Google Reader allows you to share stories you find particularly interesting with a list of friends. It’s incredibly powerful for establishing your own news filter – something I’ve been very interested in over the past few months.

Go to “Sharing settings…” in the Reader interface and in the text box on the bottom right part of the page enter my gmail address (rice28m). Be sure to leave a comment on this post and I’ll start sharing with you, too.

Twitter is a powerful way to see what the smartest, most clever people in one’s areas of interest are thinking. Over the last year, I’ve followed people interested in technology, politics, and inspiration.

One of the most useful features of Twitter is being able to mark tweets as “favorites”. I encourage you to check out some of my favorite tweets from 2008 here, or after the jump. This sums up some of the most disturbing, hilarious, and engaging content I’ve seen this year.

Favorites Tweets 2008, 1

Favorites Tweets 2008, 2

My Relationship with AOL

I’m weird when it comes to social networking and online presence. In my crowd of “real life” friends, I’m one of very few people with a twitter account. In that respect, I suppose I’m forward-thinking. However, it wasn’t until very recently that I set up a myspace account. My “protest” wasn’t all that visionary, I admit. I needed to suck it up, it being my loathing of poor design, obnoxious advertising, and Rupert Murdoch.

In my computing history, the last five years, I’ve had one constant – AOL Instant Messenger, AIM. From the very beginning, AOL has been in my computing life. My family used AOL as our ISP for a few months before moving up to high-speed Internet access. In that time, AOL’s stronghold on the dial-up market established them as the instant messenger of choice for all of my born-in-the-90′s friends. Although I’ve long since dumped the official AIM client in favor of Pidgin or Adium, you’ll almost always find me on AOL’s network.

AIM Buddy Updates

AOL made a very interesting play that just came to my attention. The company launched a service called Buddy Updates, a status (away) message and buddy profile archiving feature. For someone used to having all content (away messages, buddy profiles) lost forever after alteration, this is a game-changer.

Although I feel ridiculous writing this, some people (rather foolishly) feel that AIM status messages are the last place they can quickly create content that won’t come back to bite them. With the default configuration of AIM Buddy Updates, this is no longer true. Before panicking, note that this feature is opt-out. Just go to the Buddy Updates website and login with your AIM username and password. From that interface, you’ll be able to shut the service off, but AOL’s hoping you’ll browse your friend’s recent activity (everyone), look at your content (just me), or setup the service (setup).

Impact?

AOL, a company that’s hemorrhaging money, is still making plays into Web 2.0. The idea of archived microblogging will be new to many users of AIM, but Buddy Updates still targets the more advanced social media user. That is, at the setup screen, users can add other web services, a la FriendFeed. Big names include Twitter, Blogger, LiveJournal, Flickr, del.icio.us, YouTube, and MySpace. Yes, the omission of Facebook eludes me, too.

I have few complaints about FriendFeed, but competition is almost always good. Even if it’s just another redundant web 2.0 service, I think AOL is welcome to the party of content aggregation.

Let me fill you in.

It’s no secret that I enthusiastically support Barack Obama as the next President of the United States of America. From the moment he spoke at the Democratic Convention in 2004, I’ve always kept him in my consciousness. Soon after its release, I read The Audacity of Hope and again fell in love with Barack’s policies, personality, and eloquence.

When there were close to a dozen Democratic Presidential candidates, I publicly supported Senator Obama. Much later, a week before Super Tuesday, I made time in my hectic life to put up signs around Dover Plains in support of his candidacy.

If you don’t recall, it was clear that Hillary Clinton would claim a clear majority of the delegates in New York state. Nonetheless, I still felt compelled to show support for Barack. There was virtually no political presence in the town from any political party and I found this apathy to be disgraceful. I couldn’t do much, but I did something.

Now, let’s fast forward. Obama’s deputy campaign manager, Steve Hildebrand, announced that the campaign will compete all over the country this fall, as opposed to solely in swing states.

Today, I am proud to announce that our presidential campaign will be the first in a generation to deploy and maintain staff in every single state.

The Obama campaign is following Howard Dean’s 50-state strategy, an idea with merit. I share the contention that by campaigning everywhere, a truly powerful grassroots movement can take hold.

Before graduating high school some weeks ago, I created a Facebook group called Dover Plains for Obama. There, I threw around the idea that progressive Dover students should organize a campaign event in support of the Illinois Senator. Fifty-four students joined the Facebook group, and a vocal subset agreed with my idea.

That’s when I started doing some serious research. I went to BarackObama.com’s social network, MyBo, and searched for campaign events within 50 miles of Dover Plains. Here’s a map of the results:

Notice something? There’s a geographic hole in that map, a gap where seemingly no events are being held. That void is Dover Plains and its surrounding communities. This is unacceptable, but luckily, we can change this.

In the last two weeks, I made some calls to the Dover Town Hall to check up on a group’s right to peacefully assemble, say, in the middle of town. After a well-received presentation at the public Town Council meeting this last Wednesday, I obtained the town’s blessing to hold an event of some sort.

Here are the details as they stand right now:

• Name: Register for Change
• Tag-line: Register for Change, Rally for Hope, Learn about Obama
• August 9th
• All day (9AM to 6PM)
• Intersection of Route 22 and Mill Street in Dover Plains (map)
• Voter registration drive
• Information tables about Barack Obama
• Encouragement of Obama supporters to honk horns as they drive by

My personal goals for Register for Change are straightforward. I’d like to…

• Encourage people to participate in the democratic process. Our right to vote is our most important and powerful asset as Americans.
• Clear up misconceptions, often caused by hatred and intolerance, about Senator Obama.
• Show Dover Plains and its surrounding communities that the young people of Dover can do something positive. I want to send a clear message that Dover’s young people aren’t all about gangs, drugs, or fighting.

It’s easy to respond that an event like this won’t have a tangible effect on the election. One can say, “New York state will vote Democratic, no matter what you do. What’s the point?” To that, I have a simple response.

If we can register one person to vote, it will be worth our time. If we can correct one misconception about Senator Obama, it will be worth our effort. If we can get one person to start thinking, we’ve made change.

I hope you can join me in preparing and executing Register for Change. I’ve made events on the major social networking sites. I encourage you to sign up.

BarackObama.com: http://my.barackobama.com/page/event/detail/44kjt
Facebook.com: http://www.new.facebook.com/event.php?eid=68562510053
Upcoming.org: http://upcoming.yahoo.com/event/933115/

Let me know if you’re coming and how much you’d like to be involved. If you just want to show up, that’s fine. If you’d like to be involved with the planning, setup, and execution, please get in touch with me as soon as possible. Anyone is welcome to email me with questions, ideas, or much-appreciated offers of help. If you contact me, please leave a phone number so I can stay organized and get back to you as soon as possible.

My Doverian friends, and my friends in Dutchess County, now is our moment. Let’s do it.

Time is scarce, knowledge isn’t. Today, in an ever-decreasing timeframe, we need to know more about our computers. Although the Macintosh is worlds ahead of the PC, it has its problems. The Mac Observer’s Mac Geek Gab tackles these problems and explores new uses for our macs in an entertaining and informative way.

Its greatest asset? The podcast is divided into chapters so that listeners can quickly scan for questions that they’re interested in. Sick of hearing about networking? Skip it and move onto hard disk problems! A very well-done show, worthy of subscription.

Read on to see the comments and my responses.

A Dover Dilemma

Christopher S. Penn wrote:

Who needs motivational speakers? Yeah, they’re nice, but chances are students probably miss the message anyway. Take the money, some money, and throw out a challenge to your student body – make a 3 minute motivational video on the topic of your choice – college is in your reach, live outside your comfort zone, etc. – and upload it to YouTube. The video that gets the most views wins a small scholarship or something.

Motivation only works if someone WANTS to be motivated. It’s like sales. If someone wants to buy, selling is easy. Convincing them that they want to buy if they in fact do not? Difficult. One of the sales tricks is to get someone to sell an item to themselves.

Get your students to sell themselves on motivation.

I completely agree. Then again, I get all the motivation I need from TED talks and great blogs!

I’d love to throw something like the YouTube contest you mentioned, but that would create havoc in a high school that doesn’t offer a basic computer class to students.

Unfortunately, I don’t think people around here want to be motivated. I’ll keep trying, though. Going to have to innovate on this one.

Kim wrote:

I’m proud of you for being so forward-thinking and standing up for yourself and the Student Council. It’s a really intelligent and mature decision. I’m very disappointed in DHS. I agree that not having a speaker is not the biggest tragedy; I couldn’t tell you who came to the school the past two years, let alone what they said.

But hm…I wonder, do you think you could find someone local to make a speech? Like a community member, who would maybe do it for free or at least a lot less than a professional speaker?

Or just do it yourself. I’m sure there are a lot of kids at that school who could do with following your example.

Thanks, Kim! Although I’ve made the call to not purchase the services of a speaker, the entire Student Council has a say in what we do with the assembly. I’m thinking about taking your advice about finding some local talent to speak in place of a hired hand. I can think of a few teachers and members of the community who may be able to pull us through. I’ll keep thinking of ideas in hopes of finding something innovative.

In terms of doing it myself – the Student Council President gives opening remarks at assemblies such as this. I’m considering expanding my opening remarks into a speech on the subject of the degradation of Dover High School. I have little to lose.

Chris wrote:

I’m really sorry to hear that your highschool is falling apart, too. Not only has Carmel Highschool had greater numbers of more severe fights this year than others, but crime in my town is ridiculous as well. Thieves smashing car windows to steal iPods and anything else that isn’t attached to the frame, psychopathic genitalia mutilating murderous wives, drug addicts sticking up Rite-Aid with shotguns, and two bank robberies in the past 30 days or so. What’s going on?

Holy crap! That’s crazy. Dover hasn’t quite gotten that bad. Our problems relate to an inability to punish people who cause serious trouble while simultaneously clamping down on more benign students.

Anonymous wrote:

Listen Rick… Everyone knows why our school is out of control… The reason starts with the new Administration/Dictatorship… As much as everyone hated Mr. Tierney for his “lack” of discipline look at the difference in our school from last year to this year… The way I see it is that a certain administrator feels the need to increase discipline which is just making the students rebel… I’m a senior and for the past 3 years, for the most part, I looked forward to going to school monday to friday… It was a very comfortable place to learn and hang out… This year however one can feel the sense of change in the school… Someone’s on a BIGGGGG power trip and it needs to stop… Last year I could walk the hallway without being badgered about every little thing but today I walk the hallway and I wonder what exactly am I doing wrong now?… Will I get suspended for walking on the wrong side of the hallway? Or God forbid a student goes to the bathroom… the teachers have to inform the office a student has left the classroom? And most recently students are no longer allowed into the attendance office… How about we just let Jackie into the office in the morning lock the door and not let her out until schools over? Because it’s obvious too many kids enjoy her personality and want to stop IN and say hello… DOVER DAY CARE IS BACK IN SERIVICE… ARE YOU KIDDING ME?!?!?… The school needs to start treating students like high schoolers and less like kindergarteners… Last year, with a few exceptions, the highschoolers were treated, and acted like, high schoolers… Now this year rolls around and all of a sudden I feel like I’m back in daycare and these “high schoolers” are behaving like theyre preschoolers… Please tell me that its not on the “Administration” and its ALL on the students as many were originally so quick to say… Now it seems more people seem to be leaning in my direction… I feel sorry for the teachers who I have talked to me and have said in-directly whos fault it is… My heart especially goes out to our schools beloved hall monitors who obviously cannot stand they way things are being run in our school… Ricky I know youre smart.. How do you feel about this?… Here’s my final statement.. Our new principal is not fit to be a principal.. School is supposed to be a learning caring learning evniornment… I feel like I’m stuck in a Maximum Security prison… Dover High School is on lockdown… Changes start from the top… Lead by example… Something our school is lacking this year

I hear ya, bro/sis.

I’d rather not call out any individuals and place blame. I’m hoping that the situation is still salvageable.

US News and World Report, Media Literacy and Social Media

Edvisors Online Education wrote:

Very thoughtful and intelligent response. It would be fun to turn the table on Kimberly Palmer (the author of the USNews article) and ask her to justify the fact that her article is sponsored by several student loan companies (via Google Adwords).

I work with Chris Penn and we are all very proud of the work we do. We have a clear mission of “providing a richer, more fulfilling education experience to students, educators and parents worldwide”. We do this by providing a wide range of educational resources, including the Financial Aid Podcast. Believe me, it is not inexpensive to do this as the article implies – it is a lot of work. However, it is worth it as it build good will, helps students further their education, and yes, generates customers who appreciate the added value we can offer.

Good luck in school. We don’t need you to take a loan out with us – there are millions of student who we can serve. But definitely – keep talking about us!!!

Keep putting out compelling content and I’ll keep talking about you. It’s how Internet Karma works.

Chris wrote:

I don’t like how the article associated the Student Loan Network with deceptive marketing. As I don’t find the tactics of th SLN to be deceptive, the article’s insinuation is in itself a little sneaky. But I’m also not sure if we should be bashing the article that hard. Ignorance, especially in the context of loans, is extremely dangerous and terribly volatile. Look at the housing crisis. The clusterfuch of the loan market led to quite a lot of action on the part of the Federal Reserve to fix it, and the market’s collapse led to a dive in the dollar. The article is right about one thing. If you’re taking out a loan, you need to know everything about anything you’re agreeing to. I think it’s perfectly justifiable to call attention to this fact in the manner they did, although I would have chosen different examples.

The association of the Student Loan Network with deceptive marketing obviously angered me, too. The article took my happy story and spun it into an attempt to pray on a desperate student.

You’re absolutely right about ignorance concerning loans. In fact, that’s one of the things I spoke about in my interview. I criticized those television ads that go, “Get $40,000 right now!” for their lack of disclosure and tendency to lead student to over-borrow.

Your stance is more neutral and unbiased, and thus, less passionate. I’m too personally involved to take a stance that composed. I still maintain, though, that the root of the problem is basic media literacy and that deceptive marketing is only a secondary concern.

…

Thanks for all of the feedback, everyone! Although I can’t change anything about the US News and World Report article, I think I can still effect some change in Dover before I leave for college. At least, I’ll give it a shot.

By the way, let me know if you think a larger feedback-addressing post like this is a good thing every once in a while.

[19:47] Exposay: jasoncalacanis is sitting around wondering how to market to us all

[19:49] jasoncalacanis: exposay: are you saying i would market to people as the CEO of www.mahalo.com and a blogger at www.calacanis.com with an RSS feed of www.calacanis.com/rss.xml? next thing you’ll say I’m trying to get folks to sign up for www.twitter.com/jasoncalacanis !

[19:49] jasoncalacanis: really

[19:49] Exposay: jasoncalacanis, after that, I think you owe me, Richard Mondello of http://richardmondello.com/ a follow on twitter at twitter.com/rmondello/ because I’m a huge fan.

[19:51] jasoncalacanis: exposay: done!

Awesome. Ego inflation in action via twitter.

Link to Interview

PhotoBook is a Facebook photo browser for Mac. It makes it easy and fun to manage, share, and view your friends’ Facebook photos in one intuitive interface.

Mac users just have to try this application. It’s a great example of web services crossing over with desktop applications. I’m looking forward to more social applications like this. My favorite other mac desktop applications leveraging facebook include Facebook Exporter for iPhoto and FacebookSync.