Just_Pete – your “indie music sweetheart (TM)” (yes I do believe that is his full name :-)) tipped me off to NoiseTrade.com today via Twitter.
The site appears to be a project of Derek Webb and allows users to download albums for free – by sharing emails with 3 friends – or by paying for the albums at whatever price you deem fit. I love it! I’ve always said/thought that “Christian music” should be open source – in fact I’m a pretty strong believer that everything “Christian” should be open source/creative commons – but that’s for another time and another discussion.
Either way – check it out!
From the site:
Some artists have good music they’re willing to give away in exchange for a little help. Some fans have a few bucks or a few friends who’d love to hear about good, free music.
Sounds like a match made in heaven.
Wordle takes any text and turns it into a word cloud. For those unfamiliar with a word cloud, you can see an example of one on the upper right hand side of my blog. That’s a word cloud of all the tags I use for various posts on my blog. The more I mention a word (or tag) the larger the font becomes. And thus, you end up with a word cloud showing how important or how many times a particular word is used.
It made a cool word cloud of my del.icio.us tags. I call it Presidential Lifehacks.
Here’s one for my cousin (and others with children) :-):
Unclutter and Lifehacker both have a number of great ideas for entertaining kids for cheap… without the TV.
For under a buck you can entertain your kids with:
Large cardboard boxes
Rubber band and pencil crazy bot
Paper poppers
Home Depot Kids Workshop
Planting something and more…
I have enough social networks that I ignore now – do I really need another one? Well…. maybe, maybe not.
I saw something about Roov.com a week or so ago but kinda bypassed it – thinking “great another Christian MySpace and Facebook.”
But Lee shared a post about Roov and I’m definitely more intrigued. Seems that Roov is more about building off-line communities than online communities.
It’s a social networking site that works locally. It connects people in the same geographical area based on interests AND it gets people off the computer and into each others’ FACE – as they hang-out and do fun stuff together. As social networking gains popularity, a few people have questioned whether this phenomenon is actually making us more isolated. I mean, we may have 300 friends now, but very, very little depth, and less human interaction. ROOV is a welcome remedy to that, using the internet to help you meet & connect in real life – facilitating conversations and experiences that have real depth and meaning.
I just joined ROOV.com, a new website to connect the Body of Christ. Why? Well, it sure wasn’t because I needed to be a part of another social networking site. No, in fact, it’s because ROOV is like the antithesis of what social networking sites represent these days – narcissism. Unlike facebook or myspace (which aren’t bad – I use both), ROOV doesn’t center around an individual’s profile. In fact, profiles don’t even exist. They center around groups and issues that matter, like “orphans and refugees” or “Impact Africa,” for example. I don’t think you’ll find any “I lost my digits” groups on this site – at least, I hope not.
Their goal is to connect people online so that they can connect offline. As someone who spends over 10 hours a day on the internet (that’s probably a conservative figure), this is something I need to do – unplug, detach, and really connect with flesh and blood.
I’m excited to find out more. Apparently you need to be involved in a local church body though – and encounter isn’t on the list yet – but hopefully I’ll get confirmation in the next day or so (or 5 min would be preferred) and I can explore the site for myself.
The site is also apparently limited to the US for now, and limited to the cities participating as well.
Are there ways that you are building off-line communities with the current “social networking standards” like MySpace and Facebook? Are there ways we can better utilize those tools?
btw – just got an email from Roov – they’re “reviewing the church you submitted. We’ll be getting back to you shortly.”
Just a quick plug for the podcast.
Episode 1.3 went live last night. I spoke with Dave McHam who’s heading up an after school ministry in Waco and has plans/vision to bring a similar ministry to Waxahachie.
I also flew solo this week, so Thomas’ Scottish charm will be noticeably missing – but if you choose to listen, we’ll tell you how you can win Shawn McDonald’s new CD, “Roots.” So tune in and check it out.
