The Blogo’Shawn

SFGate ran an article about Citizendium, a contender to Wikipedia…and instrumented by a purported co-founder to Wikipedia: Wikipedia Co-Founder Seeks to Start Over. My main thought is that I’d like to mash-up the best of both. Citizendium intends to benefit from the contributions of named sources, preferribly experts and authorities in their fields, while Wikipedia can be somewhat erratic in relying on the contributions of many who usually lack credentials and traceable identities…but both approaches have relevancy. It’s a shame they will be presented separately as different sites. My bet is on Wikipedia remaining on top, especially given Wikipedia’s tremendous and sustained first mover advantage. I hope, though, that the emergence of Citizendium inspires Wikipedia to take steps towards better highlighting content contributions from verified experts.

Now that I have wrapped up work for the redesign of a major web2.0 mobile community website, I have had some time to re-explore Second Life. Alot more people are onboard now and it’s a delight to hear a smattering of languages, more so than ever. Last night, I conversed in German and Spanish. I look forward to more occasions to flex language skills.

I am also anticipating the advent of voice in Second Life which will introduce a whole new dynamic. Namely, I will be more inclined to go into Second Life after a hard day of typing, because I will be able to let my fingers do the occasional avie navigation while my voice counteracts repetitive typing stress!

I have also been wondering…wouldn’t it be great if you could review places, performers, artists, etc., in Second Life?! Sure would make it easier for newbies to figure out what to check out first!

The ultimate global BarCamp is virtual: SecondLife BarCamp.
One of the distinct draws of a virtual environment like Second Life is the ability to interact with folks from all over the globe and gain new perspectives. Already SecondLife has been leveraged as a corollary participation channel to conferences such as last summer’s Vloggercon and an initial BarCamp already took place some months ago. With advance word and a date set for May 2007, it ought to be interesting to see how many more people congregate to share knowledge in SecondLife!

A healthy dose of mixerage to cap off the end of the year…and the pace stepped up this very week!

Last Tuesday, 12/5, I attended the French American Tech Connection at BOCA and found it very much to my liking. A number of startups were demo-ing at tables, and it was a format that lended itself well to questions and one-on-one interaction. So on the whole, I enjoyed a number of engaging and enlightening conversations over many hours, always the sign of an eminently worthwhile event.

Zooomr was representin’ and Sir Thomas Hawk captured me talking with one of the event organizers, Andrew Kippen, who, along with his colleagues, did a commendable job facilitating the mixer. This was my second Tech Connection and I liked it even better than the last. Be on the outlook for the sequel in 2007.

This past Thursday, 12/7, was SFWIN. I’m sure many of you are already familiar with the SFWIN mixer as it has been running since the near beginning of this year. If not, you owe yourself a visit! It was great to experience SFWIN at Orrick where attendees were privy to a fine view and spacious quarters within which to roam. It was a chance to catch up with some acquaintances I hadn’t seen recently due to their extreme entrepreneurial activity. And I also met some fascinating new folk who are stirring things up in the SF tech scene.

Next week’s picks:

Wednesday

Good things always run in threes?!

• Yelp holiday bash @ California Academy
• SFBeta mixer @ Shine
• SF New Tech meetup @ Cnet

Thursday

Whatever will one wear?

• Stirr’s Winter Wonderland @ Exploratorium

So much more fun than the typical corporate holiday party…

Heeeeey - I am back to posting in my blog after a lil silent spell - at least I think I am.  I really should update this more…and, yes, I realize how terribly cliché this is to type into a blog, ha!  Actually I really have plenty to write about regarding nightlife and multi-hued adventures experienced throughout the city…hmm, I really should be writing spicy exposés - the things I see and hear can be truly outrageous!

Well I went to Scott Beale’s bodacious Laughing Squid party last night and enjoyed myself mightily, so mega props to Scott for going to such exertion to throw a fantabulous soiree where we had plenty to look at and talk about!  Scott’s dedication to bolstering the SF tech and art communities is beyond commendable and it is such an achievement to be a prolific contributor for so many years!  Cheers to Scott!!

Now I must admit, I had to warm up a bit again to mixing with the Web2.0 world, because I’ve kept myself busy and out of it largely for the last many weeks.  Dunno, I think I overdid it going to so many functions and needed a breather, a break from swilling the collective Kool-Aid, and what a better time than when you’re focusing on a new endeavor and desirous of gaining a renewed, personal perspective upon online potential, one beyond what’s propagated in the midst of the bubble.  More and more, I recognize how essential it is to extend a service’s reach beyond the Valley and into the fabric of real peoples’ lives, the kind of people who don’t relish camping out all day on computers because they are leading staggeringly busy/intense lives with obligations.  Deliver a service to them that really enhances the quality of their spare time and you stand a chance of enduring.  And develop a business model that goes beyond unpredictable online advertising and you’ll be that much stronger in the long run.  Anyways feeling renewed and more inclined to join the fray again.

Hats off to Yahoo! for putting forth a fantastic event for coders, Yahoo! Hack Day!! It far surpassed anything I was expecting and I truly admired the dedication and openness of the employees who worked so tirelessly to make this happen in short order. They made us feel very assisted and at ease. I believe I got a really good gander at the Yahoo! spirit and the kind of people drawn to work there. Not to mention, I realized just how many Yahooligans I already knew from previous tech soirees…many of them were in motion yesterday, assuring that the event was a success.

And might I say, this was anything but a sedate event. Of course, the day culminated with the star power of Beck whose concert just blew my socks off for sheer entertainment value.

I was roaring with delight between the Puppet versions of the band members mimicking their doppelgangers throughout the show (check out this vid clip shown during a break - hilarious!) and the frenetic gesticulations of the geekily-attired male go-go dancer. Beck really got us fired up - so much so that towards the end, moshing erupted. Think about that for a sec! How often do you witness moshing hackers on the Yahoo! grounds. I think not often!

More so, though, there was such a sense of camraderie and meeting of minds. I easily met scads of interesting and intelligent people, many of whom are undertaking startup projects like me. There was much talk about our endeavors and ideas in the context of Yahoo APIs and beyond. I even met a contingent of Chicagoans, some of whom I’d known only through their blogging and activities like Tech Social. Since Chicago is my home city, it was great seeing these folks face-to-face and representing!

Alas, I was not able to join in the hack contest itself due to work obligations today, but I am quite glad I got to participate yesterday in such a fine event and can only hope there will be more of these in the future…though I’m not sure how you could surpass what we just experienced! I also found some sessions quite informative as I am working up a map for one of my projects and needed some in-depth insight on the Maps API. I got my questions addressed and I also know who to turn too now at Yahoo! should I have further questions or requests…the Yahoo! Local team people on hand were quite approachable.

Truly an incredible event, Yahoo! I am bound to remember this one for a long time to come!

Anyone catch the “Live-in Startups” article in the SF Chronicle a few weeks ago? It’s worth a read!

I have mused over what it would be like to have a “Grunge Garage” reality startup show…as in, gather some geek types together to hash out and crank on a Web 2.0 startup idea. They’d be required to live and work together in a small geek abode, ala the Meetro commune, and given, say, $10K in seed money to survive on over the next several months. These would be people from disparate backgrounds rather than friends, who have the potential to either gel or clash mightily. Hopefully the result wouldn’t be as lackluster as O-Town…I propose adding an Entourage element of Silicon Valley celebrity into the mix by making sure the startup encountered the movers and shakers of Silicon Valley in their quest to propel their company into the limelight.

It would be the Silicon Valley’s version of must-see reality TV. My concern, though, is that the only essential component missing would be sex appeal. Most reality shows revolve around this at present, but, let’s face it, there’s a good likelihood that sex appeal would be wholly absent at a live-in startup with few, if any, women associated. Nor would there be a fancy-schmancy jacuzzi and pool with an infinite supply of liquor to melt away inhibitions.

But even if a reality startup show lacked broad appeal for a network series, I think it’s got plenty of potential for a podcast, non? The demographic would be just right for a show delivered via this medium. I think it’s a fascinating proposition. I’d love to be the Jeff Probst host of such a show!

Ay Caramba!  Second Life suffers a nasty blow.  Up until recently, the virtual world has fallen prey to inexplicable, sometimes goofy, in-world hacks that have temporarily compromised the grid’s integrity with the most widespread repercussion being residents bumped out-of-play.  However, last week, a more severe hack occurred as crucial user information was swiped — namely, the hush-hush data correlating in-world identities to real-world names and addresses.  (Linden Labs says that credit card information should not have been compromised…hmm, let’s very much hope not!) 

The threat then is not so much identity theft as identity revelation - the perpetrator(s) should now be able to correlate Second Life personas with real-word identities and thus the veil of anonymity could be breached…majorly.  In a worst case scenario, such information could be used for purposes of blackmail in the real world.  After all, bear in mind, that a goodly number of uninhibited Second Souls have engaged in cyber-sordid deeds, often unbeknownst to corporeal friends and family.  Although with cyber-authorities hot on the trail, as Linden Labs hints at in their response, we might hope to see some haggard hackers dragged into unpixellated daylight before long.

Honestly, I believe it was only a matter of time before something of this nature occurred, and all things considered, better to be aware of the danger earlier in the “game” rather than years down the line as stakes increase.  As cyberspace continues to grow in complexity, so too will the interactions that take place in it.  This incident brings realization that the persona projected into a virtual world could have ramifications for a person in the real world, no different than anything projected onto the Internet that can be traced back to a person…only last week, respondents to a Craiglist solicitation ad were blatantly outed, some of whom were identified by their, ahem, telling characteristics.  Outcry and ridicule proved fairly scathing online, and it’s not too hard to imagine that some of the participants’ real-life reputations were more than just tarnished; the prank may cost jobs and relationships.  In a karmic twist, the scandal even whiplashed right back into the Craigslist prankster when his blog was picked apart for juicy morsels of violated privacy.  I’m sure these hapless guys had little idea what was in store for them as they exposed unfettered versions of themselves online while also unwittingly providing revealing shreds of traceable information, like work emails, cell phones, true personal lives, and, oh my, those wild and wooly pictures.  Gah!

The hard lesson is that online privacy fundamentally does not exist.  It’s quite alluring to let yourself slip into a fantasy or imaginary world, though, and that’s where dreams can shatter if you don’t take care.  I can’t resist mentioning Warren Buffett’s Golden Rule as printed in Business 2.0:

 ”There can’t be two yous.”

…unless risk is your middle name

I thought it would be interesting and handy to compile some data regarding which programming skills are hotter than others, as evidenced by mention in job posts. Now certainly, the Bay Area tech community has been all abuzz for quite awhile in regards to relative newcomers Ruby on Rails, AJAX, OpenLaszlo, Flex, and so forth, but it occurred to me that their adoption rate might not be so readily reflected in job postings, which is the realm that affects me as a contractor at large. I used to pride myself on being up-to-date with the most current OOP languages and technologies, but programming has taken a backseat lately to strategy and design for my contract gigs. Yet, it’s a good principle of thumb to still be well-versed in the current prominent programming platforms and languages. The guts of which technologies should I be delving into thoroughly as based on numbers?

So the upfront disclosure is that my little study isn’t nearly scientific, but I am confident that it sheds light on what companies are directly seeking. I turned to Craigslist job posts as a fair indicator of the job market pulse, and I gathered numbers across four metros: SF Bay Area, NYC, Seattle, and LA - I consider these metros the most forward-thinking for software development (and Craigslist jobs usage). Yesterday (9/7), I searched on individual programming language keywords to get a total number of all job postings listed and then I restricted the search to those jobs listed as “contract” engagements. Except for HTML+CSS, I didn’t run couplings of the keywords for search, because I only just had enough time to graze the pickings.

So the results proved telling. If you take a look at the data tables (metros are represented as tabs at the bottom), you will see that I highlighted in green the top two programming/scripting languages with the highest total jobs and percentage of that being contract work. The next two languages after that are highlighted in yellow.

Draw your own conclusions, of course, though I think it’s incontestable that Swing, the once popular Java UI API I knew so well, is going extinct. What I extrapolated was that the top requested contracting programming skills in my dataset and across metros are:

1. PHP
2. HTML with CSS
3. JavaScript tied with mySql
4. Java

This was a surprising outcome for me somewhat since I had thought, given the amount of sustained buzz, that requests for AJAX and Ruby on Rails would be stronger by now. Then again, these days, maybe such specific job postings are being routed to specialized opportunity areas like CrunchBoard or 37 Signals job board for targetted exposure. Another explanation is that AJAX and Ruby on Rails jobs may pass more so by word-of-mouth (blogs, forums, referral, specialized board ads), which is plausible considering the startup community in metros can be quite cohesive. Nevertheless, when technologies hit the big time and there exists a shortage of talent at hand, the need percolates to more typical job boards with opportunities posted for pay.

It would be interesting to see how numbers would compare using a vertical job search engine like SimplyHired.

I’ll tell you this, though, I had assumed that AJAX and Ruby on Rails would have already infiltrated more hiring companies’ vocabularies. It seems that is not so handily the case. After all, a search for “web 2.0” on SF Bay Area Craigslist only garnered 108 hits while “blog” scored practically the same at 99 hits. My, things move relatively fast at the vanguard of Boom 2.0!

I show two interesting events for the upcoming Saturday so I will be roaming the Peninsula in search of great people & ideas:

BarCampStanford - This event is part of the larger BarCamp Earth campaign with simultaneous BarCamps across the world, so you too can share in the concentrated brain waves sweeping the planet. Most of all, it’s a reason to get smart folk assembled at Stanford University for a pow-wow. I’ll be in attendance on Saturday. If you too intend to come, do sign-up and be accounted for.

Also Saturday, Women 2.0 and Meetro host a poolside party mixer. Since this is just the sort of thing I’ve been yearning for since the BlogHer conference, I figure I should check it out if I get out of BarCamp in time. After all, I now associate pool + sun + food/drink + majority of women with a great mixer occasion.

And speaking of women in tech. Yesterday, I attended an SFWOW function. SFWOW, which stands for “San Francisco Women on the Web”, is an organization I participated in when I first landed in San Francisco. Unfortunately that was when the new economy was slumping in 2001, so I caught the tail-end of the glory days and went to an SFWOW mixer or two. Since then, SFWOW has been largely a useful mail list and F2F events less seldom. Last night, I did mix and mingle though and got the sense that revitalization is underway with more upcoming events in the pipeline. So I’m going to help out by proclaiming the advance word better via the events channels I’ve grown fond of using. Like I said, I was so infused by the BlogHer spirit that I want to see more mixers oriented towards women in tech and women professionals who will speak about their experiences.

And thus the next meeting of SFWOW tech women will be coming up soon at 6PM on Tuesday, September 5th, in the Finiancial District of San Francisco with a panel focus on email marketing tips and tricks. The venue, London Wine Bar, is one I know very well and recommend enthusiastically since I have utilized it many times over for my own nefarious event purposes. It’s a great place to drink, mingle, and carry on conversation without competing noise, and the wines are terribly nice as well! I posted it as an Upcoming event so chime in there if you’ll be coming.

As an aside, let me state that I am seven days deep into the rather extreme Master Cleanse Lemonade Diet, or my special variation which still allows small quantities of wine and coffee for sanity’s sake. So put aromatic food in my immediate vicinity and I’m likely to bite someone’s head off. I don’t normally try this sort of drastic food restriction thing, but it seemed like an interesting experiment to undertake and so far, yes, my waistline has shrunk. Already I have foregone dinners and some food gatherings in this week but, naturally, this is shaping up to be a BBQ-centric, food and drink kind of weekend. I’m supposed to end this diet some time between Monday and Wednesday, though temptation beckons from every side! I must hold fast, yes.