You’re Doing it Wrong!

A few years ago, I came across Free World Dialup, now known as just FWD, and signed up for a number. Unfortunately, my computer’s mic/speaker system was a bit glitchy, and I couldn’t really rely on it, so I bought an actual phone with a new number already encoded. I never got it to work, apparently due to issues with my router and masking and such. I know a lot more about the router masking and port forwarding now, but the phone got lost in the move back from Los Angeles, so I can’t try again without spending money I don’t have for new hardware. At any rate, I haven’t thought about FWD in a while, and it’s not like I have friends using it anyway, so it was a bit of a surprise to check my email this afternoon and find a message from pulver.com about it.

I followed the link and took a look at the entry, and while it is interesting, I’m afraid I’m not going to give it another try until it’s as easy and inexpensive as an average cell phone, and by inexpensive I mean one with the two year contract that reduces the user’s initial investment. I do use Vonage, which is easy enough, but I’d be much more interested in an inexpensive mobile system. One trades cost for convenience, but if it’s complex enough to stymie someone like me, who is a geek, if only a minor one, then it’s probably not ready for the mainstream audience just yet.

What’s more interesting to me is what I found when I went to the blog’s main page. There are two entries on the subject of Facebook vs. LinkedIn, which apparently is cause for quite a bit of feather-ruffling. Jeff Pulver makes the assertion that Facebook is the place to be in 2007 and that LinkedIn is passé. Comments range from “I agree, making the switch now,” to “I disagree and here’s why,” but Pulver posts his followup asserting that “comments by LinkedIn loyalists are defensive as compared to comments from those who understand and appreciate what it means that Facebook IS now a platform.”

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Originally published at Chrystalline. You can comment here or there.