The first step is the hardest...

I guess I'll do like they suggested in school and use this first entry to tell you what I'm going to tell you.

I love tech.  I love games and gadgets.  I stream netflix from my phone, roku, xbox360, and bluray player.  I'm always on the lookout for the next gadget or service that will make life better or easier or cooler.

On top of this I enjoy what social media has done for all of us.  I get 'updates' on gear and games from Twitter (via Tweetdeck).  I can get feedback from 100's of people by making a post with a hashtag.  Granted, it ain't scientific research, but crowd-sourcing information if a newborn and will only get better.  Just ask movie studios - a new flic can easily be done after opening night based on the power of social media - word gets out FAST.

So what does this all have to do with some Schmo starting another blog?  I think it comes down to the defining value of information - trust.  Let's take a recent example.

After a little under two years with Sprint I've had enough and I'm switching my wife and I back to Verizon Wireless.  As part of the process we were in the market for new smartphones, so I began researching which Android phone would be perfect for each of us.  Not so easy right now as there are some great choices with the Droid Razr, the HTC Rezound, and the Samsung Galaxy Nexus.  Much of my time was spent following trends on twitter, doing searches on Google, and sharing some of my findings on twitter, facebook and Google Plus.  What I found was that I started to have trust in certain people's tweets more than others, and certain people (some I knew and others I didn't) began to ask me for feedback on the purchase I made (I got the Razr for a penny from Amazon).

Reviews from the big tech sites are great, but people still like to ask someone they know what they think about something - and for good or bad after we interact via social media we begin at a certain point to feel that we 'know' one another.  It's not a big reach to follow this line of thinking, after all this is what Netflix's entire movie recommendation logarithm is based on; they start to see similarities between user's rankings and use that to predict what else they might have in common.

Likewise, I follow someone on twitter or facebook because I like what he or she has to say, and over time I get to 'know' the person and value their opinion to some degree.

Or maybe I'm full of crap.

Nonetheless, here I am with my own little tech blog.  Next up I'll share my initial thoughts on the Razr as I continue to break it in and consider whether I'll swap it for a Galaxy Nexus (assuming the latter is ever brought to market).

That's all for now, Happy Black Friday everybody.