Monday, April 30, 2012
Wayne Mansfield: Google Plus Tactics 13 DO NOT DO Tips
Wayne Mansfield: Google Plus Tactics 13 DO NOT DO Tips: With Google+ being a new social network, those who are on there are all competing for attention, and so we have got to make sure that we a...
Thursday, April 26, 2012
IdeasWatch Puts Eyes on Your Ideas ht...
IdeasWatch Puts Eyes on Your Ideas http://su.pr/8BwOlL
Fellow Ideators - Can we help you?
The IW blog will have this and that; your first five “we met in IW and are building something” stories will get blasted far and wide. I stake my reputation on this.
We would like to put your startup story on the top page of IdeasWatch and also feature your story on our Blogger blog and then…
The first five IdeasWatch members (Ideators) to provide a story of how they met in IdeasWatch and are starting to make something, or launch a new business, organization, program or website – will all get a large boost from me, OsakaSaul (Saul Fleischman), the community development guy at IdeasWatch. We’ll take what we can get, include your link (okay, not your Amazon sales-pitch things, of course) to your new site, your professional profile and/or Twitter handle links, and make no mistake: if there’s any connection made within IdeasWatch that is beginning to blossom into a team and onwards towards a new startup, the story is perfect fro the top page blog of IdeasWatch and our external Blogger.
Promote your IdeasWatch connection story?
Yes! On our blog, which will get shared, of course.
IdeasWatch.com is for people with ideas – the “Ideators“
Even half-ideas count. We launch ideas in IdeasWatch to get feedback, learn of similar existing sites/apps/etc., and also, to team up on each others’ projects.
Have any of us met in IW and started working on a collaboration of any kind? We would like to feature you – and also your site URL(s) if you’d like, Twitter accounts, etc.
We want these stories and the ability to show you and your progress off to the entire IdeasWatch community, through our blog (see it embedded – right in the center of the main page of IW!)
Just send your story and any attached image files, etc., with links included and full Twitter handles (for example, not @osakasaul but http://ping.fm/oAXPo ) to michal.hudecek@ideaswatch.com
I offered a great opportunity to those wanting to get their new baby “out there,” by importing the IdeasWatch blog – right on the top page of Ideaswatch.com, and then suggesting that it will mainly be from our members, not from the founder or myself.
Get your internet startup promoted - big time!
Launch something new and you go from “offering” to randomly blasting and spamming LinkedIn groups – and in short form, onwards and downwards to the emotional blackmail of friends and family to get them to check in and comment or like anything, even once a week. Unless, of course, what you have created is actually a reinvention of the wheel. Its tough out there.
What are IdeasWatch Ideators sharing?
Here’s my latest Idea to be launched: Register for several new sites – at one time
Perhaps you launch a new social network, review site, or web application. You test all you can yourselves and with a few friends, but then, you need a “seed” community to get traction. Many of us – such as the membership of IdeasWatch and the Yammer-based StartupGuild – would be happy to do a reciprocal thing: let’s register and try each others’ new sites.
Registering for 10 or 50 sites, one by one, is time-consuming. If there was one page and perhaps a tick-box to multi-register deal, I’d gladly register to many fellow internet startup innovators’ sites and give them a fair try. Naturally, we’d want to “stagger” additions to the list of sites to register on, perhaps monthly or even every 3 months, so anyone participating would do many registrations at once, not just one or a few – and thus, make this multi-registration clearly a time-saver.
Reciprocation: if I have learned nothing else from my 20 years in Japan, this is something you do learn here. (Moving my idea from Yammer to here.) Launch something new and you go from “offering” to randomly blasting and spamming LinkedIn groups – and shortly, on to emotional blackmail of friends and family to get them to check in and comment or like anything, even once a week. Unless, of course, what you have created is actually a reinvention of the wheel. Its tough out there.
Check out IdeasWatch – even without registration or any sign-in
(but your ideas and comments, etc. are all done anonymously).
Profile completion in IW is a snap!
Register and sign-in through your choice of networks and you can contribute with your name/pseudonym and get input on what you think might be a worthwhile thing to build and launch. You might even get people selecting the “I wanna do this” option – and telling you what they would like to bring to your team. All features within IdeasWatch are free, of course, and are presented as a labor of love for fellow Ideators by founder Michal Hudeček (of Maintop Businesses) (Prague) and I.
About Saul Fleischman
Working with social web apps developers on getting things made: my role tends to be functionality ideation, user experience, and also, marketing communications and community development.
Fellow Ideators - Can we help you?
The IW blog will have this and that; your first five “we met in IW and are building something” stories will get blasted far and wide. I stake my reputation on this.
We would like to put your startup story on the top page of IdeasWatch and also feature your story on our Blogger blog and then…
The first five IdeasWatch members (Ideators) to provide a story of how they met in IdeasWatch and are starting to make something, or launch a new business, organization, program or website – will all get a large boost from me, OsakaSaul (Saul Fleischman), the community development guy at IdeasWatch. We’ll take what we can get, include your link (okay, not your Amazon sales-pitch things, of course) to your new site, your professional profile and/or Twitter handle links, and make no mistake: if there’s any connection made within IdeasWatch that is beginning to blossom into a team and onwards towards a new startup, the story is perfect fro the top page blog of IdeasWatch and our external Blogger.
Promote your IdeasWatch connection story?
Yes! On our blog, which will get shared, of course.
IdeasWatch.com is for people with ideas – the “Ideators“
Even half-ideas count. We launch ideas in IdeasWatch to get feedback, learn of similar existing sites/apps/etc., and also, to team up on each others’ projects.
Have any of us met in IW and started working on a collaboration of any kind? We would like to feature you – and also your site URL(s) if you’d like, Twitter accounts, etc.
We want these stories and the ability to show you and your progress off to the entire IdeasWatch community, through our blog (see it embedded – right in the center of the main page of IW!)
Just send your story and any attached image files, etc., with links included and full Twitter handles (for example, not @osakasaul but http://ping.fm/oAXPo ) to michal.hudecek@ideaswatch.com
I offered a great opportunity to those wanting to get their new baby “out there,” by importing the IdeasWatch blog – right on the top page of Ideaswatch.com, and then suggesting that it will mainly be from our members, not from the founder or myself.
Get your internet startup promoted - big time!
Launch something new and you go from “offering” to randomly blasting and spamming LinkedIn groups – and in short form, onwards and downwards to the emotional blackmail of friends and family to get them to check in and comment or like anything, even once a week. Unless, of course, what you have created is actually a reinvention of the wheel. Its tough out there.
What are IdeasWatch Ideators sharing?
Here’s my latest Idea to be launched: Register for several new sites – at one time
Perhaps you launch a new social network, review site, or web application. You test all you can yourselves and with a few friends, but then, you need a “seed” community to get traction. Many of us – such as the membership of IdeasWatch and the Yammer-based StartupGuild – would be happy to do a reciprocal thing: let’s register and try each others’ new sites.
Registering for 10 or 50 sites, one by one, is time-consuming. If there was one page and perhaps a tick-box to multi-register deal, I’d gladly register to many fellow internet startup innovators’ sites and give them a fair try. Naturally, we’d want to “stagger” additions to the list of sites to register on, perhaps monthly or even every 3 months, so anyone participating would do many registrations at once, not just one or a few – and thus, make this multi-registration clearly a time-saver.
Reciprocation: if I have learned nothing else from my 20 years in Japan, this is something you do learn here. (Moving my idea from Yammer to here.) Launch something new and you go from “offering” to randomly blasting and spamming LinkedIn groups – and shortly, on to emotional blackmail of friends and family to get them to check in and comment or like anything, even once a week. Unless, of course, what you have created is actually a reinvention of the wheel. Its tough out there.
Check out IdeasWatch – even without registration or any sign-in
(but your ideas and comments, etc. are all done anonymously).
Profile completion in IW is a snap!
Register and sign-in through your choice of networks and you can contribute with your name/pseudonym and get input on what you think might be a worthwhile thing to build and launch. You might even get people selecting the “I wanna do this” option – and telling you what they would like to bring to your team. All features within IdeasWatch are free, of course, and are presented as a labor of love for fellow Ideators by founder Michal Hudeček (of Maintop Businesses) (Prague) and I.
About Saul Fleischman
Working with social web apps developers on getting things made: my role tends to be functionality ideation, user experience, and also, marketing communications and community development.
Wednesday, April 25, 2012
Transactional Email Issues http://su....
Transactional Email Issues http://su.pr/5ccfM5 via @OsakaSaul
Email. Ah what a nightmare! Inevitably we’ll want some bit of software to react and send off a pearl of wisdom in the form of an email message. Naively perhaps, a bit idealistically, I would like to see that email lands in the recipients inbox.
Bliss that would be to do it consistently and reliably.
Myths or legends get started from who knows when by who knows whom and has a tendency to stick around longer than it should. Tell me if you fell for this old wives’ tale:
“For an application to send off an email, just send it through the smtp server.”
Lets see how that goes:
1) Hey are you an smtp server. Wake up, I want to send an email;
2) Oh hello! Here’s all the crap I support most of which you can’t be sure is supported by all smtp servers and the other half is completely useless. But one thing is guaranteed, it’s all outdated;
3) Sure whatever. Is that liquor on your breathe. Anyway, here is the email to send;
4) OK (not to be confused as an indication of success or failure) or unrecoverable epic crash;
5) Done.
Those numbers aren’t an all too familiar unfixable WordPress formatting flaw, it’s all the back and forth communication between a healthy bit of code and a smtp server. Which takes time. Up to 5 seconds, instead of instantly done.
After all this back and forth, don’t even know whether the email was sent successful or not. Went through the host bureaucracy, the kind that loves receiving forms and whose idea of communication is sending lengthy misleading threats, design smtp… And we are left with the worry that our message is destined for the trash folder or marked as spam – if it even gets delivered.
Side-step the bureaucrat?
For most of us, smtp is our only option.
Forward in time to the 21st century, hopefully everyone has given up on things like: wood gas engines, paper currencies maintaining their purchasing power, and sending email directly to a smtp server. We expect the services we use to be competitive and feature rich. Getting started; painless and quick. And most importantly “reliable.”
“Transactional email” takes the place of the nightmare laid out above. The process is simplified down to sending one request (using curl). With actionable feedback. Lets ignore all the great features for another article, there must be a catch.
Setting up Postmark (transactional email)
The most important reason to go with transactional email is having the piece of mind knowing email communication will arrive reliably, end up in the recipient’s inbox, and happen near instantaneously.
Postmarkapp
Lets start by going to http://ping.fm/5x8zu and setting up an account. You’re asked to give a name to a “server” and it makes a big show of lots of stuff being configured. Then choose a sender (from) email address that your application will be using when sending emails. A confirmation email is sent. You click on the url within the email. Confirming you are the proud owner of that email address. Pretty standard stuff so far.
Next comes the shocker. Have to make two additions to your site’s dns settings. And only way those changes will happen is if you ask your web host really nicely, and when that fails, never hurts if your web host is a drinking buddy.
Asking web hosts
After explaining the two lines that need to be added to the site’s DNS, I got served a dish of reality:
Servage (Germany web host)
Kindly note that it is not possible to add customized TXT records at Servage. But you can add SPF/TXT records for the hotmail and google by going through the below steps:
Control Panel>> Domains>> DNS settings >> SPF
So dead end there. What Servage supports would be good enough to send @gmail.com or @hotmail.com authenticated email through a smtp server. Besides being slow and unreliable, sending from a web email address leaves recipients with the feeling that they are dealing with a bunch of amateurs.
First Choice Internet (Tokyo, Japan)
2012 Apr 4th. Day 1
good to hear from you.
sure, I can make these 2 changes for you.
2012 Apr 8th Day 5
1) txt record for [domain name] – v=spf1 a mx include:spf.mtasv.net ~all
2) pm_domainkey.[domain name] – IP: 217.105.32.102 (that is the mail server)
3) txt record for pm_domainkey.[domain name] – k=rsa;p=M……..
Could you please check if this is correct and if it is working?
At this point, the keys to the postmark account were handed over, so the web host has a chance at determining whether the changes were successful or not.
2012 Apr 10th Day 7
o-medetou! Should be working now.
Let me know if you should still encounter problems.
So one full week later, the dns changes were finished. Would have been quicker to give over the keys to the postmark account immediately after the web host agrees to make the changes. Lesson hopefully learned.
Afterwards — Bernd Plagge, First Choice Internet
we have been using spf for many years – although in a non-enforcing
way. The required spf record was just a variation of what we put in by
standard.
The dkim key is just another record. When I first put it in I made a
copy mistake. Then I had to enter it manually into our DNS database
because the system didn’t like the ‘_’ in the ‘pm._domainkey’
subdomain. But that can be amended.
So, in all it was straightforward.
It is probably a bit too much to expect the average customer to provide
a valid DKIM key. Therefore it makes only sense to offer it to
everybody if we calculate the dkim keys as well.
So warn your web host about the underscore might cause a minor inconvenience.
Code libraries
List of PHP5 libraries, wordpress plug-in, drupal module, magneto extension, and many many more can be found here:
Choose to implement this library for PHP5
Any implementation snafus not covered? Let us know about your horror stories in the comment section.
Is your site using smtp or transactional email?
What transactional email provider did you choose?
What features attracted you to make that choice?
Email. Ah what a nightmare! Inevitably we’ll want some bit of software to react and send off a pearl of wisdom in the form of an email message. Naively perhaps, a bit idealistically, I would like to see that email lands in the recipients inbox.
Bliss that would be to do it consistently and reliably.
Myths or legends get started from who knows when by who knows whom and has a tendency to stick around longer than it should. Tell me if you fell for this old wives’ tale:
“For an application to send off an email, just send it through the smtp server.”
Lets see how that goes:
1) Hey are you an smtp server. Wake up, I want to send an email;
2) Oh hello! Here’s all the crap I support most of which you can’t be sure is supported by all smtp servers and the other half is completely useless. But one thing is guaranteed, it’s all outdated;
3) Sure whatever. Is that liquor on your breathe. Anyway, here is the email to send;
4) OK (not to be confused as an indication of success or failure) or unrecoverable epic crash;
5) Done.
Those numbers aren’t an all too familiar unfixable WordPress formatting flaw, it’s all the back and forth communication between a healthy bit of code and a smtp server. Which takes time. Up to 5 seconds, instead of instantly done.
After all this back and forth, don’t even know whether the email was sent successful or not. Went through the host bureaucracy, the kind that loves receiving forms and whose idea of communication is sending lengthy misleading threats, design smtp… And we are left with the worry that our message is destined for the trash folder or marked as spam – if it even gets delivered.
Side-step the bureaucrat?
For most of us, smtp is our only option.
Forward in time to the 21st century, hopefully everyone has given up on things like: wood gas engines, paper currencies maintaining their purchasing power, and sending email directly to a smtp server. We expect the services we use to be competitive and feature rich. Getting started; painless and quick. And most importantly “reliable.”
“Transactional email” takes the place of the nightmare laid out above. The process is simplified down to sending one request (using curl). With actionable feedback. Lets ignore all the great features for another article, there must be a catch.
Setting up Postmark (transactional email)
The most important reason to go with transactional email is having the piece of mind knowing email communication will arrive reliably, end up in the recipient’s inbox, and happen near instantaneously.
Postmarkapp
Lets start by going to http://ping.fm/5x8zu and setting up an account. You’re asked to give a name to a “server” and it makes a big show of lots of stuff being configured. Then choose a sender (from) email address that your application will be using when sending emails. A confirmation email is sent. You click on the url within the email. Confirming you are the proud owner of that email address. Pretty standard stuff so far.
Next comes the shocker. Have to make two additions to your site’s dns settings. And only way those changes will happen is if you ask your web host really nicely, and when that fails, never hurts if your web host is a drinking buddy.
Asking web hosts
After explaining the two lines that need to be added to the site’s DNS, I got served a dish of reality:
Servage (Germany web host)
Kindly note that it is not possible to add customized TXT records at Servage. But you can add SPF/TXT records for the hotmail and google by going through the below steps:
Control Panel>> Domains>> DNS settings >> SPF
So dead end there. What Servage supports would be good enough to send @gmail.com or @hotmail.com authenticated email through a smtp server. Besides being slow and unreliable, sending from a web email address leaves recipients with the feeling that they are dealing with a bunch of amateurs.
First Choice Internet (Tokyo, Japan)
2012 Apr 4th. Day 1
good to hear from you.
sure, I can make these 2 changes for you.
2012 Apr 8th Day 5
1) txt record for [domain name] – v=spf1 a mx include:spf.mtasv.net ~all
2) pm_domainkey.[domain name] – IP: 217.105.32.102 (that is the mail server)
3) txt record for pm_domainkey.[domain name] – k=rsa;p=M……..
Could you please check if this is correct and if it is working?
At this point, the keys to the postmark account were handed over, so the web host has a chance at determining whether the changes were successful or not.
2012 Apr 10th Day 7
o-medetou! Should be working now.
Let me know if you should still encounter problems.
So one full week later, the dns changes were finished. Would have been quicker to give over the keys to the postmark account immediately after the web host agrees to make the changes. Lesson hopefully learned.
Afterwards — Bernd Plagge, First Choice Internet
we have been using spf for many years – although in a non-enforcing
way. The required spf record was just a variation of what we put in by
standard.
The dkim key is just another record. When I first put it in I made a
copy mistake. Then I had to enter it manually into our DNS database
because the system didn’t like the ‘_’ in the ‘pm._domainkey’
subdomain. But that can be amended.
So, in all it was straightforward.
It is probably a bit too much to expect the average customer to provide
a valid DKIM key. Therefore it makes only sense to offer it to
everybody if we calculate the dkim keys as well.
So warn your web host about the underscore might cause a minor inconvenience.
Code libraries
List of PHP5 libraries, wordpress plug-in, drupal module, magneto extension, and many many more can be found here:
Choose to implement this library for PHP5
Any implementation snafus not covered? Let us know about your horror stories in the comment section.
Is your site using smtp or transactional email?
What transactional email provider did you choose?
What features attracted you to make that choice?
Tuesday, April 24, 2012
Despite the dream of some entrepreneu...
Despite the dream of some entrepreneurs to meet a VC with deep pockets, the fact is that 99.9 percent of business owners will struggle alone, pulling themselves up by their bootstraps. And that's not necessarily a bad thing. With a little luck and a lot of pluck, bootstrapping a business can be both financially and emotionally rewarding.
There are no guarantees of success when self-financing a business, of course, but there are some guidelines that will make the game go smoothly.
Entrepreneur Know Thyself
Each business and each entrepreneur is unique. It's important for the business owner to understand the risk that he or she can withstand. A recent college grad may have a high tolerance to risk because she probably doesn't have much to lose. But the equation looks a lot different for a 30-year old single parent. Throw in a couple of obligations for a mortgage and a car, and mom or dad may be reluctant to give up the day job to venture into the unknown.
Shep and Ian Murray knew they had a high tolerance for risk when they decided to launch Vineyard Vines LLC, their Greenwich, Connecticut, necktie company. Shep, 31, and Ian, 27, had barely entered the workforce when the entrepreneurial bug bit them. "We had a vision and we just went for it," says Shep. During the early days, the brothers racked up more than $40,000 in credit card debt, "but we knew that someday when we were making millions, that would seem like a trivial amount."
Bart Snow, 35, was a little further along the career curve, but still had little to loose when he and his wife started Rainbow Express Inc., a courier service in Columbus, Ohio. "We had a very small house payment and no kids. We knew that if we were going to do it, it had to be now." Still, the couple agreed that Bart should keep his job until the fledgling company could afford to replace at least some of his income.
Understanding personal economics upfront will make future finance decisions easier. How much capital will each partner be willing to put into a business? How much debt are they willing to assume? Set the ground rules upfront to make the tough financial decisions easier in the long run.
Look Before You Leap
At the concept stage, a business is like an egg that has not yet hatched--and the incubation process can be expensive. Doing research, making phone calls and buying supplies can eat through thousands of dollars before the business is really even born. Many entrepreneurs limit their risk and expense by keeping their day job and letting the idea percolate during evenings and weekends.
The Murray brothers took several months to decide on all the details that shaped their first foray into the world of fashion neckties. "We didn't have a penny to our names, but we had an idea. While we were still working, we used as many [free] resources as we could. We even took advantage of the studio at the agency where I was working for design resources," says younger brother Ian. Meanwhile, Shep's employer had a fashion division that introduced the brothers to the suppliers they needed. They had lined up both the designs and the production of their first line of neckties before ever quitting their jobs.
Of course, not all employers will so generously support the moonlighting activities of employees. But keeping a steady income during the planning phases of a business is the best start to bootstrapping any new venture.
Learn More
Think you're ready to bootstrap your way to success? Here are five tips to help you get started.
There are no guarantees of success when self-financing a business, of course, but there are some guidelines that will make the game go smoothly.
Entrepreneur Know Thyself
Each business and each entrepreneur is unique. It's important for the business owner to understand the risk that he or she can withstand. A recent college grad may have a high tolerance to risk because she probably doesn't have much to lose. But the equation looks a lot different for a 30-year old single parent. Throw in a couple of obligations for a mortgage and a car, and mom or dad may be reluctant to give up the day job to venture into the unknown.
Shep and Ian Murray knew they had a high tolerance for risk when they decided to launch Vineyard Vines LLC, their Greenwich, Connecticut, necktie company. Shep, 31, and Ian, 27, had barely entered the workforce when the entrepreneurial bug bit them. "We had a vision and we just went for it," says Shep. During the early days, the brothers racked up more than $40,000 in credit card debt, "but we knew that someday when we were making millions, that would seem like a trivial amount."
Bart Snow, 35, was a little further along the career curve, but still had little to loose when he and his wife started Rainbow Express Inc., a courier service in Columbus, Ohio. "We had a very small house payment and no kids. We knew that if we were going to do it, it had to be now." Still, the couple agreed that Bart should keep his job until the fledgling company could afford to replace at least some of his income.
Understanding personal economics upfront will make future finance decisions easier. How much capital will each partner be willing to put into a business? How much debt are they willing to assume? Set the ground rules upfront to make the tough financial decisions easier in the long run.
Look Before You Leap
At the concept stage, a business is like an egg that has not yet hatched--and the incubation process can be expensive. Doing research, making phone calls and buying supplies can eat through thousands of dollars before the business is really even born. Many entrepreneurs limit their risk and expense by keeping their day job and letting the idea percolate during evenings and weekends.
The Murray brothers took several months to decide on all the details that shaped their first foray into the world of fashion neckties. "We didn't have a penny to our names, but we had an idea. While we were still working, we used as many [free] resources as we could. We even took advantage of the studio at the agency where I was working for design resources," says younger brother Ian. Meanwhile, Shep's employer had a fashion division that introduced the brothers to the suppliers they needed. They had lined up both the designs and the production of their first line of neckties before ever quitting their jobs.
Of course, not all employers will so generously support the moonlighting activities of employees. But keeping a steady income during the planning phases of a business is the best start to bootstrapping any new venture.
Learn More
Think you're ready to bootstrap your way to success? Here are five tips to help you get started.
Transactional Email http://su.pr/5ccf...
Transactional Email http://su.pr/5ccfM5
Ah what a nightmare! Inevitably we’ll want some bit of software to react and send off a pearl of wisdom in the form of an email message. Naively perhaps, a bit idealistically, I would like to see that email lands in the recipients inbox.
Bliss that would be to do it consistently and reliably.
Myths or legends get started from who knows when by who knows whom and has a tendency to stick around longer than it should. Tell me if you fell for this old wives’ tale:
“For an application to send off an email, just send it through the smtp server.”
Lets see how that goes:
1) Hey are you an smtp server. Wake up, I want to send an email;
2) Oh hello! Here’s all the crap I support most of which you can’t be sure is supported by all smtp servers and the other half is completely useless. But one thing is guaranteed, it’s all outdated;
3) Sure whatever. Is that liquor on your breathe. Anyway, here is the email to send.
Those numbers aren’t an all too familiar unfixable WordPress formatting flaw, it’s all the back and forth communication between a healthy bit of code and a smtp server. Which takes time. Up to 5 seconds, instead of instantly done.
After all this back and forth, don’t even know whether the email was sent successful or not. Went through the host bureaucracy, the kind that loves receiving forms and whose idea of communication is sending lengthy misleading threats, design smtp… And we are left with the worry that our message is destined for the trash folder or marked as spam – if it even gets delivered.
Side-step the bureaucrat?
For most of us, smtp is our only option.
Forward in time to the 21st century, hopefully everyone has given up on things like: wood gas engines, paper currencies maintaining their purchasing power, and sending email directly to a smtp server. We expect the services we use to be competitive and feature rich. Getting started; painless and quick. And most importantly “reliable.”
“Transactional email” takes the place of the nightmare laid out above. The process is simplified down to sending one request (using curl). With actionable feedback. Lets ignore all the great features for another article, there must be a catch.
Setting up Postmark (transactional email)
The most important reason to go with transactional email is having the piece of mind knowing email communication will arrive reliably, end up in the recipient’s inbox, and happen near instantaneously.
Postmarkapp
Lets start by going to http://ping.fm/stYSh and setting up an account. You’re asked to give a name to a “server” and it makes a big show of lots of stuff being configured. Then choose a sender (from) email address that your application will be using when sending emails. A confirmation email is sent. You click on the url within the email. Confirming you are the proud owner of that email address. Pretty standard stuff so far.
Next comes the shocker. Have to make two additions to your site’s dns settings. And only way those changes will happen is if you ask your web host really nicely, and when that fails, never hurts if your web host is a drinking buddy.
Asking web hosts
After explaining the two lines that need to be added to the site’s DNS, I got served a dish of reality:
Servage (Germany web host)
Kindly note that it is not possible to add customized TXT records at Servage. But you can add SPF/TXT records for the hotmail and google by going through the below steps:
Control Panel>> Domains>> DNS settings >> SPF
So dead end there. What Servage supports would be good enough to send @gmail.com or @hotmail.com authenticated email through a smtp server. Besides being slow and unreliable, sending from a web email address leaves recipients with the feeling that they are dealing with a bunch of amateurs.
First Choice Internet (Tokyo, Japan)
2012 Apr 4th. Day 1
good to hear from you.
sure, I can make these 2 changes for you.
2012 Apr 8th Day 5
1) txt record for [domain name] – v=spf1 a mx include:spf.mtasv.net ~all
2) pm_domainkey.[domain name] – IP: 217.105.32.102 (that is the mail server)
3) txt record for pm_domainkey.[domain name] – k=rsa;p=M……..
Could you please check if this is correct and if it is working?
At this point, the keys to the postmark account were handed over, so the web host has a chance at determining whether the changes were successful or not.
2012 Apr 10th Day 7
o-medetou! Should be working now.
Let me know if you should still encounter problems.
So one full week later, the dns changes were finished. Would have been quicker to give over the keys to the postmark account immediately after the web host agrees to make the changes. Lesson hopefully learned.
Afterwards — Bernd Plagge, First Choice Internet
we have been using spf for many years – although in a non-enforcing
way. The required spf record was just a variation of what we put in by
standard.
The dkim key is just another record. When I first put it in I made a
copy mistake. Then I had to enter it manually into our DNS database
because the system didn’t like the ‘_’ in the ‘pm._domainkey’
subdomain. But that can be amended.
So, in all it was straightforward.
It is probably a bit too much to expect the average customer to provide
a valid DKIM key. Therefore it makes only sense to offer it to
everybody if we calculate the dkim keys as well.
So warn your web host about the underscore might cause a minor inconvenience.
Code libraries
List of PHP5 libraries, wordpress plug-in, drupal module, magneto extension, and many many more can be found here:
Choose to implement this library for PHP5
Any implementation snafus not covered? Let us know about your horror stories in the comment section.
Is your site using smtp or transactional email?
What transactional email provider did you choose?
What features attracted you to make that choice?
Ah what a nightmare! Inevitably we’ll want some bit of software to react and send off a pearl of wisdom in the form of an email message. Naively perhaps, a bit idealistically, I would like to see that email lands in the recipients inbox.
Bliss that would be to do it consistently and reliably.
Myths or legends get started from who knows when by who knows whom and has a tendency to stick around longer than it should. Tell me if you fell for this old wives’ tale:
“For an application to send off an email, just send it through the smtp server.”
Lets see how that goes:
1) Hey are you an smtp server. Wake up, I want to send an email;
2) Oh hello! Here’s all the crap I support most of which you can’t be sure is supported by all smtp servers and the other half is completely useless. But one thing is guaranteed, it’s all outdated;
3) Sure whatever. Is that liquor on your breathe. Anyway, here is the email to send.
Those numbers aren’t an all too familiar unfixable WordPress formatting flaw, it’s all the back and forth communication between a healthy bit of code and a smtp server. Which takes time. Up to 5 seconds, instead of instantly done.
After all this back and forth, don’t even know whether the email was sent successful or not. Went through the host bureaucracy, the kind that loves receiving forms and whose idea of communication is sending lengthy misleading threats, design smtp… And we are left with the worry that our message is destined for the trash folder or marked as spam – if it even gets delivered.
Side-step the bureaucrat?
For most of us, smtp is our only option.
Forward in time to the 21st century, hopefully everyone has given up on things like: wood gas engines, paper currencies maintaining their purchasing power, and sending email directly to a smtp server. We expect the services we use to be competitive and feature rich. Getting started; painless and quick. And most importantly “reliable.”
“Transactional email” takes the place of the nightmare laid out above. The process is simplified down to sending one request (using curl). With actionable feedback. Lets ignore all the great features for another article, there must be a catch.
Setting up Postmark (transactional email)
The most important reason to go with transactional email is having the piece of mind knowing email communication will arrive reliably, end up in the recipient’s inbox, and happen near instantaneously.
Postmarkapp
Lets start by going to http://ping.fm/stYSh and setting up an account. You’re asked to give a name to a “server” and it makes a big show of lots of stuff being configured. Then choose a sender (from) email address that your application will be using when sending emails. A confirmation email is sent. You click on the url within the email. Confirming you are the proud owner of that email address. Pretty standard stuff so far.
Next comes the shocker. Have to make two additions to your site’s dns settings. And only way those changes will happen is if you ask your web host really nicely, and when that fails, never hurts if your web host is a drinking buddy.
Asking web hosts
After explaining the two lines that need to be added to the site’s DNS, I got served a dish of reality:
Servage (Germany web host)
Kindly note that it is not possible to add customized TXT records at Servage. But you can add SPF/TXT records for the hotmail and google by going through the below steps:
Control Panel>> Domains>> DNS settings >> SPF
So dead end there. What Servage supports would be good enough to send @gmail.com or @hotmail.com authenticated email through a smtp server. Besides being slow and unreliable, sending from a web email address leaves recipients with the feeling that they are dealing with a bunch of amateurs.
First Choice Internet (Tokyo, Japan)
2012 Apr 4th. Day 1
good to hear from you.
sure, I can make these 2 changes for you.
2012 Apr 8th Day 5
1) txt record for [domain name] – v=spf1 a mx include:spf.mtasv.net ~all
2) pm_domainkey.[domain name] – IP: 217.105.32.102 (that is the mail server)
3) txt record for pm_domainkey.[domain name] – k=rsa;p=M……..
Could you please check if this is correct and if it is working?
At this point, the keys to the postmark account were handed over, so the web host has a chance at determining whether the changes were successful or not.
2012 Apr 10th Day 7
o-medetou! Should be working now.
Let me know if you should still encounter problems.
So one full week later, the dns changes were finished. Would have been quicker to give over the keys to the postmark account immediately after the web host agrees to make the changes. Lesson hopefully learned.
Afterwards — Bernd Plagge, First Choice Internet
we have been using spf for many years – although in a non-enforcing
way. The required spf record was just a variation of what we put in by
standard.
The dkim key is just another record. When I first put it in I made a
copy mistake. Then I had to enter it manually into our DNS database
because the system didn’t like the ‘_’ in the ‘pm._domainkey’
subdomain. But that can be amended.
So, in all it was straightforward.
It is probably a bit too much to expect the average customer to provide
a valid DKIM key. Therefore it makes only sense to offer it to
everybody if we calculate the dkim keys as well.
So warn your web host about the underscore might cause a minor inconvenience.
Code libraries
List of PHP5 libraries, wordpress plug-in, drupal module, magneto extension, and many many more can be found here:
Choose to implement this library for PHP5
Any implementation snafus not covered? Let us know about your horror stories in the comment section.
Is your site using smtp or transactional email?
What transactional email provider did you choose?
What features attracted you to make that choice?
Transactional Email http://su.pr/5ccf...
Transactional Email http://su.pr/5ccfM5
Ah what a nightmare! Inevitably we’ll want some bit of software to react and send off a pearl of wisdom in the form of an email message. Naively perhaps, a bit idealistically, I would like to see that email lands in the recipients inbox.
Bliss that would be to do it consistently and reliably.
Myths or legends get started from who knows when by who knows whom and has a tendency to stick around longer than it should. Tell me if you fell for this old wives’ tale:
“For an application to send off an email, just send it through the smtp server.”
Lets see how that goes:
1) Hey are you an smtp server. Wake up, I want to send an email;
2) Oh hello! Here’s all the crap I support most of which you can’t be sure is supported by all smtp servers and the other half is completely useless. But one thing is guaranteed, it’s all outdated;
3) Sure whatever. Is that liquor on your breathe. Anyway, here is the email to send.
Those numbers aren’t an all too familiar unfixable WordPress formatting flaw, it’s all the back and forth communication between a healthy bit of code and a smtp server. Which takes time. Up to 5 seconds, instead of instantly done.
After all this back and forth, don’t even know whether the email was sent successful or not. Went through the host bureaucracy, the kind that loves receiving forms and whose idea of communication is sending lengthy misleading threats, design smtp… And we are left with the worry that our message is destined for the trash folder or marked as spam – if it even gets delivered.
Side-step the bureaucrat?
For most of us, smtp is our only option.
Forward in time to the 21st century, hopefully everyone has given up on things like: wood gas engines, paper currencies maintaining their purchasing power, and sending email directly to a smtp server. We expect the services we use to be competitive and feature rich. Getting started; painless and quick. And most importantly “reliable.”
“Transactional email” takes the place of the nightmare laid out above. The process is simplified down to sending one request (using curl). With actionable feedback. Lets ignore all the great features for another article, there must be a catch.
Setting up Postmark (transactional email)
The most important reason to go with transactional email is having the piece of mind knowing email communication will arrive reliably, end up in the recipient’s inbox, and happen near instantaneously.
Postmarkapp
Lets start by going to http://ping.fm/9kb7p and setting up an account. You’re asked to give a name to a “server” and it makes a big show of lots of stuff being configured. Then choose a sender (from) email address that your application will be using when sending emails. A confirmation email is sent. You click on the url within the email. Confirming you are the proud owner of that email address. Pretty standard stuff so far.
Next comes the shocker. Have to make two additions to your site’s dns settings. And only way those changes will happen is if you ask your web host really nicely, and when that fails, never hurts if your web host is a drinking buddy.
Asking web hosts
After explaining the two lines that need to be added to the site’s DNS, I got served a dish of reality:
Servage (Germany web host)
Kindly note that it is not possible to add customized TXT records at Servage. But you can add SPF/TXT records for the hotmail and google by going through the below steps:
Control Panel>> Domains>> DNS settings >> SPF
So dead end there. What Servage supports would be good enough to send @gmail.com or @hotmail.com authenticated email through a smtp server. Besides being slow and unreliable, sending from a web email address leaves recipients with the feeling that they are dealing with a bunch of amateurs.
First Choice Internet (Tokyo, Japan)
2012 Apr 4th. Day 1
good to hear from you.
sure, I can make these 2 changes for you.
2012 Apr 8th Day 5
1) txt record for [domain name] – v=spf1 a mx include:spf.mtasv.net ~all
2) pm_domainkey.[domain name] – IP: 217.105.32.102 (that is the mail server)
3) txt record for pm_domainkey.[domain name] – k=rsa;p=M……..
Could you please check if this is correct and if it is working?
At this point, the keys to the postmark account were handed over, so the web host has a chance at determining whether the changes were successful or not.
2012 Apr 10th Day 7
o-medetou! Should be working now.
Let me know if you should still encounter problems.
So one full week later, the dns changes were finished. Would have been quicker to give over the keys to the postmark account immediately after the web host agrees to make the changes. Lesson hopefully learned.
Afterwards — Bernd Plagge, First Choice Internet
we have been using spf for many years – although in a non-enforcing
way. The required spf record was just a variation of what we put in by
standard.
The dkim key is just another record. When I first put it in I made a
copy mistake. Then I had to enter it manually into our DNS database
because the system didn’t like the ‘_’ in the ‘pm._domainkey’
subdomain. But that can be amended.
So, in all it was straightforward.
It is probably a bit too much to expect the average customer to provide
a valid DKIM key. Therefore it makes only sense to offer it to
everybody if we calculate the dkim keys as well.
So warn your web host about the underscore might cause a minor inconvenience.
Code libraries
List of PHP5 libraries, wordpress plug-in, drupal module, magneto extension, and many many more can be found here:
Choose to implement this library for PHP5
Any implementation snafus not covered? Let us know about your horror stories in the comment section.
Is your site using smtp or transactional email?
What transactional email provider did you choose?
What features attracted you to make that choice?
Ah what a nightmare! Inevitably we’ll want some bit of software to react and send off a pearl of wisdom in the form of an email message. Naively perhaps, a bit idealistically, I would like to see that email lands in the recipients inbox.
Bliss that would be to do it consistently and reliably.
Myths or legends get started from who knows when by who knows whom and has a tendency to stick around longer than it should. Tell me if you fell for this old wives’ tale:
“For an application to send off an email, just send it through the smtp server.”
Lets see how that goes:
1) Hey are you an smtp server. Wake up, I want to send an email;
2) Oh hello! Here’s all the crap I support most of which you can’t be sure is supported by all smtp servers and the other half is completely useless. But one thing is guaranteed, it’s all outdated;
3) Sure whatever. Is that liquor on your breathe. Anyway, here is the email to send.
Those numbers aren’t an all too familiar unfixable WordPress formatting flaw, it’s all the back and forth communication between a healthy bit of code and a smtp server. Which takes time. Up to 5 seconds, instead of instantly done.
After all this back and forth, don’t even know whether the email was sent successful or not. Went through the host bureaucracy, the kind that loves receiving forms and whose idea of communication is sending lengthy misleading threats, design smtp… And we are left with the worry that our message is destined for the trash folder or marked as spam – if it even gets delivered.
Side-step the bureaucrat?
For most of us, smtp is our only option.
Forward in time to the 21st century, hopefully everyone has given up on things like: wood gas engines, paper currencies maintaining their purchasing power, and sending email directly to a smtp server. We expect the services we use to be competitive and feature rich. Getting started; painless and quick. And most importantly “reliable.”
“Transactional email” takes the place of the nightmare laid out above. The process is simplified down to sending one request (using curl). With actionable feedback. Lets ignore all the great features for another article, there must be a catch.
Setting up Postmark (transactional email)
The most important reason to go with transactional email is having the piece of mind knowing email communication will arrive reliably, end up in the recipient’s inbox, and happen near instantaneously.
Postmarkapp
Lets start by going to http://ping.fm/9kb7p and setting up an account. You’re asked to give a name to a “server” and it makes a big show of lots of stuff being configured. Then choose a sender (from) email address that your application will be using when sending emails. A confirmation email is sent. You click on the url within the email. Confirming you are the proud owner of that email address. Pretty standard stuff so far.
Next comes the shocker. Have to make two additions to your site’s dns settings. And only way those changes will happen is if you ask your web host really nicely, and when that fails, never hurts if your web host is a drinking buddy.
Asking web hosts
After explaining the two lines that need to be added to the site’s DNS, I got served a dish of reality:
Servage (Germany web host)
Kindly note that it is not possible to add customized TXT records at Servage. But you can add SPF/TXT records for the hotmail and google by going through the below steps:
Control Panel>> Domains>> DNS settings >> SPF
So dead end there. What Servage supports would be good enough to send @gmail.com or @hotmail.com authenticated email through a smtp server. Besides being slow and unreliable, sending from a web email address leaves recipients with the feeling that they are dealing with a bunch of amateurs.
First Choice Internet (Tokyo, Japan)
2012 Apr 4th. Day 1
good to hear from you.
sure, I can make these 2 changes for you.
2012 Apr 8th Day 5
1) txt record for [domain name] – v=spf1 a mx include:spf.mtasv.net ~all
2) pm_domainkey.[domain name] – IP: 217.105.32.102 (that is the mail server)
3) txt record for pm_domainkey.[domain name] – k=rsa;p=M……..
Could you please check if this is correct and if it is working?
At this point, the keys to the postmark account were handed over, so the web host has a chance at determining whether the changes were successful or not.
2012 Apr 10th Day 7
o-medetou! Should be working now.
Let me know if you should still encounter problems.
So one full week later, the dns changes were finished. Would have been quicker to give over the keys to the postmark account immediately after the web host agrees to make the changes. Lesson hopefully learned.
Afterwards — Bernd Plagge, First Choice Internet
we have been using spf for many years – although in a non-enforcing
way. The required spf record was just a variation of what we put in by
standard.
The dkim key is just another record. When I first put it in I made a
copy mistake. Then I had to enter it manually into our DNS database
because the system didn’t like the ‘_’ in the ‘pm._domainkey’
subdomain. But that can be amended.
So, in all it was straightforward.
It is probably a bit too much to expect the average customer to provide
a valid DKIM key. Therefore it makes only sense to offer it to
everybody if we calculate the dkim keys as well.
So warn your web host about the underscore might cause a minor inconvenience.
Code libraries
List of PHP5 libraries, wordpress plug-in, drupal module, magneto extension, and many many more can be found here:
Choose to implement this library for PHP5
Any implementation snafus not covered? Let us know about your horror stories in the comment section.
Is your site using smtp or transactional email?
What transactional email provider did you choose?
What features attracted you to make that choice?
Thursday, April 19, 2012
UX Ideas For Human Reproduction http:...
UX Ideas For Human Reproduction http://su.pr/1sdaPR
The Japanese inspire me with their drive to continually improve – everything. Even packets of catsup open better in Japan than in America. Might it be time for the Great Heavenly Father to rethink a couple things about how we increase our number? I think so, and while I am supposed to be working on the user experience issues with a social media sharing tool that I am designing, I wonder if I might offer God a few thoughts. Mind you, these are not prayers, nor are they what I would wish upon my own reproductive “user experience,” but since it occurs to me that the deal is rather flawed, here are my ideas:
Gamify the deal a lot better in favor of the women
If the female is going to bring the child to term, and suffer the pains of pregnancy and childbirth, why not demand more from the male? Again, in my lifetime, there’s no need to implement the human reproductive UX ideas I have for you – and what’s more, I think many would agree that you might do well to start an entirely new type of “us,” Human 2.0, say, on a different planet.
Give the functional mammaries to the men
Getting ready for baby-feeding, this guy isn't about to go looking for action while his wife is preggin' it, is he?
and make them start filling with milk, gradually, immediately after successful mating. This would prompt the guy to stick around after the fun’s over, and make him appear what theHuman 2.0 female regard as “taken”: a guy walking around with noticably expanding boobs. Further, it would motivate the male to:
take care of what he puts in his body, while the female is doing likewise, while pregnant
do all of the feeding, pretty much, while the baby is being breastfed
suffer a healthy dose of the indignity, inconvenience and discomfort of breastfeeding, which would encourage him to think twice before remarking on how the female’s ass might have changed in shape for the worse.
I would actually just do this one major change before implementing my next suggestion, so as to evaluate the reactions, changes on population growth, male reluctance to engage in intercourse, etc. You really want to make such major changes in stages, I believe. And try them on the beings on a planet other than earth, first (please).
If you find males far less willing to engage in intercourse with the female to male mammary reassignment, I would further encourage males with the following trade-off: when the males “unlock” the milk-producing mammaries feature, let them also unlock the ability to control the dimensions of their penises at will, and perhaps, upon producing a second child, also control turgidity and staying power. Naturally, I am assuming that the major religions have read you right – with their teaching that you, Lord, do actually wish us to be (more) fruitful and multiplying.
Gender change at will
Just as some fish, insects, and other animals (plants too, I believe) have the ability to change gender when they sense a major imbalance, you might next try this with adult humans. Let us be who we want to be. Let us choose the role that feel right, regardless of the junk you started us out with. I think of this one having known a number of homosexual humans, through my life, who truly never felt right being forced to either abstain from sex or use what seems to be the wrong stuff to them. I also recall the Semester at Sea program (do check the linked page; no joke – around the globe in one semester, its for real; they simply do not believe in paying for advertising) I did in the Fall semester of 1988, and while it was a blast for us 63 male students, with 410 female college students on a cruise ship, nightclub, volleyball, swimming pool… and less than of us (hunted!) males: in the mating game, the tables were clearly turned, suffice it to say. Talk about going “from zero to hero…”
I will finish with a musical tribute to the opposite situation: this is what happens when a nightclub is taken over by geeks. Hint: it can be even more awkward for us guys, when we greatly outnumber the females…
God has yet to comment on my blog
(PLEASE DO NOT COMMENT AS “GOD,” UNLESS YOU ARE REASONABLY COMFORTABLE IN YOUR BELIEF THAT YOU ARE GOD. IN THAT CASE, BY ALL MEANS!) I CAN ALWAYS HOPE, RIGHT?
About Saul Fleischman
Working with social web apps developers on getting things made: my role tends to be functionality ideation, user experience, and also, marketing communications and community development.
The Japanese inspire me with their drive to continually improve – everything. Even packets of catsup open better in Japan than in America. Might it be time for the Great Heavenly Father to rethink a couple things about how we increase our number? I think so, and while I am supposed to be working on the user experience issues with a social media sharing tool that I am designing, I wonder if I might offer God a few thoughts. Mind you, these are not prayers, nor are they what I would wish upon my own reproductive “user experience,” but since it occurs to me that the deal is rather flawed, here are my ideas:
Gamify the deal a lot better in favor of the women
If the female is going to bring the child to term, and suffer the pains of pregnancy and childbirth, why not demand more from the male? Again, in my lifetime, there’s no need to implement the human reproductive UX ideas I have for you – and what’s more, I think many would agree that you might do well to start an entirely new type of “us,” Human 2.0, say, on a different planet.
Give the functional mammaries to the men
Getting ready for baby-feeding, this guy isn't about to go looking for action while his wife is preggin' it, is he?
and make them start filling with milk, gradually, immediately after successful mating. This would prompt the guy to stick around after the fun’s over, and make him appear what theHuman 2.0 female regard as “taken”: a guy walking around with noticably expanding boobs. Further, it would motivate the male to:
take care of what he puts in his body, while the female is doing likewise, while pregnant
do all of the feeding, pretty much, while the baby is being breastfed
suffer a healthy dose of the indignity, inconvenience and discomfort of breastfeeding, which would encourage him to think twice before remarking on how the female’s ass might have changed in shape for the worse.
I would actually just do this one major change before implementing my next suggestion, so as to evaluate the reactions, changes on population growth, male reluctance to engage in intercourse, etc. You really want to make such major changes in stages, I believe. And try them on the beings on a planet other than earth, first (please).
If you find males far less willing to engage in intercourse with the female to male mammary reassignment, I would further encourage males with the following trade-off: when the males “unlock” the milk-producing mammaries feature, let them also unlock the ability to control the dimensions of their penises at will, and perhaps, upon producing a second child, also control turgidity and staying power. Naturally, I am assuming that the major religions have read you right – with their teaching that you, Lord, do actually wish us to be (more) fruitful and multiplying.
Gender change at will
Just as some fish, insects, and other animals (plants too, I believe) have the ability to change gender when they sense a major imbalance, you might next try this with adult humans. Let us be who we want to be. Let us choose the role that feel right, regardless of the junk you started us out with. I think of this one having known a number of homosexual humans, through my life, who truly never felt right being forced to either abstain from sex or use what seems to be the wrong stuff to them. I also recall the Semester at Sea program (do check the linked page; no joke – around the globe in one semester, its for real; they simply do not believe in paying for advertising) I did in the Fall semester of 1988, and while it was a blast for us 63 male students, with 410 female college students on a cruise ship, nightclub, volleyball, swimming pool… and less than of us (hunted!) males: in the mating game, the tables were clearly turned, suffice it to say. Talk about going “from zero to hero…”
I will finish with a musical tribute to the opposite situation: this is what happens when a nightclub is taken over by geeks. Hint: it can be even more awkward for us guys, when we greatly outnumber the females…
God has yet to comment on my blog
(PLEASE DO NOT COMMENT AS “GOD,” UNLESS YOU ARE REASONABLY COMFORTABLE IN YOUR BELIEF THAT YOU ARE GOD. IN THAT CASE, BY ALL MEANS!) I CAN ALWAYS HOPE, RIGHT?
About Saul Fleischman
Working with social web apps developers on getting things made: my role tends to be functionality ideation, user experience, and also, marketing communications and community development.
Wednesday, April 18, 2012
Positivity in Hip Hop: the "Jerk Move...
Positivity in Hip Hop: the "Jerk Movement" !kohausMusicGroup @BlackCaesarX & @VladoFootwear @BigSoul on the “Jerk Movement” http://su.pr/5q6dDg
“Kid Soul” (of Vlado Footwear) and Carlos Romero @BlackCaesarX have talked at length from time to time and even though they may not have seen eye to eye in every conversation, the positive impact that Kid Soul brings to the Jerk Movement is undoubtedly the heart that keeps the “Jerkin” non-violent, non-negative hip hop movement alive.
Kid Soul (from his Facebook Page)
Kid Soul: in his element
Vlado Footwear
Marketing Manager · Los Angeles, California
marketing manager of vlado footwear and the jerk movement also founding member of the Breakfast Club
JerkinCantDie
Santa Monica College
University of Southern California
If you don’t remember breakin’ or lockin’, perhaps you remember
Crunk: the dance form
You see back in the day about 2009 or so after the “Krunk” period of Tommy The Clown kind of subsided the youth still looked for a means of expression and with the advent of the New Boyz “Your a Jerk” with the dancing of thePower Rangers, Jerkin’ was born.
The Jerk Movement: non-violent hip hop
The Jerk movement started as a loosely knit gathering of like-minded youth, tired of the Hip Hop violent Rapper image, after all the youth just wanted to have fun and enjoy life, before any Rodney King type episodes might befall them in the then ever present state of an unequal justice America. But, they had no organization, and only the one group New Boyz and the Power Rangers dance group to express this new artistic dance form.
“Enter Kid Soul a former group member of a rap group, I’m not sure which one he’s kind of humble about his beginnings. Someone had to take the lead in keeping this art form alive, so Kid Soul was already entrenched in the movement, realizing the nascent art form needed dance gear and aligned himself with Vlado Footwear and came up with a functional design for the demands of Jerk dancing.” (Carlos Romero)
Carlos AKA “BlackCaesarX” vs Kid Soul – on seeing eye-to-eye, a thing to aspire to
!kohausMusicGroup Founder, Carlos Romero
So there you have it an authoritative glimpse into who “Kid Soul” really is and what he means to the Jerk movement. Now “Kid Soul” is the pragmatist / Carlos Romero @BlackCaesarX is more the artistic purist and traditional in terms as the Jerk Movement as an art form. “Maybe one day we can collaborate on a more functional Jerk Dance shoe, because I believe it is more “quality than quantity” and meet somewhere in the middle pushing the Jerk movement to all new heights.”
As for our place in the movement, Carlos and I see the kids having their videos lifted, mashed up, and sold on multiple sharing networks. We aim to empower the “Jerks” with tactics and technology that will help them retain the rights – and the profits – from the stuff they make.
!kohausMusicGroup: Grassroots Social Action
More on Carlos, !kohausMusicGroup, and far more videos from the Jerk Movement can be foundhere.
About Saul Fleischman
Working with social web apps developers on getting things made: my role tends to be functionality ideation, user experience, and also, marketing communications and community development.
“Kid Soul” (of Vlado Footwear) and Carlos Romero @BlackCaesarX have talked at length from time to time and even though they may not have seen eye to eye in every conversation, the positive impact that Kid Soul brings to the Jerk Movement is undoubtedly the heart that keeps the “Jerkin” non-violent, non-negative hip hop movement alive.
Kid Soul (from his Facebook Page)
Kid Soul: in his element
Vlado Footwear
Marketing Manager · Los Angeles, California
marketing manager of vlado footwear and the jerk movement also founding member of the Breakfast Club
JerkinCantDie
Santa Monica College
University of Southern California
If you don’t remember breakin’ or lockin’, perhaps you remember
Crunk: the dance form
You see back in the day about 2009 or so after the “Krunk” period of Tommy The Clown kind of subsided the youth still looked for a means of expression and with the advent of the New Boyz “Your a Jerk” with the dancing of thePower Rangers, Jerkin’ was born.
The Jerk Movement: non-violent hip hop
The Jerk movement started as a loosely knit gathering of like-minded youth, tired of the Hip Hop violent Rapper image, after all the youth just wanted to have fun and enjoy life, before any Rodney King type episodes might befall them in the then ever present state of an unequal justice America. But, they had no organization, and only the one group New Boyz and the Power Rangers dance group to express this new artistic dance form.
“Enter Kid Soul a former group member of a rap group, I’m not sure which one he’s kind of humble about his beginnings. Someone had to take the lead in keeping this art form alive, so Kid Soul was already entrenched in the movement, realizing the nascent art form needed dance gear and aligned himself with Vlado Footwear and came up with a functional design for the demands of Jerk dancing.” (Carlos Romero)
Carlos AKA “BlackCaesarX” vs Kid Soul – on seeing eye-to-eye, a thing to aspire to
!kohausMusicGroup Founder, Carlos Romero
So there you have it an authoritative glimpse into who “Kid Soul” really is and what he means to the Jerk movement. Now “Kid Soul” is the pragmatist / Carlos Romero @BlackCaesarX is more the artistic purist and traditional in terms as the Jerk Movement as an art form. “Maybe one day we can collaborate on a more functional Jerk Dance shoe, because I believe it is more “quality than quantity” and meet somewhere in the middle pushing the Jerk movement to all new heights.”
As for our place in the movement, Carlos and I see the kids having their videos lifted, mashed up, and sold on multiple sharing networks. We aim to empower the “Jerks” with tactics and technology that will help them retain the rights – and the profits – from the stuff they make.
!kohausMusicGroup: Grassroots Social Action
More on Carlos, !kohausMusicGroup, and far more videos from the Jerk Movement can be foundhere.
About Saul Fleischman
Working with social web apps developers on getting things made: my role tends to be functionality ideation, user experience, and also, marketing communications and community development.
Saturday, April 14, 2012
Internet Startups: Just tell us when ...
Internet Startups: Just tell us when you stuff up
Just be honest. http://su.pr/1qJ7wu
(We're sick of cover-ups)
Taken from a recent Megan Berry Interview, just after her exodus from the foundering Klout:
Customers: They are the lifeline of any business. No matter what kind of business you are running, keeping your customers happy is key.
How can brands, big or small, do just that? Megan Berry, founder of LiftFive and former Senior Marketing Manager at Klout, explains to genConnect how to create a conversation with your customers and how not to piss people off:
Megan Berry
video platformvideo managementvideo solutionsvideo player
“The first thing is to start a conversation with [customers],”Berry told genConnect. “Don’t make assumptions about what they want or what they care about. You can’t talk to everyone but you can find the key people who are the influencers in that community and find out what matters to them and what they care about as a transition happens.
So what happens when you slip up? Companies aren’t perfect so come clean to your customers; they will appreciate you even more.
“Recognizing your mistakes, stepping up and saying ‘We did X wrong and here’s how we are going to remedy it’ is great,” Berry said. “Companies are so reluctant to say when they make a mistake that consumers are just overjoyed when it happens.”
Just tell us when you stuff things up.
We notice. We will forgive you. But not when you piss on us and tell us its raining.
Just be honest. http://su.pr/1qJ7wu
(We're sick of cover-ups)
Taken from a recent Megan Berry Interview, just after her exodus from the foundering Klout:
Customers: They are the lifeline of any business. No matter what kind of business you are running, keeping your customers happy is key.
How can brands, big or small, do just that? Megan Berry, founder of LiftFive and former Senior Marketing Manager at Klout, explains to genConnect how to create a conversation with your customers and how not to piss people off:
Megan Berry
video platformvideo managementvideo solutionsvideo player
“The first thing is to start a conversation with [customers],”Berry told genConnect. “Don’t make assumptions about what they want or what they care about. You can’t talk to everyone but you can find the key people who are the influencers in that community and find out what matters to them and what they care about as a transition happens.
So what happens when you slip up? Companies aren’t perfect so come clean to your customers; they will appreciate you even more.
“Recognizing your mistakes, stepping up and saying ‘We did X wrong and here’s how we are going to remedy it’ is great,” Berry said. “Companies are so reluctant to say when they make a mistake that consumers are just overjoyed when it happens.”
Just tell us when you stuff things up.
We notice. We will forgive you. But not when you piss on us and tell us its raining.
Wednesday, April 11, 2012
StumbleUpon, Not Pinterest, For Page ...
StumbleUpon, Not Pinterest, For Page Views
su.pr size it! http://su.pr/1X350m
Pinterest is all the rage, as of this writing
People are motivated to visit blogs from Pinterest by one thing: image quality
Let’s remember, every action in liking, re-pinning and sharing in Pinterest is visually-driven. Recipes, kittens in coffee cups, hot infographics, and inebriated people removing themselves from the gene pool – along with brilliant photographic and video work will get seen, shared (read: lifted and “repinned” to others’ boards) and make you the cat’s meow in Pinterest.
Seldom-discussed fact: Pinterest is hardly new. Private beta invites went out in the beginning of March, 2010
I think its just a matter of how long I’ve been using Pinterest and perhaps the OsakaSaul name that people have “seen around” that has caused me to collect likes, repins and a slew of followers within Pinterest.
I have been kicking their tires for nearly two years, and while they’re gotten flashy, I would love to see them be more thoughtful to the user in their user experience. My ideas for just the most obvious Pinterest UX improvements:
Close windows after we’ve liked/shared
let us multi-share with boxes to tick, rather than having us repeat steps
provide us with us more condensed view options – so we can get more done with a lot less scrolling
For me, words are my strength. Article titles drive traffic from many sources, and terms, or “key words” within the body of posts draws natural search traffic. A couple Google Analytics screenshots should speak volumes. For Referral Page Views, StumbleUpon is still doing it for me, with 1,095 pageviews in the last 30 days (just 4 new articles published in that time), and Pinterest, where I have had an account and boards for about two years, does not even make the top 25. Also, note the 1.19 page visits (means some people see other pages after the one they came to see, once on my blog) and an average stay of 58 seconds:
Where do I find Pinterest within Google Analytics? 39th place – seven visits/30 days.
Seven visits, thanks to my seven boards in Pinterest and dozens of images, most of which lead to OsakaBentures.com. While the Time on site of 10:13 and 3.57 average pages viewed would look glorious, I’m not buying it:
the sample is too small – just seven visits to my blog from Pinterest, so, I’m guessing that one or more people left their computer on and the browser showing my blog and did other things for an hour or so – before closing the browser or going elsewhere on the internet;
my own wife would not listen to me for 10:13 at a time (or read 3.57 of my writing) – even when we were still dating, and she still felt compelled to pretend to take interest in what I had to say.
If you, too, are not using breathtaking images, infographics, or showcasing the People of Walmart in original and shocking ways…
Learn to build a presence in StumbleUpon
Follow people you know, to start, but understand that it will take some time to understand how they are going to use StumbleUpon. I get better and better at looking at a Stumbler’s number of likes, the recency of likes and what they like – and decide if the Stumbler is going to appreciate what I share to them, perhaps “SU-like” on occasion, and maybe not share tons of odd stuff to me.
Every couple days, from Profile > Connections > Visitors, from the pull-down menu, see who you don’t already know (they could be people you are already connected to who simply looked at your likes most recently), and see what their stats tell you. What do they like? How often, and when was the last time they shared content? Follow (or don’t) wisely; you can only follow 500 people in StumbleUpon.
Stumble-review your own post, and also go through your blog circle, etc. and SU-like your supporting bloggers’ latest posts.The first review on a page is the StumbleUpon “Discovery Review” – and counts the most for StumbleUpon SEO. StumbleUpon allows you to add as many tags as you like, but actually uses the first five you provide. These, multiplied by the number of likes you have on the page, once reviewed, increase the likelihood that your page will appear “randomly” before Stumblers who are Stumbling their followed topics.
For reviews on your own posts/pages – or any that you want to be sure get in front of many Stumblers’ eyes – test your tags in the StumbleUpon “Explore Box,” which suggests acceptable StumbleUpon topics from words and phrases that you input.
If your content is not particularly visually dynamic and you are seeing far better results, please share what you are doing differently.
About Saul Fleischman
Working with social web apps developers on getting things made: my role tends to be functionality ideation, user experience, and also, marketing communications and community development.
su.pr size it! http://su.pr/1X350m
Pinterest is all the rage, as of this writing
People are motivated to visit blogs from Pinterest by one thing: image quality
Let’s remember, every action in liking, re-pinning and sharing in Pinterest is visually-driven. Recipes, kittens in coffee cups, hot infographics, and inebriated people removing themselves from the gene pool – along with brilliant photographic and video work will get seen, shared (read: lifted and “repinned” to others’ boards) and make you the cat’s meow in Pinterest.
Seldom-discussed fact: Pinterest is hardly new. Private beta invites went out in the beginning of March, 2010
I think its just a matter of how long I’ve been using Pinterest and perhaps the OsakaSaul name that people have “seen around” that has caused me to collect likes, repins and a slew of followers within Pinterest.
I have been kicking their tires for nearly two years, and while they’re gotten flashy, I would love to see them be more thoughtful to the user in their user experience. My ideas for just the most obvious Pinterest UX improvements:
Close windows after we’ve liked/shared
let us multi-share with boxes to tick, rather than having us repeat steps
provide us with us more condensed view options – so we can get more done with a lot less scrolling
For me, words are my strength. Article titles drive traffic from many sources, and terms, or “key words” within the body of posts draws natural search traffic. A couple Google Analytics screenshots should speak volumes. For Referral Page Views, StumbleUpon is still doing it for me, with 1,095 pageviews in the last 30 days (just 4 new articles published in that time), and Pinterest, where I have had an account and boards for about two years, does not even make the top 25. Also, note the 1.19 page visits (means some people see other pages after the one they came to see, once on my blog) and an average stay of 58 seconds:
Where do I find Pinterest within Google Analytics? 39th place – seven visits/30 days.
Seven visits, thanks to my seven boards in Pinterest and dozens of images, most of which lead to OsakaBentures.com. While the Time on site of 10:13 and 3.57 average pages viewed would look glorious, I’m not buying it:
the sample is too small – just seven visits to my blog from Pinterest, so, I’m guessing that one or more people left their computer on and the browser showing my blog and did other things for an hour or so – before closing the browser or going elsewhere on the internet;
my own wife would not listen to me for 10:13 at a time (or read 3.57 of my writing) – even when we were still dating, and she still felt compelled to pretend to take interest in what I had to say.
If you, too, are not using breathtaking images, infographics, or showcasing the People of Walmart in original and shocking ways…
Learn to build a presence in StumbleUpon
Follow people you know, to start, but understand that it will take some time to understand how they are going to use StumbleUpon. I get better and better at looking at a Stumbler’s number of likes, the recency of likes and what they like – and decide if the Stumbler is going to appreciate what I share to them, perhaps “SU-like” on occasion, and maybe not share tons of odd stuff to me.
Every couple days, from Profile > Connections > Visitors, from the pull-down menu, see who you don’t already know (they could be people you are already connected to who simply looked at your likes most recently), and see what their stats tell you. What do they like? How often, and when was the last time they shared content? Follow (or don’t) wisely; you can only follow 500 people in StumbleUpon.
Stumble-review your own post, and also go through your blog circle, etc. and SU-like your supporting bloggers’ latest posts.The first review on a page is the StumbleUpon “Discovery Review” – and counts the most for StumbleUpon SEO. StumbleUpon allows you to add as many tags as you like, but actually uses the first five you provide. These, multiplied by the number of likes you have on the page, once reviewed, increase the likelihood that your page will appear “randomly” before Stumblers who are Stumbling their followed topics.
For reviews on your own posts/pages – or any that you want to be sure get in front of many Stumblers’ eyes – test your tags in the StumbleUpon “Explore Box,” which suggests acceptable StumbleUpon topics from words and phrases that you input.
If your content is not particularly visually dynamic and you are seeing far better results, please share what you are doing differently.
About Saul Fleischman
Working with social web apps developers on getting things made: my role tends to be functionality ideation, user experience, and also, marketing communications and community development.
Monday, April 9, 2012
The first @ideaswatch blog post http:...
The first @ideaswatch blog post http://ping.fm/RR7TL for @MichalHudecek
Hey Ideators - Can we give you some free promotion?
Promote yourself? Yes! On our blog, which will get shared, of course.
Have any of us met in IW and started working on a collaboration of any kind? We would like to feature you - and also your site URL(s) if you'd like, Twitter accounts, etc.
We want these stories and the ability to show you and your progress off to the entire IdeasWatch community, through our blog (and soon, in other places, too...)
Just send your story and any attached image files, etc., with links included and full Twitter handles (for example, not @osakasaul but http://ping.fm/RgPox ) to michal.hudecek@ideaswatch.com
Hey Ideators - Can we give you some free promotion?
Promote yourself? Yes! On our blog, which will get shared, of course.
Have any of us met in IW and started working on a collaboration of any kind? We would like to feature you - and also your site URL(s) if you'd like, Twitter accounts, etc.
We want these stories and the ability to show you and your progress off to the entire IdeasWatch community, through our blog (and soon, in other places, too...)
Just send your story and any attached image files, etc., with links included and full Twitter handles (for example, not @osakasaul but http://ping.fm/RgPox ) to michal.hudecek@ideaswatch.com
Sunday, April 8, 2012
'How to Create Facebook Fan Pages fro...
'How to Create Facebook Fan Pages from A 2 Z' is updated & available http://ping.fm/kXABP… via @blocki_ @osakasaul
Hey @Instagram @Statigram doesn't hel...
Hey @Instagram @Statigram doesn't help those w/o Hemorrhoid or iHavemoneytoburn (Android/iPhone). Open registration to non-mobile users?
This is Hanami Sunday in Osaka - just...
This is Hanami Sunday in Osaka - just got back from a park in Sakai where the Sakura are in full-bloom, barbeques going too!
Friday, April 6, 2012
!kohaus Art !s: Art!sts Gallery Shop
!kohaus Art !s: Art!sts Gallery Shop: 50% of all work sold here (*excluding shipping costs) is donated to East Carolina University for Academic Scholarships or Programs through ...
Wednesday, April 4, 2012
RT @socialmedia2day: Bootstrapping In...
RT @socialmedia2day: Bootstrapping Internet Ingenuity & Crediting Collaborators by @osakasaul http://ow.ly/1iyTQG
Bootstrapping Social Media Tools su.p...
Bootstrapping Social Media Tools
su.pr size it! http://su.pr/1D3lEb
Increasingly, those who read my blog are dipping at least a toe or two into the waters of collaboration, and so I thought to tell people, old friends and new ones, what I have been doing most recently.
Being Useful
I want cooperation from people with abilities I don’t have and so I help worthwhile people with what they need, drawing on my strengths.
Okay, truth be told, I actually enjoy helping people, whether it be with SEO basics, WordPress issues, or what I am mostly doing: lean startup team-building and social media tool creation, and just plain getting things made.
I have to get tools made and live, whether they are instantly profitable or not. I have come to understand that what people know me for is know-how that they don’t want to pay for, and any way you slice it, is not going to produce a level of revenue that will allow me the freedom to continue
taking my own ideas and those of collaborators, refining them together, and then bootstrapping their creation and launch.
Blogging, the ins and outs of crowdsourcing, proprietary technology securing for light startups, CMS, syndication, curation, aggregation, aggravation, blogger character assassination: we’ve talked on this, whether you consider “talking” the ideas going around on my blog and comments or in a G+ Hangout or my favorite communication channel (figure this one out, why don’t you?), the discussions are plentiful. Seven days/week for me, in fact, I’m talking with people in Japan and worldwide, trouble-shooting each others’ plans and crowdfunded launches, and so on.
What really floats my boat, however, is the 1+1+1=5,000 math of starting up and creating new things, drawing on the varied abilities of tiny creative teams: ultralight startup initiation. I am now mainly working on a few projects (I am not at liberty to provide specifics) which at least aim to be fun and useful, innovative social media tools. We are taking each others’ hair-brain “got part of it/stuck on the…”-type ideas, refining them together, creating visualizations to facilitate our understanding of what we are refining our projects into, and then
Bootstrapping Web Apps
Specifically, the projects range from…
Ronald de Block‘s Facebook Fanpage ebook‘s introduction, re-branding and marketing
zero-cost performing artists’ summer festival (North Carolina Coast)
IdeasWatch.com user experience and community building
the creation of a content sharing site tag optimization tool
and even a darkly comedic site that will showcase and celebrate a growing, vibrant, ever-changing and community-nominated selection of only the most mind-bogglingly imbecilic bloggers ever to pollute the blogosphere (what, you thought I was “nice?” Wrong guy, wrong blog.) Our scope is wide; we may not need to look beyond Triberr, however.
and a couple other facebook games and mobile apps that are so, so hot, I wont even hint at what our mad scientists aim to release into the atmosphere…
These projects are fun, working on them is a joy (even when headaches and hickups arise) and they all aim to bring people together, and do something fairly good.
People seem to be plotting to make me happy
We don’t get involved in projects we can’t feel good about bringing into existence. What’s more, I find that I am usually the loud-mouth who insists that we at least offer to
Showcase the talents of every single person who contributed substantially to the realization of what we create.
And credit their asses publicly.
This is something I see scant little of, and something I believe to be important. We know that we will not make money with everything we build and launch. We don’t accept your work, however, without finding a way that we all feel good about – to CREDIT YOU properly for your contributions, whether they be short or long-term involvements.
If we’re talking regularly, you know it is you who I am thrilled to be working with. I am sleeping less and less – yet more and more energetic and creative, and it do think you are the cause of this trend. You are more visual than I am, and so I just flip when I see the logos and wireframes you come up with. My temperature rises when php, .net and JAVA backend people read a specs document and show us other things that they could also do that would enhance the features we will provide to our site users. I appreciate the chance to work with people whose brains are wired much differently than my own – and
we each see light at the end of tunnels that we wouldn’t have even approached on our own.
We stumble, we redefine the scope and aims of projects sometimes (ouch!), and we learn from the little perks as well as the little pains.
Albert Einstein said that that’s okay: “a person who never made a mistake never tried anything new.”
I wonder what Einstein would have thought of FAQs? I love working with a web director and user experience colleague who remarked, on my addition of an FAQ link on the top page of one of our sites being developed, “no instructional videos, no FAQs. These are evidence of design ineptitude.”
Albert probably would have sided with Michal; we know him also for “intellectuals solve problems; geniuses prevent them.”
Do you have half a cockamamie idea for a social media tool, a Facebook learning game, cloud-based education or translation system, but perhaps not all the skills to do it all yourself? If you actually care more about getting it made soon, and done very professionally, then get talking with us, and let’s see where our synergies are strongest.
I leave you with where I was “featured” most recently – from Carlos Romero:
About Saul Fleischman
Working with social web apps developers on getting things made: my role tends to be functionality ideation, user experience, and also, marketing communications and community development.
su.pr size it! http://su.pr/1D3lEb
Increasingly, those who read my blog are dipping at least a toe or two into the waters of collaboration, and so I thought to tell people, old friends and new ones, what I have been doing most recently.
Being Useful
I want cooperation from people with abilities I don’t have and so I help worthwhile people with what they need, drawing on my strengths.
Okay, truth be told, I actually enjoy helping people, whether it be with SEO basics, WordPress issues, or what I am mostly doing: lean startup team-building and social media tool creation, and just plain getting things made.
I have to get tools made and live, whether they are instantly profitable or not. I have come to understand that what people know me for is know-how that they don’t want to pay for, and any way you slice it, is not going to produce a level of revenue that will allow me the freedom to continue
taking my own ideas and those of collaborators, refining them together, and then bootstrapping their creation and launch.
Blogging, the ins and outs of crowdsourcing, proprietary technology securing for light startups, CMS, syndication, curation, aggregation, aggravation, blogger character assassination: we’ve talked on this, whether you consider “talking” the ideas going around on my blog and comments or in a G+ Hangout or my favorite communication channel (figure this one out, why don’t you?), the discussions are plentiful. Seven days/week for me, in fact, I’m talking with people in Japan and worldwide, trouble-shooting each others’ plans and crowdfunded launches, and so on.
What really floats my boat, however, is the 1+1+1=5,000 math of starting up and creating new things, drawing on the varied abilities of tiny creative teams: ultralight startup initiation. I am now mainly working on a few projects (I am not at liberty to provide specifics) which at least aim to be fun and useful, innovative social media tools. We are taking each others’ hair-brain “got part of it/stuck on the…”-type ideas, refining them together, creating visualizations to facilitate our understanding of what we are refining our projects into, and then
Bootstrapping Web Apps
Specifically, the projects range from…
Ronald de Block‘s Facebook Fanpage ebook‘s introduction, re-branding and marketing
zero-cost performing artists’ summer festival (North Carolina Coast)
IdeasWatch.com user experience and community building
the creation of a content sharing site tag optimization tool
and even a darkly comedic site that will showcase and celebrate a growing, vibrant, ever-changing and community-nominated selection of only the most mind-bogglingly imbecilic bloggers ever to pollute the blogosphere (what, you thought I was “nice?” Wrong guy, wrong blog.) Our scope is wide; we may not need to look beyond Triberr, however.
and a couple other facebook games and mobile apps that are so, so hot, I wont even hint at what our mad scientists aim to release into the atmosphere…
These projects are fun, working on them is a joy (even when headaches and hickups arise) and they all aim to bring people together, and do something fairly good.
People seem to be plotting to make me happy
We don’t get involved in projects we can’t feel good about bringing into existence. What’s more, I find that I am usually the loud-mouth who insists that we at least offer to
Showcase the talents of every single person who contributed substantially to the realization of what we create.
And credit their asses publicly.
This is something I see scant little of, and something I believe to be important. We know that we will not make money with everything we build and launch. We don’t accept your work, however, without finding a way that we all feel good about – to CREDIT YOU properly for your contributions, whether they be short or long-term involvements.
If we’re talking regularly, you know it is you who I am thrilled to be working with. I am sleeping less and less – yet more and more energetic and creative, and it do think you are the cause of this trend. You are more visual than I am, and so I just flip when I see the logos and wireframes you come up with. My temperature rises when php, .net and JAVA backend people read a specs document and show us other things that they could also do that would enhance the features we will provide to our site users. I appreciate the chance to work with people whose brains are wired much differently than my own – and
we each see light at the end of tunnels that we wouldn’t have even approached on our own.
We stumble, we redefine the scope and aims of projects sometimes (ouch!), and we learn from the little perks as well as the little pains.
Albert Einstein said that that’s okay: “a person who never made a mistake never tried anything new.”
I wonder what Einstein would have thought of FAQs? I love working with a web director and user experience colleague who remarked, on my addition of an FAQ link on the top page of one of our sites being developed, “no instructional videos, no FAQs. These are evidence of design ineptitude.”
Albert probably would have sided with Michal; we know him also for “intellectuals solve problems; geniuses prevent them.”
Do you have half a cockamamie idea for a social media tool, a Facebook learning game, cloud-based education or translation system, but perhaps not all the skills to do it all yourself? If you actually care more about getting it made soon, and done very professionally, then get talking with us, and let’s see where our synergies are strongest.
I leave you with where I was “featured” most recently – from Carlos Romero:
About Saul Fleischman
Working with social web apps developers on getting things made: my role tends to be functionality ideation, user experience, and also, marketing communications and community development.
Monday, April 2, 2012
we need connex.us, but they need us f...
we need connex.us, but they need us first. For @nixkuroi pls watch the video, invest? A little even? http://ow.ly/a1aHC
Sunday, April 1, 2012
Crowdfunding Connex.Us from @nixkuroi...
Crowdfunding Connex.Us from @nixkuroi Mike Simon
Mike Simon, March 31, 2012
Connex.Us bolsters and assists you with your social media “Inner Circle”
Our dynamic new network will make intelligent suggestions about sharing with those you interact with the most.
Connex.Us is a social networking site that helps you start conversations, and respects your privacy.
Social media is one of the most exciting new technologies of the past decade, but with it has come a few challenges. Major social networks have become the source of endless privacy concerns where users are asked to give away more and more personal information.
Share, in your comfort zone
We at Connex.Us feel that anonymity and being able to choose if or how much you share is important. To that end, we have created a social network where you can identify yourself with as little as your preferred username and password, or as much as your email and real name. You can connect to other social networks and share into them, or invite your friends into Connex.Us where only you and your friends know your real identities.
The gamification of social networking has created an exciting, competitive environment.
Because of the growing number of social networks, this has led to ways of automating tweets and content delivery to the masses. The unfortunate side effect is that more time is spent finding, scheduling, and disseminating content than interacting with the friends. This has been called The Share-ocalpse, and the challenge gets bigger every day.
“Sharables”
We meet this challenge with Connex.Us “Sharables”. If you choose to connect Connex.Us to your social networks, you can start using Sharables, which pay attention to what you share, and who replies, retweets or discusses it, and makes intelligent suggestions about sharing with those you interact with the most. Connex.Us will also help manage social gaming site Empire Avenue, a social networking stock exchange, by simplifying your notifications and automating reciprocal buy backs. No more spread sheets. No more data entry. Let us do the work for you! In this way, Connex.Us gets content delivery out of your way and helps you re-engage with the people you care about. You can stop broadcasting, stop worrying about maintaining your numbers, and start talking again.
Sharables can be customized based on what you love to read. You can add your own RSS feeds and Connex.Us will function as your news reader, letting you share, curate and save links to stories that you care about the most.
Connex.us will connect us
We hope you find these features as compelling and useful as we do! Please see our Connex.Us Rockethub crowdfunding page, invest in Connex.Us (or at least a tweet, comment (ideas for the campaign would be awesome!), or share would be much appreciated) and help us achieve our goal of giving back your privacy, and getting back to real, meaningful, relevant conversation, no matter where you want to have it.
The Crowdfunding – I would really appreciate your feedback on the campaign. What incentives do you think would inspire your support? Let us know – we listen!
About Mike Simon
Mike Simon is a UX Architect who has worked at Microsoft, Intellectual Ventures and a few places he really can't talk about. He has a passion for writing, art, gadgets, music, programming, social networking, privacy, and family.
su.pr size it! http://su.pr/1kOpdq
Mike Simon, March 31, 2012
Connex.Us bolsters and assists you with your social media “Inner Circle”
Our dynamic new network will make intelligent suggestions about sharing with those you interact with the most.
Connex.Us is a social networking site that helps you start conversations, and respects your privacy.
Social media is one of the most exciting new technologies of the past decade, but with it has come a few challenges. Major social networks have become the source of endless privacy concerns where users are asked to give away more and more personal information.
Share, in your comfort zone
We at Connex.Us feel that anonymity and being able to choose if or how much you share is important. To that end, we have created a social network where you can identify yourself with as little as your preferred username and password, or as much as your email and real name. You can connect to other social networks and share into them, or invite your friends into Connex.Us where only you and your friends know your real identities.
The gamification of social networking has created an exciting, competitive environment.
Because of the growing number of social networks, this has led to ways of automating tweets and content delivery to the masses. The unfortunate side effect is that more time is spent finding, scheduling, and disseminating content than interacting with the friends. This has been called The Share-ocalpse, and the challenge gets bigger every day.
“Sharables”
We meet this challenge with Connex.Us “Sharables”. If you choose to connect Connex.Us to your social networks, you can start using Sharables, which pay attention to what you share, and who replies, retweets or discusses it, and makes intelligent suggestions about sharing with those you interact with the most. Connex.Us will also help manage social gaming site Empire Avenue, a social networking stock exchange, by simplifying your notifications and automating reciprocal buy backs. No more spread sheets. No more data entry. Let us do the work for you! In this way, Connex.Us gets content delivery out of your way and helps you re-engage with the people you care about. You can stop broadcasting, stop worrying about maintaining your numbers, and start talking again.
Sharables can be customized based on what you love to read. You can add your own RSS feeds and Connex.Us will function as your news reader, letting you share, curate and save links to stories that you care about the most.
Connex.us will connect us
We hope you find these features as compelling and useful as we do! Please see our Connex.Us Rockethub crowdfunding page, invest in Connex.Us (or at least a tweet, comment (ideas for the campaign would be awesome!), or share would be much appreciated) and help us achieve our goal of giving back your privacy, and getting back to real, meaningful, relevant conversation, no matter where you want to have it.
The Crowdfunding – I would really appreciate your feedback on the campaign. What incentives do you think would inspire your support? Let us know – we listen!
About Mike Simon
Mike Simon is a UX Architect who has worked at Microsoft, Intellectual Ventures and a few places he really can't talk about. He has a passion for writing, art, gadgets, music, programming, social networking, privacy, and family.
su.pr size it! http://su.pr/1kOpdq
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