Technology – Page 3 – Stay N Alive

Category: Technology

In the Internet of Things, the Server in Your Pocket Fills the Room

Posted on by jessestay

I’m going to go on record – the name “server” is going extinct. From servers that filled up entire rooms and buildings to just add simple numbers, we have evolved into a world where I can store a server in the closet of my office to do things like stream TV to the Xboxes in each room of my house. And with the Cloud, I don’t even have to do that. My Nest, my Fitbit, my Sonos, and other devices all use the Cloud to access the internet and sync with each other. But now with Google Glass and wearable computing I’m finding we’re moving to a new type of Server — the server in your pocket called your phone.

For the last several years if you wanted your portable devices to connect to the internet they needed to each have their own SIM card and Cellphone contract. With the many devices in our lives, that prices adds up more and more as I add a Kindle and/or a Nexus 7 for my 6 kids, an iPad for me and my wife, smartphones, and things like Chromebook and other similar devices that use cell connections to get internet. There’s a better way to do it and I think Google Glass is headed there – it’s through the server in your pocket.

Glass decided to take an approach that doesn’t use a cell connection or SIM card to get internet access. Instead, it uses either the bluetooth or WiFi tethering of your phone to get to the internet. It’s not perfect, nor is it ideal, and in fact I see it as one of the biggest complaints amongst users of the device. However, I think that’s a cultural issue that is going to change.

As I head out places now with Google Glass, there’s a process I go through. I check the battery on my phone and my Glass, make sure I have a backup battery, and then I turn on the Wireless Hotspot on my Samsung Galaxy S3 because it doesn’t support Bluetooth tethering. It’s not ideal, but you can see how just a few tweaks to the phone and a recognition that the phone is now the center of all devices around it will fix these issues. I can really see where Google is going with this.

I think you’ll see companies like Google and Apple improve your phone as not just another device on your home network, but the device that powers all of the “things” around you. You’ll see bluetooth profiles emerge where multiple devices can all connect to your phone at once and use the connection. You’ll see automatic awareness of the devices your phone is familiar with, without any user intervention. You’ll see better battery life and I bet you’ll rarely even take your phone out of your pocket, unless you need to truly draw or type something you just can’t speak out loud.

I’ve touched lightly on this subject before with the release of the iPad and integration of Airplay between Apple devices back in 2010 – we’re moving into a world where you’ll have many types of monitors that will automatically sync with your phone. One could be Google Glass. One could be the monitor on your desk. Another could be an iPad or tablet device. Others could be the windows on your car. Or how about Billboards on the side of the road? Or what about syncing with your brain waves and sending you signals with no monitor at all? Believe it or not, we’re almost there. Your phone will be your personal “server” and everything around you will automatically become aware of the presence of your phone.

To do this, Google needs to start improving the Android experience to do this – I expect they’re headed that direction. Apple does too. In the meantime, start practicing getting the word “server” out of your vocabulary – you are the server now.

The future is here.

Want Facial Recognition With Google Glass? Use Google+

Posted on by jessestay

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!

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

Posted on by jessestay

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

Posted on by jessestay

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?

Posted on by jessestay

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

Posted on by jessestay

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

Posted on by jessestay

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]

Posted on by jessestay

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.

The Microsoft Surface’s Beauty is Only "Surface Deep"

Posted on by jessestay

As a long-time Microsoft fan (my first computers were all PCs), and with all my excitement about Windows 8, I was very excited about the Microsoft Surface. In fact, I was so excited that despite Press not getting complimentary Surface tablets (or even trial ones) at Microsoft’s recent Windows Build conference, I went out and bought my own. With all the hype Microsoft was giving it – run all your Windows apps across every Microsoft device, in a beautiful, comfortable environment – I was anxious to try it out! It took a few days, but despite my initial excitement, today I returned my Microsoft Surface RT and will not consider a new one until I’m confident they fix a few things.

The Pros

When I first opened my Surface, it was a  beautiful experience. From the Microsoft Store here in Bellevue, Washington (the busiest I’ve ever seen a Microsoft Store), to the packaging of the product, to the shiny, beautiful hardware that Microsoft had created with the Surface RT. Then, you turn it on. It has beautiful fonts. Beautiful colors. A bright, shiny beautiful screen that draws you in. It’s not the Windows you grew up with.

Installation was a little slow, but I anticipate that’s the Windows experience loading all the information it has on you in SkyDrive, as well as any new updates that may have loaded since it first launched (oddly, after 1 week from their launch, even after it first booted up, I still had 4 new updates in Windows Update to apply). All that was okay though because the interface was just beautiful. It is by far Microsoft’s most beautiful device and operating system to date.

My initial impressions were pretty good. In fact, they lasted for a day or two after first opening it. This device really takes several days to really do a good review. The biggest excitement for me was the ability to be able to run Microsoft Office – on a tablet! As a writer, my publisher has specific templates I have to use for my writing, but some times I like to just sit in front of my TV, or maybe even the beach in Hawaii, and write in places that aren’t always convenient for a laptop. Having a fully functional Microsoft Office was very exciting for me!

Then there is the SkyDrive integration. I was able to integrate all my favorite social networks, all built into the operating system, and have SkyDrive remember the authorization for each. Then, under the “People” tile, it would show me the updates from my friends and I could respond right from the OS, no other app to install! The thing is this thing almost doesn’t need a Facebook app (Facebook hasn’t shown interest yet in building a Windows 8 app) – it’s built into the operating system!

In addition, I could pull in my photos from Facebook and Flickr and elsewhere and load those, right inside the OS. When I need a photo for a blog post? Facebook and Flickr now become options on top of the other folders on the drive. It all integrates seamlessly and smoothly into the operating system.

The touch keyboard turned out to be very nice. I was a little worried at first, but as I got used to it I started to realize I can actually type faster on the touch keyboard than I can on my laptop or a traditional spring keyboard (Microsoft sells those as well) because my fingers don’t have to go down as far and I don’t have to press as hard. I don’t know how that works ergonomically, but I could definitely type faster, once I got used to where the keys were.

Here’s why I’m selling it

There were a few other features (Microsoft Music is pretty cool, for instance), but that’s where it ended. The thing is, with the exception of the touch keyboard, all of these are Windows 8 core features anyway – none of them are very unique to the Surface itself. And Windows 8 is still pretty cool! The Surface however, I soon found, would lag as I typed. It was slow. Very slow, and it didn’t take much to achieve that.

I found that something as simple as using Google Reader, as I hit the “j” and “k” keys on my keyboard to go back and forward through items, it would go quickly at first, but then after I went through about 20 or so items on the page (I read hundreds of news feeds a day – follow Twitter.com/Jesse to see my shares from that) it would slow down, considerably, to the point that it wasn’t even usable.

I noticed this on other websites as well. I also noticed it within various apps, such as browsing through photos, or watching videos. Microsoft Office tends to lag. Mail doesn’t respond well.

I really wanted to like it. I really did like it for many reasons on the surface. However, when it comes to what lies beneath – the hardware, I’m afraid Microsoft put this operating system on a piece of hardware that just isn’t powerful enough to power it. Microsoft launched this thing too early – period.

On a $200 or $300 tablet, I would likely forgive these things. For the UI itself, it’s worth keeping at that price. But at the $700 price point for the 64GB version I purchased, Microsoft should do better. They’re trying to compare themselves to Apple at that price point, and have specifically done so in their demonstrations and advertising. If you’re going to compare yourself to Apple, your entire experience needs to work together fluidly, fast, and smoothly. Unfortunately, with Microsoft, it’s not what’s on the Surface that counts – they’ve got to be paying attention to how fast it can run.

Will I buy one later? I want to see if Microsoft fixes these slowness issues. They can do this with both operating system updates and through perhaps the upgrade of the Surface Pro, which should run on a faster processor (scheduled to come out in January). I may give it a try then. Until then, Microsoft has lost my trust with this one – I feel they tricked me. And with that, it’s going to take some effort to gain my trust back again.

Maybe they can try installing some of these to make it go faster?

Photo courtesy Justin Allen.

You can also see I’m not the only one with this experience:

Chris Pirillo’s review: http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=gQhhtvuZwVg
TechCrunch’s review: http://techcrunch.com/2012/11/01/microsoft-surface-rt-the-sad-treadmill-of-overhyped-expectations/