If you haven’t been by to visit the actual blog lately (hello my loyal RSS Readers!), you might want to click on the link up there to come see what it looks like. Thanks to my friend and talented Graphic Designer, Brandon Babb, we now have a new design! I’d also like to announce a few new directions for Stay N’ Alive.

Community

You’ll notice on the right there’s now a “Community” sub-section with options to join the community on either Google Friend Connect, or Facebook Connect.  Choose one, or the other, or both!  Right now it’s a great way to know what other friends of yours are readers of this blog, or perhaps get introduced to someone new.  Or you can just invite your friends and tell them about a story you like, asking them to join the community as well! (I suggest you personalize your message)

It should be noted that by joining Friend Connect (just a single click if you have any Google account anywhere), you’ll have the option to also post on the wall you’ll see under the same “Community” subsection.  I encourage you all to get on the wall and communicate!  You can leave a message for me, or respond to others’ messages.  The replies are threaded, so it makes for a great place to just talk amongst yourselves.  Also, through Friend Connect, if you are a Twitter user, you can now invite your friends to read an article via Twitter by clicking the “Invite” link, choosing the “other” option, and then Twitter.  Google just announced this today.  I’m sure you’ll see many more features launched in the future as Google tries to compete with Facebook.

If you join Facebook Connect, you’ll have the option to invite your Facebook friends.  In the very near future you should be able to also use this same identity to comment on posts, post those comments to Facebook, among other things.  (It’s still unclear if this will be through Disqus or not)  For now you can still share the posts to your profile, and see other Facebook users and friends that have visited the site.  Expect to see much more as I begin to enhance and expand both Friend Connect and Facebook Connect to further enhance the site.

More About Me

Let’s face it, I have to pay the bills.  So I have included some more information about me, and about the blog.  Go ahead – click on the “About” section.  Oooh – see it expand and contract?  Pretty cool, eh?  This will only get better.

You’ll notice I now have information about my Speaking, and Consulting.  If you know someone, or have an opportunity in either of these areas, please don’t hesitate to send people my way.  I’d love to see how I can help you, as I feel I have a few talents I can share with you and your friends in various capacities.  Check out my client list if you want to know results.

Also, I’m avoiding it for the moment, but those little square boxes in the upper-right could be for sale if you would like to make an offer.  I also have 3 more boxes that could go below those, and they can be combined to make bigger boxes.  Let me know if it’s something you’re interested in.  Make me an offer and I’d love to consider it, although I’m still debating if I want to sell ads here or not.

Photography

Dooce, watch out – I’m coming for you!  There’s more than enough room for the two of us here in Utah, and us Daddy bloggers can compete with the rest of ‘em!  As of yesterday, I’m now starting (at least) a photo of the day.  What the subject of these will be I’m still debating, but I’m open to suggestions, and feedback.  My goal is to tell a story.  Photography is a passion, and hobby of mine – I’d like to share some of that with you.

You’ll still get the same tech news, same early adopter technologies.  I’ll still be blogging regularly on LouisGray.com, InsideFacebook.com, and occasionally Dadomatic.com (just search for my name on any of those sites), but this is always my home.  Keep coming back!  Oh, and trust me, there’s much more to come.

Some of my best comments are made via my Google Reader Link blog. I often avoid writing about already-written stories because there are so many better ways to do it. I often comment on FriendFeed, and where I have an opinion, I write about it as a Note in my Google Reader shared items, which goes to my Link blog.

I’ve added a small version of the link blog in the sidebar, but you can also follow it in Google Reader by subscribing here – or, you can just go there and check back often to see what else I’ve shared. Of course, the best way to follow my comments and shares is by sending me an e-mail, or brief chat to jessestay at gmail dot com, and that way I can read, and re-share your shared items as well!

Of course, if you follow me on FriendFeed, you’ll get all of this, and you can reply, too! You can follow me there at http://friendfeed.com/jessestay

According to a study by the University of Illinois medical school published on CNN.com, this very blog could be the cure to anyone suffering a heart attack. Okay, maybe not this blog, but the song that inspired the blog, which became popular the year I was born, “Stayin’ Alive“, from the movie, “Saturday Night Fever” and sung by the Bee Gees.

According to the study, the song, at a perfect 103 beats per minute, is the perfect rhythm in which to perform CPR. Studies show that those people that use the song to help establish a rhythm for chest compressions had a much better chance at hitting the perfect rhythm to saving a life than those who did not. The American Heart Association has actually been using this song as a tip to those studying CPR for 2 years, according to CNN.

So, the next time you are out there, saving the world and saving lives, think of this blog (without the “i”), and most importantly the song, Stayin’ Alive (with the “i”) and you could very well save a life! Who says this blog doesn’t save lives?

You can purchase Stayin’ Alive on iTunes here:

I highly recommend the N’ Trance version though:

For those of you unaware, Stay N’ Alive isn’t the only place I blog these days. I actually have 3 blogs of my own, this being the most active and my home base. In addition to that, I at least weekly guest-blog on both LouisGray.com and InsideFacebook.com. I also occasionally guest-blog on AllFacebook.com. Add to that the posts that I write at the new i.TV blog and there’s a lot to keep track of! I’ve created a nifty way for you to keep track of my writing using FriendFeed to make it easy.

Since FriendFeed does not offer ability to filter by more than one service at a time, I made a hack. Now, you can go to the “Jesse Stay” room on Friend Feed at http://friendfeed.com/rooms/jesse-stay. Once you’re there you’ll see all my writing. Go ahead and like entries you like, comment on them, share them, and more if you like. Or, if you don’t ever want to visit that page again, scroll down to the bottom of the page, and click on the little RSS icon next to “Other ways to read this feed”. Now, you’ll get every one of my posts in your RSS Feed Reader, free of charge. You can also click here to add to your RSS Feed Reader. This room has only blog feeds so it won’t be cluttered by my Twitter, FriendFeed, Photos, Music, and other stuff I aggregate.

If you’re interested in adding each blog I post on to your RSS Reader individually, here they are, one-by-one:

http://staynalive.com/feed – Stay N’ Alive

http://i.tv/blog/feed – i.TV Blog

http://feeds.feedburner.com/LouisgraycomLive – LouisGray.com

http://feeds.feedburner.com/InsideFacebook – InsideFacebook.com

http://facebookadvice.com/feed – Facebook Advice

http://opensocialnow.com/feed – OpensocialNow

http://allfacebook.com/feed – All Facebook

This morning I installed the WPTouch plugin by Dale Mugford & Duane Storey onto this blog, enabling all mobile viewers to have a nice, very fast loading version of this blog on your iPhone. Loading http://staynalive.com in Safari on the iPhone gives you a nice, iPhone-formatted version of the blog that you can easily click through articles, read them in a very plain and simple format, share with friends, and more.

In addition, I also created a nicely formatted icon with my “Social” Geek logo which you can add to your Home Screen. Just click on the “+” sign in Safari, select “Add to Home Screen”, and it will add it to your home page. If you want the full version of the site, scroll down to the bottom and there will be a link to get the original formatting back.

This should be the beginning of a long line of changes for this site. As you can see, I’ve gone naked and listed my Reader count on the right of the blog, showing we’re quickly approaching 500 readers and growing. Because of that I want to do some things that will make this much more professional looking, while at the same time maintains the personal and open nature you have always gotten from me. Stay tuned, and you can follow redesign progress at http://new.staynalive.com.

If anyone has any connections to help get me the “StayinAlive.com” with the “i” before the “n”, it would make a really nice Christmas present!

I just realized I was missing about a week’s worth of comments from this blog. It looks like Google Reader at some point stopped tracking the comments (which is how I knew you were commenting), and I missed a few great ones, including one from BJ Fogg, whom I look up to. My apologies if it has taken awhile for me to respond to your comments.

If you want to track any of the comments feeds for any particular article, simply view the article, and append, “/feed” to the end and add it to your favorite RSS Reader. It will then send you updates of all comments for that article. Or, you can just click the checkbox next to, “Notify me of followup comments via e-mail” below the Captcha and it will e-mail you updates.

My apologies if I have not responded very quickly lately – that should be fixed now.

I’m sitting in here at the Blogger Lounge at Web 2.0 Expo, and have been working on a cool little gadget I think you may like. Mari Smith yesterday Tweeted that she and others wished there was a way they could “turn off” Facebook chat. Right now there are privacy controls to block people and keep people from chatting with you, but there is no real way to turn off the Chat feature in Facebook.

So I created a simple little Greasemonkey script (works in Firefox only, sorry) under the GPL v.2, in conjunction with SocialToo.com‘s “Social Companion to the Web” theme, that I call, “Facebook Chat-B-Gone”. Go ahead and download and install Greasemonkey here, then click here to download “Facebook Chat-B-Gone”.

Enjoy! And be sure to sign up for SocialToo.com for more cool “companion” features like this in the future!

http://staynalive.com/wp-content/themes/revvedup-158/fbchatbegone.user.js

I’d like to announce that SocialOptimize, my Social Media Development and Consulting and Apps Agency is being dissolved. I will now be assuming business under the name, “Stay N’ Alive Productions, LLC”. This, at least for now, will remain the main blog and website for my new business. What does this mean for my Social Efforts?

As you know, I have written 2 books, one on Facebook for Business and Personal Life (ranked #96 under “Job Hunting” on Amazon!) called, “I’m On Facebook–Now What???“, and another, published by O’Reilly, called “FBML Essentials” which focuses on Facebook Development from a software development perspective. (FBML Essentials should go to print around May) Recently I was featured by Guy Kawasaki on his blog, http://blog.guykawasaki.com – I encourage you to check out Stay N’ Alive, the blog, on http://socialmedia.alltop.com! I’m On Facebook–Now What??? has been listed (thanks to my co-author, Jason Alba) in the New York Times, US News and World Report, and I am receiving interview and speaking engagement requests on almost a weekly or more basis. I have consulted for some of the top 100 Facebook applications, including Paul Allen’s “We’re Related” Application (one of my favorites on Facebook!), and continue to get requests for consulting and development. That altogether takes up about 1/2 of my time – I have openings for April if you’re interested in an interview or speaker for your event!

In addition to my consulting, I would like to announce that I have teamed up with a development agency (more to be announced later) which will be able to provide development for those projects I consult on. If your company has development needs please contact me and I will introduce you to them and stay with you through the process.

For the second 1/2 of my time, I am building a network of communities on Facebook. I am working with several budding startup companies, along with a few apps I am building currently, to integrate into a large network of niche communities, all 100,000 users or less, perhaps a few with more, that cross-integrate and share features with each other. I will work with those in the network to provide consulting and development, at cost (and some less than cost depending on need and what we can work out), and in exchange you will get access to cross-promote, and gain access to many of the tools we will be providing, along with a great brand we will be building to promote the network. My goal is to make each application in our network as successful as possible according to your business needs. If you have an application you would like to include in my network, or need a way to build up your app further on a small budget, please contact me via the links on the right and we can discuss further how to best include you.

You’ll also see me doing several activities on a volunteer basis that I think will bring more of a focus to benefiting society through Social Media. Stay tuned for some of that, and in the meantime, visit Beth Kanter’s blog for a good resource.

So whether you’re looking to build up your small business under a budget, or need consulting, development, interviews, or speakers for your event, despite that I am no longer with SocialOptimize, I am still very much involved, and alive in the Social Media and Networking space. I am still “The Social Media Guru”. Give me a ring and let’s talk!

I’m proud to announce the new design of the Stay N’ Alive blog. Yes, that is me on a Segway, a little slouched, but my real, geeky self, having fun. I’m tempted to subtitle the blog, “A Developer, Having Fun!” Really, that is what being a developer is all about – if you’re not having fun, find something else! I sincerely love what I do – at heart, I will always be a developer, a Geek at heart.

Another geek at heart, Bill Gates, gave his final keynote address at CES last night. He left a hilarious, yet touching video making fun of what his final day could be like. I have to admit, as a Linux and Mac user primarily (I use Windows for my Entertainment Center experience), I was a little choked up after this. I became a programmer because of Bill Gates, working on MS DOS machines, Windows 1 (came on a 5″ floppy), 2, 3, 3.1, and 95 way before I was ever a Linux user. I owe much of my experience as a programmer to this man – while we make fun of him, he is an inspiration to us all:

I’ve been considering doing this for awhile – we’ll see how long it lasts and when my wife puts an end to it. If you look in the upper-left corner of the blog, you’ll see the “Ask Jesse” Show stream. If I’m online, when you click play you’ll see me, live, as you are on the blog!

Here’s how I did it:

1. Create an account at Ustream.tv
2. Click on “My Shows” – there you can configure the look and feel of your show page if you want
3. Click on the “Go to Show URL” link next to the “Broadcast Now” button
4. You’ll now see an “Embed Stream” html snippet in the lower right of the page – copy this, then paste into your html layout for your blog
5. Click “Broadcast Now”, and you’re live for all your voyeuristic viewers to see!

The Camera I’m using is the Logitech Quickcam Communicate STX. It has great picture, includes a built-in microphone that detects how far you are, and the camera comes in with built-in software that follows where your face is (or two faces if you’re more than one person). I’m half-way across the room, and you can still hear me well, and the streaming results are almost real-time! (Scott Lemon says it took just 14 seconds from him Twittering to me saying I received the Twitter)

Some issues to watch out for:

• Make sure you’re appropriate when your camera is on! Put a sign up or something reminding those entering the camera area that they are being recorded.
• Be careful if you talk to sensitive business clients. You may want to mute, or stop the stream altogether so sensitive information isn’t broadcast out to the entire world
• Be sure your router can handle the bandwidth. I use a Gigabit Linksys WRT350N Router, and my Comcast connection has 8 Mb down, and about 3 or 4 up (at times). Search for “Comcast Speed” in the search box in the upper-right for some tips on how to speed up your home internet

My big prediction for 2008 is it will be the year of streaming video, and you’ll see more and more people embracing such technologies. I think I’ll try this for a bit – I think this can be a great way to drive people to stay on your blog longer. People are naturally voyeuristic, and want to know more about the person whose writing they are reading. If they can actually see them and chat with them, they are likely to stay longer, bringing more traffic to your site.