Zeigen

Nearly every newspaper carries a horoscope column. Almost everyone knows what “sign” they are. Most people do not take astrology too seriously, reading their horoscope for amusement if they read it at all. However, some people take pains to study the characteristics of the different signs and make assessments of people based on what sign they are, and attempt to model behavior or predict the future based on astrology. Others pay significant money to astrologers for a personalized chart. A 2003 Harris poll found 31% of U.S. adults stated they believed in astrology.

A simple question to ask someone who believes in astrology is why it works. What method do the planets or stars have of influencing one’s behavior, personality and future? It’s certainly not gravity, since the doctor who delivered you had a larger gravitational effect on you than Pluto did. (Assuming the doctor weighs 5kg and was 5 centimeters away from you; Pluto weighs 7.15×10⁹kg and was at least 2.76×10¹⁴ centimeters away. Plus it’s not even considered a planet anymore.)

The good thing about astrological claims is that they’re testable. If someone says that Aries are supposed to be fearless and impulsive, one can design a survey and then check if those who answer the survey about impulsiveness who are Aries answer the questions differently. There’s a fair bit of research into the claims of astrology, and the most significant debate centers around the so-called Mars Effect, which claims those born during times Mars is ascending are more likely to excel at sports.

A fair amount of research seems to confirm that birth month has a significant correlation with excellence in sports.

Victory for astrology? Not so fast.

In the last few years, research into “relative age” has shown interesting results. Let’s start with soccer. Each soccer club and soccer camp has an age requirement. Imagine, for example, a summer soccer camp that requires the campers to be nine years old when the camp starts in June. So a kid born in May nine years ago will barely be able to make it in, while a kid born in September nine years ago will have to wait a year. It turns out that the “older” nine year olds tend to do much better in camp. Since they’re older, they’re generally more coordinated and can run faster and longer — which makes them tend to be picked first, which gives them more self-confidence. That early experience often seems to carry through the rest of their soccer career. This chart, for example, from a University of Alberta study, shows how world cup youth soccer players born in the first three months after the eligibility cut-off blow away those born in the other nine months.

I have little doubt that relative age affects a lot more than just sports. Parents tend to want to push to have their children moved up a grade, but it may be the exact opposite approach (thus having your child be among the oldest in the class) will have profound benefits that affect your child throughout his or her life.

I certainly believe astrology is junk. But I also believe we should pay attention to the research showing that the month of a child’s birth is actually quite important.

(Click to enlarge)

Sammy is two-and-three-quarters. His preschool sends a daily update of what the kids do each day. A few moments ago I received this update:

While we were waiting for lunch Lucy, Sammy, Lindsey, Sabrina and Alex saw the Princesses gowns hanging on the hooks on the wall. They asked for help to put them on. Rebecca brought the music to the back room and walla! all the princessess including “Princess Sammy” started to dance to the music.

I am so hoping they took pictures — because if so, I’m quite certain it’ll come in handy when he’s 18:

Sammy-at-18: Dad, can I borrow the car? Some friends are coming over and we’re going to a movie.
Crotchety-old-57-year-old-me: Sure, if you mow the lawn first.
Sammy: No way! I did that last week. Plus you already said I could borrow it.
Me: Fine. But when your friends get here, I’m going to show them The Picture.
Sammy: Say, dad, did you want both the front AND the back lawns mowed?

Another new channel for you today: City By City has been added to the Lifestyle category of the TiVo Video Download service, thanks to our partner, On Networks.

City By City is “a travel show with a twist, your virtual little black book for the swankiest cities across Europe.”

This show will publish every Monday (along with the other five series we’ve added so far from On Networks).

The first two episodes focus on Berlin and Milan.

To create a Season Pass, visit its page on TiVo Central Online, or on your DVR, head to TiVo Central -> Find Programs & Downloads -> Download TV, Movies, & Web Video -> Browse Other Videos -> All -> City By City.

Jonathan Feinberg’s Wordle is a very polished online tool that takes a bunch of words and turns them into clouds, where the most-frequently-used words are displayed proportionally larger. Paste in your favorite song lyrics to get a result like this.

Here’s what I get from the words in recent posts on this page. (Click to enlarge.)

[Please enjoy John T.'s latest list of the best of TiVo Video Downloads. --Stephen]

With this week’s premiere of Celebrity Family Feud (which should be listed as “Celebrity” Family Feud), you can tell that we’ve officially entered the crazy “throw it at the wall and see what sticks” part of the summer. Although, I am cheering for a few shows to stick around (Swingtown is like a traffic accident you just can’t stop looking at) and happy to have a few old friends back (Nancy, Andy and the rest of the Botwin’s on Weeds), I’m glad to have my summer entertainment supplemented with all-new TiVo Video Download goodness. Here’s what I was into this week.

1. The Meth Minute 39 train came hurtling into the Channel Frederator station this week with its final episode, which was dedicated to the fact that it was the last episode of The Meth Minute 39… clever. I’ve enjoyed most of the past 39 weeks of Dan Meth’s opus, especially the now infamous “Internet People” episode that started the whole thing off 39 weeks ago.
2. ViroPOP’s Zaproot had a great green story this week about a tanker that offset 30% of its fuel consumption by attaching a giant sail to itself for the duration of its journey. With the cost of oil skyrocketing, it’s nice to see that we’ve come up with solutions from the 1700s to help us reduce our costs.
3. Budget Health Nut, one of our newer channels from the folks at ON Networks, featured an easy-to-make recipe for healthy beef enchiladas. Now I know we all love Taco Bell and their endless supply of combinations for the same five items (the beef Crunchwrap Supreme is a religious experience) but with bathing suit season upon us, we could all use a fast food alternative.
4. I was going to go see The Love Guru this weekend…but alas, I could not after seeing The New York Times review posted in Movie Minutes last Friday. To say that the review was brutal would be an understatement. At one point, the reviewer is debating whether The Love Guru is worse than Mike Myers last live-action movie (the terrible adaptation of The Cat in the Hat) but refuses to make a decision on which is worse, as that would require watching both movies again. Ouch.
5. Last but not least this week, there was The Onion’s coverage of the high school Tony awards. As a drama kid in high school and a theater major in college, I can attest to the accuracy of these ridiculous awards. This episode actually hit a bit too close to home for me at first, but also brought back some awesomely awkward memories with its lower-thirds like “Host Mr. B urges students never to settle for a teaching job.” Somewhere in the middle of nowhere USA, my high school drama teacher is still telling kids the same thing.

It’s hot.

It’s damn hot.

This is Africa hot.

Tarzan couldn’t take this kind of hot.

I don’t think I can stay here if it’s going to be this hot.

* * *

It’s only 91 — it just feels hotter. Two birds flying overhead just exploded. The paint has melted off my car, forming a black matte puddle, boiling and bubbling. Squirrels are lying in the middle of the road, panting. The Pacific ocean has evaporated. My mind is going. Going. Gone.

If you meet someone on the street, about one out of ten times, that person will be:

• left-handed
• single
• gay
• African-American
• retired
• Hispanic/Latino
• foreign-born
• a single parent
• poor

or

• non-religious

Of course, many people you meet will be more than one of those things. Some people you meet will be none of those things.

My score is 3 (left-handed, foreign-born, and non-religious). What’s yours?

(Sources: left-handed source, gay source, single/single parent source, religion source, all other facts source. I rounded some of these statistics ranging between 9% and 14% to be 10%. Some of these figures, especially the homosexual data, are in dispute.)

Last night someone in customer support sent an outage escalation to our on-call team. (Turned out to be a non-urgent issue with one of their tools.) I was tickled by the IT employee’s e-mail response to the escalation, which was:

“We will oil at this and get ba do to you.

Sent from my iPhone”

Texting on an iPhone is generally quite easy and the auto-correct usually does its job very well. But just like embarassing situations where a spell check does something like automatically changing your boss’s name “Semmelly” into “Smelly,” every now and then the iPhone oils up.

What’s your most embarrassing typo sent in a work e-mail?

Here we are, halfway through June with no new channels yet? We must be slacking! While we have a lot more in store soon, here’s an exciting one to keep you busy: MediaBytes with Shelly Palmer launched last night, in the News and Technology categories. This is a breezy 3-minute update featuring tech pundit Shelly Palmer (of shellypalmer.com) running down the day’s tech news highlights: “News you can use about technology, media and the Internet.”

MediaBytes will offer its updates each weekday. Check it out!

To subscribe, visit the TiVoCast section of TiVo Central Online, or on your DVR head to TiVo Central -> Find Programs & Downloads -> Download TV, Movies, & Web Video -> Browse Other Videos -> All -> MediaBytes.

Episodes from Monday (about the iPhone 3G among other stories) and Tuesday (talking about Verizon, Tiger Woods, NBC, Adobe, and Brightcove vs. Move Networks) are available to download now.

I fell a little behind updating you on all the exciting new partners we’ve added in the last few weeks. Overall, eight new Video Downloads channels were launched in May. I previously described Zen Living. Here are the other seven new channels.

• Zipidee Action Sports (zipidee.com)
  Launched on 5/15; new shows every Wednesday
  In the Fitness category of Video Downloads, Zipidee Action Sports brings us “cutting edge BMX, skateboarding, surfing, mountain biking, snowboarding, and more!”
• beYOU.tv (beYOU.tv)
  Launched on 5/15; new shows every Wednesday
  Also found in the Fitness category of Video Downloads, beYOU.tv “brings you informational and inspirational video to help you attain all of your fitness, health and wellness goals.”
• Budget Health Nut (ON networks)
  Launched on 5/21; new shows every Monday
  In the How-To category, “Don’t let modest funds get in the way of gourmet taste. Instead, learn how to shop, cook and eat on a budget with culinary cheapskate, Joe Dias.”
• Cocktails on the Fly (ON networks)
  Launched on 5/21; new shows every Monday
  Also found in the How-To category, “Alberta Straub (a.k.a Miss Flighty) is known for turning fresh homemade ingredients into wildly sexy, exuberant drinks.”
• ON Dating (ON networks)
  Launched on 5/21; new shows every Monday
  Also found in the How-To category, “Online dating is the fastest growing social phenomenon on the Internet, and something celebrity dating coach Andrea Syrtash knows all about.”
• Golf Tips (ON networks)
  Launched on 5/29; new shows every Monday
  Also found in the How-To category, Golf Tips with Joe Beck “is a show that will make your drive longer, your putts more accurate, and your game better.”
• Vogue.TV (vogue.tv)
  Launched on 5/29; new shows every Tuesday and Thursday
  In the Lifestyle category, Vogue.TV takes you behind the scenes of fashion, beauty, and culture and gives you up-to-the-minute trend reports and more.

To subscribe to any of these, visit the Video Downloads page on TiVo Central Online, or on your broadband-connected Series2 or Series3 DVR, head to TiVo Central -> Find Programs & Downloads -> Download TV, Movies, & Web Video -> Browse Other Videos -> All.

Sophie has, thankfully, been sleeping through the night for the past few weeks — in fact becoming a champion sleeper, sometimes sleeping as long as twelve hours. The pitfall of having two kids is that Sammy, in contrast, has been really fighting his bedtime. This is due to the increased daylight hours (bedtime is 8, but darkness is more like 9:30), plus he’s used to having his own room. (We’re still camped out in the temporary house while the remodeling work is done.)

Sophie has become a much more vocal (and strident!) babbler. In the last couple of weeks she’s learned how to sit up by herself, and she can roll over adeptly now, but still no crawling. She’s moved from baby food level 1 to 2 to 3 to real solid food quickly, and in just two days went from being unable to pick up a piece of cereal to mastering the pincer movement pretty much right on.

The other night as Kimi gave her a bath, she started splashing the water and cracking herself up. Over and over and over.

This last weekend for Father’s Day we joined up with Kyrie, Jack and Andy and headed up to Pier 39 for lunch at a crab place and a visit to the Aquarium of the Bay. A better father’s day I can’t imagine.

[Here's the latest from production specialist extraordinaire John T. --Stephen]

It’s official. I spent more time this week watching Video Downloads than actual TV. Besides Battlestar Galactica’s big “huh?” ending and Tiger’s awesome performance at the U.S. Open, was there anything else great on regular TV that I missed out on? I don’t think so. I’m working my way back through the first three seasons of Weeds in preparation for this week’s premiere (downloaded directly to my TiVo thanks to Amazon Unbox) but here’s my Top 5 Free Video Downloads from the past week:

1. “How can you not care about Skaar? He’s the son of the Hulk!” “Any guy on a dinosaur with a huge axe…yes!” Two great quotes from today’s episode of The Stack from Pulp Secret. It’s impossible not to love Alex, Justin and Pete’s thrice-weekly comic book reviews, even if Justin and Pete are getting closer and closer to choking each other.
2. Speaking of The Hulk…it seemed like the green guy was everywhere I turned this week (four of our channels referenced the release of the Hulk movie in one way or another). But when it comes to parody, you can always count on the folks at Barely Political to bring the hype back to this year’s presidential election. This week, the ubiquitous Obama Girl met her new nemesis “The Incredible McCain Girl”…and hilarity ensued. Watch for cameos by Justin and Jared from Indy Mogul and Rush Limbaugh…just because.
3. Unfortunately, we’re just one episode away from the finale of The Meth Minute 39 on Channel Frederator. This week, we looked into the future of The Meth Minute 39 Thousand…and the creative bankruptcy that accompanies it. My personal favorites: “Fire Cat” (”Don’t be on fire, OK?”) and “Stoic Squirrel and the Omniverse of Madness.”
4. GeekBrief.TV successfully combined two of my favorite things into Episode 375. First, there was a new gaming PC that could also double as housing for five (seriously, it’s huge). Second, they highlighted the addition of the Microsoft Surface to the iBar in Vegas. It’s worth a look if you’re a fan of gaming, bars or things you can touch.
5. Finally this week, there was the sad news of the sudden passing of veteran journalist Tim Russert. Today’s Veracifier does a good job of summing up the reactions across yesterday’s Sunday morning talk shows. I grew up just outside of Washington, D.C. so politics were local news for most of my childhood and I’ve been a news junkie ever since. I still remember watching Russert on Election Night 2000 pointing at the lowest of low-tech vote tabulators (that unforgettable white board) and seeing his accurate prediction that it was really all about Florida. Sunday mornings won’t be the same without him. Today’s Veracifier includes some of his best moments from almost two decades of Meet the Press.

Updating my earlier post, it seems The Happening scored a horrific 20% on the Rotten Tomato meter, continuing the downward trend.

It’s too early to tell total box office, but it does look like it’ll do better business than Lady in the Water, and when I substitute opening weekend gross for total box office, you can see that The Happening is playing against trend. It’s doubtful, however, with ratings like these, that’ll it exceed the total box office for Signs or The Village.

(Click on the graph to see a larger version.)

[I'm a bit late in posting John's list this week, sorry!]

In a week that saw the return of The Mole and the reinvention of Password (congrats for the originality, TV!), there was even more great stuff available through Video Downloads. Here’s the best of the best from last week:

1. Super Deluxe turned to The Daily Show’s Rob Riggle for a look at the often-ignored casualty of novelty basketball exhibitions like the Harlem Globetrotters. Riggle, as coach of the Colonels, asks the question we’ve all been wondering for years: What kind of ref allows a tiny trampoline onto a basketball court? (Although we’ll have to wait to find out why the Globetrotters made a movie called The Harlem Globetrotters on Gilligan’s Island where they fought robots….)
2. The New York Times‘ resident tech guru David Pogue reviewed three great voice-activated cell phone services on this week’s Circuits, including Goog-411, Cha-Cha, and Jott. All three are great additions to my already geeky Blackberry. Soon I won’t have to talk to real people at all!
3. Speaking of socially awkward, this week’s Break.com “Best of 65″ show included a clip of a young man attempting to teach his aunt to lock her back door…by popping out of a cabinet wearing a hockey mask and wielding a butcher knife. (Next week, motivation techniques requiring a chainsaw.) The best part of the clip though is watching his aunt attempting to climb over the railing of the deck to escape instead of using, I don’t know, the stairs. Maybe slasher movies have been more accurate than we give them credit for.
4. Cali Lewis from GeekBrief.TV brought us the awesome news that Starbucks is now offering two hours of free WiFi service to their latte-drinking customers. This brings me one step closer to permanently relocating my cube within scone-throwing distance of a barista. Viva la free internets!
5. And finally, The Onion’s headline explains it all: “New Wearable Feedbags Let Americans Eat More, Move Less.” Thanks, Onion. You just crushed the hope/dreams of some R&D scientist deep within the bowels of McDonald’s or Burger King.

I’m still very enthusiastic about my iPhone. But with today’s announcements, I definitely do plan to upgrade to a new 3G phone when they’re available next month. I’ll get double the storage space, faster download speed, faster processing, plus GPS — all that in exchange for $299, two more years of AT&T contract commitment, and an extra $10 per month for the 3G data plan.

For both new and old iPhones, the app store will be a world-changer when it launches. I know of dozens of interesting, useful and mind-bending applications just waiting to be unleashed for the masses.

However, despite all that positive news, here are the things that one might have hoped would be addressed in the iPhone 2.0 but are still going to be limitations:

• AT&T only. Not a problem for me, but many customers say they can’t stand the company, or live in areas where AT&T’s coverage is bad.
• Battery: It’s still internal, and not user serviceable. (Unless you’re daring enough to trust this scary battery alternative.)
• No IM: Even with the application store forthcoming, it doesn’t seem like there will be an instant messaging solution. Never mind, looks like this one is solved.
• Camera not so hot. It’s 2 megapixel, with really bad performance in low light situations; the iPhone 2.0 doesn’t seem to change it.

Overall, though, a lot is improved — and a price cut that significant really is incredible.

At work, my co-workers are used to seeing me attached to my laptop, leading to such classic lines as, “Woah, are you married to that thing?”
Well, not today.

On Friday, after arriving home, my laptop slid out of its case (because I hadn’t zipped it all the way) and crashed about four feet to the pavement. It made a sickening thud. I was furious with myself for being so clumsy. While no pieces broke off, in the aftermath, the hard drive was making distressed noises and the screen no longer worked.

So, for the first time in a long time, I didn’t do any work over the weekend, and checked no work e-mail. When I got into the office this morning, I dropped it with our IT folks, and Peter spent most of the day recovering what he could. (Almost all of my work is saved on the network drive, but there were a few things saved locally that I didn’t want to lose.) He couldn’t fix the screen, so he spent the rest of the day building me a new laptop.

The upside is a nice new shiny laptop, faster, with a bigger screen. The downside is I’ve now spent the entire evening downloading and installing and configuring programs, and I’m still a long way from being done.

Isn’t it time that Microsoft offers a service that lets you save your configuration online and restore it for just such an occasion?

It was jarring to not be able to check e-mail throughout the day. But instead, I did manage to clean up my cubicle, sort and file a huge stack of papers and files, set up a second DVR, and generally cross off a few dozen items that had been languishing on my (paper) to-do list. But now I’m facing a few thousand unread e-mails.

The process of writing their 1997 album OK Computer was reportedly a drawn-out affair for Radiohead, if it’s true that they took more than a year and went from recording in an apple shed to actress Jane Seymour’s 15th century mansion.

As a result, they had far more material than could fit on one album, yet no desire to create a double album. So, after the June 1997 release of OK Computer, an EP was issued, with six new songs: Airbag/How Am I Driving?.

My copy of that first EP somehow disappeared from my cubicle back in 2000, and for a long time I couldn’t find any copies for sale. Fortunately a new batch has appeared, and recently I picked up a replacement from Amazon.

The standout song is, in my opinion, “Polyethylene (Parts 1 & 2)” which I’ve read nearly made the cut of being included on OK Computer. It’s a strange two-part song but grows on you like nothing else. My head replays it over and over again.

Keep all surfaces clean.

I learned something this week. When your child develops a condition where little bits of white ooky stuff comes out of his or her eye, that’s pink eye (aka conjunctivitis) — even if the eye in question is not actually pink.

First Sophie got pink eye on Monday; the school called us to say come get that infectious condition out of their classroom if you please. She cleared up after some drops, but then Friday it was Sammy the school called us about.

So, says Kimi to me and me to Kimi, extra washing of hands and whatever you do, don’t touch your eyes.

You know how hard it is to not touch your eyes? I just did it even though I was literally typing up how I shouldn’t do it.

To celebrate pink eye week, we went down to the Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk, enjoying sand and surf and garlic fries and ice cream and lost car keys. Thankfully someone found them and turned them into the lifeguards. One of the scariest 10 minutes of my life though.

Right before the scene where both kids were conked out on the sidewalk with Kimi while I ran to find the keys, Sammy enjoyed a dragon ride, a truck ride and a boat ride. Most other rides required 48″ of height, which is disappointing if you can only muster 36″. All in all, though, a very relaxing day.

A few months ago, a friend of mine left his position at Google and went to join a startup called FriendFeed. He invited me to join while it was still in beta, and now that it’s open to the public, it’s quickly moved up to become my favorite web site.

So what is it? My submission for FriendFeed’s “describe FriendFeed in 2-8 words” discussion was, “Your friends make the news.” When you sign up for FriendFeed (which is free, and is currently without any advertising), you can choose which online services you use (such as Flickr, Netflix, Twitter, Amazon wishlists, shared blog posts on Google Reader, and much more). Once set up, FriendFeed automatically creates a news feed of your activity on those services. This feed can be public (i.e., anyone can see it), or private (only you approve who can read your feed). You can also submit items for your feed, by sharing URLs using FriendFeed, or just creating general comments, perhaps about what you’re doing or thinking.

Then, you choose which people on FriendFeed you want to follow (your friends, relatives, and/or people you find interesting). If your friends aren’t yet using FriendFeed, you can invite them to do so, or you can create an “imaginary friend” for them as if they had actually signed up.

FriendFeed turns out to be a great way to see in one consolidated place what’s going on with your friends, whenever they add an Amazon wishlist item, submit a photo, write a blog post, or whatever else.

The interesting part comes with the social aspect: your friends can “like” and comment on the different feed items. Discussions begin. And in your feed of news from your friends, you can also see the items that your friends have liked and commented on, even if that item didn’t come directly from your friend — so you start seeing interesting updates from your friends of your friends.

What’s striking about the site is both how simple it is to use as well as how much it changes the game. Before, to find out about different things your friends were doing, you may have visited dozens of different sites. Being able to instead view all of that news in one place means you feel more up-to-date and closer to different people, and learn more about what they’re interested in.

While the site works in different ways for different people, I find that it’s most effective when you’re following people you are actually friends with in real life. Interesting people share interesting things, but the level of meaning and the degree to which you care is enhanced a great deal when you care about the person. For example, if an interesting stranger shares an item about, say, cat grooming, you may or may not find that engaging. Probably you’d just skip past that item in your feed. But when your co-worker shares an item about cat grooming, even if you don’t care about the topic, now you know that they either have a cat or want to get a cat, and the next time you see that co-worker you now have something to talk about.

New features are being added at a rapid pace. It’s easy to hide items you don’t care about and control the experience to make it what you want. The web page is responsive and the service is reliable.

I say that last because, in contrast, I’ve also started using Twitter.

Long-time twitterers please forgive me as I explain the basics, since Twitter is very old news to many blog readers, having launched in late 2006. Twitter is a remarkably popular service in terms of its growth and its number of users (well over a million at this point). However, in real life, very few of my co-workers, none of my family, and a tiny fraction of my friends are using it and many have not even heard of it. And this is despite being in the heart of the Silicon Valley, working for a high-tech company full of early adopters, surrounded by tech friendlies. Part of that gap is because it’s a generational thing: Twitter seems to immediately appeal to college students, while those older seem to take longer to “get it.”

So, what is Twitter? Brief (140 characters or less) updates about whatever you want. These updates, or tweets, constitute micro-blogging. Instead of long-winded posts like this one, brevity is the soul of Twitter. Dashing off to a coffee house? Twit it, and now your friends know, and if they’re in the area, perhaps they’ll drop on by. Thought of a great one-liner? Share it on Twitter. Mad as hell about dropping your laptop and breaking it (like I did earlier this evening)? Just had the greatest ice cream cone ever? Can’t believe what McCain just said? Twitter, twitter, twitter.

The 140 character limit, instead of being a barrier, becomes liberating, since you’re freed from having to cite your source, defend your premise, or define your terms. You can write about the most trivial of things since it’s stream of consciousness, and the basic idea is to share with your friends what’s going on at the moment, as uninteresting as that may be.

Where Twitter excels is in the number of ways you can interact with it: You can submit updates from your cell phone via SMS, from an instant messenger application such as AIM, via a browser at twitter.com, or via other social networking sites. Conversely, you can set up the level of notification for updates from your friends. Biff in accounting might be your Twitter friend but you can set it up so that you only see what he’s up to if you go to twitter.com. Your spouse, on the other hand, can have updates sent directly to your IM or cell phone.

While Twitter really feels like a subset of FriendFeed, the bigger issue lately seems to be its lack of reliability, with numerous outages — growing pains for a site that’s exceeding user adoption expectations.

Neither site yet displays any hint of a business model. They’re free to join, with no ads. All those developers and servers are expensive, so somewhere along the line one or both of those things must change or else the service implodes. But in the meantime, they’re both interesting sites.

In contrast, Facebook is a well-known social networking site, and it’s full of ads — they clearly know what a business model is. Originally for college students only, Facebook is now open to everyone, and it’s a social networking site. Despite having a friend or two working there, I have to say that after I’ve been using it for a while, I don’t find any value offered that’s not better handled elsewhere. The semi-public communication in “Walls” is not a good way to converse (with most walls showing half of a conversation). The private messages are better handled with traditional e-mail. The countless applications are generally time-wasting (hunting zombies, answering easy trivia questions) without being deep, and many seem to actively trick you into adding them. (One promoted itself with the tagline saying that a co-worker called it “the best application on Facebook” when he’d really never said any such thing. Most require you to add the application in order to view whatever doodad or message your friend is trying to send you.) Is it better than Friendster and Orkut, the social networks that I tried out previously? Demonstrably so. It’s certainly more attractively presented than MySpace, which I’ve not used. But the main drawback is that there’s nothing compelling there, and the Facebook interface actively interferes with productivity, while Twitter is more streamlined and FriendFeed adds value and interest.

I’ve been using the web now for 14 years. So much has changed in that time (and not always for the better). These days, very little makes me excited about the web the way I felt in the early years, but FriendFeed certainly comes closest.

Follow me as zeigen on Twitter and zeigen on FriendFeed. Befriend me on Facebook if you like.

If you’re long-time users of these sites, I’m interested in what got you started using them, which you like best (or which other one you think blows these away), and what you like/dislike.

If you’ve never heard of these sites before, what’s your reaction? Is it, “Why? What’s the point?” as I suspect most people feel? (Especially if you’re over 40…) Well, people felt that about the web and blogging too. Both are here to stay.