jessestay, Author at Stay N Alive - Page 82 of 105

Author: jessestay

Cha Cha Saved My Brother – Why I’m a Believer

Posted on by jessestay

ChaCha LogoA few weeks ago, I met at a Tweetup with Justin Keller from ChaCha.com and a few others that were in town visiting for Sundance.  He gave me a cool, free scarf with the Cha Cha and Sundance Logos on it.  It was my first official “Sundance Swag”.   That was also my first introduction to Cha Cha, and from then on I heard a lot of cool things on Twitter about Cha Cha, and lots of celebrities up in Sundance that were loving it.

Today, that meetup had meaning when my brother called me from I-40 in New Mexico on his way to Las Vegas, between Gallup and Albuquerque saying he was stranded.  He wanted to know why traffic was at a standstill on what would usually be a pretty vacant Road (it is in the middle of the desert!).  I checked Google, couldn’t find any traffic info for that area.  Then I checked Google Maps to look at the traffic, and no traffic showed for the area.  I checked accuweather.com and weather.com to see if it might be weather, but couldn’t see any evidence.

Then I remembered Cha Cha had a “Human Powered” search engine.  I sent a question to “242242” (CHACHA on your cell phone) via text message on my iPhone asking why my brother was at a standstill.  Within just a couple minutes I received a response saying they were cleaning up after near white-out conditions, and to wait out until they cleared up the roads.  A link was attached, which also told me there were several accidents ahead and the road was closed (I love my iPhone’s browser!).  I quickly called my brother and told him the details so he could decide to find the nearest hotel and wait it out.

Cha Cha in this case saved my brother from a pretty tough situation!  Consider Cha Cha your personal, real life social, search engine for your cell phone – you send it a text message, a human “guide” that gets paid $.20 per transaction sends you your answer back, with a link to the source(s).  There is also a web version, which takes you to a chat box where you can ask a live person your question.  I had worse results with that – the person just returned a bunch of vague links with no real answer.

Regardless of my one bad experience, I have now added 242242 to my cell phone contacts list.  It will be my new friend when I need to find things on the go.  Don’t forget to add it to your contacts!

Better Blog Visibility With Facebook Notes Tagging

Posted on by jessestay

On FacebookAdvice.com (the official blog for the book, “I’m On Facebook — Now What???”), I go over how you can use Facebook Notes tagging to get the attention of those with larger networks in Facebook. This is my first time using video, so be light on me! I see a lot of potential for using video in this manner, so expect more! Click here to read more on FacebookAdvice.com.

MySpace Announces Developer Platform, OpenSocial to Leave Beta Feb. 5?

Posted on by jessestay

Myspace developer platformTonight, MySpace released a signup to enter their development platform. Mashable is reporting that the Platform will go live February 5, and will support OpenSocial from day 1. The MySpace Platform is also rumored to provide revenue sharing options for developers, perhaps providing a solution to the ad sharing networks becoming so rampant on Facebook today.

However, I think the really big news is that MySpace is talking about actually launching their platform on February 5. I have yet to hear that it will be a beta like all the other networks currently. OpenSocial is currently at version 0.7, so that means they are nearing production. Does this mean OpenSocial will officially be out of beta by February 5? I think this could very well be the case, and possibly the reason for MySpace’s late entry – expect this to happen very soon.

Prologue – OpenSocial for Twitter

Posted on by jessestay

Just today, Matt Mullenweg, founding developer and owner of Automattic, announced a new, open source, theme for WordPress called Prologue. The theme essentially turns your blog into a “mini-Twitter”, with a “Whatcha up to?” text box at the top where your users can post what they are currently doing. This is an excellent way to build community on a site, just for your own users – it will be interesting, as cell phone networks open up, to see if there will be ways to integrate “mini-communities” such as this onto users’ cell phones. I also anticipate someone writing some sort of Twitter plugin that integrates with this theme, and I’d love to figure out a way to use this theme in conjunction with my current theme so I can add this as a link to my current blog.

The theme has been released as Open Source, completely free, under the GPL. The release of this reminds me very much of Google’s OpenSocial initiative, of which they are releasing platform code, very similar to the way Facebook’s platform works (Facebook is a very closed platform currently), for anyone and everyone to load onto their own blogs as they wish. Basically, you can “create your own Twitter” with this code they are releasing!

Joseph Scott, a very good friend of mine, was one of the writers of this and he’s going to give me a demo this Thursday – I’ll post a video of it when I’m done (unless someone wants to buy me an N95, which I’ll post live via Qik.com!). Matt Mullenweg will also be in town this Saturday and meeting with local bloggers and social media advocates – if I can make it work, I may try some video of that as well.

A Very Social Farewell to Gordon B. Hinckley, President and Prophet of the Mormon Church

Posted on by jessestay

hinckley_medium-6150815Tonight at 7:00 pm Gordon B. Hinckley, President and Prophet of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, passed away in the company of loved ones. President Hinckley was 97 at his passing. I’ve been alive through the death of a few LDS prophets, but never has the death of one President hit the world with such force as this one. I heard of the news first through Twitter, then through the Phone, then the TV, and soon the Internet was ablaze with tributes to President Hinckley. This has been so amazing to watch! I’ve seen at least 5 Facebook Groups created, and even created an Event of my own in memorial of his death. On Twitter, I’ve tracked the term, “Hinckley”, and was already tracking the term, “Mormon”. My cell phone has been going nuts all night! The Twitter and Facebook responses themselves have been tribute enough. President Hinckley truly led a worldwide church, and spoke to a worldwide audience, something very different from previous Presidents of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. President Hinkley – we will truly miss you!

An official statement of his passing can be found at:

http://newsroom.lds.org/ldsnewsroom/eng/news-releases-stories/beloved-church-president-gordon-b-hinckley-dies-at-97

UPDATE: btw, this article is at 130 Diggs, and still hasn’t made the front page of Digg!  Is this due to the algorithm change?

Why Facebook Did *Not* Release Their Platform Last Night

Posted on by jessestay

It’s all over the web right now that Facebook supposedly “released their platform last night”. I want to clarify the situation – Facebook did not release their platform last night! What Facebook did release, as the title of their announcement states, is a Javascript Client API library for Facebook.

First, let’s discuss what a platform is. A platform is simply this – an interface to a major website or operating system, of which Software Developers can write their own software for. Back in May, Facebook opened their platform for developers. They have also announced plans to license their platform to third party websites at one point in the future. However, after last nights release of a javascript library, I still do not have the capability to let other Facebook developers write applications, using the same architecture (think Bebo) as Facebook on my own website.

What Facebook released last night is simply a client-based API (that loads into the user’s memory) which has access to access Facebook Data for an application that already exists on Facebook’s systems. I am still tied to Facebook with this, it requires an application API key like all other APIs, and nothing has changed. In fact, the Javascript library is even more limited than the other, server-side APIs, in that I cannot upload Photos with the Javascript library like I can, say, in PHP or Perl.

What you can do is have access to an existing application on Facebook’s servers, and tie your external website to that application. This has always been the case with the Facebook API, and will continue to be in the future. iLike uses this with their iTunes application. We’re Related uses this in their registration process on the FamilyLink.com site. It’s just you can now do it in Javascript.

I was going to blog on this last night when the announcement came out, but the announcement last night does mean something significant. It means Facebook is starting to compete with OpenSocial. OpenSocial, a javascript-based library currently, gives you access to a library of friends on a single social network, only requiring static html to access that API, just like Facebook’s new API library does. What OpenSocial has that Facebook doesn’t however, is what they term the “Apache Shindig Project”. Shindig is a truly open platform, which does allow you to allow your own users to create their own apps on your site only, and even share them with other Shindig-supported websites.

I repeat – Facebook is not there yet! The announcement last night means Facebook is closer to competing with OpenSocial, but they are still just as closed as they have always been.

Pownce – Why it May be Worth Considering

Posted on by jessestay

I’m very surprised that Twitter is not trying to compete with Pownce. As some of you may know, Pownce recently went out of beta, and opened their platform to anyone interested in joining. For awhile, I wasn’t much of a proponent for Pownce, but just recently, I’ve decided to give Pownce a try and see if it could be a good alternative to Twitter.

The last time I tried Pownce, I was unaware of Twitter – to me, Pownce just didn’t make sense at the time. Why would anyone need another way of sharing things with their friends? Isn’t that what a chat client is for?

It wasn’t until today, when I wanted a way to share a song my brother’s band did with friends, I realized Twitter just didn’t fulfill my need. You see, with anything but text updates, you have to go to an external website, upload the file, then post an external link to that file, photo, or video for others to see.

Pownce took care of that issue for me. With one integrated client, I was able to upload the file I wanted to share, and boom – it was available to all my friends to not only click, but play directly from the Pownce client! Not only that, but I opened up http://m.pownce.com on my iPhone, and I was able to play it right on my iPhone, without having to download the file! Pownce supports most file types, as well as links, and events, as well as plain status updates like Twitter.

The other thing that I thought I may complain about, which Pownce has, is ads. Because Pownce supplies users with its own client (they do have an API – I’m sure there will be other clients available in the future), they are able to provide users with inline ads, separate from their updates, right in the client. Honestly, I kind of feel this is somewhat comforting – from these I know my update service has an actual revenue model. There’s organization among the chaos, and I know my update client will be around for awhile longer. We complain when there are ads, but honestly, I think this is a flaw that will catch up with Twitter – the unknowns of how Twitter will make money are making the community ask questions.

So, now that I’m on Pownce will I move away from Twitter? For now, no – Pownce needs an SMS option before I completely switch. There’s something to say about having my phone make an SMS sound every time I get an @ reply or a direct message. Also, Pownce does not yet support tracking – this is an extremely valuable tool on Twitter! I also have a great network on Twitter. For now, I can see myself having both Pownce, and Twitter open – I’m really hoping the missing features of Pownce are taken care of, and my network also gradually moves over so I can take advantage of this great service! You can find me on Pownce at:

http://www.pownce.com/jessestay

Next Utah Social Media Developers Garage Meeting: February 2nd

Posted on by jessestay

I have learned from Joseph Scott (a local developer at Automattic, the owners of WordPress) that Matt Mullenweg, the founding developer of WordPress will be in town on February 2nd. Originally we were going to plan on the next Utah SMDev meeting being February 12th, but due to Matt’s appearance, we’re going to join other interested bloggers and developers on February 2nd at the Taj India at 12pm. A Facebook event will be created, but please also be sure to RSVP at the official event page here. Again, here are the details:

Date: Saturday, February 2, 2008
Time: 12:00 PM (noon)
RSVP: at Upcoming Event Page
Place:
Taj India Restaurant
3540 South State St
Salt Lake City, Utah 84115

Taj India has Wi-Fi so bring your laptops and be ready for a great time! Our next meeting will be the second Tuesday in April (April 8). I’ll announce that again here as plans are solidified.

UPDATE: I previously said the meeting was February 5th – that is INCORRECT. The correct date is February 2nd, so be sure your calendars are correct!

Social Media at Sundance

Posted on by jessestay

On Friday as I attended a few talks of the University Venture Summit, during which I met quite a few people that use Twitter.  Amazingly, I think Twitter is really starting to become the communications medium for Entrepreneurs.  I t may be catching on a little more in the Geek and development community lately, but with as strong of a networking potential as it provides, I believe the Entrepreneurs have grasped it much faster than the rest of the world.

As I followed a few of these new visitors to Utah, I started to notice some of them were using a new term, prefacing “sundance” with #, seeming to direct their Tweets to those at Sundance.  In IRC world (I often term Twitter as IRC 2.0), #sundance would mean the sundance channel.  So I decided to track the term “sundance” on Twitter as the Sundance festival went on in Utah last weekend and throughout this week.  Wow what a new view of Sundance I received!

I soon learned of a Tweetup some of those at Sundance were having.  I decided it might be worth driving up to Park City to meet some of the non-Utah Twitters visiting town, so I drove up with Charlie Oliver (@charlieoliver on Twitter) to see what all the hype was.  It was there that I met with Sperling Reich (@sperling on Twitter), Justin Keller (@justinkeller on Twitter), and Colleen Coplick (@colleencoplick on Twitter).  Justin works for Cha Cha, a social search service very similar to Mahalo.  They were handling a service as a sponsor of the Sundance Film Festival which helped visitors, tourists, and Stars figure out what’s going on, where to find things in town, and more.  I heard someone Twitter this week that Quintin Terantino is in love with their service after this week!  Colleen is a Social Media Consultant and PR expert, and she was doing photography and PR for the festival.  Sperling is working on a new site (sorry Sperling – don’t remember all the details!) of some sort which tracks screenplays behind films, along with other film-type technology.

Over the weekend and during this week, through Twitter, I’ve learned that there was a Facebook Party, a MySpace party, a MySpace cafe (I heard over Twitter they give good swag!), and a few others like that.  I heard where Seal was.  I heard where several other stars were hanging out.  I heard how people up in Sundance were taking the death of Heath Ledger.

I’ve never seen so much from a birds eye view of the festival!  It’s amazing the role that Social Media is taking in these festivals and conferences.  I must try to track the places I’m in or near from here on out on Twitter.  I will definitely be going to the Festival and be more involved in it next year after this – the Sundance Film festival is now truly a “Social” event!  Now, I want to know why Twitter (the company) didn’t have a presence there!  Their users certainly were.

WordPress “Socialize Me!” Plugin Connects Your Blog

Posted on by jessestay

I’ve recently been looking for better ways to connect my blog into the social sphere.  I feel the easier my readers can connect with me, talk with me, ask questions, etc., the more personal my blog becomes.  You’ll notice I’ve added some pretty little icons to the right that show the networks I belong to and, if you’re on them, you can meet me there.  I will be adding more as I create new icons.

Today I came across a nifty new WordPress plugin from the guys at blah, blah! technology called Socialize Me!.  Socialize Me! collects your user names and profile urls from about 20 to 30 different social networks, and then detects if the users visiting your WordPress blog belong to those social networks.  If so, with some code you insert into your WordPress template, a message appears to those users notifying them that you also belong to their social network, inviting them to come visit you.

I have thus far been unsuccessful in testing this – I can’t tell if it’s because I already belong to the social networks, or if I’ve entered in the wrong information.  If you visit the Stay N’ Alive blog and see a message inviting you to visit me on any of my social networks, please let me know in the comments below.  You can try the plugin yourself at:

 http://www.blahblahtech.com/2008/01/wordpress-plugin-socialize-me.html