This is just really cool - iFILM now has a "add to MSN Space" button that allows you to blog about any video you see on the site. Here's on of Bush being embarassed (again)...

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Bush's Exit Strategy
President Bush is foiled by some locked doors as he clumsily attempts to duck a reporter's question at a press conference in China.


Courtesy of IFILM

Following on Alex Barn's post picked up by Scoble on Jacob Nielsen's comments:

I tend to disagree with Nielsen. Personally, I clearly segregate e-mail (communication) and content (information), with a slight overlap. But I just think that mixing the two into one interface is just a horrible ideal.

I've got more than enough problems with noise in my inbox (even the unread "RSS" mails blue bracket thingamajig is still noise to me), and I firmly believe that, like the gadget world, we are going to see a divergence of applications for specific functions (like e-mail vs. RSS for instace), instead of having convergence (e-mail as the panacea).

Mobile phones (esp. SMS) were drastically more complex interfaces to learn. Just see where that went!

Addendum to my post below... Robert Scoble posts on on particular feature that RSS aggregators should have. I somehow have it in my mind, however, this thought - why get so deep into "OPML" and "RSS" jargon that only geeks will understand, when the problem is that RSS is still so inaccessible to non-geeks right now? Caveat is that this stems from just the impression that no as many people use RSS/feeds as they should. If true and this jargonization goes on, content feeds will never achieve the exponential growth it deserves.

Aggregators should just start making their software more friendly (and I mean "point and click" friendly). All of them are just still missing that magic something on that front me thinks.

RSS - for some reason, I haven't really found a lot of people who are into feeds (and I'm obsessed with my feeds). Case in point, Tomorrow.sg has had 280,000+ pageviews (I'm guessing from their tiny icon), and 280 feed subscribers. That's 0.1%. I think it's for these reasons:

a. It's a three letter acronym. Some more, it sounds like it's related to Raffles (RJC, RGS, RI, RSS - eeks). That's just techno-scary.

b. There's no very easy way to use Newsgator, Bloglines, My MSN or My Yahoo! for every single site. I look for the "one click" thing but now I still depend on people having those gif buttons there. Blogs usually have them, but if CNN has them, they'd be advertisements and that's a no no. So they scary buttons with the scary XML acronym one them which lead to pages with scary XML code. Way to go. :-(

c. I don't have enough friends, or I don't get out enough (that could be a possiblity you know).

I personally think that RSS Feeds will be the new way for everyone to consume media in the future. And that it'll be huge. It just needs to rebrand itself, and be much easier to use. And that will happen. But for now, bloggers will rule the land. And if old media isn't careful, bloggers will become the press of the next generation.

Just returned from the IT Journo forum in Bintan - an event organize by the folks in Media Connect, and where journalists from around the region flew in to listen to a couple companies (like MSN) speak their spiel.

I had a couple of really interesting conversations, and curiously, the friendliest ones were with open source advocates. I was at the event fully expecting to get asked tough questions by them, and expecting to get my words twisted and thrown back at me. Instead, I found them refreshingly non-religious, having insightful opinions but also receptive to ideas.

In short, my blind naivete in the goodness and intelligence of people have remained unharmed. But then again, I am one who believes in RSS, the democracy of the Internet, and the ability to give people an easier time of choosing whatever content they want. So maybe our views are not that misaligned. And we really go into the Linux vs. Windows thing anyways... The Internet is my thing.

And you know what, when smart level-headed people call themselves open source advocates, I think what they really mean is that they are "choice" advocates. The term "open source advocates" has just taken on too much of an "anti-microsoft extremist" flavor.

So in a weird way, I think they are actually very receptive to MSN! And it's because MSN is playing in a truly competitive, democratized environment - The web. Now that's a thought for you.

Last note: To all religious fanatics out there (mac, linux etc.), read this article from the NYT.

No I haven't fallen off the face of this earth, I'm just too busy to blog at the moment in time. Too many bloody things happening. Getting Things Done has changed my life - It makes me realise that I've got too much to do!

Got this book finally after a long time - and my inbox is shrinking faster than a plastic bag on fire :-) I've read a time management book before, taken an online time management course, and have never used any of it, but GTD is starting to make a difference now, especially with the GTD Outlook add-in.

Getting Things Done - David Allen
Outlook Add-in: http://www.davidco.com/productDetail.php?id=63&IDoption=20
Information about GTD: http://www.jeffsandquist.com/GettingThingsDoneThisNewYear.aspx - Loads of links to blog entries here.

There you have it - I am now another victim of blog-based viral marketing, and I am happy to be one :-)

I've been wondering how to do this.. hard code HTML into your blog entries. Well now I know :-)

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Scott's Place: Edit It! Enhanced Blog Editing Experiment...