jessestay, Author at Stay N Alive - Page 5 of 105

Author: jessestay

Glass Explorer Shares 3D Printable Adapter for Your Prescription Glasses

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I’ve got to admit – I love my Google Glass. A little awkward and geeky looking, yes, but for a geek like me that’s part of the appeal. There’s one thing I don’t like about them though, and that’s that I can’t wear them with my glasses, and I hate wearing contacts. It appears one Google Glass Explorer has fixed that though, and being the geek that you are, you can fix the problem as well, using a torx screw driver and a 3D printer (of course you probably have one of those as well – it’s cheaper than your Google Glass after all).

Thingiverse (the Makerbot community for sharing 3D plans you can download and print yourself) user “DDRBoxman” (Colin Edwards – Follow him on Google+ here) uploaded plans and pictures of a 3D attachment you can attach to your prescription glasses and have the Glass prism and computer there with you, no contact lenses required. The hack requires a simple torx screw driver to remove the main computer and prism from the metal that straps around your head from Google Glass, and then you attach it to the plastic clip, which attaches to your glasses.

There’s no doubt with the simplicity of this hack that we’ll see similar options from Google in the future. But this goes to show you the possibilities that are available when you can print bits to atoms and build whatever you want. I guarantee there will be a secondary market for accessories and attachments like this for Google Glass in the future. I bet Glasses manufacturers get in on the act as well at some point.

The big question now becomes when can I just print my own Google Glass altogether?

If you have a 3D printer, go ahead and print your own prescription Glass “Glass” attachment over on Thingiverse! (Note, Thingiverse seems to be down as I write this – you can find another post in the Glass Community, but you’ll have to wait for Thingiverse to come up to download)

Want Facial Recognition With Google Glass? Use Google+

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In case you haven’t been reading Facebook or Google+ lately, I got my Google Glass Explorer Edition this past week. You can expect me to share much more of my experiences here as I learn about it. One of the most frequently asked feature requests I see surrounding Google Glass is that it would be awesome if it had some sort of facial recognition included. We’re seeing apps like MedRef that make facial recognition (sort of) available for medical professionals, but the question still remains, will we get to have it built in? Well the answer is it’s actually already there – if you turn it on in Google+.

In your Google+ account settings there’s an option to notify you if someone “Shares a photo or video with me that I might be in.” Enable that and even set it to send you an SMS when it happens. When someone takes a picture of you via Google Glass and shares it to Google+, it should notify you. Approve that, and now they know who you are.

Of course, it’s a bit of a hack, and the person you’re taking a picture of must be using Google+ and have this enabled to work, but it is a way to know who you are taking pictures of. So if you get Google Glass (when it’s available to the masses), and you’re taking pictures of people via the device, be sure to share it to Google+. Maybe if you’re lucky they’ll get notified that their picture was taken, approve it, and now you’ll have a tagged picture with their name on it.

It’s definitely not ideal, but this at least does suggest that it wouldn’t be very difficult to make facial recognition a more integrated part of Google Glass. Let’s hope by the time most of you use it you’ll get this functionality by default. In the meantime make sure you’ve got a Google+ account!

Vlog #1 – JJ Talks About Holding the Cat

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While I have certainly shared many videos about my life and my family, I don’t think I’ve ever called it a “vlog”. Let’s make this post the first – I officially call this “Vlog #1”. In today’s Vlog JJ talks about holding our cat #hashtag, and yes, we spell it that way! Enjoy, and please subscribe to our STAYTube channel!:

http://youtube.googleapis.com/v/UMndhIWrp_Y&source=uds

We’ve come a long way – Disqus is Now as big as Youtube

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It seems like just yesterday that Robert Scoble invited me to go with him to visit Disqus Headquarters with their founders Daniel Ha and Jason Yan out at their new offices in San Francisco. They had recently launched their new commenting platform for blogs the year before, and wanted some exposure from the Scobleizer himself (see the interview in 2008 here and here, where I’m in the background – filmed on Qik – remember that?). Just today, Disqus announced 1 billion monthly unique visitors — yes, that’s as big as Youtube!

While other bloggers are calling for the death of RSS, this puts a big dagger right in the heart in any of those claims, with Disqus seemingly at the heart of most blogs these days (and powering the comments on this blog as well). While there are certainly religious wars between the WordPresses and Bloggers and Tumblrs out there, Disqus has managed to remain an unbiased layer that crosses all of these properties. I think if this statistic is real (and knowing Daniel and Jason I believe them), blogging certainly isn’t dead!

If Facebook is the largest social network in the world with 1 billion+ active users (is that the same as monthly uniques?), and Youtube is the second, I’m pretty sure Disqus can claim to be the 3rd (or are they the 2nd, beating Youtube?). The cool thing about Disqus is they’re a social network of blogs and blog readers. In many ways they’ve become a glue that binds together blogs across the web with actual people and conversations between those people.

Disqus certainly has competitors such as Janrain and Gigya at least in terms of the commenting space, but I don’t see these claims coming out of those camps. If there’s a winner in the blog-commenting category Disqus is it. Congratulations to my friends Daniel and Jason in this amazing accomplishment! I’m really surprised more of the big tech blogs aren’t covering this.

Let’s celebrate this by clicking through the link where you’re reading this and commenting via Disqus below!:

On My Own Again – I’m Back in the Saddle

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When I started working for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints with the first role with the title “social” in it (see my sum-up here), I came in with a desire to serve, but only planning to be there for 6 months. I had been on my own for several years at that point and really enjoyed my independence. I had no idea I’d end up there for 3 years, but thoroughly enjoyed the time I spent there and was able to help organize and shape the organization of social media within the Church. I learned of the Spirit there that guides the Church and its employees, and the wonderful things the organization works to accomplish. After that I moved on to Deseret Digital Media, a for-profit, top-25 digital news organization owned by the Church to manage social media.

While at Deseret Digital Media a short but very productive 6 months, we were able to double our social referrals in the short time I was there through means of a combination of integrating social more into our websites and building perhaps one of the largest social presences in the world with over 20 million fans worldwide and over 200 social media properties on a very limited budget. I thoroughly enjoyed my time there and hope to continue advising them in their progress.

It’s with excitement that after working for 3 and a half years for the Church and Church-owned entities I’m now moving on again, this time on my own full time to pursue building my own brand and publishing, speaking and some consulting efforts. Yes, I’m back in the saddle again and stronger than ever! I have no regrets and appreciate the experience the last 3 and a half years have given me.

What will I be focusing on now? My primary focus to start will be speeding up the number of courses I’ve been producing on Social Media for the the developer-focused curriculum company, Pluralsight. They’re a great organization to work with, and it allows me to keep up my software-development chops. Make sure you subscribe now and check out my courses with them! I’ll probably use this to get down and code a few things – maybe something cool for my new Google Glass (just ordered yesterday!)?

With that as my focus, I’m sure I’ll have lots of spare time. Here are the things I’d love to work on:

  • Speaking! I’m hoping to bump up my number of speaking engagements and turning that much more into a business. Contact me if you’re looking to hire a good speaker with real-world experience and true understanding of both the technical and marketing side of social media.
  • My next book. I have secured a wonderful agent with Waterside Literary Agents to represent what I hope will be a best-selling book on the paradigm change caused by social media and the things I’ve learned leading social media for major organizations as well as understanding the software behind them. Stay tuned for that (and any interested publishers please contact me!)
  • Youtube. I have 3 channels I’m focusing on currently, but will likely help out a few locals here in Utah on some more. My first is more of a vlog format chronicling my entertaining family of 8 – go subscribe to STAYTube here! Second, I’ll be focusing on my more techy-focused Youtube channel at TheSocialGeek – don’t forget to subscribe if you like tech! Lastly, I really want to chronicle what I’m learning in Gardening on my GeekGreens Youtube channel. Make sure to subscribe if you’re looking for geeky ways to learn gardening.
  • Blogging! I miss updating this blog regularly! I used to update almost daily – I hope to do it again. Stay tuned for more updates here, and maybe every so often I can scoop MG Siegler on a Techmeme headline or two 😉 I’d also love to do more reviews here and through my Youtube channel – if you’re a tech company looking to reach tens of thousands of people send me your stuff to review. I’d love to share my thoughts and opinions with my audience.
  • Consulting. I’m going to be picky in my consulting due to the time it takes – this will not be my primary income source so I want to help companies that really need me. However, I’d still love to give it a try – reach out if you need some help and maybe we can figure something out.
I’m so excited to have a little more time to focus again on what I love most – building, writing, and producing really cool stuff that can change the world! I’m excited to get back to writing and coding. I’m excited to share my real-world experience with more people. I’m excited to focus again on building this audience.
So if you get a chance, stick around and say hi. Let me know how we can work together. Come join my various communities and be a part of something big. You’re all part of the Staymates/Social Geek community (join us on Facebook!) so let’s make the most out of this!

The Death of Google Reader: Did Email Kill the RSS Star?

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Alas, the day has come. We knew it was coming and we were all just digging in our heels waiting for the day. I admit I’m not as mad as before, as the dust has settled off since they killed sharing and replaced it with a very limited Google+ sharing feature (on top of the “send to” feature that was there before). At the same time we see other “social networks” of Google’s (Youtube) hitting over a billion active users. Compared to that, Google Reader was minuscule.

With all that though, there’s no doubt to those of us, the most devoted and perhaps heaviest users of Google Reader (I saw some stats that I promised not to share that suggested before Google Reader killed sharing I had some of the highest numbers of shares on the site), will miss the service. Like, a lot. So much that you see all of us bloggers that depended on its superior interface (which works best in Ninja Mode, btw) screaming from the house tops like little children. Many are even screaming that the death of Google Reader is the death of RSS and the beginning (or end?) of the death of “open”. Truthfully, there is nothing else out there like it and most of us don’t know what we’re going to do.

With all that I can’t help but wonder if the paradigm has just shifted. Users have spoken. While RSS is great for B2B applications of sharing information and likely won’t go away, from a consumer perspective I think email has won this battle. If your site, which previously had a “subscribe via RSS” button on it doesn’t also have a “subscribe by email” button, it probably should. It is evident to me that while many are searching for a new RSS reader that the answer for many trying to guarantee delivery of content will actually be email. In many ways Google Reader is forcing many of us to simplify.

The advantage RSS gave us is that for every site that implemented it it gave more than just a way for Google Reader users to subscribe and get updates one-by-one with their “j” and “k” buttons on their keyboards. It gave every user on the web a way to consumer information any way they wanted. And for that, I’m sad. Google Reader was the last straw, supported by a great brand that made it official.

As much as I hate it, I’m afraid we’re headed towards the death of open ways to consume information. Every website is being forced to create their own APIs for accessing information, and there is now no good reason to use a common standard as simple as RSS to allow consumers to consume information on your site.

There will be a day when we all look back and remember “the roaring 90s/00s” where anyone could consume any data they wanted on the web. The problem is businesses found easier ways to make money and RSS never found a way to fight back.

I hope I’m wrong. I hope RSS makes a come-back. If not, I hope some other standard comes available that makes the web a more open and connected place again. I hope big businesses like Google and Facebook and Microsoft will fight for that and provide solutions to make these things more widely available. Thus far they have let me down though.

With the death of Google Reader, a little piece of me dies. But with it, another open standard, email, replaces its stead. My hope is that even while RSS is not as important as it used to be, we continue to see businesses and organizations and websites and mobile apps provide means to allow consumers to consume information, at a minimum, through the open standard of email.

Until then, I’m going down with the ship. I’m not giving up, and we’ll find a solution that fixes this big mess we’re in right now.

"The Chappys": How a Utah Construction Manager Built His Own Trending Awards Show on Twitter

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I’ve talked before about how growing a Twitter audience is simple. It turns out it’s even more simple than I thought – The Deseret News (owned by the company I work for) wrote today about a local Utah construction manager who created his own Twitter awards show called “The Chappy Awards”. In his “virtual award show” Dustin Chapman awarded various celebrities and media “Chappy Awards” on Twitter, and before he knew it, #2013Chappys was a trending term on Twitter and hundreds were all getting in on the fun.

Chapman, who created the awards show to (according to the Deseret News) “encourage the media. When something happens, I’m on Twitter following reaction. I’m more likely to turn to news stations and media sources that post things regularly on Twitter than not.”

And encourage the media he did. Awarding several local news celebrities a Chappy Award, he got numerous positive reactions from the award out of excitement (hey – who doesn’t like to win something?). They posted to their Twitter feeds their excitement for the award, and their some times much larger audiences would then learn about the Chappy Award and Chapman’s account @itschappy in the process. His Twitter account grew significantly throughout the day.

So if you’re looking for more followers on Twitter, start your own awards show. Create a hashtag, pick some well-known people, and boom-instant followers as they thank you for your kind gesture.

Some day I too will win a Chappy…

Check out the Deseret News article by Landon Hemsley here!

Adobe Disrupts Enterprise Collaboration With New Tool for Marketers

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Enterprise collaboration is quickly becoming the future of communication within the enterprise. Using tools like Yammer, employees have been able to collaborate between themselves on internal “social networks” where links, photos, and information could be shared. Now we see tools like SalesForce Chatter which attempt to turn employee communication and collaboration into measurable results. Enterprise collaboration is evolving from simple “watercooler”-type chatter to results-focused communication and collaboration.  Today Adobe took that further at their Digital Marketing Summit with their new UI for Adobe Marketing Cloud, which focuses on marketing-related collaboration between departments in enterprise organizations.

The entire interface of Adobe Marketing Cloud has been revamped to a very Pinterest-like interface allowing creatives, marketers, and analysts in the organization to all communicate together and come to results-driven design of each product within the organization. The entire design is focused on combining the best features of Adobe’s Creative and Marketing Cloud products to allow creative professionals to play a part in real results for their organization.

Creative professionals can create designs right inside the Adobe creative products like Photoshop, and have their designs shared right to Marketing Cloud for the marketing organization to review, provide feedback, and send back to the creative employees for revision. Both creatives and marketers in the organization can all review new data in a Pinterest-like “feed” within Adobe Marketing Cloud, comment, make annotations, and collaborate around everything shared on the platform.

Not only can creative elements be shared, but analytics and other elements of the Adobe marketing suite of products can be shared as well. Charts, graphs, analytics, and other points all have “share” buttons now that allow professionals in the organization share into the Marketing Cloud feed for further collaboration. Each new element appears as a card in the feed for employees to collaborate.

Enterprise collaboration just took a new turn as it took even stronger and more focused growth through Adobe’s launch today. The product is expensive, and will likely only be affordable by larger organizations, but for those that can afford it, the opportunities are endless.

The Power of Starting Something Stupid [Book Review]

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In my life, I have a rich dad and a poor dad (see Robert Kiyosaki). My poor dad is always keen to tell me that going out on my own and running my own business is “stupid”, risky, and a bad decision. My rich dad tells me it’s the most secure and rewarding decision I can make. Which one is it? The book, “The Power of Starting Something Stupid: How to Crush Fear, Make Dreams Happen, and Live Without Regret” attempts to answer that with a pep-talk, showing how “stupid” is the new smart.

If you’re an aspiring entrepreneur that has a rich dad and a poor dad like me, there’s a good chance you’re going through the very same debates I did before going out on my own. While I must say there are definitely risks and a lot of work that goes into it, going out on my own was one of the best decisions I made in my life. The book, “The Power of Starting Something Stupid“, by Richie Norton goes into these rewards in deep detail, and has lots of motivation to push you towards taking that leap and going out on your own.

It is not a howto book per-se. However, I found the principles taught in the book were a perfect “pep-talk” for reminding me why making decisions others call stupid isn’t worth listing to those distracting me from my goals. In the book, it shows how some of the best ideas and businesses were called “stupid” before they became multi-million (and some times billion) dollar businesses.

If you’re looking for some inspiration to get off your rear and go out on your own, this book shows you why stupid is the new smart. It’s the perfect pep-talk for any aspiring entrepreneur. Go pre-order it now, and check out my GoodReads review! It is scheduled to come out in March.