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louisgray.com

Early adopter. Thought leader. Silicon Valley tech geek blogger.

TweetDeck Marks One Year Anniversary: The Journey and What's NextYesterday

Editor's Note: On July 4, 2008, TweetDeck, a new Adobe AIR application for Twitter, was introduced to the world, on this blog. Twelve months later, it is unquestionably one of the most popular microblogging clients in the world. I had the opportunity to trade e-mails with its developer, Iain Dodsworth, to learn more about his journey, and what's next. -- Louis
Louis: Iain, first, thanks for the opportunity to talk to you about TweetDeck on the one year anniversary of the product's unveiling to the public. I was happy to play a small role in its debut, and having gotten the opportunity to watch as its visibility and influence has grown dramatically, not only becoming arguably the most popular third party Twitter application, but becoming the gold standard by which all competitive offerings are compared, and setting a new bar for Adobe AIR as a development platform.

Now twelve months into TweetDeck's life, your world has to have changed significantly. First, Twitter has exploded - from a time waster and communications tool for early adopter tech snobs to a household buzzword being featured

As Retweeting Rises, Linking Continues to DeclineYesterday

Operating a blog focused on early adopters means being willing to adapt as technology and the world around us evolves. One of the more-recent additions to the blog was my embedding of buttons from TweetMeme, to show how often my posts were being linked to on Twitter, and making it easier for others to retweet these items, even thought I've already gone on record as not being a big fan of retweeting myself.

I made the change not because of a change in my own practices, but due to recognition that many people are turning to Twitter to share links and find new links from peers. While most of my posts only get a few dozen tweets, some have numbered over a hundred. And as this occurs, in parallel, the total number of links back to the Web site from other blogs is decreasing.

Not too long ago, one of the most common items to see featured on a blog was one's Technorati Authority, showing the number of unique blogs that linked back to you in the previous six months. Looking back at some of my "State of the Blog" entries I used to post monthly, I can see tha

Arrington Betting Big On the CrunchPad Mobile DeviceYesterday

While many things have been written and said about TechCrunch's Michael Arrington since he debuted his technology blog network four years ago, he is without a doubt a risk taker. The pending launch of the eagerly awaited CrunchPad device could possibly do more to define his legacy than almost any other challenge he has taken on. Not content to having one of the most visible and influential technology sites on the Web, Arrington looks to be charging head-first into an extremely competitive field of consumer electronics, an area that will cost considerable investment of both time and money. If the CrunchPad is a success, the way we consume the Internet on the go could be forever changed. And if it is not, the device will join the ranks of many that have charged up the hill before it and fallen short.

Arrington's trait of a risk taker is one that has helped make him very successful, pushing his blog to near mainstream acceptance, competing against publications with history marked in centuries. And now, the story of the CrunchPad, so far, is one of his trying to develop a product that was a solution to a problem no consumer electronics hardware developer has yet done well -

FriendFeed Debuts Real-Time Search Spanning 50+ Social SitesJuly 2

More than a simple aggregation tool and social network, FriendFeed has grown to be one of the deepest social databases on the Web, taking in information from more than 50 different social sites, including blogs, status updates, photos, presentations and video, and making it searchable. The service moved its core product to real-time a few months ago, and has now taken a big leap forward in also making its search results real-time, letting you see how people from around the Web are engaging and talking about topics, covering much more than "just Twitter", which so far has been the go-to destination for real-time response.

Best of all, the service isn't asking you to change the way you do searches, and all saved searches on FriendFeed work, but they now execute in real-time and continue live updating as new entries are added to the service.

For example, I could now embed a vanity search in my blog and see it in real time, thanks to FriendFeed.

As you can no doubt guess, popular discussions that have dominated Trending Topics on Twitter would also see rap

10 People To Follow On FriendFeed For June 2009June 30

Tenth Edition Of a Monthly Series (combined with Mike Fruchter's efforts)

New registrants of any social network can no doubt find the quest to find interesting people and friends a challenge. That's why Twitter built a manually-selected Suggested User List, and why FriendFeed prompts new signups with avatars showing the most subscribed people from across the network. But as we know, popularity doesn't always reflect quality, and often, some intriguing users are much less visible. That's part of why my tag team partner Mike Fruchter and I have taken the effort to highlight ten FriendFeed accounts every month. Even in month ten, I know the well's not dry, so if you believe you or others should be included, you know how to reach me - in the comments, via e-mail, and of course, on FriendFeed.

June 2009's featured FriendFeeders are:

1) Layne Heiney (LPH and His Dog P)

Short Bio: Layne Heiney has one foot in the world of education and another in the world of technology. Holding teaching credentials in both biology and chemistry,