Moving On & Over

My new blog is: http://monkeynotions.com/blog

It seems like this was never published. These were the problems with blogger at the time and why I left:

Well I decided to leave Blogger and move my blog to Wordpress. There are lot's of things I like about Blogger (besides the very fact that I'm used to it). But the one thing I really don't like is there is no Categories and I still havent' found a way to create categories for my blog entries. I think Categories are nice for myself and readers (and it's not cause I'm an organizing freak..seriously you should see my room!) I really like the amount of templates and the presentaton of those templates that Blogger has also... wordpress cannot compare with the presentation.

But most of all I'm able to move it to a new host and new name. The name of my new site is called monkeynotions. I figured what's the point of creating such a high standard for myself with a site and blog called smartnotions and forcing myself to sound quasi-intellectual all the time? I've relaxed and now can feel free to *monkey* around with notions or make it seem like the notions came from a monkey... some would argue a lower standard...heh heh... Well check out my new blog!!

P.S. I still have not quite understood Republish Entire Blog or just Republish Index... sigh who would havee thought blogging would be such a difficult thing?

Getting Naked & Crunched

Yes as mentioned below, I was went to the Techcrunch Meetup, and was able to do some podcasting for AOL's Behind the Scenes in Mountain View (search iTunes for AOL Mountain View). I'll let you know when it gets published, but here is a list of cool & interesting folks and companies:

Mike Rowehl (Co-Organizer of Mobile Monday): Mobile Monday is a grass roots organization that gets together the first Monday of every month to talk about issues of Mobility.

Josh Elman (Product Manager): Zazzle is a market place where creative designers can display and sell their work. Check out the podcast to see how they are different from Cafe Press...ebay may have to move over soon!

Justin Smith(Founder): Standpoint is a real easy way to create a blog by stating a belief and building a case for it. It also allows you to find others in the community that share your beliefs. hmmm..sounds like the beginnings to a nice dating site or a place for budding lawyers to practice their articulation ;).

Richard Lusk(Founder) & Oliver Starr (CMO): Foldera is a new and easy way to access, organize and share your files seamlessly. They came all the way from Sunny Southern California to be here. Seems they will be heavily integrated with the phone, as they have Oliver Starr on board, author of Mobilecrunch. and you guys thought CMO stood for Chief Morale Officer ;). I got a snap of them flickring me as I was flickring them.

Ken Leeder(Founder): Real Travel is a way where people looking to travel can not only find recommendations from real travelers, but also have an end-to-end experience of sharing their trip. You can find a ravishing review of Tahiti by yours truly ;)

....and of course the whole reason for the party....*drumroll*

Robert Scoble & Shel Israel (Authors):See below for a more details of our interview, but they are the authors of Naked Conversations: How Blogs are Changing the Way Businesses Talk with Customers .

I'll let you guys know when the podcast is up. It was my first time podcasting, so I'm warning it could be rough. Maybe Mike will be able to work his magic ;).

Technorati Tags: techcrunch5,techcrunch,nakedconversations,robertscoble, shelisrael

Naked Conversation Madness

So I went to a the 5th Techcrunch Meetup which was the Launch Party for the book "Naked Conversations" (by Robert Scoble & Shel Israel). It's about how companies have changed their relationships with their customers through blogging. Robert started a *behind the scenes* show about Microsoft called Channel 9. The whole story has been great and inspiring I big company, who is trying to become more open.

I met Robert & Shel who were really cool down to earth guys, as Dossy was able to give me a good excuse ;). I was able to ask each of them two questions. Instead of re-inventing the wheel I decided to ask each of them the same questions. I will summarize (which can lead to intepretation) their answers, for their exact words, I'd check out the podcast:).

1.Who is one person/position you'd like to see start blogging?

Shel: Anyone who is in a position and able to (I like his all hands on deck approach)

Robert: George W. Bush (and I was hoping Fidel Castro)

2. At AOL, there are a number of employees who are on the cusp of blogging, what would tip or encouragement do you have to say for them to get them to start?

Shel: Just start blogging ;)

Robert: Start reading blogs, and seeing if you are interested in leaving comments; if not, perhaps blogging is not your bag.

Thank you Robert & Shel for your time.

...Will be getting the podcast out soon (hopefully it will turn out okay. Warning:it's a bit rough) ...You can check it out on iTunes: Search for AOL Mountain View, which is behind the scenes look at our crazy campus ;).

Technorati Tags: techcrunch,nakedconversations,robertscoble, shelisrael

New Yahoo Design Library

Man Yahoo is just solid. The other day they released a Design Pattern Library that has a blog component to it. It seems like a bottom - top approach has been the theme for the Web 2.0 and Yahoo is trying to include itself into that culture. Let me explain. From what I hear Yahoo created it's standards by first seeing what all their products are using and even created incentives for people to submit the design patterns. This is the first way they included themselves. Instead of creating a body of standards and disseminating, they looked at what was already been done and built on that. I'd like to think that, internally, the products appreciated that. The second thing that Yahoo did was to create a blog...verry Web 2.0, but what's nice is now they have opened up the floor to the public and anyone. I am glad to see Yahoo becoming Web 2.0 in their actions. To me they have always been very clean in their design that gave it a bit of a rigid feel, lacking an experience or a *ghettoness* to it, but if they can pull this conversation off and build a community around it, the rigid feel is only one minor detail.

Bubble vs. Boom

Bubble vs. Boom
Originally uploaded by niallkennedy.

Is 2006 really what the .com Boom should have been in 1999? It would be interesting to think if we never had a 1999 boom and bust...I bet money would be flowing a little freer. On the one hand it's smart for VCs to wait until the market is proven. On the other hand, VC funding may be exactly what is needed to get the product/startup to a revenue generating state...

Asian Backstreet Boys:: Fantastic Video!

This video was sent to a listserv that I'm on. It's a fantastic spoof of the Back Street Boys by two Chinese students in Guangzhou Arts Institute. "Their spoof music videos have been selected by Motorola China to promote mobile phones".




What amazes me about all this is the amount of participation from the masses to create and broadcast to a wide audience. This not a new concept, but for me I'm wondering if this is a step towards also breaking down stereotypes. Let me explain....

In the past, when I have seen Asian Males portrayed in American Media, they are mostly seen as effeminate and awkward. When people laughed at stereotypes (e.g. Long Duk Dong in Sixteen Candles), I was always hard-pressed to laugh with them because I knew people were laughing at them.

When William Hung came along with his rendition of Ricky Martin's "She Bang's", it was the laughing stock of America because people were laughing more *at* him. And of course this has happened whenever Chinese/Asians have tried to take American pop culture and seriously imitate or make it their own. Most people have just laughed at their efforts. But, here is the first time that I have seen Chinese folk deliberately making fun of American Culture and turning it on it's head.

This citizen journalism stuff ain't so bad ... Especially when underrepresented minorities (in the media) can take back their image/identity and make fun of the perpetrators of those stereotypes.

More info on the Asian Backstreet Boys can be found here:
Asian Backstreet Boys

Blogging

This site is awesome!!!

Testing Flock

Flock announced it's 0.5 preview browser release. I'm just playing with it. so far it feels like moz on roids....i do like the integration into my blog on blogger, but word is still out about the ui experience of it....it feels a *little* disaggregated.