This week saw another example of a respected blogger justifying his decision to not having comments on his site.

In a lengthy entry arguing his decision with an example, Marco highlights a long rant by a The Verge reader. The comment is basically geared against the so-called ‘iCult’ and hits out at Mac developers not knowing how to program. Marco replies via his entry and goes an extra-ordinarily lengths to justify his CS background, and knowledge of programming. In his post he even quotes the full comment, because his site doesn’t have any comments.

The first reaction, as a comment-allowing site owner, is of course to say ‘If you can’t take the heat or don’t want to take the heat, use the delete button’.

But of course deleting comments is usually an even more sensible issue. When a negative comment is deleted, often the poster will run to social media platforms and buzz the fact that their comment has been deleted.

It’s a lose-lose situation

Sadly by not allowing comments, often a smart conversation goes lost as well, and if people make the effort to get in touch with the author often the readers are exempt of the awesome discussion.

Facebook has tried to solve the comment issue by highlighting the most liked comments, but in all honesty Facebook comments do suck. While the added bonus of Facebook comments might be the authenticity, rather than anonymous comments, there is much negative to be said about Facebook comments on sites. Just try to find something back in a popular Facebook comment comment thread some weeks or months later.
Timing is also an issue with FB comments. Most likes will initially be given to early comments, and then after a while to the comments which are always at the top of the thread, and thus the most liked ones.

Of course the advantage with this approach is that the typical internet commenters bug is not shown to most readers. One needs to follow only popular soccer blogs writing about another popular team to know how useless comments often can be. Complete with the compulsory ‘First’ comments, often at he third slot.

Some years ago College Humor parodied internet comments in this funny video, ‘Internet Commenter Business Meeting’

With a vaste range of useless ‘How to get readers to post comments’ tutorials available all over the internet, plugins aggregating the discussion which takes places on social networks, the comment issue has not been solved and probably never will.

To comment or not to allow comments is and stays the question.

Photo Credit: Photo by Duncan C on Flickr.

By concentrating our efforts on our digital properties, we can continuously update our content and further expand the number of topics and the depth with which they are treated without the space constraints of the print set. In fact, today our digital database is much larger than what we can fit in the print set. And it is up to date because we can revise it within minutes anytime we need to, and we do it many times each day.

Encyclopedia Britannica, Inc. is the publisher of 16 iOS apps (iTunes link), as well as publisher of several online encyclopaedias under the domain britannica.com. Neither of the apps offer fully free access to all the content published, the Encyclopaedia Britannica app costing a whopping $1.99/month subscription fee. It wouldn’t take long before online pundits, and people spending a majority of their time online every day, would object, even calling the publisher out of tune with the times. But this is wrong.

Encyclopaedia Britannica Broadens Its Targeted Audience Group by Charging

It would be wrong to say that the publisher charging for something limits their audience, and relegates them to the corner of the companies out of tune. The Belgian rightholders group SABAM, who want to charge libraries for reading books to kids, are out of time. Let me repeat that again:

The Belgian SABAM group who want to charge libraries for reading books to kids are out of time.

Charging public institutions to read books to kids is not only ridiculous but also out of touch with the world. And I’m not the only one who thinks so.

The Culture of Free™ is a fad, a fad which will soon disappear

Not subscribing to the culture that all content should be freely available does not equate to being out of time. Even not if there is a free alternative. Or a cheaper alternative. Nor are the Washington Post, the New York Times, and the Financial Times out of touch for charging for access to their complete library. Nor is BMW wrong for charging more for its cars although cheaper alternatives are available.

What the Encycloaedia Britannica did was actually the opposite of what the online living people claim. Rather than being out of touch with the reality of the internet, the Culture of Free™, they broadened their targeted demographics. At $1,99/month versus $699 for a second hand 2007 edition on eBay, or $1,395 for the last ever print edition.

Instead all Encyclopaedia Britannica content, more than in the printed edition and with every day updates, is now available for the meager sum of $1,99/month. A subscription fee which can be ended and picked up at every time.

Picture stolen from Bogart The Explorer's FB page

A subscription fee many fans of the free Google and just as free Wikipedia vehemently oppose. The main problem with this ever growing group, who belief in the right to free universal access with a simple keystroke is that they will not pay for content. Even if this access commands a fee, if there is a way to gain free access, they will do so if no free alternative is available. A smaller group will not need the access and resist temptation.

Luckily a free resource with lots of knowledge is available and that niche is covered. Thanks to Google and Wikipedia. And blogs publishing freely available content. Not everyone refuses to pay for content they might find freely though.

Encyclopaedia Britannica, Inc., an institution which can count more than 100 Nobel Prize Laureats, multiple Pulitzer Prize Laureats and thousands of other respected specialists to its stable of contributors, is an organization which does not cost anyone anything. They do not receive any cent or dime of our hard-earned money. Taxes are not given to them. Instead the company prides itself in delivering lots of high quality content, knowledge, at an ever cheaper price. With ever more articles and corrections are errors are found.
They have the right to charge whatever they think is reasonable. Or unreasonable.

Instead they opted to command the meager sum of $1,99/month. Around 25% of the price of the average Starbucks drink in the First World. Less than the price of two Magnum popsicles in the Third World.

Let’s do the Math

1,395÷1.99/month = 58 Years and 152 Days

The last printed edition of the 32-volume Encyclopedia Britannica sells at $1,395. A one-time fee for over 65,000 articles, written by more than 4,000 contributors. The online edition (for iOS) costs $1,99/month or 701 months access for the same price as the printed edition. 701 Months, or 54 years and 152 days access.
Access to an ever growing archive, with an ever expanding multimedia library. With always more links to reference worthy resources. With articles not limited by the physical size of a print edition anymore.

58 Years and 152 days of access for the same price.

Charging for Content: It’s OK. Really

In one of the many blog entries by Encyclopaedia Britannica staff, Change: It’s OK. Really, the first ever publisher of an online encyclopaedia emphasizes that the end of the print edition marks the beginning of a new era, “to serve knowledge and learning in new ways that go way beyond reference works”.

A new way to serve knowledge, knowledge brought to you by Nobel Prize winners, Pulitzer winners and thousands of other respected authorities in their field. Some of the brightest people to ever walk our planet. 58 Years and 152 days of access for the same price of one print edition.

Those who think this fee is too high can always fall back on Wikipedia and the knowledge which can be found via Google or other search engines. For many others the Encyclopaedia Britannica suddenly became more affordable and more accessible than ever.

A dream which became reality.

As a kid I have always been a reader. I would read more than 100 pages per day already when I was only 7 years young. I loved my parents’ Winkler Prins. On rainy days you could find me in my room, on bed with most of the time at least six tomes around me. I was a knowledge leech as kid already. My parents had a Wikipedia without online connection.

I was a reader with an unsatisfied hunger for knowledge. My life seemed complete.

The Internet, My New Encyclopaedia

I do not want to think of the enormous bills my parents probably had to pay but it was their own fault. They got a modem and showed me the internet. A nice internet. Looking at a monochrome monitor, often cursing at a blinking cursor at the top left of the screen while waiting for the information to download. Information coming from people I didn’t know, people who were all over the world. Lots of stuff to read. Newsgroups. My life couldn’t become better and if one, other than the usual sex, drugs and rock&roll, the internet certainly contributed to me ditching what pretty much every other adolescent did: watch TV, watch the ever more popular becoming MTV and sports. I was different.

In between two parties I would logon and read as much as I could before another Saturday evening of debauchery and alcohol followed. I wanted to read. As much as I could.

The internet provided me with a continuous flow of information, every day more. When mid 90s the main media started to publish their content online I almost immediately ditched my daily habit of reading the newspaper and Knack. My life became almost picture free. I read as many words as I could every day, often to the detriment of my social life but there was barely any discussion I could not participate to because I knew something about almost everything.

The Internet is for Text

Excuse me, and you might not agree with this opinion, but using a <h3> tag was both the easiest way and fastest way to display that message, *my* message, quickly and hugely. Maybe I should have used a <h2> tag even.

Even in these modern days of constantly faster connections I still believe in this statement: the.internet.is.for.text. Personally I can not say that I watch one online video per day on average. I love reading too much. Although I have a rather large movie collection, barely ever will I allow myself to take a break from reading and sit down for 2 hours or more, enjoying a movie. Barely ever will I allow myself to take a break from reading.

It’s who I am and although I appreciate Flickr and SmugMug or Vimeo, I prefer reading.

9Rules

I have more than once declared my love for 9Rules. When the ‘content gallery’ launched it was great at what it did: display awesome blogs about several topics. I was an avid lurker reader. As the network expanded I struggled to keep up with more than 140 additional blogs to my daily reading habits and at some point I stopped following the ever-growing network anymore. I figured that I would continue to discover awesome blogs just by reading the more than 400 blogs I already read.

Recently there have been some changes at 9Rules. 9Rules was sold to Splashpress Media, my employer. Because I did not believe the SplashPress Media network was a worthy bearer and owner of the once so thriving and awesome 9Rules, I shortly left Splashpress. But only for a really short time.

Long enough to refocus on the 9Rules.

Some day the unexpected happened. The (online) person who over the last years had inspired me most became the new publisher of Splashpress Media. Scrivs.

Mentoring is the best job ever

I re-entered the Splashpress Media fold and have been having a blast ever since. Never has a challenge been this big and rewarding. Every day again I strive to publish (at least prepare) new valuable content. Not write for traffic but write to contribute to the community. Write to constantly improve. Write to show that I belong on board and am a worthy member of the team.
In the background I have what is probably the most awesome job one can have: I help bloggers. Help them with tips how to find their blogging groove. How to feel great when writing something. My IM is always open and I would rather contribute to, collaborate on an entry for them than ignore them, trying to push out the best content I can deliver. We have seen some awesome results already over the last weeks and I am sure that some of our authors will be headhunted soon.

Because they write valuable content. Not because they know all tricks to rule the search engines and social media. Because their content is awesome.

Today’s there’s nothing more left for me than point you to the latest 9rules blog entry: Let’s refocus on quality content. An entry which makes me happy and makes me want to improve iFranky. Improve enough to some day be proud enough of my work here and submit this site to 9Rules.

Go read it now.

Photo credit: Image by neonihil

The time at Emmaus Preston was rather limited and even though I was happy not to have to deal with that board anymore, it has taken me around a year to reorganise and refocus.
Refocus and return to the colours of my roots: Racing White Daring Molenbeek, the first club I played football for.

I am no person who stands still for a long time or will whine about how miserable life is, but as the years slowly accumulated I certainly needed some time.

I don’t do end of year reviews either nor do I pay much attention to the symbolic importance of dates, years but I am happy to notice that there seems to be an upturn to life and I am slowly but surely starting to think again. Think about the future. Or as someone went ahead and changed my former life quote, ‘Life is 10% what happens to you and 90% how you react to it‘:

The best way to predict the future is to create it.

Of course all this doesn’t mean anything and I still have certain things to sort out.
I merely needed an excuse to announce the change in design, justify the colour change and state the obvious:

I’m back, bitches.

If there’s one thing you can learn from publishing online, especially in the news sector, it’s that you can’t let complacency set in. You have to grab things by the balls and do what you have to do.

The same applies to dreams, plans. They won’t happen while sitting there, waiting for a miracle. To be happy you have have to pursue your dreams and get active, get of that lazy ass of yours and stop bitching if that was what you were doing. Sometimes you might need a reminder, but when you have been lucky enough that someone woke you up… act! Don’t wait and talk about it, just do it!

I am hungry. I am an achiever. I want to be somewhere there at the top, where ever that may be.
Life’s short, too short and you only live once.

We all have our dreams and some of us are lucky enough to be able to work at their dreams. So it comes that hot on the heels of the acquisition news, I can announce that I have decided to step down from my position as member of the managing team at Splashpress Media . Step down after having worked up to where I was. Step down because I want more, because I am hungry.

Splashpress Media is a small company, an indie network and has always resisted the call of VC. There is no board I could possibly join as consultant, advisor or whatsoever, but I will be down in the trenches with the authors and freelance for both The Blog Herald and Forever Geek. Both those sites definitely should aspire to become worthy 9rules members. And I want to profile myself as a hard working and valuable 9r member.

What’s next for myself? I am an idea tank, throw something at me and within minutes I’ll have ideas for it. Change the core and only minutes later again, there are new ideas. But ideas alone are worthless, they also need to be converted. Now is the time to start showing that I have learned and not only play hard. Now is the time to act.

Act and live by the rules.

First I need a partner in crime and then… rock ‘n roll!

Image: Geopoliticus Child watching the birth of the New Man, Salvador Dalí.

Sometimes you are lucky without even realizing how much people would do to have the same opportunity you had. Today was one of these moments, the light shone on me, but not before I was reminded by Tyme White how lucky I was, after I had announced the acquisition of 9rules by Splashpress Media.

Although I am a latecomer to the blog party, being stuck in ‘CMS communities and *Nuke’ pretty much until early 2005, I had discovered 9rules a while before I left Germany already, sometime late 2003. When it was still a little club, a really little club of totally awesome blogs. A little club where I learned quite some about blogging and design. It were the days people still read feeds. When you were cool if you used Bloglines and later switched to Google Reader. Twitter had not launched yet. It was before I discovered The Blog Herald. It was before I had a blog. I even didn’t have a personal rant blog or Myspace. Facebook did not exist back then.

Blogging only became a reality end 2005 when I needed an outlet for the professional stress. I was not allowed to have a public figure. I overshared on my ‘anonymous’ blog. I did everything you shouldn’t do on a blog and almost paid the price for. Geek nature quickly took over and personal blogging disappeared more and more. I discovered WordPress via 9rules and The Blog Herald. I ditched my blogspot account and moved to Am I Famous Now . I now had a blog, I had to be famous!

I will never forget the day Mike Rundle left a comment. A comment on AIFN? A site written in my Engrish? WOW! OMG!
All while hiding behind my laziness fourth language, I had commented and put in doubt the exclusivity of 9rules after Round 4. Before I knew it, Scrivs linked back on the 9rules blog.

It was how everything started for me. It was when I decided to create the eyesore colour scheme of Am I Famous Now, my participation to the CSS Reboot. My pisstake on Web2.0 design: pink, lime green and Kappa4.0 badge, complete with drop shadow. Not to forget semantics. Even the sidebar titles aligned properly. If you used IE6 your comments weren’t welcome.

Yeah, baby. I was cool! Or something like that.

Before I knew it, I was offered a writing gig. On Jack of all Blogs, after another rant obviously. Those were the days, hit out at someone and earn yourself a writing gig or get linked.

Almost three years have passed since then and I have written on some prolific blogs for Splashpress Media: Tubetorial, BloggingPro, Forever Geek, Wisdump and since some weeks I regularly contribute to The Blog Herald. Every day I enjoy blogging more and more again.

I have been lucky to have had the occasion to write on several well-known blogs with a strong following, but most of all, these blog were all started by strong characters and they all have inspired me. One person always stood out.

More than Duncan at BH, Krug at JOAB or Mike over at Business Logs, Scrivs became my inspiration. The blogger I wanted to learn from, work with at some point. A born writer with a very outspoken opinion. A great online columnist, a true blogger. Living the life by 9 rules:

1. Love what you do.
2. Never stop learning.
3. Form works with function.
4. Simple is beautiful.
5. Work hard, play hard.
6. You get what you pay for.
7. When you talk, we listen.
8. Must constantly improve.
9. Respect your inspiration.

I admit that it was easy to have fun at his expense at times but would I have bothered if I did not follow the guy? No.
Thanks to my stints at JOAB and Wisdump, I grew up online. I needed a time out to re-evaluate my online persona. To work at my still not too great English. First work, then comeback.
When some days ago I was informed about the 9rules deal, I can not tell you what went through my head. OMG, WTF and Holy Frackin’ Noodles are only understatements coming nowhere close to my initial thoughts. I was stoked, hyped and nervous at the same time. I could not wait until Scrivs announced the news, to follow up with an entry at The Blog Herald. And then, then I saw the rules once more.

9 rules, 9 rules we all should endorse a lot more. But the first and last two are the most important ones to me:

1. Love what you do.
2. Never stop learning…
3. Must constantly improve.
4. Respect your inspiration.

Today everything starts all over. I will start working at making sure that the Splashpress sites I contribute to will be great enough to be submitted and become valuable members of the 9rules community. I will not run 9rules, but will actively participate to the hidden forums community.

Today reminds me of my inspirations. Today reminds me why I love publishing online. Tyme reminded me of how lucky and privileged I have been to publish on those sites and follow in the footsteps of these great and inspirational bloggers. Thank you 9rules, thank you Scrivs. I hope am sure we can do you proud.

Tomorrow is when I will proofread. Tomorrow is the day everything starts from scratch. :)

KeegsMom
it was a scenario description, but I take your point, getting to even a couple of thousand a month is hard going. If you want to ping me on email duncan at nichenet.com.au I’d be happy to take a look at what you’re currently doing and share some personalized advice if you like. Always happy to help. [Emphasis mine]

Yes, that is right. Initially the internet was built upon helping each other. Whether it was by sharing links to awesome sites/content or by sharing tips and tricks.

And I remember plenty of moments when I hit up people like Duncan or Matt Craven and if they were online, within minutes, you’d have a Skype session with them.

Sometimes I wish the _next big thing_ would start and it would be a mix of the _old garde_ again. Back to the old style, the time when everyone helped each other out.
Hats off Duncan for still keeping up the old spirit!

What is Spotify?

Spotify is a new way to enjoy music. Simply download and install, before you know it you’ll be singing along to the genre, artist or song of your choice. With Spotify you are never far away from the song you want.
… There are no restrictions in terms of what you can listen to or when. Forget about the hassle of waiting for files to download and fill up your hard drive before you get round to organising them. Spotify is instant, fun and simple.

Seems like I have heard that before. Pandora? Music recommendation platforms, nowadays as easy to find as social networks.

So what’s special about Spotify? It’s fast. At times. The sound quality is highly acceptable and they have a huge library. MOD. You can listen to complete albums at once, without having to click every track like at Last.fm. You can skip as many tracks as you want unlike with Pandora. The radio service is not too bad. You can build your playlists and share them online.

But I miss things, I love the recommendation platform from both last.fm and Pandora. especially because I can listen to ‘similar artists’ station. I love having a profile I can submit everything I listen to. And most of all, even though last.fm has not announced the pricing structure for unlimited MOD, Spotify seems expensive. Right now, all you need is an invite code to access the platform. Some days you might see the occasional ad in the player, other days you might not see advertising at all. If you want an ad free platform it’ll cost you $.99/day or $9.99/month. I just can’t see why I would pay (yet). Maybe if more features are implemented in the near future I might change opinion, until then I will stick with last.fm.
To be entirely honest… what’s the hype about Spotify about? And no I have no Spotify invites.

The will to share, the possibility to share. The ease of sharing.
The eternal chase for that special invite to a closed, private beta. The fear of missing out on the next big thing, only accessing a new service when they launch publicly.

The ease of meeting new people, the ease of accessing awesome content. Short or long. That same ease to throw everything overboard again and forget about those new people, that awesome content and enjoy life, enjoy the always rainy weather in this country.

I am confuzed. I want to blog again, I really want to write again but sadly can’t settle on a topic. I’m your usual geek, always learning, leeching knowledge and discovering new stuff, even new professional ventures in. But, I tasted life…

…a long time ago. It’s out there, it’s knocking on the door. It’s shouting at me. Yelling!

Telling me to get out there. No, not in to RL, but pick up there where I left. Dissect themes, skin them, write reviews, share my _oh so_ interesting opinion on online stuff. Become an authority in commentary. I need an outlet.

But most of all… not just stalk people in my IM list, get in touch with them. They all were good friends and I dropped of the internet. So if I hit you up anytime soon, you’ve been warned.
And hopefully I can work at all those drafts I started. Drafts about themes, blog platforms and plenty of commentary. Now it’s time for Beetlejuice though . And maybe IM.

Two additional small webapps can make a kid an online geek happy.

LastGraph

LastGraph visualizes your music data, submitted to your last.fm account, in a unique way. Inspired by Lee Byron’s last.fm listening’s history graph the service pulls all (ALL!) your data from audioscrobbler and outputs everything in an awesome StreamGraph. Click image for larger graph (Original graph is 13000px wide).

Twitter StreamGraphs

What would a life be without the same, but for twitter? Exactly.

Worthless.

Twitter StreamGraphs does kinda same… but obviously _is_ restricted by the twitter API restrictions. And can’t be favourited in twitter either. Surprisingly the status of the service does not graph Failwhales or Failbirds.

But the real matter here is not the great platform for spammers created by twitter, but rather the recluse the twitterati live in. Maybe, some day the top Web2.0 posterboys will get some rationalism in their bones too. Hopefully even while they still are hyped by their latest discovery.

What is Photophlow?
It’s a chatroom. It’s another social network. It’s everything one would expect in 2008. Yes, it’s Beta.

Forget what I just wrote, Photophlow is much more. Photophlow takes the flickr API to a new level.

Small intro: After years of toying round with several Point&Shoot cameras I made the step. I always wanted to play more with photography but somehow never jumped in to it. This time I did and purchased a new Canon Digital Rebel XT. More than looking forward to my new love being delivered, last days I’ve been diving in to learning photography and the networks around.

Did I want your regular photography forum (or blog)? Negative. What I was looking for was a quick way to interact with people who really know their stuff, all while discovering great photography. Flickr is your friend. But so is SmugMug. Sadly those sites are nothing more than a waste of time, waste of time because of all the awesome discoveries.

Add Photophlow.

First remarkable aspect of Photophlow is that there’s no need to sign up. Photophlow uses the flickr user authentication process to login. Single sign on if one wants to. Once you’re logged in to flickr, you also are to Photophlow.

Once logged in online in Photophlow, you can join chatrooms based on the groups you are member of or create chatrooms for the groups you administer. And that’s where the fun starts.

In every chatroom, all flickr searches are public and display a list of results in the sidebar. On hover those pictures enlarge and on click they are posted to the room. You can immediately comment on flickr to every picture, favorite it, view the EXIF data or boil eggs with.

All in all, Photophlow so far is the fastest way to discover high level pictures and at the same time, if needed, share information about the technical factors.
But you can also use Photophlowg as a tumblelogging discovery engine.

Compulsory with the 2007 standards, Photophlow offers an integration with both Twitter and Tumblr API as well.

Compulsory invites for Photophlow available. (3 2).

Such as 90 seconds of video, taken when sitting on the loo.

Disclaimer: Yes, I had almost uploaded a similar video. But in the end… the internetz iz 4 txt!!!1!!1!1!!!1

But there is better.

And to continue the number game, even though I still am not sure whether to be proud or not of my Twitter hate/love relationship, here’s some tweetscan stuff. From my active and my inactive twitter account. Before you ask why I have 2 accounts, I’ll explain you the stuff you aren’t interested in anyway: my first account was a residue of the personal blogging area. A twitter account in the category of noise. Loaded with lots of personal internet drama memories. I wanted to and had to move on some day. My actual account still is noise, just much less.
But the important thing about both graphs is that I actually might have to listen to all my friends and try to get a regular life schedule. Not have the period from 0:00 to 04:00AM be my most active period of the day.

The best thing about twitter in my case is when I started tweeting.

November 2006. :-)

Wanted: Spotify invite. I want to experience what is next now last.fm really starts to bore me.

Yes, LiveVideo execs are losing the plot. Consider following concept to understand my joy more: run Blogexplosion on a monthly budget of $500.
After little more than a year ago, I, and Splashpress Media, tried to buy Blogexplosion for the sum of $135.000 plus 6 months of advertising (above the fold) for LiveVideo. Almost a year later we were contacted and asked for our highest bid. We offered $75.000 for the then already fast declining platform, but LiveUniverse had other illusions.

But only then the fun started. Regularly one LiveUniverse person started to contact me, whether it was to broker a fallen platform, Blogexplosion, whether to run it. After a while I sent in a proposal, based on a monthly $2500 budget, with an initial 5 number sum to totally revive the platform and redesign this outdated 2002 nuke-alike website. Answer: too expensive.
Nevertheless LiveUniverse still hoped to recover some of the $150k invested in BE when they bought it and continued to bug me.

Bug me with the option of equity. Equity in a quickly declining platform, a platform with most features turned off already. The offered equity would obviously be performance based, 20% spread over the next four years. With a budget of $500/month.

Dearest LiveUniverse,
obviously you are too greedy to throw in a basic MacBookPro (an investment of $1999, tax deductable even), knowing that the entire monthly budget will be used for your platform.
Here’s my answer to you: get a grip.

Rate Your Music allows you to manually add all the albums you have and rate/tag them, but you can also rate, or review even, any music.

I started my profile, adding and rating all the albums I currently have on my phone. W000t! another music show off.

Rate My Music just asks to be bought by last.fm and tied in together with their platform. Until that happens, let me share around 15% of my music library with you. Feel free to sign up, add me and other usual social networking stuff. It’s free! I will be adding as I change the music on my phone. :-)

Btw, maybe someone can give this awesome platform a less Myspace-lookalike-look.

I treat RSS with undeserving priority, and this causes two big problems: 1) I’ll stop whatever I’m doing to read, flag, or ‘mark as read’ all new RSS items as they come in, and 2) I’ll go to absurd lengths to ensure I have zero unread items whenever I walk away from a computer.

This compulsion has reached the point of being a real problem, and I’m finally taking steps to rectify it.

Back in the old days, when I still wrote on blogs about blogging, I suffered a major RSS burn out. My OPML list had reached the amazing and less tantalizing number of 800 entries, and every day I had to drag my back part to read. Reading, which once used to be a passion of mine.

Over the last days, I have carefully been adding feeds to my newsreader again. Even entries from the good old past.

Blogs written by pundits wannabe pundits, overly ethical and always according to the KIAKIB (Know It All, Know It Better) principle.

I might prefer to go down the snarky Gawker and Valleywag path.

What proves this? My NADD. The numbers of projects I have been taking on over the last 2 weeks has significantly grown again, with the usual pressure of having taken on way too much already. And still I usually manage to find some time to discover new stuff.
Tell me what’s on your tray, screen right now. And what else goes through your mind?

This is my palette right at the moment:

• As usually music is playing. Stalk me at last.fm. I even manage it to skip tracks, I don’t like, in Party Shuffle .
• Both Mail and NetNewsWire are constantly open and update regularly. I love to keep both read and answered if needed. I like it clean, empty.
• The usual tabs (around 7) are open in Safari and checked regularly .
• Coda has become a part of my daily after work workflow. In Coda, 2 projects: a WP design and Chyrp. Both call for Photoshop with 2 different mockups.
• Today I have been playing with Tablecloth and Blueprint.
• Several IRC rooms open in Colloquy.
• Restricted IM profile in Adium and obviously Twitterific.

Other thoughts occupying me right at the moment are the day job and the project we recently started plus two major annoyances we bumped in to at work last 10 days. Those 3 factors actually already large enough to occupy most people and make them look forward to a relaxed evening in front of the tube.

But in the evening, when arriving home, there’s the bane of the online presence calling me. The inconvenience about being in the active online back end world, wanting to stay up to date? It’s not the high amount of hours or the double shift, it’s the desire of always wanting to try out the newest stuff. New software, new online platforms and applications even . It’s the thrill to learn new stuff.

And then there’s the dating thing and upcoming V-Day. I have been invited already. I haven’t RSVP’ed yet.

Right now, I must take care of my laundry though and then spend an hour cleaning. I think. If the internet doesn’t call me back. Or new entries tumbled in my feed reader.
Luckily I have no kids, that would just dry me insane!

I do not visit social networks anymore. I have left the sphere around problogging and both were a relieve. I also have buried some other ongoing annoyances from last 2 years: exes and the trainwreck BlogExplosion.