Spoiler alert: If you really hate reading anything about episodes of Lost that you haven't seen yet--and you haven't seen the episode that first aired Wednesday--you might not want to read ahead.
I know we have more pressing things to talk about these days--the economy, climate change, the new president--but I'm going to barge in this morning with a warning about something a bit more niche.
When you're posting to Twitter about something you're watching on TV, make sure nobody thinks it's really happening!
Background: I've been watching this season of Lost at a local bar that shows it on a couple of massive screens every week. The place is packed full of total fanatics: it's like football, except with flaming arrows in lieu of pigskin. Highly recommended.
So in Wednesday night's episode, something happens. I'm going to be very vague to avoid spoiling it, but basically, there's one point in which a character is holding a gun, and the important part is that we have never learned what said character's name is. There's an argument, and another character, whose name we do know, addresses the anonymous gun-wielder by name. It's a name that would shock even mildly avid Lost-watchers. Most of those in the bar expressed their surprise by gasping, shrieking, or otherwise effusing.
A commercial break followed, and--of course--I posted a Twitter message: "'Put the gun down, [redacted].' OMG WHOA. Whole bar gasped."
Well, a few minutes later I received a direct message from someone I know on Twitter--I'll keep this person anonymous. The message read, "someone pulled out a gun???" Apparently, my Twitter contact hadn't seen the earlier messages that made it clear I was watching Lost and seemed to think I was at a bar where someone had pulled out a gun. Oops.
Luckily, no panic ensued. It was, after all, only a single Twitter post. A few direct messages and a public clarification later, I'd explained the reality of the situation, and my Twitter contact responded with, "There must be a term for this: 'taken out of twontext?'" I'm generally not a fan of corny Twitter puns, but he hit the nail on the head.
I guess putting things into "twontext" is why we have Twitter hash tags, the searchable keywords that many people tack onto the end of Twitter messages, often to tie them to discussion surrounding an event--say, "#davos" for the World Economic Forum or "#inaug09" for this month's presidential inauguration. I typically don't use them unless I'm at a conference where we've been asked to tag for aggregation purposes, but Wednesday night hinted to me that considering how much banter and noise fills up a Twitter feed, it's really easy to get the wrong idea about something.
I mean, goodness knows what might happen on Lost next week.
Phone ahead.
If you're driving to a meeting and realize you're going to be late, what do you do? Pick up the phone and call ahead, right? But this means, possibly, trying to find the number for the person you're meeting with, which can be dangerous if you're in motion. And possibly illegal.
Mobile app Oops I'm Late does the calling for you. It runs on GPS-equipped Windows smartphones. If you start the app and give it access to your calendar so it knows where and when your next appointment is, it will automatically fire off text messages to the contacts in a meeting when it detects that you can't possibly make it in time. Optionally, it can also tell people how far away you are and your ETA.
The new version works with Twitter and Facebook to send both public and private messages.
There are free and paid versions. No word of iPhone support, and I have not put my hands on this product to try it. Love the idea, though.
We have been reminded several times lately that Web 2.0 is in no way a synonym for "reliable." Major services have crashed. Big product launches have fizzled. Users have raised their collective fists in the air. What's going on? Is the Web crumbling? Well, no, it's not. But users' expectations are rising, and Web companies often get themselves into trouble by promising far more than they can deliver.
Here's the timeline of offline:
Amazon S3 (Also: Google App Engine)
When: February 15 (Amazon); June 17 (Google)
What happened: These massive infrastructure services, Amazon's S3 especially, underpin many Web 2.0 companies. When these services fail, big sites go down. When the sites go down, they lose money.
Corporate coping behavior: Amazon CTO Werner Vogels banished to the lecture circuit to explain why S3 is still more reliable than any servers you could run yourself.
The damage: Companies forced to re-consider their reliance on "cloud computing."
Twitter
When: April, May, June. July too? Who cares?
What happened: Twitter began to get unreliable. It's up, then it's down. Repeat.
Corporate coping behavior: During the bad spells, Twitter turns off key features of the service -- like access from Twitter helper apps, or the "replies" tab on the site -- to decrease the load. Twitter also buys the search engine Summize, which adds a new level of utility to the service.
The damage: Twitter was becoming part of the social fabric of the technology community. When it began to get flakey, marquee users abandoned the service and fled to rivals like Friendfeed. The problems appear to have been resolved, but the damage may never be repaired.
Firefox
When: June 17
What happened: Mozilla announced the release data of the Firefox 3.0 and its goal to get a million downloads on that day. When the day comes, the download doesn't work. The downloads start up later, and Mozilla goes on not just to meet its download goal but utterly crush it.
Corporate coping behavior: Mozilla changes "Download Day" to "The 24-hour Period that Starts When We Say it Does."
The damage: Temporary embarrassment, which is overshadowed by insane success.
... Read more
My first review of Google Sites was positive. I even chose to overlook some weird display issues as early beta bugs (every 1.0 product I review has them) that other reviewers, such as ZDNet's Dennis Howlett, were not so kind about. I thought that, overall, it was a strong and useful collaboration product.
My second review--this one--is not positive. There's only one thing about this product that really bugs me, but it's annoying enough that I would throw the thing out the window if only it came in a box I could pick up. It's this: The integration with Google's productivity applications (word processor, spreadsheet, and presentations) is awful. To me, that's the one thing I want most from a wiki, especially one from Google, which historically has put great collaboration features into its otherwise lightweight productivity applications. I want to be able to easily create a wiki and then embed a productivity document in it, so I can share the whole package with my co-workers.
This is what happens if you try to embed a spreadsheet that isn't public. You don't want your spreadsheet to be public? Tough.
Try this with Sites, though, and you'll feel jilted. First you have to create your spreadsheet outside of the wiki, which is just weird. The real killer, though, is that your spreadsheet will only show up in your wiki if you "publish" it in Docs, making it viewable to anyone who gets its URL. It doesn't matter if you have carefully controlled the access to the wiki itself. If you want people to be able to edit your embedded spreadsheet, you've got to give them permission to do so from Google's separate spreadsheet application, even if you've already given the people who you're collaborating with on your wiki permission to edit the page that's hosting the embedded sheet.
Confused? Common-looking toolbars notwithstanding, Google Sites is clearly not integrated into Google's other productivity applications. It feels like Sites and the other productivity applications are from two different evolutionary branches. They have similarly-colored fur, but they do not interbreed.
Google could have done this a lot better (and I trust it will). An embedded spreadsheet or a presentation should inherit the permissions of the surrounding wiki page. Better yet, you should be able to create a new document, spreadsheet, or presentation directly inside the wiki, without having to drop back the Apps interface.
For those of you who read my prior review and have started using Sites, I apologize. This product still has great potential, but just as is the case with many of Microsoft's productivity applications, this version 1.0 Google product is best avoided.
According to an e-mail copied to the CenterNetworks blog, Facebook's much-touted developer grant program may be off to a rocky start. The FBFund initiative is apparently restructuring its application process and is asking that all previous applicants re-submit their materials. Initially, applications were to be submitted via e-mail; now, a submission form is available.
"To make sure that everyone understands the conditions of submitting a grant application, we will not review any materials you have sent via email, and any materials you may have sent have been deleted," the copy-pasted e-mail read. It's apparently to ensure that applicants know that the company "can't promise that any materials or information (they) submit here will be kept confidential, or specifically that (Facebook) or others might not develop similar or identical products or services."
Presumably, it'll also streamline the process. CenterNetworks blogger Allen Stern noted that he "couldn't imagine for a minute the management via email" and noted that if Facebook had to reorganize the process, at least the company "called a mulligan" within a few weeks of the fund's debut.
Representatives from Facebook have not yet responded to an inquiry asking to confirm the contents of the e-mail posted to CenterNetworks.
Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg announced the FBFund incentive program at the TechCrunch40 conference last month, designed as a way to provide venture cash to developers who want to create applications for the uber-hyped Facebook Platform. With an initial $10 million flowing in from Facebook investors Accel Partners and the Founders Fund, approved developers can net from $25,000 to $250,000 to develop their apps.
(Credit:
Facebook/Slate)
It's a classroom-warning-video-worthy example of "be careful what you put on your Facebook profile"--or at least that's what it looks like on the surface. Slate columnist Lucy Morrow Campbell was tipped off to the fact that Republican presidential candidate Rudy Giuliani's daughter, Caroline, had semi-openly declared on the social-networking site that her political views are "liberal" (OK, that'd be more shocking if it were Mitt Romney's kid) and that she's a Barack Obama supporter.
Yes, really.
Giuliani, who is 17 and uses a slight variation on her last name for her Facebook profile, had been a member of the "One Million Strong for Barack" Facebook group, something that was visible to all Facebook members in the "networks" she'd joined (the elite Trinity School in Manhattan, as well as Harvard, which she will enter in the fall). After a Slate inquiry--it appears that someone on staff was also a member of the Harvard network--the younger Giuliani withdrew her membership from the Obama supporters' group.
There's been a lot of press gossip, especially in the New York media, over reports that Rudy Giuliani doesn't get along with his kids (in addition to Caroline, he has a 21-year-old son who attends Duke University). That still doesn't mean the whole thing wasn't a joke in the first place--albeit not a very smart one, considering the levels of online political scrutiny these days.
Either way, Jon Stewart will likely have some fun with it--probably involving the notorious "Obama Girl" YouTube video in one way or another.
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