Social Media

Anyone have any insight on this? I just embedded the code into my site, posted an article on FriendFeed and commented on it, myself. This was eleven minutes ago. I'd figure it would have showed up on my Disqus by now. What do you guys think? - Brad Williamson

I'm actually using Squarespace, which is an approved Disqus CMS to use. Surely that wouldn't play a part in the delay, would it? - Brad Williamson

Looks great! - orionstarr via iPhone

**disclaimer - I work for one of the companies mentioned in this article and have been helping with this project :) - Tamara

This weekend I got a chance to visit my father in Chicago and one of the things we talked about was Iran and Twitter. My father knows nothing about Twitter. He's only learned of Twitter's existence from newspapers like The New York Times. He was born in Iraq and lived there until his twenties. So while he doesn't know much about Twitter, he happens to know a lot about dictators. He lived under the regime of Saddam Hussein. I'm less inclined to believe that social technology is making us smarter after having talked with my Dad. But I still believe we are becoming smarter through the use of blogging, Twitter, and the vast number of social networking sites. Social technology, at its core, enables, encourages, and expands collective intelligence. And so, it may seem like splitting hairs, but the real argument is that collective intelligence trumps individual intelligence. Social technology does not make us smarter; we are already smarter in large groups. - james reilly via Bookmarklet

"Participants in the 2009 Semantic Technology Conference walked away considering fundamental questions about what is and isn't semantic technology. The relevance of this post's title will hopefully become clear by the end to those of you mischievous readers who may have stumbled upon it with other ideas. The conference was a great and well-organized affair in San Jose, California. One of the highlights was the Semantic Search Keynote panel, with all of the major players on stage (Ask, Bing, Google, Hakia, TrueKnowledge, and Yahoo!), as seen in the picture below." - Seth Greenblatt via Bookmarklet

"Different markets have different needs for marketing products or services. We all know that much. But that doesn’t take away the weirdness of a company like Google advertising its core product (online search) by using ink that was printed on paper." - David Foucher via Bookmarklet

In Ohio, insurance companies are permitted to choose to insure just the healthy, leaving insurance either unaffordable or even unavailable for others. "Cherry picking", also known as "segmentation," is a common insurance industry practice designed to protect themselves against covering individuals with health risks or perceived health risks. AARP Ohio believes that health insurance coverage should be meaningful and available when people need it. It should be affordable and must not be based on, or constrained by, actual or perceived health status or history of health care services use. But paying claims costs insurers money, so they have a powerful reason to protect themselves against covering individuals in less-than-perfect health. Access to treatment is critical for individuals with chronic conditions, and a permanent fix to Ohio's law regarding preexisting exclusions is crucial to reforming our health care system. Early intervention and adequate treatment for those with chronic conditions is vital. - Bill Hannigan

Everyone's comments are written as if our health care system is great as it is. The big picture is our current health care system is dysfunctional, wasteful, inefficient and unfair. Patients, doctors, hospitals, etc. get strong armed by private insurance. Insurance companies are often in the driver’s seat in making medical decisions and people are suffering from those decisions. And their profits and surpluses more than doubled the increases to health care cost over a 5 year period. So the cost of health care is still going up, but the profits by private health insurance companies are rising significantly faster. Private insurers tactics include selectively insuring the lowest risk enrollees (risk segmentation) , not covering certain diagnoses, slow-walking claims payments so they can earn interest on every premium dollar, prohibiting insurance portability, denying coverage for existing conditions, policies criteria that can exempt them from paying on claims, denying as many claims as... more... - Bill Hannigan

Here I am. Twelve months and 60 posts later. I managed to do it. This is not the first time I start a blog. I did when the “blog” term was coined and then a second time when I thought I had something to say. Third time is the charm, they say. There are many times when bloggers will think about quitting their blogs because it makes no sense to continue writing for 40 people, or because they’re making pennies or less per month. This post will tell you why I haven’t quit and what worked this time. I will also share some data about the blog’s progress in traffic and revenues. - Jorge "JungleG" Escobar via Bookmarklet

60 is a good start. Call me when you get over 2,000. :) - Louis Gray

Louis and gang: thanks so much for the good wishes. I promise I'm stepping it up and will call you when I get to 2,000 - Jorge "JungleG" Escobar

While quaint, it is still nice to receive "real" thank you cards, notes, invitations and letters. :) - Gil Francisco III via Bookmarklet

su.pr is being hyped by a few big names. but does it actually deliver the traffic it promises? - Anthony Feint via Bookmarklet

I actually haven't tried adding the url shortening to my site yet (as we already have another custom tool) but from what i've heard, lots of people have been having trouble with it. That part of the site is an alpha feature - Anthony Feint