social networking

Send a Kwiry From Your Cellphone

~ randyaa ~ Leave a comment

Kwiry Text LogoI hear and see things I want to remember all the time. I used the voice notes on my phone for a while but I always seemed to forget they were there. A few weeks ago I was thinking it would be great to be able to send a text message to store little things I think of throughout the day. I even tried writing an application that allows you to send text messages to Google Notebook. Unfortunately Google’s Data API doesn’t allow pushing data to Google Notebook so that was a bust.

A few days ago I found Kwiry which does exactly what I was looking for. Kwiry allows you to send a text message which is saved as a ‘kwiry’ (pronounced query) on their system. It then sends you a notification using any method you’d like including E-mail, SMS, RSS etc that you have a new saved kwiry. There is also a social aspect so you can see your friend’s kwiry’s and they can see yours. I find this feature completely useless and unwanted so I’ve disabled it by setting all my kwiry’s as private. Social networking doesn’t improve everything. Social networking is not a golden hammer even though most new services think it is.

Kwiry stores your texts in their system. Once they’re stored and you get notified (using whatever method you prefer) the links they provide send you to the Kwiry website itself which then gives you search results using your desired search engine.

I love Kwiry and it’s functionality but I’d much rather use it without logging into their system since the functionality it provides is really quite simple. To do this I’ve created a Yahoo Pipe that switches the links to point directly to the search engine of your choice. All you need is the base Search URL (Google’s would be http://google.com/search?q=) and the feed URL to your kwiry’s.

Use this Pipe to replace the links in your kwiry feed to your desired search engine.

Strike a Balance

~ randyaa ~ Leave a comment

There’s lots of different definitions of Web 2.0 but the common consensus is that it’s about user generated content and social networking. Ask anyone about Web 1.0 and they’ll all tell you the same thing, it was strictly about consumption. It was the advent of the information age.

In this world it’s hard to strike a balance. When do you stop consuming and start producing? when do you stop producing and start consuming? You need to strike a balance. To often I find myself reading a ton but not making use of it. There are just too many wonderful new sites out there and not enough time to look at them all.

There is certainly a point at which the marginal rate of return for content consumption begins to shrink. The rate of return for production begins to reduce as well, but at a much faster rate. To truly add any value or knowledge you need to first know what is out there and secondly know what people are interested in. To do this you need to be reading (or consuming). The amount of appropriate production is directly related to your knowledge or experiences. Therefor unless you’ve experienced everything and know everything you have more to gain from consuming than you do from producing.