How we gather information

One of my recent posts was about the attention and information ages. I recently had a talk with my friend about Twitter. I am a fan of Twitter, and he is not. I don't like to push things on people, but I do like to know why they wouldn't join. His response is because it is 140 characters of "look at me! Look at me!". Now I agree that most of Twitter is like that, but there are a few people out there that pass on information. He agreed with me on that, but he says it's the way that information is passed on. It's quick and short, but can link to something more in depth. That's what I like about it.

When I read something, first of all it has to be on a topic I find interesting. It can't be about fashion. Second, it has to have an interesting title. Now it could be something very descriptive, short to the point, or cool sounding.
If the article fits those two requirements, I will then scan it. I will read parts of it or the bold points. If I don't find that interesting, or feel like I've got what I wanted out of the article, I'll move on to another article. If I find it interesting or useful, as long as it's not too long, I'll read it. My friend is almost the opposite.

That got me thinking about how we gather information. Some people go through a lot of articles, but don't read it all and others read just a couple articles, but take time to read them.

Which one do you fit in with best?

I fit in best with the first group, but the way I write is geared towards the latter group. If I was a subscriber to my blog, I don't think I would read very many of these articles. I don't like articles that are heavily oppiniated, and mine is. So can our writing style and reading style be complete opposites? They are with me.

-Matt Loberg

Launching a Blog This Morning

I am getting ready to launch a blog that I am pretty excited about. It's called Everyday Hacker, http://everydayhacker.com. I've been preparing for a while, got WordPress installed, a ton of plugins, a Twitter account (@everydayhacker), and a pretty sweet theme. The hard part is going to be going from one theme to another as quickly as possible. The theme I'm using is from WooThemes (there amazing), and it has a ton of options, so I need to go through all of them and change them so they are just how I want them. I then need to go and activate and configure plugins, so it's going to be pretty hectic.

But, I'm excited about it. Check it out and tell me what you think (when it's up).