Have you ever had a conversation with someone where you have twelve different, totally unrelated things to tell them? This blog post is kind of like one of those conversations.
Number 1: The Greatest Moments In Sports History contest is going well. I’ve received many submissions and am excited to watch all the great videos. However, there are still many classic moments that have not been submitted. You still have a week to get in your video submissions and possibly win a copy of my book.
Number B: I am loving the website Pandora. It works like this. You type in any song or artist you can think of and within seconds it creates an entire radio station/playlist of similar songs and artists. So for example, you type in “Yanni”, and all of a sudden you’re listening to the greatest hits of John Tesh, Enya, etc. I love websites that provide great free content. If you know of any other great free websites, please let me know in the comments section.
Letter 3: Can someone please explain to me why I should use Twitter? It seems like everybody loves it, but I have trouble seeing it’s usefulness. Do I really want to be telling people what I’m doing at all times? Does anybody really care that much about my life that they want to know when I’m eating a bowl of yogurt and granola while wearing my Crocs? Thoughts?
That’s it. Have a great weekend. Go USA.
Stephen: stay strong against the Great Twitter Menace. I don’t get it either.
Never used Twitter…but it has the look of being one of those things that completely sucks you in and eats all extra time (like Facebook).
Free stuff!
- Starbucks (which you probably already know) gives away a free song (iTunes) every week. Just go into a store near you and pick up the little “Pick of the Week” card…they also make great
bookmarks.
- LibriVox: free audio book downloads. All books are public domain, so it’s legal.
http://librivox.org/
- Webmaster’s Color Lab: http://www.visibone.com/colorlab/.
Stephen, http://www.last.fm is another Pandora-like site. I’ve been a huge fan of Pandora, but recently I’ve been enjoying Last.fm. They also have a little program that you can download that will track any song you play in iTunes or on your iPod so they know what kind of music you like the most. Pretty cool.
As for twitter, I have the same reaction. I don’t really know why everybody’s using it.
Actually, I take that back. Twitter is a “micro-blogging” service. So it could be used to share info that isn’t big enough for a blog post: for instance, 2 sentences about what you’re learning at the PC every other day.
The problem that I see with that is that when you actually get the opportunity to talk with your friends and family, the only thing you’d have to say is, “So have you read my Twitter?”
A great free site, if you like music and use a windows machine, is Spiralfrog. By signing up for a free subscription every months (which takes all of a minute) you can download thousands of songs for free. They don’t have everything, but there’s certainly enough to make checking it out worthwhile.
I like to listen to Slacker radio. It is so much better than the other options out there for listening to internet radio.
Enjoy!
You’re right. Nobody cares that you are eating yogurt in your crocs (and black socks, no doubt
). Twitter is a bit stalkerish in my opinion. Random interwebbie folk do not need to know what the Altrogge family is doing every second, it’s just not right.
Twitter is fun and can be as productive and safe/private as you want it to be.
Ideally you wont post about “eating yogurt” but instead about significant things that are fun, useful, or serious in your life with a community that you choose to be open or closed with (Things you are into or doing that you might not normally post on your blog).
Hmm. I guess I am in the minority, but I use and like Twitter. Sure, you can get some details you really don’t need or care about, but that really depends on who you follow. For example, I follow a local TV station and get headlines to stories I probably missed because I never get home in time to see the news; the Garmin-Chipotle cycling team and get results and cool little anecdotes from inside the team; TwitterLit gives you the first line of a novel each day; Rebuild Lakeshore gives you updates on how the recovery from Katrina is going … well, you get the point. It’s almost like an RSS feed. Individuals that I follow tend to comment on things that we have in common — youth ministry, cheering for Michael Phelps — or asking a question for fellow Twitterites to answer (again, predominately ministry-related in my case).
BTW, you can block people from following you and you can make your Twitter feed private so that you can approve anyone who requests to follow you.
Oh, and it’s not free, but you can follow Amazon MP3 on Twitter and get their daily deal. Full downloads of mp3 albums for $2.99 usually.
Another free mp3 download (if you like David Crowder Band)…
http://www.davidcrowderband.com/digitaldownload/getcode.php
i don’t understand twitter either.
sovereign grace ministries has all their sermons for free on their website. i know you already know that but i thought i’d post it for the benefit of those who may not.
i love pandora. and the starbucks song of the week. hurray.
free free free.
soon you’ll be making charis eat frozen pizzas you made in bulk and drink dried milk.
i like last.fm because i can listen to a “radio station” that’s of my friend’s music. which is stuff i like and stuff that’s new, so sometimes i find new bands.
i like this fiery middle site thing. it’s like a blog or something. they have free posts to read. and stupid sports updates and videos.
Another nice free music service similar to Pandora is Musicovery, in which you choose the type of music it looks for according to mood and genre.
http://www.musicovery.com/index3.php?ct=us
Imeem is a good place to listen to music (and sermons!).
You just search for whatever you want to hear and you can listen.
http://www.imeem.com