I've just added a new channel to this site that displays the 15 most recent links I've posted to Twitter.  Its a simple idea, but one that I'm finding quite handy.

How it all started...

I've been using bit.ly to shorten links that I post to Twitter.  There are many similar link shortening services (e.g., tinyurl.com, is.gd, tr.im, twurl, etc.), but a while ago I switched from tinyurl.com to bit.ly because I liked the way bit.ly maintained usage statistics on each shortened link.  It's nice to see how much activity each shortened link is getting.

Over the past few weeks, I've received a number of inquiries from people asking me about some link or another that I posted to Twitter.  The trouble with shortened links is they all look the same.  After a couple times searching my Twitter timeline trying to track down a link, I realize that the bit.ly dashboard was a better place to look for links.  Not only does the dashboard present all shortened links in an easy-to-browse format, it provides the full title of each linked page, making it much easier to find a specific link.

The aha! moment...

Then, a light bulb went off when I realized that bit.ly also provides an RSS feed of all my recently shortened links.  Using this RSS feed, I added a new "Bookmarks" channel to this site that aggregates details about recent links and presents them right in this site.  (I also subscribed to the RSS feed in my Google Reader.)

Now its easy for me (or you) to browse recently posted links.

David Armano's blog post, Kill your Website, suggests that traditional websites have become obsolete and can be replaced by a blog.  I began writing a comment on the post, but found that what I wanted to say exceeded the blog's allowed comment length.

So, here is what I would have left as a comment…

David, this post brings back memories of an issue that came up during a panel discussion at one of the first "Business Blogging" conferences in Boston, 2003.  Everyone (the panel and the audience) was debating the definition of a "blog".

Is it a blog if posts are not in reverse chronological order?  What if it has multiple authors?  What if posts are edited by someone other than the author?  What if posts are not dated?  What if it does not offer RSS?  Must it have a first person voice? And on and on, ad nauseum.

In fact, the very notion of "business" blogging was downright blasphemous to many of the early grass roots bloggers who believed that evil corporations and marketers were swooping in like demons to co-opt their sacred personal publishing platforms.

At the time, I found the whole debate rather missing the crucial point.  You could call the technology "bakin' a cake" (to paraphrase Norm McDonald) as long as it had discrete information objects, organized into channels, and transformable into different presentations.  The crucial point was that we had a new platform technology and that (like it or not), this platform was going to be leveraged in many ways by businesses.

The bottom line is that a blog is a "web lego".  So are static web pages, PDFs, lead capture forms, flash apps, e-commerce apps, RSS feeds, podcasts, discussion forums, and others.  Most recently, we've seen the rise of many social media technologies—Facebook, Twitter, Digg, Technorati, etc.—more web legos.

Coming from this mindset, I believe “website vs. blogsite” is a false choice just as is “blogsite vs. Twitter,” “website vs. forum,” etc.  It’s like building an actual Lego® project and asking, “Should I use the 2x4 white bricks or the 1x6 yellow bricks?”  The answer is, of course, it depends on what you’re trying to build.

I work mainly with SMB clients and find that most need elements of a (traditional) website along with multiple blog channels.  The real question is, “What are we trying to build?” Only then can we start to select the right web legos.

Yesterday I pointed out a number of places where you can find reactions to Oprah's recent decision to back anti-vaccination advocate Jenny McCarthy as the newest Harpo Studios star, inking a multi-year, multi-platform deal that includes giving McCarthy her own show.  One of those places is Shirley Wu's open letter to Oprah, which has spawned a spirited comment thread.

In the comment thread, discussion turned to the question of how to actually break through to Oprah to help her to comprehend the harm she is enabling.  Commenter Tony Karakashian pointed out that Oprah.com has an online form to solicit suggestions for the newly announced Jenny McCarthy show.

The form looks like a great opportunity for rational people to weigh in (sic.)…

You've seen it all over the news...Jenny McCarthy, one of America's funniest and coolest moms and Harpo is giving her, her own show.

Here is where YOU come in.

What would you like to see featured on Jenny's show? What would you like for her to talk about? What are you and your friends buzzing about?

Any topics you'd like for her to tackle? Are there any questions that you have -- that you would love for her to answer?

If so -- we definitely want to hear from you!

Write to us and tell us exactly what you'd like to see Jenny do.

Come on, rational readers, let's help to guide the new show.

Cognitive Dissonance

I've spent the last several days on the campus of the National Institutes for Health (NIH) in Bethesda, Maryland.  Despite a busy schedule of meetings (and a little D.C. sightseeing), I've managed to keep an eye on Twitter, e-mail, and the blogosphere; all of which have created a cognitive dissonance that I just can't quite reconcile.

On the one hand, I see the men and women of the NIH so dedicatedly working to find cures for devastating diseases.  And on the other hand, I see Oprah Winfrey giving Jenny McCarthy the power to reach huge audiences in multiple mediums—the same Jenny McCarthy who is lobbying hard against childhood vaccinations (even acknowledging that doing so will bring back some formerly eradicated diseases).

Reactions

Tonight, I read a very well-written open letter to Oprah by Shirley Wu after hearing Oprah speak at the Duke University commencement.  Ms. Wu very eloquently asks Oprah to reconsider her decision to back McCarthy based on the suffering (including probable deaths) of children that are likely as a direct result of McCarthy's influence.

Brian Thompson created The Jenny McCarthy Song video (below) that paints a rather scathing picture of the damage McCarthy is causing.

The blogosphere has been a buzz with similar reactions; examples include (but are by no means limited to): PZ Myers, Phil Plait, and Rebecca Watson.

Speculations

I wrote last week that I was flabbergasted by Oprah's decision to partner with McCarthy, and the more I've thought about it, the more flummoxed I am.

Why would Oprah do this?  She's obviously an intelligent woman—nobody achieves what she has without being intelligent.  Is she so focused on the bottom line that she has not taken the time to educate herself about McCarthy's anti-vaccination stance and its real implications?  Has she taken the time but does not understand (and has she no advisers that understand)?  Does she understand but not care?

What does Oprah think?

I would love to hear Oprah's explanation.  But even more so, I really wonder, in her heart of hearts, with no one to answer to but herself, what is she really thinking?  Could it be that Oprah has actually bought into McCarthy's ridiculous, dangerous, and thoroughly debunked arguments?

I was rather flabbergasted upon learning last week that Jenny McCarthy is now poised to become the next star in Oprah Winfrey's media empire.  She signed a multi-year, multi-platform deal with Oprah's Harpo Studios including a syndicated talk show and her own blog channel (that is already live and features several posts) on Oprah.com.

While visiting friends in Chicago over the weekend, I was lamenting this news over an otherwise perfectly lovely outdoor Sunday brunch.  We were discussing how McCarthy's anti-vaccination stance can lead to otherwise preventable illness and even death (in fact, there is already a body count).  Even McCarthy herself acknowledged this last month in an interview with Time magazine:

"I do believe sadly it's going to take some diseases coming back to realize that we need to change and develop vaccines that are safe. If the vaccine companies are not listening to us, it's their fucking fault that the diseases are coming back. They're making a product that's shit. If you give us a safe vaccine, we'll use it. It shouldn't be polio versus autism."

There is little merit in questioning McCarthy's motives, rationality, or even sanity—after all, she has an autistic child and I would not presume to understand what type of impact that could have on a parent.  But what about Oprah?  Why is she giving McCarthy such a powerful megaphone? 

In his article, Say It Ain't So, O for Slate magazine, author Arthur Allen provides an excellent, even-handed analysis of the whole situation.  It's difficult to see how an intelligent, rational person can look at the facts and not understand that mass failure to vaccinate children is quite literally, inviting disaster to happen.

So, what is Oprah thinking? Well, that's an excellent question and I have to admit, I haven't a clue. If somebody knows, please tell me.

Last month I blogged about how Twitter's FollowFriday jumped the shark (but we can fix it) and Steve Woodruff blogged about Improving Follow Friday.  The gist of both posts is that while the fundamental concept of "Follow Friday" is good, in practice, its execution is (typically) poor.

In today's Improving FollowFriday, week 2 post, Steve suggests the introduction of a new tag to help sort through the Follow Friday noise to locate the truly useful recommendations:

"And let’s try one other thing: tag your FollowFriday tweet with #followfriday and #ff2 - that way we can more easily sort through the #followfriday noise and find the entries that give us a fuller recommendation."

This is a great idea.  This form of tagging is backward compatible with people that search for #followfriday, but it provides a way of refining search to specifically target more meaningful recommendations.  Someday, when everyone drinks the #ff2 koolaid, we can even deprecate the #followfriday tag (and reclaim 14 of those precious 140 character slots!)

Now, the next hot issue:  is it "FollowFriday" or "Follow Friday"?  :-)

Upon hearing this news (via Twitter, of course, I don't watch The View ;-) I had to chuckle because it reminded me of an old Saturday Night Live skit.

In the skit, Donald and Ivana Trump were exchanging gifts.  First the couple had a good laugh about how they had both, independently decided to wrap each other's gift in sable fur.  Donald's gift to his wife was a pair of extremely ornate, extremely large, hand made wooden doors many centuries old.  As they are being unwrapped, he explained how he saw them on an ancient cathedral during a recent business trip through Europe and how he tracked down the Father in charge to inquire about a price.

"These doors a priceless, irreplaceable, historical artifacts and are not for sale at any price," explained the Father.

But Donald just smiles, explaining to Ivana how he quickly understood, "That was just code for 'It's gonna cost ya!'"

So, Twitter may not be for sale.  At least not to Apple, today.  At least not under the proposed term sheet.  Maybe Twitter will never be sold and it will continue to grow into the next Microsoft, or Google, or beyond.

Maybe.  But every business is for sale if somebody wants to buy it badly enough.