Posted by j@ere.my on May 20, 2008 in
Books,
Business I just got my copy of Dan Pink’s The Adventures of Johnny Bunko. For those that don’t recognize the name, Pink is the author of bestselling books, A Whole New Mind and Free Agent Nation.
I read A Whole New Mind a while back and really enjoyed it. So, naturally I was attracted when his new book was released.
I was a little leary of the new book’s format, as it’s written/illustrated in manga… not my usual style. I did, however, quickly get into it, and I was able to finish the book in less than an hour.
I will spare you the details, but Johnny Bunko is an average office worker who receives six career lessons from an interesting career counselor, Diana. The points Pink makes through his fictional counselor are pretty good, although for those in the know, they certainly aren’t groundbreaking.
As I found with his previous works, Pink’s books are groundbreaking for some, but people like me tend to find them comfortably affirming. It’s nice to know that I’m not the only one who thinks the way I do.
Overall an enjoyable read. Check out www.johnnybunko.com for some free samples from the book. I recommend reading it through in the bookstore. It’s a super-fast read.
Posted by j@ere.my on Apr 30, 2008 in
Coworking,
Web Development As I met with a group of friends several months ago, something interesting came up. One of these friends was my age and just out of college, the other two are a bit older. We had come together to discuss how we might cooperate in providing communications services together to various clients.
In preparation for the meeting, we all outlined what skills and knowledge we would bring to the table.
Interestingly enough, though our skill sets varied, it seemed that many of the same concepts were present.
The key difference, as Richard pointed out, was how we marketed ourselves in our own self-descriptions.
It seems that college students and recent graduates today have a high aptitude for branding themselves (maybe for branding in general). We like to plant our own .com and build a look and style that adequately describes ourselves. Very interesting indeed.
Branding is key. But how will all of these personified brands play out in the future? How will we integrate into a corporate world, yet maintain our own personal and branded identities? How will we work together without competing?
This is yet to be seen for me, at least. But I think the independent and small-biz web development culture is by far the most advanced in this area. As I’m just busting (or re-busting) into the scene of web development, I’m enamored by the community I’ve walked into.
Of course, I must give kudos to Alex Hillman, for his coworking evangelism. He’s drawn me in, and inspired me to participate in a new community of professionals who are working independently, yet together.
what happens when you have a great idea and somebody else comes up with the same idea at approximately the same time? frustrating..
so today, in an ironic feat of web-searchification, while working on my very own foto:blip, i discovered a lovely little app that does nearly the same thing as foto:blip. note, nearly.
clearly i’ve been beaten to the punch in providing a way to use photos instead of words to share the play by play of your life.
so what to do now? beat them with sticks!
the key differentiation that i see right now is that TwitPic (what a silly name) is a bolt-on application. it connects with the Twitter API and (sortof) extends the functionality of Twitter. not a bad idea at all. Twitter has a large and growing userbase. but, i believe that what is really needed to take the next step with microbloggery is to have a completely new application which is built from the ground up to work with images. while two Twitter add-on clients support TwitPic, allowing the posted photo to be viewed directly in the client, other venues such as the Twitter web site and the all-important Twitter Facebook application merely show a link to your photo posted via TwitPic. degrades nicely for those clients, but how will it bode for the visually-inclined user? not so well.
foto:blip has, from the very beginning, been designed to use photos as the users’ primary means of communication. to emphasize that point, photo captions are limited to a short 50 characters. we want users to communicate with their images. to do this, it is a necessity that every viewer can see the posted images alongside the caption.
i’ll be having a closer look at TwitPic shortly as I continue working on foto:blip. perhaps it will inspire me even more.
Posted by j@ere.my on Apr 26, 2008 in
Computers,
Social Networking,
Twitter,
Web Apps i’m about 80 percent done my new social site, foto:blip.
the concept is pretty simple. we live in a visual world, not a textual one. though words can describe many things, a picture still captures so much more.
tools like twitter are cool. it allows you to update from a variety of places, most commonly the web site, a facebook application and from a registered mobile device. it’s really cool to be able to share your day as it happens with your followers and see what your friends are doing with their days.
it’s time to take the next step. foto:blip merges the quick-posting ease of use of applications like twitter with the increased level of communication that can take place with a photograph.
some of the features include:
- built in flash-powered foto:booth. you don’t even need to save a photo to your computer first, simply take a picture with your webcam and upload it immediately, all from within your browser window
- mobile uploads. using your cell phone provider’s sms to e-mail gateway or e-mail account, you can send messages with picture attachments that will be posted to your account when received
- no-login-required access to your foto:blip profile
- rss feeds for foto:blip profiles
- more coming..
stay tuned for launch information.
Posted by j@ere.my on Apr 25, 2008 in
Twitter
Posted by j@ere.my on Apr 24, 2008 in
Twitter
Posted by j@ere.my on Apr 23, 2008 in
Twitter
Posted by j@ere.my on Apr 22, 2008 in
Twitter
Posted by j@ere.my on Apr 21, 2008 in
Twitter
Posted by j@ere.my on Apr 20, 2008 in
Twitter
