photo credit: Jaako

A question which is sure to be asked a lot in the coming days or weeks is, “Which of these services should I use?” My main friends from Dragon*Con use Twitter to communicate through the day though they also have pownce apps, and the main difference is the ability to receive new messages as text messages. For a lot of people, I suspect that will be the main reason to stay with Twitter.

For me though, I turn mobile messages off with Twitter except on rare cases. If I want to check Twitter I’ll hit the site up with the phone’s browser. Mostly I use these services as sort of a group IM without the immediacy. I can send announcements telling people about stuff, or asking a question and waiting for my cloud of friends to respond or let the issue float by.

So there are really, in my view, two users - Those who use it for mobile messaging specifically, and those who use it for messaging from the office or computer.

If mobile messaging is your thing, Twitter is still atop the heap. Despite hardware issues and regular downtimes, it’s still the only game in town.

If desktop messaging is your thing, then Pownce is probably going to quickly become your default so long as you can get your friend cloud to make the jump. Sure you could fall back on Facebook, but for me Facebook is way too cluttered for the communication I’m looking for.

I still code better late at night. I don’t know if it is the ability to focus with fewer distractions or what, but I’ve knocked out a lot of progress on a project for my dad.

Update: I’ve discovered that while what I did worked, it also cut out the stats somewhere along the line, so I’ve rolled back to my previous settings and I’ll explore it more this week.

Podpress is far from perfect, but it’s closer than many other podcasting systems out there. The developers have put a LOT of work into it, so much so I half expect them to begin spinning off their own blogging app. The fundamentals are all there, they just need to build their own system for handling posts and such. Not that I am recommending they do so, Wordpress is great, there is just so much code in this plugin that it is halfway there already.

For ManaNation though, I’ve been quietly hacking myself some custom features or abilities. Since ads are going to be a major revenue source, I wanted to open that door on their popup video player, I got some help on their forums and found the javascript which launched the popup player, then I modified it to show my logo and some ads.

That was all well and good until something better, and cooler, and ultimately more awesome, came along. Shadowbox.

I link-logged it yesterday during work and then last night I sat down and figured how to hack it into the system.

First, I installed and tested Shadowbox on the Wordpress installation. I chose to use the Yahoo YUI framework, uploaded the necessary javascript and css files, and linked them in the theme header. I tested a few links with the ‘rel=”shadowbox”‘ and sure enough it worked like a charm.

Next, I ditched Podpress’ whole javascript popup launch, instead I created a php page which I called ‘popupvideo.php’ and had it create the same page I was generating through javascript, it also accepted a php variable (videolink) which it used in the wmv player to load the video for activex or the embedded player.

Third, I modified the code which generated the popup link (in podpress-theme.php) to instead create a shadowboxed link to the popupvideo.php file. This took some trial and error as I had to find the proper variable for the code “$val['URI']” which is the link to the media file.

Fourth, I fiddled with my page’s design some. I’m still not totally happy with it, but I like it better. This way I don’t lose visitors to new links, I can pop them up in site. Sure, some might find it annoying, but for my podcast audience I don’t think many of them will be unhappy with the change.

I just got word from Helio about their new slider phone, the Helio Mysto. I never did make the switch from Sprint to Helio as I haven’t been convinced of their financial stability but this new phone is tipping the scale into taking the plunge. Check it out: Helio Mysto

For those visiting the site, they may notice a new widget on the right. Skribit.com is a site with a simple purpose - letting the readers suggest your blog topics. The concept isn’t new, of course, but the idea had faded for several years and it was born out of a single weekend of work (largely.) It’s the brainchild of Paul Stamatiou, one of my favorite bloggers and a kid from my old school GT.

So anyways I signed up for the beta and it was interesting because I went through the registration, all the normal stuff, name, email, password, etc. Then it lets me add my site, TrickJarrett.com and after I do that, it tells me I haven’t been authorized yet. Now, normally limited beta tests use an invite system, you sign up to be invited, here you sign up and wait to be authorized. It’s an interesting twist, and from the standpoint of a business or website I think it’s pretty smart though they ought to give users a bit more of a heads up about it.

Anyways, the widget is super simple, uses iframe technology and is just a drop-in and go. I ended up modifying the size to make it fit my wide sidebar portion, but that wasn’t a problem either as it sizes to the iframe (I was afraid I’d have white space or things run off the bottom, but it looks like they got all of those bases covered.

Let’s see how it goes for a few weeks, and if my readers have any questions for me to put it to use. I know most of my readers are close friends and RSS readers, so we’ll just see how this goes. If it doesn’t get decent usage in the next few weeks though, I think it will get the unceremonious ax.

I got my invite to Xobni last night, so I’m testing it at home with my ManaNation mail. So far it’s pretty cool but I don’t think it’s a killer app. It’s been getting a lot press recently, but I’m not too impressed yet. If you want an invite, leave a comment and I’ll send them when I get home.

Normally this sort of link would just be relegated to the Asides, but to put it bluntly - this moved me. I’ve always been a large fan of Lessig’s and hearing that he spoke at TED caused me to immediately put work aside and seek out the video. This is, perhaps, the most eloquent speech I have ever heard concerning the problems with modern copyright.

Please, if you have 20 minutes, watch this video. And I do mean watch it. Listening does not do justice to his presentation.

ESPN is a burgeoning powerhouse, and as it has discovered its audience is interested in more than just football and basketball - really it was the arrival of Texas Holdem which showed this most clearly. However most people only vaguely recall the previous coverage of gaming which they provided.

Closest to my heart there was a time when they covered Magic: the Gathering tournaments. I think they did maybe two of them before deciding the audience wasn’t there. They’ve also done Chess and video games, but all of which were small unheralded tests several years ago.

What we’re seeing though is an ever growing G4tv, a growing gaming coverage community (my little project humbly included), and an audience increasingly diverse. South Korea is on the vanguard of this trend, but America is close behind and all the games are slowly moving toward a central solution. Gaming is moving from the geeky few to the commercial masses.

So it seems to me that ESPN, fresh off of creating ESPNU and exploring their niche spin-offs, should begin looking towards a gaming dedicated channel and website.