Disqus - Latest Comments for Alex Hillman

Re: What Do You Think We Do With All That Schwag?

Alex Hillman — Sun, 28 Sep 2008 22:22:02 -0000

Define "too much fun". :)

It was great to see you this weekend Dave!

Re: Simple Answers to Easy Questions

Alex Hillman — Mon, 17 Nov 2008 17:11:47 -0000

I'd argue that PR is killing social media. Just sayin'.

Re: Gary Vaynerchuk - I had a wild day, you? Turning negatives into...

Alex Hillman — Wed, 07 Jan 2009 21:00:39 -0000

my day was one of the best I've had in a long time.

Front page of the Philadelphia Weekly:
http://www.philadelphiaweekly.com/articles/1812...

Great interview with LuckyStartups about Unstick.me
http://www.luckystartups.com/2009/01/07/all-sta...

AND two of my hero-authors commented on my new blog series, Cluetrain 2009:
http://www.dangerouslyawesome.com/2009/01/02/cl...

WILD DAY!!!

Re: throwing/chucking a wobbly

Alex Hillman — Wed, 05 Jul 2006 10:03:31 -0000

Lets be fair, the pie chart isnt mine. (c)Alan Foreman, i just reposted the hilarity. Thanks for the comments though, look for a new feature coming today.

Re: firefox crop circle

Alex Hillman — Tue, 22 Aug 2006 19:26:38 -0000

ha! the elusive female linuxgeek makes an appearance on dangerouslyawesome.com!.

thanks for the comment, and really...awesome work. the arial shot has been my background for almost a week now, and has gotten lots of great comments from my coworkers.

Re: Not your everyday WordPress

Alex Hillman — Fri, 08 Sep 2006 09:25:12 -0000

Danila,
It's not really "a theme", but a set of custom plugins working in conjunction with a slightly modified WP core. I'll be learning more about this setup from the developers in the near future, but, since it is somewhat their trademark, I'm not sure how much they'll want me to divulge (though, WP AND their plugins are all GPL licensed).

Re: Not your everyday WordPress

Alex Hillman — Fri, 08 Sep 2006 09:52:58 -0000

Hm? Its a custom solution.

Re: data standardization, microformats, not just all hype

Alex Hillman — Mon, 18 Sep 2006 19:32:11 -0000

theoretically, it wouldnt be impossible to use the openID open source code to tie together the services which offer an API that handles authentiction. even better, something that scales to ANY service that has an API for it's authentication scheme.

hmmm...time to get reading.

Re: data standardization, microformats, not just all hype

Alex Hillman — Mon, 18 Sep 2006 21:53:06 -0000

the glaring problem i see with the openid project is a lack of coherant documentation.

for example, the task of installing OpenID for blog commenting on wordpress 2.0.

going to the openidenabled.com website and searching for "wordpress" i get 7 results, only 2 of which are really relevant to wordpress at all. and one of those is simply a link to the other. So that one relevant link, which is http://www.openidenabled.com/Members/http-3A-2F...
is mostly a list of comments complaining about the lack of documentation! (the zip for the plugin contains NO readme. not good)

Ok, so onto google. A quick google of wordpress turns up some more useful links, which are more detailed than the directions on the openid site itself. Essentially, the "beta" plugin has dependencies as documented a few comments down on http://photomatt.net/2006/04/14/openid-for-wp/</p>

overall, a pretty tedious process compared to how easy most other WP plugins are.

the openid site is effectively expansive, but difficult to navigate. this is a huge hinderance to the effectiveness of the mission of the project. how is it that something dedicated to make one process easy exists in a site that is possibly one of the most confusing i've ever experienced?

OpenID libraries exist for half a dozen major development platforms, including php , java, and .net. But with all of the other authentication schemes that are practically turn key, what incentive is there for a developer to impliment something that requires tons of digging just to get a mediocre set of documentation? The concept is gold. unfortunately, it's a the bottom of a pretty rapid riverbed right now. I'm not sure how to even start panning for the value.

Re: deconcept swfObject bug debugged!

Alex Hillman — Tue, 26 Sep 2006 21:10:03 -0000

Thanks for your comment on my blog, Geoff. I actually have some objects that will have streaming content...so I think i'm going to hook an additional argument in so that i can run that function only when i specify that argument(or not, as the case may be), the embedded objects with streaming content can be appropriately unloaded.

perhaps this would be a better way to handle this for your distributed version of the script? some kind of override to turn it off, maybe?

Re: finally ALA posts something thought provoking

Alex Hillman — Tue, 26 Sep 2006 21:46:37 -0000

Thanks for the comment Ben! I'm very excited to hear that we'll be seeing more of you, and hopefully more writers like you.

keep it up, i'll be sure to keep my eye out for your name.

cheers,
Alex

Re: custom myspace

Alex Hillman — Fri, 01 Dec 2006 08:12:31 -0000

myspace is always crashy, damon. one day, right when I was about to move the fearnet myspace page (http://www.myspace.com/fearnet) live, myspace wouldnt let me access my account page to switch it live...but i could access every other page on the site just fine!

Re: marketing bliz meets milton bradley

Alex Hillman — Fri, 01 Dec 2006 08:13:58 -0000

haha mick. what did you do with 7 billion worth of midgets?

Re: NYC Wrapup, the home for the holidays

Alex Hillman — Tue, 02 Jan 2007 03:52:06 -0000

Thanks for the best wishes, it was great to meet you. EVERY person I talk to says that san fran is in their top 3 places to live, if not number one. My girlfriend and I are extremely excited to take the town by storm and totally live it up...the vibe is right, the opportunity is huge, and I can't think of a better group to be surrounding myself with. all i keep thinking is, "this is really it!"

See you in a few weeks!

Re: this makes me want to scrape out my own eyeballs

Alex Hillman — Thu, 01 Mar 2007 23:16:43 -0000

@Jeremy:
Thanks so much for pointing out something I was too choked up on the ridiculousness of the video to see. What I guess is really great about this video is the fact that a video sharing site went out of their way to spread a message that is so important...just with a level of irony so high, it was unbelievably believable!

Thanks for the comments, I hope you subscribe to the feed. I fixed the bug you mentioned, so also, thanks for that. Also, this theme isn't mine (though I'm already modifying it to my liking), it's actually an award winning design (see Most Creative Design) by Derek Punsalon. I really liked the way it worked and the tone of the design...I actually had a conversation tonight with one of my designers who is taking some cues from this design that we really like, and working on a custom theme due out sometime in the near future! So check back soon, check back often, lots of new content and a new theme are coming your way.

Re: “Weekends lose a bit of luster when you work at home.”

Alex Hillman — Tue, 27 Mar 2007 04:59:09 -0000

@Ryan
Virtual chatter...you mean twitter, right? I kid, somewhat, but I totally understand what you mean. Sort of like running an industry back-channel via a website or IRC (or some combo of both). The application that I'm involved with building has some ideas to include a back-channel into its model, though it's early on enough in the planning stages of development that we can be open to ideas as to how to make that feature useful (and valuable) to virtual workers. Connectedness is absolutely key, and maintaining a level of persistence to that connectivity is crucial to creating it's value.

Cheers...keep your eyes peeled here for more.

Also..you never said where you were from that coworking didn't exist. Why not start your own space, or work on getting some other local folks to do so?

Re: Why I think shared resources kicks ass

Alex Hillman — Tue, 03 Apr 2007 08:41:18 -0000

chris,
sports car or not, the A4 is was much nicer than most cars that I'd consider buying and keeping in the city. I actually signed up for PhillyCarShare when I had my own car already. It was an opportunity to have a car a)in an emergency situation, like if my car broke down or, more often, to take out a car based on it's utility (like the pickup truck/ikea story).

It's much more than just having a car, but instead, about having the right car, when i need it, where i need it.

Re: Philadelphia Jelly = Cream Cheese Sessions?

Alex Hillman — Fri, 18 May 2007 10:01:51 -0000

Annie,
"Afford" is relative. I'm going to be careful here because it's something I admittedly don't know a LOT about.

Lots of people like Philly but are moving to the burbs because of things like city wage tax and business privilidge tax. I have to wonder, with the right exposure, if groups like ours could petition local government to let up on some of the heavy taxation for people participating in innovative groups like ours? They make the city look good, bringing in more people who want to work here, so the collective taxable income goes up...so why not let up on the individual's burden?

Just a thought, in case Mayor Nutter is reading dangerouslyawesome.com.

Re: BlogPhiladelphia - Social media awareness for Philadelphia and abroad

Alex Hillman — Thu, 24 May 2007 16:49:03 -0000

@Josh,
I'm way stoked to meet you as well. Can't wait to see how the Blog* format can help Philly realize its potential and get its legs for the industry.

Alex is a stand up guy, nice to know he's been saying good things about us :-)

Re: coworking reactee - get your own!

Alex Hillman — Wed, 06 Jun 2007 21:03:38 -0000

@hillary YES! spread the word! I can't wait to wear mine!

@Peter i was looking at the textmarks system, it seems to be pretty powerful. do you have any insight into the volume that their platform can handle. im thinking about when twitter buckles...of course that volume is isanely huge, im just curious if you've had any service stability issues. I'm admittedly unfamiliar with the reliability of SMS, maybe you can shed some light?

Re: what did you want from revision 1?

Alex Hillman — Thu, 14 Jun 2007 10:22:03 -0000

why do you need an iPhone to run mobile basecamp? i should be able to use it on any phone because a mobile version of basecamp would be a killer app for ANYONE who does project organization.

And whaddya know...basecamp has an API that would allow anyone to create a mobile version of they so chose to spend the time.

The reason I think that basecamp ISNT a killer app for the iPhone in particular is its reliance on text entry and while at this point it's speculation, I'm pretty sure the iPhone is going to be way better at looking at stuff than it is typing/texting.

Speculation speculation speculation. That's all we can do until I can put my fingerprints all over it. That virtual keyboard has me way nervous, especially as someone who switched to a blackberry specifically for the high-quality keyboard.

Re: Scott’s on CNBC

Alex Hillman — Fri, 22 Jun 2007 14:07:30 -0000

@Far wow! small world indeed.

Re: another swfobject problem, deproblemed

Alex Hillman — Sat, 23 Jun 2007 10:24:09 -0000

@Jamie,
For it to work, and then not, sounds like an old version of your scripts are being cached. Other than that, without looking I'm not sure I can be much more help to you.

Re: Facebook F8 - Find your niche, make it worthwhile

Alex Hillman — Thu, 05 Jul 2007 16:57:01 -0000

Eric,
By Netflix for textbooks I meant distribute the per-book cost amongst a longer list of users. Almost like netflix is an online library for movies, where you can check them in and out as you need, it would be great to have a place where i could look up a textbook, make sure it was the right edition, and take it out for only as long as i needed it. Textbooks for higher education are EXORBITANTLY expensive. Why not distribute that cost among a number of users and make quality textbooks more accessible to students?

Re: philly pride: i’m ready to swallow mine, how about you?

Alex Hillman — Tue, 17 Jul 2007 10:51:34 -0000

@Ron "Now what we’re left with is being a daytrip destination between NYC and DC." THAT is what has to go. we're so much more than that!

Building those channels to talk, and giving people a reason to, is the challenge. So far, so good, but we're a long way from done.

Re: July Philadelphia Creative/Events

Alex Hillman — Wed, 18 Jul 2007 10:28:34 -0000

@Colin I'm working on something with aggregate-able content so we can pipe the info into phillygeeks, indyhall.org, etc

Re: July Philadelphia Creative/Events

Alex Hillman — Thu, 19 Jul 2007 00:59:42 -0000

Please note the address change for the LikeMinds event. It is at 1236 S 8th St Philadelphia, PA.

Sorry for the confusion!

Re: the day wired magazine called me “cheeky”

Alex Hillman — Fri, 20 Jul 2007 17:20:29 -0000

likemind was great! See http://flickr.com/photos/stellargirl/sets/72157... for photos

13 participants if you include Geoff's son ;-)

Re: Calling for Independents Hall Membership

Alex Hillman — Sat, 21 Jul 2007 21:08:47 -0000

jay,
organizing this group has been so gratifying. the community that we've discovered here is incredible, I can't wait to see what we can do.
You've got us beat on weather, hands down, but we'll see where we can give you a run for your money ;-)

Re: Shopify Payment Gateway List

Alex Hillman — Thu, 11 Oct 2007 20:03:19 -0000

ah, good to know, though that's an obscure place to look for the average shopify user (the non programmer).

I'll use this list to update mine, and add links as well.

Re: video on community building community discussion…community

Alex Hillman — Fri, 26 Oct 2007 10:52:43 -0000

@David: That's a neat concept, I love commoncraft (the recent zombie survival one was great!). I should probably rope in some video folks with real experience (ahem forkyou ahem illadates, etc) for some production technique, but I could totally write and narrate that. I think my conversational tone of writing would lend pretty well to it. Good one!

Re: video on community building community discussion…community

Alex Hillman — Fri, 26 Oct 2007 12:14:02 -0000

excellent, Lauren. Thanks!

I don't know how many how-to videos we could do within the scope of coworking...any specific topic ideas?

Re: 15 billion freaking dollars?

Alex Hillman — Fri, 02 Nov 2007 08:27:53 -0000

No, Marc...it was a 1.6%.

the $15B VALUATION is an extrapolation of 240,000,000 (note, million) being 1.6% of the total value.

My simple math (and remember, I suck at math and you are an engineer at Verizon) says that $15,000,000,000 * .016 = $240,000,000.

But that doesn't mean the numbers are any more effed up. :-)

Re: Philadelphia Twitter Meetup

Alex Hillman — Tue, 13 Nov 2007 09:36:13 -0000

Seattle is purely for fun! Ok, I may make it some business to justify a writeoff!

I'll be visiting my best friend that moved there recently from Miami Beach, and if all goes as planned, making a quick stop at Whistler-Blackcomb for a day or two of snowboarding.

NewTeeVee LIVE sounds like a good time, say hey to SF for me.

Vegas escapades are mostly summed up by Willo's photo stream from the week: http://flickr.com/photos/willotoons/sets/721576...>

Anything not in that stream, or in my twitter feed, kinda had to stay in vegas ;-)

Re: chasing the dragon - “deleting accounts feels soooooo good”

Alex Hillman — Fri, 04 Jan 2008 12:41:24 -0000

gratifying isn't the word, then what is?

if the purpose was similar to announcing a new address or phone number, I'd get it. My point was the number of people who were so...outright self righteous about it. I understand an act of defiance, but as I recall, your reason was that you simply weren't using them, and the time was right.

I'm speaking more about people who were one day addicted to Facebook, and the next day defiantly against ever being near an app that has the ability to "superpoke".

Of course, most of this post isn't meant in a harsh or demeaning tone, nor is it directed to any one person or instance/event. It was a general commentary on herding-tendencies specifically within 'social media'.

Re: chasing the dragon - “deleting accounts feels soooooo good”

Alex Hillman — Fri, 04 Jan 2008 14:00:41 -0000

Lee,
Glad you liked the post!

I don't agree with everything Loren Feldman says but he does occasionally have a valuable message wrapped up in rant and/or humor. In the case of his 2008 predictions video post:
http://www.1938media.com/2008-predictions/</p>

He wraps it by saying that in 2008 we'll all realize that the most important voice in the internet is our own, and not that of all of the idiots we are following.

I try to avoid following idiots, but I agree, the power of social media is the power of our own voice.

Re: webapps as social experiments - obvious case study 1: twitter.com

Alex Hillman — Tue, 29 Jan 2008 11:32:11 -0000

Nate, you're dead on with your point. I wonder what kinds of things Twitter could be doing to encourage innovation with their API? I've heard of wild ideas like using twitter accounts as data tokens for passing things back and forth between two remote apps (think...a flash based multiplayer game that uses twitter to pass coordinates back and forth).

I think the problem is social, not technical, in the fact that people still haven't totally figured out what twitter is for in the first place. That simultaneous boon and bane of "not knowing", while it could encourage innovation, is tough because more people know about the base functionality, the more they can start to think outside the box. It takes a very special mind to go outside of the box without baseline for inspiration. To our credit, our industry is does have a good number of people like that, but I'd still count the group as a "few", maybe even several, of that type of innovator.

So is it Twitter's fault? The community's? Was the "if you build it they will come" mentality not enough for the Twitter API?". Those are the questions you've got me thinking about now. Wondering what everyone else thinks.

Re: They say things happen in 3s

Alex Hillman — Sat, 23 Feb 2008 16:58:14 -0000

Wow, thanks for the kind words from everyone!

Valeria: You'll be missed at SXSW for sure!
Patrick: Great minds think alike, man!
Melyssa: Thank you! I enjoy writing and a number of people have mentioned my writing style and how they really appreciate my passion for the things I write about. Why would I write about things I wasn't passionate about? :-)
Caroline: Thank you too! I miss seeing you around, hope we can catch up soon.
Matt: The pleasure has been mine. You've been a rockstar client and YOUR commitment and dedication to learning more about my industry, while sharing knowledge from your experience, has made our time together worthwhile. I'm stoked to see things with the C100 grow as well, and many many more opportunities moving forward.

Re: More than One Firefox (Beta) 2.0 to rule them all - a Dave Martorana concoction

Alex Hillman — Mon, 25 Feb 2008 15:37:09 -0000

AWS link fixed, sorry I missed the permissions when I updated the files this morning.

Re: Your problems aren’t what make you special, your solutions are.

Alex Hillman — Sun, 02 Mar 2008 18:14:59 -0000

Another big thanks: Alex Harris (the previous comment above this one) drove my ass all over the beach on more than one occasion this weekend. Thanks man!

Re: Don’t lose your voice

Alex Hillman — Thu, 13 Mar 2008 14:58:21 -0000

@Alexandre:
Thank you, that's an awesome compliment!

Eff the cynics, I say. They'll always be there. They have just as much of a choice as I do to do and say what they want.

Re: Doing vs. Enabling Doers

Alex Hillman — Mon, 24 Mar 2008 19:18:07 -0000

Todd, you make an excellent point. This technique seems to be early-stage preparation for making sure whatever project you have has the ability to have a life beyond your involvement. You don't need an uncomfortable "handoff" (as I've experienced many) when everyone's always felt empowered enough to step into the "mentor" role themselves if necessary.

Thanks for your thoughts, everyone.

Re: Building a Legacy by Sharing What you Love

Alex Hillman — Tue, 01 Apr 2008 12:00:14 -0000

@Clintus: that's just the Viddler Video Companion plugin. When you embed a video with that, it places a thumbnail for quicker loading of the page.

Re: What does creative mean to you?

Alex Hillman — Tue, 08 Apr 2008 17:59:41 -0000

Sharing some of the Twitter @alexknowshtml responses I got:
<img src="http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2007/2399644094_2f9c029c87.jpg?v=0"></img>

Re: More than One Firefox (Beta) 2.0 to rule them all - a Dave Martorana concoction

Alex Hillman — Wed, 09 Apr 2008 10:57:33 -0000

Neal,
You can, indeed, simply rename a new version of Firefox to Firefox3.app and it will work.

There's a new Cocoa version that Dave is working on, it will be bundled with the newest beta as well.

Re: Creative Agency

Alex Hillman — Wed, 16 Apr 2008 11:20:36 -0000

Patrick,
I completely agree that the challenge is in scaling that sort of operation without it being taken advantage of or being distorted. I don't know what the answer is, but I see our community in one of the best places to explore.

Re: The East Coast Revolution - SocialDevCamp East

Alex Hillman — Tue, 22 Apr 2008 14:58:48 -0000

@Chris nothing is better for global innovation than finding new neighbors and making friends. I'm so excited to be going to places I've never been and discovering the awesome projects people are doing from them. If only they had better tools (ahem...coworking...ahem) to get their ideas out to the masses!

And don't you dare think about coming here before I show up in SF. How are we supposed to take over the world from Philly if I don't know what really makes you kids out west tick? ;-)

See you next month on the left coast!

Re: The East Coast Revolution - SocialDevCamp East

Alex Hillman — Thu, 24 Apr 2008 10:21:11 -0000

@Justin,
Yeah, I guess that wasn't clear in my post: I'm totally attending SDCEast!

Re: Do it by hand

Alex Hillman — Wed, 30 Apr 2008 10:43:11 -0000

Yo Bryan! When are we gonna see you down in the 'Illadelph?

CSSEdit is pretty slick, though for me it just gets in the way more than it helps. But they have created a good product that helps create good code, and I'm into that!

Re: Add Equal Parts Business and Culture. Blend until Smooth.

Alex Hillman — Thu, 29 May 2008 19:14:32 -0000

Hey Drew,
I see the same constraints over and over as well. Many of them are artificial or self-imposed. No matter what, though, the process is evolutionary. The problem is, almost everyone is at the same step of the evolution. And until more people fail from their mistakes, we're not going to know what truly *doesn't* work.

It's up to us, as leaders in this much LARGER learning community, to step outside of the bounds we've created for ourselves and explore new things. Successes AND failures.

That's the only way that this is going to make it's way into the textbooks.

And for the record: wondering what the long term solutions are is free.
Actually finding them? Priceless.

Re: What if I don’t want to “Join the Conversation”

Alex Hillman — Thu, 10 Jul 2008 09:41:23 -0000

Brian,
Yeah, I hear you on the upset tummy overindulgance thing.

There's an immense value in marketing using connections and relationships, but I still see the majority of the "relationships" people are using as abusive and one-sided.

I guess what scares me is that new people are joining the "new media/social media marketing" buffet line every day, but the new people entering the fold see what the majority is up to. And right now, the majority is up to "blah blah blah blah twitter blah blah blah."

:)

Re: What if I don’t want to “Join the Conversation”

Alex Hillman — Tue, 15 Jul 2008 00:14:39 -0000

Kevin,
I was certainly pointing fingers at online conversations for this context, but I'm a firm believer in online only ever being part of the PR package. One isn't nearly as effective without the other, in EITHER direction.

Great story about the success of listening-based marketing. Thanks for sharing!

Re: What if I don’t want to “Join the Conversation”

Alex Hillman — Tue, 15 Jul 2008 23:58:45 -0000

Tom,
Excellent point. It's social skills, really.

Perhaps we should be teaching social skills instead of consuming social media like it's the cure, hmmm?

Re: One Year at IndyHall to the day.

Alex Hillman — Fri, 15 Aug 2008 17:32:28 -0000

Thanks John!

If you aren't already, be sure to get in touch with Tessa (@driveafastercar), since visiting us she's been on a kick to pull the Jelly communities together to work towards a permanent space!

Thanks again for the kudos!

Re: welcome to high contrast

Alex Hillman — Tue, 26 Aug 2008 12:26:13 -0000

@michael: what would you change to make the text higher contrast? if you suggest some colors, I'd be happy to try it out.

Re: Twitter tracking is back - sorta

Alex Hillman — Wed, 03 Sep 2008 09:11:00 -0000

@Chris Morrell: Unfortunately, that only works for the web interface (and any clients that support it, like Twitterrific. When I'm away from my desk (which is more and more these days) and don't want to be hitting refresh on search.twitter.com on my iPhone, this is muey bueno!

Re: Rant: Coworking vs. Incubator

Alex Hillman — Sun, 14 Sep 2008 11:11:41 -0000

Todd,
Being an open source developer, much like being on the more "altruistic" side of the spectrum when it comes to coworking, does NOT mean that one is casting themselves into poverty simply because of their decision!

William Hurley has a great post of over the BMC blog called "Welcome to Opensville" that outlines the necessary ecosystem that sounds very similar to what we need in order for coworking to continue to flourish while maintaining stability and remaining true to it's values.

There's nothing wrong with either decision. The more they coexist, the more symbiotic they can become. I'm actually extremely interested in how some of the "enterprise" style coworking can positively influence the movement. The fact of the matter is, in order for it to do so, there needs to be *consistent* guidance. I'm not bothered by the commercial interests, I'm bothered by the inconsistency in messaging that it generates.

Re: Rant: Coworking vs. Incubator

Alex Hillman — Sun, 14 Sep 2008 17:49:49 -0000

Ax,
I completely agree. The hardest issue to address is that education that you're doing well, from what it sounds like. Coworking is sorely missing consistent messaging materials, they'd make yours, my, and many others in our larger community's jobs MUCH easier. :)

If only I had some spare time to work on them...

Re: Help save companies from themselves and get stuff at the same time.

Alex Hillman — Tue, 30 Sep 2008 13:47:41 -0000

@Owen: I love the question you've proposed. I think there are examples of grassroots + social media being used to support open source software. I think it just requires some creative thinking of how to obtain the needed resources.

@Brett S. Lane: Thanks for your 5 things post. Looking forward to reading it!

@Stef: Please, as the 5alist crew! Looking forward to what they come up with :)

Re: 97.3% of all statistics are made up

Alex Hillman — Thu, 09 Oct 2008 17:40:47 -0000

@Charity: Ah! Clarifications. That's what I like to see.

Now. 1000 Americans. I wonder how many of those follow GaryVee on twitter.

Re: Twitter tracking is back - sorta

Alex Hillman — Fri, 10 Oct 2008 13:15:28 -0000

@Lyell E. Petersen: The difference is that this works with the twitter Direct Message API so that the notifications come in real time via SMS (if you have SMS for direct messages enabled). I could see the two services used in tandem, TweetTrak for things that I want as soon as they are posted, and TweetBeep for the stuff that I can check daily.

Good stuff!

Re: you’re only screwed if you suck

Alex Hillman — Fri, 10 Oct 2008 13:35:10 -0000

@alex awesome: You're quite right. The people we hear whining about it have no right whining at all when you think about the people that have been hurting all this time, and are now going to hurt even more.

Great perspective. We could all benefit from a bit more like that.
Thanks for adding it.

Re: I’m not a marketer

Alex Hillman — Mon, 13 Oct 2008 17:04:21 -0000

@alex awesome: I'm trying to get away from griping about the bad marketers. They're always going to be there, and I can't see putting energy into them anymore.

Like I said, no matter how good the police force, people will still commit crimes, be them felonies or social indiscretions.

Re: doing something better

Alex Hillman — Fri, 17 Oct 2008 14:02:37 -0000

@seanosh: No problem Sean, it was a great shot!

Re: Q & A with Mashable

Alex Hillman — Sat, 18 Oct 2008 15:54:52 -0000

@Daniel Delaney: I'm open minded, and so is Mashable. The goal here is to widen my horizons while exploring others' interests and providing valuable information.

Entrepreneurship, technology, community, code, coworking, culture...are some of my own interests. But I'm just as interested in everyone else's.

Ask me questions that are provocative, I'm most likely to answer those.

Ask me questions that give me a reason to interview interesting people, that's what I want.

What *don't* I want?

Don't you dare ask me how to monetize your blog.
Don't you dare ask me how to get thousands of followers on twitter.

Re: I Follow You

Alex Hillman — Sun, 09 Nov 2008 21:13:14 -0000

@Robert Rowe: Sweet. That was the intent: not to call anyone out, but point out that I've experienced both sides of the fence and it's weird no matter which side of the encounter you're on.

It was way cool to meet you this weekend and glad that you came out! Hope to see you around more :)

Re: I Follow You

Alex Hillman — Mon, 10 Nov 2008 10:09:05 -0000

@Jesse Middleton: There's even more to consider: intent. With dating sites, there's a clear cut "purpose" for posting certain information.

I buy into your theory of "ego" as the juice that powers social network sites (not posted here, but we've talked offline enough), but I don't think it's the only variable factored into intent.

Re: Does coworking have a hyphen?

Alex Hillman — Mon, 10 Nov 2008 12:58:33 -0000

@Lachlan Hardy: that's way less fun. ;)

Are we really going to talk about "nonsensical names in the construct of the english language" when we've got funded companies naming themselves with a web two point oh naming convention ridiculousness?

Point taken, though. And I always like when you stop by to say hi.

Re: I Follow You

Alex Hillman — Wed, 12 Nov 2008 15:46:50 -0000

@timoni: you're quite right, I'm not suggesting that we reverse the benefits (and detraction) of knowing more about each other.

Thinking about this in a sense of tribal communities and their inner workings, your notion of gang signs and t-shirts aren't outlandish. I mean, they are...but what they represent isn't.

I'm honestly less worried about the individual circles that this happens within. It really gets the weirdest where those circles overlap, and most weird when the circles overlap with those who aren't as used to the hyper connected and our idiosyncrasies.

Average Joe may not know why he's on facebook yet, and how's he going to react when he has his first oddball encounter like the ones we're describing? Will he be ready to be as accepting of it as a norm as we are? Or will he firmly reject it and put us back to square one on a meter of <air quotes>progress</air quotes>.

Re: drexel rant 1.1

Alex Hillman — Mon, 17 Nov 2008 12:29:36 -0000

Seth nailed it. Your education is just that, YOUR education. If you're not feeling educated, then I think you have every reason to consider other options.

If you think of it from a customer service perspective, why would you keep paying for crappy product when there's competition across the street.

My only point would be: before leaving, know what you're looking for so you don't find yourself wandering. If you can set goals that you can weigh your options against, you'll have a more efficient experience evaluating options and a higher chance of making the right decision.

I think it's an extremely adult decision to make, and better to make sooner than later.

Best of luck, Emily, and keep me posted if we can do anything else to help.

Re: I Follow You

Alex Hillman — Wed, 19 Nov 2008 10:49:25 -0000

@Liz: Liz, I totally agree. Fundamentally, our experiences are richer, and I too appreciate that I can "know" hundreds of people who I likely would never have encountered.

I'm not concerned about people knowing what I'm up to, as it's been far more beneficial than detrimental to myself and those who keep up with me on twitter. I don't feel like I'm being intruded on. That's also been my choice, and to many, seems absurd.

Lucky for them, Twitter is opt-in :)

Re: A Roadmap for Community Organization and Mobilization - Harvey Milk

Alex Hillman — Mon, 22 Dec 2008 17:31:27 -0000

@Ryan Graves: It's screening regionally...check your local movie house. It probably won't be in a multiplex.

Worth traveling for, though. It's really that good. And Sean Penn totally kills it.

Re: playing devils advocate AGAINST single click signups

Alex Hillman — Mon, 22 Dec 2008 22:26:29 -0000

@Chris: I firmly agree that improving the boarding process to gain new users is a positive step. What I'm curious of is, from a business perspective, does that ratio of members : active members mean anything?

Re: playing devils advocate AGAINST single click signups

Alex Hillman — Tue, 23 Dec 2008 11:16:57 -0000

@Mark Jaquith & @Chris: thanks for sharing your thoughts on the ratio, helps a lot!

Re: Authenticity isn’t a feature. It’s a tone.

Alex Hillman — Wed, 24 Dec 2008 09:50:46 -0000

@Patrick: Great to re-read that piece. Thanks for digging that up and sharing!

Re: Cluetrain-a-Day 2009: Markets consist of human beings, not demographic sectors.

Alex Hillman — Wed, 07 Jan 2009 11:15:50 -0000

@Murray Izenwasser: Murray, personas are a *great* way, maybe even a common way, but hardly a *ubiquitous* way to design for the web.

Even worse, they're almost completely remiss from design for *business*. Before the business plan, define who is your customer, and do they need you? If not, you need to start over.

Re: Cluetrain-A-Day 2009: Introduction.

Alex Hillman — Wed, 07 Jan 2009 16:26:59 -0000

@David Weinberger: Wow, David. It's a pleasure and an HONOR to have you reading and commenting along!

Re: Cluetrain-A-Day 2009: Introduction.

Alex Hillman — Wed, 07 Jan 2009 16:59:03 -0000

Rick, thrilled to have you here as well.

To both of you, I want to thank you for essentially writing out my editorial calendar here. This is going to be a fun ride!