Something is uniquely jarring about hitting one-thousand twitters. You really want to say something prolific in those 140 characters, but prolific things limited to 140 characters are saved for dead writers or dead politicians. What a dilemma. What a service!

I first signed up for Twitter at SXSWi ‘07, as did many others, and I must say it only holds more promise as more and more people adopt it. Upon coming back from SXSWi ‘07 I did a few things - the first was becoming a bit of a Twitter evangelist, I told everyone about it (hi mom!). I also signed up my good friend Brian - who is soon to be the best man in my wedding.

Poor Brian, you see, I didn’t tell him I signed him up - he just started receiving SMS updates every time I twittered. Brian isn’t a geek either, he appreciates technology when it accentuates other parts of his life - and it doesn’t seem to be an end in itself for him. So instead of embracing Twitter, Brian told me, “What the fuck is Twitter Geo? And how do I unsubscribe?” I never told him - he went and figured it out. I guess the 3am twitters about Internet Explorer 6 became too much.

Once he had unsubscribed he would start texting me random moments like, “just saw a slip and fall in the grocery store,” or, “these white people and their bagels.” But never the, “is feeling…” that my twitters tend to lead off with, Brian doesn’t let his guard down. Anyhow, every time he did this I would just respond, “Twitter.” And eventually I think it set in just what Twitter would bring to accentuate his life - a monologue of his inner “B.”

So if you get the chance follow JustB, or JeongSeouk, or JeffReynolds, or J_P_S, or newtypeofjuice, or ldub, or simulacra09, or just follow my whole list - it’s all entertaining and I feel connected to these people even if I don’t see them every day - or every year.

It has been a year, almost to the day, since I first signed up for Twitter. Here I am posting this blog entry (which auto-twitters every time I write a new entry) as my 1000th twitter. With each new friend that signs on it becomes more interesting and valuable. From the ad-hoc organization to the random ramblings of my good friends abroad - I hope I feel the same at two-thousand twitters.

I didn’t really say anything prolific, but I hopefully amused - so hard to do in these 140 character limitation days.

Twitter is a one-to-many short push messaging service to your most loyal, “followers.”

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Just like most mornings, I woke up and checked my Twitter. The night before put us at the Gingerman where we drank a couple of pints of Lonestar and conversed with several geeks - doesn’t get much better. Dustin Diaz, of JavaScript and Google fame, brought his big camera, to which I proceeded to make obvious “your lense makes me feel inadequate” jokes. Yep, that’s me - taking the obvious one-liners and using them for personal gain. It may have garnered a chuckle, I’m not sure.

Jeff and I got back to our room and I use the words “passed out” here, although it was somewhere between passing out and going to bed - do you know the difference? Anyhow, the alarm came quickly and we got up, showered, and headed down to the complimentary continental breakfast. We’re staying at the Hampton - shitty wi-fi, fantastic continental, take your pick. One more good thing about the Hampton is it attracts a lot of the industry “rockstars.” Shit, Jeff and I were there, and we’re pretty important. I jest, but the highly talented Shaun Inman was there and I did get to pick up the size medium American Apparel Mint T-shirts he brought. Thank you Shaun - it was an awkward moment, but it was never dull - my name is George.

After all this we made our way to the conference, what follows are my notes from the different panels/presentations, enjoy. Read the rest of this entry »

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It’s difficult to tackle any web project and avoid attempting to, “shoot the moon.” Ideas are plentiful and examples even more so. I rep We The Media - that is my sole position. Finding work and finding talent are what I do by day, by night I design, code, and fight crime. I get to wear many hats, which is both burdensome and rewarding. Variety is the spice of life - and a busy life goes speeding by.

Speed is a trait of the entrepreneur, we make things happen quickly, we all think “I can do this or that.” It’s what makes us quit our jobs, it’s what makes us just start things for no reason other than our own thoughts, it’s also, as time goes by, a huge weakness. It’s super tough to rely on anyone else, but it is also absolutely necessary. Often times we think up a strategy and execute without consulting those who have proven valuable. Often times a knee-jerk reaction comes across as a painful execution and an even more painful blunder.

With the WTM website - I could have just designed and built the whole thing. But I know someone who can do it better - and without his help, WTM wouldn’t be where it’s at. It’s been a very slow rewarding process building out wtmworldwide.com piece by piece. We have more that we would like to do - but we are not rushing it. Well, maybe I am pushing it, but have realized a slow marinade is just what the site needs.

Why the entry then? We have carefully launched the We The Blog. WTB, I guess, is an aggregate of all We The Media member blogs. I’m already feeling the pressure because Nick Onken blogs way more than me - I need to keep up! It is just one more channel for us to spread our message of love for the creative souls out there.

Check it out.

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Wired wrote about it, but even before that it was in our hearts and on our minds. If trade-secrets ruled the day in the 20th century - transparency will rule the day in the 21st. The words competition and secrecy will be exchanged with collaboration and openness. Companies that fail to see this will find it harder and harder to gain the devotion of us, the “e” generation.

The “e” means we are empowered. As consumers, as professionals, as social networkers, as voters, and as evangelists. Believe me, you want us on your side. What we lack in numbers we make up for in determination and knowledge. Leveraging the internet to make real changes is second nature - and it will happen. We can’t be bought or sold by a television network - we really aren’t into TV, it’s too - linear, too “photoshopped,” or too fake. Our real news media has become satirical and our satirical news media has become real, and we recognize that.

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Sometime last night, MySpace decided to shutout certain types of content from Photobucket. With this whole new web thing, we’ll call it web 2, much of it is predicated upon services building onto services. The mashup! One could even think of MySpace pages as a mashup of YouTube Videos, Photobucket slideshows, and whatever else may be. This is a big part of the reason MySpace has been successful. So what did they do? Pulled the plug on Photobucket.

There are many reasons why this is akin to shooting oneself in the foot. First off, if a user has a couple hundred pictures on Photobucket, they’re not going to suddenly upload all of those to MySpace. What they will do is get irritated with MySpace, and remember it.
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I belong to a few communities and with all of them there seems to be a fine line between a good or bad user experience. To a certain extent, a system in my opinion, can only stay stable for so long, before a variety of factors kick in and a user no longer is enjoying the service they receive.

What makes a good user experience good? What makes a bad user experience bad? Why is it that websites seem to go in and out like trends. Will people soon be too cool for a MySpace page? Or is MySpace here to stay? All of these are questions we can ask, however the answers to all of these questions becomes null if a user is not enjoying their time on a site.
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Recently two things, out of the ordinary, have been happening. I’m not quite sure why, but they both lead me to the dark corner of the internet that I wish weren’t so. The exploiters, the profit reapers, those who don’t care about the internet and it’s wellfare. Those who exploit others internet experience for their own benefits.

The worst occurences I have heard are from older folks who write the internet off as a bad place. It’s not! I tell them. There are a lot of good things about it, and with any system, there are the good and the bad. Usually they stay unconvinced, but we’re talking about the same people that believe in the FSM.

So what happened?
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Over the last six months or so I have found myself using IRC more and more. For those who do not know, IRC is a place where like minded people can create a channel, login, and talk to each other about the decided topic amongst other things.

On my Mac I am using Colloquy (which I have no ideas how to pronounce). As with most Mac apps, it’s a very pretty application and I am very pleased with it. On a PC I am running IRC through Trillian, my IM client.

What is driving me to writing this post is something I have noticed. It seems the strenth of an idea or product or a community is directly related to the activity in the IRC room. Geeks use IRC, geeks fuel successful communities.

Recently I started dabbling in Wordpress cause I have begun to feel like Movable Type is a sinking ship. Like another content management system I use, CMS Made Simple, the WordPress community in their IRC channel is huge. There is constant activity and questions get answered relatively quickly. The same can be said for the Rails community.
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I have been itching to be on the 9rules network since I caught the tail end of their last submission round. When I first started seeing the bug appear I thought it was some exclusive club I couldn’t be a part of. I saw it on all of the really good sites.

When I finally went looking I saw I had to wait for the next submission round. So like any diligent pot of gold seeker, I subscribed to the 9rules blog to see when submissions would start. In the process of checking I ended up reading their blog…a lot.

So here we are about 8 minutes into Round 5 and I am freshly submitted. Yes I am going into a fairly saturated blogging category, yes I only have a few months blogging experience, and yes I don’t post daily. However, I do post what I think, and I hope that counts for something.

Either love me or leave me alone.

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I had a very interesting conversation last night with a friend who is an engineer by trade. We were discussing the quality of communication on the web. He kind of fell out of love with the internet over the “dotbomb” when chat, instant messenging, and forums were the de facto forms of communication on the internet.

His underlying point was the quality of communication has degraded with the advent of the internet. He’s a brilliant individual and brought up many valid points. But, being a geek, I really couldn’t agree with him. It would unravel my whole world.

This is a bit of a long windy one, read on if you dare.
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