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My Media Consumption Diet
Henriette tagged me on the My Media Consumption Diet meme and since I’ve been wanting to write about this I’ll take the opportunity and explain what am I using and why.
Web
The Web is from where I get most of the news. I go direct to a couple of websites like SAPO (generic Portuguese news), Publico (Portuguese reference newspaper) and BBC News (international news) and then search for browser the news there. But I mostly use Bloglines to follow around 175 feeds (I filter to the ones I’m really interested) and then eventually I go to news sites, blogs, flickr or wherever posts take me.
In terms of tools I’ve been using Firefox on a Powerbook for the last 3 years.
Radio
I’m a big fan of radio. I listen to music through it most of the time. Since I’ve bought my last car (a year ago) I haven’t played a CD on the car radio, only radio.
TV
No TV at home since March 2005. I stopped watching TV and it was one of the most rewarding decisions I have made. I now have more free time then ever and I’ve gotten used to just have silence at home which has increased my concentration levels.
While I agree that TV is dumb and TV TurnOff Week is a good idea in itself, I do not try to make others follow this. It suites my life style and that’s it.
Movies
One of my favorite movies is Los Lunes al Sol and I think this shows what kind of movies I like to watch. I have around 20 DVDs at home and no DVD player (why do I need one if I don’t carry a TV ?).
I’m a 24 and Prison Break fan. I usually watch them using either on the powerbook or on a mac mini and a 19” screen.
Communication
Email, IM and mobile phone make most of my work day. As a phone I’ve been using a Sony Ericsson which is pretty user friendly.
At home I have an ADSL line and wi-fi which I use to access the Web and to Skype with the part of the family that lives in Europe and with some of my (world) friends.
Twitter (which is being pretty hyped around these days) is just not a tool I see fit to use now. Maybe in a different version I’ll find more value in it.
Magazines
Oh boy. I have more magazines at home than space to store them. I really like to keep updated using either summary or in-depth magazine articles. I frequently buy magazines in several fields. Some of them are a must have every edition: Harvard Business Review, Blue Wine, Revista de Vinhos, Living etc and Everyday food. Other magazines I buy depending on the articles on a specific edition. These include The Economist, Businessweek, Dwell, The Guardian Monthly, GEO, Psychologies, Time, Fast Company, Business 2.0, I.D., Wired, Linux Journal, .net, Decanter and maybe some more that I can’t remember now.
I (strangely) know when a magazine is supposed to come out and I regularly check the news agent around those days.
Books
I read around 10 books a year mostly on business and some on the web. I have been wanting to start diversifying my choice by doing some reading on art and psychology. I have a hard time reading books outside of travel time.
Newspapers
Whenever I travel abroad I buy newspapers from those countries. It truly helps me get into what happening there and get their view of the world. For example, I was in London for a week I frequently bought the Guardian.
In Portugal I buy around 1 or 2 newspapers per week. Usually Publico or Diario de Noticias. Sometimes I buy the weekly Expresso newspapers but lately it has been turned into advertizing with contextual news. Something that is getting common.
I’m tagging Hugo Silva, João Pereira, Nuno Barreto and Nicole because I’m curious of what media consumption diet do they follow.
Update: I forgot to add Play. I have a Wii which, by changing the way games are played, has been able to make me want to play again. It’s also a clever device in the sense that through the Wii News Channel I’m able to browse news articles.
Notes on the Building Social Applications Workshop
During LIFT I attended Stowe Boyd’s LIFT workshop on Building Social Applications (pdf here).
In 1999 Stowe Boyd started talking about Social Tools and since then he has been analyzing and evolving his view on how these tools will eventually change the world.
These are the key ideas on Social Tools that I brought from the workshop:
- Social = Me First: people start using tools because they solve their needs in some way. It’s all about what each person’s passions.
- The Buddylist Is The Center Of The Universe: everything is about connections with other people. Maintaining a buddy list is part of the process of using a social application.
- Social Architecture is the structural representation of a social application and is composed by 3 functional domains: Me, Mine, and Market.
- Profiles should be dynamic and represent a flow of information. Besides it should link to the world and not keep everything closed.
- Reputation is important: Stowe’s calls it Swarmth - a measure of social network value based on the collective judgment of your peers
- Discovery is a primary motivator and should be available as a built in capability.
- Groupings are ad hoc assemblages of people with similar interests. These type of dynamic groups, group people around a topics (things, places, etc) on the fly without any obstacle to it’s creation. The fact that’s these are not pre-determined leads to much more creative (and inexpected) groupings.
It was a workshop full of value and interesting ideas, some of which I’ve been working on at Adegga.
If you’re looking for more information on this workshop, Stephanie Booth wrote a very good set of notes.
February 2007 London photos
She has published our London photos.
Here’s one of my favorites. In the back you can see the fabulous semi-abandoned Battersea Power Station.
February books
Like tags, books can give a very good sneak view of what am I thinking these days.
These are some the books I added to my library in February.
I’ve read the excellent The Long Tail last summer but a lost package from London made me to buy it again.
Future of Web Apps, London - Organization problems
I waited until the second day of the conference to write this post to see if things would improve. But they haven’t.
I’m at the Future Of Web App(lication)s Conference and I must confess that I’m pretty disappointed with the organization of the event.
There’s no free wifi. You have to pay for it. With so many problems in other conferences this should not be an issue by now. I’m able to write this post because pt wifi works here…
The announced Full Catered Lunch was made of little sandwiches that quickly disappeared while people were leaving the conference room into the the (tiny) hall space. This space is so full of company booths (Google, AOL, Microsoft) that you can barely move or talk to anyone (without screaming). In the end of the first day I found out that there’s a second room (called meeting center…) but it’’s on the basement and there’s no indication anywhere.
The conference room is not big enough for everyone. There’s certainly a chair for everyone but the room is too small. The chairs are so close to each other that I can hardly write on my powerbook.
For a ticket that costs £195 (around 300 euros) and with so many big sponsors , the organizers of this conference should have been much more careful with the planning of such big event.
Next week in London
It’s been only a week since I came back from LIFT and I haven’t had time to digest all the things that were talked / presented / learned (my notes) / written / posted / photographed and filmed there.
Anyway, I’m leaving today for a few days in London. Besides the vacation, I’ll be at the Future of Web Apps conference in the middle of next week where I will also attend Tara Hunt’s Building Online Communities workshop. I’m looking forward to have a conversation about my social wine application Adegga with her.
I’ve also been invited to the London Girl Geek Dinner where I’ll meetup with Nicole.
Like last time I’m taking much needed time off to think, sleep, travel, smell, see, hear and dream.
You’re my …
Wikipedia is not closing
The news that wikipedia could close in 3-4 months is all over the place.
It’s not true. Bruno Giussani explains what happened.
Earthquake in Lisbon
Just felt the earth shaking. It’s really strange.
update: reports say it was a 6 in magnitude (Ritcher scale).
Wii: A Blue Ocean Strategy
Scott Weisbrod does a great job explaining how the Wii is following a Blue Ocean Strategy. Blue Ocean Strategy is a strategic approach where companies identify an uncontested market space and try to capture it.
Nintendo is focusing on features that some users really value (low price and unique gameplay). It is scoring high against the PS3 and the Xbox 360. It is expanding the console market and even capturing market share from its competitors.
Besides that, by going after the long tail of games Nintendo are positioning themselves as a long tail distributor leveraging (and earning) even more from its rich history of game titles.
