Jason Clarke

My picks for 2005 Blogs of the Year:

5. Scripting News - Dave Winer / He’s often infuriating, especially in a disagreement. But there’s no doubt that Dave Winer is the unofficial Chief Technical and Philisophical Officer of the living web. While some people find one or two interesting things to say every couple of years, delivering brilliant treatises- in text or audio- appear to come so easy to (and from) Dave via his blog. Better still, he’s one of the rare few who pontficiate, yet also spend an equal amount of time delivering with real tangible actions- or in Dave’s case, software, ideas, and movements.

4. Instapundit - Glenn Reynolds / Reynolds, my top pick for 2004, continues to outshine 99.999% of the blogosphere with his quality, frequency, variety, and intelligence. He’s always said he’ll blog as long as its fun. I only hope 2006 is his most fun year ever.

3. Micropersuasion - Steve Rubel / Steve Rubel blogs in a cheifly friendly, yet authorative voice, and manages to cover nearly every single emerging trend from RSS to online advertising to identity/attention to videoblogging. If I smell a trend on the web, I turn to Steve for updates and insight.

2. Lifehacker - Gina Trapani, et al / Lifehacker came out of the gate in early 2006, capitalizing on the mini-craze of ‘lifehacks’ popularized by Merlin Mann’s 43Folders site (and others). Lifehacker was great early and spent all year getting better thanks to Gina Trapani and later a stable of supporting bloggers. Keeping track of new software, tools, services, and trends can be mind-numbing, but Gina and Co. have made it fun while keeping coverage both deep and varied.

1. Scobelizer - Robert Scoble / Robert Scoble did the almost unthinkable this year. While Microsoft was busy making strides with RSS, open formats, and more, (yet not its browser) Scoble managed to put a human, friendly, aware, and intelligent face on the borg. Best of all, he emerged as an outstanding rolemodel for fairness and tranparency in blogging as he continually proved his will to discuss controversial issues again and again. Scoble’s fairness, honesty (he’s a geek, in case he hasn’t reminded you lately) and his sense of narrative (he’s just one of us, guiding us through Microsoft, and through the software industry) combine to make him the most enjoyable, revealing, and interesting blogger in 2005.

In abbreviated form, here are my picks for the best software, services, and/or tools for the year 2005:

5. Bloglines - I’ll start with a downer: I don’t love Bloglines…yet. But I do like it a whole lot, because it’s a reliable, pretty friendly place for me to store and view my RSS feeds. I like their categorization, feature set (but still long for subfolders), and their tools (the blogroll feed, in particular) are appreciated. In 2006, I hope Bloglines continues to expand by adding true security features, multiple view options, and perhaps a bit of a speed and/or design tweak here or there. Still though, they’re good enough to make my top 5.

4. Backpack - Understatement: 37Signals was on fire this year. Shifting from a consulting firm to a product company, they first released a nifty to-list service, Ta-da List, then followed it up in May with Backpack, a service where a person or people can create lists, notes, tasks, reminders, and store and share documents and images. The service has been an invaluable tool for me (and thousands of others), won tons of accolades, and has, with others, spawned a revolution of small, simple, web-based services that is likely to explode in 2006.

3. Flickr - Flickr, a photosharing service and community, is hands-down the best, most fun web service I’ve ever used. From it’s super-easy Uploadr tool for, well, uploading your digital photos, to its amazing Organizr tool for sorting, naming, and grouping them, to its truly brilliant and ever-emerging ways to bind its community of users together, it’s the shining example of how joyous online experience can be. The best part? It keeps getting better. Late this year, they’ve added digital photo printing via Yahoo!/Target, by itself a worthy reason for the service’s acquisition by Yahoo! this year.

2. Mozilla Firefox - Firefox got big in 2005, and it was well-deserved. The cross-platform browser is my pick for 2nd best of the web this year for its emergence as a (nearly) all-in-one platform for using the web. The best part of Firefox in my view are the extensions. Thanks to a community of developers, I use Firefox as a blogging tool, spell checker, del.icio.us bookmarks manager, I search multiple sources, I bypass website registration, have integrated color hex code picking, and it’s web developer toolbar proves invaluable at my job.

And oh yeah, it’s a sleek, powerful, reliable browser, to boot.

1. del.icio.us - The site’s design was ugly until late this year, but that didn’t matter much- del.icio.us’ great beauty derives from its simple, open-ended, RSS-ified structure. Beyond just a go-anywhere, browser-based boomark service, del.icio.us exploded the way we save and share the web by allowing us, the users, to create our own methods and habits for linking pages, media, and ideas. Just a couple of the thousands of ways to use the service: A bookmark service, a link delivery service, a PR-watchlist- even a to-do list, library manager, and, heck, blogging tool, all-in-one. del.icio.us is the best and most inherently revolutionary of the “web 2.0″ services because it provides any user the basic tools and inspiration to map their own view of the web.

It’s been a long, stressful, and largely unhealthy holiday season for me and my fam, such that this blog has been the least of my concerns in this end-of-year shuffle. That said, I do have every energy and intention of writing here, and other places, in 2006. I’m not gone, and I’m not going away- yet.

Consider yourselves lucky though. Instead of trotting out a few long-winded “2005 Best Of” and “2006 Predictions” posts I had originally planned, I’ve consolidated and shortened a few thousand words into a couple of posts I’ll drop over the next couple of days.

Before I do though, warm congrats to our friends Kate and Seth, who tied the knot today in a simple ceremony at a nearby hotel after years of stressful and fruitless wedding planning. Mazel tov!

Google recently added a new feature to their web-based email, Gmail, known as “Web Clips”. The ‘clips’ are actually RSS feeds, presented one item at a time at the top of your Gmail Inbox.

It’s kind of a neat concept, but the part that strikes me as a bit questionable is the fact that interdispersed with items from your chosen RSS feeds, Google also inserts Google AdWords, with only a vague delination between actual content (your feed items) and the ads. Here’s a screenshot of a “Sponsored Link” appearing in the “Web Clips” area:

Google already places contextual advertising within my email account. So why does is it necessary stuff further ads onto my account, while at the same time blurring the line between my own personalized content and served advertising?

The other thing that bugs me about this is that Google is attempting to “trick” their users into clicking on these ads by placing them in the exact same spot, in the exact same format, as the user’s RSS feeds.

Not evil, per se. But not very cool at all.

Blast from the past: In July 2004, FrontPage magazine’s Jamie Glazov interviewed me and David Hardy about the implications of Michael Moore’s worldview.

In an LA Times editorial, Christopher Hitchens makes the case against Ramsey Clark, one of Saddam Hussein’s lawyers.

OLS^TM (one-line summary): Dell should provide a “Send this configuration to a friend” link on the page of its website where you customize the components of your Dell system.

Here’s one way it could work: If you’ve ever ordered a computer online via Dell’s website (or even browsed the site without ordering), you’ve probably seen their pretty neat, and often imitated, “customize your order” page.

On that page, you start out with the basic options of a computer (harddrive, memory, keyboard, etc.), then proceed to select upgrades for each option via drop down menu. The menu provides handy cues on component price, and when you’re done you get a customized machine and a price.

Why it matters: The urge to play with such a fun (and useful) tool is hard to resist. But beyond the obvious option of sending back and forth “suped-up” customizations with your friends, is also the extremely valuable business application of being able to deliver recommended systems to clients.

Currently, there’s no easy way to forward your custom-built Dell page to anybody else. That’s why a “Send this configuration to a friend” option would be a neat feature. Dell could even go the extra mile and include a “buy this system” link directly from within the email they send you.

UPDATE: Thanks to Brian for the idea!

Want a chance to win a free DVD of this past summer’s critically-acclaimed Cinderella Man? Then head over to Network Landscape, the TV/DVD blog I publish, and read Henry’s instructions for entering the contest!

Shameless shilling: Network Landscape covers TV, DVD, digital video, and other interesections of content. Thanks to the site’s head writer, Henry, we’ve got frequent giveaways of great DVDs like Cinderella Man. Other recent giveaways have been LOST Season 1, Home Movies, Second City Vol 4, and more.

Our tree is up (photos soon UPDATE: Photos here), yet with a two-year-old and a cat in the house, we’re not sure how long it will remain standing- it’s already been subject to some rambunctious shaking and jumping in just two days. We also added some more lights to the outside of the house (see the header graphic on this site)- I’ll try to post a picture of the lights later, and I’ll hopefully be able to update the header graphic with a brighter pic later.

On a related topic, last week my friend mentioned to me that he’s noticed (anecdotally) a steep decline in houses decorated with Christmas lights since his childhood (he’s 26, so that would be the 1980’s for those scoring at home).

While I’m hesitant to give knee-jerk agreement to that kind of blanket statement, I do have a sense that my friend is right. Last night, we drove around our neighborhood to conduct some highly unscientific research, and what we found surprised us: In our small subdivision, we came across only 3 houses- ours, the one across the street from ours, and just one other- that were decorated with anything beyond just a tiny bit of lights.

OLS^TM (one line summary): It would be fun if somebody created a site called YourLaws.org (as of this writing, it’s available). The site would be a place to record and publicly share personal “laws”, such as “Clarke’s Law states that a traffic light will only be green when you don’t want it to be.”

Here’s one way it could work: Buy the domain name yourlaws.org (or something similar). Then, create a simple “add your law” form tied to a basic account system. Visitors to the site would be able to add personal “laws” or axioms such as the one described above. They could be named after their creator (”Clarke’s Law”), or they could be phrased in a more literal manner (”The Law of Decreasing Battery Life.”), or however anyone chose to name them.

Why it matters: It doesn’t mater, per se. But it could be fun and pretty easy to build. A neat possible feature, if the site took off, would be allowing users to create and print (or order!) a mini desk calendar with one of the public laws for each day of the year.

Do you have an idea? Send it to me at jgc@jasonclarke.org or leave it in the comments.