I enjoy Jason Calacanis. I guess it’s his downright cheek which makes him entertaining. If you view everything he does in terms of self promotion and publicity then it all makes perfect sense.

There’s a lot of talk at the moment about what Google is planning to do in the face of the popularity of Facebook. I believe that what Google will slowly roll out is exactly what they have been planning to roll out before Facebook exploded.

Their task is relatively simple - just let users join the dots between their existing products and keep the results nice and open - a la Google Maps. I can envisage people unconsciously rolling their own tailor-made networks, free from the silo-ed nature of Facebook, just by linking together their own personal combination of Google products. We’ll decide what combination of Talk, Desktop, Gmail, Reader, Video, Maps, Notebook, Jaiku, Shared Items, Blogger, Calendar, Orkut etc. etc - you get the idea - is right for us and our friends.

And it will happen slowly and gradually. One day we’ll wake up and suddenly realise Google is at the heart of our social network and we didn’t even notice.

Random thought: iGoogle - the place where it all happens.

Can’t touch this!

Having been an avid user of Google Reader over the last few months I finally realised that it was controlling me rather that I controlling it. With over 100 feeds I became a slave to the RSS torrent.

The answer has proved to be Netvibes. I started to use Netvibes as an online manager for my new music show and has ended up being my preferred RSS reader. It forced me to strip out all the feeds I didn’t really read but thought I needed. Now I’m down to only 16 blog feeds. Much better.

I’ve been hankering after a video iPod for many months now as a way of watching much of the video content I subscribe to in iTunes. The thinking goes like this: I don’t have time to watch things like Rocketboom, Ze Frank or The Scoble Show at work or at home so the ideal time would be during my train commute to and from work. It is during this period that I consume most, if not all, the audio podcasts I download.

Yesterday I did a little experiment. I transferred a few videos on to my Nokia N70 to see how I enjoyed the videos in anticipation of a video iPod. Funny thing was I didn’t enjoy them at all. And not because of the relative quality of the screen but because it just didn’t feel right. The screen captured all my attention and this felt uncomfortable. I can’t really explain why but audio is in many ways more powerful than video. The only places I can comfortably dedicate all my attention to a screen is in a cinema or at home in front of the TV. But not out in the world where there are so many distractions. It’s interesting how audio lets you comfortably split your attention between the sounds coming in and whatever else might be going on around you. When I’m out in the world I like to interact with it and not ignore it which mobile video, alas, has a tendency to make me do.

For some reason, I still want a video iPod though. Damn you Steve Jobs.

Steve Gillmor has a dream.

Technorati tags: stevegillmor, dream, attention, microsoft

I've become addicted to a new website/ information source. Windguru provides up the minute information on wind speed and direction, water conditions and temperature for sailors, windsurfers and kitesurfers. Unfortunately the site has one major flaw. No RSS. Grrr. It feels so archaic to have to keep visiting a webpage to simply get an update.

Reading Steve Gillmor reminds me of reading Jean Baudrillard. On one level (the detail, perhaps) I have no idea what he's talking about and yet on another more vague and amorphous one he makes so much sense it hurts.

He writes just ahead of the beat. While most commentators speak eloquently on the present and most recent past, Gillmor inhabits the space just in front of now. Not the future. That's for theorists. Gillmor speaks and acts an exhilarating fraction ahead of the snare crack. Far enough in front to see what's coming and close enough to now to take us with him.

We won't know because it won't be advertising anymore. I can't remember the last time I endured an advertisement and yet I happily digest, in Dave Winer's words, commercial information, all day every day.

How does this work? Simple. I asked for/ subscribed to the information using RSS (Really Simple Syndication). I asked. It wasn't forced at me. I can turn it off whenever I please. I probably won't because the commercial information I consume isn't advertising. It's authoritative and high quality content, produced by passionate people. Why would I turn that off?

Taking the idea of the Attention Economy - The New Natural Economy as read, saying "pay me attention" is the equivalent of saying "pay me money". To which the most natural response is: "for what?"
If I'm going to pay you money you need to give me something of value, ergo if I'm going to pay you attention you need to give me something of value in return.
In an attention economy this value will come in the form of compelling ideas told in entertaining stories.
If we are happy to pay each other attention for the value we get from each other, attention will usurp money as the chief source of currency. Plus it doesn't smell and you can't lose it down the back of the sofa.
[Technorati tags: attention attentioneconomy money value]