What was true about the mobile web a few years is no longer true today! The iPhone and many phones just like it changed the face of mobile web! However, people speak a lot about the mobile browsers and the browsing experience they provide, not many people pay attention to the fact that without sufficient speeds, those browsers would be useless
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The Best of the Web
Since there is not much happening in the tech world over the last few days, I figured I would share with you my thoughts on some good sites that I visit regularly. I like to read up on the latest and greatest before I start my day.
The topics I read about include technology, world news, user generated stories (Digg and Reddit), latest movies and torrents, NBA (hence, the ridiculously awesome picture from the last NBA slam dunk contest), cars, social networks, and occasionally I will read a little about the latest Hollywood stories (don’t ask me why, it is just very entertaining).
So here are some good sites you might enjoy:
- Facebook: No need for explanation here, although I will say, I am FBing less since I became obsessed with Twitter.
- Twitter: No matter how you define addiction, I am addicted to Twitter and rightfully so, it is awesome. Follow me here.
- Tech N’ Marketing: Best blog out there, period. No, but seriously, we try to update daily, so bookmark us, and check in while drinking your coffee.
- Cnet: So I have mixed feelings here. I mean, I would love to accomplish half of what Cnet has accomplished, but I find myself reading Cnet less and less these days. I mean I don’t love the layout and for tech news, other sites are more updated and generally more interesting. I do love their podcasts though.
- Digg: I am a huge fan of Digg and Kevin Rose. I do not know how anyone thinks Reddit competes, it does not. Digg is awesome and Diggnation (their podcast) is even awesomer (no, I do not really think that is a word).
- Engadget: Probably my favorite tech blog. I have to say that I have Engadget Mobile bookmarked, but I follow all Engadget news on Twitter.
- Gizmodo: I used to like it more, I am not a fan of their new layout. Gizmodo, if you’re listening, newer is not always better.
- gsmarena: The authority of the mobile world . If you want any info on a GSM phone, they have it, with pics, vids, and reviews. Great site.
- Reddit: OK, this one is complicated. I used to love it as much as Digg, but for two reasons, I do not anymore. I don’t like the format of comments as much as Digg’s for one, but more importantly, I do not like the readers as much. At the risk of getting killed in the comments here, I will say that on matters of Israel, a lot of the comments on Reddit, irrelevant of your political opinions, are borderline Nazism. And that’s all I am gonna say about that.
- TechEblog: One of my favorite tech blogs. Great reviews, great writers, and great exclusives.
- RLSLOG: Huge fan of this site and have recommended it to many. They do reviews on movies that include a short summary of the plot, the writer’s opinion on the flick, the quality of the torrent, and a link to the torrent, generally hosted on Newtorrents. Now let me just say here that I use it to read about new releases and not to download illegal pirated movies of course. If you do not know, downloading movies is illegal (although a colleague of mine claims downloading is legal, uploading is illegal, but I find that hard to believe). The site is actually down as I am writing this, which doesn’t happen often. Uh Oh!
- Mobile Crunch: Another great mobile blog and this one is of course part of the TechCrunch empire. Let me say that Techcruch and Arrington are every blogger’s idols and what we aspire to accomplish as Web writers. And I do not only mean because of his success, I am also referring to the quality of the Web empire he built from the ground up.
- Six Kids and A Full Time Job: A fellow blogger, Michael Eisenberg, who writes on matters of Venture Capital, politics, family, and tech startups. He is a partner at Benchmark Capital, a father of 7 I believe (I don’t think he is considering changing his blog’s name), and just a very smart guy in general. I read his blog quite often, in fact, I am pretty sure I check his blog more often than he updates it.
- Jay Leno’s Garage: Only recently discovered this site, and I love it. To sum it up and to quote (not a direct quote, but close enough) one of my favorite movies of the year; Slumdog Millionaire (phenomenal movie, a Must See), “it is an escape from real life”. Jay Leno’s garage has pretty much every awesome car that ever existed, and on the site, he has videos where he talks about the cars and test drives em. He owns them all. Unbelievable.
- MacSurfer: A great site that has a lot of tech news and recently started posting from Tech N’ Marketing, so I am a big fan.
- Likemob: Our mobile podcast. Check back here every Monday morning for a new episode. Good times with Itamar and Aryeh.
- Blonde 2.0: One of my regular reads. A blog, written by a really nice lady named Ayelet. She writes about the Web 2.0 world and its startups. She has some very insightful thoughts on a lot of interesting topics.
- All Things Digital: This is the WSJ’s tech blog. I go here for one reason and one reason only, Walt Mossberg. He is the tech world guru and just a really nice guy.
- WWTTD: A celebrity gossip blog. Like I said before, I am not sure why I read it, but I just can’t stop. This guy is really funny, although at times a little inappropriate, so it gets a light NSFW rating (that means Not Suitable For Work).
- Davka BT: The one stop shop for downloading NBA games, old and new alike. It is updated very often, and the games are generally good quality.
Wow, that was a little longer than I expected, and your eyes are probably hurting you now, so at the risk of having a boring and non existent punch line to end off with, I am just gonna end this post.
-Hillel
Twitter: My New Addiction
One of the main buzz words on the Web for at least 6 months (probably more like a year) has been Twitter. Seems like everyone who is anyone, is using it. So of course I had to check it out. Before I did that though, I talked it over with a few friends and asked a simple question; “why would I use Twitter to read status updates if I can do that via Facebook?” I really did not get the point. Status updates? That’s all?
The main answer I got to my question was that Twitter is a simpler and more user friendly site than Facebook. No applications, no ads, no other annoyances that we find all too often on Facebook. After using Twitter for a few weeks now and admittedly becoming an addict, I can tell you that the answer I got is an accurate one, but that is not what makes Twitter so attractive. That is not what is going to take Facebook users away from Facebook.
So, if not that, then what? Why is Twitter so useful? Why has it become such a popular social networking tool? I am sure there are a lot of different explanations for this phenomenon, but to me, there is one major difference between the people you interact with on Facebook and on Twitter. Let me explain. Facebook is based on a “friend” system. Generally, your Facebook friends are people you know personally. Yes, I know everyone has people on their list that they do not know, but Facebook is geared toward adding your real life friends to your list.
Twitter, on the other hand, enables you to follow someone you do not know, have never met, and probably will never meet. You can follow their tweets if their life interests you. The thing is though, that does not mean they are going to follow you back. They are not your “friend” just because you are following them. Let me give you a few examples. I read Digg every day at least 10 times a day (in fact, some days I have a Digg tab open all day). Twitter enables you to add the Digg category you choose and get updated on popular stories in real time without opening your Web browser. I do not know who the individual behind this Digg account is, nor do I care. They are not following me because they do not care about my life updates, but that does not mean I cannot follow them.
Another example is Shaq. Yes, I follow Shaq (at least I am not following Britney), and contrary to the way Facebook works, this, from what I gather, is the real Shaq. I follow him, but I do not see him following me any time in the near future. So to sum up the main reason I love Twitter so much, there is no approving mechanism, you can pretty much follow anyone you want, unless of course they make their profile private (which, by the way, I do not get why anyone would want to do).
I am pretty new to Twitter and am learning new things every day, you would be surprised how complex status updates could be. Learning about DMs (direct messages), retweets, desktop clients (using twhirl), and of course iPhone apps (I like TwitterFon).
I find myself using Twitter as a news source, since the news gets tweeted way before it is reported by the news websites. One more thing Twitter has helped me with, is getting over my Facebook addiction. Facebook? Na, so 2008!
-Hillel