everwas

Month: October 2009

  • Fun with Google Social Search

    Google Social Search is now available in Google Labs. Danny Sullivan has the most in-depth coverage out there but it’s worth turning on yourself because you’re going to be the best judge of how well this feature performs for you. Be sure to dig deeper than the default two results Google throws timidly down at…

  • Social Discovery, Social Filtering, and other Web-Squared Shapes

    It’s hard to wrap up a major conference, especially when you didn’t attend, but viewing things from a distance sometimes helps because only the loudest messages make it all the way over. Before the conference even started, Fred Wilson threw out a one-liner that got people thinking. He called it the Golden Triangle. The three…

  • Ringtone Symphony

    Izumi pointed me this old video from the Improv Everywhere performance troupe in which they orchestrate the simultaneous ringing of a large number of cellphones stored in a normally quiet place. Mayhem ensues.

  • Web 2.0 Summit Coverage

    Now that I live in Finland I was not able to drop in on the Web 2.0 Summit in San Francisco. Here’s how I’ve been keeping up with the goings on: Selected talks on YouTube. They have a channel so you can watch all the videos back-to-back. Following the #w2e hashtag on twitter. Coverage on…

  • Phish, Embracing the Remix

    Jam bands like the Grateful Dead and Phish have always been ahead of the curve with how they let their fans record their concerts because as Jerry Garcia famously said, “Once we’re done with it, it’s theirs.” These bands have always made more money on their tours than record sales anyway and because each show…

  • Less Powerpoint, More Prototypes

    I’m a big believer in hacking together a working prototype to demonstrate product ideas. Powerpoint mocks basically put a shiny gloss on a paper sketch and because it’s not real, generate endless debate where no one is really speaking on authority because the product doesn’t exist. Once you have a prototype the debate becomes substantive. …

  • WaveRoller, a childhood dream realized

    I used to read Popular Mechanics magazine back in elementary school and would read about all the cool inventions (Robotic Surgeons! DIY Jet-powered Go Kart!) and it got me in trouble more than a few times because what I learned there was not part of the 3rd grade curriculum. I still remember a test where…