Posts from December 02, 2008

Just been down to Asda. Not because I am a Nineties man but mainly because the element on the kettle just blew.

I went fully equipped with what I believe is known as a 'shopping list'. I managed to decipher all of the entries (some were written by Norma) and successfully secured everything. I was debating whether to pay at a till or risk self-service where you swipe your own goods.

As I reviewed and cross-checked the list for a final time, I found to my horror one solitary item unaccounted for.

Worse, it wasn't Norma's handwriting. Worse still, the final, indeterminate item was written by me.

I could have left it but when you suffer from obsessive compulsive disorder that is easier said than done. In any case, what if the item was important ? What if the item was needed for tea tonight ?

I paused for thought, pushing my trolley to the side by 'Chocolates and Confectionery' and studied the shopping list intently. I still couldn't decipher the writing. I turned my head through 90'. Still no joy.

A friendly, helpful shop assistant approached. 'Can I help you, Sir ?'

'No really. It's OK. I'm fine. Thanks. Just looking at Liquorice Allsorts for my Dad for Christmas. He loves them, you see'.

'You're not having problems reading the shopping list, your wife gave you, are you ?'

'God no. Of course not. In any case, I wrote some of it.'

'Here - let me have a look'. I reluctantly passed the assistant the shopping list.

She scrutinised the scrap of paper. 'Well it can't be that. We don't sell it. Nor do Sainsbury's.' She then turned her head through 90'. 'Hmm - it sounds stupid but, honestly, that's my best guess - 'Goat's Head'.

'Yeah. Thanks. That's what I thought it was. It was probably my son messing around. He's a Goth, you see.

'Listen - do you want me to ask Eric ? He's really good at these handwriting puzzles.'

'No. Listen, it's OK. Honestly, Thanks a lot for all your help. I'll just leave it for now.

I hurriedly made my way to a manned till as I simply dare not risk any more potential embarrassment at the self-service tills with items that fail to scan, causing interminable delays.

Phew - the ordeal is finally over. I put the shopping list back in my pocket and start to pack the shopping.

As I hang a bumper pack of 24 toilet rolls onto the handy hook on back of the trolley and prepare to pay, I hear a demented shriek: 'WAIT - DON'T LET HIM LEAVE THE STORE !'

The plain clothed store detective perks up and security men start to move menacingly towards me.

I spot the previously helpful shop assistant sprinting towards me from aisle 11 (Ice Cream and Frozen Vegetables), carrying something.

People from adjacent tills are now staring at me and I feel myself starting to redden. The security guard is now brandishing a pair of silver handcuffs with a worrying gleam in his eye.

The shop assistant finally reaches the till and triumphantly throws down two 'Go Ahead' bars (Strawberry and Fruits of the Forest).

'I asked Eric. He took one look and said: 'Come on - this one's obvious. It's not 'Goat's Head' - but 'Go Ahead'.

Pownce (a microblogging service) has been sold to SixApart and decided to close the service on December 15 which is a nice early Christmas present for all their users - both freeloaders (like me) and 'Pro' users who pay $20 per year.

Although I have a dormant Pownce account, I don't actively use the service. However, I find it odd that Pownce have decided to close the service and provide all their users with just two weeks notice to extract all their data and find another home.

The Pownce blog claims that:

'we believe we'll come back with something much better in 2009'

However, that 'belief' must be pretty weak and the date in 2009 must be a long way away. Otherwise, why on earth would Pownce and SixApart force all the existing Pownce users to evaluate and migrate to alternative services if a viable, better alternative was being planned.

Will those users really come running back to SixApart after being kicked out ? When they're already been forced to move once ? After the way they've been treated ?

Surely, it would have been better to do what Google did with Jaiku. Absolutely nothing. Leave the service exactly as it is with no fixes, no improvements, no additional services or functionality. That way, the hardcore, diehard users will remain on Pownce and, at least, you have a hope of getting those users converted onto the new SixApart product (whenever it is available). There are a few obvious choices for Pownce users:

• Twitter - more stability and increased uptime recently but limited to 140 characters (unlike Pownce) and inferior support for file sharing.
• Tumblr - probably the closest match in terms of functionality (no 140 character limit, support for media posts (images, links, audio, videos)
• FriendFeed - includes most of Pownce functionality.
• identi.ca - micro-blogging service but OpenSource so the opportunity exists to run a separate Laconica instance for Pownce users and potentially support the Pownce API (and hence all existing desktop Pownce clients).
• Posterous - supports MP3, photos, audio files and posting by email.

In fact, identi.ca have already responded to the imminent demise of Pownce and started work on the ability to import Pownce feeds into identi.ca and are actively looking for developers to assist with providing a Pownce compatible API.

However, I suspect the main issues here for disillusioned Pownce users aren't purely technical and won't necessarily depend on the advantages and disadvantages of the alternative services. The key factor will probably be the 'community' which has now been suddenly and forcibly broken up.

I suspect most Pownce users are on Pownce for a reason - they like the Pownce service and they like the community they have forged on Pownce. Consequently, I suspect a significant number will simply migrate wherever the majority of their friends go to or maintain multiple presences.

I also suspect that most Pownce users may well have already considered (and rejected) alternatives that were around (Twitter, Tumblr, FriendFeed) when they originally chose to sign up with Pownce which may be another positive factor in identi.ca's favour.

Yesterday was 1 December and an innocuous post on identi.ca about an Advent calendar immediately reminded me of an amusing (and completely true) blog post I wrote two years ago.

This, in turn, prompted me to write this short note on identi.ca and the post on identi.ca subsequently appeared on my FriendFeed stream.

Normally, when I post a new blog entry, the post gets visited by a handful of people - presumably a subset of those subscribed to this blog. In this case, this wasn't a new post so regular RSS readers wouldn't see this content so any visitors had to come from identi.ca or FriendFeed.

Despite having over 150 subscribers on identi.ca and 21 'friends' on FriendFeed, only a couple of people clicked through to the 'eat your own dog food' post when it appeared on identi.ca and FriendFeed. This isn't unusual (for me, at least) - the same pattern happens with any new blog content.

My very good friend and Oracle colleague, the right honourable Emperor of Ontario (possible pseudonym alert) had recently signed up to reddit.com and was curious about the viral effect of reddit and how it might be used to help generate traffic to a blog.

Ontario Emperor kindly submitted my humble blog post to Reddit under the category 'Funny'. When I became aware of this, I monitored the Web server logs and immediately saw a lot of traffic generated from reddit. At one point, the post reached No. 15 on Reddit's 'Funny' page and 6 people 'liked' the entry.

The traffic spike was short lived (similar pattern to getting a post on StumbleUpon). However, although the increase in traffic is interesting and briefly satisfying, it is really not that useful for a blogger because:

• Reddit generated visitors are almost always 'one-hit wonders'. They visit one page and immediately leave.
• Reddit generated visitors are unlikely to linger on the site and explore other content.
• Reddit generated visitors are unlikely to comment and resurrect conversation over a two year old post.
• Reddit generated visitors are unlikely to subscribe to your blog.
• Reddit generated visitors are all new visitors to your blog. Consequently, they don't understand the context, the author, the history, the sense of humour or the writing style.

As a brilliant example of the last point, a solitary comment was left on the blog post by a Reddit visitor. The comment was so superlative, so funny, so brilliant, I have chosen to reproduce it here in all its glory to save you all the trouble of a time-consuming, pesky mouse click.

why r u so cruel to your own children?

can u not be a little more sympathetic?

You shouldn't need to explain yourself. You shouldn't have to put sign posts up everywhere. You shouldn't feel obliged to use the tag 'Humour'. You shouldn't need to insert a plethora of emoticons just for passing ~~visitors~~ idiots.

And that is why Reddit is completely useless to bloggers.