I don’t like personal blogs.

No offense to people that do have blogs chronicling their lives, but I do not have the time or motivation to read personal blogs, even personal blogs that are written by my friends.

I probably wouldn’t even be able to maintain interest in reading the personal blog of a person that has a life more interesting than a James Bond movie. (Of course, I mean–such an autobiography would probably do better as a book or movie. Especially a movie.)

These above statements are assuming that FriendFeed, Twitter, and Facebook are not personal blogs for the users that use them. But assuming that those three social networks are personal blogging platforms, then my tune has to change–especially because of FriendFeed.

For the rest of this post, I will focus on the advancements that FriendFeed has brought to the personal blog; advancements that enable me to tolerate personal blogs.

1) Posts that are shorter, but not too short

Click on the above image to see it at full-size.

FriendFeed posts, by far, are shorter than long essays about one’s life. FriendFeed comments do have the capacity for quite long posts, but people generally keep FriendFeed messages short.

On the flip side, FriendFeed does not demand that an individual’s posts be insanely short–like Twitter posts. The advantage a decent message length is that one does not have to resort to hard-to-read shorthand  (“goin 2 library”–a very simple example) to get a message to fit in a brutally short character limit.

2) Hiding functionality

The problem with personal blogs is that if I read your blog, you decide what I see. This means that I either scroll through content that I may not like, or just not read the blog at all.

FriendFeed has a little “Hide” link next to entries. I can even use the “Hide” functionality to wipe out vast swaths of content.

To summarize, not only can I avoid seeing one of an individual’s tweets again–I can avoid seeing all of them again!

3) Lists

Let’s say that I want to keep track of all of my friends that live in a certain region, belong to a certain organization, or otherwise can somehow be categorized into one larger entity. FriendFeed’s lists allow me to mix all of their feeds into one page–while keeping their feeds separate from others.

Not only that, I can use the “Best of the day” feature in FriendFeed lists to make sure that I do not miss the FriendFeed posts that have attracted the most attention from other users.

4) Different user interfaces through the API

FriendFeed’s API means that developers can create their own custom user interfaces for the website. For example, I have previously covered on this blog the NoiseRiver interface for FriendFeed.

In addition, there is Benjamin Golub’s fftogo application–bringing FriendFeed to mobile phone browsers. Golub’s creation does not use Javascript at all, because many mobile phone browsers support it poorly. Phones w web browsers, such as the iPhone and Android browsers, can use the non-API-powered user interface at http://friendfeed.com/iphone.

RSS also enables such user interfaces, but the same RSS feed reader doesn’t usually provide all these interfaces and the opportunity to create more*. In addition, the different user interfaces sync instantly–simply given that all the user interfaces (third-party or not) rely on the same database at FriendFeed. I can add a subscription in the main interface, and expect to see that subscription’s post in fftogo.

*Google Reader comes close, though.

5) Saved Searches

Click on the above image to view it full-size.

The “hiding” functionality is good and all–but it isn’t very precise. I can hide a friend’s Twitter posts, but I can’t hide his Twitter posts that contain certain keywords–such as “iphone.”

FriendFeed saved searches is designed to fix that. One can use the advanced search interface–or type in search operators him or herself–to create complex views that exclude and include certain things.

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So what happens when you take the above five reasons and add them together? You end up wtih a very powerful RSS reader that actually transforms personal blogging.

How powerful?

Well, powerful enough to convince a busy Unix geek like me to maintain a personal blog.

In this post, cloud computing is defined as the use of web applications such as Google Docs.

I’ve written a post about why cloud computing is dangerous.

I’ve written another post about why cloud computing is dangerous.

And now I’ve written EVEN another post about why cloud computing is dangerous, and that post is the one you are reading right now.

But regardless of my opinions on cloud computing, I felt that completely abandoning cloud computing or creating one’s own miniature cloud would be too difficult for nontechnical users. Perhaps the nontechnical users should avoid trusting random startups with data, but keep using the services of larger providers, like Google. Such larger providers couldn’t possibly be a poor choice to keep one’s data, right?

Well, apparently I’ve been proven wrong.

A security flaw has been found in Google Docs. Don’t get the idea that this is a small flaw; a minuscule crack in a great wall. Sticking with the wall metaphor, the security issue with Google Docs is a massive, gaping chasm where a wall should be. Sure, Google has well-read engineers that can quickly patch up security holes, but apparently the same excellent engineers could not have patched up the security issue in the first place¹.

This raises an important question: If Google’s world-class engineers cannot prevent a user’s data from being stolen, who can?

Well, actually, anybody can prevent a user’s data from being stolen. Not putting the data online (even in a private online place) results makes it far more difficult to steal the data.

Granted, data often has to be put online for collaboration purposes, but there are still more secure ways to hold important data online. For a few USD a month, one can obtain a shared web hosting plan to install wiki software on². The shared host should also provide support and features to help one secure his or her data³. Keep in mind that with shared hosting, one’s data is still on far-away servers, but one gets partial control of the system.

Now, I would like to finalize in saying that there is nothing wrong in using Google Docs or even a random startup’s cloud computing services; neither must be completely abandoned.If you are fine with anybody in the world reading what you put on far-away servers beyond your (at least partial) control, and are prepared for the unlikely situation that you lose your data, there is no harm in cloud computing.

¹ I would like to point out that the engineers are Google are far better programmers than me, so this should be considered as an insult or a claim of superiority. I deeply respect the Google engineers, but do not think that far-off servers are a good place to store one’s data.

² It is possible that there is a security flaw in the wiki software that one may put on a shared hosting server, but choosing open-source wiki software and using good security practices should hopefully mitigate this.

³ Granted, with a shared hosting plan, it is possible for the system administrator to look at your files, but the risk of having your data stolen is still lower with a reputable hosting company than a random startup.

I haven’t been too excited about web apps. Sure, I use Gmail, Google Docs, Google Reader, and various other online tools, but I’m rather cautious about their use.

So, I log into my super secret mail URL, as I use Google Apps for Your Domain to check my email. I see that I’ve been sent an email from a friend containing a Word document.

To view the file, I click the View as HTML link that Gmail displays next to the attachment. In a new tab, the HTML rendition of the Word document is supposed to appear, but it doesn’t.

Not discouraged, I click Download Original Attachment, not knowing what is to come.

Click on the image to view it full-size

Yes, Google says that my account is now locked. Although I have planned for such a lockdown, Google denying my access to the account shocked me. Fortunately, the account was unlocked in a few minutes.

I repeated the test three times (not wanting to test it further due to Google possibly getting suspicious), and my account was locked down each time I tested it. I conclude that it is a bug within Gmail that set off the alarms, causing my account to be temporarily locked up.

The lesson? Depending on web applications to keep data secure or accessible is dangerous.

The sad part is that my story isn’t unique; many people have faced similar problems with a variety of web applications.

Remember, friends don’t let friends use web applications unsafely.

The web application in permanent beta is the latest fashion in today’s Internet world. Some folks believe that after several years of testing, that web applications ought to shed the beta tag and call themselves stable.

I disagree.

Open source desktop software is significantly more flexible than a closed source web application in terms of giving what users want. Desktop applications have extensibility through plugins, extensions, themes, and so forth. Web applications currently have only a weak extensibility through Greasemonkey.

Facebook Apps are closer to true extensibility, but Facebook remains in control over Facebook Apps, which results in rumors that Facebook is going to close down third party apps. Developers creating extensions of desktop applications usually do not have to worry about their extensions being wiped off the face of the Earth.

Also regarding Facebook, some users are not happy with Facebook’s transition to a new user interface. There is even a petition for the old user interface to return. I suggest you compare Facebook to WordPress. Nobody is going to force a blogger to upgrade to the latest version of WordPress, but there is little one can do if Facebook decides to switch to a different (and worse, in the mind of the user) UI.

Does my blog post ring a bell? Oh yeah, this blog post sounds roughly similar to Richard Stallman’s opinions on cloud computing. Stallman is dead right. One should only truly trust open source software on hardware within the ownership of the user.

So where does the whole “keep Web 2.0 apps in permanent beta” idea come into play? My point is that Web 2.0 apps ought to keep themselves in permanent beta as a reminder to users that no Web 2.0 app outside of the user’s control is as safe as an application within the user’s control.

Use Web 2.0 apps responsibly™.

I have previously written about Kwippy, and that was pretty much the best post ever on this sad little blog.

Why?

Because I actually managed to publish an email interview with Kwippy CEO Mayank Dhingra . That’s right! An email interview, like those big A-list bloggers do all the time! Yeah!

So, what improvements have gone into Kwippy? How is Kwippy better since last July?

The Kwippy team made it easier to invite Twitter friends to Kwippy, but got some negative publicity. The Kwippy folks quickly modified the feature so it would not spam Twitter users, and then wrote a blog post apologizing.

Kwippy also made some user interface improvements, including the ability for Kwippy users to customize their page with themes. Below are two screenshots comparing the old Kwippy with the current Kwippy interface.

You will notice that in the newer screenshot, Kwippy has the word “Friends” visible in the sidebar. This is part of a new feature that allows you to define who is your friend and who you are just interested in. Think of Kwippy’s “Friends” feature as a primitive version of FriendFeed lists.

Kwippy also added an employee. Matthew Phillips, known as Kestrachern, is Kwippy’s community manager. You can find short bios of (currently, the four) Kwippy employees.

I conclude this (very) quick glance at Kwippy with a note on the small, vibrant community that has appeared there. The lack of a character limit for messages on Kwippy (called kwips) or comments on kwips has led to a manner of discussing that is a bit of a hybrid between a forum and Twitter.

You know why I haven’t posted in a while? No, it is not because I’m really busy, but because the CodingExperiments team has been churning draft after draft and ping-ponging back and forth between them to make updates. The result is a massive amount of half-baked blog posts. Working on posts one at a time and not starting another post until you have finished or given up on an existing post is a good way to prevent a barrage of blog post drafts from raining down on you.

While plenty of people say that producing good content is more important than posting regularly, plenty of new bloggers, including me, feel guilty when they do not post regularly.

Now, there have to be exceptions to this rule. Bloggers that write mostly time-sensitive material, then following this rule could possibly hurt them by delaying the publishing of the posts. Taking a look at this blog’s archives will show that whenever I try to cover something time-sensitive, I always end up covering it a few days later.

Also, if you would like more extremely obvious (or extremely brilliant, depending on your perspective) tips on blogging, you might like reading some of this blog’s other posts covering bloggi–oh don’t bother, I know nothing on blogging.

A lot of people are out in the world, looking for something. These people are not looking for a lost dog or wristwatch, but these people are looking for something more valuable; ideas. Ideas are extremely valuable now, and they always have been. Nowadays, ideas have changed slightly. They are more likely to involve software and vast server farms. A lot of people are wondering, “How do I generate an idea that will be popular and generate income for me?”

I don’t claim to be an expert, but blogging allows people to pretend to be experts on various topics, so I’ll take a shot at explaining how to make a popular application. Remember that other negative things, such as the application having a horrible interface, may reduce the effect of these tips.

How to Make a Popular Application

1) Create something that nobody needed before, but now that you have showed them, they want it.

This can be called the Twitter effect. In the history of communications, using 140 character messages to communicate isn’t what people thought that they really needed. Now, some people are crazy about microblogging.

A huge advantage in creating something that nobody previously thought was needed is that in the beginning, the creator has no competitors. Twitter has had massive success while competitors are not close to Twitter’s user count. Of course, Twitter’s mistakes have users flocking to FriendFeed, identi.ca, and Plurk.

2) Create something that can easily be used in many, many ways.

I’m going to use Twitter as an example again. People are constantly finding new and creative ways to use Twitter. Not everybody is just using it to broadcast what they had for breakfast. CNN is using Twitter so people can quickly be notified of breaking news (find CNN’s Twitter account here). Comcast is using Twitter to interact with customers (find Comcast’s Twitter account here).

2.1) Create something extensible

Both Twitter and Firefox have had a lot of success due to the fact that both are extensible (in slightly different ways). Twitter’s API allows developers to create things such as Twhirl and Summize (the latter being acquired by Twitter recently).

When you make something extensible, it makes it much easier to use it in many ways. Firefox is a great example of having an application with many uses through extensions. The Firefox extension ScrapBook can make Firefox into a primitive web scraper, Twitterfox gives Firefox the features of a Twitter client, and I could keep going with good Firefox-related examples.

3) Create something that the user thinks saves time.

They say time is money. Interestingly, helping decrease the amount of time it takes to get something done can generate you money. Notice that the title of this tip doesn’t say, “Create something that saves time.” If an application saves time, but potential users think it will waste time, then it does not matter that it saves time.

Conversely, if your application increases the time it takes to get something done, but the user thinks that time is being saved, you will still generate money. The problem with making the user think that time is being saved when time is being wasted is that it does not take very long for the users to figure out that time is not being saved at all. What’s that? It’s the sound of the customers walking away with their money.

How does this relate to Twitter? Now, a lot of Twitter users would simply say that Twitter is a time-wasting social network. Still, if a user thinks Twitter is a time-saving service, the user will use it as a time-saving service. Of course, the user might discover that Twitter isn’t saving them any time and then stop using Twitter. The key here is to use either Twitter itself or Twitter’s extensibility creatively.

An example of applying GTD (Getting Things Done) to Twitter is to creatively use the SMS features. Depending on the user, it may or may not save time. If you spend enough time thinking about it, more ways to use Twitter and Twitter applications can be thought up.

Click on the above image to go to the original version. Original version made by Flickr user Mr. Wright.

Ever since Twitter‘s famous fail whales started appearing, a group of people (including me) started looking for alternative microblogging services. I experimented with identi.ca, which runs on the open source laconi.ca microblogging software. However, the alternative microblogging service that most stood out to me as a viable competitor to Twitter is Kwippy. First, take a gander at Kwippy’s looks.

See that little green rectangle with “Feedback” written there at the top? The feedback button is easy to find, and a user can quickly give suggestions to the Kwippy team. The Kwippy folks were smart enough to put the feeback feedback button right where nearly everybody can see it.

It’s great that Kwippy really wants your feedback, but what I think is even better is that individual kwips can have comments.

Click on the above screenshot to see it full size.

This solves the problem that Twitter users have faced with the @reply feature. In Twitter, replying to a user’s tweet does not indicate which tweet of the user you are replying to. Kwippy avoids this by allowing comments for kwips. Comments cannot reply to other comments, but commentors (for the lack of a better term) can be notified of upcoming comments if they wish.

Like Twitter and some other services, Kwippy also has an IM bot that you can use to post kwips. The IM bot will notify if another user friends you, buzzes you, favorites one of your kwips, or comments on a thread you are tracking. All of the notifications are configurable, so you can decide if you do not want to hear certain notifications.

Hmm, I seem to have forgotten what character limit kwips and comments have. Oh wait, they don’t. Kwips and comments do not have a character limit, and this is one of the more interesting things about the service. Kwippy’s blog has posted their reasoning on why they have not put a character cap.

Okay, so the Kwippy folks want feedback, make good user interfaces, allow comments for individual kwips, and don’t put a character limit on kwips and comments. But what about scalability? Will Kwippy be able to handle a Twitter-like userbase? You can look at the inner details as another official Kwippy blog post gives stunning insight on the technology that Kwippy runs on. Whether or not Kwippy can scale to huge amounts of users remains to be seen.

Unfortunately, Kwippy is an invite-only service. Existing Kwippy users have infinite invites, so it should be very easy to obtain a Kwippy invite.

Now, if you’ve glanced at the title, I’m assuming that you’re waiting for the interview with Kwippy CEO Mayank Dhingra. Mayank consented to an email interview, and here are the responses to the questions that I asked him (some spelling/grammar corrected).

Q1: Having a business model is crucial for a startup. How does Kwippy plan to make money?

A: Well leaving aside ads as a backup we are exploring other options which haven’t been used elsewhere.

Q2: Another thing crucial to a startup’s success is the ability to learn from mistakes. What have you learned from the mistakes of other microblogging services and what mistakes have you made in the development of Kwippy?

A: In hindsight you always realize there are things that shouldn’t have been done or could have been done better. Scalability/Stability is one of the most prominent problem haunting the microblogging world but their are some other less prominent problems like [the] “complete disappearance of the blogging perspective” & monetization. We’ve been quite aware of them from start and are constantly trying to do our best in taking care of them.

Q3: Why did you even want to start a microblogging service in the first place?

A: Kwippy started as a “IM Status aggregator” in the first place, then we added ability to have discussions over them, by this time all of us were avid microbloggers but our understanding of microblogging was quite different from the existing services and thus kwippy evolved into a “Microblogging App” in an effort to bring out the best of blogging and microblogging worlds.

Q4: What would you say to people that say Kwippy and other smaller microblogging services will never take over Twitter?

A: All I can in this regard is Twitter has the first mover & Community advantages working in its favor. Community is built over time, it was the case with twitter and it certainly will be the case with others. I strongly feel any service which offers a better yet easy approach to microblogging and manages to stay up has a good chance to be successful.

Q5: In one sentence, please summarize what sets Kwippy apart from similar microblogging services.

A: Till we implement all that we have plans for[,] it will [take the] “IM Status aggregation and Blogging like approach.” Also [a] lack of whales or other creatures :)

Q6: What has been the most enjoyable part of being part of Kwippy?

A: From coding to evangelizing every bit has been exciting but nothing compares the joy of creating a product that evolves according to user feedback and makes people who are part of the change very happy.

Q7: If you are willing, can you give us a sneak peek of some upcoming features in Kwippy?

A: Next in line would be import/invite features. Making friends,  adding support for more channels and other small things to make the site more engaging and viral.

Q8: What is the number one reason that an existing Twitter user should switch to Kwippy?

A: Because kwippy is “Microblogging redefined” :)

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Want to see even more coverage on Kwippy? There are two posts on the official Kwippy blog that have lists of more blog posts covering Kwippy.

Also, as a Kwippy user (my Kwippy page here), I have infinite Kwippy invites to distribute to you. Post your email address in the comments if you want a Kwippy invite.

Also, I apologize for the lolcat at the top of this post. I couldn’t resist.

A couple days ago, I saw a couple FriendFeed messages linking to FriendFeed accounts that spam. To me, this was quite alarming. I love FriendFeed partly due to it’s excellent community, and the idea of another good community being destroyed by spammers wasn’t one that I wanted to think about.

Of course, not thinking about the problem is a pretty bad way of solving it. I just read Mike Fruchter’s post titled “Spam invades Friendfeed“, and it brought to my attention an idea that Robert Scoble had about controlling spam on FriendFeed. Scoble’s idea is to put a FriendFeed account into a jail if there are a certain number more blocks than subscriptions.

Of course, Robert Scoble’s idea, although interesting, can be improved upon. What if spammers create an enormous amount of accounts to all subscribe to each other in an attempt to balance the increasing number of the spammer accounts that were blocked?

The first thing to reduce this as a possibility is to ensure that blocks increase faster than subscriptions. Assuming that FriendFeed doesn’t already do this, the number of accounts created per IP per hour should be limited to a number that won’t be too much of a hassle for computers sharing an IP, but should slow down individual bots. Of course, various techniques could be used by spammers to get around the IP limit, but at least it would make the job more difficult for spammers and might encourage at least a few to go other places where spamming is easier.

Second, instead of seeing if there are a significant number more blocks than subscriptions, I would use a separate flag specifically reserved for spammers. On the user interface, this might look like, “Report this user as a spammer,” or some other phrase. The reason for a separate, spammer-only flag is that the normal blocking feature is currently used to generally hide all activity of certain users that others do not want to see. Highly well-known, but very disliked FriendFeed users might accidentally trigger the anti-spam mechanism because of a high number of blocks relative to subscriptions. For easy access as well as keeping the user interface clean, I would add a “Report spam” button to the box that users on FriendFeed see whenever they mouseover a link to a FriendFeed profile. I would change it from what it currently is,

and add the link as shown below.

I would suggest marking users as spammers if a significant number of comments are identical or contain URLs to the same websites, but that is easily defeated by posting slightly different variations of spam messages and using different URL shortening services to mask the URL.

Now, if you’re reading this, you are probably thinking that my ways to improve FriendFeed’s spam handling and reporting capabilities aren’t that good, you’re probably right. The problem with spam is that it’s so difficult to automatically handle. CAPTCHAs can be broken, the spam of one spammer come from multiple places (such as accounts or IPs), and a variety of other techniques can be defeated by spammers.

Since the most accurate way to make sure that spam comments are not displayed is moderation, I’ll briefly explain how you can delete FriendFeed comments on your entries.

So, how would you reduce the spam on FriendFeed?

While people were all hyped up about getting their new iPhones, Jason Calacanis posted that he is officially retiring from blogging. In the blog post announcing Jason’s retirement is the following paragraph.

Today the blogosphere is so charged, so polarized, and so filled with haters hating that it’s simply not worth it. I’d rather watch from the sidelines and be involved in a smaller, more personal, conversation.

Interestingly, Jason is turning to a form of online communication that is not as new and shiny as blogging.

Starting today all of my thoughts will be reserved for a new medium. Something smaller, something more intimate, and something very personal: an email list. Today the email list has about 600 members, I’m going to cut it off when it reaches 750. Frankly, that’s enough more than enough people to have a conversation with. I’m going to try and build a deeper relationship with fewer people–try to get back to my roots.

That’s right. Jason is actually going to use an email list for communication to the rest of the world. Of course, the part where he cuts off the subscription at 750 members is incorrect. I believe that the cutoff limit has passed a thousand subscribers.

When I saw the part about the email list, I subscribed immediately. For those of you that did not subscribe, you can check out a Posterous blog containing the content of the latest newsletter.

Steven Hodson of Winextra has read the latest email newsletter and offers his take on it. Below is a rather large excerpt from the Winextra post.

He [Jason] starts out the newsletter with a couple of paragraphs of discounting the idea that this was all a joke and then gets to the gist of the inaugural newsletter with
this

Is blogging dead?
————————-
Yes, it is. Officially. :-)

Okay folks it’s official we can all hang up out blogs as a waste of time and go onto other things because Jason says so. Wow that’s a hellva responsibility to take on there Jason – being the arbiter of a whole medium’s validity.

He then follows that up with

Bloggers spend more time digging, tweeting, and SEOing their posts
than they do on the posts themselves. In the early days of blogging
Peter Rojas, who was my blog professor, told me what was required to
win at blogging: “show up every day.” In 2003 and 2004 that was the
case. Today? What’s required is a team of social marketers to get your
message out there, and a second one to manage the fall-out from
whatever you’ve said.

Well Jason you may have been concerned with SEO and digg points or felt you needed to hire a bunch of experts in the social media field (the field you yourself felt you were knowledgeable so many times) but to suggest that this is something that all bloggers concern themselves with is just assuming too damn much. I have been doing this for some time and I couldn’t give a damn about SEO or whether I’ve been on digg or whether I have the most followers on Twitter. There are a lot of bloggers out there who I am sure feel exactly the same way and for you to paint all bloggers with this paintbrush is in a way rather insulting.

Jason, in the email newsletter, says that blogging is dead. In Jason’s final blog post, he says,

First, please don’t take this as a condemnation of blogging. I love blogs and always will.

I believe that Steven Hodson is correct. Blogging is not dead and bloggers don’t have to worry about Digg, Techmeme, etc. Blogging, at least in my mind, is just about sharing ideas and building a community. While Jason Calacanis can do that in an email newsletter, I don’t believe that there is anything wrong with blogging.

I do believe that Jason can teach us a lesson here. Maybe we should be a little less obsessed with search engine optimization and Techmeme and spend more time on making high quality posts.

For additional reading, you can check out:

• Diary of a Rat: There Will Always Be an A-list
• jimkukral.com: The Death Of The A-list
• louisgray.com: Walking the SEO Balance Beam
• seanpercival.com: Top 5 Reasons Jason Calacanis is NOT Quiting Blogging
• mathewingram.com/work: Jason’s long goodbye: Give me a break
• Scobleizer: Jason Calacanis hands keys to blogosphere to Louis Gray