Tag: tumblr

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Misc.

A programing note — and thoughts on web publishing, Twitter, Tumblr, and Posterous

A newley.com programing note: As you’ve probably noticed, I’ve been experimenting with some new functionality that allows me to automatically post my daily Twitter activity on this site. The result is the “Recently on Twitter.com/newley” posts you’ve likely been seeing.

The reason I’ve been testing out this kind of daily digest is that I want to be able to share here, on newley.com, the links and various updates I post on Twitter. Non-Twitter users are probably sick of hearing about the service; I can sympathize — I’m a huge fan of Twitter myself, and even I get a sense that the service’s importance is overblown. ((As it happens, however, I’ve been using Twitter for just over a year, and I have more than 700 followers, which is nearly double the number of RSS readers for newley.com — and I’ve been blogging here for seven years. Naturally, it should be said that this comparison doesn’t account for those who visit newley.com directly, or for those who arrive here via search engines.))

I realize, though, that these compiled tweets, when viewed on this site, lack some context. In addition, I don’t want newley.com readers to be bombarded with my tweets — if you want to follow me on Twitter, you know how to do that. So for now, I’m doing away with these daily digests. (Note that you can still see my recent tweets on the right side of the page, under Twitter Updates.)

I’m also searching for a way that I can automatically post, here on this site, bookmarks from delicious.com or elsewhere. The problem is that, based on my experience, anytime you try to create automatic blog posts, they tend to lack polish. Publishing platforms like Tumblr (which I’ve blogged about before) and the newly popular Posterous ((For more on Posterous and blogging, check out Steve Rubel’s thoughts here.)) — services that allow you to aggregate content from elsewhere or at least make creating blog posts extremely easy — often make for blog posts that seem…well, to lack polish. Which is logical, because such posts are created automatically and/or very quickly.

All of this by way of saying: Bear with me. If you see some strange posts here, or if some weird-looking items find their way into the RSS feed, hang in there. And thanks, as ever, for reading. If you have any thoughts on any of this, please leave a comment or email me: newley [@] gmail.com

Categories
Misc.

StateStats: Analyzing Google search patterns

Now that the airports have re-opened here in Thailand ((The latest news from Bangkok: The revered Thai King — the world’s longest reigning monarch — failed to deliver his annual birthday eve speech on Thursday. There was a huge amount of anticipation regarding his remarks, as he was expected to weigh in on the ongoing Bangkok protests. The King, who turned 81 yesterday, was apparently too ill to speak. And yesterday, exiled prime minster Thaksin Shinawatra’s ex-wife returned to the country. For an overview of the situation in Thailand, I suggest this recent AP story: “Travelers leave behind a Thailand still in crisis“)), I wanted to point out an intriguing tool: StateStats.

The site allows you to compare Google search patters for various US states; the terms are also linked with other demographic data ((But take the demographic info with a grain of salt. From the site: “Be careful drawing conclusions from this data. For example, the fact that walmart shows a moderate correlation with “Obesity” does not imply that people who search for ‘walmart’ are obese! It only means that states with a high obesity rate tend to have a high rate of users searching for walmart, and vice versa…”))

Some search terms that caught my eye include:

Thailand
Thailand (popular in Hawaii)
Thai cuisine (big on the west coast)

Food
In searching for Southern food, I noticed that fried chicken is a popular search term in the south, as is pecan pie. And it’s no surprise to note that South Carolina is the clear winner in searches for grits, shrimp and grits, and Frogmore stew ((Here’s more info on Frogmore Stew.)). On the other hand, vegan is a popular query in Oregon and Vermont.

Media and the Internet
The Wire is a popular search term in Maryland (the show is based in Baltimore), while Sopranos is big in New Jersey, New York, and surrounding states. Various Web/tech-related search terms, meanwhile, are especially popular in the West and in New York. Twitter is big in the Pacific region, in New England, and in Texas (though the more generic microblogging is huge in California, as is WordPress); Flickr is big on the West coast and in New York; and Tumblr is especially popular in New York.

Misc.
Other terms worth a look: Soccer is a popular term in the Northeast, North Carolina, Texas, and Washington, while Real Madrid and Barcelona are both popular terms in California and Virginia. And in other long-running football (soccer) derbies, Virginia is also prominent: check out River Plate and Boca Juniors.

Dogs are big in the south and mid-west, while cats are extremely popular in New Hampshire. Saab is also a popular term in New England, while Volvo is a popular query on both coasts.

Searches for some of the Andean nations reflect an interesting pattern: Bolivia is a popular term in Virginia and Florida, while Ecuador is big in New York and the mid-Atlantic. (New York is home to many Ecuadorian immigrants.)

And, last but not least, Newley (pictured above) is a popular search term in New York, Texas, and California. ((I suspect that these are not searches for newley.com, but for Anthony Newley. Or perhaps they’re misspellings of the adverb newly.))

(StateStats link via Kottke, where you can find a list of other revealing queries.)

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Misc.

Exploring Tumblr

Tumblr is a free blogging platform that makes posting material — whether it’s images, audio, video, links, or text — extremely easy.

Because I’m interested in all things Web publishing-related, I’ve set up an experimental tumblr page — er, tumblelog — at newley.tumblr.com. I don’t know if I’ll continue to updating it or not, but I’d heard a lot about the service and wanted to give it a spin.

At the expense of sounding ridiculous to those of you who — quite understandably — could care less about the technical minutia of a typical blogging workflow, I’ll just say this: The platform offers a great way to share interesting digital snippets that aren’t quite right for Twitter‘s 140-character maximum length and yet might not justify a full-length blog post. In addition, items can be posted to tumblr extremely quickly — as in a matter of seconds.

Some disparate items I’ve posted to tumbler over the last few weeks include:

— A somewhat silly (and quite clearly impromptu), two-minute, 26-second audio recording I made in a taxi in Kolkata, India last November.

— This striking image of a daring motorcycle design. ((Motorcycling-related link worth checking out: Zen and Now: On the Trail of Robert Pirsig and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance.))

— A YouTube video of a financial reporter explaining the economic meltdown (yes, I’m still fixated on how best to explain the subprime crisis).

Some people use tumblr for minimalist photo blogs, while others, such as my friend Lee, use them to aggregate their various online postings (images from Flickr, bookmarks on Delicious, etc.).

I’m unsure how — or even if — I’ll continue using tumblr, but I thought it might be of interest to some of you out there who’re looking for an ultra-simple way to share material online.

Further reading:

Lifehacker: “Geek to Live: Instant, no-overhead blog with Tumblr”

“I don’t have the time to keep it up.”

“I don’t have that much to say that often.”

These are the reasons most people abandon their personal weblog or never start one. But we all come across interesting tidbits online every day that we want to remember and share – links, photos, videos, even that side-splitting IM session you had with your co-worker. A new blog format, called a “tumblelog,” is a no-hassle, no-writing-required way to share those bits and maintain a personal site with the least possible commitment.

Webmonkey: “Get Started with Tumblr”

Do you miss the days when blogging seemed simple and exciting? Have you ever stared at the blank text input field in WordPress until you began to fill with dread?

While WordPress, Movable Type and similar blogging engines certainly make it easy to set up a blog with a robust content management system, sometimes the software itself is overkill. Sometimes you just want to post a picture or a quick snippet of text and be done with it.

That’s more or less the thinking that inspired Tumblr, a dead simple blogging system that makes it easy to post a quick note, an image, a link or a YouTube video and then get on with your real life.