michaelmistretta.com

After a crazy weekend at Podcamp Toronto, I’m sitting here at my desk, and I can’t sleep. Thoughts just keep twirling though my head. All the people I met and relationships I made. All the people that inspired me, and all the plans and dreams they put into my mind.

It is in quiet moments like these that inspiration strikes. I can’t resist it. I can’t hide from it. I just exist in it.

I wish I could feel like this all the time. But I can’t. I can only continue to pass in an out of the realization that there is something much bigger than me in this world. Something much bigger than any social network. Something much bigger than my friends. Something much bigger than my life.

Thoughts of my future keep passing through my head. Goals, dreams, and aspirations. I look at where I am, and where I hope to be. There are so many things that I want to do this year, and in moments like these, I rise above all the obstacles. Suddenly, there is nothing between me and my dreams. I can see them clearly. I can feel them. I can reach them. And I will reach them.

This inspiration, has continued to set my life on a course that I could not have chosen myself. And as I pass beyond the known into the unknown, I feel a sense of nervous excitement. I have no idea what lays in store for me a year or ten years from now, but I know one thing.

I can’t wait.

As some of you may have heard, this summer I am going on my third missionary trip to Zambia, Africa.

Africa is one of those places that you never forget. And I’m proud to have the opportunity to go back. I wanted to build a small website that would serve as an archive for my trips, and a single place where people could see photos, videos, and stories, as well as sponsor me.

The result of my efforts is Michael Missions. This is the first site that I hand-coded from scratch, with the help of web master extraordinaire, Leo Mancini. And after many hours of banging my head against the wall, I am proud (and terrified) to say that this site works in all major browsers including IE7.

If you are an iPod user, there is a small easter egg on the donate page. Also, if you would like to subscribe to updates on my trip, you can do so on the updates page.

To all my twitter followers that put up with my IE rants and dumb CSS questions - you really helped me. Thank you.

Every once in awhile, a revolutionary new product comes along that changes everything.

The Macintosh changed the entire computer industry, by bringing personal computers into homes and offices everywhere. The iPod changed the way people listened to music, and sparked a whole new generation of digital media devices. And the iPhone has totally revolutionized the way people think about their phones. None of these products were perfect, but they were all revolutionary.

And I believe that a revolution is happening again - this time, in laptops.

As computer technology continues to become faster, smaller, and more power efficient, laptop manufacturers seem to be at a stand-still. Laptops today looks the same as they did last year and the year before that. With all these advances in technology, where are the benefits for the consumer? A 200Mhz clock speed bump? An extra 512MB of RAM? Does seconds of time saved really help the average consumer do more with their computer?

Having had the chance to try out a MacBook Air at my local Apple Store, I can truthfully say that I have seen the future of laptops. Forget the specs for a minute. Forget the lack of a FireWire port, and an optical drive. Forget the 13″ screen and the price. The MacBook Air is perfect in every single way. Everything is thought out. It feels solid, but light. It feels small, but spacious. This is the future of laptops.

You heard me right. A 1.6Ghz laptop is the catalyst for a whole new generation of laptops. Many people simply don’t get it. “Why pay more…for less?”

What they don’t realize, is that the value of a product is not in the number of features it has, but in how the features are integrated, and what experience that provides for the user.
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Scaling Yourself - Chris Brogan:

“This one is hard for me. I love participating. I love being part of things. But I have found that I have to say no to things a lot more often, so that I don’t accidentally set myself up to let others down. This still happens, because sometimes, I misjudge the project’s impact. But more often than not, I’m sending people polite no’s, and redirecting them to people who might be just as good at fulfilling a request. The more I can say no to projects that I can’t possibly keep up with, the more likely I am to do well at the ones I’ve already taken on.”

Saying no is probably the hardest - yet most important - thing to do when you are scaling yourself. At least for me. I love to take on new projects and endeavors, but in order for me to succeed at what I’m currently doing, I need to say no to other things.

Dear Bloggers,

We have the privilege of living in one of the greatest times in human history. No longer does it take millions of dollars to make our voices heard around the world. With the advent of the Internet, people are now connected in ways they never could have been before. With over 25,000 new blogs created every day, it is easy to get bombarded by the sheer amount of information. Sadly, the majority of blogs are cranking out nothing more than repetitive weblog rhetoric and worthless content.

Don’t get me wrong - I think that the opportunities the Internet has provided for bloggers is wonderful. But along with these opportunities comes a lot of abuse. It is easy for people to get caught up in the numbers and traffic, and forget what quality content is all about. Unfortunately, we live in a society where quality is not valued like it used to be. Instead, traffic is valued, and blogs quickly lose the vital connection between the author and the readers. There are some blogs out there that value this interaction between the author and their readers, but they are in an overwhelming minority.

Why is it that the vast majority of bloggers believe that the pumping out of repetitive content is what blogging is all about? Let me tell you something - it’s not. As bloggers, we have to stop treating blogs as mainstream journalism. Blogs operate on a much higher level than the mainstream media, because there is direct connection between the author and the reader. Whether through comments, a forum, or email, good blogs encourage interaction and feedback from the readers. This takes a blogging from a mere “speech” to a “conversation”.
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Exactly one year ago, I opened a Twitter account and began tweeting. Back then, it was anything but popular. It was weird to type 140 characters about what you were doing into a webpage for the world to see. Fast forward a year later, and now Twitter is my favourite Internet social network. With 11,000 tweets, 240 friends, and 433 followers, my Twitter stream has really become a community.

When I have a question, I just type up a tweet. When I need someone to interview for school, I just tweet. It has come to the point where I feel disconnected from what other people are doing if I don’t have Twitterrific open. I can’t really put my finger on the appeal of it, but having a community of people all over the world is a really amazing thing.

While Twitter isn’t perfect, having lots of downtime, and bugs, I wouldn’t trade it for any other service. This year, we have seen the rise and fall of many other similar sites. Jaiku. Pownce. While they may have had more features and been more reliable, they didn’t have the same appeal as Twitter. Everyone is on Twitter. It is the single best way to stay in touch with people, meet old friends, and expand your online network.

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The big news today is Microsoft’s $44.6 billion bid for Yahoo!. This comes with little surprise, as many were expecting Yahoo! to get acquired sometime this year. They were a dying company with little innovation, and didn’t have what it took to go up against Google. Microsoft, on the other hand, is a company equally as big as Google, if not bigger. When it comes to computers, Microsoft is the obvious market leader. However, Microsoft wants to get into the ad business. They want to take down Google’s monopoly on online ad sales. They’ve tried by placing a $240 million stake in Facebook - the biggest online social network. They have won over other big social networking sites like Digg, to use their ad system instead of Google’s. Now with Microsoft’s attempt to acquire Yahoo!, they are going head-to-head with the king of the Internet - Google.

The question in people’s minds this morning is, “What will happen to Flickr and Del.icio.us and all the Web 2.0 sites that Yahoo acquired?”. “Will Microsoft ruin them?” “Will they create a Microsoft Flickr 2008 Ultimate Pro edition?” I really believe that Microsoft and Yahoo! are very similar in this respect. When Yahoo! acquired Flickr, there was already an established user-base. Yahoo! didn’t drastically change anything about Flickr. And I don’t believe Microsoft will either.
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