Wanted: Trackbacks to FriendFeed Entries

Thomas Hawk posted this on FriendFeed:

Want to know why the future of FriendFeed is a search engine? Try this search. http://friendfeed.com/search?q… I get more great blog post ideas and find more valuable information from this search than anyplace else on the web today.

I agree. I use FriendFeed entries as points of illumination for my blog posts. The site has really generated some terrific points of view and information. For a blogger, it’s a terrific hunting ground.

One thing I want: trackbacks. When a blog uses a link to a FriendFeed entry, I’d love a trackback to the blog included in the comments.

I used a FriendFeed entry in the blog post Using FriendFeed for E-Commerce. I’d love for that entry to show a trackback like this:

When a trackback link is added to an entry, it has the same impact as a comment. It bounces the entry to the top of people’s FriendFeed page.

Why do this?

• Blog post amplifies the entry. Give it the full comment treatment.
• Acknowledges FriendFeed’s growing role in information creation, distribution and consumption.
• As a creator of FriendFeed content, I’d love to know how it’s used out there, just like a blogger.

What do you think? Useful?

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See this post on FriendFeed: http://friendfeed.com/search?q=%22Wanted%3A+Trackbacks+to+FriendFeed+Entries%22&public=1

How Many of Us Find Our True Talent?

Throughout my life, a recurring question has occurred to me: “Am I doing the thing that I’d be best at?” By that, I mean are there talents that lay dormant inside us because we never got to exercise them?

Yeah, I’m waxing a little philosophical.

I look at Tiger Woods. Imagine if his father Earl Woods hadn’t gotten him hooked on golf at a young age. And seen the child prodigy with a sweet swing at the age of 3. Suppose his path had been different. Maybe he goes to law school. Would he be some world class lawyer? Maybe. But I expect he’d be more like a great lawyer in a sea of great lawyers. As opposed to the standout golfer he is.

I look at Sergey Brin. Founded and has grown Google. Wow. Suppose he had decided to practice medicine instead?

Donald Trump…instead of real estate, maybe he’d be a golf pro at the local club.

Al Gore could have been a hell of an accountant…

My own theory is that each of have talents that are uniquely strong in us. For some, these talents would put them on the world stage. For most of us, they’d probably vault us to the top of a particular field. And yet I suspect that most of us never hit on those unique talents.

Why?

• Too quick to focus on something at a young age, never trying out other areas
• No opportunities to surface and develop the hidden talent
• Practical realities – kids, mortgage, caring for someone who is ill – prevent a move into a different field

Some hypothetical examples: You’re a solid IT manager in your company. But it turns out you have a hidden talent for making exquisite furniture. You’re a consultant to Fortune 500 companies. But you have an unknown talent for designing scalable architectures. You’re the financial controller for your company. But you would have been an amazing, Gretzky-like hockey player.

As I go through my own career, I do wonder about this idea. But even more important to me is thinking about my two kids (4 years old, 19 months old). First priority is their happiness. But if I could help them in figure out the things they are really good at, might they be even happier?

What do you think? Most of us find our “highest and best use”? Or are there opportunities most of us are never aware of?

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See this item on FriendFeed: http://friendfeed.com/search?q=%22How+Many+of+Us+Find+Our+True+Talent%22&public=1

Weekly Recap 051608: Duncan Riley ‘Likes’ FriendFeed

The week that was…

The awards for some of my blogger comrades just keep coming…Eric Berlin, of the Online Media Cultist, was named by The Industry Standard to its Top 25 B-to-Z List Blogs…the list covers blogs that have not yet achieved A-List status, but that readers should be following…Colin Walker was honored with placement in Guy Kawasaki’s Alltop list for social media…and whoa, check out his placement there, it’s pretty high..congrats to both Eric and Colin…

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Blogger disclosure got a good airing this week…in this case, “disclosure” means bloggers should reveal any conflicts of interest they have in the companies they cover, or even avoid covering those companies altogether…in discussing Michael Arrington’s conflicts of interest, Wired managed to use the tag “ButtMunch” for its blog post…I mean, they could have been a little more clever…”ButtCrunch“….

Michael Arrington, Fred Wilson, plenty of others….I’ve got no beef with them blogging about their investments…we’re talking blogs for goodness sakes…and obviously something was notable about the companies to make them invest, so it’s no surprise they write favorably about their companies…Wired does make a valid point about crossing the line from blogging to journalism, but not to the point of stopping the Washington Post from running TechCrunch stories on its website…

One conflict of interest that I’ve never been able to resolve for newspapers is the political endorsements…you come out in favor of a given candidate, what should readers expect when they read your campaign coverage?

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Duncan Riley, recently of TechCrunch and now writing The Inquisitr, seems to have turned around when it comes to FriendFeed…back in March on TechCrunch, he wrote FriendFeed Is This Years Twitter, But Why?, where he wondered what all the fuss was about…on his personal blog he later wrote FriendFeed = More Hyped Yawn…

Well, this week he ran a couple pieces that reflected a change of heart…on Monday, there was a post on The Inquisitr in which he asked Louis Gray to explain what’s great about FriendFeed…later, in The Inquisitr Update: One Week In, he noted that he’s added inline support for FriendFeed commenting to his blog…heck, he even added a comment to something I shared on FriendFeed…yes, interacting with us little folks, which is a great part of FriendFeed…

Louis Gray has a nice blog post up describing in more detail the dust-up he had with Duncan Riley over FriendFeed…check that out to get a full measure of how far Duncan Riley has come in terms of FriendFeed…

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Have you read Robin Cannon’s blog, Fog of Eternity?…lots of good posts there….my favorite line from a post today, Can’t Get Off the Blog Merry-Go-Round:

Downtime is vital though. Even if we enjoy blogging it’s still important that we get time off. Otherwise we burn out, the quality of our posts decreases, and we offer less value to our visitors.

Also, some really good, helpful posts analyzing traffic to his blog, like this one…check Fog of Eternity out sometime…

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See this item on FriendFeed: http://friendfeed.com/e/31dcb3bb-df74-8dd1-7081-183a366d10a3