I Never Knew How Much I Needed You
With the holidays right around the corner, I’m sure some of you are like me and that means spending way too much time stressing over the perfect gift for friends and family. (If you’re not, Bah Humbug to you, too.)
Here’s a tip: Get a gift that makes someone say,
“I never knew how much I needed this until I opened it and started using it!”
Easier said than done you’re thinking? Damn right.
However, I am happy to admit that three times this year (and it’s not even Christmas yet!), an app on my desktop, browser, and phone has caused me to proclaim that aforementioned, and oh, so rare outburst.
And here they are:
The first app is on my desktop, Dropbox.
When I first received my Dropbox beta invite, after waiting patiently for almost a year, I was a bit skeptical about how life-altering yet another online storage option could really be.
Two months later, though, Dropbox is one of only a handful of applications I allow to start up with Windows (Startup Manager helps me nuke the rest!). I even let Dropbox infiltrate my system tray. In exchange, I receive efficient access, sharing, collaboration, and of course, synchronization of files on my PCs and on those of the rest of the OpenCandy crew.
The second app is on my iPhone, Shazam.
As a kid, I would listen to the radio for hours upon hours with a notepad in my hand, hoping to jot down the artists and names of my favorite songs. As a slightly older kid, Sony came out with a device and service a decade ago that let users push a button and log on to a site to see what song was playing. After the product was quickly discontinued (and apparently eliminated from everyone’s memory as I can’t find any record of it), I gave up hope.
Then along came Shazam, which I frequently use now to identify music I like within earshot. (BTW, if anyone remembers the name of that Sony product, please post a comment and I’ll send you an OpenCandy t-shirt or schwag if/when we have such available.)
The third app is on my browser (but also found its way to my phone and desktop), Twitter.
Although I signed up for Twitter a year ago, I didn’t really give it a try until this past March, and my first tweet of the year emphasized that I really had no clue as to why I needed Twitter and what I’d use it for.
Tim O’Reilly, one of my favorite “twits” to follow (right up there with Shaq Daddy) sums up the value of Twitter well in this post. Since then, I’ve figured out my own Twitter identity crisis and realized I “tweet” primarily for 5 reasons:
1) Keeping tabs on the latest news since RSS readers are so 2005.
2) Recommendations and advice on anything from recipes to vets to CRM.
3) Marketing, aka shameless plugs. If you don’t like them, don’t follow me.
4) An alternative to blogging, since I don’t have time to blog.
5) Killing time when I have time to kill, but not to blog.
Alright, time to plug this blog post via Twitter. Any apps make you feel the same way?
