Alltop - will help you keep on top of things…
Guy Kawasaki has just launched a new startup website called Alltop . It has categories that for the major themes and topics being written about on the web, even teen news. Then is creates summary pages from the main sites on these topics and shows you the most popular stuff on the web relating to it.
It is automated web browsing and filtering - and looks like it could save you a bunch of time.
Teens Using Social Media - Changed your Ministry?
Teens Using Social Media Connie Bensen: My Conversations
As I was reading this article I starting wondering what youth pastors out “in the field” where noticing in how teenagers use social media. Is email nearly as effective as sms or using a social network like facebook or myspace?
How has social media changed the way you communicate to your teens and what trends do you see appearing over the next 2-3 years?
Blogging from Textmate
I have just discovered that I have one of the best desktop blogging applications sitting right under my sticking nose! It is also the best text editor for the Mac platform by leaps and bounds, Textmate.
It is hard to explain, but it is very powerful with a lot of Bundles that are pre-installed to help with everything from CSS & HTML to Programming and on and on. I am not using it to blog with for the Who Are These Guys Blog - and I am hoping it works for my blogger blog as well (but I don’t think there is support for that.)Anyways, this is one of the rare super nerd posts here at watgs, enjoy!
A Vision of Students | How do we connect?
This is a great video that was passed on to me by Tom. It is about how Students are interacting, and learning with today’s techonology and how that has shaped how they learn and interact. What advantages and challenges does the information presented in this video present the young leader in ministry and/or the youth pastor?
25 Quicksilver Tutorials
If you own an Apple computer and don’t use Quicksilver, SHAME ON YOU! Seriously, it is the best free third party app ever developed for a computing platform and is a must. Just so you can cruise through the learning curve on using it, I have included a butt kicking list of Quicksilver tutorials!
Quicksilver Overview
Full Quicksilver Demo Movie 1
More Quicksilver Power Tips
QuickSilver – A Better OS X In Just 10 Minutes
Quicksilver: From A Better OS X To Even More
Another Quicksilver Tutorial: Gold Trigger
Quicksilver: Setup & Troubleshooting
More Quicksilver Power Tips
Quicksilver Changes Everything
Quicksilver & Tiger: Part I
Mvix: An Apple TV Alternative
Spotlight Comments using Quicksilver
Quicksilver Does Menus Too
Quicksilver Screencast: The Setup
Quicksilver Screencast: Pictures
Quicksilver Screencast: The Clipboard
Quicksilver Screencast: Running with Scripts
Screencast: Quicksilver Catalogs
Quicksilver Screencast: In-n-Out
Quicksilver Screencast: Tags & Playlists
Quicksilver Screencast: Abracadabra Gestures & Triggers
The Metadata Screencast: Part Three
Quicksilver Screencast: Arrowing
Quicksilver Tutorial Mac OS X
Quicksilver Tutorial v2.0
World Wide Open
I had a friend point me to a really interesting website / idea. It is called World Wide Open, and it is a group of Christians who want to connect the gifts and passions of the body of Christ with the needs of the world. They also want to create a shared space for the expertise of the body of Christ to further enable the ability to meet needs and spread the gospel.
It is really and incredible idea, and the more I think on it the more it seems so possible. Especially if there was a universal web space that the body of Christ shared. The challenge is to spread not only the vision but the use of the tool as well. That will be difficult because it is hard to build momentum with out using a “brand”, but brands are divisive as well.
And it can’t just be another Christian Social Network, because the way social networks have been built their goal is to keep you online for ad sales. The purpose of this site would need to be connection, empowerment, and then prompts and tools for actual action offline. Like a combination of Facebook and Meetup, with a strong Wikipedia element and a dose of Pownce.
What a daunting task! But man would I ever be excited to see this come about, I would sign up for sure!!!
New Sponser for the Who Are These Guys Podcast - Contagious Solutions
Contagious Solutions is a new company I have formed to help businesses, churches and organizations with Social Media solutions. It is basically helping them to amplify the “word of mouth” about their message through the communities and conversations on the web.
p.s. The same Tony that is on the podcast is the Tony that has started this company, it is just that company that will help to fund the podcast. Same unknown guys encouraging young leaders every week!
the current buzz surrounding facebook
There has been an enormous amount of buzz surrounding Facebook in the last 3-4 weeks. It has to do with the platform they launched that allows outside developers to make mini applications that can integrate into your Facebook experience. And if you are a Facebook user you have noticed that there are all kinds of applications you can add, from enhancements to the “wall”, video add ons, even listing books, word processors and productivity apps. But there are also a couple other things going on with Facebook that deserve mention.
From my estimation there are 3 reasons Facebook is getting so much praise:
1. With the addition of this app platform and the apps that followed; Facebook now is a universal landing place for communications and productivity. Sort of like your virtual computer space that is connected to everyone your know. This is huge because it presents the web or server based apps “operating system” that many people have been saying would be the Microsoft killer. Until now there wasn’t one place where all that was available in a ways that felt overly threatening to places like Microsoft because of one reason: the biggest advantage of using a web app is the possible collaboration and connection to other people through that app, and its universal accessibility. But with so many different sites for each kind of app, or with no social network to connect them all, it was like putting a frankestein “operating system” together, and it is always a wild struggle to get people to sign up for something new. So with your Word Processor and Spreadsheets at Google, Email and pim apps at Yahoo, chat at meebo or twitter or pownce, photos at flickr, bookmarks at del.icio.us and blog on Wordpress, there is no way you will get all your friends to make the exact same choices. Facebook has the potential to have elements of those apps in one place, and with a killer social network to connect them all to the people you know.
2. Social Networking for a long time in my mind is more fad and popularity contest. But now Facebook is shaping a social network that can fit for professionals and the workplace, which is a brilliant move. People like Robert Scoble have been raving about Facebook for several reasons, but one of which is the fact that it doesn’t feel like a place only for teenagers looking to score a date. And using Facebook as a professional is now an advantage instead of a “have to”.
3. Facebook, as software, doesn’t suck. Might seem a little simple but MySpace is the worse piece of software I have ever used (except for that label printing software for the Mac, holy cow…). But until recently people not in high school or college couldn’t use it. Now that they have opened it up, and it has a large critical mass of people, it is worth it to move to Facebook. MySpace sucks… sorry had to say it again…
Pownce Invites
Pownce is a new message/productivity virtual team based web site that is really very cool. I have 5 invites for those that want one, and if we start a train here, once you get an invite from me check back and see if any one else needs one and send it on! If you want/need an invite just leave a comment.
Levelator (by Chris Walker)
The Levelator by GigaVox media is a free download that will help with leveling out the your audio files. I have seen a lot of podcasters use this to clean up their audio file after recording. I have listened to many podcasts that have issues getting volume balance between speakers because they are sharing a microphone or they are not able to mix their sound during recording. If you have the money, you can invest in the high-end headsets and a mixing board and level out volumes that way. Or you can try the free download and drop your audio file into the program and it will clean everything up for you automatically. So if you are just some guy like me trying to put together a cost efficient podcast, then this is the tool for you. It can be downloaded from GigaVox for Windows, OSX, or Linux for free (Non-Commercial Use). Let us know how this works for you or if you have something else that you use to correct sound issues.
(Thanks to Chris for sending us this tip, I am sure our podcasts could use it!)
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