As I said in my previous post reading news in anything but an online Newsreader seems like a lost cause at the moment. Until an offline newsreader syncronizes with an online newsreader, there just isn't any point. That being said, I will make one major prop for Flock, that is that they have made it dead easy to add a newsfeed to an Google Reader.
Just click and then click on the Add to Google Reader link and done.
I like that.
I like nearly everyone on the planet have a bit of an issue with procrastination. If something can be done now, but it could also be done later, why not later? While there are a good many articles on how bad for you procrastination is for you I am not going to choose to dwell on it here. Instead I'll refer you to my betters here and here. Instead I would like to dwell on this...
The trouble with this confirmation is all the thoughts that go through my head everytime I see it. The obvious "Do I want to have my password remembered here?" "How sensitive is this password?" "How public is this computer?"
The more obscure "Do I want to have to remember this password?" "If I say yes, I will lose that reminder of what this password is and may forget it! Then what will I do?"
And rather than making any decision after all those thoughts, I just click "Not Now" and walk away feeling defeated, that once again I couldn't make this decision. If there is a one-password-to-rule-them-all solution that is reasonably secure that would be nice, but it seems like a pretty difficult problem.
Oh yeah, and I would like to make one more button on that confirmation dialog box. It's the "if I get my password right, then remember it" button.
The Flock Media Bar is easily one of the best parts of Flock. Having friends picture come up as they are available without having to go and check afcebook/flickr to find them is just plain awesome. It is quickly becoming my favorite part of Flock.
My only gripe is the double entries. It seems if I have included facebook - Photos of my Friends, and Facebook Photos from your Friends as favorite streams I end up with them in the media bar twice. I mean its no BIG deal, but this is where the polish on the application comes in.
I don't want to see the photo twice. I don't want to see the photo twice.
Not to be overly negative, I am totally enjoying Flock and the media bar is a KEY feature.
StumbleUpon I didn't really now what to expect when I started using StumbleUpon. "Another social bookmarking site" I thought, will this be any more useful/interesting than del.icio.us? or digg?
Why do I find myself actually using StumbleUpon while my digg.com and del.icio.us accounts die a slow death?
- It's like channel surfing the internet. One thing about the internet, you'll only find something if you're looking for it. StumbleUpon fills that need to kill time in a mostly passive way. What do you want to look at or read about? Who cares! Just hit the stumble button and see what you get!
- It's not a competition - Digg I'm sorry, but I feel like I'm competing when I digg something, will my digg bring something to the front page will it not. I don't think I want to care. I'm just going to give it the thumbs up to let the rest of the stumbling world know this doesn't suck. It might not be new news, it might not even be an article.
- The toolbar. Ok, I installed the toolbar, generally I hate toolbars in my browser. They clutter everything up, rob you of screen space, but there's two thing I like about this toolbar. It doesn't take me to the StumbleUpon website, which I don't really want to go to anyways. And it has a simple thumbs up button, no competitions just a trail of thumbs ups to guide the next soul in search of something interesting.
So for those of you who like me, occasionally just want to be entertained. Try StumbleUpon see if you like it, I seem to.
For those looking to find the strengths of each of these services I would say: Digg is more like News Del.icio.us is more like Bookmarks StumbleUpon is more like A tour guide for the internet.
It seems that in my world where I no longer have a TV and my social networking energy is limited, having a guide, is kind of nice.
Tags: Flock, stumbleupon, digg, del.icio.us, improvements
This is a little outlet and memory bank for Jeff Richards. A place to collect the pieces of life that I find our worth collecting and sharing.
All the best