Kicking Ass

Creating Passionate Users was by far one of my favorite blogs I used to read, but unfortunately it has gone dark for now. Fortunately, Kathy Sierra has started microblogging over at Twitter and its great to read what she has to say again. Recently she tweeted something that really got my attention:

We tell our authors: "Don't focus on making your BOOK better... focus on making the READER better." Often changes TOC (fewer topics) & tone

This got me thinking... What am I doing on my blog to help you kick ass? When I thought about that, realized I wasn't doing anything to help readers kick ass. I had simply put up whatever idea comes to my head. Now I'd like to change my direction and write more on how I can help you, the reader, kick ass. Not only will this help you, but it helps me become a better writer, programmer, and technology enthusiast.

Here's to helping each other kick ass.

Google Profiles

While messing with Google Reader today I decided to update my Google profile information and got to thinking. When is Google going to show us the different ways they are going to integrate the Google profile? Right now, your profile information is being used in Google Reader, Google Shared Stuff, and Google Maps. So when are they going to integrate with Blogger and the rest of their applications? I'm interested to see how Google plans on consolidating their applications in a more social way like they are doing in Google Maps.

Currently, there is a very minimal amount of profile information that is actually being shared between Google Reader, Google Shared Stuff, and Google maps. Here is what I get to consolidate between those three apps:
















Step it up Google! I want to see what you are planning on doing with the social integration sooner than later! Give me a dedicated profile page that can link all my apps and make it easier to navigate to. No more ?id=12312312 junk in the url. Make it easy like http://www.google.com/profiles/merrell.sam. Hopefully we will soon be seeing the fruits of Googles social labor.