October 2007 - Stay N Alive

Month: October 2007

Utah Facebook Developers / Social Media Developers Garage Location Change

Posted on by jessestay

Due to some last minute complications, the Utah Facebook Developers / Social Media Developers Garage has changed its location for tomorrow. Thanks to Perfect Search Corporation, we were able to secure a last minute location to host the event. The event will now be held at Perfect Search Corporation in the Fibernet Building in Orem – it will NO LONGER be at Noah’s. Same time, same speakers. The address is:

1145 S 800 E Suite 325
Orem, UT

Our instructions are to stay out of the development areas and in the conference rooms only. To get in, if no one is at the door, please call me on my cell phone and we’ll send some one to let you in: (801) 979-7576. I apologize if this is an inconvenience. Thanks again to Tim Stay and Perfect Search Corporation for their willingness to host our event.

Here’s a Google Maps to that location: http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&hl=en&geocode=&time=&date=&ttype=&q=1145+S+800+E+Suite+325,+Orem,+UT&sll=37.0625,-95.677068&sspn=29.219963,76.025391&ie=UTF8&ll=40.276612,-111.676068&spn=0.006859,0.018561&z=16&iwloc=addr&om=1

Utah Facebook Developers / Social Media Developers Garage This Tuesday

Posted on by jessestay

I’ve announced it on the group page, but I’d like to announce that the second annual Utah Facebook and Social Media Garage is this Tuesday, October 30th at 7pm at Noah’s in Lindon. The last one went really well I thought, many of us were still very new to the Facebook craze though. Since then there have been several prominent Utahns that have had successes in the Facebook development arena.

We have 2 great speakers that will be addressing us:

Jason McGowan, the lead developer and designer of We’re Related, which went from 0 to 100,000 users in several days will be addressing us. Also, Thom Allan, the “other Utah Facebook Developer” (if you read my blog you’ll get that) of Digital Thom will be addressing us.

Already, I’m expecting 10-20 people to be at the event. It should be a strong event for the West Coast Facebook enthusiasts! It’s BYOS (Bring your own snacks), so bring something, whether it’s snacks or soda to contribute to the pot. I’m also working on some schwag – we’ll see with short notice if we can get anything though. The next event we should have a ton of stuff like that. This event will be sponsored by WebWave Technologies Incubator and Twelve Horses.

To find Noah’s, see:

http://mynoahs.com/locations.php

The best way to find it is look at the picture in the link above – you can see the building from all around. I’ll look forward to seeing you there!

UPDATE: The location has changed. Thanks to Perfect Search Corporation, we were able to secure a last minute location to host the event. The event will now be held at Perfect Search Corporation in the Fibernet Building in Orem. Same time, same speakers. The address is:

1145 S 800 E Suite 325
Orem, UT

Our instructions are to stay out of the development areas and in the conference rooms only. To get in, if no one is at the door, please call me on my cell phone and we’ll send some one to let you in: (801) 979-7576. I apologize if this inconvenience. Thanks again to Tim Stay and Perfect Search Corporation for their willingness to host our event.

Here’s a Google Maps to that location: http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&hl=en&geocode=&time=&date=&ttype=&q=1145+S+800+E+Suite+325,+Orem,+UT&sll=37.0625,-95.677068&sspn=29.219963,76.025391&ie=UTF8&ll=40.276612,-111.676068&spn=0.006859,0.018561&z=16&iwloc=addr&om=1

New Facebook Requests API Brings Less Flexibility, Ease of Use With Invitations

Posted on by jessestay

Facebook Invites Interface I am rather late on this news, but I haven’t seen anyone take this slant on it. As most of you are aware, Facebook has removed their notifications.sendRequest API method in favor of a more standardized invite interface for all their applications. This has several ramifications:

  1. You are pretty much forced to use FBML now if you want an invite interface. IMO this is a good thing, and especially good for Facebook, as it means they have more control over the content of the applications on their platform. You can say goodbye to most of the applications using iFrames in the future.

  2. All invite interfaces will pretty much look the same. Facebook has provided a few FBML tags that make creation of the friends list to select from, and form to send invites to very easy. I implemented this on all my applications last night and I have to say it’s quite slick. This also means more applications will have invite forms and will henceforth grow much faster. Expect to see many more invites in the coming weeks from various applications because of this.

  3. All your base belongs to Facebook. Facebook now has much more control over how invite forms look and are used. On the other hand, developers have much less flexibility on how the invites are used. I am having a huge headache trying to figure out a way to get an invite link below your friends profile pics if you have the app installed on a few of my apps. Maybe Facebook doesn’t want it. Some theorize it’s because many developers have abused this interface.

I have mixed feelings about this interface. On one hand, this makes it extremely easy to create an invite interface. On the other hand, this puts everyone at a level playing field, keeping some of the more creative developers out of the game. I’ve seen similar things with the limits Facebook puts on various API calls. I would love to have Facebook notify you of every new SteepAndCheap.com product on my SAC App, for instance. The Spammers have ruined it for some really good ideas to come forth.

In all, this is good for Facebook. More people will use their applications, a trend they seem to be moving towards lately. You see they’re putting a huge focus on this after opening their Apps Directory this last week. More exposure == more money for both Facebook and those developing their apps. In the end I think this is a good thing.

Facebook LDS App Acquired by LDS Non-Profit

Posted on by jessestay

I’ve been twittering for awhile now about a “big announcement”. I’m proud to say this is that big announcement! In my first successful exit from a Social application, a private, LDS Non-Profit has acquired the Facebook LDS App from my Social Apps incubator, Snaplicate. This is one of the first few apps to be sold on Facebook, so this is big news! Today we signed the final document and the news is official! I’m very excited for this, as it will mean immediate help for the LDS App and strong progress in its development. Managing this on my own has been difficult. I have high regard for the organization taking over, and I know they will do very good things for it. I’ll announce the name of the organization and more details as we finalize the press release (hopefully tomorrow!) and agree on what details will be released.

If you are a user of the LDS App, you have nothing to worry about. While I have no final control over what happens, the organization that has acquired the app is non-profit, which means it should continue to be free, without advertising or subscription charges. They have made it known to me that they have intentions to keep it this way, and hearing of their plans of where to take it in the future, it fits in well with where I was going to take it. If they let me, I will continue to volunteer my time in development on the app as well.

What will I do next? I have retained rights to the code, which is currently being used on the Catholic App, and will continue to expand to other religions as I enhance the code base. Feel free to tell your Catholic friends about the Catholic App! I am also focusing on some other big projects which you will hear of very soon.

In the next day or two we should have a press release finalized and more details should be released. Stay tuned!…

Facebook Developer Accounts

Posted on by jessestay

I was discussing with a client today about this, and realized I still had not blogged about this yet. Facebook has launched Developer Accounts. Now, no longer do developers have an excuse for errors on their pages, or sites going down because they are working on their production Facebook app, which is their only development environment to work in. Also, no longer do developers have to risk all their work deleted because they opened up a mock Facebook account and Facebook decided to kill it because it wasn’t a real person. I strongly suggest you start using this if you are a Facebook developer.

Twitter’s Application Directory

Posted on by jessestay

A few months ago, Facebook announced they were releasing their platform to all developers via an open API. At the same time, they release an Application Directory indexing and categorizing all of the applications for their platform. I was wondering today if Twitter, who had an open API even before Facebook, had the same thing. It turns out they do, and it’s on the Fan wiki:

http://twitter.pbwiki.com/Apps

Not quite 5000+ like Facebook, but there are quite a number of apps I didn’t know about. What Twitter apps are your favorites?

Supporting School Vouchers the Social Way

Posted on by jessestay

I know a lot of you bloggers out there are pro-school vouchers. If not, blog about it and link to me! Utah is about to have one of the most heated votes in the history of the state, as it gets ready to allow residents to vote for or against School Vouchers. “Referendum 1” it is called, and if you vote for it, you are for school vouchers.

What are school vouchers? Of course the details haven’t fully been worked out yet, but ideally school vouchers allow those sending their children to Private Schools and paying for school out of their own pocket to collect a “voucher”. Ideally, if you to receive a $3000 voucher that voucher would allow the possibility of paying as little as $100/month to send your child to Private school. Suddenly, a lot more people will be able to afford private school, encouraging more private schools to form to take advantage of this, encouraging competition among private schools and public schools alike. Classrooms will be smaller, and as such, education will be better and more focused for the children we care for.

Why are people against school vouchers? A lot of teachers, due to the smaller class sizes in the public schools, will be forced out of their jobs if they aren’t doing a good job. Because of this, the Teacher’s Unions are stepping up to protect those teachers that maybe aren’t cutting it, and are on the chopping block, were school vouchers to be handed out. Teachers would be forced to actually work and compete for their skills – only the best teachers would be able to stay. This sounds great for our kids, doesn’t it? It doesn’t sound so great for the teachers that are at risk, which is why the Teachers Unions are spending so much money to fight against it and tell us it’s “bad for Utah families”.

As bloggers, geeks, and people who understand the digital world, we have a responsibility here. If you are for or against vouchers, you need to speak up. You need to spread the word online and get it out in full force! Only we have such a capability to spread the truth to such a massive audience. We are the social web and we have a responsibility to start the chains to get the word out!

So I’m publishing a few links for you pro-voucher bloggers out there. This affects even those outside Utah. If vouchers succeed, other states in the Union will be looking towards Utah to see how successful they are here. If you are outside Utah, donate to this cause! Here are some links you should share with your friends and sign up for yourselves:

http://www.votefor1.com/ – the official “pro-vouchers” site

http://www.choiceineducation.org/ – Parents for Choice in Education, the supporters of VoteFor1

http://www.utahtaxpayers.org/

http://www.childrenfirstutah.org/

http://www.citizensfortaxfairness.org/x_home.asp

And of course, my Facebook “Causes” cause (join and spread to your Facebook Friends!): http://apps.facebook.com/causes/view_cause/23050?recruiter_id=6882383

So, if you’re a blogger, blog about this! If you’re on Twitter, Twitter your feelings – twitter this blog entry! Jaiku – Jaiku it! Add the Causes app above and send it to all your friends. This affects everyone, and everyone will be affected eventually. We have a responsibility as Social experts and users to utilize these great tools to pass on the word!

Could Google Launch the gPhone November 5?

Posted on by jessestay

Scoble and Mike Arrington have both talked about Google launching “the Social Network of all Social Networks” on November 5. Recently, Google bought the Twitter-like status service Jaiku, which has mobile capabilities of sending updates of what you are doing via cell phone and finding out what your friends are doing. Rumors have also been flying of a gPhone to be released some time soon, perhaps end of this year of beginning of next year.

I’m going to go out on a limb here. Google needs to compete with Facebook – Facebook is definitely a threat. Now here’s the idea – what if Google’s killer social network wasn’t just a web network, but instead centralized on their gPhone, and that was what they were debuting on November 5? Add to that the rumors that they will be opening that platform, that would confirm the idea that their “new” platform would be completely open. I have heard rumors that Google developed Google Maps back in the day, just to be on the cell phone eventually. What if the incorporation of Google Maps, GPS, knowing where you are, and what your friends are doing and where they are, based on cell phone usage Jaiku provides all will be part of Google’s social network of all social networks – the gPhone? Regardless of whether they actually launch the gPhone on November 5 or not, Google’s got a nice piece of competition on their hands as soon as the gPhone is released.