Nic’s blog
I write about building businesses, failing and building a life, not a legacy.
Media Whore
Lately I've been feeling like somewhat of a media whore. I can't decide on a browser, I keep Opera, Firefox, Flock and Explorer installed on my laptop at all times just in case I get bored, frustrated or one of the options goes belly side up. So does this make me a cautious user or a nonc0mmittel fence sitter? I'm not sure.But on this point, Paul Stamatiou has pointed out that Opera 9.1 has been released. I am in the process of downloading the upgrades and testing it out and will definitely have an update on my experiences soon!
Google Answers Shuts Down
Google Answers is officially shutting down. I guess that I was right in my previous post about the money hungry company's ideals suffering and a loss of profit following. The only reason Google is the best is becuase they had the best product to start and that is because they are passionate about what they are/were/continue to do.Paul Stamatiou agrees with this, he wrote about it in his post about the Google Answers. Only +-800 participants in the site in over 4 years. That just goes to show that when you are asking for money for a service that isn't 100% worth it you will fail, everytime, all the time.Go back to what you know Google or fear losing to someone more passionate. For every Microsoft there is an Apple, for Every Internet Explorer there is a Firefox and for every Google there will be a competitor and they will do well and it will be soon. Watch out.
TechAttack #5 - Fleck, not Flock, Fleck
I have just picked up this interesting little social site that allows you to make notes and bullets on any website. So now, through Fleck you can not only consume information, but you can give it back. Simply leave a note, share it, blog it and let people know what you think of the site you are visiting.Currently Fleck is not supported on IE, the makers suggest Firefox and are in the process of developing an IE version soon.I am still in the process of familiarising myself with this tool but I think it sounds interesting. A little bar at the bottom of your screen pops up with various options available including bullet, note, share, blog and others. Below is a screen shot.
The other joy of this little tool is that there is no need to sign-up or register. You can do so if you wish, but it isn't necessary. I have a registration addiction so I tend to register with every site that I stumble across.
UPDATE: TechAttack #3 - coComment
coComment is fantastic. If you read TechAttack3 you will get the gist of the story surrounding coComment. Now I've had a bit of time making use of this initiative and I am extremely impressed.coComment takes a bit of getting used to and understanding but let's be honest, if I can do it, anyone can. It's a hop, skip and a jump away from registering to getting in the full swing of the process involved in tracking your comments.I not only spend alot of time reading blogs that I like and commenting on them, but following up on those comments and conversations. It is extremely time consuming to try and cover them all in one fell swoop and remember where I've been, who said what and when. So now I simply have coComment do it for me. The program can be downloaded (If you are using Flock or FireFox) and simply attaches itself to your blogger/wordpress comment box and asks if you would like to track the conversation. This is where it gets a little bit slow, once you tick the box and say you do want to track the conversation, you need to enter the blog title, url, post and post link then write your post and sign in as per usual. The comment is then sent straight to your coComment inbox where you can thereafter view and track comments on the conversation.It's simple, it's easy and that's the way I like these sort of applications to be. Easy enough for me to use and explain in 2 days and one post. Done and dusted.