Apple's WWDC June 7

Apple WWDC, or as it's spelled out - Apple World Wide Developer's Conference - is coming up and scheduled for early June.  Just a little over a week and a half away, we'll get to see what Steve Jobs (or Stevie as I like to call him) is going to unleash upon the world this time.

Unfortunately for Stevie, someone let one of his cats out of the bag.  Have you ever tried putting the cat back in the bag? No?  Well I'm sure you can guess that you'll look like if you try.  You'll likely need some iodine by the time you're done.  Not fun.

Well, someone got their hands on the latest prototype for the next generation iPhone and leaked all the juicy details to the world.  They kinda stole Stevie's thunder.  I'm guessing he's all kinds of pissed about that.  As a result he no longer has a big announcement to unveil at WWDC.  Oh sure he'll still talk about it but it's not going to have the same impact that it would have had otherwise.

Now, if you're not familiar with the WWDC, let me fill in some background info for you.  Since the iPhone's inception, good old Stevie has been telling people about the next generation of his phone at every WWDC since the first one.  We're at the point now, that everyone kind of expects news of the next gen iPhone to be announced each year in June at the WWDC.  So the fact that Steve Jobs isn't going to surprise anyone with news of a another coveted version of the  iPhone is rather a moot point.  Even if the 4th generation iPhone hadn't been leaked, everyone was still expecting some sort of news to be announced at the conference this year (just like every other year).

Ok, to be fair, Mr Jobs would still have had the fun of showing off all the flashy new features.  The same features that pundits have been speculating and guessing about for months now are the ones that Stevie would have had the chance to gloat over.  Do you suppose that the leaked information of the new iPhone will affect sales at all?  Nope.  At least not if you ask me.  I think sales will be just as robust as when the 3GS was released.  The Apple stock will climb after WWDC and everyone will make piles of money from their stock!  Steve Jobs wins again!

So what would make the conference exciting despite a loose cat roaming the halls of the WWDC?  Well, there has been some speculation that Apple will announce the availability of the iPhone on another competing carrier to AT&T.  The good money is on Verizon, but others have also suggested that T-Mobile and their GSM network could be a contender.  News of a competitor to AT&T at this conference would definitely help restore Steve's thunder.

Now, I am not a Mac owner but I understand that the Mac OS X is due for an update.  I've heard speculation that Apple might be looking to emulate the success they've had with their iPhone and iPad by adapting touch screen technologies into the next release.  If that should happen, I might actually be more inclined to pick up a Macbook then.  

Shhhh don't tell Yvonne, she'll likely do some twirling and not be able to stop.  There's no telling what will happen if she can't find a way to stop. ;o)

A touch screen interface and an O/S that that is very similar to that of the iPad would indeed be big news.  Now that would be cool to see a demo of that in action!  I wonder if it's too late to get an invite to this years WWDC?

Ok... so those are a couple of thoughts that I had about the upcoming conference, now it's your turn to chime in and share what you know.  Feel free to comment below. ;o)

My Picks for UFC 114

Ok, here is the Card for Saturday's fights with my picks in brackets.  Most of these are just Wild Ass Guesses so we'll see how far my hunches go this time around.  For the record, if you're a betting man, you'd probably win lots of money if you picked the opposite of what I jotted down as my track record is terrible as far as fight predictions go.

Main card

Light Heavyweight bout:  Quinton Jackson vs.  Rashad Evans (Rashad Evans by TKO in the 2nd round)

Middleweight bout:  Michael Bisping vs.  Dan Miller (Bisping over Miller split decision)

Heavyweight bout:  Todd Duffee vs.  Mike Russow (Duffe over Russow by KO - 1st round)

Light Heavyweight bout:  Antônio Rogério Nogueira vs.  Jason Brilz (Little Nog over Brilz unanimous decision)

Welterweight bout:  Diego Sanchez vs.  John Hathaway (Sanchez over Hathaway via submission in 2nd round)

Preliminary card (Spike TV)

Welterweight bout:  Amir Sadollah vs.  Dong Hyun Kim (Sadollah over Kim via decision)

Lightweight bout:  Efrain Escudero vs.  Dan Lauzon (Lauzon over Escudero via decision)

Preliminary card

Lightweight bout:  Melvin Guillard vs.  Waylon Lowe (Guillard over Lowe - KO in 2nd round)

Light Heavyweight bout:  Luiz Cane vs.  Cyrille Diabaté (Cane over Diabate - TKO 1st round)

Lightweight bout:  Aaron Riley vs.  Joe Brammer (Riley over Brammer via decision)

Middleweight bout:  Ryan Jensen vs.  Jesse Forbes (Forbes over Jensen via split decision)

When it comes to the Main Bout with Quinton Jackson vs Rashad Evans, I picked Evans mainly because he still has a fighter mentality.  He might have been knocked out once but I think MMA is his first choice as a career.  His mind is still in the game and I think he really has something to prove.  As far as his skill goes, I think he matches up pretty evenly with Rampage.  Unfortunately for Rampage, he's had a taste of the movie business.  Why not earn your living doing something significantly less self destructive than to keep pushing a fight career.  For this reason I don't think his head will be in the fight to win it.  He'll have jumped into the ring to shut up the nay sayers that trash him for dodging a fight with Rashad, but I think he knows his fight days are numbered.  Win or loose he's probably going to try for another gig in the film industry.  His biggest motivation to beat Rashad is purely the trash talking and mutual disrespect they share for each other.  There's nothing really on the line for him but his pride and considering how evenly they are matched I don't think that will even be questioned if he looses.  Rashad on the other hand, only has fighting to rely on for his grocery money.  Beating Rampage gives him a shot at the title and a chance at redemption.  He'll be the hungrier of the two fighters and in my opinion the clear winner.  I pick Rashad by TKO in the 2nd round.

And the winner is...

Ok... don't read on if you haven't watched the results for American Idol yet.  I'm about to tell you who won! :o)  Are you still reading?  Ok I guess I can spill the beans then.

Looks like I called it in my last post.  Yup, Lee DeWyze wins American Idol.  Are you shocked?  Nope?  Not even a little bit?  Ok, me neither.  I wasn't shocked at all.  At least he's a humble winner and certainly comes across as a nice guy.  I still think that Crystal should have won though.  I'm sure she'll be fine though.  The talk show circuit is just beginning and they are going to get tons of exposure.  Both will produce top selling records and we'll be enjoying their music for years to come.  


I'm not sure the show was all that spectacular tonight.  Honestly though, I was busy shutting down parts of my Facebook account that I wasn't really paying all that much attention to it.  The gushy moment when they paid tribute to Simon was really dorky in my opinion.  They had some top notch performers on the show though, but I just couldn't seem to get excited about any of it.  Janet Jackson was incredible.  The Chicago tribute was rather lame.  Lee was just not on his game tonight.  Loved the Simply Red song(s) though!  Do you have nay favorite moments from the final?  Anything you really hated?  Feel free to sound off in the comments! :o)

So now what?  Looks like I need to reset my pvr and start recording Wipe Out! :o)  Ahhhh the summer replacements....

Idol Winner

Well, the idol finale is approaching fast and we're left with 2 contestants to choose from. Lee DeWyze and Crystal Bowersox have edged out in front of the pack and stand win a lucrative recording contract - win or loose.

Personally I think Cyrstal is a better singer overall, but I suspect that Lee DeWyze will actually win the contest. As in previous years, the candidate most likely to win has taken second place but still ended up doing better in the music charts than the actual winner. Last years Adam Lambert is a prime example of this phenomenon.

I have already seen the judges using their considerable influence to prop up Lee prior to voting and also have toned down their reviews of Cyrstal in turn. They did the same thing to Casey. You could tell that they didn't want Casey to win with the song selection chosen for him by the judges. "Daughters" was not a bad song, but it didn't have any moments for the singer to shine with. It had moving lyrics but didn't have anything that the singer could really use to showcase his voice with. In comparison, "Maybe I'm Amazed" and "Hallelujah" had plenty of room for the singers to get creative with, and as a result they both had those "stand out" moments. This in turn allowed the judges to heap praise on Cyrstal and Lee but only a so/so positive critique for Casey, and we all know what happened to Casey on the next episode.

Now that voting has closed, idol judge - Simon Cowell - has been very vocal with his prediction of Lee DeWyze as the victor. I strongly suspect that his prophecy will be proven true and we'll have 2 great singers with new albums to pick from after the competition is closed.

A great singer like Cyrstal, who has an incredible fan base already, will do well on her own merrits and will not likely need the marketing machine that they put behind the winner. If Lee were to take second place, that is likely the last we'll hear of the guy unless he's really self motivated to run with his opportunity. If he takes first place, then the publicity he will get from his win will naturally carry him up the charts and the idol producers will have not one, but two big money makers from this season.

I won't go so far as to say the vote is fixed at this point, but the judges weild an enormous amount of power when it comes to voter influence. Using it as they do may have some negative consequences for the show in the future, especially if viewers start to believe they've been 'managed' when it comes to picking their winner. If that happens, I'm sure interest in the show will wane considerably. Afterall who wants to watch a show where the "fix is in" ??

Still, it may not matter a single bit. After Simon leaves the show it may just fade off into obscurity anyway. Idol just isn't the same without Paula and Simon in my opinion. ;o)

My Breakup with Facebook

Since my last post on Facebook and my recent blog entry (How Facebook taught me to keep a secret), friends and family have been coming out of the woodwork to express concern, and to inquire why I'm about to leave the giant Social Networking site. Hopefully this note will help to illuminate things.

Just to be sure, I want to clarify that my reasons for leaving are not intended to be *your* reasons for leaving. I'm not here to convince anyone that my path is the right one for you. If you wish to leave Facebook as a result of my intentions and rationalizations for doing so, then you're more than welcome to come with me. I post this note so that the curious people out there, will perhaps understand my reasons for departure even if they don't agree with them.

You can probably categorize my reasons into 2 basics groups.

1. I no longer trust facebook with my info

2. I am no longer addicted to Facebook and as such it has lost it's lustre

Trust

As you can imagine, Facebook didn't loose my trust overnight. It has been an ongoing process over the last 3 or 4 years. Slowly but surely Facebook has been taking away my privacy, and has been constantly forcing me to "opt out" if I want to maintain some of that control. It started out fine and Facebook promised that only the information I wanted to share would be made available to those interested in looking at it. I signed up for Facebook and I was pretty happy with the way things were going. Slowly but surely, that ability to control my information has eroded away. Now, almost 4 years later, the privacy that facebook promised me, is no longer the same. In my last post I referred to it as a classic "bait-n-switch" tactic. Wouldn't you know it, I'm not the only one who feels this way. Check out this article by Dan Tynan who talks about this exact thing, but puts words to it better than I.

http://bit.ly/cAjVQt

It's been pointed out to me by my cousin Angie, that perhaps my misgivings are a result of being from Generation X. Anyone born before 1981 might not feel the same way as I do and they probably don't care about their privacy in the same way either. Their attitudes are cavalier towards their personal information and those who can access it. Certainly I can see evidence of this by the rampant propensity of teens to try their hand at Sexting. If they can reveal that much about themselves and not worry about who gets their hands on it, why would they care if some corporate non-entity found out their email address or knows that they live in Wetaskawin. That kind of information is peanuts compare to what they share in a sex text with their friends.

Of course I'm generalizing here and I realize that not all teens participate in sexting and certainly not all teens are unfazed by having an open account on Facebook. There are tons of teens that have sexted and have since come to learn the folly of doing so. Ironically it has been Facebook that has shown some of them what it means to be so 'exposed'. In fact there have been at least 1 or 2 suicides that have resulted from kids realizing that they have shared too much of themselves when pictures have found their way to facebook. Some have even been the victim of online bullying through Facebook especially since it's so easy to voice an opinion online and be criticized for it as a result. Again I generalize, but I think many teens are realizing that they need to have an inner monologue and that saying things online can really get you into trouble at school. Yes many people that have come after my generation do not see privacy as a big deal, but I think I can chalk some of that up to lack of life experience.

A friend of mine who recently commited 'Facebook Suicide' and deleted her account, has told me that her own teenage son has killed his Facebook account of his own volition. Certainly observing his mom's concern for her privacy (and Facebooks lack of concern for it) was a catalyst, but she assures me the decision was his own. He might be one example, but I have to believe that there are more like him that are catching on to the need for privacy. So it makes me think that perhaps once the next generation realizes what is at stake here, they might be more inclined to shelter their data. I think once you get burned a couple of times, then you become more likely to want to protect yourself. I haven't been severely burned by facebook yet, but I've around the block often enough to realize that I don't have to put my hand in fire to know that it burns.

Over the months I've read articles that have started to peek under the rug at Facebook and these articles are starting to show what is underneath. These next couple of articles don't seem to have any concrete proof to back them up but if they are true, then it really reveals what corporate culture at Facebook might actually be like. In the first article, the author claims to have a snippet of a text conversation between Zuckerberg and college friend of his. Wow is all I can say.

http://bit.ly/aoTdLJ

The second one is an article that claims to have captured part of an interview between an anonymous Facebook employee and a Facebook user. There's nothing to substaniate this one either, but if true, it is a very telling conversation. Are these the kind of people you want to trust with your data?

http://bit.ly/bt95Kq

This last link actually seems to have some data behind it. It shows a graph that indicates how much of your data was private in 2006. If you click on the years in the right hand side of the graph, you can see the gradual progression of what has been opened up to the public and how much of your data is still protected.

http://bit.ly/9dZDNK

Sure, Facebook is free to it's users, but our voice is really small when it comes to having a say in what gets shared with the public. I no longer have enough protection and control over what I share on Facebook. I guess that means if I don't like it, then it's time for me to walk out the door. Which is what I'm planning on doing.

Addiction

If it wasn't for the fact that I am finally loosing my addiction to facebook, the privacy concerns would have had a tough time pushing me over the edge. I admit that I used to be constantly checking my facebook account. It would be open all the time and I would be constantly refreshing to see if anyone had posted anything new for me to read or comment on. With over 200+ friends on Facebook, there would literally be something going on all the time for me to interact with. That's when I realized that it was the interaction with people that I was craving. It wasn't facebook. I just loved being able to have cool and interesting conversations with people. Facebook just provided me with a convenient medium to do that. Friends and family would fuel my need by letting me know they "liked" what I posted. Sometimes they didn't like it and I would find myself in a good discussion about why I was wrong about something (further fueling my need to prove that I was actually right - and thus contributing more to the topic at hand). It's funny how often I'm wrong. lol If my family and friends were not around then there were tons of special interest groups that I could join and chat with people on topics that I had some affinity for.

I also found that it was fun catching up with people I hadn't talked to in 20 or more years. Our 20 year highschool reunion was organized by people on facebook. It has been a great way to connect with long lost friends, old coworkers and even former flames. Renewing friendships has been great!

I have come to the conclusion though, that many of these people were drifting away from me in my past for a reason. With the thrill of finding out what someone has been doing for the last 20 years, comes the realization that we have almost nothing in common. We are best left to being acquaintences - even on Facebook. There have been 2 or 3 people from the past that I have been genuinely happy to rebuild a friendship with, but for the most part the effort has just not been there (on mine *or* their part). Some people have made connections with me (asking me to friend them) and have never once interacted with me. Never said hi, and not once have bothered to find out how I'm doing - beyond what they can discover on their own I guess. That has been rather disillusioning for me.

Truly there are only about a handfull of people that interact with me on a regular basis. Out of 200+ friends on Facebook, there are probably less than 20 people that chat with me on a daily basis. Of those 20, I'd say 80% live nearby. Ironically I can go and visit them in person and not spend more than about 30 mins getting to their place. There are others that tend to be a once per month kind of interaction and some are longer than that. At least we make the effort with each other and I'd still like to stay in touch with them too.

Yes Facebook gives me a handy way to keep tabs on distant relatives and friends. Especially friends that I would like to spend more time with but can't because they live too far away. I'll miss that. Family photo's and the quick update on their health, jobs, and activities all are fun things to do on Facebook. It's like having access to an updated Christmas Card all year round. Still there are other ways to stay in contact. Email is still handy, and I have a blog to update, plus I drift in and out of Twitter which provides some of the same perks. I'll miss facebook, but there are other ways to stay in touch with those that really want to stay in touch with me too. :o)

Lastly the add-ins and extras of Facebook lost their appeal many, many months ago. I no longer play any of the games that facebook has to offer and I am constantly clicking ignore on requests to join them. I am constantly clicking hide on activities (like mafia wars, farmville and others) that keeping cluttering my news feed and I rarely post albums of photo's for people to look at or comment on. I don't seem to have that paternal instinct so despite being happy for new parents, I really don't get excited about baby pictures they post. It's then that I realize most people probably feel the same way about the pictures I post of my bathroom renno's or deck. lol

My friend, Mary, recently tagged me in a link to a video that parodies "Facebook in Real Life". I found the youtube version if you want to watch it. It really sums up how inane Facebook can be! There's a second vid someone else put together that does the same thing but from a different perspecitve.

http://bit.ly/aBDpqT

http://bit.ly/97HzeN

It's not easy to leave Facebook, that is for sure. It's like breaking up with someone. There's a few reasons to hang on but for the most part you know you'll be better off if you just made a clean break. I'm sure there will be other Social networking sites that will replace Facebook and being the geek that I am, I may just check them out. I'll be a little less reluctant to let people look behind the curtain though so maybe the next one will be a better experience overall.

An example of a very beta/alpha start up is:

http://www.whsper.com/

One that I read about this morning looks like it has more promise is:

http://www.joindiasporacom

Diaspora looks like it could be a real winner. :o)

Just as people left myspace for facebook, I'm sure there will be a replacement to facebook soon.

Goodbye Facebook, I'm breaking up with you. Shhh shhh shh - don't cry.... it'll be ok. You'll get over me and find someone new to deceive. Calling me names won't change a thing. Please, you're making a scene. No don't call me. I'll be back to get a few of my things and that's it. You're on your own now....

How Facebook taught me to keep a secret

It's become almost routine for Facebook to change their End User License Agreement so that a little more of your privacy is taken away each time. Of course they want to capitalize on your thoughts, preferences and personal experiences for the benefit of their advertisers. With this kind of information their partners can then target their adverstisments towards you hoping that you'll click on whatever it is they're trying to sell at the moment. Without insight into who you are they fall short of their target audience. As such, Facebook needs to make this information available to their partners. As users become more internet savvy, the cry of foul play rings out louder each time your information is made available, and each time Facebook apologizes for not asking you if it's ok first.

The thing that we tend to forget however, is that we as Facebook users are not the client. The business partners that target their advertising towards you are the real clients of Facebook. Afterall, they are the ones that bring in the revenue and as such their needs come before yours or mine. So until that changes, don't expect the apologies to start sounding sincere any time soon. Facebook is going to continue to do what's in the best interests of their real clients.

You're upset by that statement, I can tell, but what did you expect? You pay nothing to be a Facebook user. You capitalize on the free online hosting that Facebook offers you with narry a thought towards paying for it. They host your photo albums, offer you free entertainment in the way of games like farmville, and they provide a medium for you to catch up with old friends, high school classmates, and long lost lovers. They give you an opportunity to network with new people so that you can make new friends and even futre business contacts. People trade products and services, buy and sell goods and all through the free service that is Facebook. All of this in one convenient place! As soon as you start paying for some of those services then I think Facebook will start listening to your concerns. Then their apologies about not meaning to give away your personal information, will start being sincere.

Ok, I can see you're riled up. Truthfully I am on your side. I think it's not right that Facebook can entice us in with a free product only to use us for their nefarious plans. They get us to set up shop, where we are so deeply entrenched, that it becomes difficult to leave or even find a replacement service. Then they go and pull the carpet from under us. It's the old 'bait and switch' model. It's not a very honorable thing for a company to do, if you ask me. If you say that our information is private, then stand behind what you claim and leave it that way. Don't start modifying it inch by inch until you've taken the farm away from us (it's just a figure of speech Farmville users - don't panic, they're not taking away your farm yet!).

I understand that some of the responsibility to protect my data is on my own shoulders. Facebook has started producing updates to let us know that they are making changes in advance of their dasterdly deeds. The fact that it is in a language that I cannot understand (curse you lawyers!) does not make it any less of a warning. I need to be responsible to keep up to date on the changes, prepare for them and make the adjustments accordingly. Once upon a time Facebook used to open up your information without even giving you a way to say "Hey wait a second, I don't want that to be public". At least now when they make it public, you can go and switch it back if you want, as long as you've been reading the notices and updates and have a clue about where to go to make these changes.

Failing the cumbersome task of learning Lawyer-speak and reading through volumes of notices and updates, what are my options? Pay for the service and have a bigger say? Not likely. Even if I did pay for the service, these sort of underhanded machinations by Facebook would likely continue. I suppose that really leaves me with two options.

1. Learn how to keep a secret. That's right. If Facebook insists on sharing everything I tell them (via posting it into my profile), then I will stop telling them things! No more photo's posted, no more status updates, and no more favorites or preferences. I won't list the jobs I have or have had. I won't list the city I'm from, and I won't list anything that gives away who or what I am about. Let them try to share stuff they don't have! Ha that will show them! :o) Of course that just defeats the purpose of using Facebook entirely. If I don't post that stuff, then I can't share it with my friends and family either. They will no longer be able to keep up with what's going on in my life if I don't share it with them. It means I'll have to call them (on the phone god forbid!) and talk to them in person. I can see my friends list shrinking from 200+ to about 3 or 4 people if that happens. It also means that if all my friends and family do the same thing, I won't be able to catch up on what they're doing either. No more instant status message updates on what they ate for supper, what color they dyed their hair, or how destroyed they got at the bachelor party. *sigh* That's no fun.

So that really means if I want to still enjoy a social interaction site without the grief of constantly being vigilant with my information, I will have to find some place else do this stuff from. So that brings me to the 2nd option.

2. I can leave Facebook and find a suitable alternative. *face palm* (wait... what does that mean?). Yes. I can pull up stakes and leave Dodge. I can cash in all my chips and leave the bank with nothing. Yup. Quit Facebook and go somewhere else.

A little dramatic you say? Well, maybe, but it's the principle of the thing isn't it? When Facebook starts loosing membership in record numbers.... they won't have anyone to use for their business model anymore. Their business partners will realize that Facebook is a lost cause and they'll go hunt in more abundant waters (notice the shark reference there). I wonder if Facebook will finally realize then, that we are truly their clients. Without us, there is no Facebook. Hmmmm there's a thought.

In the meantime... I have my twitter account. see you there! @smudged

PS: no - i haven't deleted my Facebook account yet. I have to put my affairs in order so to speak, before I can just walk out on it. Stay tuned though. ;o)

Twitter Lists - How I use them

Ok, I realize that not everyone that reads these posts are twitter users. So if you're not a twitter user, you can safely click on the next link and read something more interesting. If you are a Twitter user, then this will probably still be boring for you unless you're a geek like me. Still with me? Kewl. Lets get to the good stuff.

So how many people use Twitter Lists, raise your hands? Ok, just one guy in the back. Not bad. That's more than I was expecting. How many people even know that Twitter has a "lists" feature? hmmmmm looks like a few more hands went up. Kewl. Would you use the "lists" feature if I could show you even 1 way that you could improve your twitter experience with this feature? Yeah? Ok, now we're cooking with gas.

Well, here's a brief summary of the things you can use lists for:

• Filter the tweets you want to follow
• Quickly search through your the followers on your list to find someone you want to send a tweet to
• Meet other people by searching through their lists (that share common interests)
• Follow other peoples lists to save yourself time
• Create lists based on a list someone else has created
• Reduce the number of people you follow by adding them to a list so you can read their tweets without having to follow them

Before we begin, I should point out that I use Twitter directly from their page in my browser. I don't use TweetDeck or any of the other applications that are out there that may also provide alternatives to using lists. I also utilize a browser that lets me take advantage of 'tabbed browsing'. This in itself makes the list feature easy for me to take advantage of.

Also note: If you can't make out what is in any of the screen captures I have included here, just click on the image and it will blow it up to a larger size in a new window.

The first thing we need to do is show you where your lists can be found on your twitter page. If you open up Twitter into a browser page, you can find the "lists" feature on the right hand side of your window.

As you can see from this clip of my lists, you can create a list based on anything you want. I have filters for things like Canadian Olympic Athletes, Survivor Enthusiasts, Hockey etc. I have created these lists to group people by different classifications or interests. People who enjoy watching or chatting about Survivor get a list, as do Olympic athletes, and fellow hockey enthusiasts. The great thing about lists, is that a person can belong to more than one list.

Now you might be thinking to yourself.

"Ha! I don't need lists, I can just create a Search to find people talking about any of those topics! I can search on hockey, or #hockey or #CalgaryFlames or anything that relates to hockey. So I don't need to create a list! So there! Take that fool!"

Well, I won't disagree with you there. Certainly you can create and save searches to find content you are interested in. With a search you can find a tweet by a person that normally doesn't chat about that particular topic. This person may show up only once in your search. Neat.

However, I still like using a list so that I can find the people that tweet regularly about a topic I'm interested in. They may tweet about other things, but the people that fall into my lists are usually enthusiasts, and often offer a more knowledgeable opinion, or even just a more entertaining opinion about the topic I've listed them about. Having them on a list means that I can find them more quickly and tweet with them even if they haven't posted anything about the topic I'm interested in. I can initiate conversation with the enthusiast without waiting for them to show up on a search. Ok, I'll admit that it's a subtle difference from using a Search filter, but to me it's an import difference and makes using lists that much more valuable to me.

Now that I have created a bunch of lists I can then open up each list in its own browser tab window. Each window represents people who've I've filtered out based on content that I'm interested in. Then I can flip to the tab I want - refresh it - and read only content from those people. Wait... what if I have a Survivor list and it's a Tuesday and no one is chatting about Survivor? Well, the answer seems obvious to me. I usually don't scan through my survivor list till Thursday or Friday when there is likely to be chatter about that topic! So it's not like I will have a tab open for every single list I have, all at the same time. I may only open 3 or 4 depending on who I want to interact with.

So how do you create a new list? Well there's a few ways actually, but here's how to accomplish a couple of them.

When you see your "lists" on the right hand side of your twitter feed, you will notice at the bottom of the section there are a couple of options. New List and View All. Click on New List

Then you will get this window:

Create your list name, add a description if you wish, and determine whether or not you want it available as public or private content. Once you've done that, you can begin to add people to your list.

The second way to create and add people to a list, is to select a specific Twitter User and add them directly from their page. For instance, if I find Ashton Kutcher on twitter (@AplusK) I will see a drop down for lists from his profile.

Click on the lists drop down and then either add him to one or more lists that you already have, or click on New List and create one on the fly for him there.

Easy! Just like that, you now have 2 ways to create and add people to lists in Twitter!

Next question please!

"What else can I do with lists?"

Well, I'm glad you asked. A neat thing about lists is that you can look at the lists other people have made public. Maybe they have a list for something that you are also interested in. You can then follow this list without having to create one for yourself. You can also see who's on their list and follow them if you wish. In his way you are now adding to the number of interesting people you read tweets from. Additionally you can also add the people on their list to an aggregate of your own list! Lets take a look at some examples.

Ashton Kutcher only has 2 lists that he follows (and is on thousands of lists himself).

You can see in the above image he has a list for "end-slavery" and "katalysthq" (which is a business endeavor he's involved in). If we click on katalysthq we can take a look at the tweets from that list and also see who's on the list itself.

From here we can choose to follow the list or see who he's following, and if we're really curious we can see who has decided to follow the list - katalysthq (that one Ashton has made).

To give you a better example of how I made use of this feature, I want to show you my Olympic lists. When the Olympics were being hosted in Vancouver this year, people were crazy about all things Vancouver, and anything related to the Olympics themselves - including the athletes. Someone had taken it upon themselves to create a list of all the Olympic Athletes that had twitter accounts. I stumbled up this list and went - "Hey this is pretty cool! Now I have a feed that shows me all the tweets from the athletes as the games are going on!" Then I thought to myself "This would be even cooler if I could just read the tweets from Canadian athletes." So I decided to pillage from the list that was already created. I could then figure out which of the people on his list were Canadians, and create my own list from those entries. Later on as I discovered new Canadian Athletes, I could then add them to the list.

I found the @verified/olympians list and decided to take a peek at who it was following:

Now I notice that Stephanie Rice is at the top of the list. I have several options. I can now follow this person myself, or add her to a list of my own (even creating one on the fly), or just browse over to her profile and see what kind of stuff she chats about. If it's interesting then I might be motivated to add her to one of my lists.

As you might imagine, the people on this list may not have things that I'm interested in reading about on a daily basis. So as you've probably figured out by now, you don't have to follow everyone you have on your lists.

Let that sink in for a moment. You don't have to follow them to add them to a list.

"Meh, Big deal" you say.

Well the biggest advantage that one little detail offers, is a way to trim back your main stream of tweets. I only follow about 200 people and I find that my twitter stream is packed with tweets, most of which are relatively mundane and not all that interesting. I follow @thatkevinsmith The guy can be a prolific tweeter. Sometimes his tweets will flood my stream. Kevin has tweeted over 8500 times!! He hasn't been on twitter more than about a year or so. Some mornings I will wake up and see 20 or 30 tweets in a row, just from him!! I find him entertaining, but hey... that's just me.

Some people will actually unfollow him because he tweets too much for their pleasure. I can understand this, but I like having his tweets in my main feed. If it really bothers you, there are two options that you can use to still follow his tweets without having to follow the guy. 1. Create a search for his id, or 2. create a list and stick him on it. Maybe you have a list of people that are prolific tweeters, like @thatkevinsmith and @Alex_Ruiz and want them all on one list. So there you go. Stick them on that list, un-follow them and they no longer fill your stream with their wisdom. Yet you can still read up to the minute tweets from them by having them in a list that you pop open in it's own tab. Voila!

By taking advantage of this feature, I have lists with all kinds of people on them. I don't follow everyone that is on those lists and as such the number of people that I follow is pretty manageable. Hopefully they are not insulted if I don't follow them directly, but there are a ton of people that follow me and visa versa that I hardly ever interact with. Why keep a stream of tweets from people that I don't chat with on a daily basis? I can still interact with them by keeping them on a list and at the same time, keep my main stream fairly clean.

I think twitter might move in this direction more and more as people figure out how to take advantage of the "lists" feature. People will follow less people, have more lists and use them better to their advantage.

There is one more benefit I'd like to point out to you. Its about finding a specific person in your follow list. Unfortunately twitter has not implemented a search feature for you to find someone in your follow list or your followers list. If you have more than a 100 followers, it can be very cumbersome to flip through page after page to find a specific person you want to send a tweet to. However, if you have a dozen or so lists and they happen to be on one of them, you can then flip to a smaller subset of your bigger "following/followers" list. Instead of searching through a thousand followers, you can search a list with only 20 people on it. Searching through that list is way easier than tracking them down in your main list. Not perfect, I'll admit, but still better than nothing. Hopefully twitter will implement a search feature sometime in the future to accomplish this instead.

So to recap, here's the things I talked about in this post and the ways you can use "lists" to your advantage:

• Filter the tweets you want to follow
• Quickly search through your the followers on your list to find someone you want to send a tweet to
• Meet other people by searching through their lists (that share common interests)
• Follow other peoples lists to save yourself time
• Create lists based on a list someone else has created
• Reduce the number of people you follow by adding them to a list so you can read their tweets without having to follow them

I hope this has been helpful and informative even if it has been a long winded read.

Cheers!

Time to start writing again

Well, I'm told that if you want to get better at writing, you should probably do more of it. So whether or not anyone reads these things, I think I'll try to make an effort to post something more often (notice I didn't say every day!).

One of the things I have noticed about my writing skills as of late, is that I have gotten sloppy. I find after reading old emails, twitter posts, and even facebook posts, that I often get ahead of myself and skip words. I guess I just can't type as fast as I think and I push on to complete my thought without proof reading my work. So with that in mind, I encourage you - my loyal reader(s) to be strict with your criticism and point out my mistakes. In this way I hope my writing skills improve at a much faster rate. Be nice but be picky. It's through critique that we learn and get better.

Now having said all of this, I do wish to point out that I have never majored in English. I have not taken any literary classes and I have not attended any writing classes after leaving high school. What you see is what you get as far as writing style and composition goes. I've never been published, although thoughts of writing a book have tickled my imagination. As a profound Twitter Philosopher once said

"YOU, a published writer?..Internet don't count. Any asshole can throw shit up on there." - @Shitmydadsays

So with that understanding, this blog doesn't count. ;o)

As you sit there reading this you're probably thinking to yourself

"Why am I reading this? I haven't learned anything new, he hasn't entertained me in anyway, and there's no hook to draw me back in the future!"

Well, all I can offer you is the opportunity to comment and ridicule me. If enough people leave comments then hopefully that will provide you with some entertainment value! Or not. Really, I'm just using this as an exercise to practice my writing. If you stick around, I'm sure I can find something for you to enjoy.

Thanks!