by Michelle Lentz

I used to teach a college course on Web design to incoming freshman. Part of their class project was to create a paper prototype of their web site. The prototype included everything from page names to what pages linked to others. I still start any web design project in this manner. In fact, when I write food & wine articles for magazines, my first draft is usually on a legal pad and not in a word processing program. I don’t know why I always begin with paper, but it’s a habit I haven’t been able to break. Of course, some of the best ideas have been scrawled on cocktail napkins in bars. I remember a scene in AMC’s Mad Men where our male lead is scribbling ideas on a napkin next to a martini.

It turns out some of your favorite web sites also got their start on paper. Sean Flannagan at Deeplinking has compiled a small gallery of Web 2.0 paper prototypes, including Twitter and Flickr. It’s fascinating to look at the evolution from the initial idea to what we know today. Twitter was originally thought of as Stat.us for example.

twttr sketch
Originally uploaded by jack dorsey

I followed an intriguing trail of links today to explore paper prototyping. I started with a post at WebWare that led me to Sean’s post at Deeplinking. Sean’s post, after fascinating me with his paper prototype gallery, led me to a 2007 article by Shawn Medero at A List Apart. Shawn’s article on Paper Prototyping focuses on why it’s a good idea to use paper to initially design your UI. Not only does paper allow easy iterations, but by being non-technical, it invites the average user into the design process.

When I teach a class now on Web 2.0, I often refer to the Common Craft videos. They’re the ones that describe new technology in simple terms – using paper. Some things never go out of style.

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Events, news, apps, and more – let me know at michelle[at]writetech[dot]net, via Twitter, or via Pownce.

words and pictures by Brian Solis

While I was in Los Angeles for my keynote presentation discussing The Future of Social Media, Jackie Peters and I thought it was a good excuse to organize a Tweetup. L.A. is one of the hottest and genuine emerging tech hubs in the U.S. and personally, one of my favorite places to recharge my passion for the new Web and the social economy alongside it.

The original Los Angeles Techset hosted at the Hollywood Roosevelt was a much larger and more formal event, the recent Tweetup was a refreshing, informal gathering of those making a difference and contributing to an active, more valuable, and influential tech community.

Hosted poolside at the very scenic and lavish” The Standard Hotel” in Hollywood, we were treated to incredible conversations, networking, pictures, and beautiful views of Los Angeles’ West Side.

Over the course of the early evening, what started as a small gathering, quickly expanded to encompass the majority of the trendy outside lounge – with entrepreneurs and other cool folks in town for OnHollywood joining the party.

Eventually the crowd migrated into the Purple Lounge inside the hotel, where drinks and conversations continued well after I left. Hey, I had to finalize my presentation which started at 8 a.m. the next morning.

Thanks to everyone for making it out on Wednesday night. As always, it was an absolute privilege to spend time with you.

Stay tuned for the next official Techset, which will be announced shortly.

Brooks Bayne

Nicole Jordan

Tim Shigel of ShareThis

Melodi Cowan

Hooman Khalili of the 97.3 Morning Show

Tim Street of FrenchMaidTV

Damon Alexander Young

Mike Prasad of GirlGamer

Andy Sternberg

Michael Broukhim of TotSpot

Sean Percival of Mahalo

Alexandra Mokh

Jackie Peters

Yes, that’s a woman in a glass box – The Standard Lobby

More LA Tweetup pictures are on flickr.

For previous Techset events, please see below:

New York Internetweek

LA Techset at the Roosevelt, Hollywood
Love 2.0 SF

Silicon Valley SXSW Reunion

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

by Michelle Lentz

The next StartupSF is June 18, 6-8 pm, in San Francisco. StartupSF helps startup tech companies “kick-start” their business and includes everyone from entrepreneurs to developers to the curious. It’s a chance to learn more about what’s out there and share ideas. Money raised from the event benefits charity – this month, the charity is Inveneo.

Brian Solis (bub.blicio.us and PR 2.0) will be speaking on Conversational PR for Startups. Since you’re already reading bub.blicio.us, I probably don’t have to tell you about Brian. But if you’re in the San Francisco area, this would be a great opportunity to hear him speak.

It’s also a great opportunity to learn about some area startups. Startups showcased at this meetup include the Mosio Project, Inveneo, and Nirvino.

You’ll leave the event hopefully having made new connections and learned new things, as well as with some tangibles:

$100 GoGrid Service Credit
Orrick’s Startup Kit CD

The first 30 people to register using code SUSFbub618 will get in free!

$10 in advance/ $20 at the door
Orrick, Herrington, & Sutcliffe / 405 Howard Street / 8th Floor Cafe
6 pm – networking and demo companies
7 pm – guest speaker (Brian)
8 pm – more networking and demo companies

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Events, news, apps, and more – let me know at michelle[at]writetech[dot]net, via Twitter, or via Pownce.

 by Michelle Lentz

Back in May I posted on Firefox’s planned World Download Day, when they hope to set a new Guinness World Record for most downloads in a 24-hour period.

Well, it was announced today that Firefox 3 will be released for Windows/Mac/Linux on Tuesday, June 17. So get ready to download!

As a note, I’ve been using both the Mac and PC versions of v3 Release Candidate 2 and I’m incredibly impressed not only by the features, but by the speed. The new version of Firefox really takes off.

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Events, news, apps, and more – let me know at michelle[at]writetech[dot]net, via Twitter, or via Pownce.

by Michelle Lentz 

Quite frankly, I used to hate live blogging. I would, for the fun of it, live blog the Oscars or another awards show. It was always a pain, having to constantly save and refresh, plugging in the time stamp and everything else. For readers, liveblogging is interesting but you must consistently refresh the page.

Today I wanted to try out CoveritLive, a free (yes, free) live blogging tool out of Toronto. I was planning on listening to the audio stream for the Stevenote, er, keynote at Apple’s WWDC anyway. So not only did I listen, I live blogged it.

Earlier in the day, I registered at CoveritLive.com and set up the announcement and post for the blogging. When 1 pm EST rolled around, I jumped right into the live blogging fray, putting CoveritLive through the paces. I believe that I was only one of many bloggers using CoveritLive for the keynote. I mention that because the response time was initially slow and a lot of my posts were “eaten” and not displayed. Others displayed about 3 or 4 times. About an hour into the keynote, things somehow managed to even out, and the application functioned wonderfully. I mention this because you aren’t always going to be liveblogging at the exact same time as so many other people and I think it might have put some strain on their system.

CoveritLive is initially an embedded tool on your web site. You blog “in the clouds,” using a special window on the CoveritLive web site. This window gives you access to your media library, reader stats, standby mode and other tools. Had anyone been paying attention to my little experiment, I could have interacted with my readers via comments and polls. I was happily able to edit my liveblogging event after I finished, taking care of some of the repeated posts and crazy spelling errors.

From the readers perspective, there is no need to constantly refresh. You see each new line item as it happens, in real time. You can also interact with the host, via chat like comments. After the event has ended, you can view the liveblog just by hitting the replay button. 

Recently, CoveritLive has upgraded their feature set. You can now download your code after the blogging session and drop it directly into your site. This gives you the SEO benefit of the liveblogging. I’ll probably do that to my own liveblogging session in a few days. You can also customize the liveblogging window. The default template is for CoveritLive, of course, but you can follow their explicit instructions (exact sizes of images, etc) to create your own template in the right colors and with your own logo. You can add Panelists & Producers, which is an option for more than one contributor to the blogging event. You can even contribute or view from an iPhone Viewer.

If you think about it, such a simple way to liveblog an event should have an interesting effect on citizen (and professional) journalism. All you need is a computer and an internet connection and you’re done. You can liveblog from a concert, from a meeting, or anywhere else, live and in the moment.

CoveritLive is still searching for the right way to make some money off of its tool. Regardless, they intend to always have a free version. While they are searching for ways to improve the tool even more and to monetize their idea, jump right in there and have a go. Liveblogging can be fun again, and no longer a dreaded event. 

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Events, news, apps, and more – let me know at michelle[at]writetech[dot]net, via Twitter, or via Pownce.

word and pictures by Brian Solis

There are groups of people around the country that inspire me. They’re changing the tech world and they’re bringing us along for the ride. It’s a humanizing reminder that we actually don’t know everything and that the only way to continue to keep up with the rapid-fire evolution of the new Web is to focus on building relationships.

People count for everything and that’s why we’re collectively defining the social economy.

Enter the TechSet, the people who are actively defining the new Web landscape and contributing to the lucrative and industry-defining social economy along the way.

The Techset is you.

Stephanie Agresta and I organized The Techset to celebrate you and your contributions to the new web and the relationships and new trails we blaze together.

On the afternoon of June 7th, we brought the rooftop parties from the West Coast to the Right Coast while connecting with NY-based entrepreneurs and those in town for InternetWeek. Special guests from the blogosphere as well as VCs, developers, and founders took over the rooftop of the stylish Hotel Gansevoort in the chic part of NY made popular by the Sex and the City franchise.

I was humbled.

New York is a thriving tech community rich with innovation, brilliance, and a refreshing spirit of entrepreneurialism. It’s contributing to the evolution of a more meaningful and productive Web. We were lucky to be part of it for a day.

Thank you to everyone who made the TechSet event so special.

Stephanie Agresta

Jane Quigley

Rana Sobhany

Joel Dreyfuss of Red Herring

Leora Zellman

Loren Feldman and Michelle

Charles Forman of Iminlikewithyou.com

Julia Allison

Aubrey Sabala of Digg and Maya Baratz of flickr

Andrew Baron of Rocketboom and Sarah Austin

Caroline McCarthy of CNET

Gaia Borgias Brown

Hugh MacLeod

Meghan Asha, Sarah Austin, David Karp of Tumblr

Esther Dyson (left)

Stephanie Frasco (left)

Charles Hope of Blip.tv and Dan Patterson of talk Radio News Service

Mr. and Mrs. Steve Rosenbaum of Magnify.net

Stephanie Agresta, Aubrey Sabala, Brian Solis, Maya Baratz

Laura Fitton aka Pistachio

The after party…

Aubrey Sabala and Pete Cashmore

Pete “Cash”more

Brett Petersel

Leora Zellman

New York After Hours

Visit flickr for more pictures from the TechSet event and the after party.

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

words and pictures by Brian Solis

New York’s Internet Week just raised the bar and set the new standard for up-and-coming regional Web economies.

During the week, New York was host to several events and parties, and I was lucky enough to attend a few of them.

Mashable’s Exhibit Hall at Touch on Friday night was representative of the excitement and enthusiasm that is driving the social economy in New York and why it’s only getting started.

The people, the technology, and the relationships…it’s pretty powerful and compelling.

The pictures vividly captured the spirit, hope, and excitement and will help tell the rest of the story.

Obama Girl – Amber Lee Ettinger

Stephanie Agresta and Adam Ostrow

Steve Rosenbaum of Magnify.net

Yan Nuriyev of Imintown.com

Sarah Austin

Andrew Baron of Rocketboom

Allen Stern of Center Networks

Adam Ostrow

Pete Cashmore

Rana June and

Oz Sultan, Brett Petersel, Alana Taylor, & Bill Cammack

Amanda Mooney

Obama Girl and Brian Solis

The After Party…

Paul Lewis of MTV, Rockstar Alana Taylor and Mike Lewis

Chris Munns of Meetup.com

The Coffee Shop

See my albums on flickr for more pictures from the Mashable event and the after party.

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

by Jackie Peters

I just got back from the Under the Radar Social Media and Entertainment conference on the Microsoft campus in Mountain View, CA. The conference series has been put on by DealMakerMedia since 2005.

Thirty six startups were given an opportunity to present their companies to a panel of judges and an audience of peers, potential investors and companies interested in acquisitions.

DealMaker did an amazing job putting the conference together. There was a quality group of attendees, judges that ranged from Charlene Li to Kara Swisher to Robert Scoble. For a full list of presenting companies and judges see the Under the Radar blog.

There seemed to be basically three kinds of companies at Under the Radar, and in the social space in general; ones that add to the noise, ones that insert themselves into the noise, and those that are attempting to consolidate and quiet the noise.

I have lately been thinking of the social web in terms of our physical universe.

Let’s equate the social web, or Web 2.0, with the big bang. Suddenly the web went from being fairly dormant to exploding out into space. The “socialverse” has been expanding rapidly ever since.

The proliferation of content and communication is immense. In my vision of the future of the social web, I don’t see all of these sites, all of this chatter going away, just being accessed in different ways, more to come on that later.

There will still be a need for things like personal blogs, company blogs, niche social networks and various social tools, especially if they fill a need for a particular audience.

Enter sites like Nesting. Nesting solves problems for busy families; it includes social networking and organizational tools for parents and organizations. Parents can do everything from schedule a play date to set up SMS reminders for dentists appointments to order prints of their favorite family photos right from Nesting.com.

Then you have the companies who are doing their best to embed themselves in what exists all ready. Let’s look at them as matter. They exist all over the place and follow the tide of the expansion and contraction of the socialverse. A great example of a company who is doing this well is MyTopia and their Real-time Universal Gaming System (RUGS.)

Galia Ben-Artzi of Mytopia by Brian Solis

It allows users, developers and advertisers to participate with existing communities of people on major social networks like Facebook, Bebo, MySpace and hi5, with support for additional sites in the works. For instance, MyTopians on Bebo can play games with other MyTopians on Facebook in realtime. RUGS, the platform behind MyTopia, allows developers to automatically and instantly deploy content across the entire RUGS network.

Galia Ben-Artzi, co-founder of MyTopia eloquently summed it up when she said “MyTopians play together in harmony across all social networks with gaming as their common language.”

Some physicists believe that the universe at some point will stretch to it’s max and like so many rubber bands everything will once again contract until it once again reaches Planck density, resulting in a “big crunch.” That, in fact, the universe does this in a cyclical manner and always has and always will.

With many experiencing “social media fatigue” and new social networks and tools being released everyday it seems like a socialverse big crunch is imminent. But how will this look?

The problem I see at the moment is that too many companies are attempting to be aggregators. Everyone wants to be that one place where we all go to check, update and maintain our networks. They are just adding to the clutter.

What’s next?

Aggregators to aggregate the aggregators?

Some companies do seem to be adding real value and are focusing on solving the overload problem in unique and inventive ways. One such company that presented at Under the Radar was ffwd.

Patrick Koppula, CEO, formerly of iLike set the stage by supplying us with an overview of his vision of the future of television and online video. Patrick believes that in the future, television and online video will merge. The set top box will no longer be 500 channels but instead will be a sea of 500,000 sources of video. I am inclined to agree. Certainly at the moment we are already there with the internet. Ffwd uses semantics, behavioral targeting and socialization to quiet the chatter and deliver video to users that they are likely to enjoy and appreciate in the form of customized channels, making watching video online more like channel surfing. The technology works across multiple screens, with current support for the web, the Wii and mobile devices.

It’s an interesting space-time! I love watching the socialverse unfold, expand and collapse back in on itself, most likely a pattern that will sustain itself in a cyclical manner, with exciting new technologies and platforms emerging in each incarnation. Congrats also to the winners at Under the Radar, to see a full list click here.

For more pictures, visit Brian Solis’ albums on flickr here and here.