Has anyone ever noticed that people, with pride, will often say that they would choose X over Y even if it were easier to get rich (or richer) if they chose Y but when they read about someone else doing the same they’re shocked?

Twitter still strikes me as not having enough meat. I like blogs. It’s a pity we were never able to get a more consistent blog format because I think there’s a market niche still to be filled by something that easily supports small articles.

If there were 100 people selected at random, 90 of them would have no idea what I mean in this post. 5 of them would understand and find it bizarre. I am a creature of the virtual. Before there was an Internet there were BBSes.  The physical world, for me, has always largely just been the place that requires me to move my carcass between terminals to get back into the real world. In another decade or two, it won’t be “the Internet” but something beyond it where I think more and m...

They make a good case,  http://gizmodo.com/5537502/diaspora-the-student+made-privacy+respecting-facebook-alternative  , trying to replace facebook using a distributed network of sites. Of course, others have rightly stated that really, the web is already a social network. There's tons of sites for doing individual pieces of what facebook needs. The main problem I see with that vision is that it doesn't seem like we have unified privacy and access controls across sites. I can publish...

If you are a member of a online social network, for example, Facebook , be careful when you think you are venting only to your friends, often, when you hit the Submit key, what you just wrote will be read by the entire world! This was the unfortunate demise experienced by a college professor, Reiko Ohnuma !  To prepare for her class the professor looked something up on Wikipedia , which she wasn't very proud of doing.  Then follows a tirade of venting to her friends on Facebo...

I'll admit I was clueless as to what Twitter was.  I heard the word thrown about, even during the recent election. I've heard it mentioned by talk show hosts, people there, even here.  I saw this link in my mailbox account and took a look at it.  My review of the link had me laughing.  I don't know, I laughed because I am amazed at this and now realise why so many are fascinated with this new 'thing' .  My understanding of Twitter is that you basically ask one qu...

This one takes the cake, or make that the burger! Recently on Facebook, several people lost their friendship because of a burger!     Recently, Burger King ran a “Whopper Sacrifice” campaign.   What is that you might wonder?   The ever inventive and creative people at Burger King (and their advertising agency) offered a free burger to anyone on Facebook who would delete 10 of their friends on Facebook!   A free burger ended 234,0...

Tap tap tap. Is this thing on?

So if you're reading this, it's likely you've already stumbled across the Community pane of Impulse and have experienced the exceptionally clean, inviting, and user-friendly interface of ImpulseDriven (the engine behind the blogging feature of Impulse). There have been some discussions of why some articles posted to JoeUser.com don't show up here on ImpulseDriven. The answer from on high is that, while similar engines, only certain categories are shared between the two, confining ImpulseDrive...

ImpulseDriven.net is an alternative virtual community site much like JoeUser.com. There is a lot of overlap between the two in terms of content but ImpulseDriven has more game and software categories and excludes the political and religious categories. The two have considerably different UIs as well. So which UI do you prefer? a) JoeUser.com or ImpulseDriven.net

Now, I'll admit that I'm definitely on the outside looking in of the blogging/web 2.0 community.  While I manage very large sites with a ton of users and reach, I'm still on the periphery.  Why?  Well, I live in Michigan.  Not exactly a state known for it's thriving IT industry.  If you go beyond IT services that support manufacturing companies, you can probably count on one hand the number of companies doing anything significant with online communities or digital media.

Yes, I'm a bit of a victim of geography here, and even though it's all online now, it's all IM, Twitter, email and blogging, proximity is still important.  So when I see events like Gnomedex coming up, I'm interested because it could be one of the few opportunities I have this year to actually network with other people working in my field.  And in this nebulous profession, professional networking is king.

I've become quite a twitterholic the past few days. In fact, let's check the stats. Yeah, I've been pretty much addicted the past few days. Why? Well, there's a few things I love about Twitter:

1. Twitter is short, sweet, and easy to use.

The concept is simple: 140 characters to tell the world what you're doing. I don't think you can get more simple than that. No complex forms, no huge commitments, just a simple request, and your simple answer. It has a wonderful web interface, and the settings allow you completely customize your page's background along with colors for fonts. It's just a breeze to use and easy to look at, which is a welcome change compared to Facebook or MySpace.

I recently came across this post about a user who decided he had enough of the user-generated news community, Reddit. I've been a Reddit user for a quite some time now, and I've done my share of down voting Ron Paul stories as well submitting silly pictures that have made it onto the front page. Lately though, it's become more than a habit to check this site.

We're back again with another set of questions asked by you, and answered by members of the WinCustomize moderation team.  Today we hear from WOM, Koasati, Zubaz, Elvee, Erk, Jafo, Starone, Quentin94 and Fuzzy Logic. Remember to check back again next Friday for Part 3! Question 1 - What is the best thing about being a moderator?  The worst?  (Zubaz) Wizop WOM   Being able to contribute to WC.  I spend hours a day modding and watching the g...

I've tried a few of the virtual community type services and social networking. None of them impressed me much. Then, I came across this in RSS.  YOOWALK is a representation of the worldwide web as a 3D world where you can: Browse the web in 3D with your avatar Build a 3D version of your website Have your own room in 3D Meet people and hang out with them It's barely in Beta and they are accepting preregistration for beta testers. I decided to sign up and thought that ther...