June 30, 2008
Watch and interact live over the Web! Today at 6 p.m. EST, I am chatting with Washington, DC local marketing/PR guru Rohit Bhargava the author of the new book, Personality Not Included: Why Companies Lose Their Authenticity And How Great Brands Get it Back.
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June 23, 2008
The days of fumbling over a map while driving a car appear to be a parting memory as GPS systems have grown increasingly popular of the past few years. The iPhone and other mobile devices have adopted GPS for navigating your way through life. Some newer vehicles are adding GPS as a standard option. Portable GPS devices by Garmin, Tom Tom and other have continued to roll out improved devices. But there is a new GPS startup that is taking what Garmin and Tom Tom have been doing well and taking it a step further.
Dash Navigation, a Sunnyvale, California startup, has launched a product called the Dash Express which not only helps you find your way it also hooks to the Internet for real-time interactivity. This connectivity can be leveraged to offer real-time traffic data based on anomous Dash users. The connection also hooks users up to Yahoo Local search to find local business and other destinations. A new open platform also means that users will be seeing more and functionality and applications offered but some of the notables currently include Twitter which sends your current location to Twitter as well as other applications like WeatherBug which offers real-time weather information based on your current location.
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June 18, 2008
JOIN ME ON JONNY'S PAR-TAY!
I will be talking about startups, Web 2.0, social media, SOMEWHAT FRANK and TECH cocktail on the video show, Jonny’s Par-tay on Wednesday, June 18, 2008 at 9pm EST. The show is hosted live by DC TECH cocktailers Scott Stead and Jonny Goldstein so tune in. Here are the details:
What: A rollicking conversation with Jonny Goldstein, Scott Stead, and you! You get to interact with everyone else via live text chat.
When: Wednesday, June 18, 9-10PM EST
Where: jonnyspartay.com
Be a part of the live conversation as we talk about TECH cocktail, technology startups and more. It should be a lot of fun!
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April 12, 2008
I am a taggaholic. I love to tag items in Flickr and across the Web. I even find myself sometimes tagging other peoples photos and online content. This would not be possible without "folksonomy" and recently got to watch Thomas Vander Wal present at AOL as part of the AOL Developer Network Speaker Series. Thomas Vander Wal invented the word "folksonomy" and knows a thing or two about the social web. It's more than just today's social networks - it's layers of interactivity, circles of sociability, reputation and identity. He also shared his thoughts on the spheres of sociability, social objects, and the path to get users to fully embrace creating and sharing social objects.
I got a chance to talk with Thomas after his presentation and it is episode 20 of SOMEWHAT FRANK TV.
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March 9, 2008
Mark Zuckerberg was interviewed today at South by Southwest Interactive in Austin, Texas. This is the second time I have seen Mark Zuckerberg speak in person as the first I recorded at TechCrunch40. Unfortunately, this time though I am press I was not able to get a seat in the main room where Mark spoke. Bummer. Sarah Lacey the author of a Business Week cover article as well as a book on Mark Zuckerberg interviewed Mark.
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February 21, 2008
Trying to keep up to speed with the latest corporate or team communications can be a bit daunting. LiquidTalk, a Chicago-based startup, offers a business solution to help keep people in the corporate look via the devices (iPhones and BlackBerry) that we all have on us at all times. It is like having iTunes for business as it syncs all your corporate communication messages to your device for on the go consumption on your own terms.
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January 26, 2008
Now is Gone so you had better get ready to embrace a new media. I previously chatted with Brian Solis about, Now Is Gone, a book he helped Geoff Livingston author. I sat on a panel discussing social media with Geoff at the New New Internet conference this past November, when he announced his book. So I was happy to finally be able to chat with him about it.
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January 21, 2008
Shareaholic, the popular Firefox extension that aggregates bookmarklets that I previously covered on Somewhat Frank, has released an update which continues to strengthen its value proposition as the web browser extension that offers one stop sharing. Shareaholic has recently added Tumblr, Mixx, Simpy and FriendFeed to its sharing options which already include a number of sites. Shareholic also offers popularity metrics like how many times the a page you are visiting has been Dugg or saved to del.icio.us.
My favorite thing about Shareaholic is that it helps remove some of the clutter that piles up from installing and using all a number of sharing bookmarklets. Check out the latest Shareaholic release and share to your hearts content.
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January 19, 2008
Somewhat Frank Weekly Video: This week I got a chance to sit down with AOL's Kevin Lawver who is very well respected at AOL and in the web development community. He has worked at AOL for 13 years and worked on everything from AOL search to conceptualizing and developing Ficlets.
We sat down and discussed a new book Adapting to Web Standards : CSS and Ajax for Big Sites which he helped Christopher Schmitt, Robert Cherny, Meryl K. Evans, Mark Trammell and Kimberly Blessing author. The book is devoted to helping experienced developers to better understand the changing web standards landscape and somewhat frankly, adapt. Kevin wrote chapter 7 which focuses on AOL's move into the online space with the relaunch the new AOL.com in 2005. The chapter discusses managing "corporate swirl" and "combating the waterfall" methodology. It even explains how web development is an art and craft (not witchcraft though).
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January 12, 2008
Somewhat Frank Weekly Video: Tantek Çelik recently discussed open Web standards and data portability at an Open Media Web Meetup. Tantek believes writing on the Web is like "writing in sand" since it all could be wiped out when the next wave of technology comes through. Tantek also speaks about data formats and how content data formats expires content over time. It is an interesting perspective from an innovation leader and long time advocate of open standards efforts like microformats.
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December 23, 2007
Are you familiar with the ultimate Web 2.0 directory online Go2Web20.net? I sat down from my parents home in Chicagoland to chat with Orli Yakuel from her home in Israel. She recently left AOL where she acted as a Web 2.0 analyst and is now in search for the “dream job.”
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December 22, 2007
The video I decided to highlight this week happens to showcase a friend of mine, TechCrunch editor Michael Arrington as he appeared on the San Francisco Bay area local Fox affiliate discussing being named one of the Forbes top 25 web celebs. Also notables include Robert Scoble, Jeff Jarvis, Jason Calacanis and "Giga" Om Malik.
Congrats to everyone mentioned and everyone on the list that keeps the blogosphere flowing like a river. However, Forbes seems to have forgotten to give some love to more than a few excellent bloggers but most notably "Somewhat" Frank Gruber. But just like the Chicago Cubs' baseball season, I guess there is always next year. :)
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December 15, 2007
What's it take to start your own company these days? Everyone has their own opinion on this question. FoundRead recently sat down with Art of the Start author Guy Kawasaki to talk about just how to bootstrap and start a company with limited resources.
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December 8, 2007
I got a chance to sit down with Future Works and Bub.blico.us founder and PR 2.0 blogger Brian Solis to chat about the book Now Is Gone that he assisted Geoff Livingston in writing. The book is a good primer for anyone that is thinking about the new media landscape from big companies to entrepreneurs.
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November 3, 2007
I got interviewed by trend junkie and entrepreneur Greg Cangelosi of Trend TV this week while at the The New New Internet Conference. In case you might not know Greg Cangelosi is a podcasting expert and just authored a book titled . I cannot wait to get my hands on a copy.Greg and I sat down and chatted and he captured the casual interview on Trend TV.
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