Adpaper Subscriptions Hold Steady

This morning, staring at the messed up stack of folded broadsheets, I felt bold and broached the subject.

“Honey, I’d like to rethink our subscription to the Sunday paper.”

After an expectedly tense moment, she replies.

“What’s the problem with me perusing a few weekly ads maybe reading the comics. It’s not an extravagant expense.”

Well, she’s got me there.

Pownce, Exit Here.

While, I wasn’t kind to Pownce a year ago, twice even. There are many unfortunate things about the shuttering of Pownce.

Halfway down the list is making the mistaken assumption that the same shuttering couldn’t happen to Twitter (or any other centralized, free, web service). Remember Evan sold Blogger to Google 6 years ago – before Blogger had a sustained, cash flow positive, revenue model.

Something about leopards and spots.

If Pownce was a publicly traded company that just closed up shop – the price of Twitter, Facebook, and Friendfeed would have just tanked (then again, I’ve been shorting ‘social networks’ for a year).

Perhaps Pownce’s greatest success was simply all the press and publicity it got. For a service around for maaaaayyybe 24 months – much enk was spilled.

So congrats to Leah – on a successful exit.

Oh, and Leah, perhaps you could join us for a MinneDemo or MinneBar?

Garrick Last Minute Addition to IDSAmn’s ‘Design Your Career’ Event

This Thursday night, Dec 4th, I’ll be giving a brief talk on using online communities & publications – weblogs, Twitter, etc – to position yourself professionally.

Word is, I’ll be on after the panel and before the beer.

Wait, that can’t be right.

More info here: IDSAmn’s Design Your Career IDSAmn + PDMA Co-Panel Event

Update: Dec 4.
Well, that didn’t work out. My apologies to all.

Long Questions

Jen and I start our 12th year of marriage this week. We’ve been together for 15 years. There’s a good chance – Murphy willing – we’ll see our odometers flip together, that’d make 75 years of marriage.

Assuming we get there, we’ve got 2 more entire lifetimes in front of us.

A decade ago, my profession didn’t exist. Nearly all the companies I’ve worked for since, gone.

Assuming I’ve only really got 1 more ‘productive member of society’ lifetime left in me:

  • Is the work I’m doing now what I want to be doing for another 3 decades?
  • If not, what kind of work would keep me curious, interested, and fed for multiple decades?
  • What can I start now, that will make my 2nd and 3rd lives less stressful and more enjoyable?
  • How do I imagine for 6 decades out when I have a hard time imaging past June ’09?

Micro-vicious Circles

After 3 years, nearly 1500 updates, exploration from many angles, numerous conversations, and wastebaskets full of crumpled analysis, I’m proud to say, I grok Twitter. Like I’ve never grokked it before1.

I also know why Twitter, Friendfeed, Facebook, et al, are better* than WordPress, Blogger, MovableType, etc.

And it’s completely the blog-engines’ fault. They’re some how locked into what a ‘blog’ is.

It’s not.

While I share Dave’s complaints2, I feel any free, hosted service has the same primary issue – people with accounts have no leverage in service availability.

*Poof*

and all my data is gone and I’m at the mercy of someone else’s feature set. I’m not comfortable with that. Not for my writing.

1. Hint – I’ve got a blog. The difference between this blog and something like Twitter – especially Friendfeed – is smaller than you think.

2. Dave, interesting note – the people I have lunch with are on Twitter. I suspect the people you have lunch with are on FriendFeed. Though – how we schedule lunch is less important than actually having lunch. I have a Friendfeed account primarily for your stuff that I personally preferred you published @ EGC, but either way, I pipe it through Cullect.

Home is Where the Blog Is

Back in June of ’08, I wrote a (relatively-speaking) lot here. Writing here is much more satisfying than almost any of my neigh 5k 160-character updates. Aside from the obvious freedom-to-be-verbose and control over visual presentation, and self-archiving, here is satisfying. Here is home.

Elsewhere isn’t.

When you comment here – it feels neighborly.

Elsewhere it feels like shouting at each other over the din.

While the updates here may be short (or long), this blog has regained write-of-first-refusal over other places.

The Wrong Stuff

“When software works, it all looks the same. When it doesn’t work, it all looks different.”

“How’s that?…Fella, I said, How’s that?”

“When software doesn’t work, it all looks scared.”

(apologies to Tom Wolfe)