Category Archives: Tech

by Michelle Lentz

It sounds like a new startup or a cool new gadget (or just a scientific phenomenon). But it’s a conference! June 16-18 some really brilliant people will gather together in San Francisco for the 2008 Supernova conference. According to the founder, Kevin Werbach, ” At Supernova, we bring together business, government, and technology thought leaders to understand how decentralization and pervasive connectivity are changing our world.” Supernova attempts to answer the “what’s next” after everything is digitally connected.

 The speakers list is impressive, including Joi Ito, Michael Arrington, Elizabeth Churchill, Esther Dyson, Hugh MacLeod, Loic Le Meur, Bret Taylor, Kevin Marks, and more, running the gamut from Web 2.0 consultants to entrepreneurs to academics.

Session topics include

The Theory and Practice of Networks • Does Telecom Have a Future? • Networked Business Models • Whose Social Graph? • The Internet is People: What We Know, and What it Means • Cyberspace Constitutional Moments • The Meaning of Openness • All the World’s a Game: What the Web can Learn from Virtual Worlds • Liquid Conversations and Distributed Content • Going Green: Toward a More Sustainable Technology Industry • Who is Driving Marketing Innovation? • Monetization for Today’s Internet… and Tomorrow’s • Wireless Disruption • Privacy and Security in the Network Age • Does the Media Get the Message?

Other interesting features include the Open Flow, which sounds very much like an unconference, and the TechCrunch-sponsored Mobile Connections, which showcases great mobile ideas.

Today is the last day to register before the early bird rates expire. So go convince your boss you need to attend this conference.

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Dont’ forget! If you know of any cool upcoming Web 2.0-related events, news, trends, or gadgets, send the information my way. Email me at michelle[at]writetech[dot]net or via Twitter.

by Michelle Lentz 

It’s conference season and you, the savvy & intelligent readers of bub.blicio.us, are quite sought after.

Under the Radar, brought to you by Dealmaker Media, is offering readers of bub.blicio.us a $100 discount on admission to their Under the Radar event on June 3. This particular event focuses on upcoming players in Social Media and Entertainment. Under the Radar showcases 32 different up-and-coming startups who will each give a short presentation about their business. This is a nifty opportunity to learn what’s coming down the track and be ahead of the game. A couple of them jump out at me, including

Jygy: A mobile social networking site. I’m convinced mobile is where it’s all headed, so this one intrigues me.

PutPlace: An off-site storage location. The intriguing thing is what I call a “vault” feature, which keeps master copies of your originals no matter what you do to the file after that.

CrowdSpring: As a freelancer, I often need things like press releases, logos, and brochures for my business and I go begging to my friends who are good at those things. CrowdSpring basically lets me go beg to the world. Creative folks can take the opportunity to grow their profile and submit their work to paying clients. It’s an intriguing concept, and while I see a few holes in the idea, it has a lot of potential.

Each company and presentation will also be judged, and the line-up includes folks from Google, the Wall Street Journal, MySpace, several venture capital firms, and Robert Scoble.

You can learn more here and register to attend with the discount here.

Under the Radar
Tuesday, June 3
8 am – 6 pm
Microsoft, Conference Center, Bldg 1
1065 La Avenida Street
Mountain View, CA 94043

Dont’ forget! If you know of any cool upcoming Web 2.0-related events, news, trends, or gadgets, send the information my way. Email me at michelle[at]writetech[dot]net or via Twitter.

Really, that title was too easy.

So, my first day at this and already I’ve found something that’s just not working all that great in Cincinnati. I blame the private beta status more than anything though. (I have to blame something.)

So here are the basics of BrightKite. It’s a location-based social networking service. It connects you with the real people around you, which is pretty darn nifty. One thing I love about Twitter is the evolution of spontaneous Tweetups. We chat all day but really, we all seem to crave real live interaction. BrightKite allows you to find your current friends who are near you, or even find new folks nearby, live and in-person.

When you’re out in the world at large, you can text your location to BrightKite by “checking in”. BrightKite then lets you know if any other super-connected folks are nearby. Everything seems to be accessible from the web site and from your phone. BrightKite isn’t a phone snob either – it supports just about every major carrier (although Verizon apparently has issues). Because it’s SMS based, you don’t need a fancy iPhone either.

Well, I have a fancy iPhone, but I have a limited amount of text messages. I don’t waste them lightly. But because I do have a fancy phone, it’s no problem for me to access the web-based version of the site. As far as I can tell, there isn’t yet a mobile site (m.) or an iphone site. But that’s okay  as long as you can access the web from your phone.

I can think of a million and one uses for this. When I attend a professional conference, I’m constantly calling and texting folks. This would be an easy way to get online and instantly know where folks are and where they’re heading. I also suspect that if I lived in San Francisco or New York City, there would be a lot more BrightKite users around me, including some close friends. That’s when this app really becomes useful I would think. However, I think there are about 6 of us from Cincy on BrightKite right now. As it continues to open up it’s beta, hopefully that will change.

I want to address the privacy settings. They’re pretty neat, and multi-layered. You can set it up so that certain people are your Trusted Friends. Trusted Friends see everything – the complete address where you’re located.

You can also adjust your overall setting so that you are in Private mode or Public. The BrightKite folks did this screencast to address the privacy issue. (Of course, the screencast isn’t displaying, so here’s the Flickr link.)

BrightKite integrates with Twitter and with FireEagle. You can even pull in your Twitter friends if they are on BrightKite. You can set which types of BrightKite posts show up in Twitter as well.

Overall, it’s a nifty tool. I would love to use it at a conference or large group event. I’m debating on suggesting it as a cool tool at a wine blogger’s conference I’m attending later this year. If you’re in a large city, or at least a place where the beta invites have spread like wildfire, you’ll probably appreciate BrightKite more than I do. I haven’t written it off yet though. I remember when I thought Twitter was silly and annoying. So I withhold judgement on BrightKite until I’m addicted.

Cheers!

Guest post by Jacob Morgan

At the web 2.0 conference in San Francisco last week, Tim O’ Reilly said that we should use Web 2.0 to tackle problems that people are faced with, to help the greater good.  Not many Web 2.0 companies out there exist for the so-called greater good, but I think I have found one that does, and it is called Govit.com.

Govit.com gives you the unique ability to vote on legislative bills online.  Your vote then gets sent directly to your representative.  No phone calls, no trying to get a hold of your representative.  You also get the opportunity to participate in online conversations regarding legislative bills.  Discuss issues that you are passionate about and have your voice heard.

Govit.com was created by Taylor Norrish and when I asked why he decided to create Govit, he said:

“Govit Wants to Power You Up…Politically. I don’t remember a time, when I was so mindful of the issues facing our country, the economy, net-neutrality, healthcare, the environment, the war on terror, the drug war, civil liberties, corruption. Add to that, the power of the special interest, corporations, and an unreliable media. Citizens need a way to get involved… to be represented. Govit is striving to be this tool.”

So what are some of the things that you can do on Govit.com?

- On Govit you can learn about popular legislation, and discuss it
- Vote on legislation
- Have your vote sent instantly to your reps
- The more people vote on a bill, the more elected representatives would be compelled to support their constituents
- Keep tabs on your Representatives, by comparing voting records

Govit.com is a powerful and practical tool that allows for communication between citizens and the government, now, let us hope it catches on.

by Brian Solis

Facebook Chat is quickly becoming my instant messenger of choice, but I still also have contacts who either are not yet on Facebook or choose not to be. In turn, I have to also run other apps such as Skype, Adium, and/or Meebo in order to stay connected.

Two new tools recently were introduced to bring Facebook Chat out of the social network to the Mac and PC desktop; Gabtastik for Mac and Digsby for PC (Mac and Linux support coming soon). Thanks to Nick O’Neill of SocialTimes for the heads up on Digsby.

The beauty is that both services also integrate other chat clients such as Yahoo IM, AOL, and Google Talk, so that I can have one chat window open for managing conversations all in one place.

Gabtastik is a WebKit based Site Specific Browser (SSB) for web chat services. It lets you keep chat sessions open on your OS X desktop outside of your regular web browser.

In addition to IM and Facebook chat, Digsby also provides email alerts that allow you to perform actions such as ‘Delete’ or ‘Report Spam’ with just one click. It also supports social networks, including MySpace, Facebook, and Twitter, and alerts you of events, new messages, and provides a live Newsfeed of what your friends are up to. I can also update directly from Digsby to each respective network. I have to admit that it’s pretty cool to watch the live feeds from Twitter and Facebook in addition to having my contacts.

While each represent steps in the right direction, Digsby is currently the winner in becoming my day-to-day platform for integrated chat and social network and micromedia activity. I can say, however, that I will keep both installed and continue to experiment. I just wish Digsby was also on Mac!

Connect with me on Twitter, Jaiku, LinkedIn, Pownce, Plaxo, FriendFeed, or Facebook.

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