onfocus

This is a nice reminder that using social media is a choice, not an obligation.

The Atlantic has a very nice story about a recent Ask MetaFilter question.

Great article about the difference between Twitter and Facebook from Matt Haughey. Short version: Twitter = present, Facebook = past. See also: kottke, torrez

A rant about the problems with using social connections in advertising.

Adrian Holovaty's latest project helps guitarists learn songs via collaborative annotations. Very nice design.

The media people are sharing on social networks via Embedly.

The top articles flowing through Readability.

Reading this article just reminds me that I'm still upset Google killed its Google Reader sharing features. The Reader bridge has been burned for me, but I agree they could do more inside existing services to improve Plus.

lia put together this record of a Twitter conversation about the current state of Flickr and photo-sharing in general. Depressing: "...nobody cares about lasting value anymore. it's all about what's going on right this second."

Sharing music one track at a time. This is a fun site.

This app is a good replacement for the cumbersome iTunes podcast manager. It downloads podcasts directly, no syncing required.

"I hope publishers will see that conscious sharing is better than passive sharing, and that content delivery is better than app delivery." Me too. Quantity of traffic beats quality in many people's minds so I'm not optimistic.

Nice demo. I'm not sure I buy it yet. You still have to download the entire font to use a single icon. If you're using a large number of icons it might make sense.

Hello Brightness shortcut icon! This is great.

"Your actions directly threaten the safety of our students." A UC Davis professor is asking the chancellor to resign after the OWS pepper spraying incident.

When Jesse meets Bootsy, magic. Update: Now that it's out, be sure to listen to Jesse's Best. Interview. Ever. It will improve your day.

Nice! Rdio is a great streaming music service with social features. It used to cost a monthly fee to listen to full songs, but now you can listen to a certain amount each month for free.

Ajax spinning image with no image! (A bit heavier than an image, though.)

"...it would seem that many who claim to be pro-business are trying to 'save' us from exactly the inclusive, creative, tolerant values that have made America's most successful company possible." Anil connects the dots.

UGH. "AT&T's killing their $10/1,000 text plan. Now, you'll have to choose between $20 for unlimited, or forgo a plan and pay $0.20 per message. AT&T calls this 'streamlining.' We call it what it is: an outrageous, gigantic scam."

Mat Honan quoting Mike Monteiro: "We used to design things to take us to the moon, now we design things to keep us from getting out of bed." Like!

Nice toolkit of design elements for building websites.

Nice JavaScript dialog/alert system.

"What are Facebook and Google but giant institutions, arms of the new establishment? What are smartphones if not high-tech leashes? Today, online databases hold more information about us than could fit on a mile-high stack of punch cards. Some kind of rebellion seems in order." [via sippey]

Best take on Google+ so far. And the Media. And the Books.

Fun concept piece. It'd be nice to see this as a Kickstarter project someday.

Matt Thompson discusses some ways Jessamyn approaches moderation at MetaFilter. This is great: "Let me model some good behavior for you. That person said something really s---y. I’m just going to ignore it. Watch me."