DesertStandard

One trend that occurs over and over on the World Wide Web is the shift from Centralized websites to De-Centralized websites. Centralization occurs because people get tired of searching hundreds to thousands of sites to find a few pieces of information. De-centralization occurs because we get tired of reading the same few pieces of information and want more detail. The first big time Centralized website was Yahoo and in recent years its been the Social Networks led by MySpace. De-Centralized websites were called HomePage’s(still my favorite web term of all time). With Myspace the impetus was for finding and sharing music interests. Now there is a shift back the other way:

What these changes to the musical framework of the social Web prelude, however, may well be a small trickle of a few names that grows quickly into an exodus of famous faces and voices intent on establishing more solitary existences on the Web. And if a trend to more individualized services among artists ensues, then we could in a couple of years potentially have a vast disarray of networks in our midst. Which, as many millions of social networkers today would probably determine, isn’t a prognosis many would find appealing.

Will Musicians’ Custom Networks Create Disarray On Social Web?

I can sympathize with both sides here. On one hand its a branding issue. No matter how big the artist is if you are looking at their info through Myspace then Myspace is winning the branding effort. Bringing the content into your own domain and website gives you the branding edge back, however you lose the advantage that Myspace brings = millions of users.

Michael Arrington talks about this in his post on FriendFeed and how its about owning your content:

…I think other people will want it too, is a place that they control where this information is aggregated. That may be right back at the blog for some people. For others it may be Facebook (who understands this fully). Wherever a person considers their home turf is where they’ll want all this data.

Here Arrington is talking about Data-Portability and how it will be and integral part of the web’s development. As we put more of our lives online we are going to need to be able to control it more and more. Just as we are starting to learn how to manage our music collections in digital form this grows exponentially with our words, pictures, and video as we put them online to share and discover with our friends and family.

What are you doing to manage your digital assets? Are you fine with posting them to another company trusting that they will always let you have them back? Or are you building your data fortress?

Will Musicians’ Custom Networks Create Disarray On Social Web?
FriendFeed, The Centralized Me, and Data Portability

Biray is going deep this week with an article on mindfulness and technology. She covers the topic of mindfulness, living in the present, and ponders how we can use technology to help others achieve mindfulness. Central to her argument is the use of Twitter:

If you’re introducing mindfulness to someone who has yet to fully experience it, how can you tell if what you’re teaching is helping them understand the concept? Or better yet, how do you know if they are even applying its principles? You don’t. Which is why I think using Twitter can be a metaphor for demonstrating both an understanding and the application of mindfulness.

This is a fascinating subject and one that is central to where we are going with how the Internet continues to encompass our lives. Its all about communication and a continuation of the telegraph to the telephone to the webpage. We are becoming more and more instant and permanent. This combination allows us to get more of our thoughts out to share with everyone else. Tools like Twitter and Facebook make it easier to organize and access this information.

What do you think? Can technology help us learn more about who we really are?

Be Fit With Biray » Mindful Tweets

Went for my first ride with the Phoenix Metro Bike Club today and its was well worth the 3 hours of my Saturday morning. The group meets at Kiwanis Park in Tempe, AZ at 7:30am which is at Guadalupe and All American Way. Since that is only 9 miles from my house so I rode over for a warm up. Its about 55F in the morning here now so it was a bit chilly.

Turnout was low according to some but we rolled out with about 30 riders and headed east on Guadalupe going back towards my house. We moved along pretty well ar about 21mph with only a few stoplights breaking things up. It was my first time riding in a pack in over 13 years but it came back to me easily enough.

I felt great up till mile 26 and we started on the four different climbs all around the Papagos. These made me realize that i had a ways to go before I was back into good riding shape. I am now at 106 miles for the season and I was always told that you have to get 500 out of the way before you start up a training program. In 2 weeks I will have the 500+ out of the way and start figuring out some sort of program so that I can power up all of these climbs and then keep going for another 50 miles.

Here is a map of the route.

This is the PRBC website.

get google maps link for kiwanis park

This site is run by an open source software package called Wordpress. Its really easy to use and has some great features for getting all this really important writing out to the masses.

Anyway they are coming out with a new version really soon and have posted a screencast covering some of the new features.WordPress › Blog » Screencast and WordPress 2.5 RC2

The coolest one is the Gallery feature. Now instead of posting my photos to flickr and then linking to them from a post here I will be able to upload them straight into my post. This means that wordpress is handling the FTP’ing of my image files up to my host and then creating the links to them. While the current version of Wordpress lets you do this the new version makes it easier with a snazzy interface that makes it feel like a desktop application. Its pretty snazzy and takes a lot of steps out of the process.

If you need help setting up a wordpress site let me know. Its dead easy.

Not gonna argue with that:

And earlier this month researchers at the National Institutes of Health released a study showing that frequent drinking in moderation may protect men from death due to cardiovascular disease. Men who reported drinking 120 to 365 days a year had a 20% lower cardiovascular death rate than those who drank one to 36 days a year. Overdoing it, however, can have the opposite effect. Men who knocked back five or more drinks when they did indulge had a 30% greater risk for death via heart disease.

Hows that for a title?

Just finished World Without End, which is arguably the longest book I have ever read, just over 1000 pages. It was a great read and I highly recommend it.

Ken Follett is a master story teller and weaves so many plots so intricately that you are loathe to put the book down. The historical references are really well done and his description of 14th century England/Europe is mezmorizing. I really feel terrible at how much I missed when i went to school there. Reading this makes me want to go back and revisit my ancestry.

Oh and while the sex scenes are a bit idealistic they are plentiful and make the morning commute go by very nicely.

I have been on facebook for about a year now and have gotten in touch with a number of people that I have not talked to in years. This is very cool and I appreciate it. Facebook also has a few applications that are pretty neat like the Visual Bookshelf. The trouble is that there are a bunch of applications that I keep getting invites for that have no practical use. The latest example is ‘Send Good Karma’.

I was sent some good karma a few days ago and thought that was nice, but when I went to return the karma I had to add this application to my profile. One of the boxes you have to check is ‘Allow this application to access your profile information’ and I pause.

Who is the creator of this application? What is their intent? Would someone really take the time to build this and have purely altruistic intentions in mind? Or is it the product of Phillip Morris marketing and their new campaign to hook us on a new cigarette? Have I completely lost my mind?

In the end I accepted the application cause I have to return the karma.

The demand is there for green products, now we just need to supply it:

But while 83 percent of adults said they wanted to protect the environment, and 59 percent said they like trying new technologies to help the environment, about 42 percent said such technologies were hard to find.

Study authors see $104 billion appetite for green products - The Business Journal of Phoenix:

Just cause their stock is taking a bath doesnt mean they are slowing down in any way:

Google Inc. increased its already huge lead in the U.S. Internet search market in February, taking a 58.7 percent share, up from 56.9 percent in January.

Google grows share of U.S. Web search - The Business Journal of Phoenix:

Just got out of a really fun workshop Stop, Blog and Roll! with Biray. It was a really good intro to the subject and Biray is not only very knowledgeable about the topic but also a great presenter. She definitely has passion for blogging and getting others to do it.

This was fun because its a topic that I know a lot about and its always nice to meet others with that passion. While I still havent completely figured out what Desertstandard is about I have a refreshed energy to keep going.