Home - Stay N Alive

2008 – The Year My Life Exploded

Posted on January 1, 2009 by jessestay

One of the reasons I started this blog back in 2004 (I believe it was actually earlier, in various forms) was to enable me to chronicle the intellectual things I came across throughout life. This year has been such an amazing year for me, experiencing the birth of my son (which we Twittered and Ustreamed), the birth of 2 identical twin nieces (which I didn’t document here), to the complete opposite of the spectrum with the death of both my Grandfather, and just recently my Grandmother, whose 85th birthday would have been January 1st, 2009. I have experienced such joys, and at the same time such sorrow, and you all have been there with me every step of the way. I’ve never done the “list” thing before (never had time!), so I thought this year would be different. I thought I’d go through each month and share with you some of the highlights on Stay N’ Alive this year.

January

January was the start of my Twitter woes, with frequent outages and frustration. ChaCha saved my brother due to lack of weather and traffic reports in the area he was traveling. January was the month I created my largest annoyance, coining the technique (which was the first time the idea was mentioned anywhere, I believe) of tagging friends in Facebook Notes to bring attention to them. This technique worked and helped me build relationships with several bloggers I am now friends with today. I now hate the technique because everyone uses it on me. Myspace announced their own developer platform, giving hints to a date OpenSocial would go live. Pownce, which ironically I was a user of long before Twitter, began to show purpose for me. People got confused about what the Facebook Platform was, and the leader of my faith passed away (Death #1).

February

I started February by coining my idea of Social Media bringing back the small communities and villages of olden times. I pointed out the fact that Amazon has its own Social Network (which surprisingly still, not many people are aware of). I took my very first trip to the Bay area, and got an awesome tour of the Googleplex from my cousin, who treated me to one of the best lunches I’ve ever eaten. I wrote my first OpenSocial application, and realized web development had changed as we know it. Back then, Twitter Track over SMS still worked, so I wrote one of the very first posts suggesting Twitter as a tool for disasters and emergencies. Other than for news, I’m not so sure about that any more. I launched OpensocialNow.com, which quickly fizzled as I ran out of time. London had a small, but rare earthquake, and I saw it first on Twitter, on my cell phone, via track. In February I published my first book.

March

March, Facebook introduced their Feed Forms (which we were first to announce), providing a way for developers to easily publish stories to the Facebook news feed. March marked the birth of our 4th child and youngest son, Jesse III, which we Twittered, blogged, and Ustreamed the entire way. We began to see the makings of the first Facebook Worm, which this blog was one of the first to report (and henceforth recorded by Fortiguard security, and then PC Magazine’s blog). Google launched the OpenSocial Foundation, and Yahoo became a member and announced their (future) support for the platform.

April

April I attended my first Web 2.0 Expo in San Francisco. I learned the wonders of the Bloggers Lounge, and met several great new people there. Bungee Labs made some great announcements there, and it was looking up for them as Google announced their App Engine platform and the idea of Software as a Service was put in the public eye. Of course, with layoffs later down the road, things aren’t looking so hot for them right now. April was also a hallmark month, with the launch of SocialToo.com at the end of the month, in a very small announcement, I invited my small audience at the time to join and help build out intelligent blacklisting for the service. It was this time I met Guy Kawasaki and built out the UI on his behalf to enable him and myself to follow those that were following us on Twitter. We didn’t officially launch to the general public until last month. April, I also got to guest post on Guy Kawasaki’s blog.

May

May was an exciting, and somber month at the same time. My former business colleague and friend, Phil Burns’, daughter was diagnosed with Leukemia. Through Twitter and this blog, and others kind efforts of sharing on their blogs, we were able to raise over $10,000 in just a month, all through means of social media. This further witnessed to me the power of Social Media, and makes me truly believe in some of the things people like Beth Kanter are doing right now. In March, I wrote my first 1-word post, in response to another one-word post on TechCrunch, which was in response to Twitter being down for the umpteenth time in a matter of days. That prompted Twitter to blame their outages on Robert Scoble, and Robert Scoble blaming Twitter for their own problems. I took a trip out to Google I/O, and Robert, under last minute circumstances, invited me to join him in going to the Twitter offices and working things out. It was there I met Ev Williams and Biz Stone in person, realized what a mess the service really was, and ended up on the front page of TechCrunch. It was just after that that Twitter continued their classic behavior of cutting out features from the API with little to no notice to developers. It was at the same conference I was able to speak for the Slicon Valley Web Builders on Facebook Development in FBML. April was also the month I began seriously using FriendFeed.

June

June was a somber month for me. It started with Facebook announcing their yearly F8 conference, right in the middle of OSCON, both conferences I was hoping to attend. The most somber part of the month however came when my Grandfather, and namesake, died in a quick turn for the worse due to Cancer and old age. This was a hard thing for me, being one of the closest people I knew to die. It was also death #2 of the year of people I adored. Shortly after that, on my way to the funeral services in fact, I noticed some developers were completely shutting down their apps due to problems with the Twitter API. I predicted they would continue to succeed regardless. The month ended somberly, with Bill Gates, a hero of mine, leaving Microsoft.

July

In July, I got my new 2nd generation iPhone, and realized it needs Privacy controls. I attended Facebook’s F8 conference, where I predicted, and they very quietly announced plans for a mobile platform API. All this occurred as they were announcing the launch of Facebook Connect. Right before F8 I finished my second book. In July I left Twitter, learned some valuable lessons about the service, and ended up coming back a few months later when I realized no one was joining me. SocialToo announced Identi.ca support. July was also the month I began blogging as a member of the team at LouisGray.com. My first post was about none-other than blogging.

August

In August I celebrated my 31st Birthday. OpenMicroblogger launched their competing software to the Laconi.ca Open Source microblogging platform. Twitter launched the ability to track threaded replies in the API, and I began to suggest that the Twitter platform needed a meta tagging language to remove the need for the “@”. Some suggested that the LDS Church was buying Facebook (yeah, I know). We saw history made as the Olympics hit China.

September

September I took a temporary turn to full time work, going to help out i.TV bring their App to the number one spot in the iTunes App store. Since then they have continued their growth, and continue as a client of mine as I build out SocialToo. I launched the first public WordPress plugin for Facebook Connect. WordPress.com passed 4 million blogs. I had an excellent time at BlogWorld in Las Vegas, where I roomed with Louis Gray and met a ton of new people and bloggers (are bloggers people?).

October

In October I announced for the first time I would be voting for a (gasp!) Democrat. i.TV reached #1 in the iTunes App store, and I got to witness it first hand, having a part in their promotion and growth. Facebook reached their 10 billionth photo and we were one of the first to report it. Proposition 8 in California became the center of a love/hate storm. Someone left a suicide note in the Facebook developer forums. SocialToo announced Follower statistics for our users.

November

I spent a lot of November speaking, starting with an O’Reilly Webinar on Facebook development for beginners. America elected our first African American president, and I voted, but had to pay for my Chik Fil A sandwich. I presented to a large group of CIOs in Dallas. SocialToo went live to the public! (and Guy Kawasaki joined forces to help launch it, as co-owner) I presented Facebook Development in under 5 minutes at Ignite Salt Lake City.

December

I started out December participating on several panels. We launched a new redesign on Stay N’ Alive. My family and I took a vacation to Las Vegas. After getting back, just 2 days before Christmas we received disheartening news that my Grandmother had passed away. This would make death #3 of the year, but we’re happy she’s home for Christmas. We ended the month with great news however, announcing Louis Gray joining the Board of Advisors for SocialToo.

Have a safe and Happy New Year!

As I write this, it’s quickly approaching midnight here in the MountainWest. It’s been an incredible year for me and this blog – I can’t wait to see what lies in store for the next year. In the meantime, “Stay” tuned, and keep watching here and LouisGray.com, as well as my new business, SocialToo.com for more great content regarding Technology, Social Networking, and new technologies. I promise to keep things exciting around here, and look forward to the upcoming year. Let’s hope I don’t explode!

Stay N’ Alive Has a New Design!

Posted on December 16, 2008 by jessestay

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.

You’re Invited to the First Utah CoWorking Offices

Posted on December 10, 2008 by jessestay

This Thursday, December 11, I will be speaking on a panel at a Tweetup (that’s Twitter-speak for get-together) in the very first Utah Coworking Office. The offices are located in Orem, Utah, and promise a location where everyone can bring their business, pay a shared fee covering only rental costs, and share the company of others as you and your business gets off the ground. It’s unique of its kind for Utah, and should prove popular amongst many entrepreneurs looking for a place to hunker down while they work.

You’re invited! On December 11 from 6:00pm to 9:00pm they are having a Tweetup at the new Cowork Utah offices. All in Utah are welcome, and as part of the Tweetup, me, @ashbuckles, @newspapergrl, @mollermarketing, and @mickhagen; will discuss Twitter, what it is, why it’s useful, why it isn’t useful, and other topics as you enjoy the company of others at the event.

So come on over for some great company, great food, and a great opportunity to see what the new concept of “Coworking” is bringing to Utah as we participate in this event.

The address for the event is:

383 N. State St., Suite 201 (second floor)
Orem UT

You can download the flyer for the event here.

The New Media/Journalism Panel Friday and My Thoughts

Posted on December 9, 2008 by jessestay

As I said earlier last week, Friday I was on a New Media and Journalism panel with Paul Foy of the AP and Fields Mosley of KUTV Channel 2 news here in Salt Lake. As the blogger of the group, I had a unique opportunity to share some of the new advances in Media. I gained a new perspective on journalism and shared my thoughts over on LouisGray.com (where I regularly blog – subscribe to see more of my posts there!).

Here’s a brief quote:

“As the blogger of the group, I was obviously the least experienced in the field of journalism. I actually felt quite awkward at times feeling they thought I was out of place, and was that “guy who sits in his pajamas in his parents’ basement”. (I actually brought that up, mentioning only half of it was true – I’m actually at Jiffy Lube as I write this, awaiting my car to receive its safety and emissions certification. And yes – I’m dressed.) However, in reality, in a room of PR and marketing professionals in the tech field, they were actually the ones out of place, and I think that became evidently clear as one of the audience members asked who in the audience had published some sort of content about the event we were in during the event. Almost all of the audience, including me, rose their hands. The traditional news reporters were the only ones without their hands raised, further showing the sad state of our news media today.”

Old Media is dead. Read more over on LouisGray.com.

TechCrunch No Longer the #1 Tech Blog

Posted on November 6, 2008 by jessestay

It would appear that in the last 2 days, TechCrunch has again gone down a spot in the Technorati top 100 from #2 to #3. This would put Gizmodo in the #2 spot, making Gizmodo now the #1 Tech Blog on the internet. The #1 spot on Technorati is still held by the Huffington post, a politics blog, and it’s unclear if it will remain that way now that the elections are over.

Technorati results are calculated by number of links in a short time frame, which means that fewer people are linking to TechCrunch these days. Is the internet revolting? FeedBurner shows their reader count still going up (I had to do an archive.org search, and the FeedBurner widget comes up there showing their current count – it’s interesting that they removed that count from their live site however). They hit 1 million readers back in September, and since then they seemed to have gained 300,000 more. Gizmodo has not published their subscriber numbers.

So it goes to show that links, and Technorati results really don’t matter in the end – it’s Readers that count. It’s still interesting however the trends of linking we’re seeing lately. There’s no doubt TechCrunch is still a force to be reckoned with.

Let’s Meet in Person!

Posted on November 4, 2008 by jessestay

The end of this year is turning out to be quite an eventful one for me. This Friday I’ll be doing a free O’Reilly Webinar, “Creating Facebook Applications — A Beginner’s Guide”. The webinar starts at 10:00am PST, and I’ll probably talk for about 30-40 minutes on how to get started in Facebook App development, after which we’ll have a question and answer session where you can ask your own questions about Facebook development. Register now, as attendance is limited! From the registration page:

“In this session you’ll learn how your apps talk to Facebook, how Facebook talks back, where to find the information you need, viral integration points to promote your app, and learn the very basics of creating a fully functional Facebook application. Come and listen in and bring your questions as [I] present this valuable topic towards getting your web apps recognized through the great tools Facebook provides.”

In the meantime, you may purchase my book on Amazon to get a head-start!

November 13, 6pm MST – Ignite Salt Lake City

Next week I’ll be condensing my presentation even more in what ought to be a fun night of fast-paced information, random facts, and hilarious stories at Ignite Salt Lake City. Each presenter is allowed to talk about almost anything – there are just a few rules. Each presenter has 5 minutes, 20 slides, and each slide automatically rotates every 15 seconds. I’ll be doing the impossible and talking about “How to build a Facebook App in 5 minutes”. The free event is sponsored by O’Reilly, and boasts participants such as Josh Coates, CEO of Mozy. O’Reilly does these around the nation, and Salt Lake City is quite lucky to have one of their own. I’m looking for a great evening of informative fun!

November 20 – Global Entrepreneurship Week Utah

Details are still forthcoming, but I’ve been invited to speak at Global Entrepreneurship Week, Utah on the 20th. I’ll share more details as that works out, but mark your calendars!

December 5, 7:30am MST – Utah Technology Council

On December 5, I’ll be on a panel with other traditional media reporters talking to PR and Marketing professionals at the Utah Technology Council. I’ll be “the blogger” of the group, and hope to share some of the ways marketers and PR professionals can get interest from bloggers, and the types of things we like and dislike. I warned them I may have very different opinions than the traditional media reporters there, and they were very open to that – it should be a very fascinating conversation! I’ll share more details about that as I get them as well.

In January I’ll be judging a yet to be disclosed development-related contest that I’m very excited about. The contest will take place in the Bay area, and I’ll be judging entries submitted – I’m really looking forward to this one. It’s fun to see the creative juices of developers and what others can come up within a limited environment.

So, if you’re in the area for any of these (or online for at least one of them), stop on by and say hi! I’d love to see you and welcome any questions or feedback you may bring.

Are You Subscribed to My Link Blog?

Posted on October 20, 2008 by jessestay

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

"Stay" Updated on All my Guest Posts via FriendFeed

Posted on October 8, 2008 by jessestay

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.local/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

Erick Schonfeld Misses the Point – It’s About Quality, Not Quantity!

Posted on October 1, 2008 by jessestay

Last week Erick Shonfeld, a writer for TechCrunch, posted a rather uninspiring article after Technorati released their “State of the Blogosphere” stating that “The More [bloggers] Post, the Higher [they] Rank”. In it, he argued that because a majority of the Top 100 blogs tracked by Technorati post more than 5 times a day, and 43 percent of those post more than 10 times a day, that the quantity of those posts is the reason for those blogs entering the top 100 of Technorati. While perhaps true for some, I argue it may be the means, but definitely not the reason the top 100 are where they are.

On Technorati, Quality Trumps Quantity

Let’s face it – every site in the top 100 in Technorati is there because they have put time into their posts. Sites like TechCrunch and Mashable and ReadWriteWeb employ bloggers to professionally blog for them, giving those bloggers the time and motivation to put effort into the posts they write. They have editors which look over the posts each author writes and those editors add an additional level of quality to the posts that they write. They all started small and have grown to the level they are, enabling them to keep the spots they are at.

Because more time is spent on each post, and these sites are able to crank out many of those quality posts, yes, they get more links in a short amount of time. More people are interested in them. They get the breaking news first because startups and other PR firms know that they generate traffic and buzz. This keeps them interesting.

Quantity Plays a Very Small Part

However, I argue that quantity is not the reason most of these people are in the top 100. The problem with quantity is people get bored of you. When you’re cranking out so many posts a day that people can’t keep up they begin to tune out. Sure, they may still subscribe to your feeds, but they start to reduce your importance in their minds. You get links only because you’re cranking out so many posts in a short amount of time. In fact, I suggest this isn’t healthy for the blogosphere. The blogosphere thrives on being personal and unique, not robotic.

Therefore these blogs may have gotten to where they are because of quality, but that does not mean they are invincible. Posts like Erick’s seem to imply that they are and that the little guy has no way of getting “into the blogging elite”.

It is Possible to Get in the Top 100 and Not Post Every Day!

I was reminded of this point when Chris Brogan very humbly made mention on his blog that he had broken the top 100 blogs on Technorati. While Chris does post almost every day and sometimes more than once, he also skips days at times, and I can tell you that blogging is by far his top priority! Chris writes quality, well-thought out posts that make you think and teach you things. He’s not a news breaker, unless he thinks you can learn from it. People like this, so they link to him. He has become more than just a “blogger”, but a “thought-leader” and example.

Seth Godin is another example. Currently Seth is number 17 on the top 100 of Technorati. He’ll never let you know that, by the way. Seth posts short, thoughtful posts, once a day, which make you think. You feel inspired after reading just the short paragraph or two that he writes. Seth too is considered a thought leader because of this. He could care less about quantity. His quality is what has made his blog.

Robert Scoble is another example. There are days and even weeks he goes without blogging, but when he speaks, he speaks with passion. He tries to inspire, and show you by his actions what the upcoming technologies are. Because of this, lots of people link to him.

Then there’s Guy Kawasaki. Guy’s last post was 2 days ago. He blogs because it’s fun. He blogs because he has something to share, not because of a duty to blog. Guy got in the top 100 naturally, not because of an army of bloggers working for him.

You Can Do it Too!

I’ll be first to admit that I’m not there. True, it would be cool to be there, but frankly, it’s not important. What’s important is that you stop focusing on the robotic nature of blogging just to blog, and blog because you care. Blog because you have something to say, and blog because it makes sense.

It doesn’t matter if you blog 5 times a day, once a day, or even once a week. If you write quality posts, lead in your thoughts and actions, and show that in your writing, others will link to you. Despite what Erick Shonfeld says, don’t listen to him – quality trumps quantity any day, especially with Technorati.

(Image courtesy http://manonl.edublogs.org/2008/04/22/blogging-away/)