tech Articles

We’re back from nine days of family time. We left San Francisco early this morning so that Jane could get to a party that started at 4.30. The girls are doing a Zumba class and then taking a limo to In and Out Burger, and then the limo will drop them back at the birthday girl’s house.

It sounds like punishment to me.

Coming home is always mixed for me. On the one hand I’m happy to be back in my own space, and on the other hand there’s a flood of things to do. I have boxes stacked to the ceiling for my 20k giveaway day and I haven’t even taken a good look at them. Twitter has started purging this week and I’ve lost about 200 followers so as soon as I get Jane and Alexander’s sports schedules I’m going to go ahead and pick a day where we can do the Almost 20K giveaways.

I got totally distracted by the Lamborghini computer that was waiting for me (I wish it wasn’t just a loan).

This is just a strange week. The kids aren’t in school yet so I’m still busy knocking around with them but there’s a lot I really should be doing. I think there’s a good chance that Google Plus is killing off my blog because my best interactions are there.

As parents and as social media enthusiasts we have different needs for privacy. As a social media enthusiast you do want your name out there, and maybe even your business address, but certainly not your home address. Right? Jason Calcanis doesn’t trust Facebook, and Jason is kind of a big deal.

Not everything can be controlled, but as Peter Shankman so aptly points out, we are the ones adding the content, so we do have the ability to control some of it. This is a good thing. Here are five easy ways you can begin to safeguard your privacy online.

1. Do not enter your private information online. Really, not for anything, not for Classmates.com, Facebook, MySpace, LinkedIn, resume building sites… everywhere. Either make up an address, don’t enter one, or use a business address. No one really needs your address, they aren’t sending you gifts in the mail.

2. Remove your information from WhitePages.com. Unfortunately WhitePages.com doesn’t follow best practices, it is opt out, as opposed to opt in. You’ll need to search for your name, and then click on each search result to remove yourself from their directory. The very bad news is that both my children were listed at WhitePages.com with our correct address and phone number, the good news is that removal was almost instantaneous. Here’s an example with my friend Lolita’s data. Click here to watch the how to video.

3. Remove your information from Intellius.com. According to Intellius this is how:

In order for us to suppress or opt out your personal information from appearing on our Website, we need to verify your identity. To do this, we require faxed proof of identity. Proof of identity can be a state issued ID card or driver’s license. If you are faxing a copy of your driver’s license, cross out the photo and the driver’s license number. We only need to see the name, address and date of birth. We will only use this information to process your opt out request. Please fax to 425-974-6194 and allow 4 to 6 weeks to process your request. We will only process opt out requests received by fax and no request will be processed without complete information (i.e., name, address and date of birth). Requests for opt out will not be processed over the phone or via email.

4. Use Private registration for your websites. Anyone can go to WhoIs and search for the registered domain owner of any site. When you buy a domain name, you must enter a name, address and phone number, for an extra couple of dollars each year you can hide this information. If you don’t want to make the registration information private, then I suggest a PO Box and a cell phone number.

5. Remove or modify your profile at MyLife.com and Classmates.com. No one is going to find you at either of these places, there’s no social networking to speak of, and they’re just giant data mills.

For the most part we have overshared our own data. Taking it back bit by bit is difficult, but worth doing.

Check it out at LaLa.com licensed music, free, online.

I’m not sure that it’s a business model that’s good for musicians, but business and art aren’t often a marriage.

It’s an incredible start up, you can play music straight from your browser, so it doesn’t take up precious space on your hard drive. With over 6 million songs (as of today) and no intrusive advertising, I’m betting on LaLa.

Somewhere an executive at Apple is weeping. My kids don’t have to buy their music any longer.

It’s been a while since I’ve introduced any new technology to y’all over here. It’s not that there hasn’t been any, but nothing has really grabbed me as much as the recent burst of twitter list making add ons.

Back on September 30th Twitter announced that lists would be tested in a small closed group. Some would call this a closed beta, maybe even an alpha. Even though twitter is a lightfooted, independent company, they’re still a little slower than the startups that rely so heavily on them. While the rest of us are waiting for Twitter Lists to become a reality two startups emerged in the last few days that make great twitter lists. I’ll tell you who they are, and I’ll tell you why you need them.

Twillist is the first site I was alerted to. With twillist you can make lists of twitter users and share them with the world. Twillist is great because of it’s users. Naturally the techies are using it first, there are great lists being made by Sean Percival, Laurie Percival, Adam Katz and Michael Broukhim. What’s great and different about Twillist? There’s a snazzy button where you can ask to be added to someone’s list. This accomplishes a few incredibly important goals:

• social media relies on user generated content, without opening your list up to have just anyone edit it, it allows people to add to your list in a tactful manner
• it spreads the workload out
• people who have self identified as part of a group are more likely to help you promote that group

Mixtweet is another twitter list site and it’s UI is a little more nimble than Twillist. This morning I made a very short list of Social Media on Mixtweet, I like that I can clip small conversations so I can get back to them later. Why would I want a very small list on Mixtweet?

• I follow in excess of 3,000 people on twitter, I want to go to panels, conferences and events. I need a way to listen in a quiet space. Lists are quieter
• Some people seldom update, this means that I might all but forget they are on twitter, small lists help remind me

Lists in general are interesting. For some reason we all like them, the most read blog posts contain lists, magazines live off of them, and now we are listing our friends and coworkers publicly and privately online.

When I consult with companies I try to remind them that social media is exactly the same as every other part of your life. You have two ears and one mouth. By making twitter lists with either of these two add ons (and perhaps eventually with twitter itself) you can listen to groups of people without having to follow them on twitter. Thus reducing some of the extraneous noise.

Socially lists can be fantastic, but I’m going to give you a little advice you should probably cling to. If you make a list of 10 of the best (or 12 or 100) what you’ve done is tell thousands of people that they are not good enough to be on your list. Those thousands of people may be too polite to tell you this, but they think you’re a jackass and a social climber. If you must make a top tweeter list, make it private. People will hate you a tiny bit less.

Twillist and Mixtweet are both new and buggy, but they both add immense value to anyone who is a social media enthusiast or starter. If I were a marketer or a publicist I’d be using Mixtweet right now to make lists of the people I actually want to listen to, and I’d be keeping that private.

Some bloggers like lists. Lists are simple and easy to read, particularly when you’re reading off a computer screen. There are a few other reasons that bloggers write lists:

• Lists are easy to write
• You don’t have to use good grammar on a list
• Lists are easily searched by bots
• Lists of people might get you mentioned
• Being on a list might sound impressive
• If you make a list of people, they might talk about you

See how easy that was? Do you see the value in it?

Neither do I.

Lists from some places are valuable. Lists from Consumer Reports, Fortune and Forbes are commonplace, and as consumers (and watchers of extreme wealth) we have come to rely on them.

Bloggers make lists too. Oftentimes I’ll see posts titled “Seven Easy Steps To Sound Like You Know What You’re Talking About”. Bloggers have lists of recommended reading on their sidebars, I have a blogroll (this week) but I don’t feel good about it, it’s neither complete nor is it beneficial. It might be deleted before this post is published. I waffle on the import of a blogroll. It feels manipulative, and disingenuous.

If you’re looking for a list of people to follow on Twitter, the best way is to use twitter. Follow your friend and see who they talk to. Recently there was a list of 43 people to follow on twitter, it included Guy Kawasaki who hired two people to tweet for him. Don’t get me wrong, I think Guy is brilliant, and I’ve got two of his books on my shelf, it’s just that I wouldn’t make him one of my “must follows”.

Well, maybe I would if I wanted him to send traffic to my site.

Nielsen made lists of bloggers a number of times. Nielsen is in the list business, they’ve been measuring and monitoring media for as long as I’ve been alive. Even with all that said, I found myself in the curious position of defending the list. Why didn’t they name so and so? Why did they name so and so?

Because. That is all.

Some lists are done well, Sarah Evans has the community participate and I really do think her list adds value if you’re looking for her group of people. Sarah’s group of people are bright, connected and add value. Is that a niche?

Overall bloggers making lists of other people rubs me wrong. I can’t fully articulate why, but I’d caution folks from making lists or from taking them too seriously. Everyone has a motive, and everyone has a price.

My price? Uh, it’s these boots. Seriously I’d write just about anything for them.

Last week I finished my early summer project. Scanning the kids’ schoolwork onto a hard drive. Remember the boxes of paper your mom used to have, every test and worksheet piled high into a stack of termite bait? I just take a day at the end of each semester and scan the work into a portable hard drive and I’m all done. I feel great about it, and it seems like such a perfect solution to the paper problem, but I forgot one thing

our home.

Two weeks ago as I was finishing up the school work scanning project, and our friend Jon came buy. He looked at what I was doing and said, “I’m involved in a start up…”

So Jon showed me Home Data Guard. Home Data Guard (HDG) is essentially a remote file cabinet for your important documents. They’re using Amazon for their secure servers, so it’s well encrypted (meaning you’re quite safe from identity theft). In many regards HDG isn’t very different than any other cloud computing data storage site, except they’re just like you.

Home Data Guard was born from tragedy and rather than being a tech company in a tech space, they’re a home company bringing you tech. Make sense? The interface is clean and simple and they guide you through which documents you need and why.

Here in Los Angeles my big preparedness is for an earthquake. I often worry what would happen if both my house and my bank came tumbling down. I stash flash cards and hard drives in my safety deposit box, but what if…

Home Data Guard has one thing no one else seems to. For a small fee they send someone to your home to scan and organize all the documents. For all of you who are taking care of a parent or grandparent, this is sensitive stuff. Sometimes a third party can keep the busy work from being the family drama. Oh, and apparently your insurance agent would appreciate a little organization too.

I think Home Data Guard is a good idea, but they’re user interface is great. Look at this fantastic PDF checklist.