Incredible photographs of the erupting volcano – http://bit.ly/cL8HGW

So disappointing. Google must now retaliate and (as I have predicted elsewhere) buy Apple – http://ow.ly/1dsZq

Google Fights the Good Fight versus China: http://ow.ly/VQc3

Kindle DX Negative Responses Grow larger http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/12/24/is-amazon-working-backwards/

I have always enjoyed Seth Godin’s blog but until today I couldn’t objectively tell you why.

I use Google’s Reader to consume RSS feeds from different sites. I’m not very disciplined about keeping the list empty – so now and then I take a deep dive and try to catch up*. My practice is to flag items for follow up by ‘star’ interesting posts and then come back through later and post items to my Delicious account. For most feeds, I commonly flag one of every five or six items.

I just finished reading Seth Godin’s feed. I reversed my normal ratio. Pretty much everything he posts is thought provoking and requires follow up.  That should be the outcome everyone online should strive for – including myself.

PS: I know this is pretty much universally considered a poor practice – but to date I haven’t been able to simply ‘mark as read’ an entire feed. A weakness of mine.

Shortlink

As a result of the merger of XM and Sirius, the lineup of channels has been changed. I for one am confused by the changes – but that’s not my current source of pain. My current source of pain is the absence of my favorite channel – Fine Tuning.
I really enjoyed Fine Tuning. The channel’s ‘focus’ was on a eclectic selection of artists. Jazz, classics, progressive rock, new age were all fused together in to a very enjoyable collection.
The absence of the channel has not produced the outcry I would have expected – so maybe I’m an outlier on this subject.

Short Link: http://wp.me/phR8k-1p

While  inevitable, it is sad to see newspapers disappear.  The entire industry is in disarray and until someone somewhere finds a profitable economic model – the mood will be somber.  I work in a similar industry.  We have seen a decade of decline and have struggled to shift in to growing markets.  It is hard, and I know that the day will come when my company closes or is bought out.  The hard, cold reality is that no business can survive if it is not profitable.  Reporters will not volunteer their time (for long).  Printers will not donate paper and ink.  The barriers to entry in to the news industry have dropped so low that anyone can enter and publish online.  But while publishing costs have dropped precipitously, revenue has as well.

The staff of the paper did a great job publishing this video:

Final Edition from Matthew Roberts on Vimeo.

I am a big fan of the Google Feed Reader.  I continue to fine tune how I use the tool as I learn more about it.

For example, The Trends page lists how I consume feeds – and how I do not.  The smart feed reader should include this page in their weekly review.  You can keep yourself productive by following these simple steps:

1.  Unsubscribe from feeds that have not been updated in x months.  I am settling on nine months.  After that point, it’s safe to say the author has moved on.

2.  Unsubscribe from feeds I can’t keep up with.  The New York Times is a fire hose that I can not keep up with.  There are many news outlets that can filter that to the news items I value and I should focus my attention there.

3.  Investigate the obscure.  This is the real long tail.  If I want to present a unique perspective on the world then I should find the niche no one else serves (or subscribes to).

Stumbled across this a while back.  It’s too good to leave alone.  Someone somewhere needs to enter it in to a caption contest.

Postal worker delivers baby

I have relatives who subscribe to the axiom that you can never be too skinny or too wealthy.  Conversations drift towards these subjects like leaves to the ground.  It is inevitable and annoying.  This year’s Christmas dinner was an exercise in self-restraint capped with my wife pleading out loud that we talk about something other then money.

Jason Zweig has written What a Bear Market Might Teach Us which I found both humorous and uplifting.  If I thought my relatives would recognize the message I would send it to them – but I suspect the point would be lost.

“Money is not wealth”