Archive for category computers
My New Phone
Recently, I upgraded my phone. It was time. My LG enV Touch had run its course, and beside the battery giving me about 2 hours of use, it was dropping calls and not sending text messages. If you’re in the business of people, not connecting with them is a big no-no.
A lot of readers might think that buying an iPhone would be a no-brainer for me, but as suprising as it might seem I went for an Android phone. I made the foray into the world of Google devices for a couple of reasons:
1. At the church, we use Google Apps for everything: our email, our calendars, and many of our records.
2. I already have an iPad.
3. The iPhone is EXPENSIVE.
4. I like physical keyboards on my phones.
So, I got an LG Enlighten, which is an entry level phone running Android 2.3 “Gingerbread”. The phone itself has some quirks. It is not the fastest device you will ever use, but it is not my primary device. My iPad is. (I am writing this post on it.)
I just needed a phone with a physical QWERTY keyboard and the option to use it as a WI-FI hotspot. Since the Enlighten was also FREE with my upgrade, this was a no-brainer. The phone met all my criteria, so it made sense.
Google Apps Integration
Here is what I love so far about the Android phone – everything is integrated. I entered my Google email and password, and presto all my contacts, calendars, YouTube and Documents were available to me. A quick download of the Google+ app and all my pictures automatically go to Picasaweb.
Google does the cloud right. Say what you will, they are way ahead of Apple on the integration of services. (iCloud is an embarrassment thus far.) Need to add a contact? I just enter their info on the phone, and POOF! It is available everywhere – even my Address Books on my Mac at the office and my iPad. That does not happen with iOS without a lot of work.
Add a calendar event? Oh look, it is on my Google Calendar! My wife can see it. My iPad can see it.
The Google Docs integration is full, but editing a document on a 3″ screen is not my idea of productivity. It is convenient to be able to see the documents, but I’d do little work on the phone – even if it was an iPhone.
Social Media Integration
Once I downloaded the Facebook and Twitter apps, they integrated into the OS. It is the kind of “deep integration” that Apple claims to have with Twitter, but for everything. The phone merges all my Address books, so I not only see a person’s contact information but also have a link to their Facebook, Twitter and any other social apps I download.
What’s more, the OS can integrate with Evernote, my favorite app in the world. Just press the menu button and tell the phone to send it to Evernote. POOF! It is in Evernote.
If we’re honest, Evernote’s integration with iOS has lagged a bit. It took forever for them to get full rich text formatting, and just today I tried to use a shopping list on Evernote on a grocery trip. Nichole and I separated in the store, and the idea was to just keep updating the note as we picked up items. What happened was that everytime she edited the note on her iPhone, it would append an entire copy. By the time we were done, there were sixteen versions of the same list in the same note.
What’s Lacking?
1. Android really does not have a solid take on audio integration. The built in music player is bare-bones, and it does not allow convenient use of audiobooks – which are my primary listening. With iOS, I can build .m4b files that include bookmarks and section breaks. Try as I might, Android just does not play well with these files.
2. iOS’s approach to multi-tasking is both efficient and convenient. Android’s is bulky and does not lend itself to any sort of confidence that it is working. Battery life on my phone is about the same as my wife’s iPhone 4S, but I have to constantly be on the watch for apps running in the background. When apps are eating away at my resources (which are limited in this phone), I have to manually kill them or use an app killing software. Even then, I feel like the apps linger in the RAM.
3. The microSD dance gets annoying. My phone is an entry level device, so there is only 120MB of internal storage. That’s not a ton. I have a microSD card, and can move many apps to the card, but they have to leaves some of the app on the internal memory. So, even if I had a 32GB microSD card, I would still be limited to about 50-60 apps at an average of 1.5MB of storage on the internal memory.
But here’s the thing…
I Want My Phone to be a Phone
I have my iPad for mobile computing and note taking. I don’t want to use my phone for things I can do on the iPad. (And I certainly don’t want to pay $300 for a phone that does the exact same thing as my iPad.)
I want my phone to integrate that snapshot I took or to check my email really quickly. I want to be able to send everything everywhere – all at once. My phone isn’t for getting my news or for creating content.
My phone is for making calls, sending texts and quick updates. And when necessary, it is for letting my iPad get online. It does what I want, and it keeps contacts and such up to date.
I don’t expect Android to be as slick as iOS, anymore than I expect Windows to be Mac OS. Windows does different things, and does them very well. Each OS does something well, and we shouldn’t demand they do other things. I wouldn’t want Android on a tablet, and I am happy without using iOS on my phone.
The Power of Integration
My new iPhone 4S is on it’s way! Ok, so it is for my wife. (Right now, I can’t justify two data plans and she has more need for it than I do.) But I am one of the lucky couple of million who got into one of the seller sites and picked up one before they were sold out.
That’s right – sold out. In the first twenty-four hours, this supposedly “disappointing” piece of hardware was completely sold out. Apple and the mobile carriers moved over a million units. This shattered the previous record of 600,000 units set by the previous iteration of the iPhone.
Why? How?
The tech pundits don’t understand it at all. All week long, they have claimed it was because people were remembering Steve Jobs. I don’t know about everyone else, but I was planning to buy this thing long before Steve Jobs died. And I sent an email memorial to Apple when he passed, but I don’t have the disposable income to sound $200 on a phone just because it’s creator died.
Maybe, just maybe the iPhone 4S is selling out because it is a stellar piece of hardware with some innovative technology that even Droid fans are saying impresses them. Maybe it is selling out because it “just works”.
Apple has built a reputation for giving us products that are surprisingly, subconsciously good. They integrate into our lives so effortlessly that they become indispensable. As one blogger said of the iPhone 4S:
I wouldn’t say I can’t live without Siri. But I can say that I don’t want to. (source)
This all got me thinking. Perhaps we are too much like the Droid nerds when it comes to thinking about church life. We give people all kinds of spiritual tech specs with bigger and better, but we never consider that these monstrous things don’t integrate well with life. They are awkward sizes and might work, but they aren’t indispensable. We have to work to integrate them,
Maybe if we started thinking more relationally, more functionally as Apple did, people would clammer to have church in their lives rather than appended to them.
Just a random thought for the morning.
A Life Comes to an End
This afternoon (evening here on the East Coast), Steve Jobs slipped into eternity. He had been battling pancreatic cancer and liver failure for years, and he resigned his post as CEO of Apple a couple of months ago.
Steve Jobs was a man of passion and vision. He changed the world of consumer electronics no fewer than three times in thirty years. His upstart animation company Pixar changed the way we view movies. We live in a world defined by Steve Job’s vision – whether we choose to admit it or not.
The world lost a great business mind tonight, and we grieve his passing. As far as I know, Steve was not a follower of Christ. He was a practicing Buddhist and while he respected Christianity, he expressed no interest in its teachings. This is a shame, but it does not change the fact the respect I have for the man and the grief I feel at his passing.
This is what Bill Gates had to say about his passing:
I’m truly saddened to learn of Steve Jobs’ death. Melinda and I extend our sincere condolences to his family and friends, and to everyone Steve has touched through his work.
Steve and I first met nearly 30 years ago, and have been colleagues, competitors and friends over the course of more than half our lives.
The world rarely sees someone who has had the profound impact Steve has had, the effects of which will be felt for many generations to come.
For those of us lucky enough to get to work with him, it’s been an insanely great honor. I will miss Steve immensely.
“…it’s been an insanely great honor.” Yeah, I’d say that is pretty right on. It’s been insanely great. Goodbye, Steve. We will miss you.
You can check out some of my thoughts on Steve’s career here.
Apple’s Transition and the Church
All Things Digital is reporting that Apple will unveil the iPhone 5 and its companion operating system iOS 5 on October 4. Fox News released an article that placed the technology in second place behind this first keynote speech by Apple’s new CEO, Tim Cook.
While the iPhone 5 was a highly-anticipated handset, the media event itself has a lot more importance for Apple than many others as it will be newly-installed CEO Tim Cook’s first big product introduction.
The reason Cook was set to preside over the rollout was that the launch event will mark the first time the public and investors will be able to get a lengthy impression of Cook as Apple CEO, which could set the tone for his new role, according to sources.
Apple’s legendary outgoing CEO and co-founder Steve Jobs has always been closely identified with Apple and its product innovations — the Mac, the iPod, the iPhone and more recently the iPad. Since his decision to step down was announced in August, many investors expressed fears his departure would change the company.
As a diehard fan of Apple products (I own and adore my Macbook Pro and iPad 2), I have spent quite a bit of time thinking about Mr. Cook’s upcoming tenure as CEO, and like many investors, I am optimistic. Steve Jobs spent several years grooming Cook, and more importantly, he learned from the lessons of the last time he brought in a CEO (back in 1986, after which Jobs was summarily fired). I think Mr. Cook and Apple will do just fine.
The iPhone 5 is easily one of the most anticipated pieces of technology in recent memory, and I anticipate that it will quickly outsell even the iPhone 4. As Droid handsets struggle to maintain their market share in the face of iPhone spreading to Sprint and T-Mobile as well as AT&T and Verizon Wireless, you have to wonder why Fox News put such a focus on Tim Cook.
Leadership transition is a very difficult thing to pull off well in our modern management environment. Most businesses rely heavily on the extraordinary individual for their impetus and momentum.
Who even knows that Hughes Aircraft Company was once one of the most successful aircraft manufacturers in the world? Its founder, Howard Hughes, was a man of unbelievable vision and genius, but when mental illness drove him into solitary misery, the company floundered. Within a decade of his death, the juggernaut was sold off in bits and pieces and disappeared from existence.
More recently, Microsoft has floundered for years since Bill Gates stepped down, and it has steadily cranked out substandard products – except for Windows 7 which had been in development when Gates was still running the show. The Microsoft Office system has gone from an industry delight to a standard reluctantly adopted by its users because it has crushed its competition. Even now, Microsoft is struggling to regain some semblance of control with their new OS Windows 8, but there are a lot of doubts about the decisions being made in its design.
The reality is that leadership transition has to begin years before the physical transition takes place. Steve Jobs recognized his own mortality. When he returned to Apple in 1996, he assembled a team of high level collaborators – Tim Cook among them – who grasped the vision that Jobs himself saw. Rather than seeing these men as competitors, he saw them as coworkers and equals. The transition to Mr. Cook’s leadership has been going on behind the scenes for years. The corporation will move on. Although Steve Jobs remained the face of the corporation, the body was working together for something bigger than Steve Jobs could do on his own.
My father used to say, “The only person you can do without is the person you think you can’t do without.” The life of a congregation must always be about Jesus’ vision and Jesus’ will. Leaders should be investing their time and effort into teaching the vision – planting it deep in the hearts of those who will eventually lead. The vision is more important than any measurable or plan. We can never find ourselves to be indispensable to Jesus’ vision. Components of the body? Yes. But the only indispensable person in Jesus’ vision is – well, Jesus.
Logos 4 Mac, v 4.3
I have documented my adventures with Logos Bible Software and their most recent Mac program, Logos 4 Mac. If you have been a longtime reader of this site, then you know that I was one of the earliest adopters of Logos 4 Mac. I purchased it right around the time it was advertised as being publicly available.
At the time, I was using an old PowerPC Mac G4 that could not run Logos 4 Mac, which was a bit disappointing for me. I installed the Windows version – called just Logos 4 – on a PC I used in concert with the G4. I enjoyed the interface, if it was a bit clunky at the time.
When I got my Macbook Pro later that month, I was surprised to discover that Logos 4 Mac was not even close to ready for public release. It was still in alpha testing. (If you don’t know, most programs go through three stages of pre-release testing: alpha, beta, and gold master.) Every geek around the world knows that alpha means buggy and clunky. It means the software is nowhere near complete and often several different builds are out there as the teams try to figure out how to make things work. It really bothered me that Logos would release an alpha to the general public as if it were a finished product. Later, Logos released a fairly good explanation of why they chose to release the alpha version, and while I still thought it had been a mistake, I kept using the product and enduring the nearly daily program updates.
Now, we are almost two years into Logos 4 Mac’s public existence, and we are on Build 4.3, Service Release 3. That means we are on the third update of the third major edition of the program. Over the past two years, I have had nearly two dozen alpha versions, about the same number of betas and more service releases than I care to remember.
On average, the programmers update Logos 4 Mac about once every three weeks. Most of the updates are improvements, and the most recent one (the move from 4.2 to 4.3) brought in a fantastic feature called Personal Book Builder. Basically, you import a Microsoft Word document into the program and it becomes part of your library. This is great for a lot of unpublished commentaries and such that I have laying around.
I am going to be honest. It took until version 4.2b, which was released in May of this year, for Logos 4 Mac to be useable as a daily Bible study program. There were long periods of real frustration because the features took so long to load or operate. Those of you who use Logos 4 Mac and had it back in 2010 remember how awful it was.
I am very pleased with version 4.3 so far. The response time on searches and interlinear work has been improved to the point that it is almost instantaneous. Everything about the program works (finally) at the level that Logos 3 did on my PC.
So, if you’re interested in a professional Bible study tool, I recommend Logos 4. If you’re on a Mac, it is worth the money – FINALLY. If you already use a previous version of Logos, you can get a very reasonably priced crossgrade of your resources. It does not require you to purchase new resources (the Logos 4 engine is free, and works with your current resources) and for a minimal cost, you get all of the functionality of the new resources.
Steve Jobs Changed the World
Posted by Erik in Church, computers, Doesn't Fit in a Category on September 8, 2011
The Apple II and Macintosh
Who doesn’t remember Apple’s 1984 commercial?
The Apple II and the Macintosh computers literally changed the world of personal computing. Before Apple, computers were things that only large companies could afford. They were massive machines that costs tens of thousands of dollars. The first Apple II cost $1,300 in 1977. It would take four years for IBM to come up with the comparably priced 5150, but for a time Apple was it for color, home PC’s.
While Apple took a hit on the rather expensive Macintosh computer in 1984 (it retailed at $2,500), it changed the way computers were marketed and created an identity for the company that would sustain it through some difficult years.
Apple did not realize how important Steve Jobs was until they fired him in 1986. The company started a tailspin that it would not have recovered from had they not brought Jobs back as chairman and eventually as CEO.
The iPod and the iTunes Store
When Steve Jobs came back, he brought with him a number of ideas that he handed over to Jonathan Ive, his design guru. Ultimately, Ive would design the iMac, the unibody Macbook Pro and, of course, perhaps the biggest innovation in consumer electronics since the Apple II – the iPod.
After years of development, Jobs unveiled the iPod and the iTunes store in 2001. Today, it is hard to imagine just how innovative the iPod was. No one had seen portable digital media before. While people could copy their CD’s to their computer hard drive for years, the idea of taking that music with you was a revolutionary one.
Why hadn’t anyone thought of it? Others had. The problem was that it was just plain hard. The iPod by contrast was simple. And once Apple added Windows support in 2003, Apple owned the portable music scene. Three-quarters of all MP3 players are iPods or iPhones. Apple literally has no competitors.
Pixar and Computer Animation
Steve Jobs’ other contribution to our society is less known. In 1986, the recently fired Jobs purchased Industrial Light and Magic’s computer animation unit from George Lucas for $5 million. Between 1986 and 1995, the company was almost completely unknown. Their first feature film languished in development purgatory. Then, in 1995, Pixar released Toy Story, and in the twenty-six years since, they have released twelve other computer animated features. All together, they have grossed over $6.3 billion worldwide.
To say that Pixar and Toy Story changed the world of animation is like saying that talkies changed film-making. They did not simply change animation. They threw it in a glass, shook it up with about a hundred other things and then poured it out. Today, 2D animation is a small niche in the world dominated by computers. Pixar even expedited the revitalization of 3D filmmaking (although that trend is dying down), and helped drive the movie market to unbelievable heights.
Pixar was eventually purchased by Disney, and Steve Jobs became the largest stockholder in Disney. This little side gig has become very, VERY profitable for Jobs. His stock is valued at around $2 billion.
What Does All This Mean?
Most people are considered fortunate if they have one brilliant idea in a lifetime. Steve Jobs has had at least three.
But Steve Jobs does this with two major, major elements:
- Vision – Steve sees the future and makes it happen
- Community – Steve surrounds himself with exceptional people. If it weren’t for John Lasseter at Pixar-Disney, and Jonathan Ive and Tim Cook at Apple, Steve Jobs would not be as successful as he is. And the early days of Apple’s success would not have happened without Steve Wozniak.
The second fact was a hard one for Jobs to learn. He is notoriously a control freak and a micromanager; but he found men who worked with him, who clicked with his way of thinking. That made the vision a reality.
You can have all the vision in the world but without a community, a team that sees it too, you’ve got nothing.
Learning Something about Ministry from Apple
Today, Hewlett-Packard announced that they were stopping production on webOS devices and they were spinning off their PC manufacturing division. These announcements came on the heels of the completely underwhelming reveal of the HP Touchpad – a tablet designed to run webOS and compete with Apple’s iPad.
Last week, it was announced that Sprint dropped plans to sell Research in Motion’s Blackberry tablet called Playbook because of its meager sales results. And while the Android-based tablets have sold better than webOS and Blackberry, they hold only a sliver of the market despite multiple builds, styles and distributors.
Apple’s iPad sits securely on the mobile computing world’s throne.
How? Why?
Simply put, Apple engineers don’t build devices. They create an experience. They let design drive mechanics rather than the other way around. Without worrying about technical specifications or price breaks, Apple designs something people will feel immersed in. Everything is subject to the connection a consumer makes with the product.
As a result, Apple is sitting on a larger cash reserve than even the United States government. They are the number one manufacturers of mobile computing devices in the world.
Steve Jobs sees the future because he realizes what people ultimately care about is not tech or numbers or price. People want to feel connected. They want their devices to be an extension of their own thoughts and beliefs. This breeds into the device users a sense of community and commonality with other users.
Even I find it happening. When I sit down at a table and there are other iPad users there, I can’t resist the temptation to talk about the experience. It is infectious. In short, Apple has become viral – in the best possible way.
There’s something to be learned from Apple’s philosophy that can be applied to ministry.
The days of bigger equals better are gone. The era of the megachurch is over. Numbers and programs are not enough for people designing connection and feeling as if they are apart of something.
People are more than willing to have a big corporation make their products. (Apple is the richest company in the United States after all.) But they don’t want to feel like they are a number. They want to be connected. To be known and know.
Just like Steve Jobs could see the connections people needed to make and then created devices to make those connections happen, those in ministry need to be willing to look beyond programs and strategies. These things are not ends in themselves. They are simply means. Strip all of that away, see the connections people need and then make it a reality – at all costs.
Never Make Decisions Under Pressure
Yesterday, my computer completely freaked out. She has never been the same since “The Great Coffee Spill of 2011″ but after $400 of work, I thought we had everything all set.
Then she just went nuts. She started scrolling indiscriminately, and suddenly she reported that she did not have a battery installed. (All my tools are she - my computers, my guitars, etc.)
It was frustrating to no end. I love my Macbook Pro like a second child. In the year since my aunt and cousin gave her to me, I have been faithful to her and defended her from the naysaying haters who want me to switch back to Windows.
Last night, tired and hot from working outside in 100+ degree temperatures, I ordered an HP to replace her. I just did not think she could be rebuilt this time, and I certainly did not have the money. That was my rationale.
I know this sounds pretty weird, but all night I questioned my decision. Was it really right to abandon her just because of this? How would I pay for the replacement I had ordered. This might seem a little odd, but I even dreamed that my wife Nichole was very disappointed that I gave up on her (the Mac, not Nichole) so easily.
This morning, I was given the money to make her repairs or at least see if she could be repaired. While driving home from dropping her off at Brinestone - my favorite Mac repair shop – I called and canceled my order for the replacement PC.
If the techs at Brinestone can get her working properly, then I will stick with my Mac. She has been nothing but exceptional the entire time I have had her, and my user error (having a cup of coffee between her and a dancing six year old) is my own fault.
Aren’t you glad Jesus doesn’t not have moments when he has to make decisions about us under pressure? That he doesn’t just throw us under the bus when we start to malfunction? Instead, he patiently heals and restores. He graciously extends his hands when we recoil, and he is always at work upon us.
Playing with Google+
Over the past week or so, I have been playing with Google’s newest social network – Google+. Overall, I am impressed with its potential.
The Facebook API is pretty much exhausted.
Everyone with half a brain can see that Facebook needs to either reinvent itself and face the wrath of the user base or go the way of Myspace. It has reached saturation, and although people continue to join it, the social side of it is on the wane. People are getting tired of the way Facebook works (at least I am).
Where do Zuckerberg and company go from here? Last week, they added video chat through the Skype technology but that was almost an after thought if you ask me. I think they knew that Google+ was coming. It should not surprise any of us that Zuckerberg was on Google+ in its earliest testing, scoping out the features of Google+.
Unlike Facebook, Google+ could start from scratch in designing a social network.
Actually, they’re not starting from scratch. Google is starting with gmail and calendars, and a multitude of cloud-based features already in place. That means there is a tight integration between your email connections and your social connections. The line is blurred almost completely – something I really like.
Google+ Circles make multiple social networks into a single network.
Being selective about sharing in Facebook is a nightmare. You have to set groups, then check boxes. There are multiple pages to go to. As a result, everyone posts pretty much everything for everyone to see. You get tagged in a photo, and suddenly you’re getting notifications about people you don’t know writing things you’d rather not read. Circles gets rid of all that.
Make a circle and share in the circle. Want to expand it to others? Piece of cake. Want to not see posts from those annoying people? Pull them out of circles all together. Want to stay friends with someone without them seeing your posts? Not a problem. Want to have work and play separate? Not a problem. Share documents with a circle? Watch youtube video together? Video conference with your grandkids, even though one of them won’t get home for a bit? Use a circle.
This is an ingenious interface idea, and it has tremendous potential – especially considering the collaborative features already built into Google’s infrastructure. Let’s face it, Facebook is a distraction – to say the least – when it comes to work. But Google+ could easily because a necessary tool – especially if they can find a way to integrate Evernote or something even better.
Video Conferencing is incredible.
I have not been impressed with mini-Skype on Facebook. It does the basic thing, but there’s a lot of lag and the typical Skype problems. Google+’s video feature – called “Hanging Out” – can be shared with everyone or just specific circles. In the aforementioned example of talking with your grandkids, you can create a “Hang Out” for all of them, and they can conference in from their computer, their iPad, or their iPhone/Android handset. Like Apple’s products, Google+ just works.
You can only run one video conference at a time on Google+, but that’s not bad. It is pretty much industry standard when it comes to webcams. But you can have multiple chats and running conversations.
Email Integration
A few months back, Facebook introduced their @facebook.com email feature. How many people used it? Not many. They view Facebook messaging as messaging, not email. Google on the other hand, already has a highly successful email – perhaps the most successful email platform ever. If you want to email someone in your Google+ network, just click the “Email” button. Nothing is easier. This is something Facebook simply cannot do.
Automation and Connections?
My one big concerns for Google+ is how well it will automate with other services. For example, Google has the Blogger service for blogs. I can’t stand Blogger. Will Google allow WordPress to integrate an automated feed? I hope so.
Because Facebook is a third party site, all the blogging systems connect to it. All the gaming companies want to get in on it. Google owns a lot of competing services. I hope they don’t become so focused on their product that they don’t support other (and many times, superior) products.
Has Social Media Replaced Personal Blogging?
When I first started blogging back in 2006, it was on a Myspace page. (You should be warned that this blog went through some dark place and I’m not terribly proud of some of the things I wrote along the way.) Before blogging was cool, I had run something of a personal email journal I called “Time to Think”. I would sign the emails as Qoheleth, the Hebrew word for preacher. Usually, I wrote one to three entries per week and sent them to friends and family.
“Time to Think” lasted from October 2001 until November 2002. During that time, I wrote what amounts to 175 pages of devotional thoughts that were seen by next to no one. All the same, it was an exercise that I felt I needed to engage in for that time. Writing the entries helped me sort through some really difficult questions I was dealing with.
Making the switch to blogging on WordPress instead of a social media like Myspace was an intentional decision. The blog was meant to be the center point of my conversations – a place where I could express thoughts and questions on subjects that mattered to me. It was less about connecting with people and more about just getting things down in a semi-permanent format.
In essence, you could say that I stumbled upon blogging. I started doing it because I had a terrible time keeping a journal. So, I took the “log” part of a blog very seriously, and I journaled online. This got me into some hot water because I would write things and publish them without thinking. It alienated a lot of folks – although surprisingly few of them ever took the matter up with me personally. (Later on, I was convicted about the offenses I caused, and I wrote letters to several people I felt I had wronged and asked their forgiveness.)
Since launching this blog as “Unorthodox Faith” in November 2007, it has been quite a journey. It has included posts like:
- “Messiah Was Born Here! Get Commemorative Action Figure!” – about the Archbishop of Canterbury and the historical Jesus
- “John Rambo, Humanitarian?” – about Rambo obviously!
- “Hey, Is This the Church Where They Have Keg Parties?” – addressing some misconceptions that were circulating about our congregation.
- “The Painful Shallowness of the Christian Audience” - about Christian mass media
- “Echoes of Nuremberg” – the danger of having a personality cult around the chief executive
- “My Bill Clinton Confession” – yeah, what it sounds like
- “New Coke and Other Terrible Ideas” – thoughts on the problem with customer surveys
- “Medieval Madness: Marriages Made in Hell” – the Borgia and the current state of marriage
Well, you get the idea.
In the past year or so, however, I have felt as if blogging is giving way to social networks. Tumblr now has more subscribers than WordPress, and most of the folks who read my blog read from Facebook. Facebook itself has over 500 million subscribers, and I personally have over 600 friends. That means that anything I post on Facebook reaches more people in a day than my blog reaches in a month.
Personally, I love the social media. Facebook and Twitter have gotten me in touch with people I haven’t seen in years, and keeps me in contact with them. At the same time, there is simply so much going on in a place like Facebook that it is easy to lose the priority and value of the contributions something like the blog might have.
So, what do you think? Is social media replacing blogging? Are we living in smaller and smaller snippets of relationship rather than in longer formats? I’d like to hear your thoughts.
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