Archive for the ‘ Social Media ’ Category
Get set to update your tweetdeck, or other multi-social network app. Google+ API is now Public. I of course will be playing with it this afternoon/evening and reporting all the awesomeness. For those of you who have free time you can find more info on the API at http://googleplusplatform.blogspot.com/ and http://developers.google.com/+/api/
Update: Looks like the current release of the API is read-only. Lame, but still it is a start.
The good Cole boys at Automattic have released a new patch, and are suggesting people update immediately to avoid being subject to a zero day bug.
I just installed the update from my phone, gotta love the technology.
So you are probably seeing a lot of people posting something about liking Olive Garden and how they are getting a $100 Gift Card from Olive Garden for simply following a few steps on a site called “http://eat-for-free-at-og.com/”
Now here’s the thing, it’s not actually a scam, but it certainly is NOT free. Why do I say it isn’t free? Because I can read, and here are the details as they actually work out.
First you are told there are three easy steps:
This is when the “free” part of this whole deal breaks down. You have already done the most damage at this point because you have announced to all of Facebook that you are easily duped because you don’t read the fine print as poorly designed sites like http://eat-for-free-at-og.com/
So here is what happens when you click on the “Claim” button you are sent to “amazingfreerewards.com” which is a great name since there is NOTHING free on their site. Ever.
Amazingfreerewards.com is a spam house that dupes you into either buying junk for a “free” prize, or (and more likely) gathering your email information so they can sell it to third parties to advertise and fill your inbox with junk mail (that isn’t technically spam because you have given full permission for them and anyone they choose to use your email address for advertising purposes).
Let’s look at the fine print shall we:
You must participate in and satisfy a total of 8 Sponsor Offers as follows:
Page 1: 2 offers
Page 2: 2 offers
Page 3: 4 offers
To satisfy the requirements for the Free $100 Olive Garden Gift Card, you must participate in the above-stated number of offers for each page (participating in offers in excess of those stated above for a given page does not reduce the number of offers in which you must participate on the other pages), and you must complete each of the Sponsor Offers pages listed above.
Please note Sponsor offers may require you to sample and/or purchase products of interest and/or take other actions such as applying for or obtaining a loan or extension of credit (including credit cards), transferring a balance, or similar steps. In order to remain eligible for your gift, you must complete all of the sponsor offers that require you to sample and purchase products of interest within 180 days of signing up for our service.
It couldn’t be more straight forward than that. You must satisfy 2 of the offers on Page 1. Let’s see what they are:
I think you get the picture. To complete any two of those offers you are looking at at least $70/month if not more! Not worth a $100 Olive Garden card.
So let’s all agree to not partake in this scam, and maybe instead let’s call the owner of the site, a one Rachel Johnson who is registered for the domain at 121 6Th Ave Apt2, Altoona, PA 16602 — You can call her at (814) 201-2184… I think to be fair we should all call late at night, just so she knows we really hate these sorts of scams.
Enjoy your weekend!
The internet is changing, and there is no better way to learn about the new things, or how to better leverage the old technologies than to attend a good conference. Well the folks at New Riders are gearing up for their fourth annual Voices That Matter Conference. Here are some details:
This conference brings together respected industry authors and thought-leaders of the Web design revolution. Many of you learned your very first Web design skills from these authors. Now, you can learn from them how changes to the building blocks of the Web—from HTML5 and CSS3 to user interfaces—are enabling designers to create sites that are easy to use, richly functional, packed with interactive features, and easily accessible from any Internet-capable device.
Topics this year include:
With speakers like Scott Jehl, Colleen Jones, Emily Lewis and many more this is a must attend event!
You can save $150 off the current price of any conference package by registering with Priority Code WDUSERG. Register by May 14th to save even more when your discount is combined with Early Bird pricing! http://www.voicesthatmatter.com/webdesign2010/
2010 is here and moving along at a good clip, can you believe it is already May?! Well the good folks at the Utah Open Source Conference have just announced their plans for this year’s conference, including dates, theme and location!
Here are the details:
The Utah Open Source Foundation is pleased to announce its 2010 Conference: October 7th-9th, 2010 at the Salt Lake Community College –Miller Free Enterprise Center in Sandy, Utah.
The Utah Open Source Conference 2010 will explore the theme “It’s better when it’s free*”.
The conference, now in its fourth year, is designed for all users, developers and administrators of Free and Open Source Software of any skill level.
You can see the official press release a Free Press Release: Utah Open Source Conference 2010 Announcement
For more information about the conference and to keep up with Open Source technology in Utah check out the foundations websites:
So they cool kids over at Automattic have done it again. They have produced a new product, with a great name that will do great things. What great things? How about protect your entire blog (or site) that is built on WordPress. Not just the content, but the plugins and everything else. Here is what VaultPress.com has to say about it:
VaultPress is the only restoration service built on the Automattic grid that reliably serves over 10 million WordPress.com blogs and 250 million monthly visitors.
VaultPress protects more than just your content. VaultPress understands the complete WordPress environment. This means your plugins, dashboard, themes, comments, and even your post revisions are all safeguarded and ready to be restored.
They plan to charge $15/month (give or take) but right now you can apply for your golden ticket at VaultPress.com, which will get you access to the service for free while they are still testing things out.
The golden passes are being handed out at random, so head over and sign up!
Hey everyone!
It is time to do it again. Our monthly #hackUTOS
UTOS has been sponsoring Open Source technologies in Utah for years now. This is a chance for all the members (and potential members) to come out meet some of the UTOS hackers including herlo, utahcon, and DexterTheDragon.
We will be hacking on ConMan, the Open Source Conference Management system used by UTOSC! This is a great chance for you to participate, learn,teach, and get credit toward attending the conference for a discounted price!
We will be meeting Tuesday March 2nd, 2010 at 7:00PM MST.
Along with meeting in person (details below) you can find us online in IRC. We are on the Freenode network in #utos-dev
Since the meeting place worked out well last time we will be meeting again at the Salt Lake Coffee Connection.
Located at:
1588 South State Street, Salt Lake City, UT 84115
The Salt Lake Coffee Connection is a really great place to meet. They have a great internet connection (provided by our good friends at Xmission), awesome drinks (check out the Dirty Chai!) and good food! The prices are good, and internet access is included with all purchases.
ConMan is written in Python, using the Django framework. We run it on MySQL and SQLite databases.
Don’t know Python, or Django? Don’t worry, we are all open to helping you get started. Please realize we are here to mainly work on our project, we are happy to offer light support to get you up and running.
If you aren’t interested in working on ConMan bring your own Open Source project! We would love to have you in the house for some great co-working!
Wired’s Game Life reported that 28 percent of Facebook gamers have paid real money for in game content.
Think about this for just a minute:
Fact: There are 400 Million Facebook users.
Let’s guess that only 10% of those users ( and I am sure the # is MUCH higher ) play these games on Facebook. That is 40 Million people.
28% of that group is 11,200,000 people.
That means if just $1 was spent by each person the Social Media game is an $11M/yr business. Not a huge number but let’s keep speculating.
I looked through a bunch of the games my wife plays online. The average ticket item is $3. That brings the tally to $33M/yr.
Let’s guess that my 10% of users is low, let’s guess 20%, now we are talking about $67M.
Anymore questions why there are “free” games on Facebook?
Ignite is an experience that everyone should have, at least once.
Brady Forrest and Bre Pettis, some of O’Reilly’s best, dreamed up an event where people could share their ideas over beer, and sent word out through their network.
The even is described best as:
Fast-paced, fun, thought-provoking, social, local, global—Ignite is all of these and more. It’s a high-energy evening of 5-minute talks by people who have an idea—and the guts to get onstage and share it with their hometown crowd. Run by local volunteers who are connected through the global Ignite network, Ignite is a force for raising the collective IQ and building connections in each city. And, via streaming and archived videos of local talks, local Ignites share all that knowledge and passion with the world.
No! Normal everyday people have been known, and are encouraged, to attend the event. There is no basis for the information share at the event. At Ignite SLC 3 we had topics ranging from food co-ops, open source technology, surfing vs. snowboarding, politics, and even beards!
The format is fast paced and keep things exciting, in most cases you can even bring kids (probably best if they are 13+) update: The State Room is a 21+ club, sorry kids!
Glad you asked! Zombies are a growing concern for many, and maybe you were wondering if the Zombie Apocolypse will have an impact on your dating regiment? Guess what, there is an Ignite presentation for that!
Jason Vance will be presenting “15 things to remember when dating in a post Apocalyptic Zombie Environment” — I personally am looking forward to this presentation!
Don’t appreciate zombies? That is ok, it will only be for 5 minutes and then you can move on to other great topics including:
and one that look particularly awesome:
because geeks and rap go hand-in-hand!
As with most of the awesome things in this world there is NO COST!! My list of awesome things includes, but is not limited to:
It looks like Matt and company have been busy getting things lined up for the WordPress Foundation, a non-profit with the goal:
“to ensure free access, in perpetuity, to the projects we support”
From the About page:
The WordPress Foundation is a charitable organization founded by Matt Mullenweg to further the mission of the WordPress open source project: to democratize publishing through Open Source, GPL software.
The point of the foundation is to ensure free access, in perpetuity, to the projects we support. People and businesses may come and go, so it is important to ensure that the source code for these projects will survive beyond the current contributor base, that we may create a stable platform for web publishing for generations to come. As part of this mission, the Foundation will be responsible for protecting the WordPress, WordCamp, and related trademarks. A 501(c)3 non-profit organization, the WordPress Foundation will also pursue a charter to educate the public about WordPress and related open source software.
I have long been a fan of WordPress, and now even more so. I am always amazed at the things that Matt and company come up with to move forward the power of WordPress.
For all those true WordPress geeks out there, the new site is running the WordPress 3.0 development version.