Content & Thank You!

New content coming soon, I promise. I've been really sick — fever and infection for six days now, so I haven't been able to do much of anything except drink water, sleep, and a few less pleasant things... the fewer details, the better, yeah?

Talking to some friends about the blog has inspired me to streamline the content and focus on he fun stuff that I like to write about — and what's popular. That means: more app reviews, product reviews, tech insights, tips, suggestions, maybe some games, that sort of thing. My other writing will go elsewhere. Also, I'm going to try to reorganize the categories and tags to be more efficient and usable — I'm also going to make a few adjustments to the layout, so if you see something broken, please let me know!

Thanks for your support; I think I'm starting to feel a little better (2013 has been one rough year!), so this weekend I hope to update. Also, if you haven't already, you can follow me at Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Tumblr — all @bradtastic — I post links and photos there throughout the day.

A BIG thank you to the people using my Amazon links to buy stuff — getting a few bucks per week helps me stay motivated to write, and the Amazon credit allows me to get a few new things to review each year! If you have an app or product you'd like me to review, please get in touch!

(Estylo guys! I hope you read this, I've been trying to reach you to talk about the Estylo stylus — I hope all is well!)

My birthday is less than three weeks away — I hope I'm healthy enough to have dinner with my family!

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Join Zurker, a social network you can own

Join me at Zurker!

Zurker is a new social network that I was invited to today, and a concept that seems very interesting. Unlike Google+ and Facebook, Zurker gives its users partial ownership of the network through vShares.

The concept seems like crowd-funding (like kickstarter) applied to a social network. Their intro video asks if you use social networks, or do they use you? Facebook sells user data to businesses, and while on the surface, this means better targeted, more relevant advertisements for users, it could be much more invasive. Just take a look at the Facebook user agreement, and tell me, do you know how to delete your account?

That's just the start. Facebook allows many applications developed by small firms to access most of your information, even when you aren't using the app. Facebook has privacy issues and has had security problems... and will again.

Zurker doesn't own your content or control your information. You can create pages for projects and businesses. The only caveat: you can only have the one account. But if you get in early, you can get more vShares, and get a nice username!

Join me.

It takes a few minutes, and hey, Zurker could be the next big thing, and you can own a piece of it! That sounds like smart long-term investing to me... and the entry fee? A few clicks, email validation, and account setup. Simple.

Six degrees of separation.

Just think, if I invite you, you invite your friends, and they invite theirs, a few more steps, and voila! everyone has a new online playground. Zurker feels like LinkedIn and Facebook together, and is designed for adults. Members will be able to vote on the direction of the network and its features. Sounds cool to me.

Whatever you decide, please let me know what you think.