Ampers & Dot

Tonight I’ll be attending the Boston Gadgetry MeetUp, a group organized (by me) to bring together people who like to talk about fun tech-toys.

The general topic of the evening will be “Mobile Operating Systems”, to discuss the brewing battle between Windows Mobile, the iPhone OS, Blackberry, and the prepubescent Android.

For a little background reading on this subject, check out the following links:

• HTC’s Diamond featuring Windows Mobile 6.1: YouTube Video
• Blackberry’s newly announced “Bold” with new OS 4.6: Gizmodo Images
• A video walkthrough of the Android platform: YouTube Video
• And a few leaked details on the new 3G iPhone: CrunchGear

And here are a few notes that I’m excited to discuss this evening.

• That Palm OS isn’t even in the mixer anymore
• How the Diamond’s modded WM 6.1 is WM 6.0 with the addition of a number of features to make it more like the iPhone
• The fact that Blackberry can actually make hardware appealing enough to compensate for no touchscreen
• And conversely, how the iPhone can make an OS appealing enough to compensate for no hardware
• How each OS is targeted towards a different user group, but the hardware doesn’t necessarily match this
• How easily Android will be able to break into the market because of its minimal operating requirements
• The future of the mobile OS - combining a UI of the iPhone with functionality of Windows Mobile… and how this will most likely be seen in Android 2 before either WM or an iPhone…

So if any of these things interest you then stop by the Kinsale at Government Center this evening after work. And make sure to check out the Gadgetry MeetUp page for more details.

Hope to see you there!

By nature I am a pretty crazy mobile device enthusiast. I can name and detail more cell phone acronyms than just about anyone (CDMA, EVDO, GSM, HSDPA, HSUPA… I can do that for hours).  I can even explain to you the difference between 1G, 2G, 3G, 3.5G, and 4G data speeds and who they related to the 700mhz spectrum.

What I can’t explain is how the hell Sprint lost 1,090,000 customers in Q1 this year.  That’s about 12,000 unhappy customers a DAY.  That’s horrendous.  As someone who has switched cell providers only once ever (with Verizon for nearly a decade (Cellular One, which rolled into Verizon) of dissatisfaction before jumping ship to ATT (Cingular, which rolled into ATT) and have actually been surprised at the relatively positive service), I can only say that losing 1.09m customers in three months is truly amazing.

What went wrong?  According to the comments in the post I linked up there… a lot went wrong.  There are 75+ comments running on that thread and nearly every one of them is negative.  Although there isn’t one overwhelmingly strong central theme- people just don’t like Sprint.

For a long time I’ve been quasi-active on a few gadget forums and one of my strongest memories of one of my favorite communities, PDAphonehome.com, is the amount of conversation around Sprint and the PPC6600.  Looking at the 6600 threads you’ll notice that two of the top three most popular threads are about Sprint promising an update for a phone… and then not delivering. Over 2,000 replies and over 160,000 views of people pissed off at Sprint. And on the thread for Sprint’s updated model, the 6700, there’s an open thread with nearly 1,000 replies and almost 300,000 views about Sprint dropping the ball again.

Ok, so that’s enough with the boring phone stuff- let me finally get to my point in all this: social media is killing Sprint.  In the old days, way back when modems dialed numbers and eBay was still a legitimate website, the ability to discuss your dissatisfaction for something was relatively limited.  While now, when my phone connects over 83 times faster than my first modem and eBay is like craigslist mixed with a Nigerian email scam, spreading your unhappiness about a company is easier than ever.

Jumping online to rant about something is not only possible, but you’ll find a community that shares a similar distaste.  These communities enable dissatisfied customers’ hate to brew- by hearing other stories people get even more riled up and unhappy.

This wasn’t originally where I expected this post to go, but what I’m getting at is that Sprint has always sucked.  It’s just hit the tipping point where people no longer care to hold it inside.  And once they see how annoyed everyone else is, it makes it easier than ever to give up.

And not to fan the flame or anything, but should you be similarly unhappy with Sprint, like 1.09m others, check out this forum thread on how to get out of your Sprint contract.

Sorry Sprint, it’s nothing personal- but while reading PDAPhoneHome forums I met a lot of unhappy people- and I sympathize enough to be unhappy too.  It’s time for to utilize social media to fix your reputation and get your customers back.  Also, while you’re at it: roll out WiMax already.  No more delays, ok?

While working with people to better understand and utilize blogs, I am often asked about the requisite length of a blog post; often inaccurately phrased as “how long does it have to be?”.  The first answer to this is that if you think it has to be done at all, you’re going about it all wrong.  Blogging is supposed to be fun and enjoyable and if you ever feel burdened by it- don’t blog. 

Blogging has unlimited benefits, but if you aren’t enjoying it then, quite frankly, your blog will show it and you’ll be unable to reap the said benefits anyway.  For example: blogging well can build a community of conversation.  But if you don’t enjoy blogging and the posts suffer, then no one is going to be talking about it anyway.  So why do it?

Anyway- back to the length question.  The easy answer: not too much.  Far too often posts are longer than they should be and I can say with full confidence that it’s immeasurably better to have a shorter post than a post that runs too long.  Researchers recently determined that after 25 seconds on a page, people aren’t really reading anything anyway (only dedicating 4.4 seconds per 100 words, after the initial 25 seconds… that’s not good).  So it’s better to leave the post shorter and have that text read, than ramble on in a space no one is getting to anyway.

I usually like to avoid responding too directly to the question about post length, because then it is seen as an assignment.  If I say 300-500 words, then that becomes a goal to hit 400… when ultimately the goal should be to get the message across. 

My answer is as vague as possible: keep it between 100 and 1,000 words.  Introduce the post, get your message across, and wrap it up.  And it’s better to have a fun and interesting post with 100 words and a link, than a twelve page manifesto on your love of McDonald’s dollar menu (this is out there… I’ve seen it and it’s scary).

Ironically the point of this post was actually a test for me, to see if I’m actually able to just spit out a quick post about a topic I know.  Didn’t work.  Let’s just write this up in the series of “advice I’ll give on my blog about things I know really well but that I don’t do personally”.  I’ve already covered the blogroll and now length; next week maybe I’ll talk about how crappy my SEO is.

This short post: 411 words.

While reading the Boston blog aggregator/news/etc. Universalhub.com yesterday I came across an intriguing post on spam comments. In short, UH’s Adam noticed a few newly spammy comments on older posts he’d written. After a little digging, he learned the source of this mess comes from a company that basically sells comments.

For twenty bucks CommentHut will go around to 100 targeted blogs and post little spam comments that link back to your company. I know what you’re thinking: “wow, there’s a way to blow my company’s credibility and make us look stupid, and it’s only $20!? Sign me up!”.

Let’s talk about why this is stupid: as Adam points out, the spam comments he found on Universal Hub were on old posts and they were still pretty easily identifiable as spam. Even if the posts are indeed written by a human- they’re still fake and annoying. For example- take a look at this spammy comment that made it beyond my spam filter, but was pretty easily identifiable as spam.

This is inherently flawed for the following reasons

• Good blog admins are either notified of new comments, or check any new comment regularly enough to pick up spam
• Good spam filters will nab, or at least hold in moderation, comments with questionable links
• Posting spam comments on old posts only makes it look spammier, plus most blog sites have built in options to “delete comments on threads older than…”
• Fake comments stick out even more obviously when a site has a real community, like Universal Hub
• Readers aren’t dumb enough to click on fake comment links anyway

That last bullet is the most important: I mean look at the spam comment there- it’s horrible! “I’m at University…” oh, ok- I’d better check out your “credit-instent.cn” link! I bet it’s really good and can save me money… is there anyway I can just send you my credit cards and you’ll do the work for me? What if I also send you my passport, apartment keys, and a twenty dollar bill? Hopefully if you’re reading this, you are smart enough not to click on any link domain name that is spelled wrong… or links to Canada…

Seriously though, what does this accomplish? My thought: it’s a good way to throw away money and prove that you completely misunderstand social media.

The idea of comments section is that it’s an open dialogue between the author and the reader. It’s what separates blogs from news. By invading this conversation you are really only bound to piss off the author, disrupt the readers, and make a bad name for the company that paid you twenty bucks to spread the name around.

The first and foremost rule of social media is transparency. Let everyone know who you are and what you do. If you hide it, or fake it, you look just look dumb. So here’s my transparency disclaimer for today’s post: I help teach companies how to best utilize social media and I think fake comments are a horrible idea.

You might not have noticed, but I recently trimmed a bit of the fat from my blogroll (that little list over there- available about halfway down on the right there… for those who haven’t checked it out yet) in an initial phase of overall “blogroll rehabilitation”. This came about because it seemed hypocritical to have any blogs on there that I’m not passionately reading on a regular basis and as it turned out there were a few on there that I didn’t even read at all anymore.

What I realized was that in the first stab at creating my blogroll I reached a little too far and tried to include something for everyone. This is obviously silly because this blog isn’t for everyone, so why should I try to please those jerks who aren’t even reading this (obviously, I’m not talking about you).

Part of my day job is helping companies build better blogs, so it’s only fair that I have a good one of my own. In the coming weeks I’m going to spend some time redoing my blogroll and thought I’d turn this into a post about how to actually make one.

First off: what’s the blogroll all about? The way I teach the blogroll, is it should be links to other blogs that your readers will enjoy. If they like what they read on your site, they’ll like the content on the other sites too. It’s like Amazon’s suggestion feature- where they match up relevant purchases with the one you’ve already bought- “we see you just bought a Celine Dion CD; would you also like this handgun and bottle of booze combo?”

I use blogrolls every day to find new things to read. It’s a great way to learn more about an industry and it’s a perfect way find networks around topics you find interesting. So let’s just dive into it- tips to building a better blogroll:

• Relevance is bliss: The blogs you link to should first and foremost be relevant to the content you are publishing
• Relevant blogs, not relevant websites. A blogroll is a collection of blogs, who would have guessed. If you have a number of links you think your readers would also enjoy, create a “Links” section too
• Organize! Categorize the blogroll (or even links) into sections to give readers a better understanding. Boston blogger Scott Kirsner does the best job of this of any blog I know
• Use titles with descriptions help guide your readers. Hover works too, but give your audience a clue to what they’ll find in each link. A blog with a crappy name, like AmpersandDot.com means nothing- add a hover to explain the content
• Yes, we all think LOL Cats are hilarious, but unless your blog is about LOL Dogs or straight humor related, your readers are gaining nothing by linking to it. Same goes for StuffWhitePeopleLike.com
• Quality and relevance over quantity. If you have too many links then the relevance is drowned out by all the noise. Todd Defren and Josh Hallet, your blogroll reads like Con Von Hoffman’s category list (Important note: I love all three of these blogs and read everything that any of these guys writes. And you should too.)
• A mix of mainstream and lesser-known blogs (assuming they are relevant and you read them) will add a better variety. I’ve seen a number of blogrolls that only link Engadget, Gizmodo, TechCrunch, and Valleywag. This is lame (and I’m half guilty of it)
• Keep it current. A standard role in blog maintaince is to check dead links. A dead link on a blogroll is one that hasn’t been updated in a week
• Make sure the blogs on your blogroll are ones you read regularly. This sounds straightforward, but I think that once you link to a blog in your blogroll you should be accountable for knowing its content. Linking a blog in your roll is a compliment to the author that you want to give them traffic from every reader
• Hell, you should even be active on the blogs you list- comment on them and engage the author. Because a blogroll link creates a connection- on each page- not just a link in a post, but a static link for all to enjoy. And hey, if you comment on more blogs then you’ll be much more likely to get links back.

Blogrolls are an integral element to every blog. And sadly I haven’t been appropriately respecting the importance. Things I need to work on: a) more blogs b) categories (I’m thinking: Boston, Web “2.0″, Social Media, Tech Nerdery… but we’ll see what pans out) and c) better variety, not just Mashable and Engadet Mobile… ugh.

This weekend I’ll take my own advice and start working on revamping my blogroll. What else should be considered when blogrolling? What are your tips?

The point of today’s post has nothing to do with social media. Nothing to do with “web 2.0″. Today’s post is all about my love for the Grand Theft Auto series. Because you know what? They deserve the praise.

My life changed about eight years ago when I first played Grand Theft Auto 2. The top-down shooting/racer game was a fun and addictive, but would only be the gateway drug to me life-long addiction to the GTA series. When GTAIII came out it was an entirely new world of awesome. The third person car stealing mayhem was overwhelmingly enjoyable. Then Vice City opened my eyes to a new possibilities of fun. And in 2005 when GTA San Andreas came out, I was convinced that no game could ever top it.

In the three years since purchasing GTA:SA I have completed all of the missions six times through; played it through three times each on both Xbox and Xbox 360. I have completed 100% of the game. As annoying as that was. I spent hours on end finding all those god-damned horse shoes. Then, I went back and did it again.

And you know what? I still have fun playing GTA:SA. There has never been a game without a multiplayer mode that has had as severe staying power as any in the GTA series. The only reason I ever stop playing one of them is when the newest comes out- even if that only happens every three or so years.

So today is the day that the most insanely anticipated game of my life hits shelves. Finally. After three release date changes, we are finally here. (Incidentally, when the second release date was changed to October 16th, I had requested two days off around it… then when it was pushed back yet-again to April 29th I decided not to jinx it. And here we are. Not jinxed, but at work.)

Today, April 29th, is finally here. I didn’t think it would ever actually happen. But here we are. And I’m too busy to play anyway. BUT- now that I know it isn’t getting pushed back again, I can at least hype it up more than ever before.

So let’s get back to it with some fun links:

• Analysts are predicting that GTAIV will single handedly derail the box office this weekend
• Read this retrospective of the history of the Grand Theft Auto series
• It might sell up to 13,000,000 copies this year
• I’m not the only one (obviously) who feels passionately about the GTA series
• It received a “Perfect Score” with the critics - even Halo 3 only got a 93…
• There are awesome, awesome achievements for the 360 version
• There’s a multiplayer mode. Yes. The game that I could play forever singleplayerly, has a multiplayer mode.
• Also: here is everything you ever wanted to know and more about GTAIV

That’s all I’ve got today. And likely tomorrow. And the next day. Because as you can probably guess, I’ll be spending the next few months about three feet away from my TV stealing cars, driving fast, shooting gang members, and billions of other amazingly fun options in GTAIV. So long social life… Liberty City, here I come!

Last week I read a post from Chris Brogan, one of Boston’s superstar social media mavens, declaring April 28th as “Read and Comment” day. This seems like a great idea, because so often it seems the we can get so wrapped up in creating social media, that we ironically forget to maintain the “social” aspect of it all.

Over the last month or so I’ve been getting more and more into the Twitter community which has introduced me to a dozen or so new blogs to read (this is, in fact, how I found Chris Brogan’s blog). Twitter has allowed me to be in touch with the authors, send them messages and praise, and ask and answer questions. Basically Twitter has enabled better social networking around the blogs that I enjoy.

Twitter has been helpful for me because I’ve recently realized that I’ve been becoming less social online. Allow me to explain: in a given day I read around 1,000 blog posts (let me sub explain: I’m a Social Media Consultant specializing in blog tracking building a social media monitoring tool) and as you can imagine, the only way to keep up with that volume is through a RSS reader.

I have a number of ways to follow my blog feeds, through the new tool we’re working on, and also for testing: Google Reader. I can go through a hundred posts in about ten minutes now, flagging things to read later, posts to share, posts for clients, posts for the office… and so on.

What I don’t do that much, is comment. If I’m reading everything within a feed reader, I usually don’t even see the comments. And I’ll only follow through to the comments if I want to see what others are saying. This is wrong.

Basically, RSS feeds have taken the social aspect away from blog reading. And now with other feed readers like FriendFeed, it’s easier than ever to just passively participate in social media. Which ironically removes the social aspect. Since converting almost entirely to RSS feeds for blog reading I have to assume that my comment volume has dropped so significantly.

My goal today is to work on fixing this. I’m going to Twitter more, mainly with replies. I’m going to comment more on other blogs. Heck, I might even write on someone’s Facebook wall. The point of social media is to be social. So today, branch out, and say hello. Become part of the community and engage in the conversation. Or you could always just pick up a newspaper and read it. I mean, I think they still make those…

And hopefully this goes without saying, but feel free to add to the conversation by commenting below.

The main concept to blogging is to add value and thought to the online community. (That or show pictures of female celebrities getting out of cars…) And the point of this blog has always been to discuss things I find interesting and have some semblance of insight to share.

Well today, seeing as how I’m too busy to have an opinion on anything, I thought that I’d share a few recent reads that I’ve enjoyed. Further, I think a few of these are so well done, that I don’t even have anything smart to add.

For example: ReadWriteWeb’s take on Web 2.0 and 3.0 terminology and the complete arbitrariness of naming the internet. This article singlepostedly explains why RWW is my current favorite blog. Everything written there is well thought through, well crafted, and authoritative on a subject. Plus- someone else finally agrees with me about stupid “web 2.0″ usage. RWW- great work.

About a week ago I read this article on “A Stranger in a Strange Land: A Windows Mobile Guy Meets iPhone” from PocketPC Thoughts. If you have an iPhone, or a WinMo device- you must read that article. It’s everything I’ve wanted to say and more. And it makes me feel less jealous of iPhone owners. So does PPC Thoughts’ follow up.

On Windows Mobile- it’s really exciting to see HTC launch a US campaign. Also cool to see it might be launching a new sampling of phones too… I mean, it had been almost two years since I’ve seen anything new out of the love-of-my-phone-life.

Mashable had a recent and awesome post on finding new music- which I hope to actually take advantage of this weekend. If you play around with any of these sites and find something cool, you are now obligated to tell me about it. Thanks.

And lastly- we finally relaunched our TechToons blog on the Prompt site. Spend some time going through the archives- there are a few hilarious ones back there. The ideas for each cartoon come from my colleagues- obviously a pretty funny and smart group.

That’s all I’ve got today- oh, but I heard a rumor that there’s funny stuff on the internet… let me know if you find any of it. I’m going to need some help once GTA IV comes out on Tuesday… and after that I’m going to be pretty glued to my xbox… it will be unhealthy and embarrassing. And I couldn’t be much more excited.

Enjoy the weekend!

Facebook chat launched this week, giving users yet another way to communicate with people they do, and do not, really know. The little instant message feature is incredibly similar to Google Chat - in that it sits on top of a platform that you must already have open. In this case, Facebook is assuming that you have its website open at all times, and if you love buying people virtual drinks as much as I do, then you probably do have it open 24 hours a day.

I’ve expressed my confusion over the current state of Facebook before, but to reiterate: I don’t really understand Facebook in its current form. It’s trying to do too much too quickly, none of it with any real quality. So enter the chat tool. It is indeed yet another way for people to communicate. Maybe this is because I’m no longer a Facebook “power user”, but it just seems redundant and cumbersome. It’s yet another aspect of Facebook that bogs down the already cluttered social network.

That’s right: Facebook is cluttered. Admit it- the “feed” is annoying. Even if you set up the preferences and individually ignore some streams, there’s just too much work involved to manage it. And this is coming from a guy who reads 1,000+ items a day through RSS feeds and follows a good sized twitter stream…

And it turns out that I’m not the only one. Inside Facebook, a sight dedicated to discussing new developments within the social network, recently wrote about what people hate most about Facebook. Granted, this was targeted at Facebook applications, but it still ironically highlighted one gigantically flawed concept: people don’t like what’s going on at Facebook.

As the charts illustrate, there are many things people don’t like about Facebook apps, the least of which being the completely useless functionality. And with more and more clutter, invites, and indicators, Facebook is starting to look like a 15 year olds MySpace page. Needless to say- this is not going to be a successful “tool” for professionals.

Chat might actually be an ok feature- and honestly, if I were still a power user, I’d probably be psyched about the chat feature. But if Facebook is working to bridge its way into the business world it needs to realize that professionals are less keen to communicate in a place where they are being attacked by digital pirates or getting poked by someone they went to school with years ago… these are two very different worlds that will not naturally overlap.

But in the end- Facebook messaging might be really cool though- I mean, it’s going to be awesome to finally have a way to keep in touch with people, right? I’ve been waiting for a long time for technology to evolve to a point where I can communicate with other people…

So if you want to discuss this more with me then you can email me on one of my dozen email accounts, IM me on Google Chat, IM me on MSN chat, leave me a Facebook message, write on my profile wall, DM me on Twitter, Text me, call me at work or on my cell phone, message me through LinkedIn, Digg, or my MeetUp profile, or you can stop by my place and say hi. Or, of course, you can leave a comment below.

Just please don’t fax me. I don’t know how to use that thing.

My good friend Dave recently launched a blog for his job at CD Chivas USA, the Carson, CA based soccer team in the MLS (that stands for “Major League Soccer”, for those of you too patriotic to accept soccer into America.  Yeah, that’s right, America has professional soccer.  And you know what?  It’s pretty good.).  His blog is the Official Bilingual Blog of Chivas USA soccer: an inside look into a professional soccer team, with updates on team news, scores, player profiles, and more.

A little back story on CD Chivas USA: (”CD” = Club Deportivo) the team is considered the “Sister Team” of CD Chivas Guadalajara, a team based out of, you guessed it, Guadalajara, Mexico (ok, I just like writing “Guadalajara” because of the absurd use of  the letter “a”).  The idea of CD Chivas USA is that it appeals to more to the large Spanish speaking population in southern California.  Unlike the local rival LA Galaxy, which appeals to faux-hawk enthusiasts.

Well, seeing as how my daily job often consists of helping companies launch and popularize blogs, it seemed only fair that I offer up a little advice to help the Chivas Blog.  After going through some very broad basics, Dave and I started to discuss Search Engine Optimization. 

Some of you may have seen this coming from this post’s title, but there is an inherent problem in this project.  The problem is that the idea of an Official Bilingual Blog of Chivas USA soccer, is that it would in fact be bilingual.  My original idea was to write it all in English and install one of those language converters to the site- but Dave, being fluent in Spanish and knowing how horribly those tools actually translate, is aiming to make this a true home for Chivas fans of any background and not alienate the Spanish speaking supporters.  Instead he is writing in both Spanish and English, depending on the topic.

So I’ve been reading up on as many sources as possible about bilingual SEO, but the main thing I’ve learned from it all is that there isn’t that much written on bilingual SEO…

The incredibly broad idea behind a standard SEO strategy is to improve search engine rankings, so that when someone searches for something online (which everyone does…) they’ll find your site first.  BUT- what if your readers aren’t always searching in English?  And what if you are writing half of the posts in Spanish? 

At this point, I should probably warn you that if you came to this page looking for authoritative answers, you might want to leave now… sorry about that.  But the following are a few things I’ve picked up, just by watching the site and some of its click stats.

• In a site with bilingual text, make sure any relevant SEO terms exist in both languages.  If this means repeating information, that’s fine. 
• As with any SEOd page, you don’t want to over do links to piss off the search bots.  You work way too hard to be seen as a Splog, so if you are repeating information and writing things twice, be cautious of how often links appear.
• Bilingually tag images.  By shortening the descriptions but having key words in both languages, both audiences will find what they are looking for.
• If you aren’t writing everything twice then make sure to write enough in each language to appeal to both audiences AND the search engines.  There’s a fine balance of alienating either language’s readers, but keeping relevant stories in each language published often enough will keep all readers happy.

There is still so much to learn about all this and if anyone has any advice on reading material (in English please) comment below.  The one problem I keep going back and forth on is the Page Title and Meta Content.  My instinct is telling me to stick with English because more people are searching for English text, but that just leaves the question: Is it better to get a huge percentage of those searching for Spanish text, or a small percentage of those searching for English text?  The answer is likely “which ever one is bigger”…

Anyway- If you want to check out the Official Bilingual Blog of Chivas USA soccer, then you can click that link or check it out on Google, which after just a month is up to #6 for “Chivas & Blog” and #31 for “Chivas USA”.