Start by going to System > Administration > Software Sources.

Click the “Other Software” tab, and click the “Add” button near the bottom-left. A dialog box will pop up. Copy and paste this text into the box: “ppa:mozillateam/firefox-stable/ubuntu”.

Click “Add Source” when you’re done. Click the “Close” button on the “Software Sources” screen. Ubuntu will ask you if you want to reload the list of available software, click “Reload”.

Once Ubuntu has reloaded the available software, go to System > Administration >Update Manager. New Firefox updates will be available. Click “Install Updates”.

Wait for the update process to finish, and that’s it! You’re now running the latest and greatest Firefox 3.6.

I’d imagine you’ll be able to follow these same (or very similar) steps on Ubuntu 10.04 Lucid Lynx when Firefox 3.7 (or later) is released.

You can check out the Firefox 3.6 Release Notes here.

From what I can tell the Tablet will offer multi-touch support much like iPhone & iPod Touch, and have a screen size somewhere in the range of 7 to 13 inch (anything greater or smaller would seem impractical). Assuming this is correct, the Tablet would be competing with the Netbook form factor. Netbooks have exploded in popularity because of the aggressive price points and their small, easily portable size (1.5Kg or less). They’re the perfect companion PC for light tasks such as browsing the web, receiving emails, and creating word docs on the go, all without the pain of lugging around heavy laptops. They don’t replace the need for a desktop/laptop, or Smartphone, but rather they happily co-exist along-side them. I’d imagine Apple’s Tablet to be much the same, one of those complimentary devices.

I can’t see Apple cannibalising their Macbook and iMac sales with an inexpensive tablet that does everything a Macbook does. It’s no secret that Apple targets the higher-end of any market they enter, promoting their superior platform, product and support. So I would expect the Tablet to retail at a higher price point than other comparative products (namely Windows based Tablet-Netbooks) which sell for AUD $700 upwards. The question I’d love answered is “will the masses buy theTablet”? At an estimated AUD $1000+ it’s a steep price to ask for a device which isn’t as portable as the iPhone or as powerful and flexible as your standard laptops/desktops.

Rumours generally agree that the Tablet will run a form of the iPhone OS, and that it will have access to the App Store and other Apple related goodies (iTunes, and its movie rentals etc). This is important as it instantly means the tablet will be less suited for actual work, and more geared for casual use and entertainment. Just imagine it as being a device you’d have around your home, something that you could use to read the news, watch YouTube videos, and stream movies to. Who knows, Apple may even surprise us all with Infra-Red support, turning the Tablet into the ultimate lounge room remote control. Or maybe they’ll include Augmented Reality, where an embedded camera can identify real world objects and bring up helpful information about it (eg. Show it a TV channel and it would tell you what’s on next, or offer you ways to download the show for later viewing).

This still brings us back to the question… is it worth the estimated $1000 price tag? It leaves me feeing squeamish at the thought of forking out a grand for a device that is less useful than a computer, and will probably just end up sitting around the house all day (unlike the highly portable iPhone which you’d carry everywhere with you). It’s a strange new territory that Apple will be stepping into. Until the 27^th of January when it will be officially released in San Francisco, it’s anyone’s guess how things will turn out. Either way, the iSheep will be out in full force throwing their support behind any new Apple product come rain or shine.

• Are still evaluating Twitter’s uses and advantages and don’t have an account yet.
• Have a Twitter presence, but not a very good one.
• Have chosen not to use Twitter.
• Haven’t heard about Twitter, or decided it wasn’t important enough to follow up.

For me this is disappointing. As a consumer, Twitter is one of the ways I want to engage with companies online. And on the other hand, as an Enterprise 2.0 advocate I can see some compelling reasons for businesses to get involved on Twitter. So in an effort promote adoption I’m sharing a few practical ways businesses can use Twitter, and I’ll point out some of the benefits along the way.

First of all I’m making that assumption that you have an idea of what Twitter is, and know a little about how it works. If you’re not sure, check out this short introduction video. Also, I’m aiming this article towards businesses that interact with the general public (the main audience on Twitter). Other business styles could still benefit from Twitter, just possibly not to the same degree. For those businesses I will briefly introduce internal use of micro-blogging later on…

Why Twitter?
The two features that separate Twitter from most other forms of media is that messages (tweets) must be 140 characters or less and that everything is viewable by the public. By limiting tweets to 140 characters Twitter keeps messages to manageable bite-size pieces, making them more likely to be read (versus lengthy messages). TechCrunch has summarised my thoughts exactly in an article about the length of tweets, well worth the read. Secondly the advantage to having everything done in public is that everyone can see what anyone else is doing or thinking. Sure, users have to be careful what they post, but the end result is an amazing continuous stream of freely available communication, thoughts and resources.

Businesses on Twitter
What is an example of a good Twitter strategy? Firstly let’s have a look at VAustralia, a new airline part of the Virgin group which flies internationally from Australia. They regularly post news and event information for the destinations they fly to in a bid to promote tourism and indirectly sell seats on their flights. Their tweets are usually informative and friendly, and none of them heavily promote their products. They occasionally post company news like menu changes, new destinations and improvements to their service. The key thing that VAustralia understands is that Twitter is not all about pushing the company’s agenda, it’s about engaging with, and giving back to the community (and their customers). By being there to answer questions and engage with the wider Twitter audience they are building value in their brand. While it may not result in instantly increased seats sales, it can influence public opinion and result in increased sales in the long term. British Airways is another example of an airline with a good Twitter presence.

Another strategy VAustralia employs is their use of metrics. They use URL shortening service budurl to analyse which tweets are generating traffic, and where (geographically or virtually) that traffic is coming from. They can use that data to better focus their Tweets, campaigns, or even company direction in the future.

Twitter has a few interesting case studies on their site showing how a few of their business members use Twitter, and the benefits they get from it.

Strategies Gone Wrong
Most companies on Twitter have got the right idea and have a good strategy in place, however things ain’t always that rosy. Revolution Magazine has compiled a list of 8 big brands that got their Twitter strategies wrong. In summary here are some of the common mistakes they made:

• Using Twitter purely to advertise blog posts or push their own interests. Twitter is a two-way media, so companies should make an effort to give something back.
• They failed to leverage their core business on Twitter. If you offer an online service (eg. EBay, Amazon, Yellow Pages), consider integrating your services with Twitter. If you sell coffee, then look into taking orders via Tweets, etc…
• Didn’t tweet often enough.
• Didn’t field and resolve customer service issues.
• Didn’t tweet anything relevant to their business.

Now you know what to avoid, how can your business leverage Twitter?

• Make an effort to engage with the community. Answer their questions, thank them for their support, acknowledge their criticism, and take onboard their suggestions. Maybe get the customer service team doing this for you. If you do act on suggestions, make sure you tweet about it. Customers love to see a company that listens and does something about their suggestions.
• Use Twitter to promote special deals, competitions, or product releases. It’s much faster than the usual lead and distribution times of printed or visual media. Be careful not to become too “spammy”. Make sure you only promote your products at appropriate times; Twitter users will quickly switch off if it becomes a regular occurrence.
• Aim to gather a sizable group of followers. You can do this by not only tweeting valuable or interesting content, but by commenting on tweets from people in related industries or in similar situations. If they like your tweets odds are they’ll follow you too. Not only does more followers mean more eyes on your company and products, but they may also re-tweet (share) your content with their friends.
• Twitter provides a simple way to evaluate and measure your company’s public image. Try running a simple search on your company name and see what the masses are saying.

Lastly I want to stress that Twitter shouldn’t replace your current Web 2.0 strategies, but rather complement them. Try setting up a Twitter account, tweak your home page to match your company’s branding and nominate someone to look after the account. Start using tools such as Google Analytics or bit.ly to gather some metrics on how you’re doing, and act on those metrics as necessary.

Twitter Tools
There’s some great dedicated Twitter clients built for business use. CoTweet and HootSuite are two examples of Web clients, or if you’re looking for a desktop client try TweetDeck. Often these clients will make it easier to track public sentiment, reply to tweets, share the tweeting responsibilities between multiple team members, and gather metrics on your tweets. Other tools such as TwitterGrader measure your tweeting performance, and can help give you an idea on how you are going.

Enterprise Micro-Blogging
In a slightly different league to Twitter are enterprise oriented micro-blogging services such as Yammer and SocialCast. These services allow companies to use micro-blogging internally as a productivity tool (nothing is posted publically). Mashable have posted a great article about enterprise micro-blogging by detailing ideas for internal use, and comparing some of the products and services available. If your company chooses to head down this route make sure that you still have a Web 2.0 strategy in place to engage with the public.

Wrapping it Up
Twitter is a practical way any business or individual can get involved in the online community. The learning curve is fairly gentle, and the benefits are great. I would recommend any company not already on Twitter to jump in and have a go! For those already on Twitter, make sure you have those metrics in place to measure your performance, and try to balance promotional tweets with ones that engage the community.

I’d love to hear your thoughts. Have you got any good Twitter tips or strategies for businesses? Any experiences you’d like to share, thoughts, comments…

For those unfamiliar with Google Wave I would suggest taking a look at my previous article introducing Google Wave, or if you’re after more detail have a read of this comprehensive run-down on Google Wave by Orielly. From here on I’m going to focus on comparing existing business productivity tools one by one against Wave to tease out their respective disadvantages or advantages.

Email
Email has been around for ages. It has served a vital role on the business frontline for the last 10+ years and is well established and supported. Originally email adoption was largely a product of internet adoption, but now days a large percentage of Australians (and the world) have access to the internet not only at home, but also on the go. Unfortunately Email also brought some new challenges, including SPAM and the increasing complexity and length of emails as a conversation grows. Additionally email conversations can easily splinter away into distributed private conversations, potentially preventing important information from being shared with the rest of the company. As Bill French said “E-mail is where knowledge goes to die”. Google Wave attempts to solve this by keeping the knowledge in a single location, so it’s much harder for information to be spread everywhere (and lost). As with all Google products you’ll be able to use its leading search engine to find information or conversations later on down the track.

You can also leave comments at the exact position in the document you are referring to. The “regarding your question in paragraph 3” scenarios that commonly occur in emails will soon be a relic of the past, keeping conversations better organized as they grow in size. There’s also private messaging within Wave should you need to share something with select individuals rather than the whole group (similar to BCC in emails). Again, these private conversations are kept within the Wave, making it easier for you to find everything in the future.

The major advantage I can see of email over Google Wave is the sheer scale of adoption worldwide. Also, Email is better suited towards static read-only content such as email newsletters or other simple once-off emails (Invoices, Password Reminders etc). Where Google Wave shines is in conversation or collaborative scenarios. For example Wave would excel in Issue Tracking (eg. IT Help Desk), Research, Project Collaboration, and any other situation where more than one email would normally be necessary.

Wiki’s
Wiki’s can benefit enterprises through their ability to accurately capture, store and share knowledge by allowing individuals to collaborate together on shared documents. Wiki’s can track the changes made to documents over time, however they lack Google Wave’s elegant playback feature. Like Wave you can collaborate in near real time and you’ve got user access controls at hand if you need restrict access to sensitive information. The disadvantage of Google Wave is that it’s inherently conversational, making linking pieces of information together slightly awkward. So for large scale uses you would be better off sticking to Wikimedia or other dedicated Wiki tool.

What I can imagine is integration between Wiki’s and Wave. Imagine using Google Wave to subscribe to a wiki page you wish to edit. A quick playback of the page’s history would bring you up to speed on the conversation between contributors and the latest version of the document. From there you could make your own changes to the wiki and chat with others, all inside Wave. A Wave Robot would then post your changes back to the wiki, automatically keeping both Wave and the Wiki in sync. Potentially the robot could even bring across your comments too so that others without Wave can still benefit from the conversation.

Instant Messaging
Cause of its real-time conversation abilities, Google Wave lends itself quite nicely to instant messaging (IM). In fact it does one better because you can see what the other people are writing before they even finish their message. This allows you to gather your thoughts and even start working on a reply before they are finished. This can save some serious time versus the traditional IM way. Once everyone has finished the conversation it’s automatically saved for future reference. Anyone else with access to it can play it back and even continue the conversation if they wanted. All the other individuals will be notified of any continuations of the conversation. The conversation is also indexed, so you can use the search feature to quickly find old conversations. Also instead using two tools (a Wiki and an IM client for example) individuals can simply use Wave to get everything done, and everything gets stored in the same place. The only advantage to IM over Google Wave is that clients are usually much simpler to use, and are available even on basic mobile devices.

Blogging
Google Wave and Blogging are distinctly different in purpose and intent. Blogging is a static publishing medium, whereas Wave is more a collaborative tool. However Wave does have the potential to influence blogging and publishing in general. Instead of a single source posting an article, imagine hundreds of users all contributing to the latest story on a public Wave. Photos could be uploaded in real-time as events unfold. Kind of similar to Twitter, but stories could be better filtered, grouped and moderated (like Wiki’s). Google have also demonstrated Wave integrating with blogging platforms using its embed API. So it’s likely that Wave will complement blogging rather than replace it.

Effects on Business?
Google Wave is made up of three pieces: the Wave Client, Wave API’s and the Wave Federation Protocol. The exciting stuff for businesses will most likely happen in the Wave API’s and/or Federation Protocol. This is where businesses can integrate Wave with their existing business software and services, something SAP have already demonstrated. It will be interesting to see if Wave’s open platform will encourage adoption among business.

Another major advantage of having an open platform is that businesses can run their own Wave servers, keeping company secrets within their own IT infrastructure. It also means they can customise their Wave clients to integrate nicely into their Intranet environment. Also being a web application the costs of ownership are low because everything runs in a web browser and uses standard HTTP ports to communicate which negates the need to rework existing firewalls or security infrastructure.

Wrapping it Up
Google Wave can really make business more efficient through its superior knowledge management, real-time collaboration, and by having the ability to share rich media in Waves. Businesses can also build their own Wave clients or Robots to integrate with their existing infrastructure and services. Better yet, we might even seen vendors releasing free Extensions for Wave as a way of building value in their current products. Businesses also have the option of hosting their own Waves servers in order to control availability and security while having a degree in freedom in customizing the service.

As promising as Google Wave is on paper we’ll still probably see the same adoption rates that many other Enterprise 2.0 and Web 2.0 efforts have encountered. Like past efforts, it’s likely that clusters of employees or project teams will drive bottom-up adoption of Wave, with few top-down strategies being introduced. I really hope that managers and CEO’s can comprehend the value that Google Wave could bring to their business in terms of productivity increases and improved knowledge management. I think the low initial adoption costs would easily be regained many times over.

The Machine is Us/ing Us – YouTube

After reflecting on that video I think Web 2.0′s mantra should be “It’s not me, but you” (nothing to do with Lily Allen if you’re wondering). The thing that makes Web 2.0 so useful and engaging is that it’s foundations are on people sharing and collaborating. In fact Web 2.0 is merely a framework for harnessing global knowledge and talent. Without people it would be largely regarded as a failure.

Web 2.0 was made possible through broadband reaching the masses. I honestly couldn’t imagine YouTube, Facebook, Flikr, or even Wikipedia working on 56k dialup. While web 2.0 featherweight Twitter could have worked, it wasn’t until 5-7 years ago that a good percentage of households had an internet connection full stop. Besides, without its predecessors Instant Messaging, Blogging and SMS, I don’t think it would have been as popular had it been released 10 years ago. In fact I’d go out on a limb and say that most people wouldn’t have understood it back then.

It’s interesting that the Australia government is pushing for the National Broadband Network (NBN) which promises a brand new Fibre to the Home (FTTH) network running at speeds of up to 100Mbit. The government’s vision is to build the new network ahead of its time in order to establish Australia as a leader in next-generation technologies and applications. At CeBIT in Sydney this year I was listening to industry analyst Paul Budde speak on topics related to the NBN. One of the points he raised was that developers need to start creating applications for the new network in order to create some value in it. Right now most Australians are happy with their 1Mbit+ speeds, so there’s no need or desire for the newer, faster network… that is until new applications appear. Kind of a chicken and egg scenario.

Should the network eventuate it could present some great opportunities for Web 2.0 and Enterprise 2.0 applications in Australia. Right now most people have access to broadband connections either at home, work, or on their mobile phones. We’ve also seen Web 2.0 applications explode in popularity over the last few years and there are no signs that growth could be slowing anytime soon. And with the NBN on the horizon, the stage is set for the next generation of web applications to arrive.

Video
Youtube – “Social Media Revolution”

Original Article
samparsons.net – Is social media a fad?

An interesting point the video raises there. “Is social media a fad?”. To me a fad describes something that has “tipped” into the realms of popularity, but its life in the limelight is only short lived. Malcolm Gladwell has written an excellent book called “The Tipping Point” on what causes things to explode in popularity. Gladwell explains there are two main factors involved in igniting epidemics and making them last. These are called contagiousness and stickiness.

Fads (and crazes) are highly contagious but usually disappear as fast as they arrive. They spread quickly and widely, however they lack stickiness. Stickiness is what makes the message, service, or product memorable and retain its popularity over time. Trends on the other hand are not very contagious. They take much longer to gather momentum, but they are incredibly sticky. Once someone gets on the trend bandwagon, they often stay.

Due to the nature of the internet ideas, products and services can spread contagiously. Email, Blogs, word of mouth, and the numerous social networking sites play a role in spreading the news. For advertisers this is the easy part of making a campaign work. The hard part is getting the message to stick. Witty little tag lines like Subway’s “Eat Fresh” and Twitter’s “What are you doing?” helps people to remember the product and what it’s about, but it doesn’t necessarily mean they’ll stick with it because of its advertising and public branding. It’s the actual service, or product that’s more important.

Part of the huge success behind Facebook, Twitter and Wikipedia as Web 2.0 apps was due to their stickiness and the network effect. I believe the number one reason why the majority of their users stick with such social media sites is because of their perceived value. Users believe it’s important for them to keep in contact with friends (Facebook/Twitter), or share their knowledge (Blogging/Wikipedia), so they keep using those sites because they are the best tool for the job. The moment that a user no longer thinks it is worth using “website xyz” is the point that site has lost all stickiness (or value) for that user. The reason for this loss in stickiness will vary, but here’s a couple that came to mind.

1. There’s another site or service that is much better.
2. The current site is too demanding. (in time, effort, difficulty, or expense)
3. The original reason for using the site is no longer applicable.
4. Something about the site or its service has caused them to leave in protest.

So I reason while ever these points don’t apply for the large majority of users, social media sites will remain popular. Also, bear in mind that it’s completely possible for one or more of the above points to be true, but users will still stick with that site none-the-less. This is because the site offers something else that is more valuable to them. Something important enough they’re willing to live with the downsides over.

Do I see social media as a fad? No. It has basically virtualised what we humans have been doing for hundreds of years (communicating, making friends, sharing ideas and knowledge, collaborating etc). It’s here to stay, and I would classify it as a trend rather than a fad. However I do believe that we’ll see quite a change in the way we interact now compared to 10 years down the track. I also believe that the big social media applications of today either won’t last, or will have to continually re-invent themselves to remain valuable and worthwhile to their users.

Feel free to write a comment and share your thoughts.

Coding in the Cloud with Mozilla Bespin

The Bespin team have released an update last week to their cloud-based coding platform which brings new collaboration features to the masses. Developers can now share their work with others and work on the same files concurrently. Your changes will appear instantly on everyone else’s screens and vice versa (demo video). There are efforts in introducing this shared coding experience to several other popular IDE’s such as GEdit, Eclipse, emacs, and possible more.

In mid-April this year the Bespin team added Version Control System (CVS/SVN/Mecurial) support to the project, and published a short video demonstrating its use. This was a significant milestone as developers could now import their larger projects and work on them wherever they want.

Joe Walker mentioned a few of their plans for the future. These include:

• The ability to generate a link to your code that you can share around. It would take them straight into a shared coding session where others can see your code and give you feedback or contribute changes instantly.
• Group Chat functionality, so you can discuss ideas without leaving Bespin.
• Time machine functionality to browse through the code and watch it evolve over time.

First impressions can be deceiving with Bespin. I’ve been using it off and on for a bit, seeing if it would be useful in my line of work (mainly PHP web development) and how I could use it in a Web 2.0 context. Every time I go back I still find it difficult to get used to (coming from Eclipse, Netbeans and Visual Studio – all GUI environments). I’m honestly not sure if this is inhibiting wider adoption. I suspect it is, as I don’t know of many coders in my circles that code using command line tools. Having said that, for a relatively young project it still has a substantial amount of functionality under the hood. It often catches me off guard. If only they would have the option to switch a GUI on and harness that great functionality in a more familiar way…

With new versions of Bespin appearing all the time, I pop-in and check out the new features every month or so and see what’s changed. Is the time right to start using it more often? For me, not quite. These new collaboration features and VCS support goes a long way to enticing me in, but as a GUI person I still struggle with using the command line to access most of Bespin’s functionality. As a pastebin alternative it completely destroys the competition, but Bespin was built to be so much more than that. The framework is in place, and it could quickly become a popular tool for developers to share code and a work together in real time.

I live in hope. I think Bespin holds some great promise as a pioneer in the cloud-coding space, and I genuinely look forward to what the future holds.

Links
http://labs.mozilla.com/blog/2009/08/bespin-0-4-stop-collaborate-and-code/
https://bespin.mozilla.com/

The concept is simple. The conversation happens in one central location online and can be accessed through any modern HTML 5 capable web browser (currently Safari, Chrome or Firefox). I see no reason why iPhones, Blackberries and Android phones can’t get in on the action too. Inevitably we’ll see ways for these devices to connect to and contribute to the wave, from anywherre in the world. With Google Wave participants can post messages like MSN messenger or email, upload photos like Flikr, and comment on others work like blogs. The cool thing is that you can single out part of a message to comment on, and event post a comment right next to it. Pictures say a thousand words, so why not chuck a picture in the Wave conversation instead. Anything is possible. One of the cool features is that you can use the Wave like a time machine. You can skip back and forward through time, watching the conversation evolve before your eyes, gaining an appreciation of what lead people to come to the conclusions they did etc.

Like all good Google products and services Google Wave will have an excellent API for developers to hook into. So no doubt in the future we’ll see developers coming up with some mind-numbing products and services for Google Wave. Who knows, I might even get in on the action. I’ve got a few ideas rattling around in my head of what might work well combined with Google Wave.

Google have have taken an interesting direction in their development of some of their more recent projects such as Google Wave and their Google Chrome Operating System (even their browser, Google Chrome). They have released preview samples to the development community very early in order to get feedback, squash bugs and get an overall feel in which direction users want to see things head. It’s a little risky cause they could get a bad reputation for themselves if they release a product that was too unstable, or way off the mark. Fortunately Google are good in engaging with the community and implementing suggestions before things get out of control. They’ve also posted reasonable warnings on their product pages to let users know what they’re getting into, especially this early in development.

I think it’s paying off for them though. It’s building quiet excitement amongst developers and even the larger web community. This in turn fuels ideas and prompts developers to jump on board, giving the new product a better shot at widespread adoption. Look what it’s done for Facebook and it’s apps, or the App Store in iTunes, Google Gadgets etc. Get the platform right, provide developers with good documentation and services to work with and sit back and watch what happens. The platform and it’s applications fuels growth in users, which in turn provides developers with more motivation to develop apps and get on the band wagon (also known as the “network effect“).

Bring on Wave. It’s shaping up to be one awesome ride.

With identity fraud being the fastest growing type of crime in Australia (and possibly worldwide), keeping your identity private sounds like a good option. Technically just putting up a profile of yourself or by posting innocent pictures of your house online can give the bad guys enough info to connect the dots and misuse your identity. It’s not hard, especially for someone who’s learnt a few tricks of the trade.

On the flipside you get the completely opposite point of view. Some people and companies need to get their name out to the masses in order to advertise themselves, their businesses or their products. They depend on social networking sites and many other forms of social media to get the word out. By being open and transparent they can appear more credible and build trust in the community. This in turn can lead to increased sales and better customer relations. However it comes at the risk of exposing too much information and possibly destroying the very credibility you sought to earn. Remember everything that happens online could be seen by millions (for better or worse).

I’m learning that it’s possible to have the best of both worlds; you just have to be a little careful what you stick online. Rock The Job have written an article on this with regards to employers and even posted an example of what can go wrong. There’s a fine line between being yourself and having fun online and revealing a bit too much.

The concept I wrestle with is the way people perceive you online is also how they’ll perceive you in the real world. I tend to think the younger generation (under 25’s) generally are more forgiving when it comes to stuff that happens online, and that adults and businesses tend to take things more seriously. It’s generally accepted in youth culture that people can be “loose” online, saying a doing things they normally would not do in the real world. Under 25’s might struggle with this as they get older. Things that used to be ok online amongst their peers may no longer be acceptable in the eyes of a prospective employer or boss.

Just to extend my thoughts on the Rock the Job article above… prospective employers could take their private sleuthing a bit too far. Consider this example: a marketing grad goes for a job at a large advertising agency. They Google his name, email address etc to look for any MySpace, Facebook or LinkedIn accounts or other online activity. They find nothing. The company concludes that because this individual hasn’t made any attempt to engage in the online community he is not worth employing. While in some cases this would be fair to say, they wouldn’t have a clue if this guy was an expert in viral marketing campaigns or have some other outstanding qualities that would make him highly employable. As the old saying goes “you can’t judge a book by its cover” and my adaption “you can’t judge a person by their Facebook page”.

As for me, I still haven’t taken the dive into Facebook and social media on whole headfirst. I’m even finding blogging a challenge. I prefer to be one of those cautious lurkers; Contributing when I have something to offer, but otherwise quietly observing from the sidelines, dipping my toes in every now and then when something looks promising.

• istartedsomething.com – Run by Long Zheng, a passionate technology and Windows product enthusiast. Long blogged extensively on Vista and Windows 7 during their development.
  
• blog.chromium.org – Follows topics related to Google Chrome. I also read the Google Chrome Development Blog, but this one is more human friendly.
  
• ajaxian.com – Mostly about Web Development and Web Applications and what the future holds. Not too technical, but not too dumbed down either. I like it.
  
• labs.mozilla.com – The Mozilla labs are all about researching, developing and incubating new ideas for the future of the web and it’s products.

The question is what makes a blog so good? Istartedsomething has perfected the art of breaking interesting stories which appeal to most consumer technology enthusiasts. It also makes use of large, high quality images to illustrate the product or idea rather than the microscopically small thumbnail images which all too many blogs use. Light hearted humour and Long’s familiarity with the big wigs in the Microsoft industry brings part of the x-factor that other informational blogs and articles can’t offer.

No, this isn’t a plug for istartedsomething, it’s merely an example of a decent blog that pushes all the right buttons. The combination of a great topic, high quality resources, engaging content and the author’s industry connections really make a blog. But to be honest these are also the qualities of any great newspaper or magazine article. The one concept that distinguishes blogs from printed media is that with blogs readers have a channel to talk to the author and other readers on. This is important, as the greatest value doesn’t often lie in the original article, but in the ideas and thoughts the readers contribute back. You could think of the original article as a catalyst for discussion, with the resulting discussion being equally important.

Another point is all four of the above blogs attempt to connect with both general enthusiasts and developers/experts. This is great because expert opinion and knowledge can be added to the conversation. Likewise, feature requests and grass-roots advice can be offered by the enthusiasts. This overlap, or mingling between these two groups is important as it can help shape products, future ideas and thinking. Blogs are a good starting point but free forums such as Google Groups (as used by Bespin from Mozilla Labs) allow the discussion between these two groups to continue in a more formal setting. Many other channels exist such as twitter, email, official public presentations, but few have the right characteristics to get people together from all around the world adding their thoughts to a topic in a public way.

I’d love to know your thoughts. Given the rising popularity of blogging over the last few years do you think blogging will continue to increase and remain the dominant form of personal publishing and communication? Or do you see this role being splintered between many different Web 2.0 tools and services? (Ie. Twitter, Youtube, Facebook, Google Docs, Community Forums etc.) Feel free to post your thoughts in a comment below.