<$BlogRSDUrl$>


Sunday, October 24, 2004

 

The Qnext Big Thing  

I have to ammend the previous post- things are getting busier, but I intend to start paying more attention to this blog and discontinue the others (more or less).

Why? Well, I just have too much that I want to write down and not enough places to do it. I do a lot of writing these days for Chris Pirillo's Lockergnome, of course, and I still get in an occasional piece for Tech Support Alert (www.techsupportalert.com), but I do have to watch my P's and Q's when I write for others. Here, I can let it all hang out.

So, if you want the un-prettied-up truth about what I experience in the soft white underbelly of the computing industry, then stay tuned! Oh, not that it's all ugly! I do run across an occasional gem that people deserve to know about. There's so much crap out there that the good ones may get lost in the process.

One such gem appears to be a new IM service called Qnext. I've done a review of them on Lockergnome. Go read it! Better yet, go visit their website and get connected! The whole thing is not only great, but FREE. ANd it's due to remain free. There are so many special features that can't be found in any other IM that you really have to head for their home page and read it all for yourself. I'm very sure that the next time I take a trip, I'm going to be using their version of GotoMyPC, which is called QnextMyPC. Being able to access my system remotely can't be anything but good. One thing you'll all appreciate, I'm sure, is that the people behind it have spent some time thinking about and implementing security features. There's lots of native protection built into Qnext.

Marc's Voice: Transparency and sponsorship in the blogosphere  

Marc's Voice: Transparency and sponsorship in the blogosphere

This is at once something to hope for and something that looks good one paper, but...

The basic idea is simple enough- If bloggers are willing to write about things that advertisers want advertised, and are willing to pay the bloggers for that good press, then everybody wins. Well, that's a very utopian view of it, but it stands a chance of not only working, but working really well. It certainly would be a plus to bloogers in general. I have no aversion to cash (or checks, or valid and legal credit cards, or...). I have no objection to someone paying bloggers to write about products or services. What I would object to is someone paying bloggers to write about a piece of crap as if it were a good product.

That's where I think that the real genius of this idea lies: if a blogger writes about a piece of crap as if it were good, then people will quickly find that out and stop reading his blog and he'll stop getting paid for his blog. Bloggers don't necessarily blog if no-one is paying any attention (except maybe me). On the other hand, if a blogger writes about things he KNOWS are good (usually by personal experience), then his blog gets noticed and people are going to read about the advertised products and the company paying the freight and the blogger are BOTH going to do well. So, it's sort of a self-policing process. And that, my friends, is a Good Thing all around :).

So, any of you manufacturers or publishers out there who want your products reviewed by a 30+ year veteran of the computer wars (Windows or Linux only, please!), then let me know. I'm sure we can work out something in the way of a reasonable rate and you'll also get valuable feedback on your product.

This page is powered by Blogger. Isn't yours?