A few days ago, I shared a list of King County Executive and Seattle Mayor candidates on Twitter.  I’m noticing that this trend of embracing social media is running further “down-ballot” with many Seattle City Council candidates also on Twitter:

• Position 2: @DavidGinsberg
• Position 4: @Bloom4Seattle, @BrokenLantern, @SallyBagshaw
• Position 6: @JessForSeattle, @MHKForSeattle, @NickLicata
• Position 8: @BobbyForch, @MikeJOBrien, @Miller4Seattle, @Rusty4Council

I’ve ordered the candidates alpha by Twitter alias above.  I searched for all candidates by first name a last name and by last name only.  If you know of other candidates who are missing, please leave a comment.  Thanks--

--Rob (@RobDolin)

• King County Executive: @LarryPhillips, @DowC, @RossHunter, @FredJarrett
  
  
• Seattle Mayor: @MichaelMcGinn, @Mallahan4Mayor, @NormanSigler, @JanDrago4Mayor

• April updates are here! (Well, mostly) (April 27th)
• Coming next week: Updates to web activities, contact importing, and more (April 21st)
• The Space Craft is moving! (April 16th)

I'll be back to blogging more here as things settle after the current release.  If you're interested in what I have to say (both about work/tech) and non-work topics, please check back, subscribe to my RSS, or follow me on Twitter.  Thanks--
--Rob

P.S. I'malso on a number of other services.  Just check the list of Web Activities on my profile ;-)

Sometimes when you’re browsing the web, you come across a website that you think is so great, you want to share it with your friends.  One great way to do this is to add the site to your “Shared favorites” on Windows Live and then your friends will see the site when they view What’s New with their network in Windows Live Messenger, Windows Live Hotmail, on the Windows Live suite home, and when they view your Windows Live profile.  (BTW, this blog entry continues the series on What’s New in Windows Live.)

The easiest way that I’ve found to add Shared Favorites is to install the Windows Live Toolbar and then click the “Share” tab:

You have the option to enter a “Description” as I did above or you can leave the link as-is. 

When you click the [Share] button, the web page will be added to your “Shared Favorites” folder on Windows Live SkyDrive (which is permissioned to your network (as opposed to public) by default.)

People who have access to your shared favorites folder will then see a What’s New update about the website that you shared in What’s new with their network or when visiting your profile:

And since the shared favorite is handled as a .url file in a folder on SkyDrive, the people with whom you’re sharing your favorites will be able to comment on your shared favorite:

Finally, I should mention that you can change your settings to be more or less open:

• You can change the permissions on your shared favorites folder at: https://skydrive.live.com/editpermissions.aspx/.SharedFavorites.
  For example, I’m now sharing my shared favorites with Everyone. 
• You can choose if you want people to be able to comment on any of your SkyDrive files at: https://skydrive.live.com/commentoptions.aspx

Thanks very much for stopping by.  You can read more in the series on What’s New in Windows Live at http://bit.ly/aboutwn and read more from my blog at http://blog.robdolin.com/.  Thanks again--
--Rob

There’s been some recent grumbling about Facebook’s redesign of its news feed feature.  Personally, I think it's an exciting opportunity for Facebook users to have a better news feed experience.  As an avid user of social media sites like Facebook, Twitter, FriendFeed, and of course Windows Live, I’ve got a few tips for people interested in getting the most value out of the new changes. 

1. Use Filters (left nav) – One of the biggest changes with the redesign is that now seemingly every update is available in the News Feed so if you have a bunch of active friends, it may feel overwhelming.  This is where the filters on the left nav are super useful.

I’ve got hundreds of Facebook friends; you probably do too.  But when I’m browsing the feed, I might only want to see activities from a particular set of people.  Facebook provides a number of filters to support this:

• Friend Lists -  Above, I’ve created friend lists for a few groups including “NTHS” for people I went to high school with.  This way, I can filter the feed to see what my high school friends are up to.  You can create friend lists as part of accepting friend requests; and you can also do so via the “Friends” tab at the top of the page
• Networks – Above, “Seattle, WA” is the regional network I’m a member of.  Unlike friend lists which require set-up, Networks just happen as users affiliate themselves with where they live, work, and went to school. 
• Public Profiles – If I want to see updates from the Pages of my favorite products, tv shows, brands, politicians, etc. they show-up here. 
• Update Types - “Photos", “Links”, “Video”, etc. are update types.  If I’m curious to browse videos or links that my friends are recommending, I can go to these filters.  These seem to be by Facebook application so I can also filter to Twitter, Last.fm, or other update types

2. Share (top center) – The new “Share” control (I think Facebook is calling it “The Publisher” is a really convenient way to quickly publish an update whether it’s just status, a photo, a link, or more:

In addition to this control, if you’re someone who shares content on other sites like you have a blog (with RSS), post photos on Flickr, or publish links on StumbleUpon, you can have Facebook publish these (similar to Windows Live Web Activities or FriendFeed.)  To get set-up, go to your Profile and click the “* Settings” button under [Share]:
 

In addition to these Facebook-supported “Imported Stories”, you can also add Applications that will publish stories.  Two I would recommend are:

• Twitter
• Windows Live Messenger

3. Publish via Mobile (TXT FBOOK) – Sharing what you’re up to isn’t just interesting when you’re in front of your computer; it’s often most interesting when you’re out and about.  Facebook (at least in the USA) has a SMS short code (FBOOK or 32665) so you can update your status by sending a TXT. 

You can also add the aforementioned Twitter application, update your status on Twitter, and it will get sync’d to Facebook.

4. View Highlights (right) – Now that the News Feed shows ALL updates, it’s nice to have a place to see the popular updates; like which groups your friends are joining or which photos are getting a bunch of comments from your network.  The “Highlights” section on the right shows this. 

5. Comment and Like (inline) – It’s always nice to get a positive comment of encouragement (or even just the one-click “Like” action to know that other people saw your update.  Return the favor to your friends by commenting and like’ing their updates.  You may help the good ones get into the Highlights section too. 

As usual, thanks very much for reading and if you have a comment, question, or suggestion, please leave a comment.  Thanks much--
--Rob

My friend Michael recently asked me this question and I thought it might be worthy of a blog post especially as my of my friends start finding value in Twitter.

Both keep a list of your status updates (ex: http://twitter.com/robdolin and http://www.facebook.com/people/Rob-Dolin/10704705) and a stream of status updates from your social network (http://twitter.com/home and http://www.facebook.com/.)  IMHO, this functionality of a profile page with the actions of an individual user and a home (or network/colleagues/friends) page with the aggregated news from the people a user is interested in are key engagement aspects of a people-centric social networking service (of which Facebook and Twitter (and Windows Live) are examples.

There are a number of smaller differences between the two services, but below are what I see as the key differences:

• Content types – Twitter is focused on a single content type: status updates of 140 characters or fewer.  Facebook supports a multitude of content types including photos, notes (blog entries), video, shared links, and status. 
• Relationship model – Twitter’s relationship model is based on one-way connections between people.  I may follow Dare Obasanjo, but Dare does not necessarily need to follow me.  When I follow Dare, he gets a notification that I’m following him, but there is no pending action required of Dare to either accept or decline/ignore the relationship.  Facebook’s model (as of this writing) is based on two-way connections.  Thus, when I ask someone to be my “friend” on Facebook, (s)he gets a pending request to become friends and can either accept or ignore.
• Commenting – Facebook allows commenting on individual updates on a user’s “wall” (formerly mini-feed.)  Twitter support @replies when a user references another user, but these are not specific to an update.  Facebook also supports commenting on an individual’s profile via a “wall post” and provides a convenient “wall-to-wall” view where you can see profile comments between two users.  In general, how the services commenting compares seems to follow the pattern that twitter focuses on nailing the simple while Facebook is both more robust and also more complex. 
• Target media – While both services have web, mobile web, SMS, and API interfaces, I believe that Twitter has the far superior SMS interface and Facebook has the far superior web interface.  Facebook’s functionality to inline comment and (recently added) like individual updates is great for the web.  Twitter’s ability to TXT “follow robdolin” to 40404 and instantly get started is a big boon for mobile use.  Twitter also allows follow without getting SMS updates which is great for keeping in touch with people you’re interested in who seem to have twitterrhea.

Personally, I added the Twitter application to Facebook and thus when I update Twitter (which is is easy as sending a TXT to 40404), it also updates my Facebook status.  Facebook mobile has similar functionality (under the short SMS code FBOOK), but I find Twitter’s SMS interface language more intuitive.   

I hope that you’ll try using Facebook and Twitter (and of course Windows Live :) ) and if you have suggestions for areas I’ve missed or feedback how you think Windows Live could learn from both of these services, please leave a comment.

Thanks--
--Rob

P.S. As you may know, you can add twitter to Windows Live via http://profile.live.com/webactivities/

• One of my grade school classmates is posting class pictures from Facebook and tagging them with the people he has reconnected with.  After our 10-year HS reunion, a bunch of us reconnected and I give kudos to Alex who has dug-up and scanned a bunch of photos like early class pictures and tagged them with the people shown.  On one hand, it's a kick to see awkward 3rd grade class photos and to be able to click-through to many of the people to see where they are now. 
• My HS youth group advisor recently posted a link to a blog post one of his friends wrote about a road trip they were on in 1985 from their cornfield college in Illinois to Memphis, TN to visit the grave of Elvis.  On one hand, it was awesome to read the story of a friend's college experience.  On the other had, I wonder if it would have read different if I had been reading it a dozen years ago when he was my youth group advisor; or if it had been posted shortly after the trip was taken.
• danah boyd gave a lecture about how young people are negotiating technologies for communication like IM and Social Networking services and addressing challenges around the length of time that content will be around (potentially forever) and the scope of the viewership (potentially public with the ease at which digital text, images, and video can be copied.)

As more and more content gets posted online (and is search-able), there are of course challenges in how people manage their images.  (Ex: Michael Phelps.)  But I think even more interesting will be how the collective community judges actions that many people know happen (like underage drinking.)  I would imagine that nearly everyone involved looks back fondly on the 1985 road trip with almost 25 years of hindsight; but I wonder what the impression would be if the pictures had been posted contemporaneously. 

As more and more of our lives are documented online (whether by us or our friends), I hope that we'll be able to collectively recognize the value in sharing the memories and reconnecting with faded friendships; as well as not judge others by standards we would not have imposed prior to the availablity of the technology.

There is a nervous chill going through the music industry bloggers corner of the larger blogosphere and it has to do with posts of theirs just disappearing. Literally one minute they are there and the next minute they are gone. LA Weekly is reporting on the story that the bloggers that are being affected are all using Google’s Blogger platform which needless to say has a lot of music bloggers looking for new homes.

I love how microblogging encourages people to succinctly express themselves.  I was really glad that so many of my friends took a few minutes to dash-off a thought in Windows Live Messenger or Twitter expressing how they felt about the inauguration of the USA’s 44th President, Barack Obama. 

I’ve compiled some of my favorites below (only including names if the message is public) and I’d encourage you to check-out Windows Live Messenger, Twitter, or your favorite microblogging service to see what your friends had to say on or around Jan. 20th. 

If you find some good ones, please leave a comment.  Thanks--
--Rob

(Nov. 5th) BarackObama We just made history. All of this happened because you gave your time, talent and passion. All of this happened because of you. Thanks

We are heading into the Inaugural events. They've closed the highways so we're taking the Metro. I expect long lines at the station.

ronsims It is freezing in DC. We went to REI and purchased thermals and good gloves. The Hotties that we bought are great!

martharotter Just one hour until live streaming starts for the inauguration. I'll be watching here: http://www.pic2009.org/live

Decided I've been working hard enough on our product launch in 2 wks that I can spare a day to go to Inauguration!

MITorres People who don't see today as one of the biggest potential turning points in our history have never seen what a real leader is capable of

Powerful experience watching the Inauguration halfway b/w Capitol and Wash. Monument. Worth the 5 hours trying to get out of the city a

@sarahfelicity unlikely; hope don't close

There's gonna be a fog lifting today

kbondelli @sarahkatheryn Historic, historic historic, historic historic historic. Historic. Historic historic; historic. Historic: Take that!

tcani At vandy black student center to watch inaug. Maybe not DC, but still thrilling!

nancyscola Roberts: "Hey, should we do a dry run?" Obama: "Nah, I'm good." Roberts: "Yeah, yeah, me too. Me too."

that obama, he always closes well. you know the end of the speech is coming when the tone shifts to the closure tone.

kbondelli whitehouse.gov is switched over to Obama.

heinsonw Baby got Barak - http://heinson.us/AubreyBar...

Highlight of #innaug09: Just saw W get escorted to marine one on jumbotron then we all waved goodbye as he flew over us

I am indulging the Poly Sci nerd in me. Loved inauguration day!

moniguzman Supposed 2 leave Union Station on a train. Left on a stretcher. 1 of many 2 collapse from exhaustion after inaug. At hospital w/ @jasonp107

mbassik Google Party getting Rick-Rolled! #inauguration

lonseidman The coat check at the ball reminded me of the hong kong subway. Total chaos!!

tcani Man, on top of the rest ... America just got way cooler

jantonel Geez how many times does obama really need to be dragged to church?!?! I feel for him.

silbatron Only getting to work today because the president told us to. If he's not phoning it in after ystrdy's marathon than I guess I can't either

lonseidman New blog post: Inaugural Photo Gallery and a few Random Thoughts #inaug09 http://tinyurl.com/92dhd2

2 best memories from yesterday: The African American woman who saw my tears & hugged ME. And, the stories of long travel to be there.

douglasprc Said at dinner: "Seriously - vines move toward the sun faster than I busted a move that night."

• PowerPoint file on Windows Live SkyDrive
• PowerPoint file hosted on SlideShare

Almost two years ago, the Windows Live Spaces team announced a bunch of RSS feeds.  Especially with the recent release of the latest Windows Live services (including http://home.live.com/ and http://profile.live.com/) there seems to be a resurgence of interest so I’ve decided to put together this blog post as a brief guide to Windows Live RSS feeds.

First, there are three potential user identifiers in Windows Live:

• Alias – a friendly name associated with the personal space;
  the “robdolin” in http://robdolin.spaces.live.com/
  
• CID – a user ID;
  the “4363044724778622956” in http://spaces.live.com/viewspace.aspx?cid=4363044724778622956; note that this number can be negative
  
• HexCID – the hexadecimal (base 16) encoding of the CID;
  the “3c8ca60f8f925fec” in http://cid-3c8ca60f8f925fec.profile.live.com/

Now that you understand identifiers, you can compose the URL’s to feeds using either the alias (ex: http://robdolin.spaces.live.com/feed.rss) or the HexCID (http://cid-3c8ca60f8f925fec.spaces.live.com/feed.rss).  Since not all users have chosen an Alias, I’d encourage you to consider using the HexCID if you’re doing any significant programming.

Here are some of the most interesting RSS feeds:

Top level feed: http://cid-3c8ca60f8f925fec.spaces.live.com/feed.rss – this contains publicly shared blog entries, photo albums, and lists

Blog feed: http://cid-3c8ca60f8f925fec.spaces.live.com/blog/feed.rss – this is just the publicly shared blog entries on the user’s personal space

Profile feed: http://cid-3c8ca60f8f925fec.spaces.live.com/profile/feed.rss – this is a feed of the publicly shared sub-profiles information

Friends feed: http://cid-3c8ca60f8f925fec.spaces.live.com/friends/feed.rss – this is a feed of the publicly shared profile contacts or “network”

Lists feed: http://cid-3c8ca60f8f925fec.spaces.live.com/lists/feed.rss – this is a list of the publicly shared lists

There are a few more RSS feeds that I’m not describing above, and you can find more information on all of the above at: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb447738.aspx

As our team is starting to plan the next generation of Windows Live services, I’m interested in hearing what improvements you’d like to see in our RSS feeds story.  Particularly: what reader(s) do you use and do our feeds work well for you?  If you’re an application writer, what additional data or mark-up would you be interested in?  Other general feedback?  Please leave a comment and let me know what you’d like to see in the future.

Thanks much--
--Rob

The “beta tag” has been removed from most of the Windows Live Essentials applications and the latest version is now available for download.  In fact, I’m writing this blog post using the latest version of Windows Live Writer which includes my favorite feature, in-situ photo crop’ing. 

And of course, Messenger includes the fully enabled What’s New slideshow!

Enjoy--
--Rob

This past week, I finally got sick of all of the pre-installed crap on H’s laptop so I reformatted the hard drive and did a complete re-install.  Here’s what I installed to get a base PC configuration that she could use for her professional and volunteer work as well as something I could do the occasional web development on when she is on my desktop PC:

• Windows Vista Ultimate
• Windows Live (Free)
• Microsoft Office Ultimate (Free trial)
• Expression Web (Free trial)
• Visual Web Dev (Free)
• Firefox (Free)
• Adobe Reader (Free)

I’m enjoying the new, clean PC so much that I’m thinking about doing the same for some other family PC’s too.  FWIW--
--Rob

If you download the Beta version of Windows Live Essentials from http://download.live.com/, prior to December 15, now is a great time to go back and download the “beta refresh.”

Two of my favorite things about the beta refresh are:

1. Links are now enabled in What’s New updates in Windows Live Messenger:
 
For example, in the earlier beta, the movie image, the movie title, and the heart icon were all just text or images, but now they’re all click-able so you can go to see Dare’s favorite movies or even add the movie to your favorites.  BTW, you can find more on Favorite things in an earlier blog entry: Windows Live What’s New updates: Lists and Favorite Things.

2. Web activities are now enabled in What’s New updates in Messenger:
 
In addition to being able to see web activities my friends add on Twitter, Flickr, Photobucket, Pandora, and more, they’re also click-able so if I click “Flickr” above, I’ll get taken to my friend Franci’s profile on Flickr.

I really hope you’ll pick-up the new Windows Live Essentials (including Messenger, Photo Gallery, Toolbar, and more.)  If you’d like to know more about Windows Live What’s New updates, check-out: http://bit.ly/aboutWN.  Thanks--
--Rob

A new build of Windows Live Essentials (Messenger, Writer, Photo Gallery, Toolbar, etc.) is now available at http://download.live.com/ and I was especially impressed with the French marketing team’s list of 50 new features.  Of course, it’s in French, so I read it using Windows Live Translator:

http://www.windowslivetranslator.com/BV.aspx?ref=WLButton#http://www.windowslive.fr/2009/nouveautes/index.htm

Enjoy--
--Rob

Across Social Computing, people often express their personality by sharing their interests.  The new Windows Live lets you do this on your profile through “Favorite Things” and on your personal Space through Lists (which have been around since the launch of the original MSN Spaces.")  This blog entry describes how these show-up in What’s New with you and What’s New with your network and continues in the series on What’s New update types. 

To start, if you haven’t added any Favorite Things, try opening this link in a new tab and adding some: http://profile.live.com/FavoriteThings/

There are three types of Favorite Things:

• Music artists
• Books
• Movies

Each has a few variations of display in What’s New depending on how much information you have about the artist, book, or movie:
   

All Favorite things updates have a “Title” like <name> added <thing> to favorite <type> and most have a “Body” that will display: an image (if available), additional information like book author (if available), a comment (if you’ve made one), and a <heart> icon. 

The <heart> icon is key as it lets you quickly add that favorite thing to your profile.  For example, I also like The Killers so if I click the heart in Brandon’s update, I’ll be taken to my favorite things page and asked to confirm that I want to add The Killers:
 

There are also What’s New updates for when you add items to a List on your Windows Live Space.  These look very similar to Favorite Things updates with two exceptions:

• There’s also a Custom List update type
• There is no heart to add to your Favorite Things

I hope you’ve found this blog post helpful.  If you’d like to know more about What’s New in general, please check-out the series: http://bit.ly/aboutwn.  Thanks--
--Rob

With yesterday’s launch, tons and tons of people are using Windows Live Profiles and I’ve seen a handful of questions about how to manage what’s showing-up on in the “What’s new with <name>” module on the profile.  As I’ve mentioned in other blog entries, each item in What’s New with you only shows to the people who have access to view the original containing item; but there are some situations where you might now want to show the What’s New update at all.

This is of course interesting if you take an action that you’d rather not broadcast; but this is also interesting since your profile shows only the 10 most recent updates and if you accept a bunch of requests to join people’s networks, you might want to delete these so your photos, blog entries, or other interesting content is showing at the top of your profile.

First, you can delete any item from What’s new with you:

1. Go to your profile: http://profile.live.com/
2. Hover over a What’s New update
3. Click the blue gear that appears at right
4. Select “Remove this update” as shown below:
   

Second, you can choose which update types you’ll publish in the future.

1. Go to your profile: http://profile.live.com/
2. At the bottom of the What’s New with you module, click the “Options” link
   (You can also navigate directly via http://profile.live.com/whatsnewwithyousettings/)
3. Check or un-check the update types that you want to publish and click the [Save] button

As always, thanks very much for stopping by to read my blog.  You can find more about What’s New at http://bit.ly/aboutwn.  Take care--
--Rob