Return on Intention

Its amazing to me that I have been in New Mexico for over 5 years and it was only recently that I found that there is intelligent life in the web community. Today was the first ABQ web geeks meetup that I attended, and after this last weekends barcamp, I am happy to report that there is a good, smart web community in New Mexico. 

I was astounded that around 40 people showed up to O’Neils Pub on Central Ave tonight from 6:00 to 8:00 pm. There they were, real web folks. Some were shop owners, some were with start-ups, some were employees, but all were on top of their game. There wasn’t a table based layout in sight. I even heard that a large NM ad agency is working studiously to get their design department up to speed on the web. That may not sound huge, but for NM its a good step in the right direction.

Maybe its just me, still high from the excitement of a thriving community, but I think its time for another sprint. A big one. Keep your eyes peeled at the ABQ web geeks community at Duke City Fix, the Refresh Albuquerque Google group and this blog for more information. 

I would love to see this sprint take on not one, but two or three non-profit websites in a weekend. Get ready…. This is going to be good.

This isn’t my official post BarCamp post, but it will have to do for now. My router was in use throughout barcamp, so when I got home at night I had no internets. I haven’t really had a chance to blog about barcamp, post flickr photos or anything else and now that the event is over, I’m sick. I guess I should be thankful that I got through at least half of BarCamp before getting sick, but it now leaves me feeling completely drained and fuzzy headed. So, I will have to write a meaningful post later, but in short, BarCamp Albuquerque Rocked. I am super happy with how it all turned out. I have hours of audio to go through, and I will publish what came through as I get them done. I have a lot of crazy deadlines right now, so please be patient, but until I return, watch this… again (this isn’t new, but still great).

Apple released the new itunes this week, and the key feature to watch is “genius”. In the new itunes, select a track and press the genius button (the little atom icon) and you will get a playlist from your music collection that go great with the track you picked. When you have a music library as a large as my business partner Daniel Lyons does, this feature works out really well. Of course, there is another side to the story that is good for people looking for new music, and for Apple.

The genius feature can also give you a list of the songs that will go great with your selection that you don’t own yet, but with an apple id, you can buy them in one click. From what we tested today, there are a lot of songs that Dan needs . . . and each one is only 99 cents away. I think I hear a “cha-ching” off in the distance… to the west… from southern california… 

Google launched "Chrome" – their new web browser today. This is pretty exciting for web developers, as the speed of chrome is way faster than any other browser. Here is the speed report according to cnet.

There is a really cool story behind chrome that google has here . Its in comic book form which I think is great because they break down some of the technology into graphics that are easier for non-web junckies to understand. Its even better that the whole initiative is open source. Any other browser can use some of the real innovations that google has come up with. Why? As google put it, "We live on the internet". Their economic engine is tied to people using the web. The better their web experience the more they will use the web. Better browsers = better internet.  It makes great sense for them, more than trying to create another source of revenue from yet another web browser.

There isn’t a mac version yet, so I had to borrow my sons Vista laptop to see it in action. (I know, I can’t beleive he bought a windows machine either.) So far, its really awsome. If you run Vista, go download it here .

A mash up is when you take two things and make them work together to create something new. A good example of this is gruvr.com. Gruvr uses google maps to show users where local live music will be and pinpoint it on the map. Gruvr didn’t write the map software, they just use googles. 

Mashups allow developers to create more value out of existing tools. The only problem is you have to be a developer to know how to do it. Mozilla doesn’t think thats a good idea. Mozilla thinks everyone should be able to do it. To make this happen, they have introduced Ubiquity.  Ubiquity allows you web browser to do the work for you, and then gives you what you wanted by asking it in plain english (other languages to follow presumably), not computer code.

This could have really great future ramifications, so go check it out. There is a video a little way down the page that has some examples.

After some moving around of the dates, BarCamp Albuquerque 3 is now set for September 13th and 14th. BarCamp is an unconference, meaning that no one owns it, and no one profits from it. Without money, bringing in outside Keynote speakers is not possible. We can’t pay for them. This isn’t a problem at BarCamp because its all about leveraging the knowledge of the community. In other words, the attendees are the presenters.

BarCamps are happening all over the world, and they are all organized by people just like you. To get more information on BarCamp visit http://www.barcamp.org. See if there is one in your area and participate in it. If there isn’t one, why not be the one to get one going?

To learn more about BarCamp Albuquerque, check out http://www.barcamp.org/BarCampAlbuquerque, or check out some of the posts from this blog about past BarCamps here.

Now before anyone jumps all over me shouting “Of course you would say that, thats what you do!” consider this, I didn’t start this idea. I caught this idea from Mitch Joel’s blog post DIGITAL MARKETING AGENCIES SHOULD NOT ADJUST CAMPAIGNS FOR THE WEB BUT LEAD THE BRAND STRATEGY. Here is the low down.A recent Forrester Research study, as seen in Advertising Age’s article, To Lead Overall Brand Strategy, Digital Shops Have Much To Do. The premise is that the digital agency is in the best position to lead brand strategy because markets are moving online, but more so because of the wealth of data interactive channels provide. You can read Mitch’s post, and the Ad Age article for more details.Take this information in the back of your mind and then go through the Brand Gap presentation, particularly looking at slide 60 – 65. To me it makes the most sense that with the above thought pattern, your digital agency should be the one sitting in the middle of the chart on slide 60 or 62, instead of a spoke on slide 64.