The truth about 9/11

9/11 Conspiracy Theories 'Ridiculous,' Al Qaeda Says

Reminder: JBTC special issue on social software

Manuscripts for my JBTC special issue on social software are due May 1. If you've been polishing that manuscript, make sure to get it to me by then -- and if you'd like to discuss it with me beforehand, please do!

I'm not an addict, it's part of my health regimen

BBC NEWS | Health | Daily caffeine 'protects brain'

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Barely a website at all

That's the description of the new website for Modernista, a general-market ad agency. Like Ron Paul's website, it barely exists:

Upon punching in the URL, a small navigation bar appears, redirecting visitors to a host of the best-in-class Web 2.0 services. Click on the agency's "about" section, and you're taken to its Wikipedia entry; "work" displays a TV reel via YouTube, print examples via Flickr and web executions on Del.icio.us. Agency news is delivered through Google News, and a "contact" section lets users get in touch via AIM or Skype.

In some ways this decision is too clever by half, trying to prove that Modernista "gets" Web 2.0 and consequently giving up the control over branding that one would expect from an ad agency. But on the other hand, it also makes sense from the standpoint of cutting costs and boosting user experience:

"The thing about the web these days is there's all these great tools out there, you're just not going to be able to come up with a better way to share photos than Flickr or a better way to build community than Facebook," so it's wise to tap into what's already out there rather than build from scratch, said David-Michel Davies, executive director of the Webby Awards, which each year honors excellence on the Internet. "They're putting their best foot forward in saying we get Web 2.0," Mr. Davies said.

I'm flagging this article partially because it points to decisions we've been making at the academic level, particularly in the CWRL, for some time. At TTU, I built the English department website as a web app in ASP (not a great idea, since I'm not a programmer and the site had sustainability issues). When I took over as CWRL director, we implemented an open-source content management system, Drupal, to take over most issues. But I began thinking in the direction Modernista has taken, and currently our instructors take advantage of a lot of sites such as Flickr, Google Maps, Google Docs, etc. on an ad hoc basis. But our core site remains in Drupal, where we can (a) back it up easily, (b) keep it within accessibility guidelines, (c) guarantee uptime, (d) control branding, and (e) secure data.

Does that choice make sense for other organizations or individuals? Probably less and less. My personal site is at <http://locus.cwrl.utexas.edu/spinuzzi>, but I barely touch it; most of my activity and "branding" is in FriendFeed, Google Docs, Facebook, Twitter, Flickr, etc. The personal site becomes more and more vestigial. As we continue to move away from large hierarchical organizations and toward temporary federations, it makes more sense to organize our professional presences in this way as well.

Modernista Makes a Break With the Past - Advertising Age - Digital

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Amazon expands into SMS

Now you can text Amazon with price comparisons in the store -- and follow through by buying your selections. By doing this, Amazon effectively reaches a much broader customer base, and reaches them anywhere. Brilliant.

Amazon Launches SMS Buying Service

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Slow-moving cloud

Google Docs is finally rolling out limited offline access.

Official Google Docs Blog: Bringing the cloud with you

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So there is a name for this terrible fear that grips me

Nomophobia is the fear of being out of mobile phone contact - and it's the plague of our 24/7 age| News | This is London

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iPhone as lifestyle companion -- sounds really really familiar

Via TechMeme, UnwiredView.com examines recent Apple patent applications and discovers clues that the iPhone might be positioned as a "lifestyle companion":

Turns out, that Apple is thinking how to make an iPhone into a full “Lifestyle companion” device, that can monitor your health condition, act as a fitness trainer and diet consultant, suggest daily routines dependent on your occupation and personal health hazards, and even shape your shopping habits.

And all this on the same familiar iPhone platform .

The key here is modular approach, incorporation of multiple sensors in the iPhone itself, it’s accessories and specialized software and content available through the iTunes.

Let's extend this a bit. You take a friendly mobile computing and communications platform, modularly add sensors, and use it to continuously monitor status in a variety of ways. You can (theoretically) stream this information to a repository so that you can review aggregated metrics or zoom in to see patterns and correlations at certain points. ("Seems like I feel lousy every spring at this time. I wonder if that correlates with high mold count?" "Do I eat less or more when I exercise regularly?") You can (theoretically) make this information available to your health care providers, your diet and exercise buddies, your Facebook friends, your biographer.

It starts to sound a lot like the MyLifeBits project that Microsoft has been running the last several years. Except that Apple has perhaps figured out how to make it marketable and specifically useful to average consumers.

iPhone. Your Lifestyle Companion » Unwired View

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Peter Merholz on Alan Cooper

Peter Merholz's analysis of Alan Cooper's Interaction08 keynote is really interesting and valuable, particularly because it sounds like the academic-industry divide we often discuss in professional communication. My emphasis:

Alan makes a lot of good points in his talk (many of which we make at Adaptive Path, such as how thoughtful design allowed iPod and Palm to beat predecessors, the value of distinguishing between design engineering and production engineering, and the value of the Quick Win), but he lost me when he advocated ignoring the business folks because they simply won’t get it. Not just “don’t” get it, but “won’t” get it. He seems to think that business folks are wired in such a way that they can’t handle the post-industrial economy. He also believes that attempts to quantify business value of post-industrial work is a fool’s errand.

He basically told the audience what they want to hear, but not what they need to hear.

peterme.com :: Alan Cooper Told The Audience What They Wanted To Hear, Not What They Needed To Hear

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The debate continues

Iraqi astronomer goes on TV to explain why Earth is flat - Boing Boing

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What Google Apps need

A way to sync labels across applications: Gmail, GDocs, and perhaps Blogger. And maybe labels for calendar items (rather than Google's preferred way, which is to create separate calendars). That would go a long way toward improving its project management support.

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Google Docs looking more like older versions of MS Word

If this trend continues, I expect it to start to look like WordPerfect 6 soon. Maybe we will be able to see the underlying HTML by pressing alt-F3.

Official Google Docs Blog: New Toolbar and Menus

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Clinton, snipers, YouTube

CDB dissects the current snipers-in-Bosnia story that is dogging Hillary Clinton. Like CDB, I don't take sides on the campaign. The more important and interesting question is how distributed tech will continue to disrupt campaigns and their attempts to build ethos.

Communities Dominate Brands: Truth police catch up with Hillary Clinton's Bosnia sniper story

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Archiving text messages

They're currently ephemeral, but at least one service aims to change that:

As more important communications take place over SMS, SMS apps will inevitably need to improve text management and desktop backup. In the meantime, Treasuremytext fills the gap nicely.

Yes, you should be able to get to your text message archives the way you do your email. Data storage is cheap.
SMS: Archive Your Text Messages with Treasuremytext

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The Lifestreaming Backlash

Via John Jones' friendfeed, an article on how we are (supposedly) drowning in activity stream data. The comments are interesting too.

My take: Lifestreaming apps need filters and visualization tools to produce aggregate views. Those tools should be able to summarize history and make comparisons across streams (users/personas).

The Lifestreaming Backlash - ReadWriteWeb

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Phone bill turns into social network

This sounds fascinating and useful, though I am not willing to give up my Sprint login for it. Why don't telecomm companies do something like this themselves?

Skydeck Helps You Manage The Social Network Locked In Your Phone (500 Invites For Private Beta)

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Email drops another notch on the communication hierarchy

2,433 Unread Emails Is An Opportunity For An Entrepreneur

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Reading :: The Bogleheads' Guide to Investing

The Bogleheads' Guide to Investing
by Taylor Larimore, Mel Lindauer, Michael LeBoeuf

Professors like to believe that since we know a lot about one subject, we know a lot about other subjects too. Obviously that's not so. There's nothing more humbling than realizing that you're way, way over your head in a different area of your life, and at those times, it's a relief to find a clearly written guide to help you through those difficult concepts that everyone else seems to understand.

The Bogleheads' Guide to Investing is one case in point. Investments confuse me. But the authors manage to lay out the basics of investing and a particular investment philosophy in clear, understandable terms that even a rhetoric professor can follow. The book is named after the authors' investment mentor, Vanguard founder John C. Bogle, who pioneered the no-load mutual fund and introduced the first index fund. Bogle's philosophy is fairly simple: rather than trying to beat the market and trust in active managers, buy mutual funds that represent the market index. The markets tend to rise over time, and active funds have trouble beating the market in the long run, so investors in indexed funds tend to come out ahead -- and they don't have to pay steep management fees.

The book also has a lot of advice that makes intuitive sense. Spend less than you make. It's not how much you make, it's how much you keep. Stay out of debt. Pay yourself first. Buy used items, including clothing and cars (this from three authors who are millionaires). Commit future pay increases to investing. Diversify, making low-cost indexed mutual funds your primary investment. Establish a stock-bond-cash allocation and stick with it, rebalancing every 18 months even when your stocks are going through the roof. Get a Roth IRA as soon as you can and let the magic of compound interest work. Put windfall funds away for six months before touching them so that the excitement wears off. Write down your major financial goals on one piece of paper.

Reading this book hasn't made me an investing expert. But it has given me some solid advice and some basic tools for managing my small investments, and some confidence in how to proceed. Check it out.

Google Spreadsheets matures more

And continues to constitute a threat to SurveyMonkey, among others.

SXSW CMS panel roundup

I wasn't there, but Jim Brown was.