This past Thursday evening, I was giving a presentation on how technology/the web has advanced since the “PC era” and how we got to this age of Twitter, Facebook, Cloud Computing and awesome mobile applications.
During this presentation, a member of the group asked me to explain what a mashup was (because it was on my slide) and thankfully I had a URL (padmapper.com) coupled with a funny story (the developer and I became email pen pals when I asked him to add a new city to the app so my friend could find an apartment) on hand — but it made me realize that to a majority of the population, it’s pretty confusing.
A Mashup combines multiple sources of information and displays it in a single web page or application. The easiest (and sometimes most useful!) example mashes together GoogleMaps and something else.
Plan a wine tour (saves a lot of Googling) with Wines and Times. Find where you live (or where you want to go) and see what’s around so you can start sniffing, swirling, and tasting some vino.
Track your package as it’s moves across the map. BoxOh: Type in your tracking number and watch your package travel from it’s origin to it’s destination (you!). Mashes together FedEx/UPS/USPS data and GoogleMaps.
Find Free Internet in your city with HotSpotr: Mashes together a list of free WiFi hotspots and displays over GoogleMaps.
Techyness turns 24, and celebrates it with a cross-country move.
I must have some sense of twisted sense of congratulatory celebration, as my moving date happens to fall on the same day as my 24th birthday.
Hopefully this move won’t include similar stories from my last move — movers who asked me if I wanted to “party” later or go hit up the bar across the street — #professionalismfail.
If you’d like to follow my move and the crazy stories that happen, you can see them come through on Twitter with the hashtag #alanasmove2010.
Which brings me to my next point – when you’re moving, and people come and take away all your stuff, what are you left with?
It’s you, your gadgets, and a suitcase – usually hanging out in a corner, like me.
We tend to trust people with many items that we own, but refuse to hand over the gadgetry. I know I’m one of those crazies going through security with two laptops.
Don’t lie and tell me you haven’t typed it into Google.
I know I have (does that make me lame?) Anyway, regardless of my additions to Google search trends, I’ve come up with a short list of places that I search in order to find stuff to do on the weekend.*
Source #1: Twitter
First, you can always use third party twitter applications to find out what people are doing in and around your city. Try Trazzler, a site that recommends hand-picked trips unique to your location and “Travel Personality” (it’s kicked off via Facebook Connect). Plus our boys/twitter co-founders Biz Stone and Evan Williams are founding advisers.
Trazzler Buzz list is determined via Twitter updates on certain destinations. If you want to see what activity is trending now, check it out. But what adds value is the site itself sends you directly to the website/location of the place being mentioned in the tweet itself.
Source #2 E-mail Newsletters (but cool ones)
Urbandaddy is a free (and very uncorporate) daily digest of cool restaurant, club, event and shopping recommendations based on either the local or national level. Plus you can sometimes get free invites to openings. If you live in any of the following 11 cities, Boston, Chicago, Dallas, Jetset, Las Vegas, Los Angeles, Miami, National, New York, San Francisco and Washington DC, you’re lucky, because you have your own UrbanDaddy edition.
Thrilllist, similar to Urban Daddy, is another digest filled with (oftentimes) really random and awesome stuff that’s going on around you. Again, you’re lucky if you live in any of these cities… New York offers essential, city-centric info about NYC. LA, SF, Chicago, Boston, Miami, Atlanta, Philadelphia, Dallas, the Hamptons, Austin, Seattle and Washington, DC. If you’re more of a “nation” event watcher, you’re in luck, as a national edition is offered.
Source #3: Online/Social Travel Guides
I recently stumbled upon Schmap as one source of information for social-based travel information that you can download to your mobile device. You can download city guides.
A little bit of Christmas cheer – Merry Christmas Eve from the Techyness!!!
Twas the night before Christmas, when all through the house
Not a iPhone was stirring, not even a mouse.
The kindles and gadgets were wrapped under the tree with care.
In hopes that @The_REAL_SANTA would soon would be there.
We all know that he has done social media strategy right,
Because of the pressure on him this fateful night.
So the teams worked hard all year,
Watching the networks, even those peer to peer.
So, the twitterati were nestled all snug in their beds,
With visions of replies, re-tweets, and DM’s in their heads.
While monitoring the social web there arose such a clatter,
I sprang from my desk to see what was the matter.
Away to the window, I flew in a dash,
Tore open the shutters and took out my iPhone- but oh no flash!
Not even the camera could capture the new-fallen snow
As I tried to twitpic the lustre of mid-day to objects below.
When, what to my wondering smartphone lens should appear,
But a miniature sleigh, powered by eight tiny reindeer.
As I whipped out my flip cam, and was turning around,
Down the chimney @The_REAL_SANTA came with a bound.
He was outfitted with gadgets, from his head to his foot,
Although the touchscreens were covered with ashes and soot.
He spoke not a word, but updated his status and went back to work,
Uploaded a photo to flickr, downloaded an app, and looked at me with a smirk.
He sprang to his sleigh, and replied to me on twitter,
And away they all flew, those little reindeer critters
As I opened the app on my phone before he drove out of sight,
He sent me a message: “Happy Christmas to all, and to all a good-night!”
But if you want to track Santa, follow his journey on Twitter, Facebook, or on his web site for up to date information on his whereabouts via the NORAD center in Colorado Springs. According to Mashable, the account is being maintained by “Bitz the Twittering Elf.” We all knew elves could twitter.
Last weekend, I found myself in the city for a few days. And while I was there, I realized that when you combine NYC, Hot Guidos and a few (hot) chicks on twitter, your total # of followers can increase substantially (and you’re going to have a lot of fun).
And the best part about all of this is that the whole reason I was in New York to begin with is social media (and to visit someone!) — and it just so happened to be the first thing I had in common with the people I met while I was there
NYC
Every tourist in NYC has to go and see the tree at 30 rock, even if those who live in the city are morally opposed to taking the trip to see said item. But, regardless, I still took a photo and (first) uploaded it to twitter and (second) sent a MMS to my mother. (she likes Christmas too).
Twitter Followers
My favorite part about this photo is that after both Niki and Jill uploaded it to TwitPic, my # of followers on Twitter increased. That’s the beauty of someone tweeting “3 hot girls you should follow on twitter.” People listen and start to follow you.
Hot Guidos
After meeting Jill Hanner and Nicole D’Alonzo thanks to George, I was inspired to check out one of Jill’s infamous videos that Niki was telling me about all night…
Scared of the bear nutcracker... and also by questions about what's going on with journalism.
Many journalists today are making a similar face as the one showcased to the left.
A former boyfriend friend sent me an email last week and asked for my opinions on the journalism industry. He writes:
“How do the dwindling print media companies resurrect themselves… My personal opinion is that there are some working examples of quality news and information sources… I think that people will pay for quality (take magazines like the New Yorker and The Economist). The problem is that the value of the daily news depreciates because new stories are so volatile… I can also see how deeper problems could arise like an information divide between those who can afford quality and the technology and gadgets needed to do so, and those who cannot. Thus leading to a place where the people who could really use some quality informing are less likely to have access to it” – email submission
I responded with a quote from Being Digitalby Nicholas Negroponte (Director of MIT’s Media Lab) which was published in 1995.
“Another way to look at a newspaper – and that is as an interface to the news. Instead of reading what other people think is news and what other people justify as worthy of the space it takes, being digital will change the economic modl of news selections, and make your interests play a bigger role, and, in fact use pieces from the cutting room floor that did not make the cut on popular demand.
You might be willing to pay the Boston Globe a lot more for ten pages than for a hundred pages if you could be confident that it was delivering you the right subset of information.”
- Negroponte, Being Digital. 1995.
Personally, I would pay $ for a service that delivered me the news that I was looking for, so I wouldn’t have to spend as much time digging through all the noise. If there was a way to change your “preferences” for the news and have high-quality, pre-selected stories delivered on a subscription basis, that could work.
What Negroponte mentioned in his book is the fact that people like options. They want to see different things, read different topics on different days.
Think about it this way- when a family buys the Sunday paper, certain people gravitate to “sections” of the paper. This is an old fashioned method. Take for example, my case – there was no “technology” section in the Toledo Blade. Maybe one article, so, in my case I was not getting the news I was interested in reading.
Is this a solution? Thoughts? What practical advice can we give to the journalism industry?
So, as a girl, your only way to showcase your personality was through your purse and your shoes, and at my school, it was all about the bag.
Many went for the true americana styles of Coach or Dooney, and of course there was the occasional Euro entry (which were harder to find because they were not available at the local mall).
Thank God for the Internet.
Now, if you want to make a decision on which bag to buy to go with your uniform, or to buy for a holiday gift, you can shop online catalogs, ask for opinions on twitter, and use interactive gift finders from your favorite retailer/brand (like Coach’s cool Facebook app), and find out what people are saying on Facebook.
Techyness tips her hat to the classy ladies of social media
Nice girls are hard to find.
When I was at my (all girls, catholic) high school, I was (already) little miss techyness.
Even my “computer skills” teacher would often pull me out of my other classes to give demonstrations/help out.
Sure, even the teacher called me “computer geek,” but I had a hard time finding and meeting other females working in the tech sector back home in Perrysburg, Ohio.
So, I taught myself web development. I still have flashbacks to my first web site, which I called “Shooting Stars.” Humm. Yes, it was complete with everything, especially tables, a “hit counter” and graphics from flamingtext.
oh (internet.) how far we’ve come.
Things have changed since my time in high school, mainly the rise in interactive social media, and the fact that I ended up going to school with boys again.
Sometimes I think about what I could have learned about the tech industry if the blogs of today were around when I was in high school… and I believe that the vocal female bloggers from today would have been a pivotal group to reach out to for advice on college programs, jobs, and one’s experience as a female in the tech industry.
So, I’d like to give a shout out to a few females out there who serve as examples to all of us that women in tech are… both hot and smart, and aren’t afraid to show their techy side. [thanks to george for some insight on these ladies]
Sarah Evans: PR Sarah Evans is, honestly, one badass chick. She started her own PR firm, Sevans and shows that entrepreneurial thinking isn’t just left to the boys.
Ladies of Mashable: If Pete was my boss, I’d be happy too (kidding ladies). But in all serious, these girls give us our daily fix on what’s going on in the social media world.
For additional links on blogs of the female kind, check out blog her.
Gone are the days where it was uncool to be a girl in tech. Live it up ladies!
+ to the readers out there… please comment with links to your favorite female bloggers
While visiting my sister at SMU this weekend, she showed me this video on Sand Art, which I find not only amazing, but also moving. It’s Kseniya Simonova, the 2009 winner of the Ukraine’s You’ve Got Talent.
According to Wikipedia (everyone’s favorite source of information), she started drawing with sand after her business collapsed due to the early 21st century credit crunch.
Like many fellow millennials today, I don’t have cable. Or a home phone.
Therefore, when Monday evening comes around, I have a bit of a situation (since that is when Gossip Girl airs). I either:
a) Find a friend with cable
b) Wait until Wednesday for the new episode to be posted on cwtv.com
c) Try to distract myself so I forget that it’s on.
Full Episodes of Gossip Girl...
I’ve been trying to find good websites that aren’t sketchy to watch tv online for free. But usually you get some sketchy websites. BUT NO MORE.
While talking to fellow Gossip Girl Addict, I was told of a new site – CastTV that streams new video content before it’s available on many other sites (especially on the network sites).
What I love about the site is not just that they have multiple seasons of Gossip Girl available – but that they filter out sketchy sites and expired content (and allow me to catch up on some of my other favorite shows, like Mad Men and 30 Rock.
