Reposting: The 2010 Web

Reposting from a year ago – The 2010 web.
Coming soon – 2011 predictions.

According to Scobel …
http://scobleizer.com/2009/05/16/exploring-the-2010-web/

1. It’s real time.
Twitter, Facebook and Friendfeed are all moving toward architectures and displays that refresh in real time, or let you see what’s happening right now. We are at the extreme beginnings of that trend. You really should watch the video of the panel discussion I moderated on the state of real time search to get a sense of where this is going. That panel discussion will be remembered for years as a key point. One of the panel members runs Facebook search team. Yes, Facebook is working on real time search. (That video is in two parts since the meeting ran almost two hours long. I really do recommend watching it. Part I is here. Part II is here.).

2. It’s mobile.
You’ll see this more next week when the Where 2.0 conference rolls into town, but if 40,000 iPhone apps hasn’t convinced you yet, nothing will. On Monday I’m meeting with Nokia to find out the latest.

3. It’s decentralized.
Look at my behaviors. I’m all over the place. Six years ago I did only one thing: blog. Now I Flickr. YouTube. Seesmic. Friendfeed. Facebook. Twitter. And many more. Go to Retaggr and see all the places I’m at.

4. Pages now built out of premade blocks. (widgets)
You build these pages by copying a line of Javascript code to your template. This is very simple once you see how to do it, but for someone who doesn’t know code, or where in the template to go, this is VERY daunting. Silicon Valley has NOT made it simple enough yet for the mainstream to build highly useful pages. See the friendfeed block to the right of my words? I added that by copying and pasting from the friendfeed widget page. If you know where to look a TON of cool pre-built blocks like this are available for you to put on your website or blog.

5. It’s social.
This seems obvious to anyone on Twitter or Facebook, but how many businesses add their customers to their pages? Not many. Silicon Valley has done a horrible job so far of explaining why adding people to your websites matters.

6. It’s smart.
We’re seeing more and more smarts added to the web every day. Tonight Wolfram’s new search engine turned on. Have you played with it? That’s the 2010 web and check out what you can do with it.

7. Hybrid infrastructure.
When I visited 12seconds.tv in Santa Cruz they told me they were using a hybrid approach: they own a rack of servers but they also use Amazon’s S3 to “cloud burst” or take up the slack for files that are popular. My employer Rackspace will have more to say about that trend too over the next few months.

View Scobel’s entire blog post

– – – – – – – – – – –

My initial thoughts…

Watching the social web evolved over the past few years, I think Scobel is right on. Other things I’ve noticed:

• Brian Solis sums it up well when he said, “There’s too much ME in Social MEdia.” Too much focus on “What are you doing?” and “What’s on your mind?” We’re so busying trying to create our identities, we sometimes forget how to make meaningful connections. What about asking “What inspires you? or “Who do you want to thank?”
• Social Media is sociology, not just technology. Tools alone don’t make it social. You need people to make it social.
• The target audience is getting younger and younger. Kids today as young as 5 years on on Club Penguin on Webkinz. Is that too young? Do they actually get what they’re doing?
• One of my favorite quotes – “MySpace and Facebook were cool until old people jumped on and ruined it.” So tell me, what age is considered old? (Don’t answer  that.) One thing I can say about about this… Facebook has trained a good percentage of new online users how to upload photos, embed links, leave comments, rank content and share stuff. My mom sends less spam email now because of it.
• People are no longer afraid to blend personal with professional. In fact, it adds a human element to business, which can easily get lost in the process of institutionalization.
• What’s next? Enterprise 2.0 – Doing more meaningful business. The SHARE economy. Connecting dots faster internally and doing business differently.

What other trends have you noticed?

blog Blog BLOG

Most people start blogging because they like to write, have stuff they want to share, or just want to be able to say,

“Hey, man. Have you checked out my blog?”

Well not me. I started this blog way back when to see how well I can trick out the original Kubrick theme. I saw all the different themes in the WP theme gallery, but I was a determined to use the little html I knew on the default layout and see let the content be the design

Plus, the color pallette of the Kubrick default theme matched the colors of my #IT Pound It! brand. And soon after, I married my love for writing and multi-media into this blog. For other bloggers out there…

What was your first blog? Ang what made you decide to start blogging?

Looking back, then forward

About 10 years ago I bought my first digital camera. An Olympus something, 3.1 mega-pixels. The first week I had it, I dropped it and the flash broke. Probably one of the best things that could’ve happened. It forced me to learn how to use available light. And today I find flash to be generally obnoxious, washes people out, especially point-and-click cameras that fit in your pocket.

I lived in losAngeles at the time, and I remember walking down Melrose one day just clicking pics of random stuff. I ended up clicking more than 250 images. My little memory card was full. When I got home I downloaded the pics, browsed them quickly and picked about 20 images. Then I narrowed them to 9 images, and this is what I came up with. It was weird, as if the images arranged themselves.

The crazy part… I arranged them and was able to interpret it almost instantly. I found so much personal meaning in complete randomness. So quickly, effortlessly, no thought went into it. And it felt like visual poetry.

LOOK and BODY are in opposite corners, and they represented the materalism and the gym/fitness that engrossed my life at that time.

FLOWERS and CITRUS occupy the other corners. Nature. The romantic in me (Ha!) and my love for the outdoors. During that time I was walking up Runyon Canyon almost daily, religiously. I loved it.

PISCES and ARCHITECTURE are center top and bottom. Outer space and earth. Opposing forces of dreams and structure or discipline. Left brain, right brain. At that time it seemed easy to balance both.

Middle left and right are ENERGYand LUCK. The rays represent energy, like Keith Haring’s signature pop art. The sum of those digits equals 21.

Last but not least, FAITH remains at the center of everything.

This collage feels so balanced. And at that time I felt my life was balanced.

Looking back. Reflection and introspection. This exercise is helping me look forward. And I am looking forward to more life balance in 2011.

What are you looking forward to in 2011?

Ray of light @ Mount Madonna

#CerebrateSV 2010 – The sum of us.

Dear Cerebrate friends,

I am ever grateful to for the opportunity to meet and connect with all of you this past weekend at Mount Madonna. Given a choice between an industry conference with hundreds of handshakes and business cards, or an intimate retreat with a small yet diverse group of motivated and talented consequential strangers, without a doubt, I prefer the latter. The authenticity and generosity was amazing. I thank you for the opportunity to truly know you, your values, your talents, and connecting  with such an amazing group at a deeper level. I also learned more about myself, realizing what more I can accomplish, and accepting things beyond my control. And I cannot thank you enough for welcoming me and accepting me, and supporting me.

What I learned most though all the sharing and learning…
Each of us is a giving and generous achiever, and inside EACH of us is:

A writer, an architect, a passionate coach & mentor, a knowledge officer, a brand guru, a motivational leader, an artist, a philanthropist, a digital marketer, a trend setter, a media publisher, an inventor, a data visualization genius, a fashion designer, an Internet geek, a Community strategist, a scientist, an educator, a venture capitalist, an entrepreneur, a loving mother father son daughter sister brother, and most importantly… a friend.

The sum of us.

I am honored and proud to have been a part of  Cerebrate – Silicon Valley USA 2010

Thank you.

– – – – – –

Photos courtesy of:  Rajesh, Kate, Maya, Ram and Darius

Tweets #cerebratesv

Cebrebrate- Morning reflection

I beat my morning alarm again. I play a few turns of Words With Friends. I step into the common room, slide open the glass doors and sit out on the wooden deck. Barefoot. Plaid pj pants, tshirt. Specs. It’s cold. But i like it. Birds singing. I imagine the lyrics. Like a morning prayer. I hear droplets from overnight dew. I stare out into the distance. I am at Mount Madonna, nested in the mountains. this morning I am welcomed by a family of tall trees. Beyond them I see a soft shadow of sunrise that connects an ocean of low fog and the morning sky. A morning bell rings once.

Namaste.

Tell All (Preview)

Booksmith presents Chuck Palahniuk at the Swedish American Hall in San Francisco on May 20th to read from his latest novel Tell All.

Chuck P and I have the same birthday

In January 2006 I picked up my first Chuck Palahniuk book, a collection of true short stories called Stranger than Fiction. The following week I read Choke not knowing what I was getting myself into. Choke was so intense. When I finished reading it, I immediately smoked a cigarette. (For those wondering, I usually don’t smoke. However, that day I smoked a Newport.) After Choke I read Fight Club. It was just like the movie. Maybe better.

I quickly moved on to Invisible Monsters. Perhaps my favorite Palahniuk book. I read it in two days. I couldn’t put it down. I was hooked on this guy’s writing. I had a different book in hand or on my desk from week to week. People at work had mistaken me for avid reader. Wanna know the sad truth? In the previous five years, I must have started reading at least two dozen books, but I didn’t finish any of them. Reading stacks of newspapers and PC/technology mags was a piece of cake, but novels put me right to sleep.  I was excited to be reading something other than magazines, newspapers and that David Sedaris.

Three weeks go by and I’m already on my 5th book. The next book I picked up was Palahniuk’s most recent work—Haunted. Parts were definitely hard to swallow, like Guts, but I got through all 400+ pages of that horror. I saw it as a character building experience. Reading Haunted made me stronger. Not physically stronger, but it was the kind of courage I needed at that particular time. I just turned 36. For a few minutes in between rounds of beer and/or wine with friends at IPND (the Italian Place Next Door), I found myself thinking—Yikes! I am now 36 years old. I am closer to being 50 than 20.

Back to me and my one-person book club… In less than two months, I read every Palahniuk book. A couple of them twice. Guess what I recently discovered browsing through MySpace… Chuck Palahniuk and I have the same birthday—February 21. I wonder how many other people were born on the same day as their favorite writer. Kinda cool. Yet kinda creepy.

Hyper-realistic sculptures

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WORD.

Sitting at Java Beach cafe having my first coffee in 40 days. I gave up a lot for Lent–coffee, soda, candy. Looking back on it, it wasn’t that difficult. All it took was a good distraction. In my case, the distraction was SCRABBLE. On the iPhone.

I’m addicted.

Words with Friends (FREE)

Facebook Scrabble(5 bucks, and worth every cent!)

(Hint: On FB Scrabble, use the TEACHER feature in the lower right. It will improve your game, but not your vocab. Teacher feature only available on iPhone version.)

On giving thanks…

You’ve been so kind and generous, I don’t know how you keep on giving. For your kindness, I’m in debt to you. For your selflessness, my admiration. For everything you’ve done, you know I’m bound, I’m bound to thank you for it.

Kind and Generous – Natalie Merchant

You’ve been so kind and generous, I don’t know how you keep on giving. For your kindness, I’m in debt to you. And I never could have come this far without you. For everything you’ve done, you know I’m bound, I’m bound to thank you for it.

Oh, I want to thank you for so many gifts you gave with love and tenderness. I want to thank you. I want to thank you for your generosity, the love and the honesty that you gave me. I want to thank you, show my gratitude, my love and my respect for you. I want to thank you.

Thank you, thank you…

Jetfighter man – that’s what I am…

SF Fleet Week |  Blue Angels photos

SF Fleet Week |  Blue Angels photos

JETFIGHTER – cover by Bart Davenport
Original song by The Three O’Clock

Crop and retouch on the go

How many photos do you have saved on your iPhone camera roll?

10+ | 100+ | 1000+ photos?

I’m surrised every time I ask people that question. iPhones make it easy to click away. Carefree. And now thanks to Adobe, you can edit right on your iPhone and save your edited pics to an oline account.

Click > Edit > Save > Share.  Learn how easy it is.

Click > Edit > Save > Share.  Learn how easy it is.

Show me where it hurts…

Web MD has a free iPhone app that gives you hours of fun-filled self-diagnosing. It’s a hypochondriac’s dream-come-true. The WebMD UI is actually pretty slick. Check it out.

The WebMD UI is actually pretty slick. Check it out.

CalTrans working over Labor Day weekend

Blockbuster weekend

I am the first to admit, I prefer indie films over blockbusters. So what possessed me to step outside my comfort zone? Not sure. Yesterday I saw two blockbusters: G.I. Joe and District 9.

Weeks ago I promised to take my 7-year old nephew to see G.I. Joe: the Rise of Cobra, and he incessantly reminded me of my promise until I finally caved in. Yesterday morning, I kept my word. Two hours of military crafts and spies and ships and guns and muscles and rockets and bullets and armored suits and submarines and explosions and martial arts and enough already! The theatre was less than 10% full, and after 10-minutes into the film, I leaned over to the kid and said, “You know what… I think this movie is too violent.” And he said, “I know it’s all fake. Just like the cartoon.”

Fair enough. Best 90 minute nap I’ve taken in a long time. My favorite part of the movie… the preview for Cirque du Freak: The Vampire’s Assistant.

Later that night, I went with Jenny and George Michael to see another film at the SAME theater – District 9. Sold out show. As I walked into the theatre, I was expecting “Starship Troopers on Earth” — don’t get me wrong, I LOVE Starship Troopers. Peter Jackson proved my wrong. Two hours of robot-like aliens and guns and mutant regeneration and alien blood and human puke and weapons blowing off heads and and a gigantic space craft hovering over a ghetto… No napping through this one. And it looked like it was shot with three cameras and no tripods. Loved it.

To round off the weekend of sloth, I think I’ll throw on a baseball cap and flip flops and go see Tarantino’s Inglorious Bastards.

PCE Release Party

Porkchop Express’s Fault Lines & Good Times just dropped, and Thursday night’s CD release party was a rockin’ good time. Rumor has it they will be the first opening band for Def Leppard’s SF/Mtn View show, along with Cheap Trick and Poison. THAT would be HUGE.

www.PorkchopExpress.net

It's HUGE!

www.PorkchopExpress.net

ELEW = Eric Lewis

“Mr Brightside” at the DNA Lounge

Eric Lewis (aka ELEW). Mir Brightside. Sick.

Here in Your Arms

The 2010 web

According to Scobel …
http://scobleizer.com/2009/05/16/exploring-the-2010-web/

1. It’s real time.
Twitter, Facebook and Friendfeed are all moving toward architectures and displays that refresh in real time, or let you see what’s happening right now. We are at the extreme beginnings of that trend. You really should watch the video of the panel discussion I moderated on the state of real time search to get a sense of where this is going. That panel discussion will be remembered for years as a key point. One of the panel members runs Facebook search team. Yes, Facebook is working on real time search. (That video is in two parts since the meeting ran almost two hours long. I really do recommend watching it. Part I is here. Part II is here.).

2. It’s mobile.
You’ll see this more next week when the Where 2.0 conference rolls into town, but if 40,000 iPhone apps hasn’t convinced you yet, nothing will. On Monday I’m meeting with Nokia to find out the latest.

3. It’s decentralized.
Look at my behaviors. I’m all over the place. Six years ago I did only one thing: blog. Now I Flickr. YouTube. Seesmic. Friendfeed. Facebook. Twitter. And many more. Go to Retaggr and see all the places I’m at.

4. Pages now built out of premade blocks. (widgets)
You build these pages by copying a line of Javascript code to your template. This is very simple once you see how to do it, but for someone who doesn’t know code, or where in the template to go, this is VERY daunting. Silicon Valley has NOT made it simple enough yet for the mainstream to build highly useful pages. See the friendfeed block to the right of my words? I added that by copying and pasting from the friendfeed widget page. If you know where to look a TON of cool pre-built blocks like this are available for you to put on your website or blog.

5. It’s social.
This seems obvious to anyone on Twitter or Facebook, but how many businesses add their customers to their pages? Not many. Silicon Valley has done a horrible job so far of explaining why adding people to your websites matters.

6. It’s smart.
We’re seeing more and more smarts added to the web every day. Tonight Wolfram’s new search engine turned on. Have you played with it? That’s the 2010 web and check out what you can do with it.

7. Hybrid infrastructure.
When I visited 12seconds.tv in Santa Cruz they told me they were using a hybrid approach: they own a rack of servers but they also use Amazon’s S3 to “cloud burst” or take up the slack for files that are popular. My employer Rackspace will have more to say about that trend too over the next few months.

View Scobel’s entire blog post

– – – – – – – – – – –

My initial thoughts…

Watching the social web evolved over the past few years, I think Scobel is right on. Other things I’ve noticed:

• Brian Solis sums it up well when he said, “There’s too much ME in Social MEdia.” Too much focus on “What are you doing?” and “What’s on your mind?” We’re so busying trying to create our identities, we sometimes forget how to make meaningful connections. What about asking “What inspires you? or “Who do you want to thank?”
• Social Media is sociology, not just technology. Tools alone don’t make it social. You need people to make it social.
• The target audience is getting younger and younger. Kids today as young as 5 years on on Club Penguin on Webkinz. Is that too young? Do they actually get what they’re doing?
• One of my favorite quotes – “MySpace and Facebook were cool until old people jumped on and ruined it.” So tell me, what age is considered old? (Don’t answer  that.) One thing I can say about about this… Facebook has trained a good percentage of new online users how to upload photos, embed links, leave comments, rank content and share stuff. My mom sends less spam email now because of it.
• People are no longer afraid to blend personal with professional. In fact, it adds a human element to business, which can easily get lost in the process of institutionalization.
• What’s next? Enterprise 2.0 – Doing more meaningful business. The SHARE economy. Connecting dots faster internally and doing business differently.

What other trends have you noticed?

Mr Brightside – remixed

Great remix of The Killers “Mr Brightside” …
I know the intro is long, wait for it. You’ll love it.