I’m getting a lot of questions about what this means for me, personally. Immediately, it means that I have more resources to do my job and support our current client roster. Our services have exponentially expanded, and I’m having a lot of fun getting to meet everyone on the new team. I’m also hoping that this frees up some of my time to speak, write and learn more.

And maybe, that means time to blog again.

Some additional posts:
Greg Verdino
Joseph Jaffe
MediaPost
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Then I bought a Diana Camera this year – a quirky, plastic, “toy camera” that’s been a lot of fun and taught me a lot about patience in my instant-gratification life. But still, not so much my everyday companion.

I love my iPhone – and I’m an AppStore addict – so I constantly download, add (and subtract) applications, and was so excited to find an app called “ToyCamera”.

ToyCamera takes the kind of quirky, light-leaks filled pictures that I get with my Diana, without the wait for photo development. I think the developer, Takayuki Fukatsu, is an amazing talent, and has created an app that surprises you with every shot. The filters included in this app include:

• Vintage Green effect
• Vintage Yellow effect
• Vintage Warm effect
• Low Saturation
• High Saturation
• Toning Sepia
• Black and White
• HiCon Black and White

It also has an uploader to the BigCanvas Photoshare – which I don’t use – as well as a Flickr group.

This month I’ve made a commitment to take 5 pictures of wherever I am each morning and post them to Flickr, no matter how I feel they turn out. You can follow my progress here (and this one is my favorite so far). Takayuki Fukatsu has also made a couple of other fantastic apps, OldCamera (Black and White pictures), SepiaCamera (just as it sounds) and QuadCamera, a really neat effect that takes 4 quick pics and puts them in a number of different ways, stacked, side-by-side, etc. All of them are just as addictive as ToyCamera.

To upload to Flickr, I’ve been using the application by XK72, Mobile Fotos. Mobile Fotos allows you to view photostreams, favorites, tags, sets and groups, as well as search for photos, read and make comments, or see other Flickr members photos.And of course the easy uploader – I can upload to groups as well as my photostream.

Since this is a relatively new passion, I’ll see if this sticks beyond my alloted commitment. But it feels like it will. And I’m looking forward to seeing it in action at the next conferences I’m at.

Are there other apps I should check out? Any tutorials? Let me know.

Update 1.24: Just released – an online companion to QuadCamera, QuadAnimator, which takes your QC pictures and saves it as an animated GIF file.  Fun!

Disqus adds threaded comments to your blog, instead of the usual inline comments and or using the @convention. This has been a nagging annoyance of mine – threaded comments makes for understandable conversation flow. It’s hard to interact when every new comment seems to start a new point and conversation, even if it’s an actual reply.

Disqus replaces the existing comment structure with their own (hosted) solution. Once I uploaded and activated the plugin it took me only a few moments to set everything up – I was worried about losing existing comments and checking the “entries with no comments and future posts” option left everything intact. I then went to the Disqus website to set up my profile and enable my settings.

In his post, Fred Wilson says that the number of comments and interaction on his blog has gone up five to tenfold. I tweeted about installing Disqus and immediately got a response from Daniel Ha (co-founder), who pointed me to this FAQ page.

Disqus features:

• Integrates with your blog
• Receive/reply to comments by email or SMS
• You can subscribe to conversations
• Moderate and block unwanted comments/commenters
• Very customizable

Disqus works with a number of blogging platforms including WordPress, TypePad, Movable Type, Blogger and Tumblr (my next Disqus site!). Sites that have implemented Disqus (according to the post, there are over 10,000 blogs) include Fake Steve Jobs, Scripting News, Rev2.org and, of course, A VC.

I’m looking forward to seeing what impact Disqus has on the conversations on my blog and will update with any significant impact.

Other posts on this topic:

• Mathew Ingram
• Howard Lindzon

UPDATE: ReadWriteWeb’s Corvida compares SezWho to Disqus and Intense Debate

Mahalo uses “guides” to build our SERP (Search Engine Results Pages) so that the most relevant results are always given the most importance. The problem is the amount of manpower it takes to build out all of those results. So, besides the actual Mahalo employees, the service looks to crowdsourcing to fill in the results – and will pay them for their work (Mahalo Greenhouse).

Then came Mahalo Social, which added a social component to the service and Mahalo Follow, a way of sharing the links you upload to other services including De.lic.ious, Twitter, Pownce, Tumblr, Facebook, Google Bookmarks, Jaiku and StumbleUpon. This was actually the piece that helped me get more involved with StumbleUpon, as Tamar Weinberg – AKA Queen of all Social News sites – was always after me about. Using a quick combination of keystrokes, I can easily post a link to all of these sites, or any combination I’d like.

As an aside – I rarely post links to Twitter – I’m protective of my network and don’t want to spam them with a lot of links.

But what makes any company – especially a startup – is the people. And everyone that I’ve had contact with from Mahalo has been impressive. If I send a feature request or some bug report, it’s been rare that I don’t hear from someone within the hour. Jason has been very gracious about forwarding reports to the right people and I always hear back with solutions or a commitment to fix the issue. This has really added to my enjoyment of Mahalo – even when my links are denied (or added!), it’s with a very polite note.

So who uses Mahalo? I”ve started using Mahalo for search results – it’s fun to see what people recommend and I really enjoy the Guide Notes. But the real value is for people who are looking for simple, specific results, or find Google results too confusing. It’s always hard for me to remember that most people don’t use the Web like I do and need easy tools that make them comfortable. Then I spend some time with my sister, an elementary school teacher with her first Mac, who doesn’t know what Twitter is and is nervous about shopping online. So I bookmarked Mahalo for her. With the easy and clean user interface, she’ll be able to find whatever she needs quickly (Google results are also included on the page).

And that’s valuable to both of us.

About this time, my nephew (who’s eight today), sits next to me, takes my iPhone and shows me all the sites he visits everyday. Most of the adults there were intimidated by technology, most used the Internet at work and only a bit at home.  They couldn’t get how to use the iPhone. Their kids (no older than 10) were all over it. They passed my iPhone around discussing their favorite websites and communities and answering my questions about what they liked about each. They all own iPods and can connect to iTunes and either buy music, or make a list of songs for their parents to buy. Most had their own cellphones and were adept at taking pictures and video and sharing that media with friends and relatives. None had been on Amazon.com.

They all knew MySpace and most had been on the site or knew kids that had set up profiles – 2 knew of kids who had posted profiles saying that they were 21 (they ARE 10). My niece told me that she has a defined number of sites that she can visit, but if she tries to surf outside the list, she’s blocked and her parents are notified by email. She can’t look at the site until her parents confirm that it’s ok (an email verification).

All the kids talked to me about WebKinz.com, where you register toy animals bought offline and where you can build rooms for these pets and interact with other owners. Club Penguin is still around, but it doesn’t interest them (maybe they grew out of the demographic?).

All the kids were really excited about these new toys they all got for Easter – U.B. Funkeys.

From Amazon.com:

“This specialty starter kit will have you well on your way to U.B. Funkey world — and a possible collection addiction. Funkeys are creative vinyl characters that plug into a larger Funkey hub attached to a computer in order to travel around their virtual world, play games, build a “crib,” and interact with other Funkeys. This starter kit includes the 5-inch-tall white Funkey hub, USB cable, two 2.75-inch-tall Funkeys, and installation software. All in all there are 42 different Funkey characters: three different colors in 14 different designs. Of the three in each design, one is quite common, one is rare, and the third is very rare by collection standards.

By playing games in the U.B. Funkeys world, characters earn coins that they can then use for purchasing items for their “crib.” These rooms are customizable, from wall colors to furniture and plants to accessories, and can also be uploaded for friends to see. Just give your “crib” a name, share it with your friends, and they can visit anytime they’re logged on. There are four zones that offer a total of 16 games for players to conquer, and 30 stores where they can spend their hard earned coins on more than 1,000 virtual items. Now the question is: Are you Funkey?”

This is Second Life for the Tween-crowd, with a level of marketing, engagement and commerce that SL has yet to achieve. This makes (uneasy) sense to me – their parents understand collecting – from Beenie Babies to baseball cards, which is passed down to their children.

One of the things that interest me is the complete play between offline and online. These kids may need help getting on the Web, permission and (hopefully) supervision once they are on – but they know how to interact and how to become part of the community. They know how to make and share media, email and text message. They all wanted my Gmail address to keep in touch.

These kids never knew a time that computers, cell phones and even DVD’s did not exist. They aren’t cynical over the effects of technology, it’s a part of their everyday life and they are much more comfortable handing the overload and overstimulation of information.

I’m excited to keep this particular conversation going.

This week I’m starting an experiment. It might last 3 days or longer, depending on how it impacts my workflow. I’m not going to respond to email conventionally – but by alternate methods of communication including social networking messaging, video and audio messages and texts. I

This was inspired by Chris Brogan’s post last month, “Social Media Inside the Firewall”. I want to see if the methods of communication he discussed were viable today.

I’ll update my progress and my challenges here.

(Via [chrisbrogan.com].)

There’s going to be a lot of news about this today as Google scoops Facebook’s spotlight (until next week when FB’s up at bat with their “SocialAds” announcement). I’ll be looking at all the news, but I’m interested in viewpoints. Who’s thinking what.

One of the great people I saw and met at PodCampBoston this weekend was Christopher Penn (one of the founders). In a post today, Christopher discusses OpenSocial and how it will aggregate and reference data across participating SN platforms.

If this works, I see this as the ultimate social network aggregator. One profile to rule them all. It’s been the missing link in social media – one that many have tried to address before. Plaxo is doing a fine job – but for some reason I can’t integrate it into my lifestream. But Google, Ning (where I have JaneQuigley.com and others are where I live. So is Facebook. But if Google makes it easier to social network elsewhere – somewhere where my friends have also found it easier and fun to be – why would I stay?

Which is a shame, because I love FB and the way it’s grown the company, my friends, my groups, etc. Not so fond of the vampires, zombies, etc. – you take the good with the bad(evil).

(Via Awaken Your Superhero.)

This is an interesting view of the Facebook/Microsoft partnership and what might be announced on November 5th. While Microsoft partnership in Facebook gives MS a giant step forward in social networking, it also gives Facebook access to Microsoft’s ad network.

Only a week to wait!

(Via Mashable.)

October 16th – 17th: SMX Social Media in New York

Agenda Highlights: From the website
SMX Social Media will explore current opportunities and future developments, offering both fundamental and advanced panels on topics including:

- Social Media Marketing Essentials
- Linkbait – Chumming for Traffic on Social Media Sites
- Extra! Extra! The Social News Sites
- A Marketer’s Guide to Social Bookmarking & Tagging
- Effectively Leveraging Social Networking
- Evangelist – The Marketer’s Role in SMM

Full Agenda is here. I’m hoping to do some video updates, maybe some interviews and will definitely blog my impressions and do some live-Twittering!

October 16th – I’m hoping to duck out of SMX to attend NYC’s first Lunch 2.0 (great work Brett Petersel!) at TheLadders.com

October 26-28th: PodCamp Boston 2
This will be my first PodCamp and I’m so excited to participate! I’ll be running around meeting people, learning about video, talking about Facebook and Second Life…and meeting great new people!

Here’s a list of proposed sessions.

I’ll be talking about PodCamp more as it gets closer.

So…who’s going to these events? Let’s make some plans!

Then Brian Solis wrote his great post on Facebook as a Digital Hub. It was a post that rang true for me and helped push me to look at my own brand strategy. And I was all about Facebook. Still am. My network was deep across Twitter and FB, easy to build and maintain. I wrote a entry here responding to Brian’s post (I read Brian’ PR 2.0 every day – his perspective on what’s going on in Silicon Valley and the space is fun, informative and gives me a crucial West Coast window). In the comments Chris Brogan made a case for Ning (which I had used to build a Social Network for one of my clients). He also gave me some great feedback on my web presence and has since encouraged me to be consistent and aggregate my content. And he’s inspired me to start working with video (In a small way, so far). Bought a FlipCamera (thanks Geoff Livingston) that I can carry around with me so that I can talk to people on my travels, do video updates on my blogs, transcribe panels and sessions, etc.

But back to Ning. Ning allows you to develop your own social network. It’s modular, so you can add and subtract features on the fly.

Here’s a list of features(from the website):
- Social Networking
- Full Customization
- Photo Sharing
- Video Sharing
- Discussion Forums
- Groups
- Music and Podcasting
- RSS feedreaders
- Widgets
- Member Profiles/Blogs
- Management Dashboard
- Ability to use Google Analytics
- and more…

In a couple of weeks I’ll be getting a new design and my own logo! I also decided it was time to use my domain name, www.janequigley.com, took the ads off and added some widgets – my upcoming page, my blog RSS feeds, video, my NewsGator shared links and a forum to stimulate conversation and interaction.

What’s challenging – building the traffic. It’s not as easy as Facebook to build my network. Ultimately, it’ll be worth it, as the readers will be here because I’m adding some value and (hopefully) people will want to be part of the forum conversations.

So any suggestions? Anything I should add?