The Read & Trust network is a small band of writers who read and endorse one another’s writings. And we’ve just launched a weekly newsletter.
Each edition of the newsletter is a single, long-form piece written by one of the members. The content will be exclusive to the newsletter only, meaning each of us contributing are writing something unique just for the newsletter. A subscription is $5/month, and the first one goes out tomorrow.
Do you have a stack of books to read, but can’t find the motivation? Or you want to dig into that classic novel you tell everyone you want to read but are afraid you won’t finish?
Just as athletes or apprentices crave feedback on the way to mastery, ReadMore helps you understand your reading habits and encourages you to keep reading. Previously featured on the front page of the iOS App Store, ReadMore tracks your reading sessions, holds notes, predicts, gently prods, and more! Check out the demo video of this great app.
Read more, and read smart!
What do you write as the very first post on the first day of your new job as a full-time writer? I have no idea.
Ever since I can remember I have wanted to be a writer. And now that I actually carry that title it doesn’t fully seem legitimate.
C.S. Lewis, Jane Austen, Robert Louis Stevenson, Ernest Hemingway — they were writers. I, on the other hand, feel like just a guy who writes. Of course a guy who writes is, by definition, a writer. But where the aforementioned greats were ones who had such a wonderful command of words, I on the other hand always feel like I’m guessing.
Alas, Clive, Jane, Robert, and Ernest are no longer with us to answer the question when you wrote, did you feel in control or were you just guessing?
But if you ponder it for a moment, you can’t help but think that maybe they were shooting in the dark, too. And when you think of it like that, well then, you start to realize that perhaps it’s not so much about being a Good Writer as it is about being a Passionate Writer.
Writing should be about standing behind your work and truly caring about what it is you have to say. If you happen to be good with words then congratulations. Dispassionate beautiful prose, however, is still dispassionate. Or, as Anatole France put it, “a tale without love is like beef without mustard: insipid.”
Emotion, honesty, truth, passion. These are the backbones of writing. And these are the very things that can be the hardest to put into our writing. I often find myself caring more about how I say things than what I am saying. The how and the what are certainly important, but not equally so.
I can get more concerned about using too many semicolons than I do about putting my heart into every sentence. Because I can’t get criticized over a semicolon. Well I can, but so what, right? There are rules and guidelines for style that I can refer to in order to justify or correct my semicolon usage.
But when we put our heart into something and get criticized for it, that hurts. And so, in a way, we shy back a bit and we put just enough of ourselves into our writing to give it a hint of breath and no more. Or we shy away from emotion altogether and focus solely on other factors to make our writing garner attention.
Passion and emotion have always been my motivation for writing. I am a passionate person — we all are — and writing is one of the ways I’ve found to express those emotions. I’d like to get better at it, and slowly I am learning a little bit more every day.
And then there are the moments when words utterly fail me. Such as now, when I try to express the gratitude and excitement and nervousness I feel as I begin this new journey of writing full time. This is something I never saw coming that morning in Colorado over six years ago when I started that Blogspot account and wrote that first blog post talking about my vacation.
Today, as I write this, I’m sitting in the same place I usually sit when I write an article for shawnblanc.net: my office. Writing this article feels no different than the hundreds of other articles I’ve written over the years. But now, in this moment, the expectations are greater…
There are my own expectations of what will I publish today? What will come tomorrow and the next day and the next day? These are not just expectations of what the site itself looks like and what gets published to it, but also how I spend my time on the back end. A few thousand words published to the site can represent dozens of hours of work.
Secondly are the expectations of the readers and the members. Now that my full-time job is to publish this website, what does that mean to you? Only you know. I have tried not to think about it too much, but that is easier said than done. For years I’ve always tried to keep just a couple people in mind when writing here. But now that the economic success of this site hinges in no small part on the continued growth of a strong membership base, there is that sudden pressure to write for all of you at once.
You and I both know that is not a recipe for success. My goal is to simply keep on doing what I have been doing for the past four years. I have no plans to reboot this site, change its focus, or change what I’ve been doing so far that got me to this point. Though the pressures and expectations are new and different I am intent on staying steady.
The only thing that has drastically changed is that I now have many more hours in the week to devote to publishing this site. Which means the only difference you should notice is an increase in consistency and quality. I have many ideas that I am looking forward to starting on over the next few weeks and months, and I am very much looking forward to iterating, improving, and generally upping the overall awesomeness of this site.
Some of you have been here since the very first post. Some of you are brand new. And I am grateful that you chose to show up, sign up, and go on this journey with me.
Thank you,
— Shawn
On opening night for Tron: Legacy some friends and I watched the original, then went to the theatre and saw the midnight showing in IMAX 3D. It was stunning.
This Tuesday it’ll be available, and right now you can pre-order on Amazon. There’s a version that comes with four (four!) formats of the movie: Blu-Ray, Blu-Ray 3D, DVD, and digital. It’s only $30 right now (which is 40% off list), and it ships for free.
I don’t own too many movies in plastic media, but the visuals and audio on Tron: Legacy are so fantastic this is one film I certainly want to own on Blu-Ray. Pick it up via this link I’ll get a small kickback from Amazon.com.
I’d like to take a minute to thank Kourosh Dini for sponsoring the RSS feed this week in order to promote his amazing ebook, Create Flow with OmniFocus.
I switched to OmniFocus over six months ago, and though my natural disposition is towards apps which are simple and have a low barrier of entry, the more I use OmniFocus the more I love it. OmniFocus is an app worth learning and using because the return on the back end is well worth the investment.
I have my own copy of Create Flow with OmniFocus, and it is hands down one of the most exhaustive and detailed resources for OmniFocus that I have seen. If you are at all intimidated by OmniFocus, or even if you are already using it daily and want to learn more about it, I highly recommend Kourosh’s ebook.
Frank Chimero:
Writing is chasing a question—an inquiry of the mind. Forward is better than every direction at once. It’s not really writing until you feel something; until you choke up at a thought, until you start fidgeting in your seat in excitement, until you feel the twinge of pain that happens when a thorn is pulled out of your side. Go back. Delete everything before you started fidgeting or crying or deflating like a balloon. Then, write some more.
Go write.
Speaking of Kansas City, KansasFest is an Apple-centric event full of personality. It’s “the world’s only annual convention dedicated to the Apple II computer.”
We may not have the Rocky Mountains, but in 2012 we’ll have amazingly fast Internet access.
There is a problem with subscribing to podcasts on your iPhone, and it has to do with iTunes. Here’s how it works:
Once deciding you want to subscribe to that podcast, you end up on that show’s page in iTunes and you subscribe for free.
The show is added to your own podcast subscription list and the most recent show is downloaded onto your computer.
You are now subscribed to a podcast.
Now, if you want to listen to that podcast on your iPhone, iPod touch, or iPad, you must plug your device into your computer and sync it. Making sure that your new podcast has been hand-selected to be one of the ones which sync to your iPhone.
Up until this point it all is fine. However, the frustrating part of subscribing to podcasts on your iPhone happens once you’ve synced the podcast and its episodes to your device. Because at that point the content on your iPhone becomes static — as if podcasts are treated like albums and episodes like songs.
Treating music or movies that you’ve synced to your your iPhone as static content is fine. I listen to the same album many, many times and only have my favorite albums and artists synced to my iPhone. But for a podcast, it’s like a radio or television show — I listen to it once and that’s it. With a podcast there is always something new to add and something old to get rid of.
We don’t listen to podcast episodes over and over. We listen to new ones as they get published. Out with the old and in with the new. However, when the podcast you are subscribed to publishes a new episode there is no easy way to get it.
The two ways to get a new podcast episode onto your iPhone are either: (a) tap “get more episodes”, be taken to the iTunes app and then pick a single episode to download to your iPhone, wait for it to download, return to the iPod app and play the episode; or else (b) sync your iPhone to your computer and transfer any new episodes which have downloaded to your computer onto your iPhone.
(If you are subscribed to more than one podcast, you have to repeat step “a” for each individual subscription, and manually download each new episode.)
When at my desk working I either listen to music or silence. There are only a few podcasts which I listen to on a regular basis, and when I do listen to them it is usually during some activity which has me away from my computer. Such as driving, mowing the lawn, or working in the garage.
Since I use MobileMe to keep my contacts and calendars in sync I rarely have need to sync my iPhone. Which means that up until a few weeks ago my Podcasts were virtually never up to date. If I was in the car and wanted to listen to the latest episode of The Pipeline I either had to plan ahead and sync or just listen to the most recent version I had on my iPhone. Which meant that in reality, I just rarely ever listened to podcasts.
Now, I realize that to have already written almost 600 words may seem like a lot to simply describe the awkwardness of trying to keep a podcast up to date. But: (a) I think we’ve all figured out by now that I have an affinity for writing about these types of things in detail; and (b) I’m trying to paint a picture for why I hardly ever listened to podcasts — up until a few weeks ago there was just no simple way to keep up with them.
What some people may not realize is that a podcast feed is just like an RSS feed. Which means that, when it comes to podcasts, iTunes is just a fancy (and bloated) feed reader.
This also means that apps other than iTunes can subscribe to podcast feeds. Instacast is one such app.
Instacast is not the first iPhone app dedicated to managing your podcasts, but it is the first I have ever truly liked. Its most notable feature is that it offers over-the-air updating of your podcasts.
You can update all your podcasts at once, or just one subscription, or even just one episode at a time. It will update the listing of all the new shows their descriptions, length, and more. From there you can stream the episode right away or download it for listening to when you’re not online. Instacast even remembers your spot for each episode you’re listening to and you can resume where you left off — even if you were streaming.
To fill Instacast with your favorite podcast subscriptions you may want start by rescuing your current podcasts directly from your iPhone’s iPod app.
Tapping the + button at the bottom-left corner of Instacast’s home screen (the screen which shows your complete list of subscriptions) will open up the area of Instacast where you find and add new broadcasts. Tap on the iPod icon and Instacast will look up all the podcast subscriptions you’ve been syncing over to your iPhone from your computer and will then pull the feeds for those and subscribe to Instacast for you.
Moreover, you can search for a specific podcast, browse the directory of Popular1 or Just Added podcasts, or thumb in the URL of a podcast feed which is not public. Instacast even supports authenticated feeds.
Thankfully Instacast not only acts the way a dedicated podcast app should, it looks like it was designed in Cupertino. And once you use it a bit, it really begins to make the native podcast section of the iPod app look as if it was even less thought through. Meaning, Instacast not only works better than the native podcast functionality of your iPhone, it looks better too.
After using it for a while it’s clear that it was thought through with this sole functionality in mind. Instacast has a much more elegant design for podcasts than the iPod app does, and it’s made the native iPod app feel bulky to me.
Another great feature is the price: just 2 bucks in the App Store. Which should make it a staple for even the most casual of podcast listeners.
I am as nitpicky about user interface as I am about user experience. There are some apps which, even though they offer a great service, I just never use because I don’t like to look at them. And on the other side you have those apps which look cute but are not very useful.
Instacast, however, is of my favorite breed of apps: one with pitch-perfect design and that does one thing and does it very well.
Like these great shots from John Carey which double as wallpaper images.
A super clever ad by Penguin Classic Books. Not to mention that orange typewriter is more attractive than all of those laptops it’s sitting next to.
Master productivity with the power and finesse of OmniFocus using Creating Flow with OmniFocus. Kourosh Dini makes the daunting seem simple and helps you gain control from the smallest routines to the bigger goals of life using one of the most powerful productivity tools available today.
Ben Brooks, in his article discussing the challenges that Twitter is facing at becoming profitable, writes:
We must assume that Twitter wants the service to remain free to users at all costs. […] Making those assumptions means that Twitter has decided a large, vast, user base is better than a small profitable user base.
My short response is that yes, Twitter has absolutely decided that a large and vast user base is better than small and profitable one.
My lengthier response is that it’s hard to imagine Twitter ever expected to grow as fast as it has or become large as it is now. And now, in a way, I think that because of its growth, Twitter as a service has proven on its own behalf that having a large and vast user base is more important to Twitter the company than having a small but profitable one.
The strength of Twitter is in its simplicity (anyone with an SMS-enabled phone can post an update) and its enormous user base. And I bet that the founders of Twitter see its strength not just in what it currently is (an enormous and active social network) but in what it has the potential to be (an even bigger network with a scope far beyond just social interaction).
Twitter is used by real people to share moments, ideas, and news with their family, friends, and the rest of the world. The more people who use Twitter the more valuable it becomes. And the company gets this, because in an interview with NPR last month, Biz Stone gave us a glimpse of where they’ve set their sights:
We are now living in an age where there are 5 billion mobile phones. They all have SMS, they all are capable of accessing the Twitter network […]
A network with 5 billion accounts? That would be unprecedented. I can’t even imagine it. Twitter would be more famous than Michael Jordan. Before they even grow to just 10 percent of that they are going to need a working business model — a way to support the staff and infrastructure necessary to keep Twitter going.
So far Twitter as company is struggling in their attempts to become profitable. A suggestion Ben Brooks gives in his aforementioned article is that Twitter could simply transition to a paid-only model:
Imagine that Twitter’s estimated 200 million user base was asked to pay $6 a year to use the service (something that would amount to $0.50 a month). I would guess Twitter would lose some users — let’s be brutal and assume they lose 70% of users instantly. That leaves the service with about 60 million users — a large drop.
That is 60 million paying users though, and at $0.50 each monthly that amounts to $30 million dollars in revenue each month.
$30 million in revenue each month would be great for the company. But I don’t think that’s how the company wants to make its money. Because turning Twitter into a paid-only service would be a huge disservice to many of its users, as well as its non-users.
It is quite safe to assume most Twitterers would never pay for the service. If it became a paid-only network they would simply sign-off and be done with it. I would be willing to stay and pay but only if many of the people I follow stayed and paid also.
The greatest value Twitter has is that so many people use it. I would not want to pay six bucks a year and be stuck with nobody to follow but a bunch of insipid corporations.1
However, Twitter is not trying to answer the question of who would or would not stay and pay. They are trying to find a business model that will support those who cannot pay so even more of them will sign up.
Because, in a way, going to a paid-only service would be similar to when Egypt blocked access to Twitter and Facebook for its citizens earlier this year. It may not be quite that intense, but I bet that’s how Twitter the company would see it. They do not want to keep one single person from being able to use their service. They see it as being too valuable to the world for something like that.
Here’s a prime example of why, from an excerpt of a letter Kevin Rose received from a friend who works for Apple in Japan sharing what happened at the Apple store after the recent earthquake:
7 hours and 118 aftershocks later, the store was still open. Why? Because with the phone and train lines down, taxis stopped, and millions of people stuck in the Tokyo shopping district scared, with no access to television, hundreds of people were swarming into Apple stores to watch the news on USTREAM and contact their families via Twitter, Facebook, and email.
Twitter as a service played a critical role in informing the world about the earthquake in Japan, as well as helping friends and families keep their loved ones informed of their status. The earthquake in Japan was not the first time Twitter has served such a role. And that is something Twitter as a company is very proud of.
Here is Biz again, from the same NPR interview:
“How a revolution comes to be is a mystery to me,” he says. “It’s important to credit the brave people that take chances to stand up to regimes. They’re the star. What I like to think of services like Twitter and other services is that it’s kind of a supporting role. We’re there to facilitate and to foster and to accelerate those folks’ missions.”
It would be regrettable if those who cannot pay were locked out from using one of the most powerful tools for global communication and information sharing there has ever been. The NPR writer adds that “Twitter purposefully allows everyone access because information — both good and bad — should be allowed to flow freely.”
There is no way the founders of Twitter could have expected their service to become as important to the world as it has. Though they need to make money to survive, they now they have a goal which, in their minds, just might be more slightly more important than turning a profit. And that goal is to build the value and nobility of Twitter as service by remaining free to users at all costs.
…well, you don’t have an iPhone.