Wide-eyed and Jaded

…is “watch this video.” Please.

This video went live less than a week ago and now has over one million views. I will never be able to express how brilliant it is. Just watch it.

What was more interesting and fun to me than Cuil’s launch this week? Delicious‘ redesign! I normally find out about these things on Twitter, but not this time! I logged in to my account to pull something up for one of my colleagues and was shocked by an aesthetically pleasing user interface.

The good:

• Sleek presentation!
• I love the UI’s organization and how much easier it is now to search for something in my hoards of bookmarks
• The Top 10 Tags chart is much nicer to look at than a long tailed list

I’m not sure about:

• I might like the Top Tags more if they were listed in order of most to least tagged rather than alphabetically
• I really liked the del.icio.us brand!
• My blog’s Delicious widget is messed up now

I’m sure I’ll learn about and fall in love with other details of the new site as I play around with it a little more. But for now I suggest checking out this video from Delicious that walks the viewer through the redesign:

Now that you’ve read what I think, I want to know what you love and hate and the new site!

Unless it’s about the TTC, it’s rare to see 36 comments on a Toronto-based LiveJournal post these days. I’m totally going oldschool on your arses!

I just read this post about a lost passport found and returned using swift (some call it creepy?) Internet skillz:

I found a passport
I found a passport on the streets, what do I do? The thing is, he is from the US! He just came to Canada on the 25th.

I googled him (like a creeper) and found nothing.

returned it

…in the most creepy stalkerish way! If I knew about the Consolate, I would have done that first…but their hours would have been inconvenient anyways (I work 9-6) Not like government hours are ever convenient….
Thanks for all the replies! As a reward I’ll tell you how I found him (like a creeeep)

Okay, so I googled his name and only two relative results for patents he filed for. It told me he worked at IBM so I googled his name and IBM and found his LinkedIn page which had a picture that matched his pp picture. Good! I can send him a note there—signed up and yada yada. Tried to send him a message but it wanted me to pay to upgrade. Bah! Facebook did not bring results….but wait! LinkedIn is like facebook, ah! a work website. I called up their offices and they said he was in London (?) A few calls and e-mails later, I find out that he works about 6mins away! Turns out he didn’t know it was lost–all is good now

Way to work a computer, delirious_asian!

I recorded the above Utter at PodCamp Boston 3 a couple weeks ago. I briefly spoke with Chris Hanaka from Utterz who was representing the company and its sponsorship of the unconference. He’s quite the charmer and, I must say, I am pretty jealous of his job.

What do you guys think of Utterz? Reply with an Utter!

Before I explain what this is all about, please know I didn’t say one of these words about myself. That is exactly why this list was created. “You’re so hard on yourself” is a phrase uttered to me often, and I heard a lot of it this weekend at PodCamp Boston 3.

It’s hard for me to take someone else’s advice regarding my personal life because I’m so stuck in my own mind. But my amazing friends who attended PCB3 with me helped me step out of my head for a while and appreciate Rayanne for everything Rayanne is.

After the final day of the conference, my group/our clique/the awesome Seesmicers went out to make sure we said goodbye on a high note. When I wasn’t paying attention, my e-mom passed around a napkin printed with the words, “Rayanne is” and asked everyone to choose five words that they thought described me.

You’ve seen the result.

The phrase I most clearly remember from PCB3 is: Seesmic is emotional.

I spent the weekend with about a dozen people I met many months ago on Seesmic. I have gotten to know these people online as well as I would have if I met them in person. When we departed early Monday morning, I cried. And cried and cried and cried. When my co-workers asked me on Tuesday morning how my weekend was, I had to choke back tears and tell them I wasn’t ready to talk about it.

I feel like I’m going through a breakup. The feeling was especially present when I expressed my complete sadness to some of the other PCB3 attendees and got responses like, “Yeah, it’s sad, but we’ll see each other again soon.” I thought I was too emotionally attached and was about to torture myself further.

But my friend (and one of the group) ChrisCavs said it best on a Seesmic post with something like this:

I’m glad I’m not the only one who’s constantly checking Flickr for new pictures and videos. What is it with this weekend? I guess we all needed something like that.

So, I’m not alone. PodCamp Boston was a wonderful experience. Seesmic is emotional. And I’ll likely have more to say about that later.

Photos by MissSomething and Starman.

Thanks to FASHION Magazine’s Reporter Search, I am so overwhelmed with my new discovery of interesting and talented fashion bloggers. Until now, I thought I was doing a pretty good job at keeping up with these unique Canadian fashionistas. I was mistaken!

Posts highlighting bloggers’ individual styles, tastes and hometowns were judged by members of the FASHION team, and 20 finalists spanning our home and native land were named. The regions represented are Eastern Canada 1 and 2, Montreal, Toronto, Ontario, Winnipeg, Saskatoon, Edmonton, Calgary and Vancouver. I love how many of the participants’ entry posts, bios and personal blogs exude their whereabouts. That’s Canadian regional pride in action, my friends.

I’m particularly interested to see how the search pans out for ridiculously cute Jill Butler in St. John’s, N.L., ultimate Belleville, Ont. hipster Isabel Slone and the ever lovely Terri Potratz in Vancouver, B.C.

Visitors to the contest site can choose between two bloggers per region to vote for once per day. FASHION says, “the one with the most votes wins a trip to New York City! The 10 winning bloggers will become key players on our web site, reporting on the latest shopping scoop in their cities.”

Great campaign, FASHION! I’ll be voting every day.

One last thing: Will you all please dearly vote for Terri on my behalf? Terri’s blog, The Conveyor Belt, is rich with dynamic conversations about fashion, beauty, arts and culture and more. She has been so good to me since starting at Veritas, and I can’t think of a better way to thank her!

I went to FacebookCamp Toronto 4 tonight with my friends Eden and Miranda. According to the FacebookCamp wiki, the evening was “an unconference for everyone with an interest in building on the Facebook Platform. FacebookCamp brings together developers, marketers, strategists, technologists, and students, in an open and collaborative environment of sharing and learning.”

The speakers were from Facebook’s monetization team; representatives of Trapeze and Refresh Partners, who were the event’s organizers; and Facebook application developers.

First, some Facebook stats that aren’t necessarily new, but always cool:

• One third of Canadians are on Facebook
• Six per cent of Facebook users are from Ontario
• Ontario is the world’s most present state on Facebook
• There are over 30,000 Facebook applications
• There were only about 5,000 applications six months ago
• There is a significant growth in users signing up to Facebook in September

Facebook’s Rebecca Sawyer spoke about monetizing Facebook applications. Much of what she talked about surrounded the use of social ads and exact targeting. This information wasn’t new to me because this is stuff I actively seek to learn about every day. Further, I’ve been playing around with Facebook ads for work lately, so I understood first hand the slides she guided us through. But, I found her presentation particularly interesting because I heard it in terms of teaching developers how to target and attract audiences. She advised, “Target ads to smaller, more specific groups of users.”

Sawyer’s main points of advice to monitize a Facebook application are:

1. Take advantage of social actions
2. Target an exact audience
3. Write interesting, effective ad text
4. Create multiple ads to find out which are more effective
5. Optimize

Andrew Cherwenka from Trapeze introduced the attendees to Facebook’s upcoming new look and feel. He says Facebook “cleaned themselves up” because the clutter was starting “be a little like MySpace.” Profiles will soon be organized by tabs such as Info, Photos, Applications, etc. One of the first things I look at when I get a few Facebook friend is their education and work info. I’m excited to not have to sift through seas of monster applications and FunWalls in order to find this information.

The applications tab (and possibly the others) is fully customizable in terms of placement and organization. An optional tab will be made available for users to add their favourite app to their tabs. The tabs will most likely be the first thing seen on a user’s profile, so this option is a great way for developers to “pitch their own apps,” says Cherwenka.

The new interface (which will be live in about a week) is supposed to be available for viewing now at new.facebook.com, but doesn’t seem to be working for me right now. How about everyone else?

The Facebook application case studies presented were:

• Refresh Analytics presented by Roy Pereira, Refresh Partners
• Praize’n'raze presented by Sebastien Provencher, Praized Media
• MouseHunt presented by Joel Auge, HitGrab
• SlangBook presented by Daniel Cooper

I may post more about these apps once I have tried them for myself.

Overall, I really enjoyed FacebookCamp Toronto 4. However, I think there should have been some signage. The wiki, Facebook invite, etc. had the building and “downstairs” stated, but there were other goings-on at MaRS tonight, and figuring out where to go was slightly confusing—and I’ve been in the building for a conference before! The branded lanyards were cool, though.

Finally, Facebook was giving out $25 vouchers for social ads, which I was so excited about! Sawyer ended her presentation brilliantly by announcing the coupons would be given out at the exit. When I was ready to leave, Sawyer was busy chatting with someone. Someone else told me there was a queue to talk to/introduce myself to her, but all I wanted was the chance to make my own Facebook ads promoting my modest music career. There were other small complications in getting the voucher and I ended up home without one. Not a big deal, but I’m disappointed nonetheless.

Thanks to Trapeze and Refresh Partners for putting on another great event! Thanks also to the wonderful presenters and my great friends for joining me again!

I welcome and encourage everyone’s else’s thoughts on FacebookCamp and the topics discussed here—whether you were there tonight or not!

Tags are called labels on Blogger, right? I was just reading my friend David’s blog (it’s private, so no need to link) and became really happy at the sight of his labels.

In school, at PodCamps, etc., we’re taught tags and labels are a great way to have more people find your blog, website or what have you. Don’t call me on this, but I think David’s labels are more of a personal filing system. If he talks about his girlfriend Andrea, the post is added to his blog’s Andrea category. The majority of his labels are names of his friends. I just think it’s really sweet to see such a personal touch brought back to this space for me.

I love his blog, BTW. He writes his daily accounts living in Ottawa. Before he started this one, he wrote everyday in a blog about Toronto life. I think writing so simplistically every day helps him as a writer. And, it reminds me how important it is to have other things to do online than socialize with the same people who do the same things as you.

If you don’t already, I strongly suggest you find some blogs to read about every personal interest you have. I’m probably repeating myself, but it helps re-humanize this space.