March 26 2009 
The Revolution Connection
A look around the social networking sites, with a roundup of what they offer the dedicated Revolution Developer.
I'm sure regular readers all know by now that we have forums where you can hang out with other Revolution users, and an emailed discussion group or two. Recently, however, I have been exploring other avenues to connect us to the wider world. Twitter, Facebook, MySpace... all these new (and I suppose, not so very new) ways to communicate. Are they useful? Are they interesting? Are they a timesink? I've been finding out.
You'll notice that this newsletter has recently become decorated with Digg icons. If you find an article particularly useful or interesting, please do Digg it. It will help me measure how popular certain topics are, so that I can give you more of what you like, as well as giving us exposure to a wider audience on Digg. Do you have other news sites you regularly use? Would you recommend adding other link icons? If so, which ones?
is another thing I have been exploring in depth. I now have a Twitter account of my own, where you are welcome to follow me. I've found a bunch of Revolution afficionados already hang out there, some of whom are very interesting to follow. I'd recommend keeping an eye on Jerry Daniels for example, his regular links to his blog are very illuminating. You can also follow our CEO on Twitter now, Kevin Miller. To the question is it interesting, a definite yes. Is it a time sink... not so far. I find it is very easy to keep up to date with a short text snippet from time to time, I like this format. I don't have to write a page or even a paragraph to keep in touch and update you on exciting events like... the publication of the latest issue of revUp!
How about Facebook? I went exploring there and found there are two Revolution groups already! Runtime Revolution Developers and Runtime Revolution. These are both open groups, anyone can join. You just need to have a Facebook profile, and do a quick search for Runtime Revolution. My impression is its quite a bit of work to maintain a facebook profile. One tends to get tempting invitations to join poker games, and there are multiple "personality" quizzes which will "only take a minute" to fill out... Am a greek philosopher? If so, which one? On the other hand, its a place to meet other developers and share tips and information. What do you think? Should there be an official Runtime Revolution Facebook profile? Would you join if there was?
Of course, there are lots of Revolution blogs out there. Some of the ones that I not infrequently pass by on include Revmentor, , Sarah Reichelt's blogspot and Judy Perry's Revolution in Education. Do you know of a good one? Do you have a Revolutionary blog of your own? Let us know. Blogs can be very useful and interesting, but maintaining a good one can take hours out of a busy day, so hat's off to those of you who do so.
What do you think? Is all this social networking useful, packed with programming tips and the latest news and gossip, or is it just a waste of your valuable time?
 |
||
|
