02.09.09
The Future of Voice Email?
Email is great for business, short notes, attachments, and links.
But it’s incredibly bad for detailed personal communications. More than about five sentences and no one has time.
I keep finding myself in the same situation: I want to send a nice update to family overseas, but don’t have time to write a long email. Or someone sends me a long email — the kind of thing that would have been a telephone conversation in the old days — and I don’t have time to respond to everything in a way that I would like without taking forever to reply or responding with another long email.
When faced with this situation, most online etiquette advice I’ve read says, “Just pick up the phone.” But what if your family and friends live in another time zone? Isn’t there a way to send a personal message without having to type out a long email or wait until you are awake in the middle of the night– and they are available too — to Skype?
An idea hit me the other day: Voice Email. Of course I had already heard that term years ago. For some reason, it hadn’t seemed that great an idea then. But these days, considering I’m a podcast addict and listen to recordings of people speaking all the time, it suddenly seemed to be a pretty natural thing to try. Why not just record my “update” to MP3 and email that? The recipient of the email could just listen at their convenience. Not only can I speak faster than I can write, but the recipient can probably listen a lot faster than they could wade through a long, formidable email.
08.25.08
Cell Phone Novel Craze Continues
This cell phone could be your next typewriter.
Our post about Japanese Cell Phone Novels was one of our highest read posts of all time, and continues to get plenty of reads every day.
So, to answer the question this recent ABC News article asks (“Will Cell Phone Novels Come Stateside?”), Spiddlement predicts they will. And also, a lot of writing is going to get much shorter in general. Like the blog post you’re reading now.
All the interest from our readers made me decide to revisit the topic, and see what was new in the world of cell phone novels since I’d last checked.
And I finally found a cool site called Textnovel.com that allows you to create and share your own English language cell phone novel. I’ll definitely be thinking of ideas for mine!
Link (to Textnovel.com)
08.20.08
Muxtape vs. RIAA
Muxtape was such a cool idea. Make your own digital mixtape and share it with your friends.
So of course, the RIAA had to step in and ruin it.
Rolling Stone reports that Muxtape is probably on solid legal ground, protected under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act of 1998, but that legal expenses may be a problem:
“‘I think they have a strong legal defense,’ Von Lohmann told RollingStone.com. ‘The problem is if they might not have that money to go to court and take on the RIAA.’ Von Lohmann said legal fees could cost around $2-3 million, an investment the Websites would likely rather spend on tech engineers.”
Link (to “How Screwed Is Muxtape?” via Rolling Stone)
Link (to “Muxtape Down Because of RIAA” via Ghacks)
06.05.08
Before You Send That Next Email…
Seth Godin has posted an excellent “Email Checklist” on his blog that has some great guidelines for anybody sending personal or business email.
Go read it.
Here are two of our favorites on the list:
“5. So that means that if I didn’t send it to them, they’d complain about not getting it?
13. Am I forwarding someone else’s mail? (If so, will they be happy when they find out?)”
Actually, Seth’s blog is so consistently awesome and insightful that we at Spiddlement think you’d have to be CRAZY not to read it EVERY SINGLE DAY.
04.13.08
Bloggers Are Like Rappers
Fun post on Copyblogger:
“Rappers are notoriously prolific, some of them releasing mixtapes on a monthly basis, delivering torrent after torrent of catchy street bangers….
Bloggers are also prolific, some of us producing upwards of 1,500 words per day or more. Our material might not be ‘funky @ss $h*t,’ but we do come up with it ‘like every single day.’”
Link (to “6 Ways That Bloggers Are Like Rappers”, Copyblogger)
04.12.08
Every Rule of Thumb Ever?
Rules Of Thumb promises “Every Rule of Thumb on Earth in One Place”:
“In a noisy room, if you speak softly people will quiet down to hear you speak. Speaking louder only encourages more noise and the message gets harder to deliver.”
03.23.08
Need an Anecdote?
Just discovered this great site, Anecdotage.com.
Anecdotes are organized by category, or you can just get a random one.
In later life Mark Twain suffered from various ailments, among them arthritis and bronchitis. Whenever a newspaper reported that he was ill again, Twain would receive a flood of remedies, prescriptions, nostrums, and miscellaneous cures promising to effect a speedy recovery.
By way of reply, he would send the following form letter: “Dear Sir (or Madam), I try every remedy sent to me. I am now on No. 87. Yours is 2,653. I am looking forward to its beneficial results.”
11.12.07
Need Advice? Ask the Elder Wisdom Circle
This is a cool website, where you can ask advice to someone with a little more life experience.
It’s called the Elder Wisdom Circle, and I think it’s a neat idea.
The EWC is a place for people in their teens, 20’s and 30’s to connect with a Cyber-Grandparent for anonymous personalized advice. Elder Wisdom Circle is organized as a IRS 501(c)3 non-profit association. Most advice-seekers are 14-35 but we reply to everyone. We are based in the San Francisco Bay Area with 600 Elders all over North America. We are one of the largest providers of personal advice anywhere with hundreds of thousands of readers. The mission of our association is to promote and share elder know-how and accumulated wisdom. We also have a goal of elevating the perceived value and worth of our senior community.
I personally sent them a question about a year ago, and their reply was extremely helpful.
rating: FIVE stars (out of five possible)
Link (to Elder Wisdom Circle)
Link (to story on NPR about Elder Wisdom Circle)
11.10.07
FreeRice.com
Here is a website that I really like:
FreeRice.com lets you improve your vocabulary while helping others:
For every word you get right, we donate 10 grains of rice through the United Nations to help end world hunger
I should note that I got this link from Seth Godin’s blog (I read his great blog everyday, and so should you!)
Link (to FreeRice.com)
