Monthly Archives: January 2010

So, everyone is making their own mobile devices these days. At least, that’s how it seems. Connecting a hand held device to the web and enabling it with Wi-Fi seems to be enough reason to make one’s own mobile device and sell it for an exorbitant price. Yet the ability to use these mobile devices to run various platforms could entice developers, build out a growing marketplace, and become the new way of doing business. Companies such as Amazon are looking to move in on Apple’s turf in order to get a piece of this pie.

Apple’s iPhone still dominates on the mobile app scene. It’s cell phone has won the hearts of millions around the world, with the iTunes App Store attracting countless developers, publishers and buyers to its mobile marketplace. The growth f an entire industry is looking to mobile as its future, and Apple is starting to see more and more competition from others seeking a comparable platform approach to the mobile app forum.

The days of starving artists taking their masterpieces to street corners to sell or be seen are far from over. Many people still choose that as a medium to get their name and talent out there.  But why stand out in the ice cold or the sweltering heat, when you can use social media to do all the work for you?

Natasha Westcoat did just that. Through the use of social media and auction sites like eBay, her color-soaked and magical-like art became best sellers, forcing her to abandon her university studies and become a full-time artist. With a helping hand from Twitter, FaceBook, eBay, Etsy and more, Natasha has sold over 1000 original works of art since 2004 to private and corporate collections worldwide!

As an avid art lover myself, one look at her creations and I can see where her influence stems from. The rich gold and almost mixed media look of swaying trees and shapes are reminiscent of the dream-like and timeless paintings from Gustav Klimt.  The flowing and repetitious brush strokes paired with bold and blatant colors are pure VanGogh.  Combining the magic and distinctness of those two artists in one, results in Natasha’s candy coated art that gave social media users everywhere a sweet tooth.

After seeing the impact social media had on her work, Natasha became an avid blogger and also participates in events teaching those in creative arts how to use and utilize the web as a means of sharing their wondrous creations. Natasha is also the co-founder of Create Life, which is an amazing outlet dedicated to bringing together creatives and techies to collaborate and learn about social media.

The art and tech communities, both a big part of my life, are co-existing to allow both sides to show and tell their talent and craft, which is resulting in nothing but pure success for both sides and it’s an amazing thing to see!

I’ve spent a good part of this month at various conferences, continuing through the end of next week. Because of my schedule, I have a collection of other people’s business cards – in my own business card holder, at the bottom of my briefcase, shoved into my change purse, and tucked into my moleskin. I have no idea, for the most part, who gave me what card and why.On top of that, I constantly forget to bring my own business cards. They just don’t always fit into whatever stylish little clutch I’m carrying … But now I’ve got a solution.

Contxts.com, currently in alpha and free, enables you to set up your contact information and provide it via SMS. All you need to do is provide your user name to someone, they text 50500, and your information is texted to their phone. In fact, my phone is where I need that information, so receiving someone’s information that way is a lot more convenient for me than traditional business cards.

So now that we’ve gotten your interest you want to know how it works. There are two ways to connect with a colleague. Regardless of whether they have a profile on contxts or not you can exchange your credentials.

From your phone, you txt “send 3034759204” to 50500 (where 3034759204 is your recipients 10 digit number)

Your recipient will receive all of your contact information.

Your contact txts “username” to 50500 on their phone

You will receive a request confirmation (unless you have it turned off). Upon accepting, your contact will receive your information

Contxts maintains a list of everyone who requests your info and notifies you whenever it happens. Since I plan on putting my information on the front of every presentation I give next week, I’m curious to see how many people – and who -  actually text the number to acquire my information.

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Cheers!
Tweet Michelle @writetechnology, send her technology news at michelle[at]writetech[dot]net, visit her wine blog when you’re thirsty, and drop by her day job.

A few weeks ago, it seemed like there was a contest held by Myspace and the Wall Street Journal to choose a citizen journalist. It might not have seemed like it was anything important, but in fact, this person who be undertaking a trip of a lifetime – to Davos-Klosters, Switzerland for the World Economic Forum Annual Meeting.

So what happened? Interested contestants were invited to apply and after being judged by prominent judges Robert Thomson (Managing Editor of The Wall Street Journal), Adrian Monck (Managing Director & Head of Communications of the World Economic Forum), Rebekah Brooks (CEO of News International), Owen Van Natta (CEO of Myspace) and Rebecca McQuiqq (the 2009 winner of the Myspace Journal contest), five finalists were selected. In order to truly make a citizen journalist that people would be interested in reading, the contest was also open to votes by the public – crowdsourcing, anyone?

So on December 18, 2009, it was announced that Sloane Berrent (@sloane) of New Orleans was named the winner of the 2010 “Myspace Citizen Journalist” competition. Her next steps are to travel to Davos-Klosters, Switzerland to report on the happenings of the 2010 World Economic Forum. As a winner, she’ll join the press corps and use the Myspace network to report back. You’ll also be able to see her reports on The Wall Street Journal’s website. According to Berrent, “it has been a lifelong dream of mine to attend the World Economic Forum in Davos.”

You might not know this about Berrent, but she’s all about cause reporting. She’s the founder of Cause It’s My Birthday (a movement to fight Malaria), the creator of TheCausemopolitan.com and is a former Kiva fellow and philanthropist. She’s helped raise over $19,000 to help purchase Malaria nets for people in Northern Ghana and is heavily passionate about social entrepreneurship and philantrophy. So I suppose it’s no wonder that she was interested in this important position.

As the winner of the competition, Berrent will receive:

Congratulations Sloane on your success and looking forward to reading more about your adventures in Davos next week on Myspace.com and The Wall Street Journal.

Photo Credit: Scott Beale / Laughing Squid

YouTube is getting into music videos now, with a new Discovery Project being launched in TestTube, YouTube’s experimental features lab. From the Discovery Project you can search for music, and create your own playlist accordingly. You can mix and match results, and then view them in a custom playlist.

There are a number of services that already offered similar options, many of which were based solely on YouTube content. There has always been a wealth of music available on YouTube, though some of it is far from the official, quality content you would want for inclusion in a custom playlist. Of course, playlists can be shared with friends and saved for later plays.

YouTube’s ongoing efforts for premium content on the site has resulted in some official music videos that are part of YouTube’s Music Discovery Project, according to TechCrunch. Partnerships with distributors can only make such an offering from YouTube better and more feature-ridden for end users, which could possibly detract from the ongoing success of those services that already create music playlists from YouTube content.

Ultimately, YouTube could find itself knee-deep in a music search and recommendation service. The potential for Google-owned YouTube to move in this direction would likely be a niche effort, but a useful one nevertheless. I only say this because a number of content-aggregating services are finding ways to offer combined access to as many of your media platforms as possible, from a single point of access.

This means that the provision of getting content to users in the most efficient way possible could very well be the use of combined media on a single site. In this regard, YouTube could also become one of those access points for multimedia, making it easier for consumers to keep up with their shared content.

While we’re not likely to see a whole lot of activity for the Discovery Project in the immediate future, Google is also ramping up its efforts towards promoting music services and search results through its primary pages. The acquisition of LaLa has brought playable search results to many queries, and the Discovery Project could aid Google in its efforts to create a more contextual search experience that gives us what we’re looking for instead of a resourceful web page.