Digital Spam is like a disease. It’s the “Signal/Noise” principle. as the noise increases, it gets much more difficult to even detect the signal you were hoping for in the first place! I want to hit some quick areas spam has killed me, and hear from ya’ll.
Twitter: I like Twitter. A little bit. I want to go through all the tweets on my front page, and rank them, scale of 1-5(high) based on how much I like the tweeter, and the content of the tweet:
3, 5, 1, 2, 3, 2, 1, 2, 2, 5, 1, 2, 5, 1, 3, 3, 5, 2, 3, 1. Averaging a 2.3. My hope is to get it to a 3.6, I’m not sure how that’s going to happen. For an idea, see my last post
Facebook: Now I love Facebook, but let’s do the same thing, except this time I’m *just* ranking how well I know these people.
2, 4, 3, 3, 2, 4, 0, 2, 5, 0, 2, 0, 0, 5, 2, 3. Averaging a 2.1. I simply don’t know a lot of these users.
and Notifications as well! a bunch of them have *nothing* to do with what I care about.
Google Reader: No ratings now, just the simple fact that about 1/3 of the posts I read (and write probably) are recycled, or simply dull.
Now the solution. Whenever you sign up for a new service, your first question is always: “how do I maximize the information I take in.” The answer is: Unsubscribe, Unfollow, and Unfriend. Do what’s necessary to connect with the people you take information from, and if they’re not interested, hit the button.
This morning I was sitting down to some pancakes and oatmeal, and had this thought:
Twitter is nice. I like it a lot, and use it all the time. They’ve made it very easy to follow someone, but not so easy to unfollow them. Good luck trying to unfollow a bunch of people. The thing is, the cost to follow one useless aggravating spammer is low, but following hundreds of them makes Twitter useless for anything but publicity. Connecting becomes impossible.
So what if a tool was built called “the Chopping Block.” Here’s how it would work.
You set a cap for most people you intend to follow. Say 250.
Once you follow the 251st person, the Chopping Block automatically kicks out the twitterer of lowest value to you.
This is decided by their spam-value, if you’ve ever @ed them, their follower/followed ratio, length of time on twitter & following you etc.
So using all these factors, you slowly bump off the annoying tweets, while adding high value people that you enjoy. At the same time, it’s painless, and makes for a better experience.
Ok, this doesn’t exist yet…as far as I can tell…let’s make it happen.
Maybe you’ve known about this forever, but I just discovered it, and I’m super excited.
BibleGateway offers a daily reading plan. You can pick your version, and the style of reading: Chronological, OT/NT, Historical, 90 Day Bible, or Beginning. But the exciting part is, if you use a blog reader, you can subscribe to the feed to get it with your blogs. Or a daily email, but I greatly dislike daily emails.
So yes, if you have trouble “making time” (me too), to read scripture, and get off track or whatever, this tool is for you!
At Catalyst, Aaron Keyes was leading Worship, and he said something that really helped me.
He said that when the priest would inspect the lamb for the burnt offering, it wasn’t the priest that was up for inspection, or the person giving the lamb, but the lamb itself. And that once the priest declared the lamb pure and clean, it was good worship.
Just a great reminder that my worship is contingent on Jesus pure life and his work on the cross, not my holiness.
This is a review of the Wibiya Toolbar, used here on Churchosphere. I think it’s worth using wherever you want to increase user engagement (everywhere). And also, not many people use it, so it’s kind of unique. Check out the video.
If you use a mac, as I hope you do, you should know about the Grab tool. It’s a screencapturing tool that even supports selecting portions of your screen, which is great. Except…It saves it in .tiff (no one knows why!?)
The problem is, of course, that your screen grab is *probably* going to the internet, which largely doesn’t support .tiff. So your stuck opening up photoshop/gimp right? No more!
Instead,
open up Preview > File > Take Screenshot and pick your favorite method of screen capture: Screen, Window or Selection.
Take your screenshot and click Save.
When Save pops up, you magically have all kinds of formatting options, (click the picture).
Justhost.com is offering free web hosting for a year. Use the code TEMPLATEMONSTER when signing up and it should say 12 months free. This has worked for two of my friends, let me know if it works for you. (Marcus, this means you…no more excuses haha). I use them to host this site, and as far as I can tell, it really is free.
Christianbook.com is offering the ESV Study Bible for 50% off the normal $50 price! I’ve held these things in my hands, and they’re beautiful. I just ordered a copy, so excited!
P.S. today is free sandwich day at Chick-Fil-A. wear your team logo, free sandwich. do it.
Have you noticed that in the world of the internet, everyone is an expert. In fact, there are so many self-proclaimed “experts” that it’s hard to find anyone with much real experience. This leads to the difference between experience and observation. I’ve discovered that I am not an expert in much. My areas of expertise extend to 1. Myself and 2. Chick-Fil-A Drive Thru. In everything else, I am foremost an observer. Read and Respond »
With John Saddington’s recent “Twitter Meltdown” It’s good to stop and think about how effective Twitter can be as a ministry tool. In a small church, say <100 people, Twitter is pretty manageable. But what about the thousands upon thousands of marketers, spammers, and grade-A Hoochie Mamas that want a slice of my attention. Read and Respond »
With John Saddington’s recent “