Social Networking is hot right now. Myspace is huge, facebook is growing super-mega fast, and even Google is backing open standards with OpenSocial (tho, not perfect).
Tagging is also a somewhat new (few years old). You can tag photos (flickr), tag websites/blogs (digg, del.icio.us, technorati, furl, etc) .. why not tag friends? Specifically, I have different circles of friends, some friends overlap, and would love to be able to group them more effectively than i can today. Examples
- babysitters
- coworkers
- work project A
- work project B
- lunch friends
- church friends
- hiking friends
- drinking buddies
- college friends
- star trek fans
- DJ/dancing crews
One thing to point out is how this compares to the existing concept of groups on social networking sites. Tagging people with “hiking” is promoting MY view of the world – I get to control who i want to talk to when i want to go hiking. In contrast, a hiking group I join is not my view – I don’t have control on that case. It’s more random, usually controlled by the loudest people (loudest meaning more volume of info and higher frequency), and most likely less personal, therefore a different usage paradigm. But the most important difference is that friends tagged with “hiking” are friends first, hiking people second. Social networking groups are groups first, and may or may not contain friends.
Everybody likes to spend time with friends, so why not change the paradigm to make friends come first?
How would it work? Simple – while looking at profiles on a given social network site, there’s always a section that has “add friend” or “marked as friend”. Around there you could add a tag to that person. Then, on your home page, you could have a friend tag cloud or list of friend tags. You pick a tag and it jumps to a dynamicly created page containing summaries of each person you tagged, with the following options:
- email – easier to manage than creating new email lists all the time
- calendar or event planning – requires them all to use the same calendar system so it can find time when all are free .. not easy
- person summaries, including existing tags (with ability to add/delete here, too), latest posts, pictures, status, …. optionally filtering posts/pics by the current tag (oooo.. advanced)
I’m looking at you, google.
Today I finally got to use my new gps watch (give it up for no rain). Check out my run from 116 San Jose (home) to Mt. Davidson and back (or all my runs online). Chart details is especially cool – When you click on it, opens a chart with elevation, pace, and heart rate info. Mt. Davidson is the tallest natural point in SF at 925 feet. GPS elevation is close, but the elevation gain on the summary data seems way off.
Wow .. pass the bacon. According to FactCheck, “CAGW .. estimated that pork projects cost $29 billion in 2006″. That’s awesome.
(CAGW defines “pork” as “a line-item in an appropriations bill that designates tax dollars for a specific purpose in circumvention of established budgetary procedures.”)
Today I got a new toy!!!! A brand new GPS-enabled heart-rate-monitor super watch, the Garmin Forerunner 305. It’s the ideal gadget for serious runners and triathletes. Not that I’m a serious runner, but I do love to geek out. The GPS is pretty robust, allowing the device to record your route as you run (GPS accuracy within 10 meters, typical). The heart rate monitor keeps track of your pulse (of course), so you can see how hard you’re working. And its got all sorts of timers and alerts and other stuff.
The main reason I got it is because I *do* run and wanted to track my routes. After some looking, I was sold by this one picture – it shows a map of SF with the route highlighted, and some stats on the left. Exactly what I was looking for. Thanks for the pic, Bijan Sabet.
Who doesn’t love Pirates? Matt Mason points out another reason to love them – they are good for markets in the long term. For example, William Fox didn’t want to pay Edison royalties to do movies, so he went out west to what eventually became Hollywood. Today pirates still do illegal activity, but is it really wrong? Read more on the Pirate’s Dilemma.
The New Year has arrived. And with it people pause, look back, look forward, figure out where they want to be and what changes are needed to get there. Well, that’s what I’ve been doing the last two years. Mostly looking back on my career and trying to figure out where i want to be in 5 years. So far nothing has presented itself as the clear winner. But during this time I’ve lived life – traveled, learned, had fun, and did what i wanted to. Here’s what I’ve concluded
- Spend time thinking about what’s really important to you. Be honest. Write them down. Look at it everyday. Make changes as you need to so it is accurate, but work towards a final list. Revisit only when you have major life changes.
- Implement it. That is, do things that are directly related to what is on that list. For example, If family is important, do activities with your family (watching TV does not count). If they are not around, make something for them. The point is to consciously spend time on the things that matter.
The steps are simple, but they have definitely improved my life and reduced some of the anxiety I’ve felt about “what do i want to do with my life”. Here is my list, still in flux, and kept concise – note the last one – more of reminder on how to live life, to be applied no matter what i’m doing. Likewise, i can combine things like have fun listening to new music with friends (triple play).
– Friends, Family
– Fun, Music
– Learning, New Experiences
– Exercise, Nature
– Giving Back
– Love, Honesty, and Respect
This is not a “New Years Resolutions” List. This is just a list of what’s important to me. I also made a new years resolution list – some of it is personal, but i’ll quickly list a few things
– Work on patience – especially for those i love.
– Perfection – Be more comfortable with lack of it.
– Start getting paid again (5 year plan)
– Be more Green (see Understanding Green Business, coming soon)
– Spend more time appreciating friends and my blessing (thanks to Otto for reminding me to give thanks)
This was another big year for me. Not as life changing as 2006, but still very significant. The 2 biggest things were traveling around the world for 6 months and getting serious with Shayna Cohen. Most everything else could be lumped into 2 groups – working on my 5-year plan and having fun (and how).
Similar to last year, i like to look at flickr pics to give me a recap on what i did. Starts off with a couple events before my Round The World trip – Dinner and Trivial Pursuit at 126 and My sendoff. Then there’s Round The World 2007, My return, Fred and Megan’s Wedding, Burningman, Moving into 116 San Jose with Shayna, Treasure Island Music Festival, halloween and Brasstax Renegade, Birthdays (Shayna, Eumi, Rick, Carrina, Sarah Bates) and Quality time with the Family over Thanksgiving and Christmas.
Besides all the fun with friends and family covered in those pics, I also spent time looking inward. Organizing and Prioritizing my life. Some of the fruits of this led me down paths such as getting an MBA (postponed for now), Understanding Green Business (lots more on that later) as well as starting my own business, among other things. I also got closer to Shayna. I feel so lucky and blessed to have her in my life. Looking forward, she is moving to Chicago in August to attend grad school. So the big question is .. do i go with her?