.: On Tokyo Time :.

I read all my feeds in the new Yahoo! Mail. I’ve been cutting down on feeds over the last few weeks. I’m down to 55 from about 100. Still too many I guess… I’ve seen other people doing the same around the same time. Is the quality declining? Or are we just subscribing to too many feeds?

I meant to keep a list of which feeds I unsubscribe and why but didn’t really see a lot of value in it. Here are the ones I unsubscribed today:

• Download Squad and Download Squad: Yes, both feeds have the same name, one is for Google and one is for Yahoo!. They were more interesting in the Unoffical … Weblog days. And the Googleholic entries are really hard to read.

• Coolz0r: He (can’t find his name on the site) does a good job at highlighting interesting ads and marketing. However ever since the hotlink protection, the feed doesn’t show images anymore in my feed reader. Clicking through, then clicking on the headline and then hitting F5 has become to tedious. See screenshot below.

Sorry guys, no offense intended…

Update: I just saw that coolz0r has been asking for feedback in case the above happens. I added a comment.

Google has launched an initiative called “Features, not products” (not to be confused with “This is a feature, not a bug”).

[Via John Batelle's Searchblog]

In another sign of Google Inc.’s growth from start-up to corporate behemoth, the company’s top executives said Thursday that they had begun telling engineers to stop launching so many new services and instead focus on making existing ones work together better.

It’s always easy to say ‘I saw this coming’ after it happened. But just looking at the number of employees (did they pass 10k yet?), it wasn’t too far fetched. Although all Google employees I talked to were convinced that Google won’t change. I think we’ve only seen the beginning of far bigger changes…

Oh, and in other Google news today: Google To Acquire YouTube for $1.65 Billion in Stock. Last time I checked this was a lot of money.

I’ve been playing around with Zoë while exploring alternative email applications a while ago. I never really got into it even though the concept is really interesting. Last time I used it is 1 year ago!

In the meantime I have given up on installed email applications. I don’t like to be limited to one computer. I want access to all my email anytime and anywhere. The new Yahoo! Mail comes pretty close to desktop experience while not inheriting its limitations. But I’m biased…

I wonder if anyone picks up the Yahoo! Mail web service and implements a Zoë clone with it… Is anyone actively using Zoë? I think it’s time to uninstall for me…

‘It seemed important at the time‘ by Seth Godin reminded me of the difference between urgent and important (and how many people confuse the two).

Some things are urgent, but not important. Ask yourself:

What will happen if I don’t complete this by the deadline? Will anyone care a few days later?

Don’t confuse urgent with important. Focus on the important things!

I’m listening to SomaFM – Groove Salad and ‘Easy Muffin’ by Amon Tobin just came on. I had no idea who the band/artist is or how the song is called but it will forever remind me of The Flower and Burning Man 2006! So chill, so soothing… I miss you Burning Man! Decompression up this SUN in SF.

[Via Download Squad]

Google has just announced a discount for users of the Google Checkout system.

Nothing screams success more than a discount soon after launch!

The rain is back today after about 6 months of sunshine. This means 3 things:

• Traffic collapses in Silicon Valley. The drivers here freak out when the streets are wet!
• I need a new car – or at least new tires…
• Winter and snowboarding is not too far away!

I actually like a little bit of rain from time to time. It cleans the air and the clouds are pretty and make the sky way more beautiful.

Also, full moon is coming up soon! It’s the little things in life that get me excited .

How short was summer this year!?!

Video blogger zefrank (the guy who never blinks) enjoys a lot of buzz. I checked out a few of his shows and never really got a kick out of them (expectations too high?) until I came across his show about Busting That Cycle. Hilarious and very inspiring at the same time (and a little nasty at the end).

Kevin Fox summarizes and gives some examples:

(…) by identifying the patterns you follow and deliberately departing from them you can gain new insights, new perspectives, and generally feel more alive.

When have you broken your last cycle? Or are you stuck in your life?

I’ve recently realized that planning to do stuff is not enough. Stop putting it off and do it! Today! You’ll be surprised how easy it was. And you’ll slap yourself for putting it off so long.