Loud & Clear

tech secrets and trends for 2009

If you have 30mins to watch this video, it’s totally worth it. New York Times columnist David Pogue gives the trends and awesome little known tech secrets.

I was totally going to give you a quick run down, but I had to watch it to get them, so you get to do the same. Then we’ll totally be in this elite secret tech-smart club and we can laugh at all those too busy or lazy to watch the whole thing. Of course, if you already know all these things, you’ll just laugh at me for thinking I’m on the early swing. But, whatever. You know I’m still cool.

social networking now more popular than porn

Can you believe it? A decade ago, the only reason (I was told) people used the internet was to access porn. For 10 years porn has still been the hottest (pardon the expression) searched and visited topic on the web.

Well, it’s finally happened. The reign of porn appears to be over. Or at least failing.

“…surfing for porn had dropped to about 10 percent of searches from 20 percent a decade ago, and the hottest Internet searches now are for social networking sites,” says Bill Tancer in his new book Click: What Millions of People are Doing Online and Why It Matters

Now I know many of you still don’t fully get this whole social networking thing. You’re just discovering Facebook. And many of you think you just don’t have time for Twitter.

But I’m here to tell you, this is the future. And, unlike the prior internet king, this one has the potential to enrich your life, not destroy it.

Then again, people get addicted to all kinds of things. Moderation- it’s a wonderful thing.

To help explain to you folks who still don’t get the whole social network thing, here’s a stripped down explanation of social networking.

the future of computing

This has to be the most amazing thing I’ve seen in a very long time. Technology continues to move us in to areas we could never have dreamed or at least simply dreamed about in sci-fi fiction. But if you care to look into the future and see what your computer will look like in the near future, you have to check this out.

twitter explained

First, I have a camera full of pictures of the Worship Night I haven’t been able to get through yet and get up here. So, if you’ve been waiting for the promised pictures, hold on, they’re coming!

Now, to the title. I tried to explain in a previous post exactly what Twitter was. You may have noticed I added a Twitter widget to this blog. Well for those of you who are more visual and/or audible, here’s a video to help clear the whole thing up. Props to Micah Foster, youth guy at New Harvest Church, for finding this first.

do you Twitter?

Do you Twitter? I’ve recently stumbled upon this amazing phenomenon. It’s a micro blog. It’s a mix of a blog and an instant message. Or maybe a mix of a blog and a text message. Confused yet? Here’s how it works.

Write what’s going on in your life in 140 characters or less. It’s just a snapshot. A thought. A moment in time.

In line and that guy in front of you decides to write a check and goes through three pens before finding one that works? Twitter it! Find yourself doing something fun, boring or just plain weird? Twitter it! Have an odd thought that will make your friends chuckle? Well, you get the idea.

It’s designed to work best if you connect it to an Instant Message (or a client like Twhirl) or your phone (as a text message) so wherever you are, you can either find out what’s going on in your friends life or share what’s happening with you.

You can follow people, they can follow you. You can follow famous people. They probably will not follow you. But your friends will. Or follow your friend’s friends and make new friends! It’s all social interaction at it’s best.

It may not be for you. But you might want to give it a shot. I’m digging it right now.

launch day

Well, today we go live with Staff Blogs. It’s a soft start so only those browsing the website are likely to see it. We start promoting it next weekend.

Good Friday Service was good last night. Paul did his first original song at Clovis Hills. It’s a great song. I hope we get to do it in a weekend service sometime.

Heading off to rehearsal for Easter services in about an hour. Hope to see you this weekend!