Recording Stories

One of the suggestions I received about a year ago is when traveling to conferences or meetings is to take a small mp3 voice recorder. It can really come in handy in several situations like recording yourself giving a presentation, recording someone else’s presentation (when mp3s aren’t going to be available later), or when talking with or interviewing other people. It’s a great way to gather stories of what God is doing in other places with other people. Just turn on your voice recorder and you’ve got it.

The hard part is having a tool that works very easily. I have an older iRiver mp3 player with built-in microphone. It’s not the best, but it works. Newer voice recorders aren’t always great and most mp3 players don’t have a microphone.

Today I read a review over at digital.leadnet.org called Gadget Review: The Griffin iTalk Pro Microphone. If you already have an iPod Nano, this looks to be an awesome way to get some convergence and added functionality. According to the review not only does it make great recordings, but it’s integrated into your iTunes. In other words, it’s taking advantage of the tools you normally use. I like that a lot.

If you have an iPod Nano and find yourself in situations where you need to record your voice (or someone else’s), check out this review. I think if I had a Nano I’d be investing into this little useful gadget.

Thinking about Twitter again

I’ve linked to a guide to twitter before and I play with my own Twitter account too. So far I’ve only really used it to post not-so-relevant or naval-gazing updates. I’ve seen it as the same look-at-me status updates for Facebook. So I now have them combined so when I update Twitter it sends that status over to Facebook.

But yesterday I finally had my “Ah-ha” moment for Twitter. One of it’s potentially productive uses is as a listserve for IM/SMS. Consider this:

Let’s say one of a small office/ministry/group of say 10 people in the group needs to send a short notification to the group (prayer request, status update, report). In my experience, the way this is done is by sending an email to everyone. I may or may not have a group set up to send it to all of them, but usually I’d type in each address. They would get the update in email.

Now consider Twitter. Let’s say they are all following each other in Twitter. The person who wants to send the quick update can do so in one of many ways: an email to one address to post to Twitter, a text (SMS) message to one Twitter address, use the Twitter website, use the new Jott phone service to use voice, or using their own IM client send a quick IM to Twitter. The mode to send the update can be the same, better (one address), and more versatile. The point here is there is always one address to notify many through various mediums.

For the people who receive the notification, they aren’t tied to email either. They could get the update by email if they want or could get it right away as an IM or text message. If they want it later (monitor it), they can get it by RSS. The point here is there are again various mediums to receive the update.

So it is like a listserve in a way. I can update my twitter in various ways and all those who need/want to get the update can receive it in various ways (that they control) — and it’s subscription based because each person choses to follow me (or others) or not.

I can totally see this now as a great application for a small group, particularly a scattered and mobile group for short, quick communications.

12 Days of Christmas in a Web 2.0 World

On the twelfth day of Christmas,
my cool colleague sent to me
Twelve Stumblers stumbling,
Eleven podcasters podcasting,
Ten lords IM’ng,
Nine ladies blogging,
Eight Wiki entries,
Seven Facebook pokes,
Six Twitter nudges,
Five Second Lives,
Four YouTube videos,
Three Del.icio.us bookmarks,
Two social networks,
And a tip to expand my business globally!

(via)

Google Search Results Explained

Matt Cutts is the leader of Google’s webspam team. He put together a simple, short video explaining Google’s search results page.

The most useful part of this video to me was his explanation of how Google decides to display the snippet of information in the search results.

You Tube – Matt Cutts Discusses Snippets

SnagIt for Free too!

Yesterday we told you that you can get Camtasia Studio for free. Today I found out they are also giving away their great screen-capture tool, SnagIt. For details, see Download SnagIt for Free – Full Licensed Version

Camtasia Studio for Free

I don’t know if you are familiar with Camtasia Studio or not, but it’s the best video screen capture software around (or one of them anyway). It’s great for making a tutorial or help video. Read this blog post tonight and wanted to share it. Don’t know how long it’ll last, but you can Download Camtasia Studio from TechSmith for Free

…a full retail version of Camtasia Studio 5 costs $300 but you can have Camtasia for free…The only catch is that this offer is available for Camtasia Studio 3.

Go to the article for details and download links.

Yahoo settled case brought by Chinese dissendent

We’ve frequently discussed the case of the Chinese dissident whom Yahoo divulged personal name and details and was subsequently arrested. It caused a furor 5 years ago.

They recently sued Yahoo, and Yahoo has settled.

This is one of the reasons we developed our Email ConneXion solution rather than rely on Yahoo, Gmail, Hotmail, and others for communicating our ministry information.

A couple of important quotes:

About the case…

Shi landed in trouble three years ago when the Chinese government prohibited journalists to report on the anniversary of the Tiananmen Square crackdown on pro-democracy protesters in 1989.
When Shi forwarded the notice to human rights groups, the Chinese government pressured Yahoo to give them the name of the account holder, and they did so. Shi was also sentenced to 10 years in prison.

How others in China feel…

But one Shanghai-based blogger, after being told about the settlement, told CNN, “Hopefully this settlement will have a long-term restraining effect on the Internet companies beyond this individual case … The way they are making concessions to the Chinese government is unacceptable. They are hiding from their moral obligations and standards.”

How Social Networking Might Evolve

I’m not one for making predictions about what life will be like online in the near future. It’s tough. Things change all the time. However, I suspect a new trend is going to emerge.

MySpace and Facebook been dominating the social network scene (at least in North America) for the last several years. The knock on MySpace is it’s full of spam and the profiles can seem out of control. The knock on Facebook is that it’s a walled garden.

So what’s happening now? Google has created a platform with basic standards so that anyone can “partner” with anyone (OpenSocial). You want your content inside someone else’s network (like the Facebook applications), Google has the baseline for sharing. Google has also taken it’s applications and made them available for offline use (Gears and IMAP).

And now both Yahoo and Google are upping the ante with their email systems. And the thought is that email will become the new hub for social networking — that the walls will keep coming down and people will have a better experience out of their inbox.

Here’s a bit of reading for you (where I’m getting some of these thoughts):

• Social networks of the future could be email based
• Facebook News Feed Fatigue (warning: the article is great, the video is a bit crass)
• Turn Gmail (or any E-mail Account) Into a Social Network Hub
• Fuser: Manage All Your Email and Social Networking Messages in One Place

So what do I conclude from all of this? I think that all the fun Web 2.0 sites and social networks will continue to evolve and more integration will happen. There is an advantage to a walled garden like Facebook, but I suspect that these gardens are going to get smaller and more niche-oriented. Everyone else will manage their social network through an inbox or personal portal page (like iGoogle).

If this happens, how will it play out for us in ministry? We have the opportunity to be better connected. Actually, we may be connected to less people, but the quality of those connections will increase. We can offer content and enter into other networks. It’s permission-based marketing because individuals will choose what they want and who they want in their network. RSS readers and email Inboxes will be the personal hubs (and they may be combined).

But the thing is to remember is that it’s not so much about the technicals or mechanics of what the future holds for online interaction. It’s always been about, and always will be about, communicating with the people you want to reach in the ways that they will understand and relate to the message. Conversations will always be the context for ministry. The form and format of that context will continually evolve, but the principles of conversation will not.

Internet Map

There’s over a billion people online. So what would a world map look like if it was distorted to show the internet population?

From Worldmapper

Guide to Twitter

Many of you have asked or commented to me, “I don’t get Twitter“. It’s understandable. I felt the same way.

Here’s my explanation in three sentences: Twitter is a web service that allows other twitter members to subscribe to your tweets (and vice versa). Each tweet is like a micro-blog post because it’s limited to 140 characters and are written and published on the twitter website, via Instant Messenger (IM), or via mobile phone text message (SMS). Subscribers can be notified by RSS, SMS, or IM.

The idea, as I get it now, is that you have people you follow (subscribe to) and you follow others. When one of them has something short to say, you’ll hear it (that’s why it’s called micro-blogging).

But what in the world would you say in 140 characters or less? Anything.

I’ve always said a blog post is like an email that has “the world” in the cc: line. A tweet, then, is like a text message to a group of people wanting to receive them.

Reading The Big Juicy Twitter Guide by Caroline Middlebrook really helped a lot. Go check it out and let me know what you think.

Besides personal friends, there are a few tweets I’ve been following: CNN Breaking News, Darth Vader, woot, and hurricanes among others. Some of these I have set to notify me via RSS which is a little slower, and some pop up immediately in my Google Talk.

I’ve been contemplating how Twitter could be used for ministry. I think one way would be for communication to your staff team. You all subscribe to each other and when you create a tweet, they all know about it. I think it could be a great “breaking news” service or used like a group alarm clock (“meeting in 30 minutes”). Because, like a group email, typing it once goes to all subscribed. It’s almost like a chat room.

If you use Twitter, have you incorporated it into any ministry practices? After you get an account, feel free to follow me (though I’m using it to be more personal and not so much ministry-related).