As of a month ago Trader's title had been downgraded to VP of Partnerships and Studio Services, although no top sales or business development replacement executive has yet been named.

Why is he gone? No one is saying. CEO Mark Pincus says only AT [Andrew Trader] and zynga have parted ways. He made an awesome contribution. We need to continue scaling the company. Trader hasn't yet returned a phone call asking for his comment.

Zynga's revenue growth has been nothing short of astronomical over the last 18 months, so it would be hard to blame him for not bringing in the dollars. Perhaps he took the fall for the Scamville saga although that has largely blown over now.

Trader was with Zynga nearly three years, so he's vested on a lot of his stock. Given how much money is at stake, the whole story about why the first cofounder of Zynga has left the building may never come out. Zynga raised $180 million in December 2009, at a rumored valuation of above $2 billion.

And no, I have no idea why he's holding a banana in the picture.

It's now three minutes later and I could totally creep her out I know her kids' names and where they go to school, her home address, her hobbies, spouse's name and place of employment. I also know the names of all her Facebook friends. Oh and don't forget it wouldn't have been all that hard for me to just snap a picture of her and share it with you here.

Moral of story? STFU when you're on your cell phone in public.

Although Open Home is an $3.99 app, I'd really call it a platform. With it, you can skin or customize your Android interface, add Live Folders, shortcuts and such. And there's tons of custom skins, fonts, icon packs for sale in the Android Market to enhance it. There's even an experimental 3D cube interface in the latest version as you swipe to other home screens, the screen rotates like a cube. I haven't dropped the $3.99 just yet, but I did install Open Home Lite, which is free. It wasn't until after installation that I realized the software adds two extra home screens to the Nexus One. I don't have enough apps and shortcuts to fill up seven screens just yet, but I'm heading in that direction, so the extra space will come in handy. Each of the screens can hold a custom descriptive title as well check this old but relevant video to see how one user categorized the screens on his HTC Magic.

Aside from the extra home screens, Open Home adds dedicated search on the left and an interesting little slideout drawer on the right side of the screen. Simply tap and swipe the star to pull out the drawer. I'm thinking of placing the most used apps in the little drawer so that they're available from any of the seven screens. And I don't even have to give up my Live Wallpapers since Open Home supports them on my handset. Perhaps one of the best features of all Open Home allows for home screen rotation to landscape mode, something I wish Android would support natively.

I'll be playing some more with the free, lite version of Open Home, but I'm already inclined to drop the $3.99 it's a small price to pay for two extra home screens and customization features.

Images courtesy of Better Android Apps

Related research on GigaOM Pro (sub req'd):

Google's Mobile Strategy: Understanding the Nexus One

Scherillo v. Dun & Bradstreet, Inc., 2010 WL 537805 (E.D.N.Y. Feb. 17, 2010)

I teach my Cyberspace Law students that the most effective online contract formation process is a "mandatory non-leaky clickthrough agreement":

* mandatory = the user cannot proceed to the destination without going through a screen soliciting their consent to the user agreement.
* non-leaky = there are no alternative ways the user can reach the destination. I realize this is redundant with "mandatory," but I remind students that a seemingly mandatory process can have leaks. For example, if customer support representatives will manually set up user accounts occasionally, the mandatory online process has become leaky because now a few users reached the destination without consenting to the agreement.
* clickthrough = the user manifests assent to the contract by clicking, and the user is told that the click signifies assent.

There are other ways to form online contracts (e.g., email exchanges), but if executed properly, the mandatory non-leaky clickthrough process should do very well against contract formation challenges. But even this description leaves open a number of user interaction judgments. Does likelihood of contract formation vary if:

* the agreement terms are presented on the clickthrough page itself or are only available for review by hyperlink?
* the agreement terms are presented in a scrollbox? If a scrollbox is used, must the user be forced to scroll through the scrollbox?
* the user is asked to check an additional box, such as a certification that the user has read the agreement?

In all of these cases, I believe the contract should be properly formed whether the answer to these questions is yes or no. However, I'm now a fan of adding a bonus mandatory checkbox as part of the formation process after reading today's opinion. A user mounts a sophisticated challenge to a mandatory non-leaky clickthrough process, and the bonus mandatory checkbox helps squelch the challenge. I think the court would have enforced it without the checkbox, but it sure put the user in an awkward/untenable position.

Scherillo bought a financial report about a company from Dun & Bradstreet's Small Business Solutions website. Scherillo alleges that the report painted an overly rosy picture of the company, leading him to make bad investment decisions that cost him money when the company tanked. Scherillo wants D&B to cover his investment losses.

Scherillo is almost certain to lose on the merits. Indeed, this case brought to mind one of the earliest cyberlaw cases, Daniel v. Dow Jones, 520 N.Y.S. 2d 334 (N.Y.C. Civ. Ct. Spec. Term 1987). (This case is a fun read--see how the court discusses electronic networked communications almost a quarter-century ago). That case involved Dow Jones' publication of an ambiguous report via a dial-up online service that led the plaintiff to make a bad investment decision. The court said that any tort claim for publishing inaccurate information required the plaintiff to show that it had a "special relationship" (analogous to a fiduciary relationship) with the information vendor, and an ordinary customer-vendor relationship did not qualify as a special relationship.

Interestingly, D&B would rather hear the case in NJ rather than keep it in NY and hope to benefit from substantive NY law that surely would doom Scherillo's case. (Perhaps NJ has a similar law). To move the case to NJ, D&B invoked the venue selection clause in its user agreement. Let's look at the online contract formation process. The court says:

"since 2007, the SBS website has included a page that requires users to register before purchasing a Dun and Bradstreet product ("the registration page"). On the registration page, users input information, including their e-mail address and name. The bottom quarter to third of the page contains a scrollable text box with the title "Terms and Conditions" [which contained a mandatory venue selection clause designating NJ]. Directly below this text box there is more text that reads: "I have read and AGREE to the terms and conditions shown above." Immediately adjacent to this text is a much smaller, empty box ("the terms and conditions check box"). Also at the bottom of the page is another box containing the phrase "Complete Registration" ("the Complete Registration box"). Clicking on this box completes the user's registration. McDonald testified that if a user clicks on the Complete Registration box without checking the terms and conditions check box, the user is unable to complete registration and is returned to the registration page."

Check out the page yourself as I saw it in Google Chrome on Feb. 18 (with cropping). The formation process looks pretty standard to me.

Scherillo attacked the formation process by saying he never consented to the agreement because "it was possible for him to unknowingly and involuntarily 'check' the terms and conditions check box." Not only that, he lined up Sean Chumura, "a cyberwarfare and computer forensics expert" who is also [LINK NSFW] helping Perfect 10 in its lawsuit against Google, to testify that "it was possible for plaintiff, while 'tabbing' through the registration page, to inadvertently hit the space bar and thereby 'check' the terms and conditions box."

[Snarky paragraph alert] First, this may prove the adage that you can find an expert to testify about ANYTHING. Second, Scherillo alleged $75k of investment losses. For a low-value lawsuit like that, he needs a cyberwarfare expert??? Third, I believe Chumura has a MySpace page. Really...? I wonder if he uses an AOL.com email address too. The MySpace page also reveals that its author appeared to attend the Dan Quayle school of spelling.

OK, back to the case. The judge was no more tolerant of this nonsense than I am. He resolves the factual dispute by saying:

even under plaintiff's theory--that, while "tabbing" through the fields on the registration page, he accidentally hit the space bar key and thereby "checked" the terms and conditions box--plaintiff would have seen the check mark appear in the box and then still would have had to hit the "return" key (or clicked the "complete registration" box with the mouse) to complete the registration and advance to the next screen. Plaintiff would have had an opportunity to see that he checked the box inadvertently before he then hit the return key on the "complete registration" box. Thus, to accept plaintiff's theory, the Court would have to find that plaintiff hit two keys accidentally-the space bar and the return key-and that he was then involuntarily and unexpectedly sent to the next screen where he nonetheless proceeded to enter his credit card information and complete the purchase of the report. This alleged chain of events is simply not credible.

Therefore, Scherillo's click on the "Complete Registration" box manifested Scherillo's assent to the terms, even if Scherillo chose not to review them. The court says that the fact that the terms were in a scrollbox is immaterial, and the fact that some sites require the user to scroll through the scrollbox before proceeding doesn't affect the effectiveness of D&B's implementation.

I believe this court would have upheld the formation process even without the bonus checkbox, but you can see how the checkbox defused the withering assault of a cyberwarfare expert. Thus, you might consider implementing the bonus checkbox to discourage similar silly attacks against your contract formation process in the future.

Now picture our perspective leaving our own experiences, zooming out and up until we can see how all the different groups are interacting on a worldwide social network. That bird's-eye view could be both beautiful and horrible if the resolution was clear enough. That's what a Ramen-eating, ex-Apple engineer named Pete Warden is about to release to the public this week.

Sponsor

This Wednesday, Warden will make Friend, Fan page and name data from hundreds of millions of Facebook users available to the academic research community. It's a move that Facebook has to have seen coming, a move that many in the data-centric community have been calling on the company itself to do for years, and an event that's been complicated by Facebook's recent privacy policy changes, which have muddied the waters of right and wrong but rendered even more data available for outside analysis.

If what people call Web 2.0 was all about creating new technologies that made it easy for everyday people to publish their thoughts, social connections and activities, then the next stage of innovation online may be services like recommendations, self and group awareness, and other features made possible by software developers building on top of the huge mass of data that Web 2.0 made public. It's a very exciting future, and Warden is about to fire one of the earliest big shots in that direction.

Nerds in Space: Social Graph Analysis For Solving Large-Group Problems

Warden studied Computer Vision in college in the U.K., then got into game development. After moving to L.A., he spent six years building graphics drivers for the original Playstation and the XBox. Then he started his own independent business, where, thankfully, he open-sourced much of his work (something he's still doing today).

When he found out that starting his own business wasn't going to work with his immigration status, he was very fortunate to have also caught Apple's eye with the software he had been releasing to the public. Apple bought his company in order to bring him on board. The proceeds of that small sale are now sustaining his next project after going independent again.

After spending five years at Apple struggling to navigate the maze of people and connections and types of expertise in order to get the information he needed, Warden decided to go independent and build a company that solved exactly that kind of problem. "I can't think of a better big company to work for, but it was still a big company," he says. "It was hard to find the right people to talk to, whether for particular expertise or for contacts at external companies." And so Warden left Apple to build a company that would use social graph analysis to solve problems like that. He called the company Mailana, a play on "mail analysis" since he was initially focused on email social graph analysis.

We've written here a number of times about Mailana's tool that analyzes the social graph of any Twitter user. Enter the username of someone on Twitter and Mailana will show you which 20 other people the user has exchanged the largest number of reciprocal public @ replies with. Find someone interesting or important? Mailana's Twitter analyzer will tell you who they most regularly interact with. See, for example, The Inner Circles of 10 Geek Rockstars on Twitter.

Pulling Down the Facebook Social Graph

Now Warden is about to unveil a much larger project along the same vein. For the past six months he's been crawling public profile pages on Facebook. He now has more than 215 million of them indexed and updated about once a month. When he began he was using the Web crawling service 80legs, but over time he had to build his own crawling infrastructure.

When I talked to him this afternoon, he had already begun uploading 100 GB of user data onto his server to make it available for academic research starting on Wednesday. Warden says he's removed identifying profile URLs but kept names, locations, Fan page lists and partial Friends lists. All those fields of data are just waiting to be analyzed and cross referenced. That's one very rich resource.

Yesterday Warden posted some of his own initial observations from the data on his personal blog. Those included:

• In almost every state in the Southern U.S., God is number one most popular Fan page among Facebook users. Among people in the L.A., San Francisco and Nevada regions? "God hardly makes an appearance on the fan pages, but sports aren't that popular either," Warden writes. "Michael Jackson is a particular favorite, and San Francisco puts Barack Obama in the top spot." In the Oregon and Idaho region? Starbucks is number one.
• In the Mormon-influenced areas of Utah and Eastern Idaho, the most popular Fan pages are The Book of Mormon, Glen Beck and the vampire book Twilight, which was authored by a Mormon.
• The bulk of Warden's posted analysis yesterday was about location networks. People in the western U.S. tend to have Facebook friends all over the country; people in the southern U.S. tend to mostly be friends with people who have remained in the same area.

Taking a Deeper Look

These observations are interesting, but they are only the beginning of what's possible. Name, location, friends and interests are great data points to analyze. Warden has written a program that will estimate gender as well, based on names. All these data points can be cross-referenced with outside data, too. Members of Facebook's own staff did this kind of analysis when they compared user last names to U.S. Census data, which allowed them to estimate changes in Facebook's racial composition over time based on the likelihood of people with particular last names to report a particular racial backgrounds.

"I'm mostly thinking 'What do I try first?'," Warden says. "There's so many interesting ways to slice the data - especially as I'm starting to get changes over time. I'm also trying to map out political networks in aggregate; how polarized the fans of particular politicians are - so how likely a Sarah Palin fan is to have any friends who are fans of Obama, and how that varies with location too. One of my favorite results is that Texans are more likely to be fans of the Dallas Cowboys than God."

Warden says he hasn't talked to anyone from Facebook since he started crawling the site, but he did get an email from someone on the security team asking him to take down instructions he'd posted that exposed a security hole that made harvesting peoples' email addresses easy. So the company is paying attention. "I'd love to see them put me out of business by putting decent data out there," Warden says. He says his Amazon Web Services bill was over $5,000 last month.

Why is he indexing all this content and why is he going to hand it over to the academic world later this week? "I am fascinated by how we can build tools to understand our world and connect people based on all the data we're just littering the Internet with," Warden says.

"Nobody thinks about how much valuable information they're generating just by friending people and fanning pages. It's like we're constantly voting in a hundred different ways every day. And I'm a starry-eyed believer that we'll be able to change the world for the better using that neglected information. It's like an x-ray for the whole country - we can see all sorts of hidden details of who we're friends with, where we live, what we like."

For a great example of the kind of social impact that data analysis can make, Warden points to some of the fascinating ways that GIS data is illuminating the intersection of race and public services. Data has shed light on social injustices for decades, and measurable information about the interactions of hundreds of millions of people every day on Facebook offers opportunities to discover both good and bad news about the contemporary human condition.

Warden says he's not yet been able to interest any investors in his ideas for businesses based on this data, so his girlfriend Liz Baumann, a former insurance actuary, stepped in to help and is now running much of the crawling. He says he's now focused on "working on ways of presenting all this information in a form that answers questions for people willing to pay." His first experiment along those lines is the very interesting FanPageAnalytics.com.

What does Pete Warden hope for from this week's public release of all this Facebook data? "Hopefully I'll get to see a bunch of interesting [academic research] papers come out of it, worst case. And I'd like to be the guy people turn to when they need stuff like this."

Already well-respected among a fringe group of bleeding-edge geeks, we hope that Warden's work on social graph analysis will end up impacting a far larger number of people than may ever know his name.

My Thoughts On Techcrunch And Daniel Brusilovsky

Our little Apple Tablet scavenger hunt has come up mostly empty-handed. Steve Jobs is gonna drop some knowledge on us today, and we're as in the dark (mostly) as we were weeks ago. And you know what? One of the main things we've learned from this little exercise is that the people who are most interested in today's announcement are also the least interested to learn anything in advance.

Here was one of the most fascinating and downright poignant responses our contest elicited, from a reader in India:

I want to make a kind request to you please to call your scavenger hunt off.

We all know why we are so intensely trying to find out the littlest morsel of information about the Apple Tablet and are hardly interested in any other company's slate device - only because Apple will create history with such a device.

I want to emphasize on the fact that Apple puts a lot of effort to building keynotes, which, for many people like myself, are like blockbuster movies. We never had the fortune of being at a live one, so we try to make the best of it being streamed online. Like you remember at the 2007 iPhone keynote, every other moment there was surprise. People had never seen anything quite like it before. And all of it coming from Steve Jobs made it a historical day in technology.

It is my earnest request to you, please let Apple do it again. We all want to know what the Tablet is going to be like. Your bounty offer may (and probably will) instigate people who want to sell their souls. I'm not blaming you or criticizing you. We don't want a few details or pictures to leak out before the official announcement. There's just a few more days left till Jan 27. Please let Steve Jobs introduce it the Apple way. Pretty please. It will be a lot more fun !

Would this guy have clicked through if we had received a real picture? Most definitely. Has he probably clicked on all of the hundreds of mocked up photos and videos? Almost certainly. But the fact that those were fakes was all part of the fun. Sure it's all a bit cynical in its consumerist frenzy, but the Apple's big, heavy-handed reveals are also a good time a bit of mystery, of (imagined) corporate intrigue, of envisioning suddenly-available outer space future products that were previously just the stuff of science fiction classics like Freejack and Demolition Man. (Classics, I tell you!) Remember the iPhone? When ol' Jobsy carted that thing out a few years ago it sufficiently blew most of our brain bones, and wasn't that kind of fun. I mean, rather than knowing all its details ahead of time?

Like blockbuster movies! That's sort of sweet in an irredeemably nerdy way, isn't it? There is something about the grandeur and anticipation of one of these keynote magic shows. Yes it's all nasty and capitalistic and cold and inhuman, but a little bit of excitement never hurt anyone, especially in these penurious times, when a Cosmo centerfold has assumed the regency and rules us all from his throne made of the bones of the New York Yankees.

That doesn't mean every scrap of purported "truth" about Apple's mystery tablet can't drive tons of pageviews (I mean, uniques!). But the real kick of feverish Lost guessing and obsessive Tablet rumoring is the pure joy of speculation with gleeful abandon. Here's the root truth of it all: No one actually wants to be proven right, because then it would all be over and we'd just return to our lives, the answer never actually being as big as we'd hoped, nay, dreamed.

It's a childish thing this entity we call imagination just turned a bit hard and practical by adulthood. No longer do we imagine whole unknown worlds existing in wardrobes or cupboards, but we can be fascinated with the possibilities of that ABC show starring the dude from Party of Five and the potentiality that Penny's computerbook from Inspector Gadget might sort of be real. The minute those youthful fantasies are quelled and quieted by cold hard facts, well... the whole activity loses a bit of its sparkle.

It's the kind of thing the internet can ruin too often. Take another small pleasure: movie previews. Remember movie previews? Oftentimes they were the best part of the whole moviegoing experience. What fresh new hell awaited us come springtime? What joys would poet-scholar John Woo soon be foisting upon us? It was nice to see some new things, things you'd never heard of!, before settling into your seat and getting progressively more bored by your feature presentation. They made movies seem big, eventful, singular. If you wanted to see what was coming up, you had to go sit in the dark and wait for them to show you. But now! Now you've got internet web sites all over the highway that'll show you a teaser sneak trailer for a movie that won't be out until Armistice Day 2014. They've got previews for everything, those internet people. And it ruins all the fun.

Sure it's still sort of exciting when they pop up on the online, but it ruins some of the formality, it just spreads and bleeds the thing out so everyone can see it. Movie previews aren't as controlled and specific anymore. By the time they're up on the flickering screen there, I've already seen them three times over. It's boring, it's vaguely sad to have basically ended this tiny pleasure I enjoyed as a kid. I don't know why I do it to myself. And yet I do.

Though I suppose the whole ruined movie trailers thing isn't the same as a spoiler. A spoiler would be, like... someone telling me about Lost, I guess. Well, I haven't spent five sweaty years emotionally invested in just what the fuck the iTablet or iPad or whatever is all about, but it's still the same giddy joy of anticipation. In the end, what do we get out of either thing? Nothing, really. We're either $700 poorer or we're in six years of emotional debt to friends and family for being unbearably annoying about What Is In the Hatch. But screw it, we gotta take fun where we can get it and I appreciate it not being squashed.

So thank you Apple robot security guards for taking your whirring steel pincer claws and strangling that lab tech who was trying to smuggle an iNewspaper out of the office. That entrepreneurial fellow (he'd have been a hundred-thousandaire!) didn't die in vain. A not-so-well-kept secret is kept so for a few more hours, which will give me (and all of youuu) some dull sort of pleasure in an otherwise bleak and windswept wintry state of the union. Surprises are good almost always better than knowing even when it's about electronic products I don't understand and can't afford. Maybe even especially then.

It won't.

I was talking not long ago with editorial folks at an unnamed media company that rhymes with The New York Times. There was some possibility of my blogging over there. They were intrigued, but couldn't fit it into their grand plan, at least not right away. The problem was resources were already allocated and such an endeavor takes months to mount and costs tens of thousands of dollars.

No it doesn't, and that's the problem with Big Media.

When I was at PBS we did occasional redesigns and I never knew what they cost because for most of my 11 years there I was just a paid contributor. But toward the end of my tenure I became a producer which means I was finally exposed to budgets and was, to some extent, even responsible for paying some of them. And I was shocked to learn that my final design for a Moveable Type blog over there did, indeed, cost tens of thousands of dollars many tens of thousands of dollars.

PBS isn't a company that rhymes with The New York Times but it still qualifies as Big Media, so the pricing was more or less confirmed.

Now look at the screen you are reading right now, my Wordpress blog at cringely.com. It cost me NOTHING to design. I did it myself in a single night with the help of an experienced and generous friend, Benjamin Higginbotham of Spacevidcast.com. This blog is hosted by Media Temple in Los Angeles and costs me $50 per month, which is a lot compared to most blogs, but then I'm getting more than a million page-views per month. One more Christmas card or IBM column and I might bump up to $100 per month just to get some more resources, but I think I've made my point: a good Internet media product doesn't have to cost a lot of money. This is my living, remember, that's putting three kids through school. What are my gross margins 10,000 percent?

While those are my gross margins they aren't the gross margins at PBS or at a company that rhymes with The New York Times. Those outfits have overhead I don't. They have legacy relationships and obligations I can't even imagine. They can't just go from there to here in an instant even if they wanted to.

Which brings us back to the iSomething to be introduced tomorrow. No matter how great it is, it can't support the legacy infrastructure of Big Media, which includes mid-town office buildings and business lunches (hence my picture of New York's 21 Club, if you hadn't already figured that out).

Big Media wants revenue approaching what they could charge if a web site was a printed magazine. Remember the original lure of the Internet for publishers was the idea that there would be more profit without the expenses of printing and distribution. But it didn't work out that way because Internet users won't generally pay for content.

But Apple has the mojo. Steve Jobs has been firm from the start that content should be paid for and his generally is, except of course for my podcast on iTunes. Big Media likes the way Steve thinks. And so they can with one breath condemn him for killing the music album, yet in a second breath they can see him as the savior of magazines, newspapers, and good-but-thinly-watched TV series.

And Apple CAN be that savior, but only after a rationalization and severe downsizing of Big Media overhead, which I am not at all sure Big Media is really ready to do.

Based on the rumors I've heard so far I'm guessing the new Apple product will be like the Apple TV a hobby, a critical success but a business failure, though one with enough potential that Apple will give it a few years to succeed. It's in giving those few years where Apple really can save Big Media, which will undoubtedly by then be not so big.

Today, as I am sure you have noticed, I'm short on my five blog posts a day by about . . . um, five. That is until now.

I've been down with a bug all day and feeling a little better thanks to a great post from Bruno Giussani on his blog Lunch Over IP. The post is titled, Tips for Conference Bloggers, and includes an incredibly insightful and well designed PDF cheat sheet.

His post from a little over two years ago holds strong today and is resonating with me enough to crank this post out. Timing is important in this case since we are beginning a new conference season with mega events like SXSW on the horizon.

I spent nearly the entire last week at CES and had my pride handed to me by this monster trade show/conference/press extravaganza. I was ill prepared for everything that the event would throw at me and approached it like an average conference. This is a mistake I won't repeat.

What I learned at CES was that there are two types of attendees: those doing business and those covering the event. Those in the first category are more concerned with parties, sales and future business relationships. Those in the latter are analyzing, comparing and framing the event for publication.

Publishing from CES is a formidable process. Most press covering the event have teams of people dedicated to gathering information and creating media needed for a final publications. This is a smart move for an event with over 100k attendees.

In addition to the excellent PDF from Giussani's post that addresses the 95% of the concerns of a blogger in 2010 there is 5% that could be added for the here and now. There are new event realities and technologies that can enhance his original thoughts.

1. MiFi is a must have for connectivity. This is especially important for Giussani's rule of blogging an even no later that 10 minutes after it has ended. Conferences don't as often have wifi available as they did back then except in a few locations like press or blogger lounges.

2. Photo/Video lighting gear. Get used to shooting in dark to minimal light and learning your cameras settings well. Check your first few shots or reel to view the quality and make corrections as needed. Much of this can be enhanced with lighting rigs that will allow you to get the shots you need when they happen . . . not when you are ready for them with white balance or aperture settings.

3. Backup workflow. You have a machine that you love and take every where with you, right? What happens when it goes down? Before the event or during you should have a backup plan for gear failure so that it doesn't destroy your workflow. Blogging an event can be difficult in the first place, but when the workflow you went into the even is disrupted it can be detrimental to timely coverage.

4. Speak to previous attendees of the events you are going to be covering. This falls under the guidelines on page 6 of the PDF of collaboration. However, this is a proactive measure before the conference begins so that you can understand what obstacles you might be up against.

5. When the authors recommend having fun, it shouldn't just be at the end of the day for parties or networking. It should be throughout the day. It is counterproductive to be worried during the day about connectivity, media fails or missed opportunities. If something happens that you're not happy with, put it in the back of your mind or write a note down for it and move on. Dwelling on something that you can't do over is to your detriment and that of your readers ro viewers.

Please head over to Bruno Giussani's blog and download the PDF that he has made available. Even if you're not blogging a conference or trade show, there is great value in these tips for any writer publishing to the web.

Image: Screen shot of the PDF cover (Bruno Giussani).

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How To: Conference Blogging is a post from: TechStartups.com

The Tech Podcast Network team, about 7 of them, canvased CES 2010 shooting video from open to close every day.

The video below is a highlight that they shot on Saturday with Ted from RED.

If you would like to see more information about it and hear straight from Ted about the Scarlet this is the video for you.

There was a ton of video shot at CES this year from all the press and attendees. To sift through all of it would be impossible. I chose to share this from the Tech Podcast Network team because of their dogged dedication to sharing as much of the show as possible.

Sharing a coffee with them in them in the blogger lounge (which was much more comfortable and less packed than the press room) was an opportunity to pick their brains for the next booths to hit up.

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Tech Podcast Network from CES is a post from: TechStartups.com

In my search for information about the world, what matters to me and what is good, I go no farther than an application that I wrote called Filome. I've talk about it quite a bit here at Tech Startups.

It's an app that is about 85% of the way there and is relegated being updated when I have spare time. Which in the last 8 months hasn't been very often. One of the things it is brilliant at though is helping me find what is relevant to me and what I want to write about.

About 30 minutes ago it was tablet computers. But instead of writing about them and adding to the noise, I thought that I would share my filter a tablet computer group from Filome.

First there is the feed for those that want to get right to it - http://www.filome.com/group/ksmith/1/tablet%20computers.rss

Below are the latest 25 posts regarding tablet computing. All linking to the original posts. Find one and follow it down the rabbit hole. Enjoy! (Remember: If you want to stay updated subscribe to the feed link above)

1. You Can Take It With You: Future Trends in Media
2. Who needs tablet computers anyway?
3. Can Android Tablets Find a Market?
4. Why I Hate Ereaders, And Doubt They'll Ever Hit the Mainstream [Ebooks]
5. Why Google Should Make a Tablet [Opinion]
6. Apple to Launch iTunes on the Web
7. Analyst noise: Apple tablet in March for $1k, publishers on-board, Verizon iPhone coming too
8. Apple Tablet Release Date Gets Narrowed Down, Prices Get Estimated
9. Which Companies Will Win The Battle For The E-Book Consumer?
10. A New, Now Netbook You Can Actually Buy: PsiXpda
11. Analysts Predict 1 Billion+ Mobile Web Users by 2010
12. Time Inc. shows off magazine tablet demo, plans future anger about 70/30 profit split
13. Apple tablet rumored to be 'shockingly' inexpensive
14. Apple Registers TabletMac Trademark After Dueling Axiotron MacBook Modders [AppleTablet]
15. Using the Apple LP and Extras format for learning?
16. NVIDIA Tegra tablet prototype hands-on
17. What If Steve Jobs Hadn't Returned To Apple In 1997?
18. Hearst, Time, Conde iTunes For Magazines Only A Few Weeks Away
19. DigiTimes Claims Apple Tablet Delayed for OLED Upgrade [Rumor]
20. Apple tablet(s) in 2H 2010 with OLED screen and tailored content in tow?
21. Cond Nast Gets Wired Ready For Apple Tablet (In Case There Is One)
22. Adobe Air hits 2.0 this is powerful stuff
23. The death of the URL
24. Apple tablet speculation: high-end graphics, several models
25. Bookmark Away: Instapaper Comes Up With A New Way To Work With The Kindle

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Tablets, tablets, tablets The Next Devices is a post from: TechStartups.com

Let me say, first off, that I am a huge fan of the elegant WPTouch plugin for WordPress by Brave New Code. This is one of those plugins that I would gladly pay $99 for since it creates such an amazing version of a WordPress blog for iPhones, iPod Touch and for Android devices.

Word to my peeps perform this update only if you HAVE NOT modified the theme. If you have, you will lose your changes as all of the theme files will be overwritten.

I learned the hard way that any modifications to the code or layout will be removed. Of course, once I hit the update button I thought to myself about the nature of this plugin. Then, upon refresh of Tech Startups on an iPhone and with Agent Switcher . . . my handiwork was toast.

Before you spend seconds obliterating hours of work to make changes in your WPTouch theme make sure you back up your original files (I do have mine, fortunately) and don't do the automatic update in your WP admin. Download the upgrade, unzip it, add your hacks back in to the new theme and then upload it to your server.

I have to say, it is kind of cool to have a plugin for a theme. What is important is to realize that it is a totally different animal than any other plugin.

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Hold On! WPTouch Update Available is a post from: TechStartups.com

You need a pile-o-data fast and you got nowhere to get it other than surf, bookmark and beg for interns to copy and paste for you. Where do you turn? Your IT department? Your hackery skills and your shared GoDaddy hosting account for bandwidth? Nah.

80Legs is ready to run a couple miles with your pile of data on their shoulders. You get to pick it up and work with it as you see fit.

Did I mention that they are now offering this as a free service? Well, up to a certain point it is free but for the many is plenty of room to get what they're looking for.

80Legs offers a unique service that will crawl the internet on your behalf and gather data from the links that you provide. They then take this unstructured data and make it available for further refinement to the customer.

Their value proposition lies in the ability to deliver this service efficiently and affordably. Like I said earlier, it would be difficult if not impossible for an individual run a service to crawl 100,000 pages quickly. 80Legs is offering this as a free service now and it's all powered by a 50,000 computer network.

The ability to put the data collection into another companies hands allows developers to think about what to do with the data. By freeing up developers more can be done with the data that is returned to them as they have time to think about new algorithms to run across the dataset.

An example of this would be simple search. Developers with more time could work on creating new layers to search that make it more valuable to the end user. Whether it is integrating advanced search functionality or returning results contextually depending on the page that a user is currently searching from.

If you're interested, the free Basic specs are below. Plus and Premium are listed on their blog.

80Legs Basic Plan:

• Free to use
• Normal crawling speed (up to 1 request/second/domain)
• Access to 80legs Web Portal
• 1 job running at a time
• Up to 100K crawled pages per job
• Low priority in 80legs job queue
• No recurring jobs allowed

[Via VentureBeat]

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80Legs, 50k Computers and a Web Crawler is a post from: TechStartups.com

I am making this my first New Year's Resolution and I will stick to it. I will. I will.

The resolution is to be an advocate for structured data on the web. I will sing it from the mountain tops and whisper it from the valleys. Well, I might yodel it in both places but I certainly will be vocal.

In the great quest for efficiency online it is time we move beyond the 19% of websites that have XML feeds that structure the sites data to a full onslaught of education for web publishers. The semantic web is depending on it.

The semantic web is in a gestational state and no where near reaching its potential to revolutionize the way that we interact with information. The tech certainly isn't there yet in the capacity of computing and the redundancy and review that needs to be applied to content for fully actualized linking.

What is apparent however, is that about 81% percent of the web is missing its opportunity to hop on this dog pile of ever growing linked data with information from the publisher and not just the bots that are crawling it. There is much information that can be gleaned from microformats within certain publishing platforms but there is still a mass of information that goes without inclusion into the structured whole.

As part of this resolution I will continue to push for RSS feeds since they are the simplest technology to get up and running when it comes to websites. There are tons of tools available to the put feeds on any site and every blogging platform today offers something in the way of feeds either with Atom, RSS or custom XML.

The time has come to bring data together and prepare for the long tail that awaits in a decade from now. Consider adding structured data to your site now like adding it to a time capsule. And instead of it being an 8-track requiring a special player it is more like a stone tablet with the language of the people or the machine.

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My First New Year's Resolution is a post from: TechStartups.com

In Flickr's App Garden it must be mating season as they are crushing hard on mobile apps today in their blog.

Mobile's now arrived, I guess. And it is so hot that Flickr is okay with public displays of affection now.

That, my friends, is awesome.

Flickr sits on mountains of EXIF meta data from images and right now the most important set is the rise of mobile devices shuttering away and uploading to the photo service.

For years if you were shooting mobile images and wanted to get them on Flickr the easiest way was to send them as an email attachment. Rudementary, but a very effective way of getting it done with low overhead . . . like apps.

The mobile apps come in handy to access phone features and override them. For instance if you are on a Windows Mobile phone and send an image it will be capped at a certain file size even if you have an unlimited data plan and most apps allow you to send full size images.

Another nice feature of the mobile apps is that many come with an ability to do some post work on the photos. It might be blur reduction, lighting, exposure, b&w conversion, etc. That was never going to happen with Treo 650 back in the day.

What might help Flickr more in these PDA moments with mobile would be to organize a tour of the App Garden. Because right now it is like a monsoon of slightly curated applications that are desktop and mobile commingled together. Not that cross pollination should be a concern but being able to find a certain variety of app without having to sift all the species could help out on the uptake.

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Flickr PDA for Mobile is a post from: TechStartups.com

If you're just starting out or a WordPress hack from way back, the new book from Chris Coyier and Jeff Starr titled Digging Into WordPress could be a good addition to your shelf.

Coyier and Starr have been plugging away on WordPress installs for a few years and now sharing their intimate knowledge of the blogging platform.

The book comes in two versions spiral bound and PDF. The spiral version looks beautiful and the PDF, if anything like the sample, should please with its colors and page layout.

The real question about this book is the $67 price tag for the spiral bound version. Is it worth it?

Yes, slices of tree with pretty ink aesthetically pleasing. Yes, it will lay completely flat on a surface next to a computer, unlike traditionally bound computer books. No, it won't every question you have about WordPress. I'm not sure anyone or any book could do that.

If I were in the market for a WordPress book I would take a different approach to justify spending the money on this book consulting. Not that I would buy it and become an instant WordPress consultant. Nor should you, unless you're already a Social Media Expert and have it all figured out.

I mean consulting in the sense that you are getting the best that Coyier and Starr have to offer because their names are on the line with this publication. If the content is not good or they don't add value to solve your WordPress conundrums their names will be mud.

This book should be viewed as an insanely cheap consulting session with two guys that really know their stuff and can prove it with their client work. At $67, you're already halving the rate for most WordPress gurus worth the money and getting two for the price of one 24 hours a day.

They're also offering an affiliate program for those interested in helping sell some copies and to put some extra bucks under that mattress. Check it out if you're into that whole affiliate thing.

I have no material connection with the publishers of this book or am a part of their affiliate program. All links are to standard pages. I am basing my opinion on a sample chapter (PDF) that is available from their sales page.

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Ready to Dig WordPress? is a post from: TechStartups.com

Quite possibly in popular vernacular or in the agency world, yes. I'm not sure that people have meant to do it but it is happening.

comScore released a small set of data from a survey that they performed about holiday this year online. Not surprisingly, it is up compared to previous years. The surprise comes in the form of how this data is displayed in a Social Media Influence table.

I think somebody pulled up in a semi truck loaded with hype.

Or, maybe, it is that the respondents now identify social media simply as talking with friends. Have a look at the table:

At face value, 28% of online Holiday shopping being influenced by social media is believable and insanely large number. Good for all those social media experts out there! But looking a the rest of the data in the chart, which covers every major form of social media Twitter, Facebook, Facebook Fan Pages, Blogs and generic status updates, something is missing.

Did the respondents want to feel cool by responding yes to this? Were all the respondents extremely dialed in to social media? Does standing around the water cooler talking about Lego sets equate as social media?

I raise these questions because the subsequent percentages that have taken this type of action based on social media doesn't add up to me. I fancy myself a stats guy but these numbers sound like they are missing something from this public release. It sounds like a lot of hype.

It may not be, and I am not doubting that comScore performed a valuable and accurate survey. I'm just not sure that this data is being represented to its fullest due to missing information. Or a cultural shift to think of word-of-mouth as social media.

Does this sound accurate to you?

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Is Social Media Taking Over Word of Mouth? is a post from: TechStartups.com

If you are, then WordHustler is for you! If you don't know what a word hustler is, then listen up!

Similar to pixel pushers and glyph tossing typophiles a word hustler is trying to make it in this world with the written word. And that is where WordHustler comes in.

WordHustler was started by two word hustlers writers, John L. Singleton and Anne Walls, out of their frustration for the costs and time of submitting their works in an analog world. In short, the hustle took to much time away from being able to write.

Sure, there are always elements of every hustle, job or hobby that are tedious and simply part of the process. When someone chooses to be a writer they're not making that decision based on the amount of time they're going to spend at OfficeMax buying envelopes and the right paper. The choice is made because they love hardship have a voice that needs to be heard.

With this in mind the founders of WordHustler brought the hustle into the digital age by creating a hybrid CMS that doesn't display a writer's work online but submits it to traditional publishers.

WordHustler is one of those impressive web services that is focused on serving a niche market and was developed by people in that niche. By solving their own problems first they were able to take the code and create a service for anyone like them.

No more printing, stamping, less formatting and no more paper cuts as WordHustler automates this process for their users. There's also no more searching for contests or publishers that might want to review your work. It is all here inside WordHustler.

Beyond the obvious benefits to writers in easing their submission pains there is the additional benefit of a powerful, easy to use interface. WordHustler has one of the best search landing pages I have ever seen. It elegantly integrates a standard search box, results, rankings, standard filtering and my favorite, elements of advanced search visually.

What I mean by advanced search visually' is the ability to begin filtering content at an advanced level without presenting it that way. Typically this is done through an advanced' search form with 10+ text input boxes with labels like all these words,some of these words, or none of these words.'

WordHustler presents filtering tools like an AJAX slider to limit the amount of description to display and words, tags' to filter results on the page. At this time tools like this are often used in backend administration interfaces or like this one, only available on this site. Developers and designers would do well to look at this model and tinker with it to create solutions for users to filter at an advanced level with beginner skills.

The service has a very reasonable price tag for users when compared to the cost of going analog and creating the number of submissions that WordHustler will allow for writers. It is extremely reasonable when compared to the price of building ones own platform to do the same. That is, if you are the enterprising type.

Now that you know about WordHustler and have decided that you are a word hustler or maybe want to submit that long stowed screenplay you wrote right after college, you have no excuse not to give it a try.

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Are You A WordHustler? is a post from: TechStartups.com

Fring is an Israel based startup that has been offering its signature VoIP application for mobile devices is now available for Android phones in the Android Market. Fring is an app that allows users to connect via popular chast and VoIP tools like Skype and Google Talk.

It was first introduced a little over three years ago in beta for handsets that were running Symbian OS. Since that time it has spread across the other popular platforms to gain a foothold in the instant messaging space on mobiles. Not to mention cornering VoIP though API development with some of the most popular internet based messaging software.

Fring allows users to aggregate their connections across networks and easily send text, photos, files and now video. And yes, like anything else being released today, Fring will allow you to tweet. Happy?

The two most robust platforms for using Fring are on Symbian 9 or higher and Windows Mobile phones. The newest, Android, has a few features for now like text chat, mobile calling and personalization settings.

Using the application is fairly straight forward as you need to download and install for your phone, register and then wait for Fring to connect the together your networks and contacts. Once this step is done you can begin getting in touch with your posse(s) via your mobile.

I've had good luck with Fring when I needed to get in touch with a contact that I didn't have handy in my phone contacts and for Skype text based chats. Now that it is ready for the new kid, Android, I would suspect that more features like those for the iPhone will make their way into the app.

DISCLOSURE OF MATERIAL CONNECTION: http://cmp.ly/0

Android Market VoIP by Fring is a post from: TechStartups.com

For those of you unaware, Engadget put on a new face this week and restructured the way stories are found on their site. As part of this new design they began sculpting links with a technique that I'm dubbing URL graffiti. Say what?

They are engaged in a brilliant new system of taggery that shows the maturity of blogs that have thousands of items of content and want to gain the value that they often represent. One method that they have chosen for this is filtering with user chosen tags (graffiti) attached to the end of a tag URL. Example: http://www.engadget.com/tag/att,3g,sony

Why is this brilliant?

It shows a step forward by Engadget and their designers to finding solutions to create value from the long tail. For the public and their own writers there is now an ability to treat all of this content as a reference system. You could also call it a knowledge base, library or archive. Whatever your chosen term, this simple approach to content filtering is hot.

What does it mean?

Access to an entire body of work via multiple tags can begin to yield better search results without forcing a user into a situation where they need to use an advanced search' feature. These are usually blocks of form elements that easily overwhelm a user's sense that they can find what they are looking for with ease and underwhelm them with your information architecture skills.

Take the full example URL above with graffiti as an example then click these three links with varying tag graffiti on the end of them in succession:

1. http://www.engadget.com/tag/att // All ATT tagged content
2. http://www.engadget.com/tag/att,3g // All ATT and 3g tagged content
3. http://www.engadget.com/tag/att,3g,sony // All ATT and 3g and Sony tagged content

As the results wane you are given a better picture of content within Engadget's archive that meets the tag requirements. In this purest form it is advanced search functionality without the mess.

How to use it?

I found this feature because Engadget was already using it in posts. Their writers can use it to create a better picture of previously written content for users that click through. It can also be used by them as a an internal search capability for research on a topic. When you have multiple authors the chances are high that at some point there is another post or a few within the corpus that is similar and a can be used for reference.

In this current iteration this feature for users is a bit limited. Users can tack on their own graffiti to the URL and get results for these topics, but it is more of a command line interaction. It is powerful but not very user-friendly.

How can URL Graffiti from Engadget be improved?

This is a powerful system for content filtering that needs just a few tweaks and can become a ridiculously valuable to the publisher and to users.

1. Autodiscovery feed added to page
2. Link to this feed in the top section
3. Ability to add a .rss or .xml' to query for feed access
4. Button to change tag search to OR' instead of And' to increase results pool
   1. Currently all searches are AND'
   2. Ex. ATT and 3g and Sony
   3. New would allow ATT or 3g or Sony
5. Text input box with URL graffiti loaded in it for editing to add new tags
6. Number of results displayed on page

Below is a comp of some of these changes added into the interface. By no means is it perfect but it is a good start to adding some additional value to users. Click the image to see full size.

For your next client or startup keep this URL graffiti approach in mind as an efficient way to solve content filtering. If it is built in from the beginning you can ensure that you are creating a continued value, even if diminishing, for your content. Let your users throw some graffiti on your work.

DISCLOSURE OF MATERIAL CONNECTION: http://cmp.ly/0

URL Graffiti From Engadget is a post from: TechStartups.com

Linking words together online is an hobby. Creating context from those words is an art. Making them work in harmony is a gift. The team at Thomson Reuters have done this for some time with their Calais project and the first consumer product from it OpenCalais.

OpenCalais is a monster database filled with linked data that can be accessed by anyone via a special API. Currently it works on an individual application level and as plugins with other popular CMS and blogging platforms. In tandem they create a more powerful experience for the publishers of new content by allowing the integration of linked data for linking, tagging and finding optional third-party resources for inspiration.

Word on the street and from a trusted source is that the Calais team has something new on the horizon their own CMS. A release of a CMS that has semantic technologies built right into is a powerful addition to the marketplace. Many blogging platforms and CMS products available today have stagnated under the weight of their own popularity.

It is hard to innovate when you are leading the pack or trying to figure out how to make money from your product that is free. Time and resources become devoted to maintaining the status quo, patching holes and community relations and support. Not to mention that many of these tools have crept out from the minds of developers and not publishers.

The same can't be said for Thomson Reuters Calais Initiative. With a business model built in from the inception of the project they have the ability to create value from the wealth of content that is entering their system. It is treated to some natural language processing, machine learning and prepared to link with other content. As the initiative currently exists it is the side car to better publishing as there is no status quo or hole patching. They realized this.

Throwing a CMS on top of this type of foundation is a logical move for OpenCalais to extend development and create publisher relations. There has been so little innovation in core CMS offerings that most rely on third-party developers to create additional functionality or implement API's like OpenCalais, Zemanta and other discovery products.

An OpenCalais CMS, blogging platform or whatever comes from this group is going to be a welcome addition to the choices that publishers have available today. The closest opportunity today to creating a true semantic experience in a publishing platform that is readily available would be to install the Zemanta plugin in WordPress. It transforms the writing experience. An offering from Calais could transform the writing and CMS experience.

Update: Krista Thomas (@kristathomas) from OpenCalais got in touch to say that there is a fully integrated CMS based on Drupal called OpenPublish available now.

DISCLOSURE OF MATERIAL CONNECTION: http://cmp.ly/0

CMS Innovations from Thomson Reuters? is a post from: TechStartups.com

I am a huge fan of unconventional problem solving and taking approaches to situations that aren't populist. Doing so often requires inspiration from another source unrelated to the matter at hand.

Finding that inspiration is as easy as looking around for a place to stand that you have never stood before. A simple change in perspective is all that it can take to trigger something within you.

.

Example: A Place To Stand

About twice a year I to get some inspiration I stand in a different place online. Since I spend most of my time in front of a computer and the ambient transiency in my space is pretty static I'll stand on the corner of internet and Jeff Bridges dot com and visit his latest posts.

Bridges' website is an exercise in the basics of human communication with static images and image map links to other content but the simplicity is amazingly effective. Why? Because the web has come become a complicated mess of information and displays that vie for attention while Bridges keeps it simple. The site is art.

The effectiveness is deduction of distilling a message down to a graphic is reminiscent of something that Madison Avenue creatives would crank out for a print campaign. With simple copy in the images that he creates they're easier to grasp than a Tweet. The visual tapestry that Bridges creates is linear like a blog, textured like a painting and conversive like asking your grandmother about her past.

What Bridges has done with his personal site is so far from the norm that it has taken me nearly 250 words to describe. I should have done it with an image instead!

Whether you are planning your next startup, in the middle of one or looking to do a site redesign it is helpful to find the right sources of inspiration. Often they are at the very edges of your comfort zone and occasionally just beyond it. Let them gestate and the assimilate them when the time is right.

Photo credit: Screen shot from www.jeffbridges.com

DISCLOSURE OF MATERIAL CONNECTION: http://cmp.ly/0

How To Get Inspired is a post from: TechStartups.com

This is your chance to be a Martian, and you don't even have to step away from your computer screen. NASA and Microsoft created the Be a Martian Web site to let anyone participate in research and help them sort through data.

I wanted to be a Martian Citizen, so I set up an account. The first question was quick and easy: How old are you? Then they asked me to create a Martian Identity. I entered the relevant information in green text. I claimed to be an Intrepid Explorer. And I chose a kangaroo avatar to represent me. And most importantly, I gave my Citizen Oath. I counted the number of craters on-screen by clicking my mouse on each one. The more I played, the more game points I earned. And the act of counting craters will help scientists figure out the age of certain regions on Mars. Was counting craters really as fun as the wildly, addicting game, Minesweeper?

There are multiple levels of engagement through virtual town hall discussions and videos that put Mars researchers in the limelight. But it's not all fun and games. You really do have a chance to help scientists improve the maps, which will help them see the surface changes better. Developers can win a prize if they can figure out how to distribute hundreds of thousands of Mars images online and in the classroom.

Is this my generation's virtual version of the moon landing? There are no strings attached with this visit. NASA gives you the option to just look around with their Anonymous Tourist Visa.

NASA and Microsoft Want You To Be a Martian! is a post from: TechStartups.com

While I'm riding this photo wave I thought I would throw out a post for the coders in the house. I am an unabashed supporter tow things RSS and Flickr. When they are both put together they make a magnificent pair.

To demonstrate why they are such a great pair together I put together a bit of code that can make working with Flickr photos a breeze. It is the same code that I wrote that made its way into the self-hosted life streaming software SweetCron.

It is written in PHP but those that do real coding for a living can take a look at it and get the concept pretty quick. With that being said, I will make even easier by pointing out that due to a good naming convention that Flickr uses to organize photos by size it is possible to access all of them quickly without using the full tokenized API. Which, btw, requires more pings to get the same data the feeds offer.

We'll use the PHP function simplexml_load_file to get access to the photo goodness that is resting in the feed. The RSS feeds from Flickr are in a standard format so the code below will work with any of them. However, it won't work for the Atom feeds. I'm sure you could get crazy and figure out an Atom hack if you wanted. Good luck.

Here's how it can be done with PHP and a Flickr user feed:

$feed = simplexml_load_file("URL_to_Flickr_Feed");

// Check to see if the response was loaded, else print an error
if ($feed) {
$results = '';

// If the response was loaded, parse it and build links
foreach($feed->channel->item as $item) {
$media = $item->children('http://search.yahoo.com/mrss/');

// Photo Thumbnail
$sPhoto = $media->thumbnail->attributes();
$url = (string) $sPhoto['url'];
$width = (string) $sPhoto['width'];
$height = (string) $sPhoto['height'];
//

// Photo Medium (500 px wide standard)
$mphoto = substr($sPhoto, 0, -5);
$mphoto = $mphoto . "m.jpg";

// Photo Large (original size)
$lPhoto = $media->content->attributes();
$lurl = (string) $lPhoto['url'];
$lwidth = (string) $lPhoto['width'];
$lheight = (string) $lPhoto['height'];
$lphoto = substr($lPhoto, 0, -5);
$lphoto = $lphoto . "o.jpg";
//

echo $sPhoto; // thumbnail url
echo $mphoto; // medium size url
echo $lphoto; // large size url

}
} else {
echo "Broken Feed";
}

Hopefully this will give someone a jump start in how to transfer large images quickly, say between a photo journalist and an editor half a world away without having to make any other tools than a special XML feed from the Flickr feed. Literally for the $24.95 yearly fee to use Flickr Pro it could be used as a global syndication system.

In the right hands this way of working with Flickr feeds could yield great hacks for devices like the Chumby. Take it one step further for use in digital picture frames as playlists that can be embedded or run from memory cards. I'm just saying these are possibilities.

DISCLOSURE OF MATERIAL CONNECTION: http://cmp.ly/0

PHP simplexml_load_file for Photos is a post from: TechStartups.com

According to a new report by The Kauffman Foundation, Where Will The Jobs Come From?, it's from startups. We are in the midst of the worst job losses during a recession since World War II and startups are going to be key to regaining our economic footing.

Prior work from the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation has shown that, since 1980,nearly all net job creation in the United States has occurred in firms less than five years old. This is an impressive figure, but it doesn't convey the whole story of job creation in Americathe turmoil and churn of new firm creation, young firm survival or failure, and the scale growth of some firms.

This is a major shift for most Americans that are seeking employment. I've addressed this issue tangentially before with a post about this being the right time for those out of work to start a business. The data in this report suggests that it is also the right time get on board with a startup.

This is especially pertinent due to the fact that many of us know how startups can struggle to keep the doors open and still make payroll. Believe me, there are those that know the doors can stay open while no one is collecting a check.

It would be great to have our legislators act on the data from this report to assist small businesses get the investment, loans and material support to help them grow. Since this recession began almost all small business loans have evaporated.

It's true that these are market forces in action and that the leading indicators of economic growth are showing signs of improvement. But what is needed is a renewed focus on startups and their ability to provide jobs that allow those out of work to contribute to the growth of the economy.

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Startups Are Where The Jobs Will Come From is a post from: TechStartups.com

On my way to the Audience Conference this morning I was fortunate enough to have the bus drop me right in front a Verizon store. The balloons were out and I knew that is meant one thing . . . Droid.

At 7:30 a.m. there was no line and I was able to go straight in the store where the associates outnumbered the patrons. That is saying a lot because in New York mobile stores are always busy.

It was obvious though that the people in the store were nerds of the first order, though. One glance at the khaki pants, bad leggings and dishevled fauxhawks let me know the IT department had arrived. My people.

I was able to avoid ending up on a list to buy the heralded Droid and step right up and start fondling it with my geek gloves. Geek gloves, btw, are similar to kid gloves but they hold a special reverence and care for gadgetry.

After a hands on I can tell you that the device is gorgeous, lighter than you would expect and blazing fast on Verizon's network.

Here's how it went down: I immediately flipped it open to expose the QWERTY keyboard to get my hot thumbs typing in URLs to load up some internet goodness. For sites with Android style sheets it loaded them right up without more than a 2 second delay. For full sites it took a bit longer but seemingly quicker than the iPhone. I know, I should have done some AB testing but the overly chatty associates might have asked me to move it along.

The screen is clear, bright and has a large surface area that is welcome to fat fingers like mine. I was able to press icons with the phone with ease and get them open quickly. Which was a surprise to see them load so quickly.

Since this is a cursory overview of the phone I can say that I have only one gripe the keyboard is shifted left. Which forces the use to type mostly with the left hand. I want two hand glory on this sucker to rip out blog posts.

All in all, I was happy testing it out and probably will pick one up in the next few weeks.

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The Droid Doth Be Here Initial Review is a post from: TechStartups.com

This holiday season Google is shelling out the marketing dollars with Virgin America so that you can stay connected at 35,000 feet going 600 miles per hour.

I guess they figure since they own your soul, which by the way isn't made of electrical ether, it's made of the data trails that you leave online through search, email, feed reading and anything else that behemoth touches, they can give you a great holiday gift.

I'm not sure what dirty secret that Google is trying to keep by buying our attention and adoration that they thought enough about us to allow us to connect to the internet on their dime, but it must be a big one. I wonder if they cheated on mom?

Either way, big daddy is planning on keeping you dialed in while you should be working on that presentation. This is a prime example of how to keep mind share up and win over a core audience when they least expect it.

But don't worry if you aren't flying the Virgin skies this holiday season, big daddy didn't forget about you. No matter what airline you are on and if you're at one of these 47 airports the Google is picking up the tab. So bust out that laptop, PSP, wifi enabled smart phone and your netbook to make sure that you fill your gut, I mean brain, with all the bits you can. Commonly referred to in the biz as bytophan, a close relative to the favorite holiday amino acid tryptophan.

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Google Making Friends at 35,000 ft is a post from: TechStartups.com

WordPress release a beta version of its blogging software earlier this week and I thought that I would give it a go. I installed it on my server having read about new features on other blogs a few days ago.

I was hoping to see some of the changes in effect. I did. But I'm not excited.

This release was more about patching things up and plugging some holes on the code side. It isn't at all about the UI and display layer. It would have been great to see some Admin changes to the grouping of features or a more robust media uploader.

The current one isn't bad, it's just too many steps to get to the advanced features for formatting around the images or video. Sizing them is still fine and linking them up to the post or a larger image of the image being inserted are still options are easy to get use.

I was able to install plugins and themes without many issue. Of course all of them displayed messages letting me know that they weren't tested with this version of WP and they could blow up the universe if installed. Not really on the universe part but it would have been cool if they said that.

Themes were another story. I'm guessing that there are some hooks that have changed that threw off quite a few that I tested but a couple made it through with flying colors. The most frequent problem was the main body column area not displaying.

This goes without saying, but if you're not as adventurous as me and seeking thrills in new features or a challenge managing an upgrade, then this version of WordPress is for you. You can do the upgrade and won't even notice the difference. That is until your theme flakes out.

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WordPress 2.9 beta Review is a post from: TechStartups.com

If you're a Flickr user and not a Flickr Desktop Uploadr user, you should be. It is the hidden gem of the heavily trafficked site and best friend of frequent uploaders.

The Flickr Uploadr for desktop use have gone through changes over the years. It's reached its current maturity at 3.2.1 after being plagued with upload crashes, double uploads and copy loss for images. This version doesn't suffer likes its predecessors . . . well, not as much.

There still are occasional crashes but the Uploadr handles restarting better and will load up the last batch of photos for upload with their copy intact on restart. I've found this to be a more frequent issue if I am trying to upload photos to Flickr from a throttled internet connection with slow speeds. Cough, Time-Warner Road Runner, cough.

With that said, I've found the Uploadr the easiest way to get batch photos online with titles, descriptions, tags and grouped the way the I want them with privacy settings. Here's a peek for the uninitiated:

With the ability to create groups like this and see them in left hand column I am able to more effectivley tell a story about each image as it relates to one another. To be honest, it is kind of fun to be able to create a narrative about a photo set that can be shared with viewers.

You'll also notice in the Description' box that the copy begins with two characters *^'. Well, as an added bonus of using the Flickr Uploadr to get photos on Flickr, I also use it as a front-end to insert photos on my own blog and to also send links to them on Twitter.

With the use of the magic API, RSS, I have two separate crontab scripts running that read my personal Flickr RSS feed and look for these two characters. The * tells the script to take the title and description and add them as posts to my personal blog. The ^ tells the script to grab the title and URL of the image on Flickr (shorten it), then send it on to Twitter in my personal Twitter account. The special characters are a control mechanism that allow me to filter or choose additional syndication for my photos.

I'm going down a geeky path here and will pull back a bit. The Flickr Desktop Uploadr isnt' something that is brand new or undergone a massive revision lately. What it is to me an many others is a powerful tool built as an add-on to a service to make it more valuable.

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Flickr Desktop Uploadr for Photos is a post from: TechStartups.com

So who is the best iPhone app developer? You.

Get your iPhone startup rolling by making it happen all by yourself well, with some help, but you can claim the blood, sweat and long hours needed to build your biz from the ground up.

What follows is a mock interview that I just had with you five minutes ago.

Kris:

• That's right you. And I said it to your face.
• Okay, the criteria for best in this case being the most motivated, cheap and geographically close developer. Face it, you can't get any closer to your coder than yourself.

You:

• Kris, listen . . . I can't make an iPhone application or write a program in Objective C, let alone in any other language.

Kris:

• Shut up and teach yourself to fish.
• Learning this will save you the hassle of finding a developer, translating your idea and getting stuck because you don't understand the iPhone developer spec or limitations of the device before masterminding the next greatest iPhone app.

You:. . .

• You're crazy.
• Am I supposed to buy a book and sit a dark office after my kids are asleep and figure this out?

(You see where this is going, right?)

Kris:

• Sure, you can do that.
• But if you want to jump start this process and make your app a reality without paying $30k or spending that much of your time translating your ideas to a developer go to an iPhone Boot Camp.
• They're happening in major US cities.
• And, seriously, it might be something that you think is out of your league but taking a day to spend with the authors of two of the most popular iPhone development books will shorten the time you're going to spend in that dark room trying to sift through this.

You:

• How do I make it happen?

Kris:

• Find the iPhone Boot Camp nearest you or one that matches your schedule.
• Get the scratch to pay the registration fee (under $3k), flight, hotel and if Chicago enough for dogs and Italian beef sandwiches from Portillos.
• Sweet shit, I miss those.

This interview is over. I've gotta go punch a papper in the face, drool about a Portillos and look for money in my couch cushions to get myself to one of these events.

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Best iPhone App Developer is a post from: TechStartups.com

One of the great speakers, or swimmers, from the Audience Conference was Melanie Notkin. She is the founder of Savvy Auntie. A website dedicated to the cool aunts, great aunts, great mothers and all women who love kids, with a special focus on those that don't have children themselves.

Before this event I hadn't ever come across the site and it was missing from the conversations that I have those that needed a good shave. The niche that Notkin built her site for was the driven career woman that loves her neices and nephews but, like her core demo, she had no idea who Dora, Diego or Yo Gaba Gaba were. She was missing a connection with the little ones that she loved dearly. She decided to fix this, not only for herself but for all women.

The site that Melanie Notkin launched, Savvy Auntie, is more of a portal than a traditional informational website. It allows users to enter channels for general information, activities, shopping and social. Each channel delivering a similar experience to the next while allowing the users to find there way back to a central point to try another channel.

General Information

This channel has information regarding nutrition, books. learning, health and more. Two interesting components of this channel are the Auntipedia and the Q&A section called Dear Savvy Auntie. The Auntipedia is, well, pretty much what the name implies. It is a knowledge base that can actually get an aunt up and running in the areas most pertinent to being a prime caregiver to the little ones.

Activities

This channel provides a ton of useful and engaging activities that can keep you on the go with the kids. From crafts all the way to family reunion activities there is something here for every type of auntie. It is such a robust list, I'll be coming back to it on my own as a bearded one with two kids of my own. I'll also be recommending it to my friends with children and without.

Shopping

That is pretty straight forward. However, the Savvy Auntie has a hook that you can't deny. It is brilliant and creative marketing that most bloggers couldn't pull off Savvy Auntie 2009 Coolest Toy Awards. With great graphic design and a clean user interface it is easy to see toys that will make you cool with the tiny set. My only gripe with this area of the site is that many functions are tab related and triggered with JavaScript interactions that don't allow for direct linking within the site or to these specific sections.

Social

I've seen this quite a bit more lately on the sites that I review. Social is becoming a larger part of sites as they try to become a destination for their faithful. In the past it was forum or comment based. Today, sites like Savvy Auntie are working to create a community of like-minded individuals that want to share their experiences as Aunties by Relation or Aunties by Choice.

These social components can be a huge success for creating loyalty and brand evangelists. They often need constant grooming but can pay huge dividends. From what I can see on Savvy Auntie, not only is it an active community but there are new sections of it under work that grooming component.

What I would love to see on Savvy Auntie is Facebook integration like StyleCaster. Holy smokes. I was effusive in my praise of StyleCaster for doing this and thing that with the power of the biggest social network behind the Savvy community it would be major growth area. One key to this growth being Facebook integration and the other being the ability to still host it on SavvyAuntie.com.

If you are looking for some inspiration on how to get a startup off the ground you need to look no further than Notkin's Savvy Auntie. This is how execution of a great idea gets done.

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Savvy Auntie For The Holidays is a post from: TechStartups.com