David Tallan › Comments

Bruce Sterling (famous science fiction writer) once told me that if you can hold someone's attention for hundreds of pages then you are a writer. If you can only hold their attention for a few paragraphs, you are a blogger. - Robert Scoble

Great post but I am not sure if you can be that black & white in this day and age. - Mathew A. Koeneker

@Robert: a) how jealous am I that you spoke to Sterling (very) and b) that's a very astute observation. - AJ Kohn

@scobleizer - what if I can only hold someone's attention for 140 characters? - Ontario Emperor

Seriously, I guess the struggle in my brain is because the category of "blogger" seems to be fading away. I look at myself as not a blogger or a writer, but as a communicator. I communicate via the things I write, the things that I share with comment, the things that I share without comment, and possibly even my FriendFeed "likes." And that's only my online stuff. - Ontario Emperor

I just let Chris Bonney know about this conversation. http://friendfeed.com/e... - Ontario Emperor

Oddly, this article says that a blogger's vision is too limited, and a writer gets paid, but a 'blogger with vision' (i.e. a blogger that also is a marketer etc) is.. a writer? The article goes out on a confusing note. Personally, I think I *want * to be a writer, but I am taking on the smaller challenge of blogging sucessfully to boost my ego to the point of being self-deluded enough to want to write more. - Phil G

This seems ludicrous. Can you imagine someone saying "Are you a novelist or a writer? You can't be both."? Blogging is one type of writing activity. A much better question is "Does saying you are a blogger describe your medium of writing or your genre?. - David Tallan

@Jason: Shalespeare was a playwright and wrote for the stage, even if we can reprint his words in books, newspapers, text files and read them on CDs. A blog entry can similarly be reprinted in books, newspapers, etc., even if they were written for the blog. - David Tallan

@Robert. Some of my favourite writers wrote short stories not novels. I don't think it prevents them from qualifying as "writers". - David Tallan

OE-we use tools to do things. In this case to communicate via test. We shouldn't be defined or limited by the tools. The Net is such a democratizer. Bloggers and podcasters and vloggers used to be like some kind of mystical techno-priesthood since there were special tools and operation of them was difficult. No with Seesmic,Utterz,Twitter,Tumbler anyone can express themselves and become a digital publisher. The bottom line is-how does one use those tools. Do they have something to say? Maybe they don't care - Mark Forman

-They just want to say something - Mark Forman

there are a lot of good thinkers who can't write worth a lick and there are a lot of people who write beautifully but don't think as well. Blogger, writer, ponderer, web publisher, lifestreamer, whatever -- aren't we better off that there's more of it out there no matter what it's called? - Robert Seidman

funny I wrote something along these lines not long ago http://www.winextra.com/2008... - Steven Hodson

Steven, your April post was probably buried somewhere in the recesses of my brain while I was thinking about Chris' post. - Ontario Emperor

Delayed reaction: Thanks for the interest folks. I'm posting a follow up on my blog next week. I'll let you know when it happens. Gotta say I do like Sterling's quote from Scoble. Resonates with me. - Chris Bonney

Chris, I'm looking forward to your follow-up. I'm subscribed to you both on FriendFeed and on Google Reader, so I should catch it when it comes out. If you could follow up with a link in this thread, that would also be appreciated. - Ontario Emperor

I've often thought that as well. It's like once I hit 30, everything started speeding up. - Hutch Carpenter

Time probably goes faster when you get older cuz there tends to be less variety and excitement? I.e., more of the same? - Dewald Pretorius

Life is a downhill slope; naturally you accelerate. - Parth Awasthi from twhirl

@Joe - spot on. kids seem to make the world go faster. i need tips on how to just slow it down and soak it in. - Adam Cohen from twhirl

I agree with Joe, once I had kids time went into warp drive - David

Well, I'm still kid-free and I've noticed that things are clipping along. I think Parth got it. - Yolanda

I noticed that too. - Rubin Sfadj

I echo the time goes faster with kids. - AJ Kohn

...another one for the "time speeds up with kids"... - JA Castillo

@Adam @David I have no idea how to better divide my time for the family as there always seems to be a busy schedule! - Joe Dawson

Time is never enough as you get older and takes on more responsibilities. - Winston Teo

"Life is what happens to you while you're busy making other plans." - Baard @ Pixum

I think it seems faster because every year you live makes the next one that much of a smaller percentage of your whole life... For instance, when you're 5 years old, a year seems like forever... it's a whole 1/5th of your life... at 30 a year seems to fly by because it's only 1/30th of your life so far... at 60 we'll be blinking and another year will be gone... - Lindsay is in 20-ten

especially when you have kids! I think it is more interesting, maybe the advice to the young is to value the chance to take time. - John Cass from Alert Thingy

The best photographs in the world have yet to be taken. - Thomas Hawk

I 100% agree with @Lindsay ..... You experience time as a function of your age. - Stefan Hayden

Life gets a LOT better as we get older too, or at least that's how I see it. From bullied dweeb to happy, successful family nerd in 39 years! - Tad from fftogo

except if you're a social web app ;) - Steven Livingstone-Pérez from twhirl

From what I've heard, life like like a box of chocolates...ah...can't remember the rest :D - acedanger

It's children that REALLY make time go faster. - Mark Dykeman

Sorry, I don't have time to comment... - Fraser Smith

we sleep more , but need to do more things.. so hardly enough time to et things done .. its all an illusion :)- - Peter Dawson

Getting all Buddhist on us Peter? Yes, it is ALL an illusion. :D - Tad from fftogo

'The day will soon be at an end and now you're getting older!' - @tmbg - Bill Sodeman from fftogo

@Hutch - Wait for 40+ Rocketship! - Charlie Anzman

The good thing is that long, boring drives are a lot shorter than they used to be. - Thomas Brox Røst

Time may move much faster, now that I have children, but I've noticed I move much slower (physically, at least). - David Tallan

It's not time getting faster, it's just us getting busier. - ronin

Oh I see...that explains it then! - Emma

the 4th dimension is all relative. - Geoff Schultz

I find when running a 100m dash that life really slows down. I try various methods to stretch/shorten time. Living in the moment. Sometimes a week feels like a year to me. Other times, I see a friend's 13-yr old and remember when she was two... - Mitchell Tsai

According to the general theory of relativity, the faster you approach the speed of light, the more time around you increases relative to your own(get your head around it). I would say that when we get older, we do a lot more and have less time to contemplate like a child. Also, we have adapted to the idea of time and have experienced more of it. Summary: Each second experienced here,... more... - Jacob Nahin

it really does. it scares me. - edythe

Not only does it seem to go faster, I remember less. - RAPatton

When I was 15 and had to wait until 16 to get a driver's license, a year seemed forever. Now I only wish it still seemed that way - and driving not all it's cracked up to be, either. - Tom Landini

My eldest son is almost too heavy to pick up now. Seems like just yesterday he was looked like this: http://farm1.static.flickr.com/8... - Capn' One Eye - adrift

Yes, the US-only thing makes it hard to see how it works from the consumer side. After some digging, I found a way to submit a "publisher seeking information query." I'll let you know what I find out. - Stephen Geigen-Miller

I know the downloads are free to a (US) reader, and the publisher gets fifty cents or a dollar (I forget) for every item downloaded. Wowio makes their money from adverts, which are attached to each download. FWIW, the Halfpixel guys are of the opinion that you can do this just as easily and make more money by doing the same thing on your own site. I'm not sure I agree that it's all that easy, though. - Tara Tallan

Louis, have you been looking at my Brightkite? I go from one end of town to the other. It always says the same thing. ;) - Cyndy

BrightKite is a great idea for people that want to share their information. I'm not going to say "I'm at home (123 Anywhere Street, Anywhere, USA)" because I don't want random people showing up at my house. I do thought let people know when I've made a week run to Starbucks or my favorite pizza place. I don't see anything wrong with that. If you can hunt me down and find me in a crowd of angry coffee-lovers, you deserve to find me. - Aaron Myers

If I hadn't chosen the name "Ontario Emperor," I'd probably never explicitly blog about my city of residence. You can bet I'd never publish "I'm at 123 Main St., Ontario, CA 91760" - unless I was at Oracle OpenWorld or the Grand Ole Opry or some such. - Ontario Emperor from fftogo

all this nonsense about wanting to let people know our movements every second of the day and what we are thinking or doing every moment of the day reminds me of a post I wrote last Sept - http://www.winextra.com/2007... - Steven Hodson

Bright who? - Bwana ☠

I agree. Lotsa love to ya all, but I feel tracked enough without broadcasting my minute-by-minute whereabouts. - Chris Baskind

This is why I'm not joining BrightKite: *http://chris.pirillo.com/2008... (understand?) - l0ckergn0me

I've started to be okay with it (usability and other issues aside). I don't publish (or tell Brightkite about) my street address, but if I'm heading out to a town or city or somesuch, I'll pop in my zip code. Who knows? Maybe someone I've met online is where I'm heading and I can take that relationship offline. I do agree with Louis though; I think 95% of my check-ins are going to be "home" or "work." I'm not a very interesting person, travel-wise, for most of the year. - Mark Trapp

I could see a definite value for someone like Gary Vaynerchuk or Robert Scoble or Ryan Block or any of those chic bloggers who travel around a lot. "I am here" instead of 100 tweets trying to remind people that you're going to be somewhere or are at somewhere. - Mark Trapp

I started to use it to help me fill out my expense reports for mileage, but it didn't work. I kept forgetting to use it. - Kenneth LeFebvre from fftogo

Think I'm glad I didn't ask for an invite. Another couple of days and I should be through the curve on HTML 1.0 - Charlie Anzman

If I used it, 99% of the time people would go comatose from boredom. - Mark Dykeman

It really makes it tough on us omnipresent, non-local, eighth circuit types. Always trying to monadify the goo. - david beckwith

Charlie, want an invite? I have a bunch. ;) - Cyndy

(Even though I used it), I don't really buy the "nobody cares about where I am" argument against Brightkite. That was the same line people used about Twitter: "Nobody cares what I'm doing all the time they'd be so bored." It's just another vector to tell people, who are ostensibly interested in you, a little more about yourself. - Mark Trapp

You may not join, but how will your kids feel about joining? - Ranjit Mathoda

I think I'm ready to cancel my account. Thanks guys. - Alex Sauceda from fftogo

Ranjit, I foresee the joining by kids as a great incentive for parents to join! Finally, a way to really keep tabs on them. - David Tallan

As my travel increases, I've found folks coming to a Panera I'm temporarily officing or pinging me for a meetup later in the day. I'll agree it gets kinda boring around home, but it's great for on the road. - Mike Sansone

Definitely agree with you. - Bryce Roney

I used BK for a little bit, then stopped. The privacy concerns are valid. Why not just hang a poster on your door and say, 'hey, whackos I live here, come harass me'. - Susan Beebe

i live on an island in the middle of the ocean so you're gonna have to spend some serious dough in air fare money to stalk me - Tyler Gillies

I thought Twitter was useless too. Guess what? People are angry Twitter is down. These are just tools. - Russellreno

Aside from security concerns, I'm not a member of the target audience for this app. It seems to do its job well, with a few quirks in the UI, but it is going to find its audience among those who travel frequently and don't mind being tracked like a UPS parcel. Letting your boss/spouse/kids know where you are might play a valuable part of your relationship. At least BK gives you the... more... - Jack (a.k.a. Jeber)

I'm loving the thinly veiled insults: "it's not for me. I value my privacy. Maybe you are an idiot who doesn't care about his or her privacy and you'll love Brightkite. But I'm so smart, and I won't use it. Just my opinion, you know, that you're crazy for using Brightkite. Just saying why I don't use it." - Mark Trapp

Bright who? :) - Bwana ☠

Kenneth Lefebvre's attempt to use the service is fascinating, even if he forgot to use it half the time. It shows how people find unanticipated uses for tools. - Ontario Emperor from fftogo

Cyndy - I've got enough misc invites for the next two weeks but thanks. .... Charlie is in his home office. Charlie is on Friendfeed. Charlie is buying gadgets he doesn't need. Charlie is back in his home office. Charlie is on Friendfeed. Charlie is buying more junk he doesn't need. Charlie is home. Charlie is on Friendfeed. .. - Charlie Anzman

Politicians should use BK. Not moment to moment, but at least daily, the major appointments. The president is our employee, they work for us. There's no reason they shouldn't account for their time. Authors could use BK to promote their book tours, comedians their appearances. - Jack (a.k.a. Jeber)

my two issues: no immediate support for pics on the iPhone (you have to save individually, so no impulse use) + having to do it all the time. Maybe with iPhone 3G it might have some more appeal, but despite giving it a shot I didn't find it compelling...yet - Duncan Riley

one thing that brightkite does well is allow for pictures. I like seeing what my friends are doing when I cant be there, not just reading about it on Twitter. - Micah Baldwin