What is Twitter?

WTF is Twitter?

At one point during Blaine Cook's (@blaine) talk at FOWA last month, he mentioned that the twitter team still doesnt know what twitter is or what it will be.

Thats when I had the idea for WTFisTwitter.com People interact with twitter differently. So I decided to record ppl explainng what Twitter was to them. Some of the responses echoed my own feelings about twitter, while others surprised me.

For example both Hugh Macleod and Alex Harris got rides to SXSW with the help of Twitter.

Hugh Macleod (@gapingvoid) got a ride from Dallas to Austin

Twitter according to Hugh MacLeod from michael galpert on Vimeo.

Alex Harris (@alexdesigns) got a ride from Houston to Austin

Twitter according to Alex Harris from michael galpert on Vimeo.

When Scott Beale (@laughingsquid)changed the location of his party, when he heard there was a line at that venue.




Thats why he thinks Twitter is a people mover.

Twitter according to Scott Beale from michael galpert on Vimeo.

But, to understand the gravitas of that statement you have to meet Gary Vaynerchuk (@garyvee)

Twitter according to Gary Vaynerchuk from WTF is Twitter on Vimeo.

GaryVee scheduled multiple wine shindigs over the past couple weeks, exclusively using twitter






and rumor has it, the parties were awesome.

Beyond just answering "What are you doing?" twitter has become the new OverheardinNewYork

just search for OH: via TweetScan

Tantek (@t) uses twitter for food reviews
Reviews:

(how does he get those stars??)

While Max (@maxkiesler) proposes to Emily (@emilychang) via Twitter.






Guy Kawasaki crowdsources urls for his startup AllTop using Twitter

and

Jason Calacanis uses twitter as a mahalo focus group


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Twitter hasn't marketed its beauty to the masses yet. I hope they dont go with Andrew (USV Associate) and Evan's (Twitter Founder) uber geeky explanations.

(@AndrewParker)

Twitter According to Andrew Parker from michael galpert on Vimeo.

(@Ev)

Twitter according to Evan Williams from michael galpert on Vimeo.

Fred Wilson(@fredwilson), on the other hand is trying his darnest to convince his kids on the awesomeness that is twitter.

This will be an ongoing and evolving project. For now my favorite answer is by @arielwaldman

Twitter according to Ariel Waldman from michael galpert on Vimeo.)

Feel free to leave your thoughts on WTFisTwitter in the comments or via twitter @isWTF and if you want to follow my own rambling you can follow @msg

Aviary Presenting at NY Tech Meetup

Aviary is presenting at the February NY Tech Meetup tonight.

Its going to be our first public debut of the beta site and the official launch of our online image editor, Phoenix.

I went by to the IAC building today for a quick technical run through.
The art really looks awesome on those huge screens.





I guess I'll have to heed my own advice.

Free Parking in NYC

Here's a how-to guide to getting free parking in NYC. sort of.

Lots of movies and TV shows are filmed in NYC. Heres a list of those currently in production.

There's usually advanced warning, with signs like this one for a Law & Order filming on Jenna's block.



If you spot one of these "NO PARKING b/c of movie" signs, park there. Your car will be fine.

I was a bit nervous when I overslept this morning and wasn't able to move my car by the designated time. And I awoke to find an empty spot where my car had been parked.



But when I approached one of the NYPD tow truck guys and asked about my car, I learned it was only down the block.

My car's windshield had a lovely note that read:


Do Not Summons or Tow for 48 Hrs From Date of Relocation! The beauty was they reparked my car in a no standing zone but it was legal. For two days!
Too bad I had to go to brooklyn. Otherwise I would have happily stayed legally parked in an illegal spot...

So next time you see a no parking sign from a movie/tv shoot, park there.

How to succesffuly execute a project

Eran reflects on 2007 and concludes with a great check list for successfully executing a project. The following is the abridged version. I encourage you to read the full post on the hueniverse blog.

1. Know what you are trying to solve.
2. Find the right people.
3. Make it easy for people to join.
4. Don’t be too nice or too democratic.
5. Set deadlines.
6. Don’t branch out too soon.
7. Let your project grow organically.
8. Start with an accomplishment.
9. Don’t be afraid to end a project.
10. Know what you are trying to solve.

via Hueniverse: Reflections on the Open Web Community

December's NY New Tech Meetup Review

Went to IAC last night for the December installment of the NY New Tech Meetup.

The companies presenting had 5 minutes to show off what they are working on infront of 400 people. You would think people would prepare for these presentations in advance. Unfortunately that didnt seem to be the case this evening.

Lots of people had really great stuff to present tonight however they were plagued with technical difficulties, even Mr. Meetup himself Scott Heiferman had some technical issues towards the end of his presentation. If you werent there last night, dont worry you didnt miss out on much, but you can still see the video presentations over at Center Networks. Here's the quick run down of the companies who did present and their simple mistakes that could have been avoided

• Ignighter: Facebook App for group dating
• Couldnt create demo group, since too many groups were created already that day, since he was practicing.
  

• Evolvist Directory of Green Companies
  
• couldnt get the search for coffee in NYC to be displayed
  

• TheFunded VC directory
  
• or in the words of Charlie O'Donnell: [consists of] "1/2 people with an axe to grind and 1/2 people who are already funded kissing butt"

• pretty solid demo, left people wanting more.
  

• Kaltura:Enabling online video collaboration
• while attempting to show off some RSS feed capabilities, he ended up closing the tab he was working in.
  

• Unype - Your friends on various social networks being displayed on Google Earth

• Phentermine pill spam was being displayed on Google Earth during demo which prompted an audience member to ask, "Is Phentermine a friend of yours?

• Meetup Alliance - Allows local groups to create global groups/alliances
• Prepared relevant tabs for presentation had webcam failure while attempting to show the New Tech Alliance leader who was in San Francisco.
  

Granted most people presenting have no prior presenting experience and are probably really nervous standing in front of so many people. Thats why I wouldnt advise companies to just go out there and wing it. If you think a simple walk through of your site will get everyone in the room to understand what you are selling, you are kidding yourself. Odds are it will take longer than 5 minutes to navigate your site alone.

Demos should be completely prepared in advance. When presenting your company be sure to apply the KISS Principle and keep it simple. Just going through mock run throughs by yourself are not enough, as we saw tonight something will go wrong. There Is nothing worse than dead silence in a room of 400 people watching you fumble with your own product. You only have minutes to wow people don't waste it on technical difficulties.

Why not present in front of family members. I am sure they have 5 minutes to spare. Dont present in front of anyone who knows about or has seen your product before, they already know what you are going to say and you cant really wow them.

Make sure to have all relevant pages open, thats the beauty of tabbed browsing. Prepopoulate your browser with all relevant information. You shouldnt have to rely on the internet connection to get to your next page. Try to even save all your inforamtion to your local hard drive. Scott was the only one to do this last night. He even had filler tabs that just had the meetup alliance logo showing to build up the anticipation.

Whatever you do, do not show powerpoint slides people will be sure boo or get restless. Nobody wants to hear you talk or ask rhetorical questions. They paid $5 to be wowed. So WOW them. I think everyone who presented last night could have, but they were preoccupied with technical difficulties.

If you have created something really technologically awesome, dont focus on the tech part. I know its called the new tech meetup, the majority of people dont really understand the technology, if they understand the gravitas, odds are they will approach you afterwards. They paid for the chance of seeing you live opposed to just reading about it online the next day. Dont make them regret coming to the event.

Your main focus should be giving people a taste of how awesome your product is and leaving them wanting more. Allen Stern's provides a nice anecdote to convey this message:

"Imagine going to the red light district in
Amsterdam. There are hot girls in the windows. Each of them knows they
have 20-30 seconds to get you aroused enough that you want to go inside
for some "fun". Think of your demo just like this. You have 5 minutes
to arouse the attendees enough so they will want to come find you after
the demos are over and learn more. Make sense?"

Here are some photos I took from last nights event:

MatchupCamp

I attended MatchupCamp tonight. It was an idea Eran mentioned to me when I first met him at Startupcamp awhile back and thought it was a great idea. It finally came into fruition.

The idea behind it was that it was going to be an "open-space networking event
where everyone you meet is a potential match for your talent or idea."

It was basically a nextNY networking event. Unfortunately one that was short on drinks.

They had some tools to facilitate the networking

• Color-coded nametags

• Demospace: If you brought your laptop you can show off your goods anywhere
  

• Pitch wall= physical job board.

The name tags were a nice touch. But I still felt that more could have been done to facilitate interaction between job providers and job seekers

Three ways of possibly facilitating the group
1. Either having a speed dating deal. Where startups looking for people would sit on one side and people looking to join a startup on the other. Every 5 minutes ppl would switch, etc...
2. Placing tags around the room and ppl would congregate in areas of interest. (ex. php, ruby, music, video, advertising, etc)
3. Have people go around the room announcing their names this way people could put faces to all the names that were posted on the wiki.

However I'm not really sure if the people attending tonights event would have benefited from these types of structure.
Since there were more people looking for hires than people looking to be hired.

All in all, I had a great time chatting with fellow nextNYers in person, thanks to Eran and everyone who helped organize and promote the event. I look forward to the next Matchupcamp.
If you attended I would love to hear your thoughts and experience.

NikeID Experience at Niketown

I've customized about 6 or 7 different sneakers on nikeid.com but never had the cajones to actually purchase them. Recently NikeID opened a studio in Niketown New York, where you can meet with a rep who will hold your hand through the customizing process. In addition to seeing different fabrics, colors, and shoe styles they have available, your rep guides you through the online process, offering their design advice if you so desire. I made an appointment 5 weeks ago and finally met with Mau, my design rep this morning. We sat down at one of the four design stations equipped with new iMacs.

I knew coming in that i wanted to create a pair of Dunk Lows so I didnt bother with the dunk highs, air 90s or zooms. Mau showed me all the fancy, exclusive in store offerings but what most caught my eye were the all grey, suede, “nubucks,” which were only available as “tryons” and not for sale. They reminded me of the pee wee herman nike's that were released this past april. I wanted them at the time but couldnt find a pair in my size (11.5 US)

I continued the design process which was almost identical to the online setup, but I was able to utilize some leather materials and colors that are not available on the website. After trying several renditions, i decided to keep things simple and went with a two tone colorway (dark slate+ chlorophyl).

I didnt put any text on the sneakers. They dont allow for different text on each sneaker although I wish they would. ( i would have gone with left:be well, right:do good)

After my order was finalized, I was given a plastic, credit card-esque printout of my design.
It was a pretty neat take home, allowing me to share my design with friends until my shoes arrive in about 4 weeks. It now lives in my wallet, where photos of my kids would be if i had them. (Google: Social Object to get a better understanding why they bothered, think moo cards or iphone). Although I understand it takes some time for my sneakers to make their way from China, Reebok customizes their shoes in just 4 days, or so I was told at the Mass Customization Conference I recently attended.

I was also given this great t-shirt: (they even gave jenna one too)

I'll keep you posted on my babies and let you know when the stork arrives. In the meanwhile you can check out this set of pics I took.

Facebook | Wal-Mart Roommate Style Match

Facebook | Wal-Mart Roommate Style Match
Originally uploaded by Michael S Galpert.

Walmart paid $100k+ to be on facebook and this is what happened.

The comment left by Nathan Boughton is a valid point "what better place then here [to criticize walmart]"

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I wonder if there is a need for getsatisfaction.com in a facebook world?

The only way to survive, satisfaction will have to make sure that customers see results. That their voices get heard and things get done.

Operation Inbox ZERO

Gmail - Inbox ZERO
Originally uploaded by Michael S Galpert.

i have successfully removed all 200 outstanding emails from my inbox. I hope to maintain my inbox at zero daily. I was inspired by Merlin Mann's talk that he gave at Google Recently. You can view the video here and his slides are here.

If you have sent me an email in the past 2 weeks to which I have yet to respond to, I apologize.

I will be tackling that task tomorrow.

If it is of timely concern feel free to re-email or twitter or im or call me. :-)

tumbling over the web

Ive been tumbleloging over at msg.tumblr.com

Wikipedia to the rescue

My Tumble Likes:
i like how quick and easy it is to share web stuff with out feeling the need to provide my 2 cents.

My Tumble Dislikes:
I dont like that commenting is disabled. I understand that this is somewhat antithetical to tumblogs as a whole, but it would be nice if it were at least optional per post.

maybe now ill have more time to focus on longer posts here on my weblog


FYI: I HATE THE WORD BLOG