Floozy Speak!

So I've been playing with some new betas lately.  First up is Seesmic, a video conversation beta that people are calling the twitter of video.  Right off the bat I'm always curious about new video betas.  I'm a video blogger, I've done the tube, operator11, ktye dance etc, why not this new thing called Seesmic. 

Not much new.  Videos are captured in the browser and part of gigantic thread of hey theres, replies to older videos and those general talking head shots.  The biggest problem you have in these video beta sites lately is answering WHY I should do it and giving me easy at a glance understanding of what is happening and sorting of content.  Seesmic gives me neither.  The massive thread list of videos along the left hand side is just reminding you that you can't keep up with content.  I know theres people sneezing on the planet I don't need a minute by hour by day accounting of who sneezed and there's no real part of me that wants to rewind the thread back a few dozen pages and see who sneezed yesterday at about 2:35pm.  I don't care.  Even then if I did care, how can find stuff easily?  Nothings sortable, I tried to look for replies to my own videos, I couldn't easily do it, I had to flip down page after page after page to try and find my subject header.  This started me thinking that the best way to see at glance replies to your post is to make sure your post has a very unique visual identifier like 44444ASS CAT or !!!!! YOHO or something.  Otherwise you find yourself retracing back to previous pages thinking wait a sec, did I miss something?

I suppose Seesmic could care less about what happened 20 mins ago.  Many of these new kinds of twitter done in a different way type sites are pushing the idea of conversational blasting, its the pulse of the current moment that really matters nothing else.  But its pretty easy to write interesting analytical tools for twitter content and search and sort it out, its impossible to do that with Seesmic. 

Seesmic gives you the basics, ya get a profile, you can follow someone, they can follow you, but you can't follow threads you create.  That seems whacked. 

There's a bit of self love in Seesmic too with the idea that you can follow the makers of the site as they try to make the site successful.  That's not really a new trend, thats more of a plea in "use me!!". 

Settings in Seesmic allows me to dial out all the languages I don't want to watch, but when ya do that, I dunno, part of me thinks yer kinda modifiying the conversation.  Its basically saying you can toss out half of the data in regards to this context.  Most of the folks in other countries still speak english or broken english, they are just recording the video from France etc.  So why toss out that video unless you absolutely have to.  Maybe those settings are there for sheer paranoia?  I dunno. 

Another thing that gets me is that there's a tab for "shows".  Wait a sec, what's that, we have this big conversation thread here, the main piece of the puzzle and then you got youtube video like show section?  I don't understand why its there. 

If anything Seesmic reminds me of work, cause I'll have to dig to find anything I really want to find.  There's no tag cloud, catagories, most watched, most embedded, linked, commented, etc, none of that, every video has the same weight as another. 

Video quality is subpar.  May not be the sites fault per say since we haven't evolved the webcam yet, but still, quality could be better. 

Overall I'm confused by Seesmic and I don't find myself drawn to it.  Its basically visual IRC, and if you knew anything about IRC it really did well for the people who didnt have jobs and could chat all day long.  IRC was internet relay chat, came before IM even.  Its the old school chat room affect.  Expect theres no chat rooms in Seesmic, its all one big conversation, and its great if you are posting 100 videos a day, one every 34 seconds to keep up with whatever people are talking about.  Those of you that have to work, yer out of the loop, 8 hours away from Seesmic is like 10 pages of content to fumble through and in internet time like 5 days. 

Tags: seesmic

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Posted by dan at 10:39 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

I can't believe i'm saying this but I really think I'm getting used to V8.  There I said it.  Its good for me, its pretty damn waking as far as a giving your entire body a huge HELLO and its well good for ya etc.

I mean for the longest time V8 was like the anti-drink for me, couldn't stand it.  Now, well, now I dig it.  Figures.

Let's see I've lost about 4-5 pounds in about 4 weeks of holy eating.  Not suffering really, still getting all my good stuff, no sweets though, well expect for fat free sugar free pudding, but other than that, its all been smooth eatin sailing, and I feel good.

In other news, we picked up a new kitty this weekend.  We knew going to the cat shelter would probably be a bad idea, sure enough we went, saw many a cute cat, and ended up coming home with a new one... Bob.  Bob's a 2yr domestic short hair, he's got a little bob tail, his full tail, well we don't know the story there, but hes full of energy, really casual and lots of fun. 

I also played alot of BioShock this weekend, now that is a game I cannot find any fault for, its just too cool and a ton of fun to play.  I love the plasmids, and I have to say, I'm hell bent on harvesting those little fiends.  I can't believe my friend Troy opt'd to save them all! 

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Posted by dan at 09:53 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

And now a moment in Eyes Only analysis... what the hell is that?  I dunno, just came to me.  I've been reading some blogs this morning catching up on the whos who of design trends fanfare and such.

Run Forest!

Forrester is an increasingly interesting company to follow.  More on the marketing and thought leadership side of promoting better ideas through trend analysis and collective wisdom and opinions.  In just about every corner of newness on the web you can find Forrester hanging out with their packed lunch sitting on the bench reading their own latest thought flyer.  Its nice actually, its kinda nice to see consistent awarness and drive like that.  Sadly, much of their content is on a paid basis only, so ya gotta pay to be enlightened, either that or ya gotta follow their scent throught the mass cogg works of the internet.  Luckily I'm pretty skilled at that, I can hunt down their stink pretty easily.

Get Clippin!

I started using ClipMarks yesterday, I wanted yet another tool to help me capture thoughts on the web so that I could share them easier with the work collective.  Its part of my new drive and direction for 2008 as mister Trends, Tools and Technology.  There's lots to do of course, some of which tends to pass over peoples heads as I ramble at the speed of thought.  So far, ClipMarks is pretty decent.

Watching on the web...

I've been laughing up storm over the unaired 1994 24 pilot, and I kinda like the Whopper Freak Out commerical, clever marketing. 

Tags: forrester, clipmarks, youtube, 1994, 24, burgerking

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Posted by dan at 11:23 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Yesterday I went in for a 3D cardio scan, thats basically taking a 3d image of my heart and blood flow.  In the past few weeks I've been feeling kinda blah.  I had some chest pain, more than usual, and it was a combination of stress and heart burn.  Today I feel much better but at the time it sent me freaking out to the doctor.  I haven't had a physical in 8 years, I was probably over due. 

Yesterday as part of my cardio pictures I also did a stress test.  They smacked half a dozen electrodes all over me and made me run on a treadmill.  Overall faily painless experience.  Initially I was freaked out about the idea of radiolite injected into my bloodstream.  And then while getting the pictures done, sitting still for 20 minutes with yer arms over yer head wasn't all that fun either. 

My blood work, and ekg's all came back with one big "normal" message.  My cholestrol isn't high, everything seems normal.  This all comes down to the last obvious fact that I'm a big 6'5 heavy guy, and that weight more than anything else is my real enemy here.

About 5 years ago I joined McConnell Heart Center Gym and enrolled into the weight program, it was good, in about 5 months I lost 35 pounds gain a bunch of  muscle and confidence to boot, then of course.. i started dating.  LOL

Now I seem to have a love/hate relationship with McConnell, its a good gym, great facility, but its expensive as all hell and its weight program carries a hefty price tag on top of the already.  Base membership is about $85 bucks, the weight program is $130.. a month.. ouch!  But it all comes down to the cost of health.  What is the price of feeling good?  The only thing that gets me about the weight program is that for that extra cash, all you really do differently is meet with someone three times a week, show them your food log, they nod and make suggestions you usually already know, and then yer back to doing your workout.  Its good for a start but once you get going, the benefits of the $130 price tag start to fall off.   Its the same with trainers I think, though I've only really experienced one, it was great for a time, but expensive and eventually it was more of a meet and greet vs a really work me to the bone thing.  

So where to now?  Now that weight has reared its vile head again.  Part of me wants to just get good advice from a nutrionist, and a few warm up get into your groove sessions from a trainer and then leave me be as I need a habit to form here. 

Like everything I start on multiple fronts.  Home wise I've got the diet down, its not really a diet, its a life change affect on how ya eat, and Mary and I, have done that pretty well.  We eat pretty "holy" I think.  And I think my body is fine with it really, its just getting back to sweatin is what I need. 

This xmas will be also be a workout like get fit feel good xmas.  I've loaded up on healthy gifts for the both of us, it should be good.   On the gym thing I still need to decide what I'm going to do. 

So let's keep them thoughts grooving and get back to better health.

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Posted by dan at 10:12 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)