Lee and Sashi LeFever, they share, so I don’t have to write.
Seriously, I was just having this conversation with my friend Jay yesterday, who tells me he doesn’t get social bookmarking.
Jay – here ya go.
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iPhoto ’08 – screenshots and commentary
So, I’m an Apple fanboy who rushed out on the first day to get iLife & iWork ’08. Here are a few pix and comments of the new features (you can get a lot more here).
I don’t have .Mac anymore, but check out the gallery in action (Thanks Chris Messina)
Install
No doubt this would happen.
Update already?
Bought it today? Don’t bother registering.
No RSS autodetect, but you can still subscribe to photos
New Stuff
Photocasting is dead.
New organization of projects and slideshows
New icons
Events
Events are auto-created when you import a folder. Picks up the name, too.
As I suspected, Events are created auto-magically by date. Let’s call this an update of Rolls.
Least favorite item
iPhoto Library – now a big ass binary file that can become corrupt. Remember to back up your work, folks.
Looks good so far. Let’s see how it holds up over the next few days.
Free beer, nerds and a new lens to try out, what’s not to like. Chris Pirillo (of Lockergnome, Gnomedex and TechTV fame) helped organize a get together of over 150 Seattle area bloggers for a little sit down with the “old media” types at KOMO 4.
Great conversation with lots of “aren’t you famous on the internet?” and “stop twittering this.” Oh, will the wacky hijinks never cease?
Seriously, thanks to KOMO for putting on the event and getting me out of the house. Speaking of which, favorite shirt of the night? Clearly the “Stay at Home Blogger” t-shirt Jen Zug was sporting. Now, where is that photo?
God, it was everything in my power not to put an animated gif up. Instead, I leave you with a relic of the late 1990s.
I’m working on a redesign of Stewtopia based on Dean J Robinson’s Redoable template. Good stuff, but it’s taking a while to get everything up and running.
I hope to have this finished by early next week… I hope to actually blog again before then.
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Wordcamp 2007
Great meetup of the WordPress faithful this year in San Francisco.
More comments later, cause man am I tired.
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Harry Potter mania grips San Francisco
So, I hadn’t really intended to go to a Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows launch party. I’m actually one book behind and my wife was getting the book (pre-ordered months ago) from the company that should not be named today.
But, after a great late dinner at Siam Lotus, I remembered that Booksmith was open for the event and I couldn’t quite go to bed yet. We wandered over at 11pm and the party had already started.
You gotta give it to Booksmith. This is why stores like theirs are still around despite deep discounts and giant booksellers like Barnes and Noble. To quote Samuel Jackson, personality goes a long way.
I suspect they might be around once Amazon has put Borders and Barnes and Noble out of business.
Check out more pix in my Flickr album.
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Moo Stickers are shipping
Those crazy Brits have done it again.
This morning, Moo’s latest product, Moo Stickers went live. They are promoting the stickers with free shipping for the rest of the month.
If you’re not familiar with Moo, they’re the guys that take your Flickr pix (or Fotolog, Bebo, Vox, etc) and make them into half size business cards. They’re fun, small and a great conversation piece when giving out business cards.
Yay! Stickers
I’ve got a special place in my heart for stickers these days. If you’ve got kids, you know what I’m talking about. I’m not sure what the fascination my little girl has with stickers, but I seem to recall getting sticker books when I was a kid.
Anyhow, I need to find some fairy princess mermaid ballerinas to take pictures of for Olivia. Moo has made it easy to make them into stickers for hours of entertainment.
(Oh, I’m sure they have other uses too, but 3 year olds have priority)
Special thanks to my pal Denise Wilton over at Moo for getting me a preview of the fun.
Recently, I had the pleasure of sitting through a meeting that Boxbe was being pitched for “buzz marketing” marketing services from a third party. This company proceeded to show us pretty graphs and charts that illustrated how social media marketing can help small companies grow more quickly. Hmmmm…
Social media, it turns out can also help spread word of mouth more quickly. Having popped into this meeting a little late, I didn’t get to introduce myself, but largely, I kept my mouth shut to see where this company was going with their presentation.
Then they started talking about how they have many “agents” that post on their own blogs as well as comment on message boards, other blogs and in social networks without disclosure of their interests. They then proceed to detail out how they use dial up accounts, coffee shops and IP masking to obfuscate their IP addresses so their “marketers” can have conversations with themselves.
Now, staying silent in this meeting proved to be more and more difficult. Finally, I asked if they used Pay Per Post and the guy pitching us said, “No, they disclose who they are marketing for.”
Not exactly the answer I was looking for.
After this meeting, which didn’t last too long, I felt like I needed a shower.
It’s pretty easy to see companies today using tactics like this, but somehow it still surprises me. Maybe Scoble’s book had a lot of influence on me. Maybe, just maybe, I have morals, but somehow even beyond that, maybe I’m just not that stupid.
I’m sure that in the short run, they could have helped us get more users for Boxbe, but in the long run, I have to think that this kind of sleazy marketing just comes back to haunt you.
Just ask John Mackey, CEO of Whole Foods.
photo by Flickr user amy_kearns
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5 Freebase invites
If you’re a data/information infrastructure nerd like me, you’re gonna love Freebase.
Here’s a bit from O’Reilly:
But once you understand a bit about what metaweb is doing, you realize just how remarkable it is. Metaweb has slurped in the contents of several of the web’s freely accessible databases, including much of wikipedia, and song tracks from musicbrainz. It then turns its users loose on not just adding more data items but making connections between them by filling out meta tags that categorize or otherwise connect the data items, using a typology that can be extended by users, wiki-style.
It’s really freaking cool.
Anyhow, I’ve got 5 invites, so if you are interested, let me know. I know there is a fair bit of pent-up demand for these invites, so if you’ve got an invite to Spock or some other invite only Web 2.0 site, I’ll probably favor a request with a trade than one without.
Leave a comment or send an email to randy@boxbe.com
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In San Francisco, 6/25 – 7/4
Attention Bay Area peeps! I’m heading down to San Francisco for a wedding celebration of a good friend as well as turning up in the Boxbe offices for a few days.
I’m sending email out to folks to meet up while I’m around, but if you are around, I’d love to meet up.