Web 0.2 - Hao Chen

Most Beautiful Greasemonkey Script in the Room

Hao Chen — Tue, 27 Jan 2009 22:44:19 +0000

Looking round room,
I can tell that this
is the most beautiful greasemonkey script in the…room.
In the whole wide room
Oooh.

Remember that Greasemonkey script I wrote that adds # of unread @replies to Twitter? Well, I just made it 182370245 times better. Version 0.2 adds a mentions tab that includes the updates with your username in them, but aren’t @replies. Now, you won’t miss it when other people RT you or include you in a list of names!

It works by doing a search on @username at http://search.twitter.com/ and removing the @replies.

Your Mentions

You can download and install the script at userscripts.org.

Feel free to connect with me on Twitter and Friendfeed.

Some Cool Recent Scripts

Hao Chen — Sat, 30 Aug 2008 18:41:55 +0000

Been working on a bunch of scripts lately and haven’t had a chance to write about some of them, so I thought I would take a minute to mention them.

1. Find Friendfeeders Across The Web v0.2

Type in your Friendfeed username, and this tool will display all the services your Friendfeed subscriptions use. You can then filter/sort the results. The Social Graph integration isn’t exactly accurate, but it can save you time by removing links to friends on other networks you already subscribe to. A really useful tool for adding your friends on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, and lots others. Also, useful for seeing which services are popular among your friends.

2. Friendfeed Profile (Greasemonkey script) v0.35

Now supports beta.friendfeed.com. Adds a profile for Friendfeed users who import Twitter and LinkedIn, so you can easily see who they are and what they’re all about.

3. Friendfeed Buddy List (Greasemonkey script) v0.15

Shows you who is online by displaying a list of Friendfeed subscriptions who have liked, commented, or posted an entry in the last 10 mins. Supports beta.friendfeed.com.

4. Friendfeed 100++ (Greasemonkey script) v0.1

Appends ?num=100 to the URL of the Friends tabs to maximize the number of entries shown on each page.
Does not support beta.friendfeed.com yet.

5. Tumblr2WordPress v0.1

This tool will export your Tumblr blog to a WordPress/WordPress.com compatible XML file, which you can then save and import into WordPress as a WordPress type. I’m trying to get this code into the WP core with the help of some other developers.

Most of these scripts are still in the early stages, so any feedback is greatly appreciated! Thanks! :]

Social Media Songs

Hao Chen — Sat, 23 Aug 2008 00:35:59 +0000

Here is a compilation of songs related to or inspired by social media. OK, and one about the iPhone. I couldn’t help it. Don’t hate me.

Social Media Mogul by Rahsheen

Listen to Social Media Mogul on Last.fm

ScobleizerREmix by Sonciary Honnoll

Listen to ScobleizerREmix on Facebook MP3

The Twitter Song by Alana Taylor

You’re No One If You’re Not On Twitter by Ben Walker

Facebook Gangsta by Nick Miller

Social Media Addiction Rap by Chuck at Pop Labs

3G iPhone Blues REMIX by Leah D’Emilio

New Friend Request by Gym Class Heroes

What other social media inspired songs do you know of?

Looking for some more rockin’ beats?
Check out Mashable’s Social Media Mix Tape.

Export your Tumblr blog to WordPress

Hao Chen — Tue, 19 Aug 2008 05:33:17 +0000

Fresh off the press, just finished coding a tool to that will export all the posts in your Tumblr blog into an XML file. You can then import that XML file into your WordPress.com blog or self-hosted WordPress blog.

Please leave a comment here if you have questions, suggestions, feedback, requests, and/or bug reports.

Tumblr2WordPress: Export Your Tumblr To WordPress

Top 10 Ways to Use Social Media to Make You Money

Hao Chen — Tue, 12 Aug 2008 07:29:11 +0000

Get a job.

55 Reasons Why Friendfeed Is Going Mainstream

Hao Chen — Thu, 31 Jul 2008 04:28:14 +0000

I’ve read a few articles explaining why Friendfeed will never go mainstream. Well, I think it will because…

List of FFers I Appreciate and Recommend

Hao Chen — Fri, 25 Jul 2008 23:47:35 +0000

In no particular order, this list represents only a small fraction of the Friendfeed community who deserves to be mentioned for adding all kinds of value to our FF experience. I highly recommend subscribing to all the people below. Here’s to you, good people of FF for making it a better place for us all!

Lively vs. Second Life, The Virtual Arms Race Is On

Hao Chen — Wed, 09 Jul 2008 01:07:15 +0000

Lively, dubbed Google’s Second Life, launched today. I checked it out. Here are my thoughts on Lively vs. Second Life.

Photo: CNET

Accessibility

Lively is a browser plugin. Quick, simple install. Load up your web browser (FF or IE), goto Lively.com, login with your Google account (everyone has one of these by now), and you’re in a virtual room in no time. Too bad it’s only available on Windows.

Second Life is a desktop app available on more platforms (Win, Mac, Linux). First, you have to sign up for an SL account which requires credit card validation. After a more painful 35-73MB download, the client only works on more mid to high end computers with high speed internet because the client is very performance heavy. If you’ve made it this far, congrats because most people don’t. For the average user, there are just way too many doors to open.

Winner: Lively

Usability

When I first got into Lively, I was annoyed that the UI didn’t work like Second Life. In Lively, the avatar doesn’t walk around smoothly. When you double click somewhere, your avatar teleports to that location. Every object you click on has different properties and functions you can do to them (inconsistency). There are dozens of icons all over the screen, and I have to hover over each one of them to figure out what they do (poor visibility).

Linden Lab has spent a lot of time perfecting how to move your avatar/objects and navigate the environment. The use of the ALT + mouse for panning, dragging and dropping for objects, scroll wheel for zooming, right click for pie menu, and keyboard arrow key for maneuvering your avatar are all examples of great natural mapping.

Winner: Second Life

Performance

Obviously, Second Life is going to blow Lively out of the water in graphics and such, especially with the new Windlight viewer. However, how many users are Linden Lab losing because SL wasn’t built for basic computers with integrated graphic cards? Lively may not be that pretty, but it can probably run on almost every computer. Great graphics do not make a virtual world good; it’s the social interactions and online media that will make it immersive and addicting.

Winner: Second Life

Lighthouse in Second Life. Flickr / Felony Fabre

Final Thoughts

Google is entering the virtual world space at a very interesting time. Recently, VWs have been popping up out of the woodwork. Whether you believe it’s a marketing ploy or if it truly helps your brand, virtual worlds are hot right now, and everyone and their mother is building one. The one thing they don’t have is Google’s vast user base and resources…

The Virtual Arms Race Is On

What makes virtual worlds so popular? It’s the user generated content (UGC). Millions of L$ (Lindens) are exchanged hands in Second Life every day between buyers and content creators. Content = Money. In 2008/2009, I predict there will be a rush to see who can get the most UGC for virtual worlds, since this is where the future profits will be. There will be a virtual arms race to see who can warehouse the best and the largest quantity of 3D content that can be exported to different virtual worlds. If Google plays its cards right, it could dominate this space just like it did with search and online video.

“He who controls the past commands the future. He who commands the future conquers the past.” -George Orwell

Add Profiles to Friendfeed

Hao Chen — Fri, 04 Jul 2008 22:40:49 +0000

Friendfeed doesn’t have user profiles, yet. The second best thing to do? Use this Greasemonkey script to see people’s Twitter bio on their FF user page. You can download it from userscripts.org. Also check out my other Friendfeed GM scripts, including better recommended and better subscribed to me.

Download script

Identi.ca, Not Perfect, But Good Enough

Hao Chen — Thu, 03 Jul 2008 15:29:46 +0000

This is a response to everyone complaining about identi.ca being yet another microblogging service.

In today’s world, time is a luxury you don’t have. Release your product too early, it’s featureless or users don’t understand it, they won’t come back. Release too late, and someone else has surely beat you to the punch. Being a web developer, I understand that it’s okay to release something that is not perfect. You want to release something that is just good enough. Good enough to give users a reason to join and come back. You want to be agile, transparent, and open. Let the users know when the next release is and what to expect. Iterate quickly, fixing those bugs and adding more key features as you build up your core user base. Speed is key. That is the ingenuity of Web 2.0.

Identi.ca is not perfect, but it’s good enough. Now is the perfect time to release, when Twitter is failing, and people are looking for refuge. Also, it’s open source, which means the best and the brightest software engineers in the world will have a chance at creating a scalable, decentralized Twitter clone. Even on Day 0, so much happened. There was an issue with RSS that people pointed out when importing to other services like Friendfeed, and evan fixed it within an hour. There were no Replies, so people took it onto themselves to write a Greasemonkey script and a Yahoo Pipe. Many people already started looking at the code.

Much work is needed to be done, but I, for one, have high hopes for Identi.ca.

Follow me on http://identi.ca/detect and http://friendfeed.com/bitfaker.

What do you think? Join the conversation in the identi.ca Friendfeed room.