Botanicalls Twitter

Botanicalls Twitter answers the question: What's up with your plant? It offers a connection to your leafy pal via online Twitter status updates that reach you anywhere in the world. When your plant needs water, it will post to let you know, and send its thanks when you show it love.

How to Start an Online Community.

This week we need to think about component areas necessary to build a successful Online Community. Here is what I'm finding so far on the subject:

Building a successful online community.
Five rules for building a successful online community.
A 3 Month Pre-Community Strategy
Start an Online Community
Things to Think About Before You Start Your Online Community
4 Key Things To Start Your Online Forum Community
How to start an online community using a forum.

Trouble and Her Friends

Trouble and her friends
By Melissa Scott

Less than 100 years in the future….(2094)

It’s been weird on the NETS. Trouble aka India Carless a notorious hacker has gone underground never to been seen again when one day an impersonator using her handle begins to wreak havoc on the NETS.

India is forced to come out of hiding and reunite with her ex lesbian lover, now Government agent, Cerise.

The overly poetic story tends to drag while going in to explicit detail inter cut with dream like sequences taking you, the reader into the NETS via India’s brain. India has installed what is known as a Brainworm- total body immersion into the NETS.

“Trouble represents a feminist approach to femininity in cyberspace”
Trouble had earned her name on the NETS.

Key Concepts:
IC(E) Intrusion Countermeasures Electronics- security programs that protect computerized data from hackers.

India (Trouble is queen hacker) or a CRACKER. They would move around in fear of the shadows and also in fear of being recognized.

Treasury: Government

There are designer drugs (tiny pink pills) that you wash down with coffee that keep you up all night but don’t cloud your judgment.

The BBS runs like a streaming wave of code that you can jump on and ride to places or simply observe.

The NETS as a dirty seedy underground corrupt almost dangerous place. There is also the concept of coming out of the bright lights.

Brainworm: a plug that connects the NETS directly thru the side of her head. It is possible to walk the NETS with out a Brainworm, however to really feel the net you need one. For $3,500 you take the risk of a powerful heightened experience or if it power surges, you end up like a drooling idiot. Once installed you can upgrade and trade in your chips. You can actually HURT yourself physically while on the NETS. Brainworm is said to signify women in cyberspace.

Sex: W2W actually safer now

Evan Tisdale movement created to monitor activity on the nets.

“Friends” include:
Cherise, Liesvelt, Silk, Mabry, Butch, Huu, Mollie, Nova, Blake and Max

In the end India and Cherise prevail and uncover the Mayor of Seahaven’s – a popular city on the net- plot to infiltrate the NETS and the IC(E) by hiring a young male hacker to pose as Trouble.

A prophephtic poetic novel-overly complicated and even boring at times but a smart theme and even smarter author.

Author Melissa Scott:

Email Regret

Another day, another new feature in Gmail Labs. This one could be more useful than most, as it’s something you probably have a reason to use with some frequency. It’s called “Undo Send,” and as the name suggests, it lets you take back a sent email, as long as you act quickly enough.

After enabling the feature, Undo Send works much like Gmail’s other “undo” features. When you send an email, you get a message confirming it has been sent, along with a link to “Undo.” This message lasts for 5 seconds, at which point you lose the opportunity to take it back.

While that might not be much time, it’s probably enough to pull back emails where you forget an attachment, forget to cc someone, or catch an obvious typo

No more waiting in line!

The Average American is said to spend 6 months of their life waiting in line. My attitude has always been that waiting in line sucks, but we all have to do it- so grab a book or magazine and deal with it. As we move into practically a completely digital age, can technology save us the hassle? Introducing...
Qless! QLess is a queue-management solution using mobile phones to physically eliminate the need to wait in line

Genius Idea: When you show up to a restaurant and it’s fully booked, sometimes you’ll get lucky and they’ll have some sort of electronic coaster you can take with you to roam around within a few yards of the establishment. Other times, you’ll just have to sit and wait or risk losing your spot in line.

QLess is looking to provide a more logical system that uses your mobile phone. The idea is that you can check into a line by sending a text message or making a phone call, without even the need for someone to physically check you in. Then, you’ll simply receive a text message or phone call when your turn in line has come up.

In addition to making things more convenient for customers, QLess offers establishments that use it a number of marketing and research features. For example, you can send out coupons to customers that are waiting in line, and utilize analytics to see how your establishment is trending in terms of return customers or average wait time.

While restaurants are the most logical place for something like QLess to take hold, the company is also targeting doctor’s offices, pharmacies, and amusement parks, among other places where waiting in line is common.

As a customer, there’s not much to see unless you encounter a QLess-powered line in the wild. But as a business that might want to consider implementing its service, QLess’ website offers some more details on the features and how to get setup.

Ultimately, QLess is an idea that makes sense, and seems more lightweight (it’s all Web-based) than the type of hardware and software-based solutions that you typically encounter at busy restaurants

Top 10 Social Networks for Entrepreneurs

Here's a great post from Mashable I wanted to re-post!

Top 10 Social Networks for Entrepreneurs
Dan Schawbel is the author of Me 2.0: Build a Powerful Brand to Achieve Career Success (Kaplan, April 09), and owner of the award winning Personal Branding Blog.

Looking for a job? Consider creating your own. There are a number of social resources to help you connect with other entrepreneurs and get your business ideas off the ground.

Here are the top 10 social networks for entrepreneurs. Each helps entrepreneurs succeed by providing them with the guidance, tools and resources they need to setup their company and gain exposure.

Noted- Agile and Scrum

Agile software development is a group of software development methodologies that are based on similar principles. Agile methodologies generally promote a project management process that encourages frequent inspection and adaptation, a leadership philosophy that encourages teamwork, self-organization and accountability, a set of engineering best practices that allow for rapid delivery of high-quality software, and a business approach that aligns development with customer needs and company goals.

Scrum is an iterative incremental process of software development commonly used with agile software development

SoulPancake!

SoulPancake is live.

The 50 Media Sites Bloggers Link To The Most

Ever wonder what everyone else is reading? According to Technorati here is a list of the top 50 media sites that blogger (like you!) link to the most. YouTube takes the top spot with the New York Times, BBC News, CNN.com, and MSN rounding out the top five. Are you surprised by any on the list?


Here’s the list in its entirety:

YouTube
New York Times
BBC News
CNN.com
MSN
guardian.co.uk
Washington Post
Yahoo! News
Reuters
Los Angeles Times
Telegraph.co.uk
MSNBC
The Wall Street Journal
Time
Wired
USA Today
boston.com
FOX News
Daily Mail
ESPN
CBS News
Financial Times
Forbes
San Francisco Chronicle
Chicago Tribune
The White House
New York Post
New York Daily News
International Herald Tribune
PBS
Salon.com
BusinessWeek
Slate
Newsweek
New York Magazine
Economist.com
CBC.ca
San Francisco Examiner
MarketWatch
Chicago Sun-Times
US News & World Report
Houston Chronicle
Yahoo! Sports
Entertainment Weekly
Seattle Times
E! Online
People
Science Daily
Style.com
The Christian Science Monitor

this is it

The Most Awesome Thing On The Internet Today is.....

Twitter

The Daily Show With Jon StewartM - Th 11p / 10c

Twitter Frenzy

Daily Show Full Episodes
Important Things With Demetri Martin

Political Humor
Joke of the Day

NOTED- TRANSMEDIA

The 8 defining characteristics of a trans-media production (by Jeff Gomez):

1) Content is originated by one or a very few visionaries
2) Cross-media rollout is planned early in the life of the franchise
3) Content is distributed to three or more media platforms
4) Content is unique, adheres to platform-specific strengths, and is not repurposed from one platform to the next
5) Content is based on a single vision for the story world
6) Concerted effort is made to avoid fractures and schisms
7) Effort is vertical across company, third parties and licensees
8) Rollout features audience participatory elements, including:
- Web portal
- Social networking
- Story-guided user-generated content

Examples of contemporary trans-media properties include:
The Blair Witch Project
The Matrix
Hot Wheels: World Race / Acceleracers
Bionicle
Pokemon
Magic: The Gathering
Many Disney projects, including High School Musical, Pirates of the Caribbean, Fairies, Hannah Montana
The source of this info.

Video Response using the Flip Cam <3

I chose to comment on this video.


and my response


using a handy little flip camera...jeees I look tired!

Skittles

"Don't sweat it, this is still Skittles.com. It just has a new twist. User this as your guide to find anything and everything Skittles that's online. Have fun."

By now I'm sure that most of you have seen the new Skittle site.
The new Skittles.com features content about the candy created by its consumers on a host of social media sites, including Google’s YouTube, Facebook, Twitter and Yahoo’s Flickr photo site. On Monday, the content of the site was pulled from Twitter. Any Twitter user who mentioned the word “Skittles” was featured on the Skittles home page.
Is this a smart move for Skittles? I'd have to say YES.
More on the the subject here here, and here
Here is one anti-skittles website....wow who hates Skittles?

Hey Los Angeles...what's happening?

Hey Los Angeles, feeling bored? Looking for something to do? I've made a list of some of my favorite websites and blogs about the LA area that are sure to keep you constantly stimulated!
Experience LA
Flavor Pill
Blogging LA
LA City Beat
My Open Bar
Book LA
Calendar Live
KCRW
Art Scene
LA Observed
Curbed
Art Blogging LA
The Flog
CitySearch
Yelp