Yes, apparently so.

A few people I know have recently decided to stop feeding content from their blogs into their profiles on social networks.

I have considered doing the same for a while, seeing as duplicating could very well lead to a ban from almighty Google, but so far, I’m still duplicating.

Why, you may ask?

Well, the main resaon is that I like being a part of different contexts online. As a person who works with the internet and is passionate about social software, I feel obligated to being so. Also, I communicate with a lot of different people who seem to prefer different services for reading and writing content. That being said, there is no way in hell I can find the time to think up original content specifically for each service – and why should I? If I find something interesting, I should put it right here, right – on my own blog?

Therefore, I feed my content into various services, and cross my fingers. So far, I haven’t been banned by Google, and incidentally, I might add that the main drivers of traffic for appoulsen.dk are exactly the networks that I feed my content into. So if I decided to cater to the wishes of Google I might actually lose readers. And I don’t want that now, do I?

Anyway, I’m also kind of a sucker for all things Apple. Yes, they could be friendlier on the environment, yes they could be more open in their communication, yes their customer service leaves much to be desired, etc.

But their products are just so damn cool!

So why am I talking about Google and Apple? Well, after installing gDisk on my MacBook I’ve decided not to renew my .mac membership next time around. It’s just not worth it.

gDisk is freeware. All it really does is allow you to create folders in your empty gmail space (none of us are really USING 3 gigs, are we?) and upload to these folders from your mac just as you would with iDisk. You can then access these folders and download your files from any other computer with gDisk on it.

SpanningSync takes care of syncronising my iCal and gCal and now iDisk provides me with the one thing I really found useful in .mac – the online storage space (The other features are pretty much covered by Flickr and WordPress). With gDisk I even get three times (and counting) the space compared to the standard one gig .mac subscription.

€99 a year saved. Bye bye iDisk.

In short Jaiku is a lot like Twitter. But whereas Twitter is an sms-based service, Jaiku is an app that lets you post tiny (140 characters) status messages called Jaikus from your mobile phone or from your personal Jaiku page online – these messages are then visible to your friends on their phones and online. See my Jaiku page for an example. You can also subscribe to feeds from within Jaiku. Updates to these are then posted as ‘Jaikus’. Oh, and that tiny little box in the right column of my blog – that’s a ‘presence badge’ from Jaiku. It displays my latest posts in the sidebar of my blog.

But what’s the point of all this, then?

Well, services like Twitter and Jaiku kinda split the crowd down the middle. Some people – like my colleague Mads, for instance, think they’re excellent, some think they’re horrible and others – and this I think is the largest group – don’t get them. I tended to agree with Stephen Davies over at PRblogger, who basically thinks they’re pointless, but then I tried Jaiku on for size.

Now, at the touch of a few buttons on my celly, I’ve updated my blog and given my Jaiku contacts an update on what I’m up to (I have way too few Jaiku contacts as of now, so feel free to add me if you’re already on Jaiku). It’s good fun, and it allows me to spew tiny thoughts even when I’m not on my laptop. I thoroughly enjoy that.

Jaiku’s self-proclaimed mission is to: ‘bring people closer together by enabling them to share their presence’ – it works! So my advice would be to try it before you knock it. It may not be for everyone, but you may just like it.

Man, this post ended up kind of a mess… Maybe I should’ve written a Jaiku instead – it would have been something along the lines of: ‘liking Jaiku – do try it’ – short and sweet.

Apparently, Microsoft are getting into the viral marketing game BIGTIME, promising underprivileged geeks free copies of vista if they watch a few webcasts and online virtual lab sessions. This is a wild move, and I can’t wiat to see how it works out for them. It’s kinda similar to when Stormhoek teamed up with Hugh Macleod and sent out free bottles of wine to selected bloggers to get the juices flowing about their product – only at a larger scale. Gutsy – and I’d join in the fun if I wasn’t a Macaddict. To read more, follow the link to the story @ Engadget, or go straight to the source – oh my God, I’ve just contributed to a Microsoft campaign!