Sixty Second Tech

Howdy Minute Men!

Hey! I just wanted to drop a quick post into the feed to remind you that Sixty Second Tech is on twitter. If you don’t subscribe the feed and you don’t want to subscribe to the mailing list, you can simply follow us on twitter. Thanks to the miracles of modern technology (something we discuss a LOT on Sixty Second Tech) we post on twitter within seconds of each new episode being released. So if twitter is your thing, make sure you follow us.

Until next episode!
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I’d like to thank all the early adopters who took advantage of the $20 special BETA price. The report is still available, updated to include new examples and tools. For more information please visit Twitter for Marketers.

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 Twitter For Marketers: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Lifestreaming, according to wordspy.com, is “an online record of a person’s daily activities, either via direct video feed or via aggregating the person’s online.”

In other words, Lifestreaming is the new black!

Here it is in a nutshell. You have a blog, twitter, flickr, meetups, facebook, and a bunch of other shiny new web 2.0 toys. What do they all have in common? They all create feeds of your content. Someone interested in what you are up to can subscribe to these feeds individually but that can be a real pain. Lifestreams are a single feed that people can subscribe to that aggregates all of your feeds into one.

There’s nothing really new in this concept, people have been aggregating feeds for as long as there have been feeds. However, instead of a specific topic to aggregate around, the topic of your lifestream you!

There are several good services out there that will let you aggregate your lifestream like tumblr.com and jaiku.com. The one with the most buzz right now seems to be friendfeed.com. but I’m sure if you look, you can find others.

One word of warning, lifestreams open up your life in ways you may not be prepared for. Yes, all of this information exists already on the web but are you ready for everyone to have it all in one place? Think about it.

My name is Cal Evans and I am, your Sixty Second Tech.

 

 Lifestreaming! [1:01m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Welcome to the Sixty Second Tech Podcast housekeeping episode #2.

Well it’s been more than a month since I had time to record a housekeeping episode but even so, I’ll keep it brief.

First, thanks to everyone who have blogged about us. I try to get out to each of your blogs and post a comment when I see a post about Sixty Second Tech but I’ve been on the road a lot lately so if I missed your blog, I’m sorry. If you’ve not blogged us yes, please do. Those notes to your friends and family are what keep our number growing each week.

Also, don’t forget to visit the “Become a Minute Man” for more ways you can help support Sixty Second Tech. They are all quick, easy and best of all, free.

Here at Sixty Second Tech we are always looking for new topics. If you’ve got a topic you would like to see covered on Sixty Second tech, drop us an email at suggestions@sixtysecondtech.com We’d love to hear from you.

Finally, this Tuesday, May 6th, 2008, I’ll be appearing live on Small Business Trends Radio You can listen live at http://www.blogtalkradio.com/smallbiztrends or download the podcast for later listening.

That’s all for this housekeeping episode. Thanks for listening, make sure you tell some one today about Sixty Second Tech.

My name is Cal Evans and I am you Sixty Second Tech.

 

 Housekeping Episode #2 [1:17m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Feeds are the new lifeblood of the Internet. If you listen to this podcast any way other than visiting sixtysecondtech.com and clicking play, then you are using a feed. Feeds have become so ubiquitous that you may not even know you use them.

Feeds are XML files, while they are human readable, that’s about as fun as a trip to the dentist, so I don’t recommend trying it. Instead, feeds are consumed by software. Readers, like Google Reader, consume feeds from blogs and other sources and present the content in a single place for you to peruse. Podcatchers, like iTunes, consume feeds and download the podcasts they describe (like this one) to your audio player of choice.

Feeds generally come in two flavors, RSS or “Really Simple Syndication” and Atom, which was designed by people didn’t like RSS. While RSS is the more commonly used format, Atom is considered by most to be the more complete and technically accurate format. Thanks to services like feedburner.com most website owners never have to worry about which format they need to publish. Feedburner allows you to publish your feed once and it takes care of the translation.

So, if you’ve got a website, especially one with content that regularly changes, go ahead and feed the net.

My name is Cal Evans and I am, your sixty second tech.

 

 Feed the Net! [1:02m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

You are a technology company but can’t find the people you need locally. You could uproot people and move them to where you are. It’s hard on families but hey, you’re a heartless corporation, what do you care?

How about another option…telecommuting?

If your company doesn’t have an active telecommuting policy then you are mired in 90’s management theory and really need to update your thinking. (and quite possibly your resume)

Here are a few must have tools that will make the difference between success and failure in your telecommuting program.

Skype
How about a free, and easy to use telephone system? Do yourself a favor, pop the $50 a year extra and upgrade each of your people to Skype Pro.

Instant Messaging
Make sure everybody has an IM account. Bonus points if you get everybody to use the same system.

Internet Relay Chat (IRC)
It’s one thing to get everybody on IM but it’s a whole ‘nother world to have them all in one virtual room. This is the one trick I do every time I setup a virtual team.

SSH
Keep your resources behind the firewall and let users tunnel into them.

So, grab the tools, kick your developers out the door (but not to the curb!) and open up the world to them. You will find that it’s no longer hard to keep good developers on staff, just hard to keep them in the building.

My name is Cal Evans and I am, your sixty second tech.

Hey, stay tuned! Don’t turn it off, I’ve got a special promo from my buddies over at theNewMediology.com! Give them a listen.

 

 Telecommuting! [1:00m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Ok, so you followed my advice and built you a web site, you have fresh content and a look and feel that “pops”! Now all you need to do is figure out who your visitors are. There are several good ways to go about this but I’m only going to tell you about one, Google Analytics. If you don’t have Google Analytics installed on your website, go directly to jail, do not pass Go, do NOT collect $200. However, do go to google.com/analytics and register now!

Installation of this powerful tool is simple, but it will require you to add a piece of JavaScript to your site, so you may want to consult with your web designer/programmer.

If you do have someone else set it up for you, have them set it up in its own account. Once it is setup and operating, ask them hand the account over to you and change the password.

Now that it’s installed, wait a day for the data to get in there and then start poking around. Everybody can give you “most visited page” but Google Analytics can give you screen resolution, color density and even a cool google map overlay so you can click around and see the cities that people are visiting from.

Once you are comfortable with the metrics it gives you, take a look at “Google Analytics AIR”. It’s an application that will gives you your Google Analytics data right on your desktop.

So get out there and find out who is visiting your website. You may be surprised at what you find.

My name is Cal Evans and I am, your sixty second tech.

 

 Google Analytics [1:01m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Most web pages have contact information on them and while you can look at an address and recognize it without a problem, your computer can’t. To your computer, it’s just more characters to display; it has no meaning. You could keep a separate file on your site to describe your address in a way that a computer can understand it, but where’s the fun in that? What you need is a MicroFormat.

Microformats attach semantics to content, to allow automated processing of the text.

Microformats are nothing more than plain old semantic-HTML or POSH. A microformat encoded address, would display in your browser as normal text; however, software designed to recognize microformats could act upon it.

Let’s use the example of the hCard, the microformat version of the vCard. A plugin added to FireFox will allow it to recognize an hCard and offer you the option to add it to your address book. While you can certainly look at a webpage and say “Hey, that’s an address, I’ll add that person to my address book” it’s not nearly as convenient and will impress no one at your next cocktail party.

There are currently 8 microformats defined, and the list, along with more details, can be found at microformats.org.

My name is Cal Evans and I am, your sixty second tech.

 

 Microformats [1:00m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

If you are responsible for your company’s web strategy, you probably have a list of technologies that you can’t afford to ignore; near the top of that list should be OpenID. Chances are you already have an OpenID identifier since AOL, Yahoo and Google all are “identify providers”. If you have a login on any one of those services then you have an OpenID identifier.

For the uninitiated, think of OpenID as a single user name and password for the entire web. However, instead of the usual way that is implemented, just using the same use rname and password everywhere, with OpenID, you only identify yourself to your identity provider.; they will then identify you to any website supporting OpenID.

OpenID provides your user with both convenience and security. Convenience because allowing your users to log into your website via OpenID means that they don’t have to remember yet another password. Security because your user can now pick which identity provider they trust to keep their information secure, they don’t have to worry whether your application is secure enough for their secrets.

Implementing OpenID for your site will give your users one more reason to trust you since they don’t have to trust you as much.

My name is Cal Evans and I am your Sixty Second Tech.

 

 OpenID and You [1:03m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Ok Minute Men this is a housekeeping post. I just wanted to let you know about a couple of things happening on the site.

First, Sixty Second Tech has a twitter feed now. You can follow us at twitter.com/60secondtech (that’s the number 60 and then second tech.) Or you can visit the website and click the graphic, that’s probably easier. Every time there is a post, a notice goes out over twitter so you can be the first on your block to listen.

Second, If you don’t want to be notified via twitter, you can get your tech fix via email now. As with the twitter, every time there is a post, an email will be sent to you letting you know that there is fresh content for the picking. These two options are for those of you who don’t use iTunes or subscribe to the feed.

Third, I’ve written an poignant and insightful post on the web site called “Become a Minute Man”. If you want to help the cause, take a look at it. (Visit sixtysecondtech.com, you can’t miss it) It’s not going to cost you a dime, just a minute or two of your time.

Finally, I know you’ve been dying for this one so I’m pleased to say that each post now has an “Email this to a friend” link. Hey, I don’t really care if they are your friends or not, I’m just looking to make it easier for you to help spread the word.

One last thing. If you like Sixty Second Tech, then chances are good that your customers, vendors, partners and hangers-on will like it as well. Consider licensing Sixty Second tech for your company. There’s a page describing our offer on the website, give it a look. If it’s not right for you, pass it on to your rich uncle who is CEO of a Fortune 500 company.

Thanks for listening!

My name is Cal Evans and I am, your Sixty Second Tech.

 

 Housekeeping Episode #1 [1:38m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download