I blame him. It’s no fun feeling like you’re not in control of your feet.

We tried it again today and he was over it after about five minutes “so today’s time-getting-dressed-to-time-in-the-snow ration was more like 6:1”. I think he only humored me for the promise of hot chocolate.