Philadelphia Coworking Survey, Use Cases, Pricing, Events, etc
I’ve just made a really big post to the Independents Hall Google Group. You can either read it there or in it’s entirety below the cut.
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basecamp gets openID and simple account switching
oh happy freaking day, 37 signals gave basecamp openID as well as an easy way to switch between your openID enabled accounts.
My life, and many others’ just got SO much nicer. I had almost written off basecamp because i was so sick of managing 30+ different logins for various clients and vendors. Now…im a customer for life.
Hooray!
[tags]openID, 37signals, basecamp[/tags]
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proactive networks promote proactive usership
LinkedIn has announced an API to be released within 9 months. It’s already been expressed that 9 months is too far off, and frankly, a nearly 1 year response to a strategic move by a so-called competitor (that’s facebook, apparently) is straight up, unacceptable.
Hang on a second. what do facebook and linked in have in common? They both run in the “social networks” crowd, though I’ve never considered one userbase to mirror another. Lets take a look.
Facebook has been, through all of it’s incarnations, fairly “real time” due to the nature of it’s users and the way that they used the environment. Their profile reflected their favorite movies/music/books NOW. Their wall reflected commentary from friends from the previous week’s events. Their photos were tagged from the previous nights’ social event (with or without the obligitory red solo cups). Even the pre-twitter “status” line that asked what you were up to, though it never caught on as heavily as twitter, reflected “now” events. And the connections between one person’s “now” events and another person’s “now” events.
LinkedIn, though “social” in nature, had a niche in business rather than social record-keeping. Like a mix between a social network and a self-evolving AddressBook, the real value in LinkedIn was to keep the contacts that you already had in it, and let them update their own contact info, new and old work places, promotions, etc. But due to the less regular updating (at least I HOPE someone isn’t putting new stuff into their LinkedIn profile every 3 days. Thats a lousy employment turnover), I don’t find myself going back to LinkedIn looking for new information once an hour like many FacebookAddicts do. I don’t even find myself on LinkedIn once a day. Or even week. I don’t think I EVER go back looking for people. The only times I go to LinkedIn and log in are when it notifies me that someone has updated their info. When a new related contact is available. It’s a very reactive relationship, versus the addictive/proactive nature of Facebook.
So where does this API fit in? Is linked in going to create a marketplace for apps based on a userbase that, with the exception of recruiters, uses the network more reactively than proactively? That seems like a waste of 9 months, to me.
On the other hand, if it’s the resume data they are looking to make more portable, I’m all for it. But wait, it already is. Thanks to the implementation of the hResume microformat, each of over 11 million resumes is marked up for data portability (or at least a working draft of the model). What would be way sweeter than an API that takes 9 months to crank on? Smarter imports/exports using microformats. I’m looking at the Dopplr friend importer that uses hCards, and even the Satisfaction account creation tool. Both of these flows use existing data, and presumably could keep one set of data up to date based on another.
Based on the proof-of-concepts in both of these hCard tools, it becomes clear that these flows actually can work. This, in my opinion, should be much less complicated to do than an after-the-fact API and can be baked pretty quickly with the already existing technology. I think that LinkedIn would benefit greatly from making a DIFFERENT strategic move than Facebook as response, especially if their goal is to promote more pro-active usership to grow from the current re-active tools. After all, the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree.
[tags]hresume, linkedin, facebook, microformats, social networks, api[/tags]
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startup tips for indies
Big thanks to Allen @ CenterNetworks for inviting me to put together a contribution to his “StartupMonth” series. As one might expect, I put an Indie spin on it. Check out the piece (and a bunch of other excellent contributions) at http://www.centernetworks.com/startup-tips-alex-hillman-from-weknowhtml!
[tags]centernetworks, startups, article, tips[/tags]
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open source meat loaf
The copy I wrote for my business website, We Know HTML, is notoriously goofy. I had a blast writing it and during the last 8 months of it being live, I’ve gotten a lot of positive response from the chuckles it elicits. But someone took it seriously…
On the contact page, there’s a standard form with the following bit of copy:
This is the quickest, easiest way to send us a short message. Tell us something nice. Tell us something clever. Tell us your mom’s recipe for meat loaf. We like meat loaf.
Again, I’ve gotten a reasonable amount of short notes saying various nice (and occasionally not so nice) things through the form…and of course the obligitory spam. Yesterday I got something better than spam…a recipe for some dude’s mom’s meatloaf! And man, it looks yummy! Here’s the email I got:
Finally! You probably don’t even remember this, but I owe you a recipe. Here you go. I can’t vouch for it (I’m one of those veggie-types) but the rest of my family loves when my mom makes this. I didn’t even need to bribe her with cash for the recipe–just had to promise to call home more often.
Ingredients:
- 1 (7 oz) can chipotle chiles in adobo sauce
- 1/2 cup onion, finely chopped
- 1/2 cup fresh cilantro, coarsely chopped
- 1/4 cup regular oats
- 1/4 cup dry breadcrumbs
- 1/4 cup tomato sauce
- 2 tsp fresh parsley, chopped
- 1 tsp salt
- 1/2 tsp ground cumin
- 1/2 tsp dried oregano
- 1/4 tsp dried basil
- 1/4 tsp black pepper
- 2 garlic cloves, minced
- 2 large egg whites
- 2 lbs ground turkey
- cooking spray
- 1/4 cup tomato sauce
- 1 tbs ketchup
- 1/2 tsp hot sauce
Directions:
Preheat oven to 350°.
Remove 1 chipotle chile and 1 teaspoon adobo sauce from can; reserve remaining chiles and sauce for another use (you won’t need it for this, apparently). Chop chile. Combine chile, adobo sauce, onion, and next 14 ingredients (through ground turkey) in a large bowl, stirring to combine. (She uses more than one chile sometimes, I guess it’s up to you however many you want to use.)
Place beef mixture in a 9″ x 5″ loaf pan coated with cooking spray. Bake, uncovered, at 350° for 30 minutes.
To prepare topping, combine 1/4 cup tomato sauce, ketchup, and hot sauce in a small bowl; brush mixture evenly over meat loaf.
Cover and bake an additional 30 minutes or until thermometer registers 160°.
Let stand 10 minutes before slicing.
(Note from me–I think the ‘next 14 ingredients’ line is confusing–she just means combine everything up until the cooking spray.)
C
Thanks “ChumSalad”, for open sourcing your mom’s meat loaf recipe. I’ll be sure to let you know how the loaf turns out. If anyone wants to use the recipe, go for it, and let me know how you liked it!
[tags]humor, meat loaf, recipe[/tags]
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