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Could logging in to Delicious be a thing of the past?

The old logo of Delicious.
Image via Wikipedia

Hallelujahs!

One of my pet peeves is websites that make me log in again and again.  Look, you’re smart enough to know whether I’m logging in from the same computer – don’t keep asking me to log in, OK?  Netflix does a great job of this.  I can’t remember the last time I’ve logged in – either from work or from home .

Delicious has been the exact opposite.

I am a big fan of Delicious.  I have my recent bookmarks right over there on the sidebar ->

I keep all of my bookmarks on there (and don’t bother with FireFox or IE bookmarks).  I have an iPhone app that automatically synchs with my account so I can always look up a site I’ve bookmarked. I’ve got a FireFox plugin installed at work and at home – it easily allows me to tag sites and retireve them later – from either of my computers, or my iPhone – or through any computer, actually (by accessing my links at delicious.com).

About the only thing I don’t use on Delicious is the bookmark sharing feature – you have to have friends on Delicious to do that and I can’t be bothered to set up any – I’ve got too many other sites asking for my friends.

So the one thing that kills me is when I try to tag a website using the convenient FireFox plugin and the stupid thing tells me that I have to log in because it’s been 2 weeks.  2 weeks!?  Come on.  What could I possibly have on Delicious that is that confidential.  What – is something going to masquerade as me and set rogue bookmarks?

Well, today at work, as I went to bookmark a site, I was asked, once again, to login.  Except this time, when I checked ‘keep me logged in’ I noticed it didn’t say ‘for 2 weeks’ – and when I checked it, I was given the warning that I shouldn’t do this on public computers blah blah..  So I can only hope – does that mean I’m now logged in for good from this machine?  Can it be true?  I can’t wait to see what happens.. Will accessing from a different (home) computer mess with this login?  Will it really keep me logged in forever?  Only time will tell.

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Have I told you how much I like Boxee?

Boxee
Image via Wikipedia

So a while ago I wrote a post about my move to the Mac platform.  As part of that move, I set up a Mac network and an Apple TV.  The Apple TV has been the best music streaming solution that I’ve tried by far.  But that’s a post for another day.

A couple of months ago, I signed up for an aplha test of Boxee – which included an application that hacks the AppleTV so that it’s no longer a closed system.  With that, I’ve got the Boxee software running on my AppleTV, giving me access to additional media browsers, which is nice and all.  But the real win is having access to additional content – Hulu being the best of the offerings by far.

Whereas before I could only watch shows that I purchased from the iTunes store (something I will only consider for things I’d rent through netflix anyway, like HBO shows), now I have access to a whole library of shows.  It’s awesome.  I can watch Jon Stewart, Arrested Development, The Rockford Files…

There’s been a lot of chatter lately about how to cut your cable bills and just rely on streaming content.  This may certainly be a reality for a lot of people, but not for me.  I don’t get any premium channels anyway – and I don’t see any way of cutting my cable bill, since my cable-provided high speed internet is what allows for the streaming content in the first place.

For me, it’s a way to get additional content, that I can watch when I want to (I know DVR users have had this pleasure for a long time now..).

I’ve read a lot of opinions about how the AppleTV is not a successul Apple product, and there’s truth to that – in as much as they’re not selling many of them and the closed system was a little limiting.  But with Boxee it’s really is awesome.


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More Twitter use – Going to a concert?

Here’s another great use of Twitter.

Jimmy Eat World has a special web page that collects all Twitter data (ok.. tweets) that are relevant to each of their tour dates.

What this means, is that a fan can post a tweet (following a pre-defined format) and their post will show up on the web site.  They can additionally subscribe to the tweets, keeping up-to-date with what all of the other concert-goers are saying.  It’s a pretty cool idea of taking a public event, which actually tends to be not particularly interactive when you think about it, and adds a level of community that hasn’t existed in the past.  I mean, when was the last time that you really interacted with someone else going to a concert – either before or during (remember, you can tweet from your cell, posting updates during the performance).  If they weren’t one of your friends that you were going with, you probably had very limited interaction (besides synchronized arm waving that is).

Now think of the marketing opportunity – there’s a page with all of the people who are into this concert with a really easy way to communicate to them – and some of them aren’t even going because the shows are selling out *(need tickets?  .. boy, too bad I’m not still working at StubHub – there’s another opportunity they’ll never take advantage of)*

The more I’m checking out Twitter the more I’m impressed.

photo courtesy “Scamp” from the Jimmy Eat World website

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Merging multiple photographs to create a holistic view

I first saw a demonstration of Microsoft’s photo-merging capabilities a couple of years ago – it’s pretty cool stuff.

CNN has used the latest version of Microsoft’s software (now called Photosynth) to capture ‘the moment’ that President Obama was sworn in as 44.

The controls are still a little clunky – it’s a bit hard to navigate around the scene – but try it out.  It’s definitely worth it.  And after you check out the inauguration, look at some of the other exampmles at the Photosynth site.

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Twitter-Google mashups – social data generation

This is a cool tidbit from TechChrunch.

People used their Twitter accounts to report whether they had experienced any snow in their area (and how much) and all of that data was collected real-time and fed into a Google Map to provide a real-time snapshot of what the snow levels were like across the Southern UK.

Great use of open technologies and counting on the masses to provide rich content (which, with enough users will outweigh any anomolies by anyone who would try to game the system).

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tv + facebook = good

Among my recent internet wanderings, another event that intrigued me was the CNN/Facebook live broadcasting of the inauguration activities this morning.

There’s nothing inherently new about chatting with others during a presentation – formally, webcasts & webinars have offered features like this for a while and informally through IM clients it’s a great way to have sidebar conversations on  conference calls.

What the CNN/Facebook implementation showed was that it can be a great way to experience television – finally a way to have ‘interactive tv.’  Sure, some of the comments were strange, obvious, or unnecessary.  But especially for a live event like this having a way to share in the excitement of the moment (especially since some of us had to be at work!) was pretty cool.

I’m not sure I’d appreciate the same pings from friends while watching a sitcom (does anyone watch those anymore?) but for certain events it definitely enhances the experience.

Another small point that I found interesting about they way they implemented it as well: rather than creating a new chat mechanism, they just leveraged their already-existing status updates.  This worked really well since everyone had a unique ‘chat’ window (no two people share exactly the same contacts).  It was also a way for them to roll out a new capability with no new ‘feature’ – just re-purpose something you’ve already got.