Chris Bucchere's Temple of Ego

bucchere: Tonight: homemade Thai spicy beef salad! "Salad" should really be in quotes on this dish. #nomnom

Sun, 29 Nov 2009 16:08:16 -0800

bucchere: Tonight: homemade Thai spicy beef salad! "Salad" should really be in quotes on this dish. #nomnom

bucchere: The Grandsons in their yearly day-after Thanksgiving tradition! #thankfulfor http://yfrog.com/4inydj

Fri, 27 Nov 2009 19:06:43 -0800

bucchere: The Grandsons in their yearly day-after Thanksgiving tradition! #thankfulfor http://yfrog.com/4inydj

bucchere: Grandsons show! (@ Barns of Wolf Trap in Vienna) http://bit.ly/5vOS3h

Fri, 27 Nov 2009 16:55:23 -0800

bucchere: Grandsons show! (@ Barns of Wolf Trap in Vienna) http://bit.ly/5vOS3h

bucchere: Sambuca and espresso -- a match made in heaven! #nomnom http://yfrog.com/3lqernj

Fri, 27 Nov 2009 16:10:32 -0800

bucchere: Sambuca and espresso -- a match made in heaven! #nomnom http://yfrog.com/3lqernj

bucchere: I'm at Me Jana (2300 Wilson, Arlington). http://bit.ly/6BZ9E7

Fri, 27 Nov 2009 15:40:09 -0800

bucchere: I'm at Me Jana (2300 Wilson, Arlington). http://bit.ly/6BZ9E7

bucchere: I'm at Whole Foods - Clarendon (2700 Wilson Blvd, N. Danville Street, Arlington). http://bit.ly/mmVCH

Fri, 27 Nov 2009 09:38:56 -0800

bucchere: I'm at Whole Foods - Clarendon (2700 Wilson Blvd, N. Danville Street, Arlington). http://bit.ly/mmVCH

bucchere: I'm #thankfulfor my amazing @nowgetsocial and @crowdcampaign team: @mbuckbee @clintonbon @pbee

Thu, 26 Nov 2009 16:29:24 -0800

bucchere: I'm #thankfulfor my amazing @nowgetsocial and @crowdcampaign team: @mbuckbee @clintonbon @pbee

bucchere: 1,591 people and I did today's #dogood [Give thanks today] http://dogoodmovement.com

Thu, 26 Nov 2009 14:31:41 -0800

bucchere: 1,591 people and I did today's #dogood [Give thanks today] http://dogoodmovement.com

bucchere: Happy Thanksgiving to you! If you aren't in the US, today is a great day to make friends with an American. (via @hmason)

Thu, 26 Nov 2009 12:02:59 -0800

bucchere: Happy Thanksgiving to you! If you aren't in the US, today is a great day to make friends with an American. (via @hmason)

bucchere: So proud to see Carla on National TV choreographing lindyhop routines for #SYTYCD http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AGSKj4y8rVw

Thu, 26 Nov 2009 08:48:49 -0800

bucchere: So proud to see Carla on National TV choreographing lindyhop routines for #SYTYCD http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AGSKj4y8rVw

bucchere: Inspired by @mbuckbee's discovery of this today -- http://bit.ly/52azi6 -- I give you my own creation: http://bit.ly/6yDXfi #nsfw

Wed, 25 Nov 2009 14:21:29 -0800

bucchere: Inspired by @mbuckbee's discovery of this today -- http://bit.ly/52azi6 -- I give you my own creation: http://bit.ly/6yDXfi #nsfw

bucchere: Vote for great questions about #SocialMedia for the #ExpoExpo Wed session with @GuyKawasaki, et. al. http://ow.ly/FEwr (tks, @chrisbrogan)

Wed, 25 Nov 2009 12:51:21 -0800

bucchere: Vote for great questions about #SocialMedia for the #ExpoExpo Wed session with @GuyKawasaki, et. al. http://ow.ly/FEwr (tks, @chrisbrogan)

bucchere: @zephoria Props for honesty, but reading to a literate audience is insulting. TELL us your story and ENGAGE us; don't read to us. #w2e

Wed, 25 Nov 2009 11:39:10 -0800

bucchere: @zephoria Props for honesty, but reading to a literate audience is insulting. TELL us your story and ENGAGE us; don't read to us. #w2e

bucchere: From now on, I'm going to answer all my emails with snarky pie charts -- watch out! http://bit.ly/6yDXfi (via @mbuckbee) #funny #nsfw

Wed, 25 Nov 2009 11:32:16 -0800

bucchere: From now on, I'm going to answer all my emails with snarky pie charts -- watch out! http://bit.ly/6yDXfi (via @mbuckbee) #funny #nsfw

bucchere: AT&T should be branded as phone service for those who don't like talking: "Reach Out & Text Someone" (via @AaronStrout via @CoachDeb)

Wed, 25 Nov 2009 10:29:05 -0800

bucchere: AT&T should be branded as phone service for those who don't like talking: "Reach Out & Text Someone" (via @AaronStrout via @CoachDeb)

bucchere: @martinmfranklin Yes! And I like #DMB too, but I don't know if you can claim @davejmatthews and co. as "YOUR" music. ;-)

Wed, 25 Nov 2009 08:40:39 -0800

bucchere: @martinmfranklin Yes! And I like #DMB too, but I don't know if you can claim @davejmatthews and co. as "YOUR" music. ;-)

bucchere: The sounds of Ladysmith Black Mambazo are so soothing. They're like a warm bubble bath for your ears.

Wed, 25 Nov 2009 07:30:28 -0800

bucchere: The sounds of Ladysmith Black Mambazo are so soothing. They're like a warm bubble bath for your ears.

bucchere: I just paid off five outstanding parking tickets. And by "outstanding," I don't mean "great." #fail

Tue, 24 Nov 2009 22:09:11 -0800

bucchere: I just paid off five outstanding parking tickets. And by "outstanding," I don't mean "great." #fail

bucchere: I know I'm in the minority, but I don't think O'Reilly/TechWeb did anything wrong by having a Twitter stream behind their speakers at #w2e.

Tue, 24 Nov 2009 19:20:29 -0800

bucchere: I know I'm in the minority, but I don't think O'Reilly/TechWeb did anything wrong by having a Twitter stream behind their speakers at #w2e.

bucchere: I'm at Pho 75 (382 Elden St, Herndon). http://bit.ly/74nT3h

Tue, 24 Nov 2009 15:52:44 -0800

bucchere: I'm at Pho 75 (382 Elden St, Herndon). http://bit.ly/74nT3h

Web 2.0 Expo NY 09: Baratunde Thurston, "There's a #Hashtag for That"

Chris Bucchere — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 16:37:18 -0800

Web 2.0 Expo NY 09: Baratunde Thurston, "There's a #Hashtag for That"

Source: bit.ly

Baratunde Thurston, "There's a #Hashtag for That"

@timoreilly: Imma let you finish, but @baratunde had the best #w2e talk of all time. Of all time! http://bit.ly/1ORzob #WWKD #hashtag

70sbathroom

chris_bucchere — Sun, 15 Nov 2009 05:34:54 -0800

chris_bucchere posted a photo:

Social Collective, Inc. - Company Information on Social Collective, Inc.

Chris Bucchere — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 07:09:47 -0800

Social Collective, Inc. - Company Information on Social Collective, Inc.

Source: venturebeatprofiles.com

Social Collective, Inc. company profile. The Social Collective is a hosted, white-labeled, secure web and mobile service in use by some of th

What's 10,000 lawyers at the bottom of the ocean?

Chris Bucchere — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 13:31:53 -0800

What's 10,000 lawyers at the bottom of the ocean?

Source: lawyerjoke.crowdcampaign.com

Vote for the best lawyer jokes of all time or suggest your own!

The Fez

Chris Bucchere — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 12:21:28 -0800

The Fez

Source: steelydan.crowdcampa...

I love My Old School too, but seriously, what's not to like about a song who's only major contribution to the lyrical canon of American Rock and Roll is "Ain't never gonna do it without the fez on?" In case you've never heard it: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q71gvV9n9Cs

I proposed "The Fez" as the best Steely Dan song of all time on @MikeONeilDenver's crowdsourced contest using @CrowdCampaign! Gonna need your votes -- this isn't a very well known song, but it's totally fez-tastic.

Scholastic Reverses Decision to Exclude Gay Friendly Book from Fairs | Gay Rights | Change.org

Chris Bucchere — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 08:09:20 -0700

Scholastic Reverses Decision to Exclude Gay Friendly Book from Fairs | Gay Rights | Change.org

Source: gayrights.change.org

During the past 48 hours more than 4,000 Change.org members joined in calling for Scholastic Books to reverse their decision to exclude a book from Scholastic's popular book fairs, simply because ... read ...

Thanks to all who signed the petition!

WANTED: Ticket to Stack Overflow Dev Day DC

Chris Bucchere — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 11:05:29 -0700

WANTED: Ticket to Stack Overflow Dev Day DC

Source: washingtondc.craigslist.org

If you'd like to sell me your ticket to Monday's Stack Overflow Dev Day DC event, please let me know -- thanks!

http://washingtondc.craigslist.org/nva/tix/1429836735.html

Dropbox - You're invited to join Dropbox! - Secure backup, sync and sharing made easy.

Chris Bucchere — Sat, 17 Oct 2009 16:23:41 -0700

Dropbox - You're invited to join Dropbox! - Secure backup, sync and sharing made easy.

Source: www.getdropbox.com

Dropbox is the easiest way to store, sync, and, share files online. There's no complicated interface to learn. Dropbox works seamlessly with your operating system and automatically makes sure your files are up-to-date. Available for Windows, Mac, and Linux.

Collectively Speaking: Our Blog: Procrastinators Rejoice: OpenWorld's Social Schedule Builder is Liv

Chris Bucchere — Sat, 10 Oct 2009 09:06:36 -0700

Collectively Speaking: Our Blog: Procrastinators Rejoice: OpenWorld's Social Schedule Builder is Liv

Source: bit.ly

If you're attending Oracle OpenWorld and you've waited this long to build your event schedule, boy do we have some good news for you!You can use your existing Oracle Mix credentials to access a brand new ...

Launched our Social Schedule Builder for Oracle OpenWorld, the largest event ever to use our product (or any product like it): http://bit.ly/g2i2j

My Oracle OpenWorld Sessions

Chris Bucchere — Wed, 07 Oct 2009 06:16:00 -0700

I'm going to be speaking in two different Oracle OpenWorld sessions on Sunday. They are OOW-S312303 -- Enterprise-Enable Dynamic PHP, Ruby, Python Apps: Oracle WebCenter Interaction and OOW-S312304 -- Enterprise Ruby on Rails: Rolling with JRuby on Oracle WebLogic Suite.

Madeline: A Slideshow

Chris Bucchere — Wed, 26 Aug 2009 18:22:33 -0700

Madeline: A Slideshow

Source: vimeo.com

I made this out of photos I've taken for the past year or so, mostly on my iPhone.

Here We Go Again: SXSW 2010

Chris Bucchere — Wed, 26 Aug 2009 05:56:00 -0700

I know it feels like we just put the wraps on SXSW 2009, but Panel Picker Voting is already live for 2010! This year they're using the Panel Picker to crowdsource session proposals for all three conferences: Music, Film and Interactive (whereas in the past it has only been used for Interactive).

As you well know, Social Collective, Inc., a company I started to serve the conference industry with better and more social software tools, provided the official social network and schedule builder for SXSW 2009. We're on tap to provide that service again this year -- in fact, the site is already live at my.sxsw.com. We have some exciting new features planned for this year, so stay tuned for announcements on that front as we get closer to the event.

So, even though we're intimately involved with SXSW, I still have to EARN the privilege of speaking there. 30% of that is decided by YOU, the voters. So, in the name of shameless self-promotion, I must ask you to vote for my proposed talks (if you think they're worthy):

SXSW Interactive: Developer from Mars Takes on Designer from Venus
Every great project needs a designer and a developer. Yet sometimes working side-by-side can be about as fun as pulling teeth. A veteran developer and a veteran designer use real-world anecdotes to spar on the dynamics that make it challenging for people in these two disciplines to collaborate effectively.

Neo-patronage: Can It Save the Music Industry?
Starting with the idea that all recorded music should be free (as in beer), I will explore the idea that a system of "neo-patronage" -- think of the way European artists were commissioned during the Renaissance -- can help reinvent the beleaguered music industry to ensure that artists can get fairly compensated in a world where music is free for consumers.

You have until Friday, September 4th at 11:59PM CST to cast your vote. Thanks for your support and see you at SXSW!

AMANDABATSON

chris_bucchere — Tue, 25 Aug 2009 14:25:23 -0700

chris_bucchere posted a photo:

Last Day Dream [HD]

Chris Bucchere — Tue, 18 Aug 2009 16:38:28 -0700

Last Day Dream [HD]

Source: vimeo.com

A man watches his life pass before him.

This 42 second video is amazingly powerful. I was moved to the verge of tears -- that's hard to do in 42 seconds.

LaunchBox09 Demo Day

Chris Bucchere — Sun, 09 Aug 2009 20:25:03 -0700

LaunchBox09 Demo Day

Source: www.flickr.com

The Social Collective

Me and my icon!

Beyond celebrity obsession

Doc Searls — Sat, 27 Jun 2009 06:05:44 -0700

Great minds discuss ideas. Average minds discuss events. Small minds discuss people. — Eleanor Roosevelt Somebody

I wish to discuss an idea here. It’s an idea about celebrity, and it follows an event that has become a black hole in nearly all media: the death of Michael Jackson.

According to Don Norman, a black hole topic is one that is essentially undiscussable: “Drop the subject into the middle of a room and it sucks everybody into a useless place from which no light can escape.”

Michael Jackson was more than a celebrity. He was a first-rank contributor to pop music and pop culture. He was also far more weird than anybody else at the same rank, changing his face so radically that he no longer appeared to belong to his original race and gender. This fact alone made his death at 50 unsurprising yet very interesting.

Most of us can’t help falling into conversational black holes. But we can help getting sucked into celebrity obsession.

Unless, of course, we’re making money at it. This is the path down which People Magazine went when it morphed from a spun-off section of Time Magazine into a tabloid. More recently Huffington Post has done the same thing. But that’s the supply side. What about demand?

I submit that obsessing about celebrity is unhealthy for the single reason that it is also unproductive. Celebrity is to mentality as smoking is to food. (I originally wrote “chewing gum” there, but I think smoking is the better analogy.) It is an unhealthy waste of time. And time is a measure of life. We are born with an unknown sum of time, and have to spend all of it. “Saving” time is a rhetorical trick. So is “losing” it. Our lives are spent, one end to the other. What matters most is how we choose to spend it.

The Net maximizes the endlessness of choice about how we spend our time. It also maximizes many kinds of productiveness. Nearly all the code we are using, right now, to do stuff on the Net, was written by many collaborators across many distances. Some were obsessing about what they were producing. Others were just working away. Either way, they chose to be productive. To contribute. To work on what works.

The Net itself is an idea so protean and varied that there is little agreement about what it actually is. Yet it is endlessly improvable, as are the goods and services it supports.

This improvable millieu presents us with choices that become more stark as the millieu itself grows. We can make useful contributions — preferably in ways nobody else can. Or we can coast.

Obsessing about celebrity is a form of coasting. And I suggest that we’ll see a growing distance between coasting and producing.

ODTUG S672: ACED Sundown Session -- Middleware and SOA

Chris Bucchere — Fri, 26 Jun 2009 07:44:00 -0700

ODTUG S672: ACED Sundown Session -- Middleware and SOA from Chris Bucchere on Vimeo.

ODTUG S680: Top Ten Tips for Java Developers on Oracle WebLogic Server

Chris Bucchere — Fri, 26 Jun 2009 03:23:00 -0700

I just returned from the fabulous ODTUG (Oracle Developer Tools User Group) Kaleidoscope conference in Monterey, CA. I had the pleasure of giving two solo presentations and sitting on one panel.

I recorded both presentations and the panel. Here is the first full recording for your edutainment pleasure.

ODTUG S680: Top Ten Tips for Java Developers on Oracle WebLogic Server from Chris Bucchere on Vimeo.

Stay tuned for two more new videos which will be posted very soon.

Meebo - Connecting AIM, MSN, Yahoo, Facebook, MySpace messengers

Chris Bucchere — Wed, 06 May 2009 06:10:28 -0700

Meebo - Connecting AIM, MSN, Yahoo, Facebook, MySpace messengers

Source: meebo.com

Meebo, the web platform for IM on any network or site. Meebo connects you to MSN, Yahoo, AOL/AIM, MySpace, Facebook, Google Talk, and many more!

Hypersharing got you down? Worried about privacy? How 'bout having a good ol' fashioned IM chat that only you and I can read? I ♥ meebo.

Tickets at FanSnap | Ticket Search

Thu, 16 Apr 2009 08:12:32 -0700

Chris Bucchere Can Haz Professional Speakerness

Chris Bucchere — Mon, 06 Apr 2009 17:53:00 -0700

So, rumor has it that I'm now a professional public speaker. Sch-weet! How did that happen, you might ask? Or maybe you're thinking, if Bucchere can haz professional public speaker-a-bility, how can I haz professional speaker-hood too?

Well, it's actually easier than you think. Here is a simple, five-step guide so that you too can haz professional public speakerness:

1) Speak (a lot) -- this is really crucial. You need to have a good track record of presentations, lectures, etc. Hopefully you have a nice collection of audio and video clips too. If not, well, then start volunteering to speak at different events in your area of expertise to help build your speaker cred. And bring a friend with a handy-cam.

2) Find a photo you like of yourself. This is not 100% necessary, but it might be nice if your "speaker page" (look ahead at Step 3) has a photo of you on it. If you can't speak well, at least maybe you can haz good looks. Purrrrrrrr.

3) Hire a great designer (like Paula Bee) to give you good looks, even if you don't have them naturally or via surgical enhancement. Your speaker page should be your home on the web for all your past and upcoming public speaking engagements along with links to your other achievements, e.g. books you've published, companies you've started, podcasts, blog posts, web sites, awards, testimonials, etc. Let your ego guide you to the highest form of self-aggrandizing and narcissistic speaker web page Valhalla. w00t! (Oh, BTW, if you haven't done any of those things, maybe you're not actually cut out for professional public speaker-dom just yet.)

4) Ask for money. No one is going to pay you to speak unless you ask them. How much? Well, that depends on who's asking, how much of your career you want this to be (e.g. are you a full time professional speaker or a full time software developer with a speaking habit/hobby), and how much you think your words of wisdom are actually worth. Start small and grow your rates as you continue to build your speaker cred. Oh, and negotiate a bit, please. A certain person recently asked for $40,000 + two first-class airline tickets, hotel and meals. He ended up getting $20,000 and flying SLF-style, by his damn self. (For you those of you who haven't heard of that great TLA, SLF stands for "Self Loading Freight," which is the most succinct and accurate description of coach-class airline travel that I've ever heard.)

5) Ask for feedback. Just so that you don't think my ego has inflated itself beyond all sense of reason and responsibility, I do want to let you know that I take feedback very seriously. Nearly every event at which I've spoken has had some formal or informal feedback process. And if not, there's always Twitter. Why bother telling me you didn't like my talk when you can tell the whole fucking world, right? Seriously, carefully consider and respond to each bit of feedback -- positive, negative and all points in between -- and consistently use feedback to make each talk better than the last. Brad King had a great tip on responding to feedback: use humor. If someone calls you a douchebag, respond by saying, "Thanks for your feedback! Since we don't know one another well, can I ask that you please refer to me as Mr. Douchebag from now on?" You might get surprisingly good results -- often a line like this can convert a hater to a fan.

If you keep that up, before you know it, you'll be a coveted and highly compensated professional public speaker. However, it's not all fun and games. Please be prepared to really "Bring It/Kill It" when you speak. Repeat business is super important and no one's gonna pay for your speaking services again or recommend you to anyone if you give a dull and lackluster performance. As Dubya so eloquently put it: "Can haz fooled me once? Shame on you. Can haz fooled me twice? Well, um, you can't fool me twice 'cause I can haz Presidency or some shit." Oh, STFU George. (And while I'm on the subject of politics, who anointed Karl Rove as a Fox News commentator? Haven't we all had enough of his piss-all-over-the-constituion horseshit?)

Strategies for Association Success in the Era of Social Business

Chris Bucchere — Sat, 28 Mar 2009 16:34:54 -0700

Strategies for Association Success in the Era of Social Business

Source: socialbusiness.event...

Join DubMeNow, Principled Innovation and The Social Collective for a free breakfast seminar on Thursday, April 09, 2009 in Alexandria, VA.

My SXSW Panel: Social Networks for the Anti-Social

Chris Bucchere — Fri, 13 Mar 2009 18:13:00 -0700

UPDATE: SXSW released a complete audio recording of this panel!

I'm at SXSW again this year. I attended SXSWi last year and, if my memory serves me correctly, I also attended SXSW Music in 1995, though I might be confusing it with H.O.R.D.E., Austin City Limits or one of the other great music festivals in this fine city which is known internationally for its eclectic music scene. Anyway, because The Social Collective is powering my.SXSW, I actually have the pleasure of spending 10 full days in Austin and attending all three festivals this year: Film, Music and Interactive. I'm also speaking, oddly enough, in a Music Panel called Social Networks for the Anti-Social. I have to warn you, most panels (at any conference, not just SXSW) totally suck and this may not be an exception. But who knows, it might be a completely magical and transcendental experience, but you won't know unless you check it out.

8 things I learnt about using twitter as a participation tool ...

Mon, 02 Mar 2009 08:46:33 -0800

Good validation of what we're doing with event tags and my.sxsw.

You Are What You Eat

Chris Bucchere — Tue, 10 Feb 2009 05:50:00 -0800

I've never really understood the phrase, "You are what you eat." If it were true, I'd probably be an In-N-Out burger (double double animal style) or something far worse for you and/or better tasting.

Recently, I overheard someone on Twitter saying something to the effect of: "You are the sum of the five people you hang out with the most." My immediate reaction was to disagree vehemently. I'm totally not like that! I'm exactly who I want to be! I don't subject myself to the influence of others like that! Etc.

Not only am I completely wrong about this, but it may be that -- in some strange cosmic way -- I'm actually the sum of ALL the people around me, good, bad and everything else under the sun.

Today I discovered TwitterSheep. (No, this has nothing to do with sheep, fraternity rituals or anything else of a sexual nature, I assure you.) TwitterSheep simply looks at your followers and constructs a tag cloud based on keywords in their bios. That's not really remarkable, but what is remarkable is that when I ran my Twitter account through the application, the resulting tag cloud literally read like my own bio. Seriously. It's a visual representation of terms that -- when you sum them all together -- equal me. The largest words are what I do and care about most.

Am I right about this? Are you the sum of your followers? Try TwitterSheep and let me know how it worked for you!

I’m Talking To Myself

Jeff Turner — Tue, 03 Feb 2009 16:39:11 -0800

As I walked out of the gym this morning, I passed a woman walking 15-20 feet in front of her toddler. He was young, probably 2 1/2 at most. He had a pacifier in his mouth and he was happily distracted by some flowers. The Mother turned and said: “Hurry up! Your going to make me late for Miss Debbie’s class again.” My head instantly filled with judgmental comments.

“Really? It’s his fault? He’s 2-years-old. How is it HIS fault that you’re late to YOUR spin class? Hold yourself accountable. Why are you teaching him to blame others for his actions? Why would you lay that kind of guilt on him?”

Of course, I said nothing to her. In the scope of careless words that come out of parents mouths, this is certainly on the tame side. Besides, I have no idea what took place in her morning. I have no idea what struggles she might be going through. I’ve had my share of bad mornings and I know I’ve said equally thoughtless things to my children in the past. So, I’m certainly not about to judge this frantic Mom.

I’m going to judge myself instead.

It has taken me a long time to write my first post here at Dad-o-Matic. I’ve wanted a place to write about being a dad for a long time. This is certainly the right place. But I’ve been struggling with finding the right voice for this right place. I think I’ve found it.

I hope you don’t mind, but I’m going to talk to myself in the posts I write here on Dad-o-Matic. I’m going to judge myself harshly. I’m going to question my decisions and wonder aloud about the choices I make with my kids. If my voice sounds like yours, then perhaps we can help each other. If it doesn’t, perhaps you can help me.

What’s in my head.

Why is it so easy to see the mistakes other parents are making with their children, and so hard to see the mistakes I’m making with my own children? In the moment, why can’t I pause and judge my potential actions with the same degree of clarity that I had as this woman passed by? What can I do to be better?

I can try harder. I can take longer breaths before I open my mouth. I can hear myself before speaking. I can feel the impact of my words in the same way I felt the impact of, “you’re going to make me late.”

And I can be quicker to apologize when I’ve made a mistake. Because I’m pretty sure I’m going to make a few more mistakes. Maybe even as I pass a stranger at the gym.

World-Renowned Scientists Team With Google And NASA To Launch Singularity University

Jason Kincaid — Mon, 02 Feb 2009 21:59:07 -0800

NASA, Google, and some of the foremost authorities in science and technology have teamed up to create a new school, dubbed Singularity University, that is looking to solve “humanity’s grand challenges”. The university is named after the idea of the singularity - an extremely rapid period of technological progress. And damn if it doesn’t sound like the coolest school ever.

The roster behind Singularity University is beyond impressive: it was founded by Dr. Ray Kurzweil (author, technologist, and futurist), Dr. Peter Diamandis (XPRIZE), Pete Worden (Director of NASA Ames), Dr. Robert Richards (co-founder of the International Space University), Dr. Robert Richards (ISU President), Dr. Michael Simpson, and a number of sponsors including Google. And to run the school, Singularity brought on board Salim Ismail, the founder of Yahoo’s innovative Brickhouse team.

Modeled after the International Space University, the school is meant to expose some of world’s the most promising graduate students and professionals to a broad range of cutting-edge technologies and research with subjects including bioinformatics, networking, genetics, law, heath, and entrepreneurship (you can see a full listing of topics covered here).

The first three weeks of each session are devoted to forming a basic understanding in all of the fields, following by three weeks spent seeing how each of these fields can possibly intermingle (for example, you might study how 3D printers traditionally used in prototyping could be used to build organs out of stem cells). The final three weeks of study are spent applying the newly-learned knowlege to solving real-world problems.

Sessions will be held at the NASA Ames Research Campus, near Mountain View, California. Unfortunately, space will be extremely limited - the initial class will consist of around 30 students, with around 100 for the school’s second year. It won’t be cheap either: fees run around $25,000 per student, though there will be scholarships available. There will also be brief sessions available for students who are already in the workforce.

Crunch Network: CrunchBase the free database of technology companies, people, and investors

My, my, my, My.SXSW

Brad — Mon, 02 Feb 2009 15:02:39 -0800

Just in time for the run-up to Valentine’s Day, SXSW is asking, “Won’t you be ~~mine~~ my?”

Remember the old SXSW registrant directory? Well, forget it! SXSW has just launched my.sxsw.com, a complete overhaul—and in some regards, a complete rethinking—of the beast. Sez the e-mail:

Created by The Social Collective with your needs in mind, my.SXSW allows you to communicate with other registrants and attendees year-round—its messaging system integrates with Twitter—and join groups of attendees with specific interests. You can also build a personal schedule for SXSW 2009, sign up for SXSW Alerts, and upload a badge photo.

After a brief first look, it’s pretty sweet. There’re lots of tasty tips in the FAQ.

The only nit to pick is that the profile form doesn’t have a dedicated place to list one’s website(s). You can use the Biography field but it strips away HTML.

It’d be super nifty if there were hooks to interact with other existing social and sharing sites besides Twitter, Flickr and Facebook, and contribute to activity streams on such services as FriendFeed, but you have to start somewhere (what are there, like a billion social sites out there now?!) and my.sxsw is such a vast improvement over what it replaced, we’re just chuffed it’s there at all. Thanks, SXSW!

(If you’re interested in the tech behind the tool, The Social Collective will be showing off at Tech Cocktail DC 4 on February 26.)

TechCrunch Interviews Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg At Davos

Michael Arrington — Mon, 02 Feb 2009 14:51:05 -0800

We saved the best for last. Below is our interview with Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland last week. Sandberg, who says this is her first video interview since joining Facebook in March 2008, talks with me for about nine minutes about the conference and the state of Facebook.

Sandberg has attended six World Economic Forum events at Davos over the years, including four as part of the Clinton administration. This year was a more somber event than normal, she says.

We spoke briefly about the impact that the Facebook community had on the event through the polls created by Randi Zuckerberg, Facebook’s Director of Marketing. During one panel, 120,000 Facebook users weighed in on the U.S. economic stimulus package.

Sandberg on her first year at Facebook: “It’s been great. Facebook is a really exciting place trying to do something really important that I really believe in. And it matters. You go to different things from users to marketers to people like Obama running for office, who really want to connect with people and want a more authentic way to communicate and to listen and I think we are one of the forces and in some ways the leading force helping to provide that and that’s just a really exciting thing to be a part of.”

On the fact that 1 in 5 worldwide Internet users are on Facebook: “So we have 4 in 5 more to go. To get everyone connected. Joking aside, we want everyone in the world to be connected. Through Facebook, through technology, not just through us. But we really believe in enabling people to be their authentic selves on the web, and enabling people to communicate directly with each other in a very personal way.”

Sandberg also promised that users would be able to add more than 5,000 friends sometime soon (something we first wrote about last year). She said “I’m not going to give you a specific date, but I will reinforce the message that this is coming, and more importantly tell you why we think it’s important. Because you have these friend requests because people genuinely want to hear from you and genuinely want to connect with you. We’re not providing that functionality and we think that’s important so we are working on this and we’re working on it currently. We look forward to your having 80,000 friends… 100,000 friends.”

Our other interviews from Davos: Chris DeWolfe (MySpace), Robert Kalin (Etsy), Reid Hoffman (LinkedIn), Ed Sanders/Amit Sood (YouTube/Google Earth). You can also watch the panel I moderated with Chad Hurley (YouTube), Craig Mundie (Microsoft), Mark Zuckerberg (Facebook), Shananu Narayen (Adobe), Hamid Akhvan (T-Mobile) and Eric Clemons (Wharton) here.

Full transcript:

Michael Arrington: I am here with Sheryl Sandberg, the COO of Facebook, and we’re at the end of the World Economic Forum at Davos. So, how was Davos for you this year?

Sheryl Sandberg: Interesting. I’ve been here before so you can kind of feel the different moods. I’d say this is the most somber Davos I’ve been to.

Michael Arrington: How many have you been to?

Sheryl Sandberg: Six I believe - four, a long time ago when I was working in the Clinton government, and last year. During the Clinton years there was an Asian financial crisis and I would say the mood then was not as up, but the pessimism was constrained to one part of the economic sphere, which was really Asia and some of the Latin American countries.

Michael Arrington: The NASDAQ was still way up then..

Sheryl Sandberg: Here there’s a real pessimism, and I think it’s earned - where is the economy going to bottom out? What don’t we understand?

Michael Arrington: This is your first Davos as a Facebook executive. Is it any different? Are people approaching you for different things? To talk about different things? What is this community giving you? What is this community giving you, what are you giving back, to this community?

Sheryl Sandberg: At Facebook we feel a lot of affinity not just for this community but for any community that is trying to do what Davos is trying to do, which is to share information. And Davos is doing it in a particular way - I think the Facebook approach is obviously more broad-based, we’re trying to include everyone in the world. But the goal is the same: bring people together, to share information and make the world more connected, and have people have a deeper understanding of themselves, others, the communities of which they want to be a part and can be a part. This has been a great year at Davos for Facebook. We’ve done a bunch of things including some polls from the stage, which has been really exciting.

Michael Arrington: Randi Zuckerberg did a poll that had around 500 responses in a matter of seconds..

Sheryl Sandberg: Yeah, I think the most compelling thing we had was there was a panel here which was on the situation in Congress with the US. And the panelists were talking about the stimulus package, and the assumption on the panel was that people were for it, and it would pass, there’s some tinkering to do. And Randi did a poll from the stage in twenty minutes, 120,000 responses, 70% of whom were against it. They said, “I don’t believe in the stimulus package”.

Michael Arrington: This was during the panel..

Sheryl Sandberg: During the panel, real live, 120,000 responses. Now it’s not a representative full sampling of the US population, but that’s a lot of responses. It completely changed the panel… The panel then were talking about, “wow, a lot of people are against this, what are we going to do?” And I think that’s exciting because Davos is a pretty exclusive thing. And the voice of people who were not invited - while everyone is always trying to get it in here, I don’t know how much you can do that.

Michael Arrington: Yeah, but you inserted it directly into a panel.

Sheryl Sandberg: Yeah, and the times I’ve been here [it was] the most direct voice of the people I’ve seen inserted into a panel so I think that was pretty exciting.

Michael Arrington: Was that an on-the-record panel with the video up on the site?

Sheryl Sandberg: I don’t know… It’s pretty exciting to take real people living in the real world, their opinions, and have people have to react to that. As opposed to their perceptions of what people are thinking, which are often very different.

Michael Arrington: So how was your first year at Facebook? We’re coming up on the one year mark in March.

Sheryl Sandberg: Yes, coming up on the one year mark. It’s been great. Facebook is a really exciting place trying to do something really important that I really believe in. And it matters. You go to different things from users to marketers to people like Obama running for office, who really want to connect with people and want a more authentic way to communicate and to listen and I think we are one of the forces and in some ways the leading force helping to provide that and that’s just a really exciting thing to be a part of.

Michael Arrington: How many users do you have now? 150 million?

Sheryl Sandberg: 150 million..

Michael Arrington: But it’s actually above that, you just don’t announce it. Every few months..

Sheryl Sandberg: *Laughs* We update it regularly.

Michael Arrington: Why does Comscore say 200 million people visit the site every month? Is it just Comscore is off or…

Sheryl Sandberg: An active user for us is someone who comes every month, at least once a month. I don’t know exactly how Comscore is measuring it.

Michael Arrington: You realize it’s like 1 in 5 people in the world that are on the internet visit Facebook.

Sheryl Sandberg: So we have 4 in 5 more to go. To get everyone connected. Joking aside, we want everyone in the world to be connected. Through Facebook, through technology, not just through us. But we really believe in enabling people to be their authentic selves on the web, and enabling people to communicate directly with each other in a very personal way.

Michael Arrington: So.. Revenue. You own revenue in the company, is that right?

Sheryl Sandberg: I definitely work on revenue, have responsibility for revenue.

Michael Arrington: So what’s monthly revenue now?

Sheryl Sandberg: Oh, you know, three dollars. $3.52 precisely.

Michael Arrington: How do you feel about revenue, where do you feel the big growth opportunities are? Do you have any new products? Micropayments for the developers, anything like that that you’re willing to talk about now?

Sheryl Sandberg: No product announcements on this video, that will disappoint but not surprise you. But you know it’s funny, a lot of people will say, “what’s Facebook’s business model?” I always find that a kind of funny question. Our business model is out there, which is: we monetize largely through advertising and a little bit through the gift revenue, the virtual gifts we have on our site. I think those continue to be the most promising avenues going forward. I think what you will see from us - you’ve seen from us some last year but you’ll see a lot this year - are the evolution of the advertising products so that they can be more targeted for advertisers and provide useful interactions for users. And I think we’re actually having a good year so far, a good quarter, and looking forward to more growth.

Michael Arrington: So you have direct ad sales, you have a team, and then you have the self-serve ads and we’ve actually looked at the self serve ads quite a bit and advertisers seem to love that. You said you have virtual gifts, but what about that micropayments platform for developers, I mean that’s a way for you to make additional money and they’re begging for it.

Sheryl Sandberg: Nothing to announce today.

Michael Arrington: Didn’t you guys already announce it a year ago?

Sheryl Sandberg: Yeah, we did do that… We haven’t updated that announcement and part of being a startup is, you know you announce things, you try to get there… not going to give anything else. Other than the $3.52. Obviously a very specific announcement.

Michael Arrington: Give me one thing then, give me more than 5,000 friends, this was promised to me personally not a year ago but close. And they’re just piling up. The friend requests are just piling up. And I know it’s only a small percentage of users have that need for more than 5,000 friends, but I’m one of them. When do I get that?

Sheryl Sandberg: I’m not going to give you a specific date, but I will reinforce the message that this is coming, and more importantly tell you why we think it’s important. Because you have these friend requests because people genuinely want to hear from you and genuinely want to connect with you. We’re not providing that functionality and we think that’s important so we are working on this and we’re working on it currently. We look forward to your having 80,000 friends… 100,000 friends.

Michael Arrington: I want to be friends with everyone that wants to be friends with TechCrunch. I don’t know if they really want to be friends with me or if they want to be friends with TechCrunch. But I want to add everyone, right now they’re piling up. What do you think of your hotel? I forgot to ask you that.. I’ve asked everyone that. It’s a 2 star hotel at a 5 star price.

Sheryl Sandberg: Yeah, it’s not the nicest hotel I’ve stayed at this year. I was a little scared at first because I walked into the room and there was no bed. I have a Murphy bed.

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Make SXSW yours using my.SXSW

melissa — Mon, 02 Feb 2009 14:15:54 -0800

Phelps Still Popular on Facebook, Despite Marijuana Photo

Kristen Nicole — Mon, 02 Feb 2009 13:36:17 -0800

Olympic gold medalist Michael Phelps has made a statement on his Facebook fan page apologizing for a photograph that shows Phelps smoking marijuana at a college party. At least Phelps is being proactive about the situation, given his celebrity status as an athlete. Perhaps he’s taken cues from other athletes that have had to deal with a number of different drug-related situations–the public tends to be more forgiving when a celebrity is forthcoming from the start.

The Facebook fan page post from Phelps reads as follows:

“I engaged in behavior which was regrettable and demonstrated bad judgment. I’m 23-years-old, and despite the successes I have had in the pool, I acted in a youthful and inappropriate way, not in a manner that people have come to expect from me. For this, I am sorry. I promise my fans and the public - it will not happen again.“

The interesting aspect of this all is the fans reaction to Phelps’ statement. Since Phelps is a celebrity, he needs the support from his fans. And given the wealth of endorsements that have been thrown at him even before winning a chestful of gold medals at the Olympics last summer, Phelps’ public image is directly correlated with his potential for generating revenue.

But perusing through the comments on Phelps’ Facebook fan page, the swimmer doesn’t have anything to worry about. Though the hundreds of comments left in response to Phelps’ statement are peppered with harsh words, the majority of people feel that Phelps is still an outstanding athlete and person. Some even go so far as to question the very legality of marijuana, stating that if Phelps can smoke marijuana and go on (years later) to win so many Olympic medals, then it must not be that bad of a drug.

That’s an entirely different can of worms to open, but Phelps’ use of Facebook is just one of the many media outlets he used to reach out to apologize for his actions. It was a necessary move, considering Phelps became the most popular person on Facebook last summer. As Nick mentioned, Facebook recognizes the power of a celebrity fan page such as Phelps’ as it promoted the page, helping it grow to its number 1 status. So what does that mean for Facebook and its own potential for future partnerships and promotions? If we’re using Phelps’ current situation as a litmus test at all, I’d say there’s nothing to worry about for Phelps or Facebook.

LinkedIn’s Reid Hoffman: “We Can Go Public Any Time We Want To”

Michael Arrington — Mon, 02 Feb 2009 13:21:34 -0800

Next up in my series of interviews recorded at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland last week is Reid Hoffman, the founder and CEO of LinkedIn. I spoke to Reid for more than twenty minutes in the lobby of our hotel about a wide range of subjects, including LinkedIn’s product plans, fundraising activities and revenue.

LinkedIn has raised over $100 million in financing - roughly $75 million of that was in 2008 alone. The company has been profitable for the last two years, Reid says, and has $80 million in the bank.

I spoke with Reid at length about whether he’d consider a merger with Facebook (he’s buddies with most of the Facebook execs that attended Davos and was spending a lot of time with them). His flat out answer is “no,” there aren’t any discussions going on with them. And he insists that personal and professional networks shouldn’t be linked. At the very least they need to stay separate brands, he says.

Meanwhile, LinkedIn continues to grow like a weed, adding a million new registered users every seventeen days. With that $80 million in the bank and 2 years of profitability, he’s not being unreasonable when he says, near the end of the interview, “We’ve been profitable for the last two years, so when we want to IPO we can do that.”

The full transcript is below.

Michael Arrington: I’m here with Reid Hoffman, the founder and CEO of LinkedIn. Thanks for taking some time with me, I’ve been hounding you all week and we’re at the last day of Davos. Before we jump into Davos, I have a couple of questions that I’ve been asking people that I’ve interviewed. So you’re staying here at the Club Hotel, we’re actually doing the interview here at the hotel. This is where they put all the Internet luminaries. Arianna Huffington is staying here. Sheryl Sandberg from Facebook. You’re staying here.

Reid Hoffman: and Chris DeWolfe

MA: Chris DeWofle is here. I was asking Chris yesterday about this wonderful two star hotel that charges five star prices and the first question is, do you have a Murphy bed in your room?

RH: I actually had one last year but this year I have a regular bed but it’s no better.

MA: So last year I had a Murphy bed and my room was mostly underground. But yours is ok?

RH: I’m on the 8th floor and have a good view of the mountains, it’s actually pretty good this year?

MA: What about the water controls for the sink and the shower, have you found they are kind of difficult?

RH: Well you know like any technology you have to master it.

MA: Yeah but there’s a lot going on.

RH: The funny thing is the lack of connectivity. This is the Internet ghetto and there’s limited wifi in the lobby and that’s it.

MA: You pay for it, 8 Franks for two hours, doesn’t work well, nothing in the room, we’re all racking up $1,000 bills on cell phones, whatever. How many trips to the World Economic Forum is this for you?

RH: This is my second.

MA: Ok so last year was your first year. When you came last year was it part of the Tech Pioneers?

RH: I don’t think so.

MA: You didn’t pay the massive $100k fee to get in did you?

RH: No.

MA: Think you’ll come back?

RH: Probably. The people here are incredibly high quality. Of course I’m not referring to you really but you know [laughs]

MA: I’m definitely editing that out [laughs]

RH: No but the people are great, I actually really like the breadth. The three conferences I really like is this one, Sun Valley Allen & Co. and TED.

MA: What was your favorite session so far?

RH: My favorite session was a NYSE exchange dinner.

MA: Did you lead any sessions?

RH: Privacy. And What is Social Computing Mean For The Enterprise with you.

MA: That was fun. Last Davos question: Last year, you took the Google plane back. Are you taking it back tomorrow?

RH: I haven’t been invited.

MA: How’s LinkedIn doing?

RH: Very well. We had a record Q4 in terms of revenue, growth. We’re profitable and have 350 people.

MA: Ok. Are you just barely profitable?

RH: A little profitable.

MA: You’ve raised over $100 million. How much of that is in the bank?

RH: Over 80%

MA: But didn’t you raise twenty something last year?

RH: We raised $73 million last year, and all of that is in the bank?

MA: what are you going to do with all that?

RH: We raised an extended round last year. The first was the money people to set the price, that was Bain. They gave us the right to extend it to include some key business development players, SAP, McGraw-Hill, Goldman Sachs.

MA: You didn’t need the money, so what are you going to do with it?

RH: we raised it because we were thinking of doing some acquisitions. If you do private acquisitions, cash is very helpful, if we find the right deal we’ll of course do that. As it turns out given the market turbulence it’s nice to have a thick bank account.

MA: You were valued at over $1 billion in your last round?

RH: Yes.

MA: How many users come to the site? Registered users?

RH: Over 34 million registered, 9 million in Europe, growing by over 1 million every 17 days. Twelve million people visit every month.

MA: How is the economy affecting your business?

RH: Everyone knew we’d get an uptick from job seekers, free agents, consultants. A pleasant surprise is the recruiting space, all of our customers are keeping or increasing their spend. Recruiting business is growing. We have three principle lines of revenue, advertising, subscriptions from users, recruiting tools.

MA: How can people use LinkedIn in a tough economy to get a job?

RH: Be present, fill out your profile, which will help people find you. It’s essentially SEO. Second, be active in using it. First, searching, if you are looking for contracting gigs, reach out to companies you want to work with, tell them you are available. Second, use the answers service. Ask questions that generate discussions. Or answer to demonstrate expertise.

MA: In December you took the CEO role back from Dan Nye. Your reasons for that are well published, but now that you are CEO again, what are you short term goals for the company?

RH: We have a number of tools but most people don’t know how to use them. Lots of ways of finding the right information. Focusing on product marketing or merchanidising them.

MA: So first priority is marketing, evangelizing. Second priority…

RH takes a phone call from Simon Levine at Accel.

MA: building on existing functionality is other priority. Any new big products coming?

RH: Last year we beta launched company groups. Create private discussion thread. Can filter in news, create news feed for a company any time their name shows up.

MA: foreign language support?

RH: We have Spanish and French. Can establish profiles in local languages. We’re very focused on Europe, makes obvious progression on new languages.

MA: Asia? Not as much?

RH: We’re looking closely at Asia and interested in it. Harder to get right. Have 9 million people in Europe now, so building on it makes sense. We have discussions in Asia, India is growing like wildfire.

MA: I’ve seen you hanging out here at Davos talking to Facebook execs. Merger coming?

RH: Facebook execs are my friends. Matt Cohler was sourced into Facebook from LinkedIn. I knew Sean Parker from Plaxo before he went to Facebook.

MA: Yeah but you aren’t answering the question

RH: There are no discussions on that topic.

MA: Ok so you’re denying those rumors?

RH: What rumors?

MA: I’m not sure [laughs] But from my point of view a merger would make a lot of sense and here’s why. Facebook is a social utility, you are a professional network. It seems to me that an obvious area of growth would be for them to be overlapping with you quite a bit, get more detailed information about resumes into Facebook and get into recruiting and things linke that. A merger would make a lot of sense.

RH: I can’t speak for Facebook, but their goals seem to be…they self describe as a social utility, what they mean is sharing a variety of social experience that matter to you. Pictures, which movies do you like, music, that’s the stuff that they’re focused on, its very different from what we do. The brands must be separate. MySpace is like a bar, Facebook is like the BBQ you have in your back yard with friends and family, play games, share pictures. Facebook is much better for sharing than MySpace. LinkedIn is the office, how you stay up to date, solve professional problems.

MA: Ok, but Facebook has eaten MySpace’s lunch. In all the international markets FB is absolutely dominating, and they’ll catch up to MySpace in the next year. Once FB consumes the bar, what stops them from consuming the office as well?

RH: The profile you establish is different. On FB, you want to look like a fun person, you go to parties, you drink, dating, not dating… None of that stuff is relevant professionally. Also what kinds of applications? There is no enterprise photo sharing, not what people do at work. Just like life, home life and friends, but need two distinct environments.

MA: IPO?

RH: We’ve been profitable for the last two years, so when we want to IPO we can do that.

MA: Thanks very much.

RH: Pleasure.

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Soon, Majority of Web Users Will No Longer Use IE

Marshall Kirkpatrick — Mon, 02 Feb 2009 09:33:00 -0800

Rare UK Snow Blizzard Brings Out the Twitter Mashups

Mike Butcher — Mon, 02 Feb 2009 08:06:35 -0800

There’s nothing like a breaking news event to show off the usefulness of Twitter. Today large swathes of the UK were blanketed in snow, including London (~~first~~ worst snow in 18 years - that’s global warming for ya folks). But the Twitter feeds and mashups came to the rescue of anyone wanting real-time updates about what was happening. One of the most useful was that provided by Ben Smith who built UK Trains Disruption Alerts which Tweets alerts for 25 UK train operators via travel news feeds provided by a project from the BBC called BBC Backstage). The more fanciful but interesting Twitter mashup came from Ben Marsh who coded the #UKsnow Mashup, pictured. This is a Google map which maps reports of snow from UK Twitterers. They simply Tweeted the #UKsnow hashtag, the first half of their postcode and a score out of 10 for their local snow cover. The resulting map did what a billion-dollar weather satellite, hampered by cloud cover, couldn’t - actually portray a reasonably accurate picture of what was happening on the ground.

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10 Privacy Settings Every Facebook User Should Know

Nick O'Neill — Mon, 02 Feb 2009 08:00:19 -0800

Everyday I receive an email from somebody about how their account was hacked, how a friend tagged them in the photo and they want a way to avoid it, as well as a number of other complications related to their privacy on Facebook. Over the weekend one individual contacted me to let me know that he would be removing me as a friend from Facebook because he was “going to make a shift with my Facebook use - going to just mostly family stuff.”

Perhaps he was tired of receiving my status updates or perhaps he didn’t want me to view photos from his personal life. Whatever the reason for ending our Facebook friendship, I figured that many people would benefit from a thorough overview on how to protect your privacy on Facebook. Below is a step by step process for protecting your privacy.

1. Use Your Friend Lists

I can’t tell you how many people are not aware of their friend lists. For those not aware of what friend lists are, Facebook describes them as a feature which allows “you to create private groupings of friends based on your personal preferences. For example, you can create a Friend List for your friends that meet for weekly book club meetings. You can create Friend Lists for all of your organizational needs, allowing you to quickly view friends by type and send messages to your lists.”

There are a few very important things to remember about friend lists:

You can add each friend to more than one friend group
Friend groups should be used like “tags” as used elsewhere around the web
Friend Lists can have specific privacy policies applied to them

I’ll touch on each of the things listed above in more detail later. A typical setup for groups would be “Friends”, “Family”, and “Professional”. These three groups can then be used to apply different privacy policies. For example, you may want your friends to see photos from the party you were at last night, but you don’t want your family or professional contacts to see those photos.

Using friend lists is also extremely useful for organizing your friends if you have a lot of them. For instance I have about 20 friend lists and I categorize people by city (New York, San Francisco, D.C., Tel Aviv, etc), where I met them (conferences, past co-workers, through this blog), and my relationship with them (professional, family, social, etc).

You can configure your friend lists by visiting the friends area of your Facebook.

2. Remove Yourself From Facebook Search Results

My mom is a teacher and one of the first things she asked me when she joined Facebook is how she could make sure her students couldn’t see that she was on the site. Understandably my mom doesn’t want her middle school students to know what she’s up to in her personal life. There are numerous reasons that individuals don’t want their information to show up in search results on Facebook, and it’s simple to turn off your public visibility.

How to Remove Yourself From Facebook Search Results
Now that you’ve decided that you would like to remove yourself from Facebook’s search results, here’s how to do it:

Visit your search privacy settings page
Under “Search Visibility” select “Only Friends” (Remember, doing so will remove you from Facebook search results, so make sure you want to be removed totally. Otherwise, you can select another group, such as “My Networks and Friends” which I believe is the default.)
Click “Save Changes”

By default, Facebook makes your presence visible to the network you are in. Frequently, people aren’t aware of their visibility, so this is one of the first settings that users wish to modify. By selecting “Customize” from the search visibility drop down you can make your settings even more granular.

3. Remove Yourself From Google

Facebook gets A TON of traffic from displaying user profiles in search engines. Not all of your profile is displayed though. Currently the information displayed in the search profile is limited to: your profile picture, a list of your friends, a link to add you as a friend, a link to send you a message, and a list of up to approximately 20 fan pages that you are a member of.

For some people, being displayed in the search engines is a great way to let people get in contact with you, especially if you don’t have an existing website. Facebook also tends to rank high in the search results, so if you want to be easy to find, making your search profile can be a great idea. Many people don’t want any of their information to be public though.

By visiting the same search privacy settings page listed in the previous step, you can control the visibility of your public search listing which is visible to Google and other search engines. You can turn off your public search listing by simply unchecking the box next to the phrase “Create a public search listing for me and submit it for search engine indexing” as pictured in the image below.

4. Avoid the Infamous Photo/Video Tag Mistake

This is the classic Facebook problem. You let lose for a few hours one night (or day) and photos (or videos) of the moment are suddenly posted for all to view, not just your close friends who shared the moment with you. The result can be devastating. Some have been fired from work after incriminating photos/videos were posted for the boss to see. For others, randomly tagged photos/videos have ended relationships.

At the least, a tagged photo/video can result in personal embarrassment. So how do you prevent the infamous tagged photo or video from showing up in all of your friends news feeds? It’s pretty simple. First visit your profile privacy page and modify the setting next to “Photos Tagged of You”. Select the option which says “Customize…” and a box like the one pictured below will pop up.

Select the option “Only Me” and then “None of My Networks” if you would like to keep all tagged photos private. If you’d like to make tagged photos visible to certain users you can choose to add them in the box under the “Some Friends” option. In the box that displays after you select “Some Friends” you can type either individual friends or friend lists.

5. Protect Your Albums

Just because you’ve uploaded photos doesn’t mean that you’ve accurately tagged every photo correctly. This setting is more of a reminder than anything else. Frequently people will turn of their tagged photo visibility to certain friend lists yet keep their photo albums public to the world. If you are trying to make all your photos invisible you must do so on an album by album basis.

There is a specific Photos Privacy page from which you can manually configure the visibility of each album (as pictured below). This is an extremely useful configuration option and I highly recommend that you take advantage of it. This way you can store your photos indefinitely on Facebook yet ensure that the only people that can view your photos are the ones who you really want to see them.

6. Prevent Stories From Showing Up in Your Friends’ News Feeds

Oh, did you really just break up with your girlfriend? I’m sorry to hear that. I’m sure all of your friends and business contacts are also sorry to hear that. I can’t tell you how many awkward relationship status changes I’ve seen. The most regular one I’ve seen recently is when an attractive female ends their relationship and numerous guys hop on the opportunity to console her.

I’ve also seen the end of marriages, as well as weekly relationship status changes as individuals try to determine where their relationship stands with their significant other. My personal policy is to not display a relationship status, but many like to make a public statement out of their relationship. For those individuals, it can be a smart move to hedge against future disasters.

There are a number of ways to control how your relationship status is displayed. The first thing that most people should do is uncheck the box next to “Remove Relationship Status” in the News Feed and Wall Privacy page. In the rare instance that a relationship does uncomfortably end, you can avoid making things more uncomfortable by avoiding a friend notification about it.

Second, your relationship status falls within your “Basic Information” section of your profile. You can control who can see your basic information next to the “Basic Information” setting on the Profile Privacy page. Keep in mind that other relevant profile information like your gender, birth date, networks, and other settings are visible within your basic information section.

Making your basic information completely invisible to friends probably isn’t a good idea, but removing the news feed stories about relationship changes most likely is.

7. Protect Against Published Application Stories

This one is a little more tricky to manage but I’ll explain the issue at hand. Frequently when you add an application, a news feed item is immediately published to your profile. One way to get instantly embarrassed is to visit the “Have Sex!” application (found here). This application has no purpose besides telling your friends that you are interested in having sex with them. Without taking any action, the application will post a news feed story to your profile which says the equivalent of “Nick just published to the world that he is having sex!”

This is surely something that none of your professional contacts if any of your contacts are interested in seeing (honestly I’m a bit confused about that application, but that’s a different story). That’s why it’s important to monitor what takes place after you install an application on Facebook. Once you install an application you should visit your profile to ensure that no embarrassing notification has been posted to your profile.

More often then not, nothing will be posted but there are many applications on the platform unfortunately that publish stories without you knowing it. There are two ways to avoid having this happen: don’t visit applications or scan your profile every time that you do. Ultimately you shouldn’t be concerned about applications that you’ve built a trusted relationship with but any new applications could potentially post embarrassing notifications.

8. Make Your Contact Information Private

I personally use Facebook for professional and personal use and it can frequently become overwhelming. That’s why I’ve taken the time to outline these ten privacy protection steps. One of the first things I did when I started approving friend requests from people that I hadn’t built a strong relationship with, was make my contact information visible only to close contacts.

The contact information is my personal email and phone number. It’s a simple thing to set but many people forget to do it. Frequently people we don’t know end up contacting us and we have no idea how they got our contact information. Your contact privacy can be edited right from your profile. If you have chosen to enter this information, you should see a “Contact Information” area under the “Info” tab in your profile.

If it displays, you simply click “Edit” and then a screen like the one pictured below will show up.

For each contact item that you have in your profile you should set custom privacy settings (as pictured below) so that contacts that you aren’t close to don’t have access to your phone number and/or email. It’s a small change but it can save you the hassle of being pestered by people you don’t know well. Also, protecting your privacy is generally a good practice to get in the habit of doing.

As a side note, this is a great area to take advantage of friend lists. By getting in the habit of grouping your friends, you can ensure that you are navigating Facebook safely through privacy settings that are attached to your friend lists.

9. Avoid Embarrassing Wall Posts

Just because you use Facebook for business doesn’t mean your friends do. That’s why once in a while a friend of yours will come post something embarrassing or not necessarily “work friendly” and it can end up having adverse effects. That’s why Facebook has provided you with the ability to customize your wall postings visibility. You can also control which friends can post on your wall. There are two places you can control these things.

Adjust Wall Posting Visibility

Within your profile page you can control who can view wall postings made by your friends. To do so, click on the “Settings” icon on the wall in your profile page. Next, find the box pictured in the image above and adjust the setting which says “Who can see posts made by friends?” I’d suggest using a strategy similar to the one outlined in the previous step regarding contact information.

Control Who Can Post to Your Wall
In addition to controlling who can view wall postings published by your friends, you also want to control which friends can post on your wall. Not everybody needs to do this, but occasionally you simply want to prevent some people from posting on your page. If you visit the Profile Privacy settings page, there is a section labeled “Wall Posts”.

From this area you can completely disable your friends’ ability to post on your wall. You can also select specific friend lists that can post on your wall. Personally, I don’t really care who can post on my wall but I can understand the need to control who can see those wall postings. If you want to limit who can post wall posts on your profile, this is where you can do it.

10. Keep Your Friendships Private

While it’s fun to show off that you have hundreds or thousands of friends on Facebook, some of your friends don’t want to live public lives. That’s why it’s often a good policy to turn off your friends’ visibility to others. I’ve had a number of individuals visit my profile and then selectively pick off friends that are relevant to them for marketing purposes, or other reasons.

Whatever the reason they are doing it, just know that they are … it’s part of what makes Facebook so addictive: the voyeuristic nature. Also, your friends are frequently visible to the public through search engines and exposing this information can ultimately present a security risk. To modify the visibility of your friends, visit the Profile Privacy page.

Navigate down to the setting which says “Friends” and then modify the setting to whatever is right for you.

Conclusion

These are just ten ways that you can protect your privacy on Facebook. While there are a few other small things to keep in mind, these ten settings are most important. Keep in mind that while you may have turned off the visibility of many profile sections, there is no way to prevent all photos or videos from being visible if friends of yours make the images visible.

The best way to prevent embarrassing items from showing up on Facebook in the future is to not make bad judgements in your personal life. We’re all human though and being completely paranoid about every choice you make is probably not the best way to live your life. Be aware of what privacy settings are available and be conscious of what your friends may be publishing about you.

While you may not want to configure all of the privacy settings outlined, simply knowing how to do so is a great step in the right direction. By following the 10 settings listed above you are well on your way to an embarrassment free future on Facebook!

my.SXSW Launches on The Social Collective

Chris Bucchere — Mon, 02 Feb 2009 08:54:00 -0800

We're rolling out a huge conference site today called my.SXSW for the legendary film, music and interactive festival SXSW!

We certainly haven't done a scientific study about this, but using "thumb in the air" math, I would venture to guess that this is the largest conference ever to roll out a white-label social networking platform. We're very pleased they they chose The Social Collective.

You can read the full story on Collectively Speaking, The Social Collective blog.

Newsflash: Facebook Not “Cashing In On Friends”

Robin Wauters — Mon, 02 Feb 2009 05:17:10 -0800

Facebook is planning to exploit the vast amount of personal information it holds on its 150m members by creating one of the world’s largest market research databases.

That’s how this Telegraph article kicks off in a report that was widely quoted by a ton of tech news sites and blogs. Sure enough, the article was based on an interview with Randi Zuckerberg, Facebook’s Global Markets Director and Mark Zuckerberg’s sister, so it had to be true, right?

Well, no.

AllFacebook’s Nick O’Neill, who had also penned a piece based on the Telegraph article, has since gotten in touch with the company’s communications department and cites Facebook representatives claiming that the piece is factually incorrect in its entirety and based on misinterpreted statements from Randi Zuckerberg.

We’ve reached out to the company for more insight on this.

Facebook has been experimenting with real-time polls in Davos this year and also have been rolling out the Engagement Ads system that is designed to leverage Facebook’s vast amount of data on users to improve targeted advertising, but claims that they’ll be turning the social network into one of the “world’s largest market research databases” seem to be a bit over the top in any case.

Update - here’s Facebook’s response:

“The polls run at the World Economic Forum were not part of a commercially available product for advertisers and should not be confused with Facebook’s Engagement Ads. At WEF, Facebook ran a series of polls to provide the Davos audience with real-time insight into the opinions of people outside of the conference. These polls were conducted on Facebook using internal tools.

Engagement Ads have been available since September and take five different forms. Most recently, Facebook began testing an Engagement Ad where advertisers can pose a question within the ad itself.

Facebook has, for many years, allowed the targeting of advertising in a non-personally identifiable way, based on profile attributes. Nothing has changed in our approach, and Facebook is committed, as always, to connecting users in a trusted environment.”

Crunch Network: CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0

Facebook Polls Bring Reality To Davos Elite

Michael Arrington — Sun, 01 Feb 2009 22:17:29 -0800

YouTube wasn’t the only Internet company making a splash at the World Economic Forum at Davos this last week. Facebook’s Randi Zuckerberg was busy bringing a dose of reality into the elite discussion sessions.

Zuckerberg arranged for Facebook polls to be conducted during twelve key sessions. In one poll, during a session called Advice to the US President on Competitiveness, Facebook users were asked if the stimulus package is on target. 120,000 responses were recorded in twenty minutes. 59% of respondents said “no,” 15% said “yes” and 26% said unsure.

The poll results were displayed prominently above the panelists, including Rupert Murdoch (CEO News Corp.), Ellen Kullman (CEO DuPont), Duncan Niederauer (CEO NYSE Euronext), David Rubenstein (Managing Director, Carlyle Group) and Ronald Williams (CEO Aetna). The panelists largely approved of the stimulus package in their comments before the poll results came in. Facebook users obviously disagreed (the entire session is embedded below).

World Economic Forum officials I spoke with yesterday were delighted with the polls, clearly excited that they could bring in direct, real time feedback to the sessions.

Facebook polls can no longer be created by users, but Facebook continues to use the product directly. Perhaps their experience at Davos will convince them to re-open the product.

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Cooking Up A Dream!

Jeff Sass — Sun, 01 Feb 2009 20:20:16 -0800

Chef Zach

Gordon Ramsay, watch out! Zachary Sass is going to win HELL’S KITCHEN one day. I mean it! He is already my favorite chef in Hollywood (ok, Hollywood, Florida…).

ITS THEIR DREAM, NOT YOURS

Last night I had the pleasure of dining at the Terra Bite Cafe, in Hollywood, Florida where my 20 year old son, Zach, is the Chef. The Greek style Mediterranean food was delicious, beautifully presented, and made with incredibly fresh ingredients demonstrating why a Mediterranean diet is one of the healthiest in the world. Zach was beaming, and so was I, as the owner of Terra Bite, George, told me what a hard worker and wonderful chef Zach is, and how much he has already contributed to the success of the young restaurant. As any parent would be, I am enormously proud of Zach for his accomplishments, but I am even more proud of him for pursuing his dream. Ever since he was 10 years old Zach has wanted to be a chef. I have no idea why he chose it, but he did, and he was determined. In high school, he put “Culinary Arts” on his class ring, even though his school did not have any Culinary Arts classes. He applied to only one college, Johnson & Wales University, well known for it’s Culinary and Hospitality programs. Zach is now a junior there.

DON’T JUST RAISE YOUR KIDS, RAISE THEM UP!

I am not just proud of Zach, I am also proud of myself and his mom for never discouraging him from his dream, regardless of how (awkward? out of left field? unrealistic?) it may have seemed to us at first. After all, when he started saying he wanted to be a chef, Zach hadn’t really ever cooked anything. And of course I had a (not so) glamorous view of working in the restaurant business after reading Anthony Bourdain’s KITCHEN CONFIDENTIAL (which perhaps changed my view of dining out forever). Still, Zach did not waiver from his dream, and we did not stand in his way.

PASSION IS PERSONAL

I have written here before about “raising a Rockstar” and the importance of the three P’s: Pride, Passion and Professionalism. In today’s challenging world, the middle P, Passion, is perhaps the most important. It is hard to be successful in life without finding things to be passionate about, and passion is very personal. Zach is passionate about cooking. I am not. I am passionate about other things that don’t interest Zach. What is important is that he is passionate about his dream, and therefore I have no doubt he will achieve it, (and he is already well on his way). As the Dad, I hope I will always acknowledge and support anything my kids are passionate about.

How about you? Have your kids found things they are passionate about? What if their passions are not the same as yours? Please add your thoughts in the comments, and (SHAMELESS PLUG) if you are ever in Hollywood, Florida, go eat at the Terra Bite Cafe!

Jeff Sass is the proud dad of ZEO (Zach, 20, Ethan, 18 and Olivia, 17). He is also a seasoned entertainment and technology exec and active social media enthusiast. You can see more of Jeff’s writing at Sassholes! and Social Networking Rehab.

A Brief History of Twitter

Om Malik — Sun, 01 Feb 2009 11:35:59 -0800

Dom Sagolla, formerly of Odeo Corp., corporate predecessor of Obvious Corp., the company behind Twitter, tells the story of the micro-messaging service that has caught the imagination of everyone from from tech mommies to cable news networks, sports stars and Hollywood stars. It has become a source of breaking news and rumors. It is the new pulsating heart of the real-time Internet. It was born at a time when Odeo was facing a rather bleak future:

“Rebooting” or reinventing the company started with a daylong brainstorming session where we broke up into teams to talk about our best ideas. I was lucky enough to be in @Jack’s group, where he first described a service that uses SMS to tell small groups what you are doing.

I remember that @Jack’s first use case was city-related: telling people that the club he’s at is happening. “I want to have a dispatch service that connects us on our phones using text.”

Work on the project started on March 31, 2006. @Jack is Jack Dorsey, until recently the CEO of Twitter. He wrote the version 0.1 with Noah Glass, who showed me Twitter, back when it was known as Twttr, at a party in SOMA in San Francisco. That very night I wrote a short blog post about the service:

Twttr has married Short Code Messaging, SMS with a way to create social groups. By sending a text message to a short code (for TWTTR) you can send your location information, your mood information or whatever and share it with people who are on your social-mob! Best part - no installation necessary!

Thanks to an early jump, I got the @Om handle for my Twitter account. Reading that original post, I am amazed at how much has changed in two-and-a-half years. For Twitter, web has become the primary focus. The company has received a $500 million buyout offer, not to mention criticism for not being able to keep the service working all the time.

As Dom points out, over time, much of the original team from Odeo was let go — including Glass. Odeo became Obvious Corp., and, well, the rest is history. Now, the company is rumored to be valued at $250 million and is on its way to becoming the next hot platform on the web.

My Select Twitter related posts:

1. On Twitter, Followers Aren’t Really Friends.
2. In Twitter’s Scoble Problem, a Business Model.
3. Why Twitter shouldn’t sell.
4. With Summize, Twitter to buy a clue

Green your IT. Save Money. Save the Planet » Register at $295 / $495 regular »
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I Know It When I See It

amcafee — Tue, 27 Jan 2009 11:31:07 -0800

More and more often these days I get asked “Does [offering X] from [vendor Y] qualify as an Enterprise 2.0 product?” Established vendors of collaboration software are modifying their offerings and repositioning them as social software platforms that have all the features and functions necessary to support the new modes of interacting and getting work done. Smaller companies and startups often say that the established vendors “just don’t get it” and that the new features they’ve incorporated – blogs, wikis, discussion forums, tags, etc. – are just windowdressing on products that are still essentially geared for Collaboration 1.0.

So who’s right? Whose products at present come closest to enabling Web 2.0-style collaboration and interaction in enterprise environments? Honestly, I have no idea. It would be a huge amount of work just to learn about all the vendors and their offerings, let alone to evaluate them. And evaluating them “fresh out of the box” wouldn’t be that relevant anyway; collaboration software usually gets highly configured and tailored by companies before it’s turned on, with only some features activated and only some of those highlighted. One company, for example, might want its employees to be able to blog, while another wants no such thing.

Because of these facts I usually dodge questions about specific vendors and their offerings, and instead answer how I’d look at any particular deployment of collaboration software to see if it met my definition of Enterprise 2.0.

I find this pretty easy to do. I check to see if the environment meets three criteria: Is it freeform? How frictionless is contribution? And is it emergent? To put some flesh on each of these terms…

Freeform means that the technology does not in any meaningful way impose, hardwire, or make and enforce assumptions about
- Workflows
- Roles
- Privileges
- Content
- Decision right allocations
Instead, people come together as equals within the environment created by technology, and do pretty much whatever they want.

I want to stress one more time that technologies that are not freeform are not bad or shortsighted or somehow deficient. If I were in charge of a retailer, for example, I’d want an ERP-ish system that my customer service reps used to take orders from customers, then send them to the warehouse for fulfillment and also to accounts payable. I’d want that system to have a standard order-to-ship workflow that was very hard to deviate from. I would NOT want this system to consider all employees to be equal, to assign them all to the same roles, or to give them equal privileges or decision rights. Finally, I’d want it to never accept a ZIP code that contained letters.

In addition to this system, though, I’d also certainly want to have one or more completely freeform digital platforms in which employees and other constituencies could come together as equals to decide what topics were important for the company, and how to attack them. My experience is that over time people place themselves into roles within these platforms (As USC’s Ann Majchrzak and her colleagues found in a study of corporate wiki users), but the important point is that they’re not assigned into roles up front, or by any external party.

Frictionless means that users perceive it to be easy to participate in the platform, and can do so with very little time or effort. One measure of friction is the total time required between having an idea for a contribution (while sitting in front of the computer, carrying the iPhone, etc.) and the appearance of that contribution on the platform.

Sign-ins, navigation through many web pages, and clunky user interfaces are all perceived as hurdles by a platform’s potential users, and increase friction. So does the need to massage a contribution like a blog post to look like it wasn’t put together by a complete hack. I can already tell, for example, that I’m going to post to this version of my blog more often than I did when it was hosted under the hbs.edu domain name and used a different and clunkier interface for posting. I felt like I had to tweak each entry for a long time to make it look OK, and it was a disincentive to post.

Tweetdeck, on the other hand, makes contribution to Twitter pretty frictionless. It sits on my desktop as a separate client, and I zip over to it whenever I have an idea. It’s quick and painless to send a standard tweet, a reply, a direct message, or a retweet, and to shorten and include a URL. With Tweetdeck I can convince myself to take a timeout from my deep academic thinking (coughcough) more often because each timeout is so short – literally just a matter of seconds.

Emergent is both most intuitive of these three terms and the hardest to pin down. It really does bring to mind Justice Potter Stewart’s famous yet unhelpful definition of obscenity “I know it when I see it.” My best-effort definition of the phenomenon is the appearance over time within a system of higher-level patterns or structure arising from large numbers of unplanned and undirected low-level interactions.

I wrote about the mechanisms of online emergence here and here; they include linking, tagging, friending (as on Facebook and LinkedIn), and following (as on Twitter). These are all activities that help patterns and structure appear, and that let the cream of the content rise to the top for all platform members, no matter how they define what the cream is.

Without these mechanisms, online content becomes less useful – less easy to navigate, consume, and analyze — as it accumulates. With these mechanisms in place, just the opposite happens; the platform exhibits increasing returns to scale, and becomes more valuable as it grows.

The Web as a whole, and especially the Web 2.0 portions of it, is wondrously freeform, frictionless, and emergent. It stands as our clearest example of the kinds of energy and benefit that can be unleashed by the new technologies of interaction, and the communities that form on top of them. Some specific sub-segments of the Web like Facebook and especially Twitter are almost perfectly freeform and frictionless, but are less able to foster all forms of emergence. As I wrote here and here, it’s hard for me to use them to separate signal from noise and let the ‘best’ content rise to the top.

Too many corporate collaboration environments that I’ve observed, in contrast, come up short on the frictionless and freeform criteria. They make it far too difficult for prospective users to contribute, and they persist in slotting people into pre-assigned roles based largely on the formal org chart. In many cases they also impede emergence by having many small and mutually inaccessible environments, instead of one big one. The tendency to build walled gardens is evidently a deep-seated one, and one that should be questioned far more often than is currently the case.

Do these three criteria – freeform, frictionless, and emergent — make sense to you and resonate with what you’ve seen and learned about the new technology-facilitated modes of collaboration? Am I leaving out any critical properties of effective technologies for supporting Enterprise 2.0? Do you agree that an enterprise’s chances of success rise significantly if it creates digital environments that have all three? Leave a comment, please, and let us know.

TripIt Launches An API. Travel Sites, Please Use It

Jason Kincaid — Mon, 26 Jan 2009 09:19:29 -0800

TripIt, the helpful travel site that lets you generate an itinerary by simply forwarding the service your Email confirmations from hotels and airlines, has opened up an API for outside developers. The API will give third party applications access to TripIt’s itinerary sysytem, which now accepts data from 350 travel sites. Developers can find all the details for joining the program here.

A number of applications have already used the API to implement new features. Expensd, an online service that helps business travelers manage their expenses, will use TripIt to automatically import your transit and hotel expenses. Popular iPhone application FlightTrack will use TripIt to automatically look up your flights to see if they’re on time. And Where I’ve Been, a social network application that plots your travels on a map for your friends to see, will use the API to automatically look up your destinations. Other potential uses for the API include an ‘Add To TripIt’ button that would allow travel sites to transmit your booking data to TripIt so you won’t have to forward your confirmation Email.

TripIt is a great service, especially for frequent travelers (it has been on Michael’s list of products he can’t live without for two years running). I’m excited to see what developers can come up with - hopefully some major travel booking sites will get a clue too, and start offering that ‘add to TripIt’ button so we can skip the Email forwarding.

Crunch Network: CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0

There's No Such Thing as a Free Lunch

Chris Bucchere — Sun, 25 Jan 2009 14:42:00 -0800

Today Robert Scoble wrote a really interesting and thought-provoking article on his blog about the alleged suspension/removal of Joel Comm's Facebook account. He draws a parallel to the revocation of Robert's own Facebook account and makes a good case for Facebook being outta line.

Here's my response to Robert:

In defense of you, Joel and countless others who have been suspended or removed from Facebook, it certainly doesn’t seem like you’re being treated fairly. It’s hard to imagine that someone with 5,000 confirmed Facebook friends and ten times as many followers on Twitter could be considered a spambot. Generally speaking, online communities, wikis, social networks, etc. have a way of policing themselves; content that other people enjoy gets shared and promoted while spam and other “noise” gets blocked or ignored. Facebook and other social sites would all be best-served by this sort of grassroots self-policing, rather than a top-down approach.

However, there’s a subtle point to which some other readers have alluded in the comments. You wrote, “I don’t support companies that ‘erase’ MY data without my permission.” What you may not realize is that based on Facebook’s TOS, what you think are “your data” actually are not “your data,” not by a long shot, not once you’ve posted them on Facebook.

If you think there are safer or better places than Facebook to put “your data” on the internet, you’re also mistaken. Take a peek at Google’s TOS. In particular, read section 11, where you hand over all rights to “your” content to them (except basic copyright, which you automatically have any time you produce an original work and put your name on it). You’re basically giving Google a free license to use your content — even for their own commercial gain!

Everyone knows that there’s no such thing as a free lunch. In return for providing “free” distribution of “your” content, companies like Facebook, Google and the likes are creating massive databases of incredibly valuable “information capital.” This in turn allows them to offer you a “free” service while they sell this information capital — the stuff you gave them, remember? — to advertisers. That pays their bills, which in turn allows them to continue to give you “free” content distribution.

Average people (who upload videos of dogs on skateboards, etc. to Facebook) don’t care about data ownership and are perfectly happy to hand the rights to their content over to Facebook or Google it order to share it more easily with their friends. Average people — however — aren’t one man media outlets, either, but YOU are. So, being an internet/social media mogul, I’m sure you understand that content distribution isn’t free.

The solution? Host your content yourself! People like you and Joel have the resources to pay for your own hosting AND you have loyal audiences that will follow you wherever you go. You can leverage social media to help the viral spread of your content, but the obvious goal of your participation in social media and social networking should be to drive eyeballs/click-throughs back to YOUR site so people can view YOUR content, ensuring that YOUR advertisers get bang for their buck.

It really all boils down to two old sayings: there’s no such thing as a free lunch and you get what you pay for. Want to pay for your own hosting and distribution? Then you can own your own content. Want to get free distribution from Facebook or Google? Then be prepared to give them something in return.

Facebook Gets Over 2 Million Inaugural Status Updates, Where’s the Twitter Killer?

Nick O'Neill — Sat, 24 Jan 2009 17:58:29 -0800

When Facebook and CNN partnered for inauguration coverage it was a historic moment for both CNN and Facebook. CNN for the first time had tens of millions of users stream a historic moment online rather than tune into their television. For Facebook, this was the largest implementation of Facebook Connect ever. According to and article posted by Randi Zuckerberg yesterday afternoon, the site received over 2 million status updates through the CNN.com live Facebook feed.

This was also the first time that I know of that users could view their live status feed outside of Facebook. It was useful and it also gave us a tasted of what it would be like to substitute Facebook for Twitter for real-time public conversation. Within a day, one reader shared with us how to embed the CNN.com Live feed widget directly into your browser. Within a few hours, the widget was disabled and users could no longer view the feed.

Twitter is already racing against Facebook to become the live conversation platform. The CNN.com integration with Facebook was my first experience with truly interactive television. Hundreds of friends tuned in via Facebook and I was tracking in real-time what emotions my friends were experiencing as I shared the moment with them. While the same emotions probably wouldn’t be experienced while watching the most recent episode of Lost, the experience would be more enriching than watching the show in solitary from my living room.

Facebook gave us a taste of the power that they have when combined with other mass media, but it was only that: a taste. I’ve stated before that Facebook could kill Twitter overnight. It may be far fetched but my argument still remains, Facebook is far more mainstream than Twitter and by making our status updates publicly available, Facebook could stunt Twitter’s growth.

Rather than clinging to my hopes for Facebook to strike out against Twitter, I’ll simply emphasize that Facebook has hit on something incredibly large. I can only expect a similar implementation on Hulu, which will help the site become the most interactive live viewing media platform on the web. I only hope that Facebook opens up status updates for everybody instead of offering this solution on a case by case basis, as they did with CNN.

How I Stole Someone's Identity: Scientific American

Fri, 23 Jan 2009 23:13:21 -0800

Why did CNN’s web site dominate inauguration coverage? Facebook Connect?

Eric Eldon — Fri, 23 Jan 2009 10:53:01 -0800

CNN’s web site had the attention of more than four percent of U.S. web users when it streamed President Barack Obama’s inauguration live on Tuesday, according to a Compete traffic report today — much higher than rival Fox, CBS and MSNBC’s traffic combined. Why?

Maybe it was because CNN’s site was already much more popular, as you can see from the Compete traffic graph. Since most people already visited CNN’s web site for online news, its where they told their friends to go.

However, many of us were impressed by CNN’s integration of Facebook Connect (even though the video wasn’t perfect). Maybe that service’s success had something to do with the traffic increase? It basically lets you chat with your friends on Facebook while watching the inauguration on CNN, repurposing Facebook status updates feature into a real-time threaded chat service. Facebook said that more than 1.5 million status messages were generated on the CNN site that day. See screenshot below.

One way that Connect may have driven traffic to CNN is that the chat messages appeared within user profiles and on news feeds on Facebook, so friends would see that you were watching the inauguration and go chat with you on CNN. Of course, Facebook and CNN both advertised the service beforehand, so that certainly affected overall usage. We don’t have detailed numbers to help us sort out why CNN’s traffic was so much higher than rivals during the inauguration, but it could be an early indicator of where Connect is going.

How to Convince Your Company to Pay for a SXSWi Pass

Chris Bucchere — Wed, 14 Jan 2009 03:30:00 -0800

Times are tough, right? Everyone is slashing spending, especially around travel and conference budgets. But you need (read: want) to be at SXSWi. So it's time to convince your boss that your attendance at SXSWi is something that the business needs to be successful.

Fortunately, if your company does or wants to do anything with the interwebs (and seriously, who doesn't these days?), this is easier than you thought. Just follow these five easy steps.

1. Look at the SXSWi speaker/panel lineup and pick ten panels that are relevant to your line of work. I'm a web 2.0 developer with more than a passing interest in social media, so this is easy. But the panels run the gamut of topics, so you should be able to find something that works for your business/industry. Here's an example: Building Personal and Company Brands with Web 2.0 Tools. Every company wants a stronger brand, right?

2. Copy the titles and abstracts into an e-mail to your boss and elaborate on how you'll benefit from them. More importantly, give specific reasons why what you learn will help you and your team, peers, etc. achieve 2009's business goals. To continue with our example, my company needs to grow our social media cred. The panel consists of Saul Colt, C.C. Chapman and Gary Vaynerchuk. According to their bios (on their web sites), Saul is "an accomplished marketing professional, with more than a decade of diverse high-level experience and a respected publisher" and C.C.'s company, The Advance Guard, "focuses on helping brands of all sizes smartly and strategically leverage emerging technologies for radical marketing programs." Gary doesn't really require an explanation, but if your boss has been living in a cave, then you might want to drop a few adjectives like "inspirational" and "passionate." Example: This panel will help me form an action plan on how to grow my company's social media cred, following the examples set by these three extraordinary social media mavens.

3. Outline the maximum line item costs for the event. The pass, the travel, the hotel and the food. If you really want to go, make your food budget less than $50/day, your hotel budget less than $100/day and cover the rest (if necessary) with your own cash. Don't provide a total, as it might overwhelm your boss at first brush. Besides, I'm sure he or she can add.

4. Plan a post-conference re-cap meeting. This is crucial! Set a date and make a list of team members who you will invite, including your boss. During this meeting, promise to share the highlights of what you learned at SXSWi and what you recommend that the business do differently. Explain how these revolutionary ideas will boldly move the company forward in ways they never could have imagined.

5. Split the difference. Remind your boss that the conference takes place Friday-Tuesday (March 13th to 17th). If you travel after work on Thursday or on Friday morning and return to work the following Wednesday, you're only missing three days of work AND you're donating your time to the company you love so much over the weekend.

There you have it, your "free" pass to SXSWi. Well, it's not exactly free. You have to deliver on all the promises you're making to your boss, especially if you want to go next year! Now if only it was this easy to justify the music festival. . . .

(Thanks to allisonb00, the inspiration for many things in my life, including this blog post.)

BIL Conference 2009 Selects The Social Collective to Provide Conference Social Network

Chris Bucchere — Tue, 13 Jan 2009 07:08:00 -0800

(I-Newswire) - Long Beach, CA

The second annual BIL Conference, scheduled to take place on February 7th and 8th, 2009, announced today that they have selected Herndon, VA-based BDG's white-label conference social networking platform, The Social Collective, as their provider for conference registration and social networking services.

BIL is an ad-hoc conference for people changing the world in big ways. It’s a place for passionate people to come together to energize, brainstorm, and take action. Last year's BIL had over 300 attendees. This year, almost twice that have already signed up on the social network. Confirmed speakers include TED Prize winners Cameron Sinclair of Architecture for Humanity and Eric Rasmussen of InSTEDD.

Other proposed talks include Silona Bonewald's (founder of The League of Technical Voters) "Transparent Government Starting With The Federal Budget" and Ben Huh's (of I Can Has Cheezburger) "What's Funny About The Interwebs."

BIL's "unconference" format permits anyone to speak, so interested parties may sign up to give a talk.

The talks are then "favorited" to the main stage by peers, or remain in a breakout room if they don't receive enough favorites.

"We chose The Social Collective because it's a great way to herd smart people," said BIL Conference co-chair Todd Huffman. "In addition to posting new talks and adding talks to their favorites, people can create and join groups, engage in discussions, make a new network of friends and keep their new relationships alive post-conference. The format was a great fit for BIL, but I can see it working well at more structured events, too."

"We're really enjoying the experience of watching and participating in the growth of the online BIL community, powered by The Social Collective," said BDG chief and one of the The Social Collective developers, Chris Bucchere. "The BIL team has been a pleasure to work with and the community has been very supportive of our efforts. The outstanding content and people involved should make BIL one of the must-attend events of 2009."

For additional information or to register for free, visit the BIL Conference web site.

Social networking app for conferences to get Facebook Connect integration

Fri, 19 Dec 2008 10:27:33 -0800

Social networking app for conferences to get Facebook Connect integration

Steve — Thu, 18 Dec 2008 23:15:18 -0800

Chris Bucchere, founder and CEO of bdg, the company behind the conference social networking solution The Social Collective gave me the scoop on their upcoming Facebook Connect integration.

The Social Collective is bdg’s first SaaS offering: a Ruby on Rails-based social networking application for conferences that allows attendees to mix and mingle online before, during and after conferences. The site recently hosted the WIRe and ICES IC Enterprise 2.0 Conference, as well as the RubyNation conference. They also powered the final 2008 BEA Participate conference along with AquaLogic Interaction (now Oracle WebCenter Interaction).

In a recent Twitter exchange, Chris confirmed that an upcoming build of the Social Collective will include Facebook Connect integration. When I asked why the Social Collective chose Facebook Connect as a first point of integration, his answer was pretty straightforward, and perhaps expected: in part because Facebook Connect was somewhat easier to integrate, and in part because the integration into the activity feed for Facebook makes it easier to get the word out about the site, and allow friends and family of attendees to “virtually attend” conferences.

With the outlook for the economy still looking cloudy for the next year or so, low-cost social networking alternatives for conference attendees could be a possible method for some conferences to retain attendees who want to participate without incurring the company costs of traveling.

A List of Create-Your-Own Social Network Sites

Wed, 17 Dec 2008 12:36:53 -0800

Not So Simple Any More: The Bleeding Edge of RSS

Chris Bucchere — Mon, 08 Dec 2008 04:32:18 -0800

Not So Simple Any More: The Bleeding Edge of RSS

Source: bil.nowgetsocial.com

Check your RSS reader at the door and hear about what some of the most cutting-edge web developers are doing with syndication. After being pigeonholed for years, RSS is growing up and going social. Learn how new ideas like community RSS aggregation and Attention.xml are shaping the future of RSS.

Check out my proposed talk at BIL 2009 and add it to your favorites if you think it's worthy (registration required).

Social Media “Glue” and Gnip’s Co-opetition with FriendFeed

Wed, 12 Nov 2008 11:09:24 -0800

Generate random data in Ruby [ruby] [random] [data] [firstname] [lastname]

Sat, 08 Nov 2008 19:03:30 -0800

Change.org - Ideas for Changing America: Leadership Accountability

Chris Bucchere — Sat, 08 Nov 2008 08:23:30 -0800

Change.org - Ideas for Changing America: Leadership Accountability

Source: www.change.org

As you move forward please use measurement on where you are now and where you want to be in the future like the end of your term . Talking to the American people with facts holds you and your staff accountable . ...

My dad voted for Obama (yay!). Now he wants to see him use standard business metrics to measure the efficacy of his initiatives. I think this is a great idea and I encourage you to vote for it. We should always hold our leaders (business, government, religious, etc.) accountable: they must walk the walk, not just talk the talk.

Case for Vertical Social Networks

Fri, 31 Oct 2008 11:56:39 -0700

Twitter - Sign Up Loop - New

Thu, 30 Oct 2008 08:00:57 -0700

Google's Joe Kraus on How to Make the Web More Social - Knowledge@Wharton

Sun, 26 Oct 2008 20:07:52 -0700

Top Ten Tips for Writing Plumtree Crawlers that Actually Work

Chris Bucchere — Sun, 26 Oct 2008 14:19:00 -0700

Just in time for Halloween, I've decided to publish my Top Ten Tips for Writing Plumtree Crawlers that Actually Work. This post may scare you a little bit, but hey, that's the spirit of Halloween, right?

[Editor's note: yes, we're still calling it Plumtree. Why? I did a Google search today and 771,000 hits came up for "plumtree" as opposed to around 300,000 for "aqualogic" and just over 400,000 for "webcenter." Ignoring the obvious -- that a short, simple name always wins over a technically convoluted one -- it just helps clarify what we're talking about. For example, if we say "WebCenter," no one knows whether we're talking about Oracle's drag-n-drop environment for creating JSR-168 portlets (WebCenter Suite) or Plumtree's Foundation/Portal (WebCenter Interaction). So, frankly, you can call it whatever you want, but we're still gonna call it Plumtree so that people will know WTF we're talking about.]

So, you want to write a Plumtree Crawler Web Service (CWS), eh? Here are ten tips that I learned the hard way (i.e. by NOT doing them):

1. Don't actually build a crawler
2. If you must, at least RTFM
3. Hierarchyze your content
4. Test first
5. When testing, use the Service Station 2.0 (if you can get it)
6. Code for thread safety
7. Write DRY code (or else)
8. Don't confuse ChildDocument with Document
9. Use the named methods on DocumentMetaData
10. RTFM (again)

Before I get into the gory details, let me give you some background. First off, what's a CWS anyway? It's the code behind what Oracle now calls Content Services, which spider through various types of content (for lack of a better term) and import pointers to those bits of content into the Knowledge Directory. This ability to spider content and normalize its metadata is one of the most underrated features in Plumtree. (FYI, it was also the first feature we built and arguably, the best.)

Each bit of spidered content is called a Document or a Card or a Link depending on whether you're looking at the product, the API or the documentation, respectively. It's important to realize that CWSs don't actually move content into Plumtree; rather, they store only pointers/links and metadata and they help the Plumtree search engine (known under the covers as Ripfire Ignite) build its index of searchable fulltext and properties.

Today, Plumtree ships with one OOTB CWS that knows how to crawl/spider web pages. Not surprisingly, it's known as the Web Crawler. Don't let the name mislead you: the web crawler can actually crawl almost anything, as I explain in my first tip, which is "Don't actually build a crawler." But I'm getting ahead of myself.

So, back to the background on crawlers. Oracle ships five of 'em, AFAIK: one for Windows files, one for Lotus Notes databases, one for Exchange Public Folders, one for Documentum and one for Sharepoint. Their names give you blatantly obvious hints at what they do, so I won't get into it. Along with the OOTB crawlers, Oracle also exposes a nice, clean API for writing crawlers in Java or .NET. (If you really want to push the envelope, you can try writing a crawler in PHP, Python, Ruby, Perl, C++ or whatever, but it's hard enough to write one in Java or .NET, so I wouldn't go there. If you do, though, make sure that your language has a really good SOAP stack.)

So, after reading this, you still want to write a crawler, yes? Let's get into my Top Ten Tips:

1. Don't actually build a crawler

Yes, you really don't want to go here. Building crawlers is not that hard, as there's a clean, well documented API. However, getting them work is a whole other story.

Most applications these days have a web UI. So, take advantage of it. Point the OOTB web crawler at the web UI and see what it does. Some web UIs will work well, other won't (particularly if they use frames or lots of javascript.)

Let's assume for a moment that this technique doesn't work. Or perhaps you're dealing with some awful client-server or greenscreen POS that doesn't have a web UI. Either way, you may still be able to use the web crawler.

How? Well, the web crawler can crawl almost anything using something that we used to call the Woogle Web. Think of it this way. Say you want to crawl a database. Perhaps that database contains bug reports. Rather than waste your time trying to write a database crawler, just write an index.jsp (or .php, .aspx, .html.erb, .you-name-it) page that does something like "select id from bugs" and dumps out a list of all the bugs in the database. Then, hyperlink each one to a detail page (that's essentially a "select * from bugs where id = ?" query). Your index page can be sinfully ugly. However, put some effort into your detail pages, making them look pretty AND using meta tags to map each field in the database to its value.

Then, simply point the OOTB web crawler at your index page, tell it not to import your index page, map your properties to the appropriate meta tags, crawl at a depth of one level, and get yourself a nice cup of coffee. By the time you get back, the OOTB web crawler will have created documents/links/cards for every bug with links to your pretty detail pages and every bit of text will be full-text searchable. So will every property, meaning that you can run an advanced search on bug id, component, assignee, severity, etc.

At Plumtree, we used to call this a Woogle Web. It may sound ridiculous, but a Woogle Web is a great way to crawl virtually anything without lifting a finger.

However, a Woogle Web won't work for everything. If you're dealing with a product where you can't even get your head around the database schema AND you have a published Java, .NET or Web Service API, then you might want to think about writing a custom crawler.

2. If you must, at least RTFM

If you're anything like me, reading the manual is what you do after you've tried everything else and nothing has worked out. In the case of Plumtree crawlers, I recommend swallowing your pride (at least momentarily) and reading all of the documentation, including their "tips" (which are totally different from and not nearly as entertaining as my tips, but equally valuable).

Once you're done reading all the documentation, you might also want to consult Tip #10.

3. Hierarchyze your content

Um, yeah, I know "hierarchyze" isn't a word. But since crawlers only know how to crawl hierarchies, if your data aren't hierarchical, you darn well better figure out how to represent them hierarchically before you start writing code. Even if you don't think this step is necessary, just do it because I said so for now. You'll thank me later.

4. Test first

Don't even try to write your crawler and then run it and expect it to work. Ha! Instead, write unit tests for every modular bit of code that you throw down. To every extent that's it's possible, write these tests first. It'll save your butt later.

5. When testing, use the Service Station 2.0 (if you can find it)

When you do finally get around to integration testing your crawler, it'll save you a lot of time if you use the Service Station 2.0. However, it may take you a long time to get it, so start the process early. Unlike every product Oracle distributes, it is 1) free and 2) not available for download. Yeah, you read that correctly.

To get it, you need to contact support. I called them and told them I needed it and after two weeks I got nothing but a confused voicemail back saying that support doesn't fulfill product orders. Um, yeah. So I called back and literally begged to talk to someone who actually knew what this thing was. Then I painstakingly explained why I couldn't get it from edelivery (because it's not there) nor from commerce.bea.com (because it's permanently redirecting to oracle.com) nor from one.bea.com (because there it says to contact support). So, after my desperate pleas and 15 calendar days of waiting, I got an e-mail with an FTP link to download the Service Station 2.0.

After installing this little gem, my life got a lot easier. Now instead of testing by launching a Plumtree job to kick of the crawler (and then watching it crash and burn), I could use the Service Station to synchronously invoke each method on the crawler and log the results.

Another handy testing tool is the PocketSOAP TCPTrace utility. (It's also very handy for writing Plumtree portlets.) You can set it up between the Service Station and your CWS and watch the SOAP calls go back and forth in clear text. Very nice.

6. Code for thread safety

So, as the documentation says (and as I completely ignored), crawlers are multithreaded. The portal will launch several threads against your code and, unless you code for thread safety, these threads will proceed to eat you for lunch.

Coding for threadsafety means not only that you need to synchronize access to any class-level variables, but also that you must use only threadsafe objects (e.g. in Java, use ArrayList instead of Vector).

7. Write DRY code (or else)

Even though you're probably writing your CWS in Java or .NET, stick to the ol' Ruby on Rails adage: Don't Repeat Yourself.

Say for example, that you need to build a big ol' Map of all the Document objects in order to retrieve a document and send its metadata back to the mothership (Plumtree). It's really important that you don't build that map every time IDocumentProvider.attachToDocument is called. If you do, your crawler is going to run for a very very very long time. Crawlers don't have to be super fast, but they shouldn't be dog shit slow either.

As a better choice, build the Map the first time attachToDocument is called and store it as a class-level variable. Then, with each successive call to attachToDocument, check for the existence of the Map and, if it's already built, don't build it again. And don't forget to synchronize not only the building of the Map, but also the access to the variable that checks whether the Map exists or not. Like I said, this isn't a walk in the park. (See Tip #1.)

8. Don't confuse ChildDocument with Document

IContainer has a getChildDocuments method. This, contrary to how it looks on the surface, does not return IDocument objects. Instead, it expects you to return an array of ChildDocument objects. These, I repeat, are not IDocument objects. Instead, they're like little containers of information about child documents that Plumtree uses so that it knows when to call IDocumentProvider.attachToDocument. It is that call (attachToDocument) and not getChildDocuments that actually returns an IDocument object, where all the heavy lifting of document retrieval actually gets done.

You may not understand this tip right now, but if drop by and read it again after you've tried to code against the API for a few hours, and it should make more sense.

9. Use the named methods on DocumentMetaData

This one really burned me badly. I saw that DocumentMetaData had a "put" method. So, naturally, I called it several times to fill it up with the default metadata. Then I wasted the next two hours trying to figure out why Plumtree kept saying that I was missing obvious default metadata properties (like FileName). The solution? Call the methods that actually have names like setFileName, setIndexingURL, etc. -- don't use put for standard metadata. Instead, only use it for custom metadata.

10. RTFM (again)

I can't stress the importance of reading the documentation. If you think you understand what to do, read it again anyway. I guarantee that you'll set yourself up for success if you really read and thoroughly digest the documentation before you lift a finger and start writing your test cases (which of course you're going to write before you write your code, right?).

* * *

As always, if you get stuck, feel free to reach out to the Plumtree experts at bdg. We're here to help. But don't be surprised if the first thing we do is try to dissuade you from writing a crawler.

Have a safe and happy Halloween and don't let Plumtree Crawlers scare you more than they should. Boo!

Test your web design in different browsers - Browsershots

Tue, 30 Sep 2008 18:29:00 -0700

Testing Software for Web Professionals - Litmus

Tue, 30 Sep 2008 13:18:30 -0700

Cross browser testing tool.

Setting up Subversion Integration | Lighthouse

Mon, 29 Sep 2008 21:46:06 -0700

bdg welcomes Michael Buckbee!

Chris Bucchere — Mon, 29 Sep 2008 15:42:00 -0700

We're very pleased to announce that industry veteran, entrepreneur and Rails developer Michael Buckbee joined the bdg team today as CTO and Lead Developer on The Social Collective!

Mike's career path is surprisingly similar to my own -- in multiple ways. Fresh out of college, he joined a health industry startup called Aristar in 1999. They were acquired by SoftMed, which was then acquired by 3M HIS. (Recall that I worked at Plumtree, which was bought by BEA, which was bought by Oracle.) Unlike yours truly, who left Plumtree in 2002, Mike stayed on at 3M. As someone who just doesn't know what it means to get bored, he also started several side projects. The most successful of these was Fabjectory, which could best be described as a 3D printshop that allows people to take their avatars (or other objects from the virtual world) offline and reincarnate them as real life figurines.

Again, our paths resemble one another, in an almost uncanny way. As I was toiling away on Feedhaus, Mike was building FeedMail, which essentially tried to allow people to read and respond to email from inside a feed reader. Like Feedhaus, the idea never really took off. However, some of Mike's other projects -- like Fabjectory -- generated an amazing amount of buzz, including articles in the New York Times and WIRED. Prior to starting Fabjectory, Mike had yet another side project called Second411 which allowed people to search for virtual items both in-world and on the web. Second411 was purchased by ESC in October of 2006.

Never one to settle for just a few side-projects, Mike also worked on FoxyMelody, Watchlister, OneToFive, FeedSpeaker and an open source HTTP queue that runs on Google's Application Engine. Here at bdg, we've long been in the business of throwing lots of spaghetti at the fridge and seeing what sticks, so obviously Mike will fit right in. Visit Mike's blog and project page for more about his amazing career.

As Lead Developer on The Social Collective, Mike is already busy getting the site prepped for SXSW 2009, which will launch early in Q1.

Please join me and the rest of the bdg team in extending a warm welcome to Mike!

Thoughts from the Ringside

Mon, 29 Sep 2008 08:28:00 -0700

We might want to look into the code they've opensourced.

I Don't Even Like Radiohead, But. . . .

Chris Bucchere — Fri, 26 Sep 2008 08:26:00 -0700

I wouldn't consider myself a Radiohead fan. But what they just did is about to turn the music industry on its head . . . again. Check out this snippet from an e-mail they just sent me:

To coincide with asking radio stations to think about playing Reckoner we are breaking up the tune into pieces for you to remix. After the insane response we got from the Nude remix stems and the site that was dedicated to your remixes...
Unique visitors: 6,193,776, Page Views: 29,090,134, Hits: 58,340,512, Bandwidth: 10.666 Terabytes, Number of mixes: 2,252, Number of votes: 461,090, Number of track listens: 1,745,304
...we thought it only fair to do the same with a tune that at least is in 4/4. You can get the stems (the different instruments/elements) from here.
Sample, cut, take the sounds, whatever. Play it in a club. Or your room. Then if you want you can upload your finished mixes to http://www.radioheadremix.com and be judged by everyone else. You can create a widget allowing votes from your own site, Facebook or MySpace to be sent through too. [Emphasis mine.] To start things off we asked James Holden and Diplo to do their versions.

Whatever you want to call this (user-generated production?), it's downright brilliant. The idea that I -- a mere mortal -- get to mix and produce the next Radiohead song and that my version (if the general public likes it) could be the next big Radiohead hit is simply a mind-blowing and totally game-changing idea. Starting with Napster, then Kazaa and other P2P networks, then the idea that a major-label artist like Radiohead would put up an album (In Rainbows) and ask people to name a price for it -- including $0 -- the music industry has changed dramatically over the past ten years. And Radiohead is, as usual, leading the charge.

2008-09-25 10:09:34 -0700

chris_bucchere — Thu, 25 Sep 2008 10:15:27 -0700

chris_bucchere posted a photo:

Uploaded with Flickup on iPhone.

Chris Bucchere's Oracle Open World Schedule

Chris Bucchere — Thu, 18 Sep 2008 04:05:00 -0700

I'm headed to Oracle Open World on Saturday, 9/20. Here's my proposed schedule. Like I said earlier, I'm probably going to spend most of my time in the unconference anyway, but here's what looked interesting to me.

[Editor's note: I've removed the gCal from here because it defaults to the current date, so it's not really usable anymore, now that Oracle Open World 2008 is a thing of the past.]

If you'd prefer, you can also access this schedule in XML or ICAL format.

How To Demo Your Startup

Sun, 07 Sep 2008 14:15:21 -0700

SXSW to Use The Social Collective for SXSW 2009!

Chris Bucchere — Thu, 04 Sep 2008 07:54:00 -0700

I am very pleased to announce that today bdg and SXSW have decided to partner to use The Social Collective to create a new registrant community for SXSW 2009.

More details will follow soon. But for now, please join me in a collective w00t for the entire bdg team while we celebrate this amazing milestone for us. We all look forward to seeing The Social Collective in action at SXSW 2009!

Sneak Preview of Chris Bucchere's SXSW RSS Preso at the Oracle Open World Unconference

Chris Bucchere — Wed, 03 Sep 2008 02:11:00 -0700

For anyone attending Oracle Open World, I'm planning to give a preview of my SXSW 2009 talk entitled "Not So Simple Any More: RSS's Bleeding Edge" in the unconference track at OOW. (This will happen regardless of whether or not SXSW selects my talk for inclusion in the 2009 agenda.)

The talk is scheduled for Monday, 22 September 2008 at 2 PM Pacific in Moscone Overlook II. BTW, I'll probably be spending most of my time in the unconference track at OOW, because I'm just that kind of guy.

Conference Social Networking Made Simple with The Social Collective – Home

Chris Bucchere — Sun, 31 Aug 2008 19:17:10 -0700

Conference Social Networking Made Simple with The Social Collective – Home

Source: www.thesocialcollect...

The Social Collective provides a fun, interactive way for conference attendees to network with one another at your event.

We finally launched our marketing site -- hooray!

Conference Social Networking Made Simple

Chris Bucchere — Sun, 31 Aug 2008 13:00:00 -0700

Three and a half months have transpired since our stellar debut at BEA Participate. (In internet time, that's a lifetime.) But better late than never, I'm very pleased to announce the launch of our marketing home on the web: www.thesocialcollective.com!

Please have a look and let us know what you think.

Friday Fun: Rails, Django and Caprese Salad

Chris Bucchere — Fri, 29 Aug 2008 12:29:00 -0700

I had this Twitter argument today with former coworker, fellow web developer and friend Bryan Hughes:

bucchere: The Spring Framework is driving me crazy. If this were Rails, I'd be done already.

huuuze: @bucchere If it was Django, it'd be faster and ready to scale.

bucchere: @huuuze I'm not interested in a religious war right now. Please don't provoke me. ;-)

huuuze: @bucchere No war -- even the Rails guys agree: http://is.gd/1ZZu

bucchere: @huuuze Apparently Gluon is even faster than Django. But is anyone using it? You have to consider factors other than performance.

huuuze: @bucchere Um, Django's used by thousands. It's not some fringe framework. Guaranteed anyone that's used RoR and Django will prefer Django.

bucchere: @huuuze How could you make that "guarantee" when you've never used Rails? I said I didn't want a religious war, you damn Python Nazi. ;-)

huuuze: @bucchere I've built a couple site using Rails. How many sites have you built using Django?

bucchere: @huuuze bdg's svn server just crashed. I have more important things to do than continue this pointless argument.

huuuze: @bucchere Then quit wasting time on Twitter. I'm not trying to start anything with you. Just be aware that RoR isn't the only game in town.

bucchere: @huuuze There are lots of religions too. And if I want to pick one and say the others are "wrong" then that's my prerogative.

huuuze: @bucchere Whatever dude. Not sure why you'd say Django is "wrong."

bucchere: @huuuze All I'm saying is that language/framework wars are like religious wars. I have mine, you have yours. Leave it at that.

bucchere: Enjoying a homemade caprese -- my favorite salad. (Now watch while @huuuze tells me his favorite salad is better than mine.)

huuuze: @bucchere Having never tried caprese, I have no opinion on the matter.

bucchere: @huuuze LOL. I'm glad we can still be friends. :-)

huuuze: @bucchere Get real. I'm only friends with Christians and Django users. ;)

* * *

So the time it took me to compile this discussion made me wonder why Twitter doesn't have threaded discussions. Summize (now search.twitter.com) has "conversations" but, like Facebook's wall-to-wall feature, just because the posts occur consecutively, it doesn't mean that they're actually "in" the same thread. If I were re-writing Twitter, adding threaded discussions -- and with it, the ability to reply to a specific Tweet -- would be near the top of my list.

Happy Friday everyone (and happy 3-day weekend for hard-working and hard-twittering Americans)!

wamu.org

Chris Bucchere — Thu, 21 Aug 2008 07:38:15 -0700

wamu.org

Source: wamu.org

This is a great little bit from NPR that I heard on my ride to the office this AM. It's about the use (read: abuse) of the English language -- enjoy!

Shameless Self-Promotion

Chris Bucchere — Tue, 19 Aug 2008 14:58:00 -0700

At last year's SXSW I said to myself: "Self, you need to be speaking at this conference next year."

Help me fulfill my self-fulfilling prophecy and please take a minute to vote for one (or both) of my proposed talks! Unlike the SXSWi Web Awards last year, you don't have to vote every day -- once is plenty.

The first is a solo presentation on the future of RSS.

The second is a panel discussion on whether it's better to have one horizontal social network like Facebook or loads of smaller, niche social networks.

Thanks for your support.

Middleware for the REST of us

Chris Bucchere — Mon, 18 Aug 2008 02:20:00 -0700

I'm sitting in my third Oracle Fusion Middleware briefing, this one at the Willard Hotel in Washington, DC. Thomas Kurian has been going through all the products in the Oracle stack in excruciating detail.

First let me say this: Thomas Kurian is a really smart guy. He holds an BS in EE from Princeton summa cum laude (that's Latin for really fucking good). He holds an MBA from the Stanford GSB. He's been working for Oracle forever and he even knows how to pronounce Fuego (FWAY-go). I'm dutifully impressed.

Unfortunately, all those academic credentials and 10+ in the industry is barely the minimum requirement for getting your head around the middleware space. Either I don't have enough (0) letters after my name, or I just don't get it.

For starters, there are way too many products -- the middleware space is filled with "ceremonious complexity" (to quote Neal Ford). App servers, data services layers, service buses, web service producers and consumers -- even portals, content management and collaboration has been sucked into this space. Don't get me wrong: the goals of the stack are admirable -- middleware tries to glue together all the heterogeneous, fragmented systems in the enterprise. Everyone knows that most enterprises are a mess of disparate systems and they need this glue to provide unified user experiences that hide the complexity of these systems from the people who have to use them. That makes the world a better place for everybody.

That was also, not coincidentally, one of Plumtree's founding principles and the concept -- integrating enterprise systems to improve the user experience -- has guided my career since I got my lowly undergraduate degree in Computer Science from Stanford in 1998.

So, it's a good concept, however, if you're considering middleware because you're trying to clean up the mess that your enterprise has become, you need to ask yourself the following fundamental question: does middleware add to or subtract from the overall complexity of your enterprise?

Your enterprise is already insanely complicated. You've got Java, .NET, perhaps Sharepoint, maybe an enterprise ERP system like SAP and say, an enterprise open source CRM system like SugarCRM or a hosted service like SalesForce.com. The bleeding edge IT folks and even (god forbid) people outside of IT are installing wikis written in PHP (e.g. MediaWiki) along with collaborative software like Basecamp written in Ruby on Rails. I'm not even going to mention all the green-screen mainframe apps still lurking in the enterprise -- wait, I just did. This veritable cornucopia [editor's note: I love those two words, especially when used together!] of systems just scratches the surface of what exists at many large -- and even some mid-to-small-sized companies -- today.

So clearly there's a widespread problem. But what's the solution?

At the end of his impressive presentation, I asked Thomas the following question: "How can middleware from Oracle/BEA help you make sense of the fragmented, heterogeneous enterprise when you have existing collaborative (web 2.0) technologies written in PHP, Ruby on Rails, etc. running rampant throughout IT and beyond?" (Okay, so I wasn't exactly that pithy, but it was something close to that.)

His Aladdin-esque answer came in the form of three choices:

"Take control of" and "centralize" your IT systems by replacing everything with Oracle Web Center spaces

Ditto by migrating everything to UCM (Stellant)

Build a services framework and aggregate everything in one of four ways:
1. Use a Java transaction layer (JSR 227)
2. Use a portlet spec like JSR 168 or WSRP
3. Build RESTful web services
4. Use the WebPart adapter for Sharepoint

I like to call answers one and two "The SAP Approach." In other words, we're SAP, we're German, wir geben nicht einen Scheiße about your existing enterprise software, you're now going to do it the SAP way (or the highway).

Will companies buy into that? Some companies may. Many will not. ERP is a well understood space, so this approach has worked for SAP. Enterprise 2.0 is not terribly well understood, so that means even more diversity in the enterprise software milieu. [Editor's note: English, German AND French in one blog post -- not bad!]

So the only approach that I believe in is #3: integrate. Choose the right tool for the right problem, e.g. the WebPart adapter if you're using Sharepoint. Use REST when appropriate, e.g. when you need a lightweight way to send some JSON or XML across the wire between nonstandard or homegrown apps. Use JSR 168/286 for your Java applications. Even use SOAP if the backend application already supports it. Keep things loosely coupled so that you can plug different components in and out as needed. This requires a lot of development -- the glue -- but, I don't think there's any way around that. (You should take that with a grain of salt, because my company has been supplying the government and the commercial world with exactly that kind of development expertise since 2002.)

As for the overarching, user facing "experience" or "interaction" product -- that's where I've always used Plumtree (or AquaLogic Interaction). Will I start using Web Center Spaces? At this point, I'm still not sure. If it can be used as the topmost bit of the architectural stack to absorb and surface all the enterprise 2.0 software that my customers are running, then perhaps. If it's going to replace all the enterprise software that my customers are running, then no way José.

This conundrum really opens up a new market for enterprise software: I call it "Middleware for the REST of us" or MMM (not M&M, 3M or M3, because they're already taken): "Mid-Market Middleware" -- similar to the way 37signals approaches (with a great deal of hubris and a solid dose of arrogance) the Fortune Five Million by marketing their products toward the whole long-tail of small and medium-sized companies. Maybe the world needs a RESTful piece of hardware that just aggregates web services and spits out a nice UI, kind of like the "Plumtree in a Box" idea that Michael Young (former Plumtree Chief Architect, now Chief Architect at RedFin) had back in the last millennium.

Oracle Web Center Spaces might be the right choice for some very large enterprises, but what about the REST of us?

How the New Facebook Utterly Destroyed my Favorite Application (and Why That Makes Me Sad)

Chris Bucchere — Sat, 16 Aug 2008 08:35:00 -0700

I used to love Feedheads. It's a simple, elegant and beautiful application that does one thing really well: help you share your Google reader shared items.

Unfortunately, the "new" Facebook has rendered the application utterly useless and I can't think of a good way, as an end-user, to fix it. In fact, as someone who's built two facebook apps, I can't even think of a way that the Feedheads developers can fix it. What a calamity.

So here's the problem: the News Feed (and the Mini Feed) introduced an option that allows end-users to set the story "size" as shown on the right. When a Google shared item story comes through Feedheads now, it defaults to the "one line" size and as a result, it doesn't say anything other than "Chris posted an item to Feedheads."

Thank you very much, Facebook. That piece of information is completely useless. People who are reading your feed need to click through into the Feedheads application in order to see what story you posted -- and the whole point of Feedheads is to help you share your shared items, not make them harder to find.

(As a result of all this, Facebook also broke one of my applications, called WhyI. It has < 200 users, so very few people care, but . . . the point of the app was to help people ask themselves and their friends questions that have to be answered in five words or fewer. And of course, the questions and answers would show up in the Mini Feed and News Feed. But not anymore! Now it just says: "Chris posted a new mini-update using WhyI." Again, a totally useless piece of information. Drats.)

As an end-user, I can set the "size" of each feed item. So that means, after I hit Shift-S in Google Reader -- which doesn't take much effort -- I have to wait for the story to be published in Facebook and then, if I remember (which at this point is unlikely), I have to go into that little drop down on the right and set the size to "small" instead of the default, which is "one line." And here's the best part: I can't tell Facebook to remember this, so I have to do it every time.

All this just to share a shared item on Google Reader through Feedheads . . . ick.

Here's the best part. I just noticed that Facebook added their own feature to the new and "improved" news feed. You can import your shared items from Google Reader! And, not surprisingly, the news feed actually shows the stories' titles. In other words, Facebook took a great application -- Feedheads -- and replaced the functionality with their own feature; in the process, they rendered Feedheads useless.

This makes me sad. I only have one thing to say:

Wow, Facebook, how very Microsoft of you.

Nobody's Gonna Read This (and Why That Makes Me Happy)

Chris Bucchere — Fri, 15 Aug 2008 09:58:00 -0700

Boy do I love the fact that no one reads this blog. And to the few people who are exceptions to that general rule -- thank you for being so supportive!

I just hit two or three web pages in a row (TechCrunch, Digg and the Meebo blog) where each post I read had 80+ comments that reminded me why I rarely ever actually read comments.

Haters, trolls, flamers, spammers -- whatever you want to call them, the internet is ridden with people who are filled with spite and rage. The funny thing is that in no other forum (except for perhaps while driving) are people this cruel to one another. It's just not socially acceptable.

I realize that e-hate isn't a new problem: in fact, it dates back to the early days of UseNet, Netiquette and the ol' "do we allow AOLer's on the internet" debate. While doing some fact-checking on wikipedia, I was really amused to read about Godwin's Law, which sums up what I'm talking about better than I ever could: "As a Usenet discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Nazis or Hitler approaches one."

We all know the Kathy Sierra story. I'm glad she had a thick enough skin to re-emerge in the blogging world and on Twitter because the world is a better place with her contributions than it is without them.

We all remember The Great Sarah Lacy Twitter Massacre of SXSW 2008. I recently met Sarah at a tech event in DC and, believe it or not, she doesn't have horns, literally or figuratively.

Jason Calacanis recently "retired" from blogging. When I read his post, I immediately thought that it was just a PR stunt, but I'm beginning to realize that I can sympathize with his viewpoint. I really don't want to ever be an A-list blogger or "internet famous" because it's just like painting a big target on your own ass.

I love my family and close friends, I love the physical neighborhood in which I live and I love the virtual networks that have developed around my career and my passions for the past 15 years or so that I've been using the internet.

But honestly, a big part of me doesn't want anyone else to read this. Not because I don't take criticism well. (I don't, but then again nobody does.) I just wish some of the same general rules that apply to social interactions -- at say, a cocktail party, a baseball game or at the supermarket -- would apply to the internet.

Comments welcome. Just be nice, ok?

Are Twitter Replies Fundamentally Broken?

Chris Bucchere — Wed, 13 Aug 2008 17:03:00 -0700

Has anyone noticed that Twitter replies are fundamentally broken? Or, I should say, at least the "Replies" *tab* is jacked.

This isn't another "Twitter is down" post -- this is about a feature that doesn't work as it's designed.

As far as I can tell, replies to me only end up in my "Replies" tab if my Twitter account name (@bucchere) is the first token in the tweet. Yet a lot of people reply to multiple people or use the "@" notation in context, e.g. "I'm playing tennis with @bucchere."

That "reply," although it's clearly got my name in it, won't end up under my replies tab. Oops.

In The Social Collective, any time an @<username> token is found, it stores the message as a reply to <username>. Isn't that how Twitter should work as well?

Has anyone else noticed this? Is anyone else annoyed like I am by this obviously broken "feature?" WTF?

There is a workaround, but it's kludgey. You can use Summize (now located at search.twitter.com) to search for @<username> (or just <username> if you like). I did this, then ingested the resulting RSS feed into Google Reader and now I go there instead of to my Replies tab in Twitter. FAIL.

[Update: This is now fixed. Yay, Twitter!]

LIVENEWS.com.au > Off the wall > Chinese restaurant takes the cake for naming error

Chris Bucchere — Mon, 11 Aug 2008 11:38:21 -0700

LIVENEWS.com.au > Off the wall > Chinese restaurant takes the cake for naming error

Source: livenews.com.au

The internet has been filled with hilarious mistranslations of sign names restaurant menus and street signs for many years - but at LIVENEWS.com.au we don t think we have seen one quite as outstanding as this.

Hmmm . . . one would think the restaurant owner had at least ONE English-speaking friend he could have consulted before spending all the $$$ to print and hang that sign.

2009 SXSW Interactive Panel Picker - Who Needs ANOTHER Social Network?

Chris Bucchere — Fri, 08 Aug 2008 06:05:50 -0700

2009 SXSW Interactive Panel Picker - Who Needs ANOTHER Social Network?

Source: panelpicker.sxsw.com

With Facebook, MySpace, Friendster, Hi5, Bebo, LinkedIn and even Plaxo competing for eyeballs and clicks in the Great Social Networking War of 2009, is there really room for YASN (Yet Another Social Network)? This panel will debate whether less is more in social networking. Or is it?

Please vote for my SXSW panel submission -- thanks!

2009 SXSW Interactive Panel Picker - Not So Simple Any More: RSS's Bleeding Edge

Chris Bucchere — Fri, 08 Aug 2008 06:05:00 -0700

2009 SXSW Interactive Panel Picker - Not So Simple Any More: RSS's Bleeding Edge

Source: panelpicker.sxsw.com

Can you believe it's already time to start thinking about SXSW? Please vote for my presentation (if you think it has potential ;-).

The Internet Will End in 30 Years! - ReadWriteWeb

Chris Bucchere — Wed, 06 Aug 2008 12:53:17 -0700

The Internet Will End in 30 Years! - ReadWriteWeb

Source: www.readwriteweb.com

Have you heard the latest doomsday scenario? In thirty years, the internet will stop working! Apparently, a bug similar to the millennium bug will affect Unix-based systems, like ...

Coding Horror: Please Give Us Your Email Password

Chris Bucchere — Wed, 06 Aug 2008 12:07:52 -0700

Coding Horror: Please Give Us Your Email Password

Source: www.codinghorror.com

A number of people whose opinions I greatly respect have turned me on to Yelp over the last six months or so. Yelp is a community review site, and a great way to discover cool new places in whatever neighborhood you happen to be in.

Apple bails on Black Hat talk

Chris Bucchere — Wed, 06 Aug 2008 06:39:52 -0700

Apple bails on Black Hat talk

Source: www.computerworld.com

Engineers on Apple's security team say that the company's marketing department has forbidden them from participating on a panel at this week's Black Hat conference -- and that even revealing the names of who would have spoken would endanger those employees' jobs.

Bad PR move for Apple.

New Video: Demo of Conference Social Application

Chris Bucchere — Tue, 05 Aug 2008 03:51:00 -0700

This is a 30-minute clip from the general session at BEA Participate from back in May. Jay Simons and I demo the social application that bdg built for the conference.

BEA Participate 2008 Social Application Demo from Chris Bucchere on Vimeo.

InfoQ: Internet Explorer 6 on its way out (or not)?

Chris Bucchere — Mon, 21 Jul 2008 13:13:03 -0700

InfoQ: Internet Explorer 6 on its way out (or not)?

Source: www.infoq.com

Since attaining a peak of about 95% usage share during 2002 and 2003, Internet Explorer 6 (IE6) has been rapidly losing market share. As the end of 2008 approaches, significant online services, vendors and web frameworks are dropping support for IE6. ...

Down with IE6!

www.redkaraoke.com

Chris Bucchere — Fri, 18 Jul 2008 20:43:06 -0700

www.redkaraoke.com

Source: www.redkaraoke.com

All Shook Up, from Elvis Presley, performed by me.

I met one of the guys who works on this site last night at the DC TwinTech event. What a great concept: social networking meets karaoke. Epic win. Two thumbs way up. W00t!

Shakin' My Money Maker

Chris Bucchere — Mon, 30 Jun 2008 10:40:00 -0700

I just can't get enough of the "new and improved" Black Crowes lineup featuring my favorite living guitarist, Luther Dickinson (of the North Mississippi All-Stars).

My TBC concert goals for the year 2008 are a little ambitious, but here's the plan (asterisks indicate shows that I have actually attended or already have bought tickets for):

3/2 -- Starland Ballroom, Sayreville, NJ*
6/27 -- Hershey Park, Hershey, PA (opening for the Dave Matthews Band)*
7/5 -- Charlottesville Pavilion, Charlottesville, VA*
8/3 -- Wolf Trap, Vienna, VA*
9/10 -- Van Duzer Theater, Arcata, CA
9/12 -- Wells Fargo Center, Santa Rosa, CA
9/14 -- Civic Auditorium, Santa Cruz, CA
9/17 -- The Greek Theater, Los Angeles, CA
9/19 -- Santa Barbara Bowl, Santa Barbara, CA
10/7 -- The National, Richmond, VA
10/8 -- The National, Richmond, VA
10/10 -- Borgata, Atlantic City, NJ
10/27 -- Hammerstein Ballroom, New York, NY
10/28 -- Hammerstein Ballroom, New York, NY
12/15 -- The Fillmore, San Francisco, CA
12/18 -- The Fillmore, San Francisco, CA
12/19 -- The Fillmore, San Francisco, CA
12/20 -- The Fillmore, San Francisco, CA

Rock on!

Full text: An epic Bill Gates e-mail rant

Chris Bucchere — Wed, 25 Jun 2008 11:19:11 -0700

Full text: An epic Bill Gates e-mail rant

Source: blog.seattlepi.nwsou...

For the opening piece in our series on Gates leaving daily life at Microsoft, one goal was to give a clear picture of the Microsoft co-founder's role inside the company, as a gauge of the impact his departure will have. ...

If you've ever used a computer, you can definitely relate.

Lost in E-Mail, Tech Firms Face Self-Made Beast - NYTimes.com

Chris Bucchere — Mon, 16 Jun 2008 10:21:52 -0700

Lost in E-Mail, Tech Firms Face Self-Made Beast - NYTimes.com

Source: www.nytimes.com

Some of the biggest technology companies have formed a group to fight information overload.

Down with e-mail!

Announcing the Launch of the Social Applications for BEA Participate.08

Chris Bucchere — Wed, 30 Apr 2008 20:48:21 -0700

Announcing the Launch of the Social Applications for BEA Participate.08

Source: dev2dev.bea.com

Today we launched the social applications for BEA Participate! Read all about it here.

The Social Code: Participate '08 Slide Deck

Chris Bucchere — Sat, 26 Apr 2008 19:51:17 -0700

The Social Code: Participate '08 Slide Deck

Source: www.thebdgway.com

Check out the slide deck for my upcoming presentation at BEA Participate 2008: The Social Code -- how we built social applications for ALI 6.5 and the iPhone.

Chris Bucchere's Blog: Countdown to BEA Participate 2008

Chris Bucchere — Mon, 21 Apr 2008 23:14:35 -0700

Chris Bucchere's Blog: Countdown to BEA Participate 2008

Source: dev2dev.bea.com

The video gives a "first look" at the social applications we're building for this year's BEA Participate.

You hair loss?

Chris Bucchere — Thu, 20 Mar 2008 21:55:08 -0700

You hair loss?

Source: img.skitch.com

Facebook has sunk to a new low in advertising. This ad, asking the ungrammatical question, "You hair loss?" was so bad that I almost clicked on it. "Our cream for you!"

Eugene Mirman Introduces the SXSW 2008 Web Awards

Chris Bucchere — Wed, 12 Mar 2008 19:13:04 -0700

Eugene Mirman Introduces the SXSW 2008 Web Awards

Source: www.youtube.com

He used SitePal to create a hilarious opening segment as Abe Lincoln....

My SXSW Web Award Acceptance Speech That Wasn't

Chris Bucchere — Wed, 12 Mar 2008 19:10:55 -0700

My SXSW Web Award Acceptance Speech That Wasn't

Source: www.youtube.com

So, Feedhaus didn't win the South By Southwest Web Award for Technical Achievement, but this would have been my acceptance speech if we did win. :-)

Guess who's playing with The Black Crowes

Chris Bucchere — Tue, 04 Mar 2008 23:32:00 -0800

Although it's darn near impossible to tell from this photo, Luther Dickinson, the guitar virtuoso from the North Mississippi All Stars, is playing lead guitar on The Black Crowes' latest tour!

On Sunday (3/2), I was lucky enough to catch the first show of the tour and hear their entire new album played for the first time in front of a live audience.

Quite a show.

Maybe Microsoft Should Stalk Different Prey - New York Times

Chris Bucchere — Tue, 26 Feb 2008 10:07:58 -0800

Maybe Microsoft Should Stalk Different Prey - New York Times

Source: www.nytimes.com

In pursuing Yahoo, not SAP, the software giant may be moving far from what it knows best.

SXSWi Hosts 11th Annual Web Awards

Chris Bucchere — Mon, 25 Feb 2008 12:59:48 -0800

SXSWi Hosts 11th Annual Web Awards

Source: www.prnewswire.com

Don't forget to vote for Feedhaus: https://secure.sxsw.com/peoples_choice/

Feedhaus Featured on AltSearchEngines.com

Chris Bucchere — Tue, 19 Feb 2008 14:57:35 -0800

Feedhaus Featured on AltSearchEngines.com

Source: feedhaus.blogspot.com

Don't forget to vote for us (every day until March 3rd) at https://secure.sxsw.com/peoples_choice/

Alt Search Engines » Blog Archive » Feedhaus -- Be the First to Know!

Chris Bucchere — Tue, 19 Feb 2008 07:52:30 -0800

Alt Search Engines » Blog Archive » Feedhaus -- Be the First to Know!

Source: altsearchengines.com

Feedhaus, a new social news site that went into alpha in the fall of 2007, aims to deliver real-time news, images and videos that are personally relevant based on user-selected and refined real-time tags and tag clouds.

Feedhaus was featured on AltSearchEngines.com! Don't forget to vote for us for the SXSW People's Choice award here: https://secure.sxsw.com/peoples_choice/

Morgan Goes Back to the Future With 1930s-Style Hydrogen Car | Autopia from Wired.com

Chris Bucchere — Fri, 15 Feb 2008 19:22:40 -0800

Morgan Goes Back to the Future With 1930s-Style Hydrogen Car | Autopia from Wired.com

Source: blog.wired.com

Morgan Motor Co., the tiny British automaker so old-fashioned it still uses wood frames, is stepping well into the future with LifeCar, a hydrogen fuel cell hybrid it says will

pipe

chris_bucchere — Wed, 13 Feb 2008 09:33:21 -0800

chris_bucchere posted a photo:

The Adventures of Cindy Li | SXSW interactive is just around the corner

Chris Bucchere — Wed, 13 Feb 2008 17:22:51 -0800

The Adventures of Cindy Li | SXSW interactive is just around the corner

Source: www.cindyli.com

Another local DC homegrown project is by Chris Bucchere, who’s feedhaus.com became a finalist in the technical achievement arena and Samantha Warren’s website in the Blog category. :)

Geek Spring Break - 2008 SXSW Party Central-- bub.blicio.us

Chris Bucchere — Wed, 13 Feb 2008 11:39:16 -0800

Geek Spring Break - 2008 SXSW Party Central-- bub.blicio.us

Source: bub.blicio.us

Well, look no further. Bub.blicio.usand InternetGeekGirl Stephanie Agresta are here to help. There are more parties rumored than what’s currently listed on the official SXSW Interactive event board. So, send us your party info and we’ll make sure to save it and often refer to it here.

feedhaus

chris_bucchere — Tue, 12 Feb 2008 18:19:14 -0800

chris_bucchere posted a photo:

Feeds of a Feather Flock Together: Feedhaus Eligible for SXSW "People's Choice" Award

Chris Bucchere — Tue, 12 Feb 2008 19:09:22 -0800

Feeds of a Feather Flock Together: Feedhaus Eligible for SXSW "People's Choice" Award

Source: feedhaus.blogspot.com

As a finalist in the "Technical Achievement" category, we're also eligible to win a "People Choice" award.But to do that, we need your votes! Vote early, vote often. (You can vote once per day every day ...

Send Feedhaus.com to SXSW in style at Ireland's Four Courts (Thursday, February 21, 2008) - Upcoming

Chris Bucchere — Tue, 12 Feb 2008 18:21:52 -0800

Send Feedhaus.com to SXSW in style at Ireland's Four Courts (Thursday, February 21, 2008) - Upcoming

Source: upcoming.yahoo.com

In the spirit of unprofitable Web 2.0 companies, you'll be able to drink all of the beer you can buy.

A great time to meet some other local geeks and send Chris off to Austin in style. Plus you can can vote for his site in advance.

Join us in Arlington for a Feedhaus SXSW send-off!

Vote Daily in the SXSW People's Choice Awards

Chris Bucchere — Tue, 12 Feb 2008 11:26:10 -0800

Vote Daily in the SXSW People's Choice Awards

Source: 2008.sxsw.com

The judges had their say — now it’s your turn! Sign up to vote daily for your favorite finalists from this year’s SXSW Web Awards competition.

Feedhaus needs your votes! :-)

south by southwest festivals + conferences

Chris Bucchere — Fri, 08 Feb 2008 16:24:07 -0800

south by southwest festivals + conferences

Source: 2008.sxsw.com

South by Southwest Music, Film and Interactive Conferences and Festivals - March 9-18, 2007 - Austin, Texas

Feedhaus was selected as a finalist for a SXSW Web Award in the "Technical Achievement" category -- w00t!

bea participate 2008 application development partnership -- bdg

Chris Bucchere — Thu, 07 Feb 2008 08:59:57 -0800

bea participate 2008 application development partnership -- bdg

Source: www.thebdgway.com

BEA selected bdg as an application development sponsor to build social networking applications for Participate 2008.

We're getting excited about Participate.08. Are you?

St. Croix, USVI

Chris Bucchere — Tue, 05 Feb 2008 12:43:00 -0800

In early February, 2008, we took a long weekend vacation on St. Croix, one of the US Virgin Islands. The trip was very spur-of-the-moment and it only came about because we noticed that one of our favorite bands, The Grandsons, were planning a USVI tour. Their music consists of a fun blend of 50s-style rock'n'roll, New Orleans R&B and some very witty original numbers. Needless to say, they're very dance-able. It seems like on all our previous vacations, we've made such an effort to find places where we could dance. This vacation had the dancing "built-in." We planned to see three or four Grandsons shows while also spending a significant amount of time relaxing on the beach and indulging in our other passions, e.g. eating and discovering new cities and towns.

We arrived Friday, February 1st, leaving behind sub-freezing DC temperatures and a lovely morning of freezing rain, ice and slush. Getting off the plane in St. Croix, we were treated to their version of cold winter weather, which consists of 75 degree temperatures and light breezes. We took a taxi to our lovely resort complex, The Buccaneer, which came highly recommended by multiple friends. We were wowed by the palmtree-lined entrance and the pink grandeur of the hotel's main buildings along with the perfectly manicured lawns, sprawling flowers and water fountains. Getting a free upgrade to a luxurious ocean-view room with a four-poster bed, marble floors and a huge balcony was the first of many wonderful experiences we had with the hotel staff.

After getting settled in, we immediately hit the Mermaid Beach for conch salad, rum cake, sand, sun and surf (and ping-pong). We headed into the quiet town of Christiansted for dinner that night, having chosen the highly-recommended Bacchus Restaurant. We dined on beet salad, seared Ahi and "the best lobster ever." We then headed to Chicken Charlie's Roadhouse, a shanty-cum-dive bar frequented by pleasantly rowdy (and very much inebriated) locals whose only care in the world was how to have a great time. The Grandsons rocked the roof off that place and we danced the night away. After our first dance, Chicken Charlie himself and his wife hit the floor followed by several other couples. Seems like we started something that night.

Saturday morning, Groundhog Day 2008, we slept in and then were treated to an amazing buffet breakfast including creamy and delicious grits, fresh strawberries, potent coffee and numerous other delights. We trekked up toward Cane Bay for the "St. Croix de Gras" parade and block party, which is the island's version of Mardi Gras, if that wasn't obvious form the name. (Tuesday is Mardi Gras, which fell early this year.) We were probably the only tourists at this parade (other than The Grandsons) and we were pretty much blown away by the raucousness, recklessness and rowdy-ness of this whole affair which consisted of cars, trucks, ATVs, floats and hordes of totally wasted party-goers. Beads, Jell-O shots and beers were flying left and right amidst honking horns, hooting and hollering locals and spurts of water from some indiscriminate water-pistol wielding marksmen. We ate beef and vegetable roti at a makeshift roadside stand and, later, at a beach shack bar thingamajigger, we drank rum punch made with the storied Cruzan rum, which is pretty much the best tasting rum we've ever tried. In fact, it doesn't taste like rum at all -- it tastes more like candy than alcohol.

We arrived a bit late at this whole St. Croix de Gras affair, so we missed The Grandsons playing on Chicken Charlie's float. We waited around a while for another show, but it never actually happened, so we hopped in a taxi and headed back to The Buccaneer for a cat nap on the beach. After getting cleaned up, we sat and listened to an amazing jazz pianist in the Buccaneer lobby while sipping "vintage" cocktails. He did a mean "Things Ain't What They Used To Be" and a "Take The A Train" that really rocked the house. We danced. Of course.

That night we enjoyed an amazing dinner at the Thai/Mexican-style restaurant Savant: Vietnamese summer rolls followed by sesame seared Ahi (Allison) and a bacon-wrapped double-cut pork chop over jalapeno cheese grits (Chris). We sat in a most lovely and romantic, candle-lit, stone-walled garden replete with native vegetation and even a few chirp-chirping birds to accompany our fabulous dinner. Then it was back to Chicken Charlie's for a reprise of the previous night's dance-fest to The Grandsons. This evening we closed out the bar and helped the crowd of totally sauced locals convince The Grandsons to do an encore, which turned out to be Johnny Cash's "Ring of Fire" -- a real gem.

Thomas the taxi driver, who had picked us up and dropped us off at nearly all of our destinations, arrived to pick us up that evening. He tried to convince us that he was not the only cab driver on the island, but we remained dubious.

Superbowl Sunday arrived with many of the thematic elements from the days before: perfect temperatures, gentle warm breezes, a fantastic breakfast buffet and more Grandsons. After a luxurious post-breakfast nap (when do we ever get to do that?), we headed over to the islands other major city, Fredericksted, located on the island's West side. There we had a great lunch at Blue Moon, a fine establishment billed as a "jazz cafe" which was completely true other than the "jazz" part. Our disappointment over the music (or lack thereof) was mediated by the great food -- steak and eggs and a fantastic grilled shrimp caesar salad with homemade dressing. We topped it off with an "almond joy" sundae and mint chocolate chip ice cream cake.

We spent the afternoon reeling and rocking to the Grandsons at another beach shack/dive bar called Rhythms at Rainbow Beach. You could sit outside or in or sit on the beach or even go for a swim in the ocean and still hear the band playing their unique blend of American roots rock and New Orleans jazz and swing. We danced, we drank more Cruzan rum punch and we snacked on local dive-bar delicacies.

Sunday evening we had a lovely dinner at The Terrace restaurant in The Buccaneer overlooking the glimmering lights of Christiansted. We dined on beet salad (again), spinach and bacon salad, shrimp cocktail and Mahi Mahi over risotto. Mmmm. We closed out the evening by watching the second half of what turned out to be an amazingly close, nail-biter Superbowl game in which the Giants edged out the undefeated Patriots 17-14, coming back from behind (as a wildcard team) and spoiling what would have been a perfect season for them. Amazing.

Monday morning, our last day in paradise, started the same way -- we slept in late, had another phenomenal breakfast, had a spa appointment (Allison) and then hung out on the beach where we enjoyed a swim, more Ahi and Mahi Mahi, more ping pong and some welcome warm rain showers to cool us off. As Allan MacEwen of The Grandsons said, "If you don't like the weather on St. Croix, just wait five minutes."

Whereas following an indie band around a tropical island may not be for everyone, it was certainly the right vacation for us. We may just have to do it again some time soon.

enterprise 2.0 experts: come join the stellar team at bdg

Chris Bucchere — Tue, 29 Jan 2008 13:32:30 -0800

enterprise 2.0 experts: come join the stellar team at bdg

Source: www.thebdgway.com

See if you have what it takes to work with the best of the best at bdg.

My company, bdg, is hiring. Right now we have three open reqs for junior and senior developers and one open req for a senior graphic desinger/UI guru with HTML, CSS and some Javascript knowledge, if possible. TS/SCI clearances are also a plus, but not required.

Feeds of a Feather Flock Together: An International Phenomenon

Chris Bucchere — Tue, 22 Jan 2008 07:53:56 -0800

Feeds of a Feather Flock Together: An International Phenomenon

Source: feedhaus.blogspot.com

Feedhaus is making quite a splash internationally. Lately, we've gotten news coverage in German (of course), Spanish, French (again), Portuguese, Chinese and Japanese!

5 Embarrassing Grammatical Mistakes - MSN Encarta

Chris Bucchere — Sat, 19 Jan 2008 19:25:41 -0800

5 Embarrassing Grammatical Mistakes - MSN Encarta

Source: encarta.msn.com

I once had a job opening for an editor on my team. In the middle of an interview, I noticed the candidate--an otherwise very nice man--had a giant piece of spinach wedged into his teeth.

Great article on how to be on the lookout for common grammar errors.

www.readwriteweb.com

Chris Bucchere — Wed, 02 Jan 2008 13:45:01 -0800

www.readwriteweb.com

Source: www.readwriteweb.com

More on BEA Participate 2008

Chris Bucchere — Fri, 21 Dec 2007 19:15:07 -0800

BEA Participate 2008

Chris Bucchere — Thu, 20 Dec 2007 10:26:42 -0800

BEA Participate 2008

Source: blog.en.terpri.se

Last year was so much fun we’re doing it again, and most certainly raising the bar. This year’s event, as you’ve gathered by now, will be held in Chicago, May 12-15. We have lots planned, and tons ...

bdg will be there -- will you?

Happy Holidays from the Buccheres

Chris Bucchere — Thu, 20 Dec 2007 04:45:54 -0800

Happy Holidays from the Buccheres

Source: www.elfyourself.com

We made total elves of ourselves this holiday.

VentureBeat » Founders Fund raises new fund, aims for more VC disruption

Chris Bucchere — Wed, 19 Dec 2007 20:58:20 -0800

VentureBeat » Founders Fund raises new fund, aims for more VC disruption

Source: venturebeat.com

updated The Founders Fund, a maverick venture firm run by veteran entrepreneurs, has just raised a new fund of $220 ...

WorkBook: Getting Facebook Ready for Work

Chris Bucchere — Wed, 19 Dec 2007 11:52:14 -0800

WorkBook: Getting Facebook Ready for Work

Source: blog.hbs.edu

Why I

Chris Bucchere — Mon, 17 Dec 2007 13:30:13 -0800

Why I

Create mini updates for your mini feed! Your status tells what you do -- mini updates tell why! Updates are a fun 5 words or fewer and can be made from your profile. Ask friends why they do things. Read their mini updates!

Why I

Based on the great feedback we got from our first ~150 users, we've made some significant changes, including enhancing what you can do on your profile page. Enjoy!

Start-Up to Create Market For Trade of Virtual Goods

Chris Bucchere — Mon, 17 Dec 2007 10:05:57 -0800

Start-Up to Create Market For Trade of Virtual Goods

Source: online.wsj.com

A start-up plans to help game companies get a grip on the booming illicit market for virtual goods, including everything from currencies to magical swords that help players advance in online games.

Facebook Drops the "Is" in Status Updates -- For Real | Epicenter from Wired.com

Chris Bucchere — Thu, 13 Dec 2007 12:57:04 -0800

Facebook Drops the "Is" in Status Updates -- For Real | Epicenter from Wired.com

Source: tinyurl.com

Facebook finally dropped the is in status updates, after teasing users with the possibility of it a few weeks ago, but never really pulling the trigger. As far as we

IS this really newsworthy?

Merriam-Webster Online

Chris Bucchere — Thu, 13 Dec 2007 07:55:40 -0800

Merriam-Webster Online

Source: merriam-webster.com

The 2007 word of the year is: w00t!

ies4osx: Run Internet Explorer 5/6/7 Natively in OS X | MacApper

Chris Bucchere — Sun, 09 Dec 2007 20:04:42 -0800

ies4osx: Run Internet Explorer 5/6/7 Natively in OS X | MacApper

Source: macapper.com

Without using Parallels, Crossover or Bootcamp, or even having a Windows Partition! Today we'll be using Wine to emulate Windows and run all version of Internet Exlorer, which will make for a much lighter overall ...

For testing purposes only, please.

guardedly optimistic: if taglines were honest

Chris Bucchere — Sun, 09 Dec 2007 19:59:28 -0800

guardedly optimistic: if taglines were honest

Source: www.guardedlyoptimistic.com

iPod: It’ll break in a year, but by then you’ll want the new one.Apple: You think you need it, we know you just want it.Samsung: Didn’t you mean to buy Sony?Ikea: One day you’ll be able to afford real furniture.Hummer: Get the attention you’ve always craved. ...

Some inspiration for your WhyI taglines, perhaps.

Feeds of a Feather Flock Together: The Crazy $100 Feedhaus Sticker Challenge

Chris Bucchere — Sun, 09 Dec 2007 13:34:12 -0800

Feeds of a Feather Flock Together: The Crazy $100 Feedhaus Sticker Challenge

Source: feedhaus.blogspot.com

I had a crazy idea this afternoon while stuck in Manhattan gridlock. I asked myself, "self, why don't you start a crazy $100 feedhaus sticker challenge?"Here's how it works: over the next few months, I'm ...

Find the feedhaus sticker I put up in Manhattan yesterday and win $100, courtesy of feedhaus!

Why I

Chris Bucchere — Fri, 07 Dec 2007 10:23:07 -0800

Why I

enterprise 2.0 the bdg way: Why I. . . .

Chris Bucchere — Wed, 05 Dec 2007 12:25:26 -0800

enterprise 2.0 the bdg way: Why I. . . .

Source: thebdgway.blogspot.com

A couple weeks ago I teamed up with college buddy, recent Kellog grad and former PayPal/eBay product manager Chris Gregory to design and write a fun little Facebook application called WhyI.He did the design and product management, my wife Allison did the logo design and I wrote the code. ...

You can start creating taglines for your life now at http://apps.facebook.com/whyiapp

Buy and Sell New and Used Video Games, Systems, and Accessories - Dawdle

Chris Bucchere — Sat, 01 Dec 2007 19:41:30 -0800

Buy and Sell New and Used Video Games, Systems, and Accessories - Dawdle

Source: www.dawdle.com

Met one of the guys who works here at the Chicago MashMeet. Seems like a cool idea for gamers . . . and I had a similar experience buying a very rare jazz CD on Amazon. I'm not a gamer, but if you are, check this out!

Introducing the Feedhaus Newsroom

Chris Bucchere — Wed, 28 Nov 2007 12:19:58 -0800

Introducing the Feedhaus Newsroom

Source: feedhaus.blogspot.com

Team Feedhaus is very pleased to announce the launch of the Feedhaus Newsroom. Powered by feedhaus but integrated seamlessly with meebo, the newsroom gives you a forum to chat with your friends while constantly ...

Be the first to know while chatting with your buddies on meebo. (Hey, that rhymes!)

Feeds of a Feather Flock Together: My Love Affair with Instant Messaging

Chris Bucchere — Tue, 27 Nov 2007 22:50:53 -0800

Feeds of a Feather Flock Together: My Love Affair with Instant Messaging

Source: feedhaus.blogspot.com

Do you love instant messaging? I do. In fact, I remember the first time I used a chatroom when my parents signed us up for AppleLink, a BBS (remember those?) that we could access using the modem on my first computer, the ill-fated special "Woz" edition Apple IIGS (remember THOSE?). ...

A little background on Instant Messaging in anticipation of tomorrow's big launch. . . .

Digg - meebo launches instant messaging games!

Chris Bucchere — Tue, 20 Nov 2007 13:28:18 -0800

Digg - meebo launches instant messaging games!

Source: digg.com

Today meebo announced that you can now play chess, Texas hold-em, Sudoku and 25 other games with your AOL, Yahoo!, MSN, GTalk and ICQ buddies, all from within their great web-based Ajax user interface. Very cool!

Career Development Center | Student Services

Chris Bucchere — Mon, 19 Nov 2007 19:29:08 -0800

Career Development Center | Student Services

Source: cdc.stanford.edu

bdg is hiring! Stanford students: please see our post on the CDC entitled "Killer Coders Only Please." Thanks!

Introduction to feedhaus

Chris Bucchere — Mon, 19 Nov 2007 19:03:43 -0800

Introduction to feedhaus

Source: youtube.com

This 10-minute narrated screencast walks you through most of feedhaus's features as well as the Facebook and Meebo integrations.

The feedhaus instructional video is up on YouTube! For a higher quality version, visit http://www.feedhaus.com/howto.html (50Mb).

feedhaus

Chris Bucchere — Mon, 19 Nov 2007 18:03:39 -0800

feedhaus

Allows you to publish and share your feedhaus personal tag clouds on facebook.

feedhaus

The feedhaus application is now in the facebook application directory. Search for feedhaus or visit http://apps.facebook.com/feedhaus today! (You'll need to sign up for a feedhaus account at http://www.feedhaus.com in order to use the application.)

enterprise 2.0 the bdg way: The Enterprise Relevance of Web 2.0

Chris Bucchere — Wed, 14 Nov 2007 07:39:14 -0800

enterprise 2.0 the bdg way: The Enterprise Relevance of Web 2.0

Source: thebdgway.blogspot.com

Please join us for an exclusive seminar:The Enterprise Relevance of Web 2.0Register Now!The concepts behind Web 2.0, social networks, and collaboration are now poised to transform your enterprise, providing ...

I'm giving this preso tonight at 6 PM at the Tyson's Corner Marriott -- free appetizers and an open bar, too! If you want to attend, please click the link to register.

Digg - Cool new site for tagging and following RSS feeds

Chris Bucchere — Tue, 13 Nov 2007 07:12:53 -0800

Digg - Cool new site for tagging and following RSS feeds

Source: digg.com

Digg is a place for people to discover and share content from anywhere on the web. From the biggest online destinations to the most obscure blog, Digg surfaces the best stuff as voted on by our users

Starting another feedhaus digg storm!

Alt Search Engines » Blog Archive » The Top 5 Web Applications I want for Christmas

Chris Bucchere — Mon, 12 Nov 2007 17:36:11 -0800

Alt Search Engines » Blog Archive » The Top 5 Web Applications I want for Christmas

Source: altsearchengines.com

FaveBot enables you to continuously discover new content matching your interests. Simply sign up and create a list of the things you want to track and the types of content for each item in your list. FaveBot will scour the web, day after day, discovering new content matching your interests

Feedhaus was featured in Charles Knight's Top 5 Web Applications [He] Wants for Christmas!

enterprise 2.0 the bdg way: The Enterprise Relevance of Web 2.0

Chris Bucchere — Wed, 07 Nov 2007 01:09:00 -0800

enterprise 2.0 the bdg way: The Enterprise Relevance of Web 2.0

Source: thebdgway.blogspot.com

"Free Happy Hour and seminar sponsored by BEA and bdg on Wednesday, 11/14 from 6-8 PM in Tyson's Corner, VA (Washington, DC metro area). I'll be speaking about the enterprise relevance of Web 2.0."

60th Wedding Anniversary

Chris Bucchere — Wed, 24 Oct 2007 15:15:00 -0700

An in-depth look into Feedhaus: tag clouds for your feeds | ScobleShow: Videoblog about geeks, te...

Chris Bucchere — Thu, 18 Oct 2007 08:52:45 -0700

An in-depth look into Feedhaus: tag clouds for your feeds | ScobleShow: Videoblog about geeks, te...

Source: www.podtech.net

You must have JavaScript and Flash 8 enabled to view this content. See http://www.adobe.com/products/flashplayer to download Flash.

Here is a link to Robert Scoble's video of me talking about feedhaus for his show on podtech.net.

Feedhaus Launches Public Alpha to Deliver Real-time Personalized News, Images and Video

Chris Bucchere — Tue, 09 Oct 2007 19:12:08 -0700

Feedhaus Launches Public Alpha to Deliver Real-time Personalized News, Images and Video

Source: i-newswire.com

i-Newswire, 2007-10-10: Feedhaus (http://www.feedhaus.com) announced today that it has released its social news site into public alpha to deliver real-time news, images and videos that are personally relevant.

feedhaus

Chris Bucchere — Mon, 01 Oct 2007 18:30:05 -0700

feedhaus

Allows you to publish and share your feedhaus personal tag clouds on facebook.

feedhaus

Episode 4: Escape from New York

Chris Bucchere — Mon, 31 Oct 2005 13:58:00 -0800

Episode 3: The Shrinkage of Time

Chris Bucchere — Sat, 29 Oct 2005 10:09:00 -0700

Episode 2: The Graf Zeppelin

Chris Bucchere — Sat, 22 Oct 2005 10:05:00 -0700

Episode 1: A Nickel Goes a Long Way

Chris Bucchere — Sat, 15 Oct 2005 15:32:00 -0700

Meet Papa Len

Chris Bucchere — Sat, 15 Oct 2005 15:03:00 -0700

bdg booth close up