IE8 Accelerators for Twitter, BackTweets and What the Hashtag?!

Today I stumbled upon this bit.ly Accelerator for IE8, which makes easier (and faster) to use of my favorite "shorten url" service (bit.ly).

If you don't know what are Accelerators (available only on IE8), the idea is pretty simple and the video bellow explains it better than I would:




So, after having a look on how easy is to create an accelerator, I decided to create a couple for some Twitter-related activities that I have to perform now and then, such as:

• Search tweets containing a specific term


• Get a hashtag definition


• Check who else tweeted about an article

Search tweets containing a specific term

One of the hot words of the moment seems to be "real time search", with Twitter Search on the spotlight. But how do you usually search for something on Twitter? Let's say you are reading this article and want to find more about the term "real time search", for example, so you select this term, copy it, open a new tab, go to search.twitter.com, paste your text and click on "search". To do this is not really rocket science, but probably time-consuming if you must do it frequently.

So, using this IE8 Accelerator you can just highlight a word/phrase and, when you click on the accelerator icon (or right-click the word/phrase) an option ("Search on Twitter") will appear for you to search for this term on Twitter. If you click on this option, another tab will open directly with the search results for this word/phrase, as shown below:



To install the Twitter search accelerator, click here (select the option "Make this my default provider for this Accelerator category" if you want this option to be listed on the first menu that appears)


Get a hashtag definition

Similar to the Twitter Search above, with the difference that this Accelerator will use the highlighted term and search for its definition using What the Hashtag?!, an user-editable encyclopedia for Twitter hashtags (with more detailed information, related hashtags and statistics).

Not all hashtags will have specific definitions/statistics listed there, on which case it's you will probably want to use the "Search on Twitter" Accelerator and just search directly for all tweets containing that term.

Example of search for the hashtag #e2conf



To install the What the Hashtag?! accelerator, click here (select the option "Make this my default provider for this Accelerator category" if you want this option to be listed on the first menu that appears)


Check who else tweeted about an article

BackTweets is one of the most useful Twitter-related services that I have seen. It lets you do an URL search on Twitter, allowing you to get a list of tweets that contained a link to that URL (it even list those tweets that used a shortened version of the url - such as bit.ly mentioned earlier).

Due to its nature (links), this Accelerator can be used in two ways:

1) To check tweets linking the URL you are reading now: such as to find out who else found this article interesting, just right click in any part of the page and select the option "Search link with BackTweets", as shown below:



2) To check tweets containing a link that you see at the page you are reading now: such as to find out who else tweeted this link, just right click on the link itself and select the option "Search link with BackTweets", as shown below:



To install the BackTweets accelerator, click here (select the option "Make this my default provider for this Accelerator category" if you want this option to be listed on the first menu that appears)


Well, those are my 3 IE8 Accelerators for now. If you can imagine any other useful Accelerators for other web services that you would like, just let me know and I will try to create one and post here as well.


P.s.: If you are interested in building your own Accelerator(s), check out the Microsoft reference page on the topic and also this great article "How To Create a Custom IE8 Accelerator".

Comments about the new Search Engine Wars

(Disclosure: if you search through my previous articles, you will see that the company I work for - FAST - was acquired by Microsoft last year, so now I'm a Microsoft employee. With that said, my comments are mostly from the point of view of someone that works in the enterprise search market and who has been using/following these Internet trends over the last 10 years. I have no contact whatsoever with the Bing team.)

Mitch Joel posted this article today about the new search engine wars, where he mentions Cuil, the idea of a "Google killer", and Microsoft's new decision engine called Bing, among other things.

Two quotes on his article caught my attention, which I'll reproduce here.

One from Seth Godin (from a post on his blog titled "The Next Google"):

"Bing, of course, stands for But It's Not Google. The problem, as far as I can tell, is that it is trying to be the next Google. And the challenge for Microsoft is that there already is a next Google. It's called Google. Google is not seen as broken by many people, and a hundred million dollars trying to persuade us that it is, is money poorly spent. In times of change, the rule is this: Don't try to be the 'next.' Instead, try to be the other, the changer, the new."

And another one from Michael Arrington (from a blog post on TechCrunch titled "Apparently Bing Is Something Of A Hit"):

"Whether Microsoft ultimately succeeds or not in 'winning' the search war, the competition is very good for the rest of the Internet. Google needs to be pushed to try innovating new things (not this). And search marketing competition will ensure that Google doesn't get too greedy. We don't need Microsoft to win, but we do need to avoid a world with just one search engine that matters. Maybe Microsoft can win that lesser war, at least."

After reading the article (and quotes), I felt compelled to express my view on the subject, and my comment became so big that it's practically a post, so I'll reproduce it here in case you haven't read it there:

My first point is that I completely agree with Michael Arrington that no matter what the end result is, this will be better for the rest of the Internet. Competition forces players (even the big ones), to make changes, to adapt or risk losing its position.

In regards to Seth Godin's post, it seems clear that he was commenting just on the product *announcement* for Bing, before having a look at the product itself. And without trying it out, you just can't judge its impact on the "search engine wars".

I also have to disagree with the statement that "Google is not seen as broken by many people".

Does Google have 73% of search market on the Internet? Yes.

Is it an awesome product that people use and like? Most definitely.

Is everybody happy with every single search that they do there? No, and you don't even have to use Microsoft's research to see that. Just take for example the hot trend of the moment: real time web (and search).

Before Twitter, people were happy with their Google results, but they knew that to get fresh results for some recent news, they would have to go to Google News or some newspaper's website. And people just accepted that as a fact.

But what happened after Twitter came along, and most of all, after search.twiter.com came along?

People realized that there was a way to search for trends and recent news almost as fast as they happened, and they were thrilled by that.

People got so thrilled with it that they started to question why their Google results couldn't have the same info. So they built their own solutions to address that need and after a while Google realized that they *must* do something about it too, as Larry Page just recentely said (when asked about Twitter):

"I have always thought we needed to index the web every second to allow real time search. At first, my team laughed and did not believe me. Now they know they have to do it. Not everybody needs sub-second indexing but people are getting pretty excited about realtime." (http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/larry_page_on_real_time_google_we_have_to_do_it.php)

This is just one example, but if one takes the time to check Microsoft's research on search user behavior, you can see that there is a need for better "information" (not only search results), for some queries. And that's what Microsoft is trying to tackle with this iniciative.

So, I believe that the in the end, this is better for users, better for the market.

Just my (long) 2 cents.

Best,
Leo

What is your take on this (be it as a user or as a professional in this market)?

15 anos sem Senna

Hoje, 1 de Maio de 2009, faz exatamente 15 anos que Ayrton Senna deixou a Fórmula 1 com uma sensação de vazio.

Não importa quantos outros corredores tenham aparecido desde então, para os torcedores em geral (e principalmente para os brasileiros), essa lacuna deixada por Senna nunca foi preenchida, e ouso dizer que nunca será.

Por que nunca? Porque ninguém nunca foi tão obstinado, tão aplicado, tão dedicado e passional como Senna.

Ele era perfeccionista ao extremo? Claro que era, e muito. Dizem que quando ele era pequeno e corria de kart, em uma das corridas começou a chover e ele perdeu completamente o controle do kart, o que o deixou mais do que frustrado. Mas, ao invés de engolir a frustração e aceitar que simplesmente é muito mais difícil correr na chuva (como qualquer pessoa "normal" faria), Senna começou a treinar na chuva. Era só anunciar chuva que ele pegava o kart e ia pra pista treinar. Resultado: ele tornou-se o melhor piloto de pista molhada que o mundo já conheceu.

Anos depois, todo esse esforço e dedicação lhe traria muitas conquistas (e muito mais alegrias para seus fãs). Lembro-me até hoje de uma corrida em que o clima estava completamente doido, pois numa hora chovia, na outra parava, e isso fazia com que todos os pilotos tivessem que ficar trocando de pneus o tempo todo. Ou melhor, todos menos Senna, porque ele não apenas continuou com os pneus para pista seca (mesmo correndo na pista molhada), mas também correu muito mais rápido do que os outros, fazendo inclusive ultrapassagens memoráveis pela parte molhada.


Até hoje, sempre que alguém me pergunta se tenho algum ídolo, respondo que atualmente não, pois nunca fui realmente de idolatrar ninguém, seja artista, esportista ou qualquer outra coisa. Admirar sim, mas idolatrar não. A única exceção à essa regra foi Senna, pois ele eu realmente idolatrei, vibrando, comemorando (e chorando) com as vitórias, com as derrotas, com as batalhas travadas na pista com outras figuras legendárias como Alain Prost e Nigel Mansell.


Quando Senna morreu, meu pai escreveu uma carta pro jornal. Não me lembro de ter lido outra coisa que meu pai tenha escrito (ou talvez essa memória seja tão viva que apague as outras), mas nessa carta linda, sincera e emotiva ele dizia algo como "nunca mais corrida aos domingos".

Tenho de concordar com meu pai, os domingos de corrida nunca mais foram os mesmos sem o Senna na pista.


P.s.: Para quem estava ansioso esperando meu primeiro post sobre a nova vida aqui em Boston e ficou surpreso com esse post, não se preocupe, logo mais eu vou postar sobre minha vida por aqui. Só não dava pra deixar essa data passar em branco.

How One Simple Tweet Changed My Life

"All, everything that I understand, I understand only because I love." — Leo Tolstoy

Yes, this is a story about love. It's about finding a needle in the haystack. It's about serendipity.

The story thus far

At precisely 1 year ago (March 24, 2008), the following tweet appeared on my Twitter app:

"vargasl: Looks to be a LONG night writing copy...need some music to chill...suggestions?"

I still have no idea when/how I started following Lauren Vargas (vargasl), but when this tweet popped up to me, loving chill out music as I do, I replied:

"leonardocsouza: @vargasl my favs for a long night: Diana Krall, Bebel Gilberto, Norah Jones, Kelly Sweet... nice and relaxing... :)"

Little did I know how much this simple reply would change my life!

To keep the story short (believe me, when I tell this story to friends - which I still do whenever I have the chance - it takes around 2-3 hours to finish) we kept going back and forth on Twitter, first through tweets, then through DMs (Direct Messages) and then, when 140 characters started to seem too little to express ourselves, we moved our conversation to GTalk. There we started to get to know each other better... to get to know about our passions (music, books, screenwriting, traveling, etc.)... and almost every day we would talk and talk and talk and talk... and, once again, mere GTalk wasn't enough to us anymore, so we moved to Skype, and there we heard each other's voice for the first time and, after a few days, saw each other "live" for the first time. As time passed by and our conversation evolved through all these tools, so did our involvement.

Yes, there is no other word to describe what it is to be sending DMs back and forth during the day + talking through GTalk + countless long (and so pleasurable) talks on Skype.

As usual, after a while, Skype was not enough either, so we decided it was time to meet each other in the real world. One day, while talking on Skype, we just looked into a map and decided our destination: Montreal.

No, none of us had ever been to Montreal before, neither had we taken up a long flight to a foreign country just to meet someone we had found online. Did it sound crazy even to ourselves? Yes, it definitely did, and we even made fun of ourselves because of that, but no matter how odd it seemed, on my heart I had the certainty that I HAD to do this.

"It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye." — Antoine de Saint-Exupery

What happened in Montreal that June just proved that my intuition was right, as we had one of the best times of our lives there.

After Montreal we met again in Seattle a month and a half later (end of July) and, as everything was flowing so naturally, she came to visit me here in Sao Paulo (Brazil) for my birthday (September), where she met my family (who fell completely in love with her - seriously, you have no idea how much my family loves her, it still amazes me).

Then, after 3 too-anxiously-long months, I went to Dallas for her birthday (December), where I met her beautiful family and her immensely-cute-who-has-a-special-talent-to-make-me-melt daughter (this was my turn to be completely taken by her family - it really felt like home while I was there).

To finish off this travel-around-the-world year, we went to Paris over New Year's, and to Lauren's total surprise, while one year finished and another started, I got down on my knees and asked her to marry me. I can't even begin to describe all the thrilling sensations that ran through me while I was down there for the 10 longest seconds of my life waiting for her answer: which came in a torrent of "Yes! Yes! Yes!".

After that, I came home with a mission: to get a job transfer to US (something that I always wanted to do for my career, but now I had even better purposes :)).

To our complete astonishment, it took less than 3 months from the time I got back from Paris, found an internal position in Boston, got approved, went through all the work visa process and got it approved too.


What the future holds

In 12 days (on April 5) I will be arriving at Boston to start my life there... to start in a new country, in a new role... and late on August, when Lauren moves there to live with me, it will also be the start of a new family... our family together.

I really don't know exactly what the future holds ahead for me, but given this amazing last year that I got as a present from Destiny, I can't wait to see what is coming up next.

About one thing I'm certain though... that all these online tools (Twitter, Flickr, Skype, etc.) will definitely play a major role by bringing together our combined family from all over (Dallas, Sao Paulo, Boston, Oklahoma)!


Happy anniversary, my love! ;)


P.s.: If you want to read parts of this story from her point of view as well, just check her brilliant post at the Connected by Distance project.

P.s. 2: In case you are really in the mood and want to hear some of the reasons why she is so important to me, just read a few of her immense list of virtues. :)

Os pequenos detalhes fazem a diferença

Para quem lê meu blog com frequência (cerca de umas 2 pessoas), não é surpresa nenhuma que um dos assuntos pelo qual tenho muito interesse seja "relacionamentos".

Talvez porque bem mais da metade das minhas amizades mais próximas sejam mulheres ou talvez simplesmente porque eu adoro observar o comportamento humano, o fato é que sempre que posso converso, discuto, escuto, reflito sobre relacionamentos.

Como não poderia deixar de ser, durante minha sessão de hoje com minha psicóloga (sim, eu faço terapia e ADORO) conversamos sobre a importância dos "pequenos detalhes" para um relacionamento. Mas o que são esses pequenos detalhes?

Qualquer pessoa que já esteve em um relacionamento sabe como eles "geralmente" funcionam. No começo há aquele interesse, aquela coisa da conquista, daí conversa-se bastante e sobre diferentes assuntos, um elogia o outro frequentemente e há aquelas pequenas surpresas casuais do dia-a-dia: um email fofo, um recado com saudades na caixa postal, flores só porque deu vontade, um jantar à luz de velas, ingressos para aquele show que o outro tanto queria ver, etc.

Tudo corre bem, ambos estão nos mil amores um com o outro e decidem levar a coisa mais adiante: namorar ou levar a coisa mais a sério ou insira aqui a sua definição disso. Cada um tem seu próprio conceito sobre "levar a coisa mais adiante", mas sempre tem aquele ponto em que você passa a ter a sensação de que a outra pessoa efetivamente "está" com você.

O que ocorre depois disso?

O que ocorre é que muitas vezes, uma das duas pessoas envolvidas (ou pior ainda, as duas), simplesmente adotam aquele espírito de "já ganhou" e páram de dar atenção justamente a esses pequenos detalhes que conquistaram a pessoa. O comportamente passa a ser o de que você já conquistou a pessoa, então não precisa mais ser feito nenhum "esforço". Nada mais de flores, de surpresas fofas, de elogios ou daquelas pequenas coisas que fazem com que nos sintamos especiais.

Sim, porque esse é o principal fator: fazer com que a outra pessoa sinta-se especial (levante a mão quem gosta de sentir-se especial).

E isso não é conquistado pelo tamanho/valor do presente, mas pela atenção, pelo cuidado que a pessoa percebe que você teve na sua escolha, no tempo dedicado a isso.

Pode ser um livro sobre o qual ela comentou há semanas atrás; pode ser um filme que você sabe que ele amou; pode ser um arranjo super simples com as flores favoritas dela; pode ser aquele prato especial que você sabe que ela adora; etc.

Pode ser um milhão de coisas, mas o importante é que a pessoa perceba claramente que, quando você escolheu fazer/comprar/conseguir aquilo, você estava pensando nela, nos gostos dela, nas preferências dela; sabendo que você fez tudo isso pura e simplesmente porque essa pessoa é especial pra você.

Por isso que meu conselho a você (homem ou mulher) é o seguinte: não importa há quantos anos/meses/dias/décadas vocês estejam juntos, dedique um tempo para surpreender sua cara-metade. Eu te garanto que o surpreendido será você com os resultados. ;)

Nós somos o que pensamos

Esqueça aquela velha frase de que "nós somos o que comemos", ou melhor, apenas alteremos esta frase um pouco, deixando-a assim:

"Nós somos o que pensamos"

Sim, nossos pensamentos nos influenciam e nos definem mais do que qualquer coisa em nossas vidas e, portanto, são diretamente responsáveis por nossa felicidade/tranquilidade/alegria.

Nossa tendência é sempre a de achar que mais recursos (dinheiro, tempo, etc.) resolveriam os nossos problemas, trazendo assim a tão almejada felicidade. Por que então existem tantas pessoas que apesar de possuírem diversas riquezas materiais, ainda assim são infelizes? E por que existem pessoas que apesar de quase não possuírem recursos, ainda assim vivem suas vidas com alegria e felicidade?

Claro que existe uma relação mínima de necessidades básicas a serem supridas, conforme definido pelas bases da Pirâmide de Maslow, mas estou falando aqui de algo maior... estou falando daquela sensação de estar bem consigo mesmo e com o mundo.


Algum tempo atrás deparei-me com o excelente discurso de graduação proferido por David Foster Wallace no Kenyon College em 2005 (em inglês), que aborda principalmente o tema da vida adulta, como suas pequenas (ou grandes) frustrações diárias podem afetar nossas vidas e o que podemos fazer para minimizar essas frustrações.

"Estou certo de que a essa altura vocês já sabem que é extremamente difícil manter-se alerta e atento, ao invés de deixar-se hipnotizar pelo monólogo constante dentro da sua própria cabeça (o que pode estar acontecendo agora mesmo). Vinte anos depois da minha própria graduação, cheguei gradualmente ao entendimento de que o clichê das artes liberais sobre ensinar você a pensar é na verdade uma simplificação para uma idéia muito mais séria e profunda: aprender a pensar na verdade significa aprender como exercer algum controle sobre como e o quê você pensa. Significa estar suficientemente consciente para escolher no que prestar atenção e escolher como você constrói conhecimento a partir da experiência. Porque se você não consegue exercer esse tipo de escolha na vida adulta, você estará totalmente encrencado. Pense no antigo clichê sobre a mente ser um excelente serviçal mas um terrível mestre."

O discurso atinge em cheio a questão de que controlar seus pensamentos é não apenas necessário, mas fundamental para que você possa ter uma boa qualidade de vida.

Claro que isso não é fácil, longe disso. Todos nós, em algum momento em nossas vidas diárias, somos inundados por sentimentos de ódio, de raiva, de frustração, de culpa, etc. Mas cabe tão somente a nós a busca por controle desses pensamentos.

Se estou com raiva, por que estou sentindo isso? Como eu me sentiria no lugar da outra pessoa? Essa culpa é minha mesmo ou alguém está atribuindo-a a mim e eu estou deixando? Isso é realmente tão importante assim para que eu me estresse?

Buscar a raíz de nossas emoções pode ser um bom começo para levar-nos a refletir sobre elas e sobre o quanto estamos nos deixando ser levados, porque ou você controla suas emoções ou elas controlam você.

Como quase tudo na vida, essa é uma batalha diária, que deve ser vencida pouco a pouco, dia a dia, com a certeza de que a cada passo estamos mais próximos dos nossos objetivos.

Então mãos à obra! :)

Structure your presentation like a screenplay

(That's exactly what I did, and it worked perfectly! But let me tell you the full story.)

This past week I had to build THE presentation for an interview process that I was participating in. Considering that the interviewers' reaction to this presentation would determine if I would get the job, and that getting the job would enable me to go work/live in US to be with my fiancée, get married and start a family... well, let's say it was a very important presentation. :)

I was struggling on this task when I saw this tweet from Tim Walker:

"Anybody wanna share tips on building good presentation decks? I'm working on a blog post about it."

After pondering about it for a while, this is what I replied:

"@TWalk My essencial thought on this is that you must tell a story through your presentation.. always.. This keeps people engaged. My 2 cents"

Little did I know that this reply would be the turning point on my presentation...

While I was going home on the night before the interview/preso, I had that moment of "Eureka!": why don't I follow my own recommendation and tell a story through my presenation?

To give a little more context to why this wasn't something so trivial to my mind, you should know that this presentation was about a very technical subject, including a few formulas and also involving some math (things like a base conversion from decimal to binary and a right shift). Ah, and I had only 20 minutes to present.

So, after this moment of enlightment, I began to structure my presentation like I would do with a screenplay, using a three act structure:

1. Setup of characters (who is the protagonist? what are his/her motivations?)


2. Conflict (introduction of an obstacle)


3. Resolution

Translating this to my technical presentation, I used a case study approach, and it ended up structured like this:

1. A potential customer has some business needs and contact your company, which decides to develop a proof-of-concept (POC) and you're the one left with this task


2. You go to present it to the customer, who spot a "problem" (on their point of view) and you have little time to come up with good arguments


3. After a step-by-step analysis of the problem, you have very good arguments to discuss it with the customer

(Looking at it now, it seems so simple)

In the end, what was the result of my interview/presentation? Even better than what I expected.

What did they like most? The structure. By using a case study and telling a story, it kept people engaged and interested (even though it was a Live Meeting presentation with only audio support).

So, here is my advice to you when you have a presentation to build: tell a story.

Because if it can work even for a very technical presentation, it definitely can work for you. :)