The new EricMartindale.com is an experiment in data aggregation, and might have a few bugs. Feel free to explore, and then provide feedback directly to @martindale.
While marketing RolePlayGateway, one of the things we considered was the "virality" of our approach. Viral marketing is any marketing technique that induces Web sites or users to pass on a marketing message to other sites or users, creating a potentially exponential growth in the message's visibility and effect. We're going to guide you on the road to a truly viral campaign.
A successful viral push can be launched simply by following three simple rules.
Don't spend everything you have on a single campaign.
Don't rely entirely on one vehicle of viral marketing.
Be different from everyone else; stand out.
While we're not nearly viral enough, part of our success so far has been the evangelism of our passionate users. And there you have it, one of the most important keys to successful viral marketing:
Passion:
Users who are passionate about your service, your community, or your site. They will propagate, they will evangelize, and ultimately will generate more passionate users who will do the same thing for you. Dawn Anfusocalls these members Boomers - and it is important to not ignore them.
Make it easy for your users to share. Make it hard for them NOT to share. Add a feature on your site that encourages them to send an email to their friends about the service. Add blocks where they can copy and paste code straight to their social profiles on sites like MySpace, Facebook, and Bebo. Jeanne Jennings wrote an amazing article on Optimizing the "E-mail This" Marketing Opportunity, and I'd recommend you read it and implement the things you learn from it.
Widgetize:
On that note, we arrive on one of our most powerful vehicles for viral marketing: Widgets. The list of sites that you can infect with widgets are endless. From iGoogle to individual sites, widgets encourage users to put your tool on their page. Be sure to incorporate other techniques here: Include encouragement to share it. Make it easy to post elsewhere and share.
One of the items that RolePlay Gateway could utilize to great success is the concept of game trailers. Many of the games on RPGateway are text-based, and have no real graphics. However, most of these games have amazing storylines, storylines which could be utilized to hitch audiences, or at least entertain them. Flash-based videos, or trailers, with pivotal content, captivating video and audio, and viral marketing elements such as "Email this!" or "Share This", would be an amazing leap forward. Take a look at how YouTube's video player works. Such trailers could even be uploaded to social networking sites, like YouTube and Google Video, and shared to millions of users with a touch of viral marketing magic.
Juice It Up:
Include your URL everywhere you go. Facebook, MySpace. Everywhere. This generates user authority, even if the site you are on has nothing at all to do with your target market. Cross sections are a beautiful thing, and even if you don't get a drop of link juice in comments, market saturation is a very important, yet delicate, part of viral marketing.
Maintain a presence on every social networking site you can sustain. Extend your campaign to all of them. Create social groups for each of these sites, and publicize them. The more targets you hit, just like investing, the less committed you are to that particular market. Your assets are distributed, and while the workload may be unfathomably difficult (keeping up with so many social networking sites sucks... that's why we have ProfileLinker), the potential for success is incredible.
Reward:
Another option is to provide tangible rewards for marketing. This can be in the form of prizes, such as in a contest, or to individual users. Incentives are very powerful, and drive many users to promote where they'd be otherwise apathetic. Things can be very simple, such as giving them tokens or credits, to very expensive, such as providing real cash per referral. This is probably the most effective, albeit expensive, method of encouraging users to infect others.
Don't Stop.
Don't set these actions in motion and then hope they work. Get involved. Comment on profiles. Reply to messages. Enhance your viral effect. Make it tangible. If users can see that there is a real person there, they will be a lot more enthusiastic and encouraged to participate, and your viral marketing campaign will be more successful.
Other Resources!!!Web Marketing Today has an amazing list of resource articles that are sure to help you build your campaign.
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2013 was an amazing year; between founding +Coursefork, building soundtrack.io and para.io, working with several amazing startups [1], and being allowed to call myself a peer to some of the smartest people I know all throughout, it has been a year of both great achievement and personal growth. This sets an incredibly compelling stage for 2014 and everything to come therein.
Today, I'm excited to announce that I'll be joining the likes of Jeff Garzik [2], Patrick Nagurny, and Ian Patton under the leadership of CTO Stephen Pair at +Bitpay, which allows anyone to quickly and seamlessly accept Bitcoin as payment, settling immediately in any currency, including USD.
Bitcoin has become one of the biggest stories of 2013, having grown over 9000% in value [3] and even surpassing Western Union in transaction volume [4]. As potentially the most counterfeit-proof form of payment in history, Bitcoin is poised to become one of the most disruptive technologies since the invention of the Internet as society moves increasingly into decentralized systems in an era of waning trust and increasing technological awareness by growing economies like China, India, and Brazil [5].
Taking advantage of this trend of decentralization, BitPay is perfectly positioned to serve as the mechanism for BitCoin's mass-adoption as massive merchants such as +Overstock.com move to accept this new form of payment. It's exciting to be involved with a company in this position at such an early stage, and expand the breadth of my experience to include another decentralized system, and especially to be holding the responsibility of expanding the company's open-source initiatives and engaging the developer community in a meaningful way.
After parting ways with Coursefork late last year, I've taken a seat on the Board of Advisors, allowing the amazing team we built to realize the vision of open-sourcing the world of education [6] under the leadership of CTO +Brian Marks. Brian was previously the CTO of successful education startup WebAssign [7], and will be an excellent steward of Coursefork's team and technology as they move towards the much-needed decentralization and open-sourcing of the education industry. My best wishes to the team as they endeavor to do so!
Exciting times all around, and I'm truly lucky to be a part of it in so many ways. Now let's go make the world a better place.
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Onward, and Ever Upward 2013 was an amazing year; between founding +Coursefork, building soundtrack.io and para.io, working with several amazing startups [1], and being allowed to call myself a peer to some of the smartest people I know all throughout, it has been a year of both great achievement and personal growth. This sets an incredibly compelling stage for 2014 and everything to come therein.
Today, I'm excited to announce that I'll be joining the likes of Jeff Garzik [2], Patrick Nagurny, and Ian Patton under the leadership of CTO Stephen Pair at +Bitpay, which allows anyone to quickly and seamlessly accept Bitcoin as payment, settling immediately in any currency, including USD.
Bitcoin has become one of the biggest stories of 2013, having grown over 9000% in value [3] and even surpassing Western Union in transaction volume [4]. As potentially the most counterfeit-proof form of payment in history, Bitcoin is poised to become one of the most disruptive technologies since the invention of the Internet as society moves increasingly into decentralized systems in an era of waning trust and increasing technological awareness by growing economies like China, India, and Brazil [5].
Taking advantage of this trend of decentralization, BitPay is perfectly positioned to serve as the mechanism for BitCoin's mass-adoption as massive merchants such as +Overstock.com move to accept this new form of payment. It's exciting to be involved with a company in this position at such an early stage, and expand the breadth of my experience to include another decentralized system, and especially to be holding the responsibility of expanding the company's open-source initiatives and engaging the developer community in a meaningful way.
After parting ways with Coursefork late last year, I've taken a seat on the Board of Advisors, allowing the amazing team we built to realize the vision of open-sourcing the world of education [6] under the leadership of CTO +Brian Marks. Brian was previously the CTO of successful education startup WebAssign [7], and will be an excellent steward of Coursefork's team and technology as they move towards the much-needed decentralization and open-sourcing of the education industry. My best wishes to the team as they endeavor to do so!
Exciting times all around, and I'm truly lucky to be a part of it in so many ways. Now let's go make the world a better place.
Replies are automatically detected from social media, including Twitter, Facebook, and Google+. To add a comment, include a direct link to this post in your message and it'll show up here within a few minutes.
Onward, and Ever Upward 2013 was an amazing year; between founding +Coursefork, building soundtrack.io and para.io, working with several amazing startups [1], and being allowed to call myself a peer to some of the smartest people I know all throughout, it has been a year of both great achievement and personal growth. This sets an incredibly compelling stage for 2014 and everything to come therein.
Today, I'm excited to announce that I'll be joining the likes of Jeff Garzik [2], Patrick Nagurny, and Ian Patton under the leadership of CTO Stephen Pair at +Bitpay, which allows anyone to quickly and seamlessly accept Bitcoin as payment, settling immediately in any currency, including USD.
Bitcoin has become one of the biggest stories of 2013, having grown over 9000% in value [3] and even surpassing Western Union in transaction volume [4]. As potentially the most counterfeit-proof form of payment in history, Bitcoin is poised to become one of the most disruptive technologies since the invention of the Internet as society moves increasingly into decentralized systems in an era of waning trust and increasing technological awareness by growing economies like China, India, and Brazil [5].
Taking advantage of this trend of decentralization, BitPay is perfectly positioned to serve as the mechanism for BitCoin's mass-adoption as massive merchants such as +Overstock.com move to accept this new form of payment. It's exciting to be involved with a company in this position at such an early stage, and expand the breadth of my experience to include another decentralized system, and especially to be holding the responsibility of expanding the company's open-source initiatives and engaging the developer community in a meaningful way.
After parting ways with Coursefork late last year, I've taken a seat on the Board of Advisors, allowing the amazing team we built to realize the vision of open-sourcing the world of education [6] under the leadership of CTO +Brian Marks. Brian was previously the CTO of successful education startup WebAssign [7], and will be an excellent steward of Coursefork's team and technology as they move towards the much-needed decentralization and open-sourcing of the education industry. My best wishes to the team as they endeavor to do so!
Exciting times all around, and I'm truly lucky to be a part of it in so many ways. Now let's go make the world a better place.
Replies are automatically detected from social media, including Twitter, Facebook, and Google+. To add a comment, include a direct link to this post in your message and it'll show up here within a few minutes.
Onward, and Ever Upward 2013 was an amazing year; between founding +Coursefork, building soundtrack.io and para.io, working with several amazing startups [1], and being allowed to call myself a peer to some of the smartest people I know all throughout, it has been a year of both great achievement and personal growth. This sets an incredibly compelling stage for 2014 and everything to come therein.
Today, I'm excited to announce that I'll be joining the likes of Jeff Garzik [2], Patrick Nagurny, and Ian Patton under the leadership of CTO Stephen Pair at +Bitpay, which allows anyone to quickly and seamlessly accept Bitcoin as payment, settling immediately in any currency, including USD.
Bitcoin has become one of the biggest stories of 2013, having grown over 9000% in value [3] and even surpassing Western Union in transaction volume [4]. As potentially the most counterfeit-proof form of payment in history, Bitcoin is poised to become one of the most disruptive technologies since the invention of the Internet as society moves increasingly into decentralized systems in an era of waning trust and increasing technological awareness by growing economies like China, India, and Brazil [5].
Taking advantage of this trend of decentralization, BitPay is perfectly positioned to serve as the mechanism for BitCoin's mass-adoption as massive merchants such as +Overstock.com move to accept this new form of payment. It's exciting to be involved with a company in this position at such an early stage, and expand the breadth of my experience to include another decentralized system, and especially to be holding the responsibility of expanding the company's open-source initiatives and engaging the developer community in a meaningful way.
After parting ways with Coursefork late last year, I've taken a seat on the Board of Advisors, allowing the amazing team we built to realize the vision of open-sourcing the world of education [6] under the leadership of CTO +Brian Marks. Brian was previously the CTO of successful education startup WebAssign [7], and will be an excellent steward of Coursefork's team and technology as they move towards the much-needed decentralization and open-sourcing of the education industry. My best wishes to the team as they endeavor to do so!
Exciting times all around, and I'm truly lucky to be a part of it in so many ways. Now let's go make the world a better place.
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Triangle Startup Weekend put on an amazing education-oriented hackathon this weekend, and my team won with our project, Coursefork. Would you believe we built our entire functional prototype, from nothing to MVP, in 53 hours? I'm proud to have been a part of such an amazing team, and am excited to realize the potential of this world-changing idea.
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My list of entrepreneurial shortcomings includes Mirascape, which aspired to be a ubiquitous augmented reality (AR) operating system for the real world. The problems we were solving (and our packaged solution) would have been the backbone for all of the [imagined] technology you see in this Samsung promo video for a new tech they're excited about, transparent and flexible OLED displays. [1]
If you're not familiar with augmented reality; it is the visual overlay of otherwise hidden information on the real world, as you observe it.
While you can ogle over ostentatious technologies like the embedded-display contact lenses the University of Washington is so proud of [2], it's exciting to see companies like TDK [3] and Laster Technologies [4] bring these kinds of stepping stone technology to bear. We can all download and install the awkward and barely applicable consumer-level AR applications on our smartphones ([5], [6], and [7]), but they will all remain novelty applications until we see major innovation in the display space.
One of the more practical examples I've seen of augmented reality in the real world is WordLens [8] (sadly only available for iOS), which provides instantaneous video translation through your device. It's not hard to imagine a pair of Oakley glasses with this display technology built-in, providing you with always-on translation while in an unfamiliar foreign location. Or perhaps even displaying your friend's tweet as a speech bubble above their head for a few seconds -- imagine if it were built right, how amazing it could be.
I genuinely hope to see more of this transparent display technology built in to more consumer-level products, and eyewear in particular. We need a lot more developers playing with the practical applications of augmented reality, and not just displaying compass-aligned markers over a geotagged Wikipedia article or Flickr photo. The high-power hardware necessary to do real-time computer vision processing is coming, and the applied software world needs to be ready for it.
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My list of entrepreneurial shortcomings includes Mirascape, which aspired to be a ubiquitous augmented reality (AR) operating system for the real world. The problems we were solving (and our packaged solution) would have been the backbone for all of the [imagined] technology you see in this Samsung promo video for a new tech they're excited about, transparent and flexible OLED displays. [1]
If you're not familiar with augmented reality; it is the visual overlay of otherwise hidden information on the real world, as you observe it.
While you can ogle over ostentatious technologies like the embedded-display contact lenses the University of Washington is so proud of [2], it's exciting to see companies like TDK [3] and Laster Technologies [4] bring these kinds of stepping stone technology to bear. We can all download and install the awkward and barely applicable consumer-level AR applications on our smartphones ([5], [6], and [7]), but they will all remain novelty applications until we see major innovation in the display space.
One of the more practical examples I've seen of augmented reality in the real world is WordLens [8] (sadly only available for iOS), which provides instantaneous video translation through your device. It's not hard to imagine a pair of Oakley glasses with this display technology built-in, providing you with always-on translation while in an unfamiliar foreign location. Or perhaps even displaying your friend's tweet as a speech bubble above their head for a few seconds -- imagine if it were built right, how amazing it could be.
I genuinely hope to see more of this transparent display technology built in to more consumer-level products, and eyewear in particular. We need a lot more developers playing with the practical applications of augmented reality, and not just displaying compass-aligned markers over a geotagged Wikipedia article or Flickr photo. The high-power hardware necessary to do real-time computer vision processing is coming, and the applied software world needs to be ready for it.
Replies are automatically detected from social media, including Twitter, Facebook, and Google+. To add a comment, include a direct link to this post in your message and it'll show up here within a few minutes.
My list of entrepreneurial shortcomings includes Mirascape, which aspired to be a ubiquitous augmented reality (AR) operating system for the real world. The problems we were solving (and our packaged solution) would have been the backbone for all of the [imagined] technology you see in this Samsung promo video for a new tech they're excited about, transparent and flexible OLED displays. [1]
If you're not familiar with augmented reality; it is the visual overlay of otherwise hidden information on the real world, as you observe it.
While you can ogle over ostentatious technologies like the embedded-display contact lenses the University of Washington is so proud of [2], it's exciting to see companies like TDK [3] and Laster Technologies [4] bring these kinds of stepping stone technology to bear. We can all download and install the awkward and barely applicable consumer-level AR applications on our smartphones ([5], [6], and [7]), but they will all remain novelty applications until we see major innovation in the display space.
One of the more practical examples I've seen of augmented reality in the real world is WordLens [8] (sadly only available for iOS), which provides instantaneous video translation through your device. It's not hard to imagine a pair of Oakley glasses with this display technology built-in, providing you with always-on translation while in an unfamiliar foreign location. Or perhaps even displaying your friend's tweet as a speech bubble above their head for a few seconds -- imagine if it were built right, how amazing it could be.
I genuinely hope to see more of this transparent display technology built in to more consumer-level products, and eyewear in particular. We need a lot more developers playing with the practical applications of augmented reality, and not just displaying compass-aligned markers over a geotagged Wikipedia article or Flickr photo. The high-power hardware necessary to do real-time computer vision processing is coming, and the applied software world needs to be ready for it.
Replies are automatically detected from social media, including Twitter, Facebook, and Google+. To add a comment, include a direct link to this post in your message and it'll show up here within a few minutes.
My list of entrepreneurial shortcomings includes Mirascape, which aspired to be a ubiquitous augmented reality (AR) operating system for the real world. The problems we were solving (and our packaged solution) would have been the backbone for all of the [imagined] technology you see in this Samsung promo video for a new tech they're excited about, transparent and flexible OLED displays. [1]
If you're not familiar with augmented reality; it is the visual overlay of otherwise hidden information on the real world, as you observe it.
While you can ogle over ostentatious technologies like the embedded-display contact lenses the University of Washington is so proud of [2], it's exciting to see companies like TDK [3] and Laster Technologies [4] bring these kinds of stepping stone technology to bear. We can all download and install the awkward and barely applicable consumer-level AR applications on our smartphones ([5], [6], and [7]), but they will all remain novelty applications until we see major innovation in the display space.
One of the more practical examples I've seen of augmented reality in the real world is WordLens [8] (sadly only available for iOS), which provides instantaneous video translation through your device. It's not hard to imagine a pair of Oakley glasses with this display technology built-in, providing you with always-on translation while in an unfamiliar foreign location. Or perhaps even displaying your friend's tweet as a speech bubble above their head for a few seconds -- imagine if it were built right, how amazing it could be.
I genuinely hope to see more of this transparent display technology built in to more consumer-level products, and eyewear in particular. We need a lot more developers playing with the practical applications of augmented reality, and not just displaying compass-aligned markers over a geotagged Wikipedia article or Flickr photo. The high-power hardware necessary to do real-time computer vision processing is coming, and the applied software world needs to be ready for it.
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SXG+: The Road Trip I'm now home and settled in after a whirlwind trip to +SXSW with +Superdave Houdini, and getting back to work on +LocalSense. We drove over 2,000 miles in total to +HIRL with amazing Google+ community members like +Carter Gibson, +Amanda Blain, and +Moritz Tolxdorff. It's over for me now, but the afterglow of meeting even more amazing people than I did at the #DCHIRL will linger with me for a while yet, and the impressions they've made upon me will be permanent.
It started in Raleigh, NC where I departed at around 6:30 PM to meet +Superdave Houdini in Valdosta, GA at around 2 AM. One Georgian speeding ticket later, I was #scheming with my soon-to-be roatrip partner (who'd just arrived from Miami, FL!) and +Raleigh Burke in a Google Hangout for an hour or two before hitting the road again.
We stopped in Tallahassee, FL for some breakfast and #starbucks ( #buxxin !) while I knocked out a few work tasks, and were New Orleans-bound within the hour. We soon passed a sign for a place called “Buc-ee's”, which was apparently 797 miles away ( #WTF ?) [1]. This is apparently a thing, and there's not one--but multiple posts on The Internet™ about that particular sign.
Following up our post-breakfast journey with a stop on Bourbon Street [2] for some wings was an absolute must, and we rewarded our success in overtaking +Amanda Blain (who was stuck way back Atlanta on the +StartupBus!) with a drink or two before cramming back into my car and cranking some #whitegirlfriday jams. Thankfully we had #bluetooth in the car, so +Superdave Houdini was able to play the appropriate soundtrack for the epic that was already unfolding.
There was more +Starbucks Coffee to be had in Baton Rouge, LA [3] before heading out on the final stretch to Texas, fueling our excitement as we looked forward to the upcoming shenanigans in Austin. Texas indeed greeted us with all its majesty, a grandiose lone star at a rest stop just across the border, where one of Mini-Supes' (R.I.P.) last photos was taken... (photo forthcoming!) but US-10 had some surprises for us before we'd land for the night.
Just as we were passing through Vidor, TX, we encountered bumper-to-bumper traffic that we later learned was the result of an overturned truck somewhere along that particular stretch. Not especially excited to endure three hours worth of traffic, we decided to route two hours down towards Bridge City [4] and then west to Winnie before picking up US10 again on the way into Houston, where we stayed with the brilliant and gracious +Calvin Christopher for drinks, intellectual discourse, and planning for the following day.
We all sadly lost a good partner and great friend that night [5], but we weren't to be thwarted--the show must go on! We had three hours remaining, and needed to be back on the road. So off we went! [6]
I'm sure all the others will document the happenings in Austin sufficiently, so I'll save my insight for later--but I'll end with a special thank you to +John Fanavans, +Summer Fulcher, and the rest of you who met us that night when we arrived. That night certainly set the tone for the remainder of what turned out to be one of the most alive, and vibrant, and incredible experiences possible.
Thank all of you for making Google+ for what it is.
Replies are automatically detected from social media, including Twitter, Facebook, and Google+. To add a comment, include a direct link to this post in your message and it'll show up here within a few minutes.
SXG+: The Road Trip I'm now home and settled in after a whirlwind trip to +SXSW with +Superdave Houdini, and getting back to work on +LocalSense. We drove over 2,000 miles in total to +HIRL with amazing Google+ community members like +Carter Gibson, +Amanda Blain, and +Moritz Tolxdorff. It's over for me now, but the afterglow of meeting even more amazing people than I did at the #DCHIRL will linger with me for a while yet, and the impressions they've made upon me will be permanent.
It started in Raleigh, NC where I departed at around 6:30 PM to meet +Superdave Houdini in Valdosta, GA at around 2 AM. One Georgian speeding ticket later, I was #scheming with my soon-to-be roatrip partner (who'd just arrived from Miami, FL!) and +Raleigh Burke in a Google Hangout for an hour or two before hitting the road again.
We stopped in Tallahassee, FL for some breakfast and #starbucks ( #buxxin !) while I knocked out a few work tasks, and were New Orleans-bound within the hour. We soon passed a sign for a place called “Buc-ee's”, which was apparently 797 miles away ( #WTF ?) [1]. This is apparently a thing, and there's not one-but multiple posts on The Internet™ about that particular sign.
Following up our post-breakfast journey with a stop on Bourbon Street [2] for some wings was an absolute must, and we rewarded our success in overtaking +Amanda Blain (who was stuck way back Atlanta on the +StartupBus!) with a drink or two before cramming back into my car and cranking some #whitegirlfriday jams. Thankfully we had #bluetooth in the car, so +Superdave Houdini was able to play the appropriate soundtrack for the epic that was already unfolding.
There was more +Starbucks Coffee to be had in Baton Rouge, LA [3] before heading out on the final stretch to Texas, fueling our excitement as we looked forward to the upcoming shenanigans in Austin. Texas indeed greeted us with all its majesty, a grandiose lone star at a rest stop just across the border, where one of Mini-Supes' (R.I.P.) last photos was taken... (photo forthcoming!) but US-10 had some surprises for us before we'd land for the night.
Just as we were passing through Vidor, TX, we encountered bumper-to-bumper traffic that we later learned was the result of an overturned truck somewhere along that particular stretch. Not especially excited to endure three hours worth of traffic, we decided to route two hours down towards Bridge City [4] and then west to Winnie before picking up US10 again on the way into Houston, where we stayed with the brilliant and gracious +Calvin Christopher for drinks, intellectual discourse, and planning for the following day.
We all sadly lost a good partner and great friend that night [5], but we weren't to be thwarted-the show must go on! We had three hours remaining, and needed to be back on the road. So off we went! [6]
I'm sure all the others will document the happenings in Austin sufficiently, so I'll save my insight for later--but I'll end with a special thank you to +John Fanavans, +Summer Fulcher, and the rest of you who met us that night when we arrived. That night certainly set the tone for the remainder of what turned out to be one of the most alive, and vibrant, and incredible experiences possible.
Thank all of you for making Google+ for what it is.
Replies are automatically detected from social media, including Twitter, Facebook, and Google+. To add a comment, include a direct link to this post in your message and it'll show up here within a few minutes.
SXG+: The Road Trip I'm now home and settled in after a whirlwind trip to +SXSW with +Superdave Houdini, and getting back to work on +LocalSense. We drove over 2,000 miles in total to +HIRL with amazing Google+ community members like +Carter Gibson, +Amanda Blain, and +Moritz Tolxdorff. It's over for me now, but the afterglow of meeting even more amazing people than I did at the #DCHIRL will linger with me for a while yet, and the impressions they've made upon me will be permanent.
It started in Raleigh, NC where I departed at around 6:30 PM to meet +Superdave Houdini in Valdosta, GA at around 2 AM. One Georgian speeding ticket later, I was #scheming with my soon-to-be roatrip partner (who'd just arrived from Miami, FL!) and +Raleigh Burke in a Google Hangout for an hour or two before hitting the road again.
We stopped in Tallahassee, FL for some breakfast and #starbucks ( #buxxin !) while I knocked out a few work tasks, and were New Orleans-bound within the hour. We soon passed a sign for a place called “Buc-ee's”, which was apparently 797 miles away ( #WTF ?) [1]. This is apparently a thing, and there's not one-but multiple posts on The Internet™ about that particular sign.
Following up our post-breakfast journey with a stop on Bourbon Street [2] for some wings was an absolute must, and we rewarded our success in overtaking +Amanda Blain (who was stuck way back Atlanta on the +StartupBus!) with a drink or two before cramming back into my car and cranking some #whitegirlfriday jams. Thankfully we had #bluetooth in the car, so +Superdave Houdini was able to play the appropriate soundtrack for the epic that was already unfolding.
There was more +Starbucks Coffee to be had in Baton Rouge, LA [3] before heading out on the final stretch to Texas, fueling our excitement as we looked forward to the upcoming shenanigans in Austin. Texas indeed greeted us with all its majesty, a grandiose lone star at a rest stop just across the border, where one of Mini-Supes' (R.I.P.) last photos was taken... (photo forthcoming!) but US-10 had some surprises for us before we'd land for the night.
Just as we were passing through Vidor, TX, we encountered bumper-to-bumper traffic that we later learned was the result of an overturned truck somewhere along that particular stretch. Not especially excited to endure three hours worth of traffic, we decided to route two hours down towards Bridge City [4] and then west to Winnie before picking up US10 again on the way into Houston, where we stayed with the brilliant and gracious +Calvin Christopher for drinks, intellectual discourse, and planning for the following day.
We all sadly lost a good partner and great friend that night [5], but we weren't to be thwarted-the show must go on! We had three hours remaining, and needed to be back on the road. So off we went! [6]
I'm sure all the others will document the happenings in Austin sufficiently, so I'll save my insight for later--but I'll end with a special thank you to +John Fanavans, +Summer Fulcher, and the rest of you who met us that night when we arrived. That night certainly set the tone for the remainder of what turned out to be one of the most alive, and vibrant, and incredible experiences possible.
Thank all of you for making Google+ for what it is.
Replies are automatically detected from social media, including Twitter, Facebook, and Google+. To add a comment, include a direct link to this post in your message and it'll show up here within a few minutes.
SXG+: The Road Trip I'm now home and settled in after a whirlwind trip to +SXSW with +Superdave Houdini, and getting back to work on +LocalSense. We drove over 2,000 miles in total to +HIRL with amazing Google+ community members like +Carter Gibson, +Amanda Blain, and +Moritz Tolxdorff. It's over for me now, but the afterglow of meeting even more amazing people than I did at the #DCHIRL will linger with me for a while yet, and the impressions they've made upon me will be permanent.
It started in Raleigh, NC where I departed at around 6:30 PM to meet +Superdave Houdini in Valdosta, GA at around 2 AM. One Georgian speeding ticket later, I was #scheming with my soon-to-be roatrip partner (who'd just arrived from Miami, FL!) and +Raleigh Burke in a Google Hangout for an hour or two before hitting the road again.
We stopped in Tallahassee, FL for some breakfast and #starbucks ( #buxxin !) while I knocked out a few work tasks, and were New Orleans-bound within the hour. We soon passed a sign for a place called “Buc-ee's”, which was apparently 797 miles away ( #WTF ?) [1]. This is apparently a thing, and there's not one-but multiple posts on The Internet™ about that particular sign.
Following up our post-breakfast journey with a stop on Bourbon Street [2] for some wings was an absolute must, and we rewarded our success in overtaking +Amanda Blain (who was stuck way back Atlanta on the +StartupBus!) with a drink or two before cramming back into my car and cranking some #whitegirlfriday jams. Thankfully we had #bluetooth in the car, so +Superdave Houdini was able to play the appropriate soundtrack for the epic that was already unfolding.
There was more +Starbucks Coffee to be had in Baton Rouge, LA [3] before heading out on the final stretch to Texas, fueling our excitement as we looked forward to the upcoming shenanigans in Austin. Texas indeed greeted us with all its majesty, a grandiose lone star at a rest stop just across the border, where one of Mini-Supes' (R.I.P.) last photos was taken... (photo forthcoming!) but US-10 had some surprises for us before we'd land for the night.
Just as we were passing through Vidor, TX, we encountered bumper-to-bumper traffic that we later learned was the result of an overturned truck somewhere along that particular stretch. Not especially excited to endure three hours worth of traffic, we decided to route two hours down towards Bridge City [4] and then west to Winnie before picking up US10 again on the way into Houston, where we stayed with the brilliant and gracious +Calvin Christopher for drinks, intellectual discourse, and planning for the following day.
We all sadly lost a good partner and great friend that night [5], but we weren't to be thwarted-the show must go on! We had three hours remaining, and needed to be back on the road. So off we went! [6]
I'm sure all the others will document the happenings in Austin sufficiently, so I'll save my insight for later--but I'll end with a special thank you to +John Fanavans, +Summer Fulcher, and the rest of you who met us that night when we arrived. That night certainly set the tone for the remainder of what turned out to be one of the most alive, and vibrant, and incredible experiences possible.
Thank all of you for making Google+ for what it is.
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I spent the day splitting wood with The Avett Brothers, Mumford and Sons, Bob Dylan, and my amazing brother. There's nothing quite like the satisfying *pop* a round makes when you hit it perfectly.
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I've watched pretty much all of em, Alex gave a talk there and was meeting with all kinds of people. I had no idea it even existed and was amazed at how underplayed it was here compared to other conferences considering how huge RSA is... But i just bring it up because if you think that's news... that's just scratching the surface and alot of the discussions that happened had a underlying sense of online warfare.
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There's an amazing feeling you get when you know there is a robot in your kitchen sweeping the floor for you.
So, I get in from gaming at about 3AM this morning, and on my table is this box that my roommate brought in, because it had been delivered. I knew immediately that it was my Roomba Discovery. I have charged it up for a bit, tested it out, watched it, and now I trust it not to get stuck or break anything. Problem is, I'm way too excited to get to sleep. Hello, 5:07 - I'm going to sleep now.
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I just came across an artist's work of a futuristic fantasy Tokyo that is overgrown with vegetation, and is amid reclamation by nature. Immediately, I thought that these images demanded a roleplaying game to go along with them, perhaps of the walk-through nature.
They came from a blog called Tokyo Genso (Tokyo Fantasy) - which has some altogether amazing works of art, so go check them out. :)
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+John Reiher Well, strictly speaking, that's only true because the target language is Mandarin, which has different part-of-sentence semantic rules than English. Translating English to German should be mostly doable on the fly because almost all English constructs map well to German in the same order (conventional sentence order of subject verb indirect object direct object). Doing the same thing German to English isn't feasible because in German the use of an auxillary or modal verb pushes a word to the end of the sentence, so you can't start translating till you get there. So translating "I've forgotten much of my German" is easy to translate to german, but "Ich habe viele Deutch vergessen" can't be translated back until you hit that last word.
(Man, high school german was 35 years ago, amazing how much I haven't forgotten) ;)
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I just invested in $500 worth of targeted advertising for GWing Roleplay. So, what's the total impact upon my wallet?
A grand $5 in activation fees.
Big shoutouts to Computers.net for pointing this out. I was thinking of organizing a group of friends to throw multiple instances of these offers into advertising for GWing, but I realized that it would be difficult to target the advertising properly, as I found it rather complicated to create my own template of keywords and negative keywords to match the optimal result for what we desire in our community. If you sign up for these offers, be sure to carefully monitor your expenses! The billing is most likely set to recurring, and will continue to charge your credit card after your account balance has been used.
Alternately, I woke this morning to find DoesMyGeek's New Podcast, and was greeted by a shoutout and a link over the air to yours truly, and GWing Roleplay. What an amazing podcast, talking about the classic combination, roleplay and beer. Here's to you guys. ;)
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There's a large number of Content Management System, Bulletin Board, and Blog solutions available, all with amazing functionality that simply can't be missed on today's rapidly advancing internet(s).
My challenge is this:
What is the smallest full-featured CMS, BB, or Blog that you can create?
Contest submissions must include the following features:
User Accounts
Article Posts (or "Topics" in BB-land)
Comment System
Submissions will be accepted in any language, so long as the content can be served up over HTTP. To submit, comment on this post with a link to your project!
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Hi guys.. TODAY. Sept.29,at 11:00 PM EST the Singularity Circle is going to have a talk with Mr.+Frederic Emam-Zade One of the firtst Executive graduated from Singularity University.+Frederic Emam-Zade is presently the Chief Economist of Fundación Global Democracia y Desarrollo (FUNGLODE), a multidisciplinary Think Tank founded in October 2000 and Chaired by Dr. Leonel Fernández, who is presently the President of the Dominican Republic. Formerly, from August 2004 to August 2009, Mr. Emam-Zade was the Director General of FUNGLODE.
Would you like Frederic to talk about a specific Singularity topic? Feel free to suggest topics or ask questions here!*
So, circle +Frederic Emam-Zade and stay tunned to this amazing talk about Technological Singularity, Future, Machine/Human and more!
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Hi guys.. TODAY. Sept.29,at 11:00 PM EST the Singularity Circle is going to have a talk with Mr.+Frederic Emam-Zade One of the firtst Executive graduated from Singularity University.+Frederic Emam-Zade is presently the Chief Economist of Fundación Global Democracia y Desarrollo (FUNGLODE), a multidisciplinary Think Tank founded in October 2000 and Chaired by Dr. Leonel Fernández, who is presently the President of the Dominican Republic. Formerly, from August 2004 to August 2009, Mr. Emam-Zade was the Director General of FUNGLODE.
Would you like Frederic to talk about a specific Singularity topic? Feel free to suggest topics or ask questions here!*
So, circle +Frederic Emam-Zade and stay tunned to this amazing talk about Technological Singularity, Future, Machine/Human and more!
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I've always loved Eve Online. It's a space MMO, with ridiculous levels of immersion. They tout that it's the world's largest game universe, and let me tell you - it's absolutely huge.
Character journaling is a great way to extend the world of a game and add more depth to both the character and the plot. Be careful that you don't fall victim to the inactivity that often plagues real journaling! Stick to it, and you'll reap the benefits of fleshing out your character and having a solid history of the thought processes involved.
P.S.: Google Reader is an amazing tool that lets you follow your favorite sites and their content without ever checking the page. You can check out my shared items list to see what sort of things I follow, but check out the official Google Reader page for more information.
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This is it, folks. The be all end all of weight managment, fitness watching, and healthy living solutions. Thanks to Leo at ZenHabits for highlighting this amazing diet. It's simplistic, and it's easy to follow. You can do this on any budget, and you can do this without going out of your way.
Dieting, you say? It's a lifestyle, not a food plan.
What do I mean when I say this? I mean that your diet is what you're eating right now - it's not what you're eating tomorrow, and it isn't what you didn't eat today. It is what waits for you at your lunch break, and it is where you're going for dinner.
Okay, so you're ready? Here it is.
The Zen Diet
Eat when you're lightly hungry. Not when you're ravenous. That means eating every 3-4 hours, and paying more attention to your hunger. If you're getting hungry, eat.
Action steps: plan meals every 3-4 hours, be more aware of your hunger, pack snacks or meals for on the road.
Eat light foods. Nothing too heavy, except cheat meals. Lots of fruits and veggies, whole grains, beans and nuts. Fresh food much better than processed.
Action steps: make a list of healthy meals and snacks with real, whole foods. Stuff you like that's healthy. Turn them into meal plans — several days worth of meals and snacks. The quicker it rots, the healthier it is.
Eat lightly and slowly. Savor the food. Don't cram it down. Eating slowly will help you not to get overfull, and will help you enjoy your food more.
Eat until you're lightly full. Not stuffed. Stop before you're really full, and wait 10 minutes to see if you're really still hungry.
You can change it, you can adapt to it, and you can adjust it to meet your needs - your diet determines what you are - we are living beings, and we consume sustenance and we expel waste. Our bodies require nourishment and replenishment in various forms - fats, carbohydrates, and proteins - and we reconstitute our living flesh with what we consume. This is your diet.
Do it right, and do it well. Build your lifestyle so that it isn't time consuming to manage your diet - plan ahead and be prepared. Being careless isn't the nature of being carefree. Think about what you're eating, and consider what preparations you need to make to establish a healthy, sustainable, and adequate lifestyle.
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"Computational knowledge engine" WolframAlpha [1] just announced a new offering aiming at power users of their already amazing data science toolkit. I'm very impressed with the features they've chosen to add, including image processing and 3D plot export. Maybe I'm just being a huge nerd, but I think this'll be great for generating assets for presentations and demos. :)
I already use WolframAlpha for quickly plotting relationships in certain algorithms, or referencing certain datasets. It's great for checking on specs like display densities [2], calculating a transfer time (while automatically cross-referencing network specs!) [3] or even looking for obscure computing metrics [4]. It can help you calculate chemical reactions [5], or even plot a protein structure. [6]
My favorite day-to-day application is quick and dirty regression, for visualizing trends in my data [7], but it's still cool to play with n-gram decomposition [8].
Google hasn't even come close to this level of utility, even with innovations like Google Squared [9] (which was sadly shuttered last year... [10]) and the addition of function plotting to their universal search earlier this year [11]. They've been rolling in more and more tidbits like this, but I don't know that a company as large as Google can keep up with the delta, even with again-CEO +Larry Page's war on cruft [12] freeing up resources for projects like this.
It's priced at only $4.99 per month (or $2.99 for students, which I am not -- but I'll happily pay the premium at this price point!), right up my alley as building something comparable for local use (or even acquiring an existing software package) would be prohibitively expensive and moreover, complex.
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"Computational knowledge engine" WolframAlpha [1] just announced a new offering aiming at power users of their already amazing data science toolkit. I'm very impressed with the features they've chosen to add, including image processing and 3D plot export. Maybe I'm just being a huge nerd, but I think this'll be great for generating assets for presentations and demos. :)
I already use WolframAlpha for quickly plotting relationships in certain algorithms, or referencing certain datasets. It's great for checking on specs like display densities [2], calculating a transfer time (while automatically cross-referencing network specs!) [3] or even looking for obscure computing metrics [4]. It can help you calculate chemical reactions [5], or even plot a protein structure. [6]
My favorite day-to-day application is quick and dirty regression, for visualizing trends in my data [7], but it's still cool to play with n-gram decomposition [8].
Google hasn't even come close to this level of utility, even with innovations like Google Squared [9] (which was sadly shuttered last year... [10]) and the addition of function plotting to their universal search earlier this year [11]. They've been rolling in more and more tidbits like this, but I don't know that a company as large as Google can keep up with the delta, even with again-CEO +Larry Page's war on cruft [12] freeing up resources for projects like this.
It's priced at only $4.99 per month (or $2.99 for students, which I am not -- but I'll happily pay the premium at this price point!), right up my alley as building something comparable for local use (or even acquiring an existing software package) would be prohibitively expensive and moreover, complex.
Replies are automatically detected from social media, including Twitter, Facebook, and Google+. To add a comment, include a direct link to this post in your message and it'll show up here within a few minutes.
"Computational knowledge engine" WolframAlpha [1] just announced a new offering aiming at power users of their already amazing data science toolkit. I'm very impressed with the features they've chosen to add, including image processing and 3D plot export. Maybe I'm just being a huge nerd, but I think this'll be great for generating assets for presentations and demos. :)
I already use WolframAlpha for quickly plotting relationships in certain algorithms, or referencing certain datasets. It's great for checking on specs like display densities [2], calculating a transfer time (while automatically cross-referencing network specs!) [3] or even looking for obscure computing metrics [4]. It can help you calculate chemical reactions [5], or even plot a protein structure. [6]
My favorite day-to-day application is quick and dirty regression, for visualizing trends in my data [7], but it's still cool to play with n-gram decomposition [8].
Google hasn't even come close to this level of utility, even with innovations like Google Squared [9] (which was sadly shuttered last year... [10]) and the addition of function plotting to their universal search earlier this year [11]. They've been rolling in more and more tidbits like this, but I don't know that a company as large as Google can keep up with the delta, even with again-CEO +Larry Page's war on cruft [12] freeing up resources for projects like this.
It's priced at only $4.99 per month (or $2.99 for students, which I am not -- but I'll happily pay the premium at this price point!), right up my alley as building something comparable for local use (or even acquiring an existing software package) would be prohibitively expensive and moreover, complex.
Replies are automatically detected from social media, including Twitter, Facebook, and Google+. To add a comment, include a direct link to this post in your message and it'll show up here within a few minutes.
"Computational knowledge engine" WolframAlpha [1] just announced a new offering aiming at power users of their already amazing data science toolkit. I'm very impressed with the features they've chosen to add, including image processing and 3D plot export. Maybe I'm just being a huge nerd, but I think this'll be great for generating assets for presentations and demos. :)
I already use WolframAlpha for quickly plotting relationships in certain algorithms, or referencing certain datasets. It's great for checking on specs like display densities [2], calculating a transfer time (while automatically cross-referencing network specs!) [3] or even looking for obscure computing metrics [4]. It can help you calculate chemical reactions [5], or even plot a protein structure. [6]
My favorite day-to-day application is quick and dirty regression, for visualizing trends in my data [7], but it's still cool to play with n-gram decomposition [8].
Google hasn't even come close to this level of utility, even with innovations like Google Squared [9] (which was sadly shuttered last year... [10]) and the addition of function plotting to their universal search earlier this year [11]. They've been rolling in more and more tidbits like this, but I don't know that a company as large as Google can keep up with the delta, even with again-CEO +Larry Page's war on cruft [12] freeing up resources for projects like this.
It's priced at only $4.99 per month (or $2.99 for students, which I am not -- but I'll happily pay the premium at this price point!), right up my alley as building something comparable for local use (or even acquiring an existing software package) would be prohibitively expensive and moreover, complex.
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