• Twitter “Tweet This”
• Facebook “Like”
• Facebook “Share”
• Google “+1″
• Delicious “Add”
• Pinboard “Add”
• StumbleUpon “Submit”

And those are just the big ones.

Enough is Enough

It’s not realistic that every web publisher is going to add a new button each time the new social network de jour enters the fray. It’s similarly absurd to expect that users are going to hunt through a dozen icons to find the button they want to press. I’m not the first to notice this.

The Problem with Simplification

Some users (such as myself) have a presence on Twitter, Facebook, Google, Pinboard, and a variety of other networks. Others may spend most of their time on one site.

My first thought about how to solve this issue involved some sort of centralized button service. Much like Gravatar provides a global avatar, this service could serve a single button that would post to a user’s social network(s) of choice. The idea has a fatal flaw in that users don’t always want to share in the same way. Depending on a particular article, I might want to share it with my Twitter followers, or on Facebook, or perhaps I simply want it saved to Pinboard (perhaps to end up in one of my other people say compilations).

Darn, that sounded like a good idea.

So what’s the solution? Services such as AddThis make it easy to add the buttons as they arrive, but it doesn’t solve the clutter issue, or the fact that users must make multiple moves if they want an article in more than one place.

We need some sort of magic button. I don’t have a solution, but the current situation is messy.

If you liked this article, please press some buttons! (grr)

The solution to avoid being attacked is to keep WordPress up to date. With current versions of WordPress, that’s literally a two-click process. If that’s too difficult, then you need to either use the hosted WordPress.com system (where Automattic will keep the entire infrastructure up to date), or hire a system administrator to spend a few minutes to keep your software in shape.

Matt Mullenweg gives his perspective of how to keep WordPress secure.

Yes, it sucks if your blog gets attacked. It wasn’t your fault. But much like the car owner who leaves doors unlocked and is then burglarized, there are things to do to protect oneself and minimize the risk. The best protection against a WordPress security issue is to keep one’s blog up to date.

Why? Because contact forms inconvenience the reader. Email is a far more flexible option for someone wanting to make contact. Individuals have an email system they’re used to… maybe they prefer webmail. Perhaps they like using Outlook, Thunderbird, or Mail.app. Forcing readers to use a contact form means they sacrifice their comfort and customizations.

If you’re part of the contact form crowd, I probably know what you’re thinking right now. You’re thinking “But if I give out my email address, I might get spam!” You’re totally right. But that’s not your readers’ fault. Don’t inconvenience your reader because your email system can’t deal with spam. It’s not about you, it’s about your reader.

What are the “very few exceptions” mentioned above for which I think a contact form is appropriate? There are two:

• If you require more than 4 pieces of information (specific data that goes beyond name/email/message and such). An example would be if you’re soliciting input about a complicated product and you require several categories of information in addition to the message.
• If you’re using the form as a front-end for an automated ticketing system.

Make it easy for your reader. Let them use the email system of their choice to get in touch.

Amongst those who thought I was making a big deal out of nothing, one of the consistent themes was that although the terms of service allowed for Facebook to use your photos for any purposes including advertising, they wouldn’t really do that, would they?

When I gave a talk at Ignite Portland surrounding this topic, I commented that people probably wouldn’t want their photos to be used for a dating service (in the video of my talk below, I make that comment if you start watching at 4:40). Guess what: Facebook is now doing just that. You can opt out, but the default setting on Facebook allows them to use your photos as advertisements to meet “Hot Singles in Your Area”. Lovely.

Ignite Portland 5 – Aaron Hockley – About terms & conditions from David Abramowski on Vimeo.

I’ll be speaking tomorrow night at Ignite Portland about social networks, media hosting, and licensing terms.

In previous versions, the “trash” button was on the far right (green circle). My normal method was to clear the tweets using this icon as I read, so that if I wanted to catch up on what I missed I’d know how far back to go. With the new version, the trash icon was moved to the left (red circle). On the right? The refresh button. Now, instead of trashing, my habitual mouse move to that location does a refresh which a) doesn’t clear the window and b) makes another hit to Twitter’s limited API.

I’m cranky. I’m using up API calls and momentarily wondering why hitting the button (which has always been in the same place) isn’t clearing the window. How is this an upgrade?

It’s no secret that I’m a big proponent of OpenID. Last year I took a stand that I would avoid participation on tech-focused blogs that didn’t support OpenID. Shortly thereafter, I discovered that I couldn’t sign into ReadWriteWeb using my Vidoop OpenID.

I contacted Vidoop, and was told:

I’ve done some more troubleshooting with our friends at ReadWriteWeb, the issue is that they aren’t configured to handle “https” (SSL) connections, and we don’t allow OpenID associations with websites who don’t use SSL to verify with us.

This makes sense to me. The main reason I use Vidoop is because of their excellent security and the fact they require a SSL connection is a good thing. I then contacted Richard at ReadWriteWeb; he bounced the issue to his Movable Type consultant, who responded with this:

I have forwarded this on to Byrne at Six Apart. This seems like something that should be supported natively by MT’s OpenID auth module. I will share any feedback that comes back from 6A.

That was in March 2008. It’s now February 2009, and I’m still receiving “An error occurred: The sign-in attempt was not successful; please try again.” when attempting to log in to what should be an easy authentication system for end users.

Why is this so hard? What’s going on?

• TechCrunch – no OpenID support. I sent a note to @TechCrunch on Twitter and didn’t receive a response.
• Web Worker Daily – no OpenID support. I asked a question (appropriately enough in a post about OpenID) and received this answer:
  

  Aaron, thanks for the suggestion. WWD is hosted by WordPress.com so we don’t the same flexibility when it comes to installing plug-ins meant for self-hosted blogs.

  It’s a valid response from a technical standpoint, but I have to wonder if a site that’s all about forward-looking web productivity should be tied to an architecture they can’t extend to support developing standards.

• Read/Write Web – These guys get partial credit. They have OpenID support, but it fails if your provider uses a secure (SSL) connection (such as Vidoop). I have had a dialog with Richard, and they are looking into it via the folks at SixApart since they’re running Movable Type. My last contact with them was a month ago, and it still appears not to be working.
• Mashable – I asked about OpenID support and Pete responded on Twitter with:
  

  it’s on the todo list. but, the todo list is very long

Enough of the big tech blogs that fail… who’s doing it right? Last week I sent Scott Hanselman a note about OpenID support on his blog, knowing that he was one of the contributors to DasBlog, an open source .NET blog platform. Yesterday he announced OpenID support, and he featured the OpenID work as his Weekly Source Code post for this week.

Kudos to Scott. It’s a shame that the big blogs who write about new technologie seem slow to embrace them.

* this post was originally posted yesterday, then lost last night as part of a blog explosion

[tags]openid, techcrunch, webworkerdaily, readwriteweb, mashable, scotthanselman, dasblog[/tags]

I’m going to take a bit of a stand. Effective immediately, I will no longer comment on tech blogs that don’t support OpenID for comment authentication. Google offers it as a Blogger option. It’s available as a super-easy-to-install WordPress plugin. Movable Type has it as a built-in feature. If you’re using another lesser-known system, rally the troops for OpenID support.

And I’ll put my time where my mouth is: I’ll help you. If you follow those links above, and can’t figure it out, or you try it and it doesn’t work. I’ll help. Send me an e-mail. I want you to have OpenID.

I realize I’m just one (mostly insignificant) guy. And the reality is that if I stop commenting on some blogs, nobody will notice. But somewhere in my little fantasy world, this move might help spread OpenID adoption, and as Martha says, that’s a Good Thing™.

[tags]openid, wordpress, blogger, movabletype, vidoop[/tags]

But I really have to ask, is there any information about anything newsworthy here?

The headline could’ve just said “Stuff Happened” and it would be about as informative…

[tags]oregonian, oregonlive, twitter, news[/tags]