Why iGoogle’s ‘Social Gadgets’ Should Kill Facebook — Datamation.com.

Mike Elgan writes:

iGoogle as a social networking site sits directly between MySpace and Facebook in the area of customizability. It’s more customizable than stodgy, boring Facebook, but less customizable than garish, horrid MySpace.

Strong words, yes.  I somewhat agree with them. I haven’t seen iGoogle yet as social media, more personal homepage. But a clear transformation has been happening; I for one am excited about it.

We have application classes to work with–and understanding them is going to be of assistance in our attempt to accomplish things at any given time.  I’ve noticed more noise in regard to this.  It’s a great question to ask.  Social Networking, Social Media, Personal Home Page, News Reader, Portal, and so on.   At this point, out of all sites and all application types, my home is Google Reader.  I’ve got my sources and I’ve categorized them into groups.  No fuss, no gimmicks.  Just stories and opinions.  This is where morning coffee happens.  Information as far as I see it.  And I chose it over iGoogle–but I’m at iGoogle before long.  I’ve got a Google Reader widget in iGoogle (as well as a twitter gadget and a weather gadget and 20 other of those 60,000), but the widget in too clunky in iGoogle to really get a grip on it.   So I’ll get over to it in a tabbed window and switch around a bit.

We’ll see how iGoogle transforms. It seems with widgets these days, an introvert’s index.html could turn into a social networking site.  Cut and paste some code.  Get some FaceBook connect implementation happening and then promote it.

I’ll be checking out those new igoogle gadgets for sure. I have been an iGoogle user for quite a while now and have preferred iGoogle over FaceBook and MySpace. With the $ at stake, changes are going to be taking place in nanoseconds.  Oh yeah, and good luck killing FaceBook.

A hearty thank you to the inventive, brilliant Dave Winer. His suggestion to do a #blogpostfriday versus a #followfriday is most welcome, and I’m going to follow this new tradition. We have become so used to the short form. 140 characters can convey a good deal, no doubt–especially with hyperlinks. But there must be a place for more thorough thought than this.

It seems that in this day and age we are conditioned to follow.  It’s a snap to follow by clicking and supplying a few grunts and mindless reactions of acceptance, conformity, and compliance.  Will we go beyond that?  We certainly have.  I have been a writer for many years and for many reasons I see it is imperative to continue to put words down at length.  Paper, screen, anyplace–keeping the hands moving, keeping the connection with what goes through my mind, hopefully keeping this brain healthy.

Every Friday,
rain or shine!.

We are focused on those clicks, on catching the latest fad, the latest gadget, the snappiest way to snap our fingers on our MacBooks, Toshibas, iPhones, G1’s, Wings, and other “miracle machines”. We forget about taking the time to think things through, to savor ideas, maybe outline and plan a little bit. We need vehicles to carry our thoughts–so we can save them for ourselves or convey them clearly to others. To have a meaningful exchange.

Dave’s name has appeared quite a bit in my FriendFeed, through his direct posts or through the admiring words of others.  To find out that he was a pioneer of the RSS protocol and more, and he is still continuing to work on ways to enhance these open technologies–these are  noteworthy accomplishments indeed.  How small do you feel when you stand beside the ocean?  How small do you feel when you stand beside one of the inventors of it?!  This is the man PC World calls “The father of modern-day content distribution.”. So when he speaks about blogging, I would be inclined to listen.

This whole world seems ADD’d out to the max.  Focus seems next to impossible in this uber-rapid information age.  I fight for it every moment, for my clients, for my friends, for my wife, for myself.  Let’s say there’s room for improvement.  How about for you?  Are you ready to cast that first stone?

What are we sculpting?  What are we planning?  Is there structure to it, or is it a formless ramble?  I for one see value in randomness, in quick shots, thoughts in spurts–but settling back and really saying something.  That’s what I want to be about.  I want to think.  Complexities abound; shouting as well.  Extended words, built sensibly, with balance, solid construction, direction and detail.  That’s my goal.  At least now and then.

Imagine folks taking time to assemble their thoughts, their responses to events, to stimuli–careful, considered responses.  How much would be different!  The moments to be still and get to know a subject a little bit, to live with the words, chew on them–there’s a novel way to approach the day.  A novel way to approach a Friday–a #blogpostfriday!

Write on.

You need to visit visuwords.com. Why? Because a) it’s a way to see the English language come to life b) it will help you creatively, c) it’s a thing of technological beauty. Enter words and see how they interact with their closest word relatives. Bookmark it and use it to help you write that next great story or song.