Ali Bytes: Bullet-sized strategies for modern living

I just bought a new computer. It’s a tough thing to admit in these hard economic times, but I’ve been wanting a machine to try some video editing for some time now and having spent five days in Austin, TX last week at SXSW Interactive with some pretty amazing people, I was inspired to take the plunge (like the people in yesterday’s Washington Post article). As a first step to setting myself up, I looked for new Firefox add-ons to make my life easier and was reminded how many solutions are out there - web companies, iPhone applications, Firefox add-ons, people I know - to problems I didn’t even know I had.

But it also reminded me how many “solutions” are out there like strangers with candy trying to lure me into new problems. For example Twitter. It might seem like blasphemy to return from SXSW and bash the tool that essentially was birthed there (or at least reached adolescence) but let me explain why I’m not going to use Twitter even if I do see how it could be useful for others.

1. Twitter doesn’t solve a problem for me. As Lev Grossman put it so well in a TIME article two years ago, The Hyperconnected, “Like any good pusher, services like Twitter don’t answer existing needs; they create new ones and then fill them.” While I like my friends, both real and virtual, enough to occasionally page through Facebook status updates to see what’s going on, I simply don’t want any more information to process on a daily basis. To put this in perspective, if I follow just 25% of the approximate number of people I am connected to from my other social networks and each of these people tweets just once per day, that is more than 90,000 more pieces of mostly useless information per year that I’d be compelled to research, react or respond to.
2. Interesting things should be heard and not seen. Clearly I’m not a purist since I’m writing a blog post about something I hope at least someone will find interesting, but I do think most interesting comments should be made aloud and ignite a live dialogue. It seems that too often conversations never make it to traditional discourse, staying instead short-hand in an email chain, on a Facebook wall or back and forth on Twitter. I wonder what this is doing to the quality and growth of our thoughts. Plus for every interesting comment, there are likely ten other really, really boring comments. As Brian Unger reported on NPR, “Most people are surprised to learn that friends don’t care when you are showering, gardening or working out. There’s a good reason these activities are hidden. Because they’re boring and no one cares.”
3. I don’t want to follow or have followers. Twitter language reminds me of the now infamous 14 year-old Volkswagen ad campaign: “On the road of life, there are passengers and there are drivers. Drivers wanted.” I don’t want to “conform, comply, copy or come after” anyone else and I don’t really want other people to do that to me either. As a huge proponent of collaboration, I’d rather search for ways to construct commentary and ideas with other people. To quote Brian Unger again, “It’s like stalking someone but without the inconvenience of sitting in a car outside their house on cold rainy night with a loaded gun in your lap.”
4. I like my real friends and my life too much. After finishing part-time school which ate up most of my evenings for 2.5 years, I found myself working most nights until 8:30 or even after. Now, three months later (also inspired by SXSW), I’m on a quest for balance and to relearn to “be present,” or live for the people and experiences of the moment. The idea of thinking of everything in terms of what to post to Twitter for a group of people I’m not currently in front of, or worse to get a fix about someone else’s experiences (like Lev talked about in his latest TIME article Desperately Trying to Quit Twitter) seems short sighted to me, though I am totally guilty of this every once in a while with FB. Unlike John Mayer, I’d rather, and am trying hard to, experience life as it was before their were all these “solutions,” a time when people got by just fine without cell phones or email. I’ll see how it works. This paradox is captured in this short post by Shane Gibson, “Rapport Building it’s about being totally present…You can also follow me on Twitter…”

Similar to simple, clever websites I’ve highlighted in past posts - like “stuff people like” blogs and FailBlog.com - new viral websites seem to be responding to a sort of backlash against web 2.0. It’s as if users are saying, “I don’t want to contribute. Just give me something easy and amusing (and useful if possible).” Here are some examples I’ve spotted in the past few months. Do you have any to add to the list?

1. Shiba Inu Live Puppy Cam: Probably the most famous of all, this site has been written up in tons of articles like this NY Times piece. It literally requires nothing but staring at your computer screen. While I love puppies, it’s a little like watching paint dry.
2. YourOfficeSucks.com: Some funny, many odd, and some boring ways to know whether your office sucks. Keep hitting refresh for a few rounds and then get back to your job search.
3. WiFiFreeSpot.com: The name says it all. The site is a directory of all locations that offer Free Wi-Fi. Simple and useful.
   
4. Web 2.0 Bullshit Generator: You can keep hitting the button until you get what you need. Also try Web 2.0 company name generator.
5. UmbrellaToday.com: Apparently I’m the last to know about the simplest weather report ever. Just type your zip code to get a “Yes” or a “No.”
6. LetMeGoogleThatForYou.com (or LMGTFY.com if you’re an acronym person): Lifehacker, the blog on getting things done, says this site “passive-aggressively helps your friends.” Type a question. Click a button.
7. PalinAsPresident.us: This site is now old of course, but if you need a dose of Obamaspiration or want to remember what could have been, check it out.

Have you heard of someecards.com? With the slogan “when you care enough to hit send,” this site has brilliantly captured the tackiness that so often characterizes e-communication using the tool that started it all: the ecard.

You can search through dozens of categories including, “cry for help” and “somewhat topical,” and even create your own. I just made this one to try it out and confirmed that it only takes a minute.  Consider yourself warned though: I imagine it could quickly turn into a battle of wit - with yourself.  Here is a sampling of some of the best I read but there are plenty more where these came from.  Which one is your favorite?

1. “Let’s force a jaded wait staff to go through the motions of singing you ‘Happy Birthday’”(send)
2. “Labor Day is a great opportunity to reflect on what you failed to accomplish this summer” (send)
3. “I still haven’t decided why I can’t come to your party”(send)
4. “Sorry your country has won fewer Olympic medals than Michael Phelps”(send)
5. “Let’s takes things to the previous level”(send)
6. “Sorry I spent three seconds reviewing the wedding invitation you spent three months on”(send)
7. “You must be excited to try convincing people you’re excited to move to Brooklyn”(send)
8. “Sorry your outdated religious views dismantled our perfectly fine relationship”(send)
9. “I’m leaning towards voting for the presidential candidate not endorsed by the worst president in American history”(send)
10. “I wish you’d taken the time to Google me”(send)
11. “You’ll never guess what I got you from your registry of pre-selected gifts”(send)
12. “Your Starbucks drink order embarrasses me”(send)

With so much information available on the internet, it can be tough to filter what to pay attention to. A few months ago I started using the social bookmarking tool del.icio.us to help me track information about everything from online marketing and politics to comedy and business.

Del.icio.us does just what real life bookmarks do - hold your place so you can come back to information later. It has become my information repository for anything worth remembering: news articles, interesting blog posts, events, research, recipes, cool stores I want to check out, etc.

Here’s why I’m hooked and why you should consider it if you haven’t already found your bookmarking tool of choice (there are a lot out there). Have you tried it?

1. It’s searchable: It’s been said “everything on del.icio.us is someone’s favorite.” Basically other people have already done some of the work for you so you can comb through the collective bookmarks by searching tags, the one-word descriptors that that people assign to their bookmarks (people can assign as many tags to a single bookmark as they want). A cool feature I haven’t tried is subscribing to certain del.icio.us tags to get all the sites tagged with particular keywords in your RSS reader of choice.
2. It helps you stay organized: Just like you can search tags to find other people’s favorites, you can use these keyword tags and short descriptors to each article you bookmark to make it easier to find later. These descriptors can also help you remember why you bookmarked a link in the first place and highlight just the key section of the web page you were interested in.
3. It’s portable: Because it’s a web-based service, you can access it from any computer on the Internet. This is super helpful when it’s 8:30pm and I’m still at the office with a bunch of Firefox tabs open with articles that I never got around to reading. In a matter of seconds I can just tag them all (i.e. bookmark them) and access them when I get home or the next day.
4. It lets you think big: Find something you want to buy for yourself but can’t justify it right now? See a cool vacation spot you want to check out one day? Delicious is a great tool to keep these back burner ideas. Remember to group them into categories like “wishlist” or “vacation” to come back to them later when you’re actually planning. Also, you can apparently share certain items with specific people by using a “for:username” tag, something I haven’t yet tried.
5. You can sync it up: Through linklog or linkrolls, you pull in your list of tagged sites, and even add a bit of commentary, to display as a blog posting or list on your website.
6. It’s optionally social: Hence the name social bookmarking, you can make your links public to share with the rest of the delicious community and you have your own URL suffix to easily share with friends and family (though you don’t have to make your delicious list public). The social element enables you to see whether two people have chosen to add the link to delicious, or whether it was useful enough for a thousand people to tag, which can help validate your hunch that it’s worth reading. The only problem is that it’s sort of the window into one’s weird mind so remember this if you happen to save things like Chili’s musical chair commercial (I love this commercial!) Only one lucky person has access to mine.