I’ve been subscribed to the social network Digg.com which is primarily used to add interesting links to blogs, news and just plain websites to an index. But the idea of using the service is ridiculous. Digg is down almost everytime I’m checking it out. Timeouts, errors and overall connection problems become an annoyance. The following message could be displayed at least each hour twice to compete with the digging users:
Digg is adding servers to keep up with demand – digg back in 30 mins. (9:45AM PDT)
At least the owners and programmers behind Digg learned to inform the users instead of giving them a hangtime lag. Nice to know, but the service is far from being usable. The idea is undoubtely beautiful to create a social network, but with people come problems. The users are behaving like net-extremists.
At first, nearly every one who feels uber-cool and geekish is trying to pull the virtual trigger at you – if you dare to make a mistake, especially if you’re new to the service, but not new to social networking. Insults, flaming and pure hatred are coming your way. Anybody can register and simply start to insult another user because they feel like it. A moderation like on many webforums or in blogs of comments does not happen, you can only rate the comments for future reading or ignorance of the flame-users.
At second, the system has a major flaw. Once you publish a supposedly new link, the chance is quite high that the server does not return correct search results to prevent duplicate posts about the same topic. Even if you have used the internal search engine to look for the URL and the title or specific keywords, the result is empty. I found myself adding a link which already existed on the server, yet no search revealed it to me. Being called „noob“ by the self-proclaimed digg.com-elite just made me laugh. Is it my fault that the software is not fully developped yet? Clearly not.
At third, the topics offered are usually not much more than „click me“ posts. If one expects the social networking extension to content-linking, disappointment may be the most simple result. The topics are less special than it looks like. Most of the links are leading to techie-content, but this content lacks of originality.
By now about 20 minutes later, the update message has changed to the worse:
Digg is adding servers to keep up with demand – digg back in 30 mins. (3 PM PDT)
In the end, Digg appears to be one of the most capable social networking systems, yet suffers from its under-developped community. If you’re not with them, if you’re not their mainstream, you’re clearly going to get the red card and a „It’s lame content“ reply. Let’s wait for next week to see if I’m still digging in and out ;)
eBay’s 10th Anniversary
Social MediaI’ve always enjoyed the eBay-phenomenon, and have sometimes participated in digging up some nice deals. I was addicted to eBay in approximately 2002, but in the long run, I was able to get off that addiction to their service. Enjoy your 10th anniversary eBay!
Survive a fall from 35,000 Feet
KuriosesIn the modern world, everybody will sooner or later be faced with the idea of flying inside an airplane. These planes crash or explode, and the number of survivors is usually around zero. Let’s say your jet blows apart at 35,000 feet. You exit the aircraft, and you begin to descend independently. Now what? If you want to be the sole survivor of an airline disaster, read this humoristic (yet realistic) part on how to survive a fall from an airplane.
International Hatred: USA vs. Germany
Medien, PolitikA few days ago, German Minister of the Environment Jürgen Tritten explained his harsh opinion on the rather delicate matter of the Hurricane Katrina in the Frankfurter Rundschau:
Now there’s a very interesting read: Not just the politicians, but the readers of the German magazine „Der Spiegel“ have send in their own letters in response to the articles by Der Spiegel including the statement of Trittin. Both Germany and the USA have very different opinions concerning the disaster and the reactions of the politicians. Read the point of view by the US-americans and continue on the counter-view from the Germans. I’m not going to add spice to that soup of false patriotism and propagandistic hatred. The people have suffered enough in New Orleans from that Hurricane, and they clearly don’t need to hear idiotic comments out of the blue. However, if anyone wishes, sure go and write something to Der Spiegel or drop a comment… in the end, Trittin’s comment was not so bold, but the populism by Spiegel kills the frame of international relationships on both political and economical levels.
Update:
As Hokey explained below, a major entry by Lautgeben creates an uproar in the germanspeaking blogosphere. I guess the lack of confidence from which Spiegel suffers each day is just expressed there at best – of course in German.
Technorati Downtime
BlogkulturSince I use this services as only one from Technorati, it was obvious I’d become disappointed for the lack of speed. However, this is not the only problem I’ve had with Technorati. I believe that certain sources that link to the MikeSchnoor.com are simply not included in their index while searching refering domains. While knowing they link to me which can be seen via my website statistic tool, and since they are actually included in Technorati’s cosmos, these sources should appear on the search for this site. Further, these sources sometimes appear in the keyword search and no in the cosmos search.
At least David Sivry offers to solve the latency problems by the end of September, but being honest – isn’t this too long? That’s on why Digg suffered some serious usage damage. Imagine all the loss of profit from Google Adsense… I hope Technorati won’t wait too long or they’ll loose many users to Mark Cuban’s IceRocket – which is not ice, but hot – that depends on how I use it.
Playstation Portable: A waste of your money
WebToday is the official release in Europe of the Playstation Portable by Sony. It happened much later than i.e. in the USA, but there’s always a positive point about receiving things later than being first. Overall, you receive a product that has been tested already by the large mass of consumers, and you might find important system and security updates already on the internet. Another big bonus for scheduling the product’s release later than in the USA is the by now easier accessibility to more co-branded products (games, dvds, tools, toys) relateed to the PSP.
But I don’t really understand the hype about the product since it’s just another console with nothing else but limitations. Of course it is portable, but the whole thing is small and just for the entertainment of one person. What about your friends – do all have to buy a PSP to enjoy themselves now, or will they rely on their old Playstation 2 or the X-Box?
Further, you need to have special disks for playing games and movies, and you end up buying a totally new consumer product line that simply binds you to the Sony company. Why spending money for music and movie disks if they’re not compatible with your home cinema entertainment system? Do you plan on watching a love movie on the PSP instead of snuggling with your beloved one? I don’t plan on using the PSP for moments of romance, hah!
The games itself are much more expensive than for the counter-products of Nintendo. On top of this, the fact that the display looks dirty by just touching it while playing – this kills every fun off. So where’s the logical sense to reason buying that product except the „I want that now“-factor? I see none to waste approx. 250 Euros for that gadget! I rather choose to play games on that large beamer in our living room ;)
I would only buy such a gadget if it would offer me a combination of a mobile phone, organizer and game console. Anything else is way off the scale for both technology-centered and usability-centered users.
[via Golem and again Golem Test]
The Blog Day 2005
BlogkulturI like reading these thoughts as they offer me a different opinion on certain matters which are hardly accessible on the front.
If you’re ever going to become a middle manager, you’ve got to read it. The only problem is that the author suffers from the fear of being identified. He/she choose a nickname… yet very interesting and amusing to read, but unfortunately he/she is not a very regular blog author.
The Handelsblatt journalist Thomas Knuewer offers a tight mix of German news and satisfies the popular demand. Quite well known for his writing style in the German blogosphere, yet more or less unknown to the whole world.
That’s where news and opinions out of the graphics department are being read and made. Its one of the better German corporate blogs I’m aggregating.
One of the better semi-corporate blogs of one of Germany’s new media companies. The CEO himself set it up and is giving quite a good push there, and it’s always been in my feed reader software.
The entirety of my daily reads can be seen in the RSS List – download the OPML and enjoy importing them to your favorites. It must be around 180 or 200 different feeds… And if anybody wants to read more, feel free to search for this special even on Technorati with BlogDay2005.
Digg.com Resumee
Social MediaAt least the owners and programmers behind Digg learned to inform the users instead of giving them a hangtime lag. Nice to know, but the service is far from being usable. The idea is undoubtely beautiful to create a social network, but with people come problems. The users are behaving like net-extremists.
At first, nearly every one who feels uber-cool and geekish is trying to pull the virtual trigger at you – if you dare to make a mistake, especially if you’re new to the service, but not new to social networking. Insults, flaming and pure hatred are coming your way. Anybody can register and simply start to insult another user because they feel like it. A moderation like on many webforums or in blogs of comments does not happen, you can only rate the comments for future reading or ignorance of the flame-users.
At second, the system has a major flaw. Once you publish a supposedly new link, the chance is quite high that the server does not return correct search results to prevent duplicate posts about the same topic. Even if you have used the internal search engine to look for the URL and the title or specific keywords, the result is empty. I found myself adding a link which already existed on the server, yet no search revealed it to me. Being called „noob“ by the self-proclaimed digg.com-elite just made me laugh. Is it my fault that the software is not fully developped yet? Clearly not.
At third, the topics offered are usually not much more than „click me“ posts. If one expects the social networking extension to content-linking, disappointment may be the most simple result. The topics are less special than it looks like. Most of the links are leading to techie-content, but this content lacks of originality.
By now about 20 minutes later, the update message has changed to the worse:
In the end, Digg appears to be one of the most capable social networking systems, yet suffers from its under-developped community. If you’re not with them, if you’re not their mainstream, you’re clearly going to get the red card and a „It’s lame content“ reply. Let’s wait for next week to see if I’m still digging in and out ;)
Blogperience
BlogkulturThis is so retro. I created a new blog over at Blogger and don’t know what to do with it yet. It looks funny, and it caused me already a lot of annoyance, but I’ll stick with it. In order to keep track of everything, I’ll co-brand the MikeSchnoor.com with my new Rendili service. I just noticed they don’t offer the option to enter a title. Weird…
That’s been the first entry of Rendili. Whew…
Destroy all information Google cannot index
SpamThe Googleopus strikes back again! This is too good not to post it, and I’ve had a good laugh at that.
Great! That means a reduction of all blogspot entries, too! Fight the splogs (spam blogs), fight the porn industry, and while we’re on it – become pure again!
Finally I can kill everybody off with
one pingone click. Back to book burning, back to the evilness! Is the idea of telling somebody „I will google you!“ already an insult? I give up here, it’s too funny! It’s by the Onion, so read on my dear…[via O’Reilly Radar]
Konstanz
LebenIch fühle mich gut. Wirklich so gut, dass ich Bäume ausreissen konnte. Und was habe ich nicht alles gegessen…
Zuerst haben wir frische Brommbeeren in der Stadt von riesigen Büschen gepflückt, und die uns richtig munden lassen. Auch wenn eine Straße daneben ist, waren die Beeren so sonnig gereift, weil niemand an sie ran kam. Und mal ganz ehrlich, die Schadstoffe, die am ZOB in Flensburg aufkommen, werden meistens schon durch eine steife Brise wieder weggeblasen.
Ansonsten gab es leckere selbstbelegte Gemüse-Thunfisch-Pizza zu essen, wobei alles (Inkredenzien und Belag) von LIDL stammte. Und im Vergleich zu den Vortagen gab es nur eine Adjustierung meines Gewichtes auf 101.1 Kilogramm – diesmal noch mit dem vollen Mageninhalt. Ich rechne wieder in kurzer Zeit mit einer 100er Zahl. Soviel dazu, das muss sein – man fühlt sich gesünder, lockerer, leichter, wenn man sich nicht wie früher mit multiplen Mahlzeiten ernährt, sondern auch kurzfristig Hungern kann: Allen standardisierten Diäten zum trotz!