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Looking forward to MIXing in Las Vegas

This Saturday I'm flying to Las Vegas to attend Mix conference. Microsoft Austria invited me (all these years of iResistance are finally paying off!) to visit the world's capital of gambling – of course I'll report my trip on this very blog and via Twitter. After my return from the US you and me hopefully know anything there is to know about one-armed bandits, striptease clubs with high moral standards, new Microsoft web publishing techniques and the status quo of the cloud.

Mix Konferenz in Las Vegas

Plus I expect to do a couple of video interviews – I'm not sure why Microsoft called this place “The Commons”, but there is definitely a hang-out and socializing place, which I will take full advantage of since some sessions are quite code-related. Read more

Weekly Blogistan Round-Up no. 23/2009

Step in, ladies and gentlemen – welcome to the weekly Blogistan-round-up! It's my duty to entertain you (and sometimes maybe even piss you off), but who cares – it's all in the blog, st00pid! From Google Wave to the sluttiest brides in 2008, the blogosphere is here to cover your every information need.

Google announces Wave

The buzz is on – Google has announced the release of their newest project called “Wave” later this year. The stakes are high, as Wave claims to redefine the way we communicate and collaborate on the web. E-Mail, contacts social networks – Wave will tear down the boundaries between documents and dialogue:

A wave is equal parts conversation and document. People can communicate and work together with richly formatted text, photos, videos, maps, and more.
A wave is shared. Any participant can reply anywhere in the message, edit the content and add participants at any point in the process. Then playback lets anyone rewind the wave to see who said what and when.
A wave is live. With live transmission as you type, participants on a wave can have faster conversations, see edits and interact with extensions in real-time.

Google posted a couple of screenshots, future beta testers can sign up here. This in-depth presentation from Google I/O waters my mouth; and btw: Wave will be completely Open Source.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v_UyVmITiYQ[/youtube]

So much for Twitter's trending topics

“But all good things, they say, never last”, sang prince. And now TechCrunch is saying the same about Twitter's trending topics:

Up until recently, Twitter?s trending topics – which are prominently displayed on their Search homepage and now also in the sidebar when you?re using the Twitter website – were an awesome way to get a feel of what was buzzing on the Web, in a way that virtually no other web service was able to do.

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But then came the pirates and Michael is really pissed!

Today, when you look at Twitter?s trending topics, you?ll notice that the large majority of trends are memes started by a single user or a group of users, with the main goal offering entertainment rather than spreading information. That?s all fine and dandy – no harm in having fun – and I realize well that Twitter?s trending topics are not necessarily required to be giving you and me an overview of stuff that really matters, but I can?t help but think it?s a pity that that list is starting to turn into the top 10 of chain letters people used to circulate through e-mail messages in the late nineties.

Oh dear gosh, I wish more people would recognize that manipulating social media platforms is so much more fun than obeying their “laws”…

The real name problem

Many native Indians have names like “Robin kills the Enemy”. Their name is in their passport, the same applies to people with exotic names like Lisa Strawberry. But if your name sounds like made up (but actually isn't), you might have trouble keeping your Facebook account. An article on Spiegel Online [in German] reports that a couple of users got deleted without any previous notice. Facebook's policy requires you to use your real name, and with the ongoing success of the platform a lot of users are running multiple fake profiles with strange names. Removing these might be a good idea for FB in terms of scalability and reliability, but the collateral damage has become so big that the group Facebook: don't discriminate against Native surnames!!! already has more than 4.000 members, among them the likes of Linnie Birdchief, Carl Fourstar jr. and Sandy White Hawk. Facebook speaks person Barry Schmidt admitted mistakes, and the said accounts have been reactived, but the waiting period is quite long as only 850 people are on the payroll of the world's largest social network.

Russian investors buy a share of Facebook

New York Times reports that Russian internet investment company Digital Sky Technologies acquired 1.96% of Facebook for the sum of $200 million:

Digital Sky won because its founders Yuri Milner and Gregory Finger have strong experience running Internet properties in Eastern Europe and Russia, and “a deep, advanced understanding” of social networking technology, Zuckerberg said.

We all know that FB is burning money at an amazing rate, but Zuckerberg still plays it cool – after all, he is running the largest social network in the world. Yet still numbers have gone down: when Microsoft purchased 1.6% in 2007 they had to pay $240 million – during the last two years, the overall value of the platform has decreased from $15 to $10 billion despite the growth in user accounts.

Happy B-Day, Mr. Shoemoney!

Jeremy Shoemaker turned 35 this week – congrats, man! I love your blog and there you're the person who taught me the most valuable lessons about online marketing and blogging – thx for your excellent posts and keep up the great work! You definitely got a fan in Vienna :mrgreen:

This week's href=”http://www.shoemoney.com/2009/05/29/friendshirtme-free-shirt-friday/”>T-Shirt of the week is also definitely worth a look: it was printed by Friendshirt.me. And the comments say it all… when I saw this app I instantly had to order mine!

What is a Micro-Scobble?

Robert Scobble is a tech evangelist and twitter legend. Disqus blog published and interesting interview with man responsible for the tweet-frequency-unit “Micro-Scobble”:

I grew up in silicon valley, I had no choice. My Dad was an engineer and I grew up in Cupertino about a mile from Apple Computers. I had an Apple Computer in 1977, in my junior high I was in the first computer club , and I got a tour of Apple when they were one little building. So yeah, I?ve always been around tech.

My bride is not a slut. She just looks like one.

Judith sent me this great article – thx! Take a look at the Top 5 Sluttiest Wedding Dresses Spotted In 2009! Even though is nearly breaks my heart that Miss Carey is no longer single, I have to admit that with this elaborate sense of taste she'd get a job in any brothel in the whole world:

The Mariah Carrey slutty wedding dress certainly doesn't leave anything to the imagination. Fully equipped with garter belt, stockings, and a main fashion piece better off worn under the dress or on the wedding night, this dress starts us off with its moderately tame slutty fashion.

Video of the week

This one goes out to the Open Source Community – I usually don't publish ads as the video of the week, but in this case Redhead has done a fantastic job – and with over 3 minutes, in these short-clip times this is almost an online feature movie. Congrats to Peter Novak on this fantastic job!

Pic of the week

New to my weekly round-up: starting this week, I will publish a “pic of the week” – no special topics whatsoever. Since I started digi-SLR myself my appreciation for those perfect shots has grown immensely. Choosing the proper pic wasn't easy at all, but this Manasquan Reservoir by Joisey Showaa is one fantastic shot:

manasquan

And that's about it for this week – thx for visiting my blog, see you again next week!

Input for weekly round-upGot any news you'd like to read about in my weekly round-up of current blogosphere events?
Don't hesitate to contact me! Of course I'll include a backlink to your original story.

So don't hesitate – just click here for the contact form and give me an update on your issues: Give me input!.

Oh hi we fixed ur homezpage

Yesterday I talked about some twitter marketing ideas at digitalks. In my presentation I referred to the page howtousetwitterformarketingandpr.com. All it shows is a big fat “Don't” and I highly doubted this thesis. Luckily my namesake Richard Pyrker aka @cycus has done a fantastic pundit-kitchen-digitalks-xsara-photoshop mash-up:

hi we fixed ur homezpage

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WordPress.tv: Automattic goes television

WordPress.tvOne week ago, Automattic launched a brand-new WordPress-centered video site: WordPress.tv features various screen casts, presentations and tutorial videos on the world's leading blog content management system. The available clips are bound to water the mouths of beginners and pros, as they range from basic explanations like “How to post a blog entry” to all the advanced presentations held during last year's WordCamp.

Keeping Automattic's mission statement in mind, this launch is a huge step in my opinion – videos and screen casts are extremely helpful when it comes to understanding the potential of WordPress:

Blogging is too hard. Through WordPress we?ve enabled millions of people to effortlessly publish to the web. Now we want to enable millions more.

Some of my friends didn't have any programming in mind when they started their blogs. But it seems that sooner or later almost everyone feels the strong urge to start tinkering with his theme, installing new plugins and so on. So since the technology is a part of blogging, ease of access is the way to go. Now I'm fully aware of the fact that competitors like Typepad take a totally different approach, but to me fading out the underlying scripts doesn't make too much sense in the long run, and this is why I'm very excited about the new video repository, especially since there's much more goodness to come:

On WordPress.tv, you'll find tutorials for both WordPress self-installs and WordPress.com to help you get blogging fast and hassle-free. We?ve kicked things off with the basics ? now you can shape what comes next. Just drop us a line and let us know what you?d like to see added.

There's a contact form for entering your own videos (just take a look at the guidelines) and a commenting function. Personally, I would like to see two new features added in the near future: a basic editorial “rating” (beginner, advanced pro) and a user rating (WP-Rating might do a great job on that). Once again, congrats to Matt and his team – I'm positive that during the next month a couple of online enterprises are going to copy WP's idea and open their own niche-Youtubes. Here's an interview with Matt on the way Auttomatic operates – quite interesting stuff:

Barcamp in Klagenfurt: My bags are packed

Barcamp Klagenfurt 2009Lookin' forward to Barcamp Klagenfurt – it's been a while since the last un-conference, and I'm expecting an international crowd: after all, Slovenia is very near, and I'm quite sure that some Swiss, Italian and German web entrepreneurs and bloggers will drop by. If you've never visited the city of the “Lindwurm” (a mythological dragon, the town's landmark), there's a good reason now to travel to Carinthia.

The actual Barcamp takes place during the weekend, but we will all hang out together on Friday – so it's very likely quite a few folks will be hang-overed on Saturday, which is why I might consider doing my presentation on Sunday: I'm planning to speak about future micro-blogging scenarios and I will introduce my “3 twitter strategies”. The perfect chance to test Prezi under live conditions :mrgreen:

The participant list is 51 names long by now, I'm sure there will be at least 100 attendants. Of course the entry is free – it's an unconference. If you want to join, just add your name to the list of participants in the Austrian Barcamp wiki. Big Shout-outs to Georg, Ed and all others involved in the organisation of this event!

Need a place to stay? Klagenfurt's Youth Hostel not only offers very cheap accommodation (EUR 34,- for a single room), it's also located very close by the university, where the BC takes place – reservations can be made via e-mail: Youth Hostel Klagenfurt.

Guest post by Kim de Vries: Your Friend has just tackled you

Kim de VriesBite, lick, or tackle them back, or click here to theorize about what this all means. I'm very happy to publish the first guest posting here on datadirt. Kim De Vries, who I met via Facebook, wrote a very interesting paper about the symbolic kind of communication we all know so well from social networks like Facebook. “He who never superpoked shall throw the first rock” – enjoy the reading! Dr. Kim De Vries is working at the California State University Stanislaus, you can reach her at kdevries [at] csustan.edu

Introduction

Though Facebook was initially the province of college students, it has become popular with a broad range of users since opening its door to anyone with an email address in September 2006. However, until very recently, most research on Facebook has focused on the student demographic rather than exploring how Facebook is growing into a massive online society that is inhabited by many different groups using Facebook in a variety of ways for a variety of reasons. The academics studying Facebook generally join it and use it in order to observe students; now that more faculty are using Facebook outside the classroom, to organize events and to socialize, turning the focus to our own use of Facebook reveals that our own communities are being affected as well.

As of August 2008, Facebook is one of the most rapidly growing social networks, boasting 100 million active users, translated into twelve European and a growing number of Asian and African languages. The extent to which groups of people connected on Facebook can be defined as communities is highly debatable and a useful alternative has been suggested by Rieder and Sch

Pictures from Barcamp Vienna

Last weekend #bcv08 took place at HP headquarters in Vienna. The weekend was incredibly intense, special kudos go out to all the guys from Bratislava who came to join us. We're thinking about a bi-city barcamp, a (really slow) ship might make a great location. The two cities are so close, it's time to start connecting!

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