All a Twitter

Just joined Twitter. If you haven’t checked it out yet do so it is a pretty neat use of technology. However be patient because it seems that their servers are getting slammed from all the publicity they garnered at SXSW. Not that I should talk my site has been less than stellar lately. I have about three projects I am about to roll out as well as a new design. Until then enjoy the blue look.

AJSPS

P.S. Find me at twitter.com/iPeat

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Ahh Snap! New Start Page Technologies look to over through Yahoo!

Back in the day when AOL was just starting to fall off and mp3 were found via ftp aggregate sites and run by Winamp. The internet boom was in full thralls, google was but a glimpse still a student project and Yahoo! and MSN had yet to start their buying binge of upstarts. There was a great site called snap.com. Snap was years ahead of the rest internet start pages and let user configure just about everything and let the user decide exactly what content to view. Like most upstarts though it was bought out, and NBC to its detriment had no clue why it was so popular. Soon the site was covered with ads content was limited to NBC affiliates and they changed the name to NBCi with a lame TV campaign to go with it. I mourned snap for long time (quick note it seems the snap.com namespace has since been bought by a new search start up) and jumped from aggregate site to aggregate site tried netscape, msn, excite, go. None of them had the usability of snap. I finally settled on Yahoo but was never satisfied. Two new startups though have now entered the battle with clean design tons of options Netvibes and PageFlakes utilizes modules to direct content from social network sites, news feeds, blogs, and custom content. Plus they allow sharing of custom design pages. Check out my Erie tabs NV | PF . In my use Netvibes seems to be a little more user friendly interface but PageFlakes has some more power features. I.E. the global pages work much nicer and you can allow additional user to modify the page. According to Wall Street Journal today, Yahoo! is in the process of revamping there MyYahoo! service to answer these newcomers.

AJSPS

P.S. I obviously don’t know what thralls means but it sounded right. Maybe I was thinking throngs I don’t know.

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GoErie finally produces something to go to

After years stuffing as many ads and partial article as possible and numerous dead links on their web site, it seems that Erie Times-News finally understands how to create a usable web site and the importance of good design. Not only this but they are also embracing new media with blogs, discussion boards, podcasts, and web cams. While this new face is a giant step forward for the times, it is quickly evident that they are still afraid of the internet and its effects on their subscription base. Try to even read highlighted articles and the reader swept off to the very unfriendly registration page. This is a huge annoyance when you just want a quick glance at the days news and don’t have time for a full reading but want more than the one line heading. The biggest gaff of all though is the complete lack of RSS Feeds. It is not like this is a complicated technology to conquer and the number of readers this technology can draw in is huge. If you want evidence of this just take a trip to alexa.com and compare goerie.com to erieblogs.com you’ll notice in past few months erieblogs has caught and twice over took goeerie in number of hits. That is quite impressive and definitely says something about the state of our local news and the power of new media.

AJSPS

P.S. After spouting off above I went back to GoErie and if a RSS smart browser is being used the GoErie RSS is accessible and does supply a few lines more than the heading. Note to Erie Times-News you may want to make this a little more apparent by oh I don’t know using one of the many RSS or feed logos that are out there or at least adding RSS feed in text at bottom of the page with your other subscription links

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