Is it time to burn your books?

BIG NEWS: The way we read books is changing.

Amazon just unveiled the Kindle E-Book Reader. Yes. I do want one.

What's causing this change? College. Oh how I wish all the books I read in college were via e-book. Would it have saved me money? You bet. Plus, text books are HEAVY.

I actually use to buy e-books in college (when available) because they were cheaper. The problem was bringing the e-book to class. Usually I printed it out at the library (for free).

An e-book reader would have been so nice. The technology wasn't there yet. I'm not sure it is here yet either, but it's close enough for early adapters to jump on.

Plus, with the Amazon deal, all new releases are only 10 Dollars. WOW.

Reminds me of iPod and iTunes. Wait, does that mean I have to deal with DRM (Digital Rights Management) again? Probably.

Picking a Web Host

You have to be carefull who you pick to host your website. I'm a little fed up with mine. I go through iPower because it was reccommended, but I'm not too impressed.

My host is currently in "transition," which is a fancy term meaning I can't upload any new changes to the site. It also takes me 20 some clicks to access my e-mail.

Picking a web host is one of those things that I guess only experience and time can make easier.

DON"T READ - just skim

I liked reading when I was a kid. Maybe that's why I'm such a fast reader. Lately though, I feel like I've stopped reading and started skimming at lightning fast speed.

I read an article in Advertising Age a while back that said Web 2.0 would burst because people would not be able to keep up with the ever increasing speed in which information is thrown in our direction.

I think this way of thinking is 100% wrong.

I can't tell you how many feeds I subscribe to or articles I ingest. All I know is, I have a better understanding of marketing, advertising, technology, and real estate than I ever did a few years ago (when I was READING all those textbooks).

I have no intention of slowing down.

Holiday

I'm so excited for Thanksgiving this year. I never ever go home and it will be nice to get away from the big city for a bit. The best part about going home is that I can't wait to get back to Chicago.

I really do think Chicago is the best city in America.

Oh, and I saw Rocky Horror last night. It was amazing. I would recommend it, but it's already sold out. Columbia College sure can put on a good play.

I think my cold/whatever that was making me so tired is completely gone. Good news for me.

Winter Weather

Maybe it's just the weather, but I've been super tired lately. I think I slept 90% of this weekend away. I feel better now. In fact, I'm going to watch my friend in Rocky Horror Picture Show tonight.

E-mail's Dying Breath

I don't have any of my friends e-mails. They don't have mine either. But it's interesting to note that online communication is how we communicate.

Do we IM? Nope. That's so Junior High. If I needed a response right away, I'd just text them.

We communicate via Facebook. Want to throw a birthday party? Invite your friends via Facebook. Facebook allows a group of friends to mass collaberate with each other without the redundancy of e-mail. You have one screen that records the conversation of the topic (event) and it's easy to follow.

I would never think of inviting my friends to an event via e-mail (or worse yet, send them an Evite... shudder).

Does this mean my generation has killed e-mail off? Not yet at least. E-mail still seems to be the best way to communicate at work. I'm willing to bet that eventually companies will have private mini company exclusive social networks that will replace internal e-mail.

Sending e-mail to an external party is it's only saving grace. And Eventually, sending external e-mails will integrate into social networks and things like yahoo mail will fade away.

E-mail really is going to die (or at the very least fade into the online network scene.

Has Facebook Lost Its Thunder?

Not too long ago, the hot company everyone couldn't stop talking about was Google. Then, Facebook stole their thunder. How? They opened up their social network and allowed people to build applications for their site. It was genius and made Facebook the best social network on the net.

With over 5000 applications written for it's network, Facebook was creating a barrier to entry for any other social network. Simply put, No programmer would bother learning how to write apps for smaller social networks when everyone wanted and used Facebook Apps.

Did anyone really expect Google to accept this status quo? Thus they just announced their OpenSocial Platorm. It's a platform that will create "a common set of standards to write software for social networks". Now all they need is partners. Poof... They have it. All the other social networks are joining this alliance (Myspace, Bebo, Google's Orkut, Friendster, LinkedIn, hi5, Plaxho, Ning, and more).

Could this be any worse for Facebook? Will they join this alliance too (maybe eventually)? This alliance already has way more members than Facebook. Personally, I think Facebook is way over-rated.

Granted, the social networking thing is here to stay and is not just for college students, but I really think smaller more niche networks will outpace the larger networks easily. LinkedIn is great (even if it could be way better), but my guess is that smaller networks will appear in a few years. I would join an advertising network in a minute. How cool would that be. Ad people are super creative and an online social network wouldn't just let people meet. It would foster creativity and be a great tool for inspiration.

Just watch... this OpenSocial Platform will hurt Facebook and foster growth in smaller networks.