I think it’s a good thing that I’m starting to analyse a service before using it. I’ve had a few bad experiences with social services because I impulsively signed up. My inbox was filled with spam messages coming from these services, privacy issues appeared, and if I used some service, it turned out to be a total bore after some time.

The worst decision you can make when choosing from this ocean of social services is to use a service just because “everyone’s on it” and it’s cool. If you are choosing a service, analyse the advantages it can offer you and then decide if it’s worth it.

These should be the main questions you should ask yourself when signing up:

• Why should I create an account on “New Social Network X“?
• What are the advantages of this service?
• How can it help me?
• How will it affect my online privacy?

Read more »

I decided to install the Blackbird Pie WordPress plugin and play a little bit with it. The WordPress plugin was created after Twitter created the Blackbird Pie service. It allows you to embed tweets into your blog posts, just like you would do with other embeddable media (flash games, videos, etc.).

The plugin gives you a few possibilities to embed tweets. The most easy to use is to take the complete URL of a tweet and paste it into your blog post. I added the following two tweets by using the complete URL and the id of the tweets.

Here are two embedded tweets from my timeline:

A tweet in Romanian:

And one in English:

I used [blackbirdpie url="http://twitter.com/danielvoicu/status/14483309763"] for the first tweet and for the second I used [blackbirdpie id="14439778971"].

When you use these commands, you will notice that the plugin creates custom fields. You can edit them afterwards. I didn’t edit the first tweet just to show you the plugin has a small issue when it comes to special characters, in this case some Romanian letters.

You can find the plugin here, and if you want to read more about it, visit the developer’s site.

While browsing the web, I found this presentation of Shay Howe about the right way of writing for the web. Although the Internet is mostly about content, it seems to be considered the least important part of a website when developing one.

Here’s the presentation. I hope you’re going to find it useful:

We share so much personal babble about us on so many social networks. The internet has become the marketer’s dream, if one knows how to use it in one’s interest.

We’ve started to shed the clothes of anonymity, thinking that the Internet will give us at least a small amount of fame. Those 15 minutes of fame, at least. Or 15 MB of fame, if we move the whole thing online.

I am witnessing – as we all do – a complete renunciation of privacy in favor of a weird transparency that on the long run will affect our relationships, whether they are professional, love or family relations. We’re in a fast-forward medium that also allows us to skip moments. We only want the start and the end, forgetting about what’s in-between.

We share pictures on Facebook, let the whole world know we’re in a relationship with another Facebook user, tweet about things that a decade ago were considered intimate.

That’s why I am asking you: where are we heading? What’s the future of “sharing” and how does the current state affect us on the long run?

Everyone talks about Twitter these days: personal branding on Twitter, making friends through Twitter, finding new stuff on Twitter… Twitter, Twitter, Twitter!

As one of the somewhat-early adopters of this service, I noticed that Twitter is – actually was – based on the concept of simplicity. In time, along with the features introduced by users (conventions like the @ sign for replies) noise was created and the need to separate the interesting, juicy stuff from the mundane, boring things appeared.

Buuut… that’s not the subject of this post. Still, I want to relate to simplicity. We all have a favorite Twitter client which we use on our PCs or Macs. For example, I have two of them: at the office I use Tweetie (for Mac) and at home I use an app I just discovered, called Ada.

Ada Twitter from Madan

Before Ada I used Twhirl on my home computer but it kinda got too bulky for my taste. Many buttons and too many features doesn’t mean an application will satisfy everyone.

Ada is a small, simple, AIR-based app that won’t bother you with notifications while you’re working. The most recent version is 1.20 and you can find it here. It has a few themes that you can use and a drop-down menu from which you can choose what to see: main timeline, mentions and direct messages.

Although it’s pretty minimal and it won’t bother you like other apps, it still lacks some basic features. For example, I think that it wasn’t necessary a button for marking favourite tweets but one for sending direct messages to a tweet’s owner. I also don’t see why a “favorite tweet button” exists as there is no way to see the tweets you favourited through Ada. Or maybe I haven’t discovered it yet…

Another much needed feature would be using different colours for replies and direct messages. This would help out users who follow a lot of persons to differentiate replies and DMs from normal tweets directly on the main timeline.

Anyway, this little app is lovely and I would recommend it to everyone who wants a multiplatform Twitter client based on the concept of simplicity.

A few days ago I read something really interesting on Seth Godin‘s blog, an idea that’s been buzzing me a lot lately. The Internet is full. And Mr. Godin is not talking about physical storage, which is continuously growing. He’s talking about us, the Internet users. WE are full. For example, I am feeling full of all the social media/social networks/keeping in touch with friends, reading blogs, etc. And it seems that I don’t find anything new on the Internet lately.

I had an account on most of the popular social networks, including Myspace, Facebook, Twitter, etc. Because I felt overwhelmed by them, I started quitting my accounts one by one. At this moment, I am using Twitter, Facebook and Linkedin with their usage exactly in this specific order. The “super-duper” trio.

Theoretically, if we would stop using the Internet for a couple of years, leaving behind everything that’s online and web related, the enthusiasm might return and some really cool apps would be created after this “hibernation”. Although the technology gives us the possibility to create the most interesting things we are “getting used to” the old things and not looking to create some advanced web apps.

Serviciul de marketing afiliat 2Parale

Radu Spineanu a anuntat astazi lansarea serviciului de affiliate marketing 2Parale, tinut in private beta din luna iulie a acestui an.

Prin affiliate marketing se permite monetizarea continutul de calitate specific unei nise. Astfel, advertiserii vor plati pentru actiuni masurabile pe serviciile lor si nu se va mai face plata pentru obtinerea unei audiente.

Am avut ocazia sa testez 2Parale de prin august fiind inscris cu proiectul UnseenRomania in acest program. As putea spune ca am vazut proiectul crescand si modelandu-se dupa feedbackul primit de la utilizatorii din private beta. S-a dezvoltat intr-un timp foarte scurt intr-un proiect promitator ce cu siguranta isi va atrage utilizatori intr-un timp si mai scurt. Partea de administrare a campaniilor e foarte intuitiva astfel incat va veti putea concentra pe ceea ce aveti de facut, nefiind nevoiti sa pierdeti timp sa invatati panoul.

Imi cer scuze ca nu am putut da prea multe detalii dar iata aici cateva linkuri de pe blogul 2Parale care ar putea clarifica posibilele nelamuriri cu legatura la affiliate marketing si 2Parale:

De ce marketing afiliat?

Cum functioneaza marketingul afiliat

Pot sa fiu un afiliat?

Succes celor din spatele proiectului si utilizatorilor!

Today the Free Software Foundation (FSF) has announced that it has filed a copyright infringement lawsuit against Cisco. It seems that Cisco violated the licenses of GCC, binutils, and the GNU C Library through its Linksys brand. All of them are released under GPL and LGPL, so basically everyone had the right to modify and share Cisco’s stuff but the company denied this right to the users.

“Our licenses are designed to ensure that everyone who uses the software can change it,” said Richard Stallman, president and founder of the FSF. “In order to exercise that right, people need the source code, and that’s why our licenses require distributors to provide it. We are enforcing our licenses to protect the rights that everyone should have with all software: to use it, share it, and modify it as they see fit.”

These are parts from a press release I got today, with a few modifications.  I’m wondering what will be Cisco’s next move. Will they open up their stuff according to the General Public License and LGPL or will they try to prove they’re “innocent”?

Hello world. I’m testing Zoho Writer, an online platform that allows you to write anything, from anywhere. You can also post to your blog, like I’m doing right now.

I like the way it looks, if you’ve used an offline office suite, you will get used to it in a very short time. There are some issues, though. For example, I am using  Firefox 3.0.4 on Ubuntu Hardy Heron. There’s some sort of lag, as the characters appear delayed. The fonts look a little bit unaligned and there’s a horizonal ruler that appears halfed.

I will try it on Windows XP and Mac OS X pretty soon.

La noi in tara se moare de foame, dar se ridica biserici intr-o veselie. Vad cum rasar ca ciupercile dupa ploaie si ma intreb din banii cui sunt ridicate. Inteleg ca unele sunt facute din “donatiile” unor persoane publice care poate ca incearca sa isi spele pacatele sau sa motiveze niste sume de bani.

Unde bat de fapt? Aici bat: Oamenilor, in tara asta se moare de foame, nu avem nevoie de biserici, avem nevoie de adaposturi pentru batrani (ati vazut cati sunt pe strazile din Bucuresti si cersesc?), avem nevoie de niste scoli mai bune care sa poata fi numite cu adevarat scoli. Si profesorii de doi bani trimisi acasa, nu tinuti in institutii pentru ca au nu stiu ce pile.

Biserici? La ce bun?! Sa vedem maratoane de inchinat in autobuz sau alt mijloc de transport in comun. Ma amuza chestia asta, mai ales cand gestul vine din partea unor persoane in care poti citi ca nu au dat decat de vreo doua-trei ori pe la biserica in viata lor, si atunci pentru a se ruga sa le iasa nu stiu ce smecherie. Vreau sa vad si eu un adapost de batrani ridicat in locul unei biserici. Nu ii ajuta cu nimic pe acesti oameni daca DOAR se duc la biserica. Au nevoie de un acoperis deasupra capului, au nevoie de mancare si de liniste. Raiul nu e o promisiune prea frumoasa cand ai stomacul gol si iti tremura picioarele de oboseala.

Nu stiu din ce cauza au ajuns batraneii astia in strada, dar e dureros sa ii vezi ca-ti cer ajutorul si nu poti decat sa ii ajuti sa isi ia ceva de mancare. Ei intotdeauna spun “sa-ti ajute Dumnezeu…” daca le dai mancare sau niste bani. Si cred ca o spun destul de sincer, in comparatie cu popii. As vrea sa se poata mai mult. Si cred ca se va putea, cu destui oameni care se vor trezi din adormirea asta si se vor interesa de oamenii de langa ei, netinand cont de religie sau alti factori ce duc DOAR la dezbinare.