Feed me

RSS Feeds are a common featue for informational web sites nowadays. Every news, blog or review site has a feed you can subscribe to, but not every feed is fed the same way.

Feeds are often viewed as an update notification which only contain a header or the first few lines of an article. This is a good usage of the technique if you want to lure readers to your website. When you are using a RSS reader however this is very impractical. The RSS reader is meant to aggregate information into a single interface. But when you are only given headers and links, you'll still have to switch interfaces, i.e. visit the particular web sites, to get the information you want.

But what if you would feed full articles of superior content? People would be able to able to comfortably read your content, your ideas, in their interface of choice and in time they would start to recognize you for your expertise. They might even visit your web site, to read more on the subject. Or better yet, they might link to your web site and point others in your direction.

This is what Seth Godin has done in the field of marketing.

The key is that you give the reader the choice. The choice about what they want to read and how they want to read it. If that is on a Nokia mobile phone using Google Reader, instead of Internet Explorer using your flashy web site, then let them. If the content is of consistent quality, they will eventually come to you.

Mobile wonders

It's real. I am now taking the next step in mobile computing and Web 2.0. How?

By writing this post on my new Nokia N73 and publishing it directly to this blog. Though I already did this before using my Blackberry, it's something totally different this time. Now we not have only text, but pictures too. Photos of my point of view directly onto your screen.

For example here is a shot of what I'm looking at right now. Surely not the most interesting sight, but imagine the potential!

Essence of CRM

I've read a lot of books and papers on CRM. All complicated theories on how to combine business strategies with analytical workflow applications, that are all focused on customer retention.

Today Kathy explained it to me in plain english and clear pictures. Just keep flirting with your existing customers, as much as you do with potential customers.

This isn't so much about software applications as it is about understanding and appreciation. We want to be understood as a new customer, when buy a product to fulfill a specific need. But we just as much want to be appreciated for being an existing customer. If a company can understand that and act on it, they are halfway in implementing successful CRM.

Changed by blogging

Seth Godin makes a nice point about blogging.

It does indeed force you to be clear. Clear in your writing for one, but also clear about yourself. Who you are and what your point of view is. I'm only just starting to become aware of that aspect of blogging and it's enlighting.

But it also makes you wonder about you added value in life. Can you provide insight to others or are you just a rambling fool? Anyone care to comment?

Speed reading

In this day and age we are being overwhelmed by ever increasing amounts of information that we need to effectively work our way through. Even though we are experimenting with other forms of information like video or audio, we receive the majority in written form.

But how do you tackle those textual torrents? Speed reading.

Tony Buzan gives some excellent techniques on how to improve your basic reading speed and Spreeder let´s you train those techniques on any text, but that´s only th tip of the proverbial iceberg.

Real speed comes from a combination of skimming and scanning, which means quickly going over the unimportant stuff and only reading that which matters. We waste a lot of time reading that which we already know or that we don't need to know. The only problem is that we were taught to read a text from beginning to end with equal intensity and understanding. While this may be true for novels, it hinders us with everything else we read.

For example, articles on a work related subject usually want to make one or two specific points, but they also give and introduction, provide some background and add arguments to prove their point. All this is excess baggage if you're already up to speed on the subject. In that case you only need to read the point being made. The combination of skimming and scanning lets you jump over the extra's to get to get to relevant part of the text. Once there you can use your basic reading speed to take in the passage, capturing all the information in only a fraction of the time.

Community websites

Last week I did it. I took the next step in Internet usage and signed up for Digg, del.icio.us and Technorati all at once. Yes people, I entered the world of tags and ratings!

And do you know what I found? The bald head of Britney Spears ... *sigh*

Apparently if you ask the world what is 'hot', what it is that we really 'digg' the most, it's the freshly shaved head of a woman who didn't have a normal childhood and is now paying the price for it.

It made me think about the reason why I started[first post] this blog and realised that the future that Sloan and Thompson predicted is here earlier than expected. EPIC is already online and it's producing what they dreaded it would; "merely a collection of trivia."

Trust your time

Trust in others, comes from having only a limited amount of time.

In our modern society we are dependant on others. We need others to build our houses, to provide our food and to supply us with information. But who can we trust?

With our house this is not much of a problem. Building is regulated and more important, you can see the house for yourself. You can test it's sturdiness by tapping on the walls, or by jumping up and down, to test the floor.

With information it's another matter. You trust your immediate colleagues, because can assess their professionallity on a daily basis. The same goes for personal information from friends or family. But how do you assess the validity of information on the Internet? Who do trust to tell the truth or at least give you the correct information? With the vast amounts of information that goes through our fingers, we cannot verify every single piece of information, but it's every single person that can put information on the Internet. So then who do we trust?

Contact

I was introduced to MySpace, which is the same as Friendster. The idea is that you create a profile, that describes your person and your personal interests. You then go out and search for other profiles that might be interesting. With a little luck you can have one or more 'friends' in less than five minutes.

Meanwhile our society is individualizing. More and more people are feeling alone, or are not in touch with their surroundings anymore. People don't know who their neighbours are and truly believe that their pet is the only one who really listens to them anymore.

And yet millions want to be your friend when you're online... or do they?

ISP

I came across a very interesting article today, about the Information Search Process. Apparently we all go through the same stages when we try to uptain information from a large information set.

The following stages were identified:
1. Initiation
2. Selection
3. Exploration
4. Formulation
5. Collection
6. Presentation

In the article which is a little dated, they observed students who were trying to find their way around a library, but the same process is applicable to somebody trying to find something on the Internet. So chances are that you went through the same steps to get here.

EPIC

Last week I saw www.epic2014.com and it's update www.epic2015.com. This is a lesson in future history that depicts how news agencies will replaced by bloggers. I found the concept so interesting that I couldn't help but surf to blogger.com and register my own blog.

What is it that all those bloggers were going on about five years ago? Is it really that interesting? And does blogging have any value for the community, or is it just an individuals cry for attention?

Well, let's hope my cry is interesting enough . . .