Ten Reasons Why I Couldn’t Come Up with 10 Reasons
June 7, 2008
Web application Second|Brain helps you organize your online life by providing all the content you choose to import in one place.
Said content can include (but is definitely not limited to) bookmarks from del.icio.us, microblogs on twitter, digg, your own posts at wordpress, your feeds in gReader, flickr… The list goes on.
Thus, here’s a list of ten reasons why you should use Second|Brain (I know, I’m very anti-linkbait):
- It will save you massive amounts of time. You use an RSS feed reader for your blogs, right? Well, this is an RSS reader for things you liked when you read your RSS reader.
- It’s in Beta. Hence, it’s buggy. The only way they’ll ever eliminate any bugs is if you report on them!
- You can win a MacBook Air.
- You can follow both me and Alex over at Blogsessive. Awesome, right?
- Because I don’t think I can list ten reasons, but I’ve already given you three awesome ones and one linkwhoring one.
- The community is still relatively small, and you have a chance to become an oldbie on a fantastic website. Imagine you were one of the first thousand people to sign up for StumbleUpon. Wouldn’t you feel entitled to some kind of ego?
- Because it’s free (as in beer).
- AAAAAAA A AAAA AAA!!!!
- ?????
- Profit!
Now, all this being said, there is some criticism of things like this, which I have wanted to say for a long time. And I think I said it rather well (don’t you agree?) over at Blogsessive (I think Alex may be a little frustrated as well):
I signed up for Twitter about two weeks(?) ago, and I think I used it for about two days to talk to a friend I have in Alabama. Think I’ve logged in once since.
It’s not that I don’t like these things; I think it’s more what all these webapps are suffering from, and that’s “done it before.” Even being able to mention three off the top of your head is a major problem, and that’s even leaving out Pownce.
I hear so many great things about these sites, and I put them on my “I’ll try it” list, try it, and then don’t really see anything particularly impressive. Maybe it’s just because I’m not a huge fan of “microblogging” (in case you haven’t noticed, I like to talk… a lot.).
But most likely it’s because I hear so many things about how great X is and how it’s better than Y and Z, but I don’t really want to take my foo over to yet another bar, if you know what I mean. It’s happened with digg, del.icio.us, stumbleupon… I’m trying really hard to return to these things, but I just don’t have the patience.
I’m also not the biggest fan of this whole “Web 2.0″ buzzword thing we’ve got going on. It’s not that I’m not enjoying the buzz just as much as everybody else. It’s just that it requires a lot of effort to keep up with, and I’m lazy beyond reason.
Maybe I’m just getting too old for this stuff, when I’m just now nearing the edge of 18? Is it possible to be jaded with the internet?
Now, all this being said, I still feel there’s room for more of these sites, with a little ingenuity and innovation. I feel Second|Brain has done this. Rather than just cloning Twitter, they seem to capitalize on all the clones, allowing all these clones to be fed into one concentrated area.
Thank you, SecondBrain, for not following the trend. I applaud you.
So that’s it. Head on over to Second|Brain and be welcomed to the rest of your 2008 life!

June 7, 2008 at 1:52 pm
Nice post Michael, and totally right in your comment, reposted here. Sometime we just pick our sides as we don’t have time to test out indefinitely. But a few times, services like SB show up and indeed, we have the advantage of becoming some of the “old guys”. Kinda nice ego-feeling, as you said. :)
Cheers!
June 7, 2008 at 6:17 pm
I find that I particularly resonate with your number 8 and 9.
June 7, 2008 at 6:23 pm
Also, I’m impressed that you used a comment that you made on another blog — and included it in your entry! That is entirely resourceful. Almost like recycling, except instead of with cans and plastic — it’s with content. Bravo!
June 7, 2008 at 11:16 pm
Hi Michael, discovering your blog has been quite an interesting experience :)
I’ve started playing with Second Brain a while ago, that is a little over 2 months :) Although I don’t have quite enough time to use it at its full potential, I can grasp what that potential is. And as they keep adding new services, they will be the number one place for me to centralize content. I’m on SU, twitter, reddit, mixx, and I can’t possibly search for one item an all of them after forgetting where it is :)
June 8, 2008 at 2:15 pm
Bamboo, thanks for your comments. You’re always either incredibly insightful or hysterically funny. I don’t suppose you’ve learned it from Slashdot comments?
Alex, I really love the ego feeling. I dunno why, but something about being able to treat somebody 20 years older than me as a newbie really makes me happy.
And Alina, well, interesting as the experience may have been, I hope you stick around (that goes to all three of you!).
I think the service will flourish because it’s a way to open up much more free time for wasting elsewhere.