Best of Mashable

I started blogging for Mashable in late November, and now I’m officially an Associate Editor for the big time blog. I’m still learning all the intricacies that go with blogging for such a prominent site, but I think these posts highlight some of my best work thus far.

HOW TO: Make the Most Out of Google Maps

This was just my second post for Mashable, but I put a ton of effort into writing something useful and informative. The post, which got 500+ diggs, covers the Google Maps basics, keyboard shortcuts, advanced tricks, mashups, and mobile maps.

Short Snippet on Keyboard Shortcuts:

You can use your keyboard’s arrow keys to move your view slightly North (up arrow), South (down arrow), East (right arrow), or West (left arrow).

For a bigger jump, use the page up and page down keys to dramatically move North and South. The home key will jump West and the end key will help you navigate further East.

Likewise, the + key will zoom in and the – key will zoom out. You can also zoom in and out with a mouse or the two finger touch (up and down) on a Mac. Simple right?

Not only did I a learn a lot in the process, but I also discovered a new found passion for Augmented Reality, which I believe will become more recognizable in 2009.

5 Reasons to Install Google Desktop Today

With the new release of a Google Docs gadget for Google Desktop, I decided to install Google Desktop and research other ways the download could be useful. I’m guessing that many other people had overlooked Google Desktop as well, because the post got 740 diggs, and inspired a few friends to try it out.

Article highlight:

Take Your Desktop to Your TV

Windows users can install the Google Media Server gadget to harness the power of Google Desktop technology on any UPnP-enabled device like the PlayStation3. Once installed, you can view your PC’s videos, music and photos on your TV, as well as Picasa Web Albums and YouTube videos. A word of warning, however: setup is not always smooth.

There were definitely a few comments from Mac fanatics who aren’t fans of Google Desktop, but I’m still of the opinion that Windows and Linux users can get something out of it.

Top 30 iPhone Apps for Organization and Productivity

This was my second list post and a personal favorite; during the writing process I discovered Mocha VNC Lite (read below for a description) for remotely accessing my Mac from my iPhone. It’s completely free, easy to configure, and pretty darn impressive.

Favorite New App:

Mocha VNC Lite – (App store rating: 3 stars) – Control your Windows, Mac, or Linux computer from your iPhone with this handy app. If you’re like me, you’ll need to use the setup wizard to get started, but once you’re server connection is setup you’re good to go. This app is 100% free, ridiculously cool (just play around with your comp while the app is running, you can watch it update in real-time), useful, and a new personal favorite. The $5.99 version, which doesn’t seem necessary, comes with a few additional keys, as well as support for right-click, hover, and mouse wheel maneuvers.

Even though Jott has mysteriously disappeared from the iTunes store, I still think that this is a really great list with iPhone apps that are not only practical, but also mostly affordable, if not free.

Best of StartupSD

Chuck Longanecker and I started working on StartupSD as a pet project to promote San Diego startups and local web/tech events and groups in early 2008. My contributions usually come in the form of in depth interviews and analysis on San Diego startups. I’m definitely a stickler when it comes to coverage though; I make every CEO, of each startup I write about, sit down with me for an interview. I ask difficult questions, put them on the spot, and don’t promise glowing reviews. In the process, however, I’ve made a number of new connections, and got great information that you just can’t find in a press release. These are few of the posts that make me proud to be a San Diego blogger.

Goowy – The History and the Acquisition

I really love a good story, and this post has two great stories. Of course there’s the untold story of Goowy, a successful San Diego startup acquired by AOL, but there’s also the story of how I got to write this piece. I happen to share office space in the Spreckles building downtown, and before Goowy moved to LA their operation was based just down the hall from my desk. You may not believe this, but I’m actually a really shy person, so the thought of just walking down the hall and asking Alex Bard (CEO) to talk to me was pretty darn nerve wracking. Obviously I wanted the interview, because I sucked up my courage, walked over to his office, and got my story.

Interesting Tidbit:

Of course some of the more interesting details cannot be disclosed, but essentially AOL’s interest in Goowy is rooted in three core goals. AOL is interested in widgets because they’re desirous, now more than ever, to allow users to spend their time online wherever they choose. Secondly, AOL is focused on driving the AOL brand to areas outside of AOL web properties. And, AOL is extremely interested in using widgets as advertisements (don’t forget about Platform A, AOL’s ad-buying platform). Essentially, AOL wants to leverage Goowy’s expertise around widget tracking to serve widgets as ads in traditional 300×250 ad space. With widgets as ads, the possibilities for creating more engaging content are limitless; widgets can be micro applications that play trailers, or allow users to download ringtones, widgets (as ads) can also be embedded anywhere, making the advertisers return on the investment increase exponentially if the content is good enough that users decide to take the particular ad/widget and share it elsewhere.

Venture Capital in San Diego

I wanted to learn more about the VC landscape in our often forgotten city, so I met Deepu John, of iSherpa Capital, and he clued me into his process for finding startups, and what he looks for before and after the investment. John and I are now contacts, and we continue to exchange thoughts about local startups, and sometimes I even send him a pitch or two from entrepreneurs with great new ideas.

Practical Advice:

Tips for Entrepreneurs and Startups (from Deepu John)

1. Answer the simple questions. Is this really a game changer? Will this change the landscape of the space we’re playing in? Can you monetize the  business? What is the realistic growth?
2. Be passionate about you’re doing. “Internal conviction shows through presentations and discussions.” The VC needs to be able to visually see and feel the passion and commitment to the business.
3. Don’t focus on the money, focus on the relationship with the VC. Is this a good match? Will the VC build the business with me?
4. Be honest. Discovering that someone lacks integrity is the surest way to stop all discussions. John would rather be aware of the challenges going into the investment, so that they can work with the entrepreneur to tackle them together.

Notify.Me Offers Near Real-Time Notifications Via SMS, IM, or Email

This post makes the list because I believe Notify.Me is will make it big in 2009. Right now they are a small time operation, staff members have day jobs, and they’re still looking for funding. But, the service, when working (yes there are bugs), is the fastest notification site around and incredibly easy to use. It’s one of the few services I’ve tried in 2008 that’s managed to make its way into my daily routine—I use the IM bot to track a variety of topics including Twitter keywords.

To Watch or Not:

Wieland openly admits that Notify.me’s biggest challenge at the moment is to raise funds. Right now he’s full time on the project, but his CTO Arne Claasen still has a day job at MindTouch; together they just can’t currently afford to staff full-timers or cover additional operational expenses.

Should the company find the $400,000 they’re in search of, I could easily see Notify.me staying afloat. The service itself is incredibly functional, although not mindblowing or revolutionary, and Wieland has a few revenue-producing ideas for a sustainable business model. Plus as a Twitter track hack (although the tutorial could use some work), it’s actually really awesome and faster than Twitterspy—I use Notify.me and my Jabber client to track all Twitter mentions of jbruin, san diego, and sdtweetup to name a few.

Most Memorable Moments

I’m all over the social web, and if you follow me on Twitter then you know I share almost everything. Here is a tiny sampling of memorable things I shared with everyone from life experiences both online and off.

Funniest Blog Post

While I was waiting in line for the brand new iPhone 3G, I felt compelled to write a top 10 list of sorts. Top 10 Signs You’re Brain Washed By Apple. I personally love #4.

Most Depressing Turn of Events

I dropped my barely used 3G iPhone that I waited 8 freakin’ hours to get. I was not a happy camper.

My iPhone is thrashed?!?!?! Will the Apple store replace it? on 12seconds.tv

Most Humbling Moment

Most of you know that I’m Associate Producer on a web series called Jenn2.0. Shortly after our production crew finished and released the teaser, this tweet popped up. It’s very humbling, but an honest reaction by somehow who probably won’t be our biggest fan.

Biggest Change

I chopped off my long hair. It was a tramatic experience that I shared with the world. I loved the new do at the time, but now I’m anxiously awaiting my hair to grow back.

Before:

Saying a final farewall to my hair on 12seconds.tv

After:

Notice anything different? on 12seconds.tv

Best On Camera Interview

In the past year, Dan Larsen has become a pretty good friend of mine. Since he happens to have an awesome job managing social media efforts inside the enterprise (at Qualcomm), I asked him to give me the scoop. There’s some really great content here, and I’m hoping I can do a follow up piece in 2009.

Coolest Celebrity Meeting

Drew Carey, the host of The Price is Right, just happened to have lunch at the same restaurant of our TPIR group post-taping. We sent him a beer, and he came over for a photo op. Better yet, during the show taping Drew talked up Twitter (our group was #sdtweetup) both on air and off. He doesn’t use the site…yet…but he certainly knows all about it.

Photo Credit: Brookly Hillary on Flickr

I’m not big on hype, so the title of this post should mean something to you. Ryan Kuder, an online and off friend, pointed me to SimplyBox a few days ago, and I’ve been in love in with the application ever since. This is probably the first site/product I’ve blogged about in recent memory that actually makes my life easier.

SimplyBox is a service that lets you capture, share, and organize anything online. Think of it as a cross between social bookmarking (a la delicious) and social screen capture (à la Skitch). The beauty of SimplyBox is the browser plug-in that lets you capture and store everything while you stumble across the web.

This is a problem-solving app for me because I’m a tab-aholic—I hate closing out tabs—I’m constantly researching various sites for blog posts, so I end up with way too many windows and way too many tabs. Yes, I could bookmark each site, but that process has never worked for me because it’s too distracting. With SimplyBox, I click “Box and Save,” create a box around content (images, text, etc) I want to remember, and then drag that saved screen grab to one of the boxes I’ve already created.

Once I return to view my boxed content, I can change the view of each individual box to either free form (drag and drop functionality), list view, or grid view depending on my preferences. I can also select previously saved content to either return to the source, share and comment on the individual items with friends or co-workers, print it, or save it to my computer.

Even though I’m quickly falling for SimplyBox, Skitch will still be the standby app I use for screen graps, simply because I can resize images on the fly. Once SimplyBox adds new functionality, and they will, I see this becoming the only thing I use for managing my manic web navigation craziness. Seriously it’s definitely worth a look.

According to the CEO

I’m such a huge fan of the product that I asked CEO Mario Cavagnari to answer a few questions via email. Here’s what he had to say.

Q. Where did the idea come from? What was the inspiration?

A. Around 05/06 we were thinking of starting a web paper that would have a very international flavor and the content would come from knowledgeable experts throughout the world, not from journalists. In early 07 we thought of a feature that would be cool for our readers – a “coffee table”, a place where the reader would be able to put the parts of our content that he/she liked. That’s when we had the “aha moment”: let’s give people a “coffee table” or a BOX where they can keep and share content from any site. I’ve always liked SimplyRed, so the name was set. From the get go we wanted the solution to be visual and easy. We felt, and feel, that is the only way to engage the masses.

Q. Is there an easy way to resize images?

A. Good observation. It is part of our road map and it should be done by the end of Feb.09.

Q. Who do you see as SimplyBox’s primary direct competitor?

A. Clipmarks. They were actually bought by Forbes in late 07. We think our user experience is much cleaner and easier. (Jenn says, “I completely agree.”)

Q. Are there any additional features you plan to roll out in the near future?

A. By early 09 we will release an iPhone version that will allow the user to capture, organize, and share from the iPhone (Jenn says, “I want this right now”). We are also working on a lot of enhancements for Sharing, particularly with the notion of Public Boxes (boxes that can be shared with non-SimplyBox users). We will also be integrating with Facebook and Twitter. Search, Open APIs, and more …

Q. Do you have any metrics you can share? Total registered members?

A. One of the metrics we were particularly interested in keeping an eye on was related to stickyness. About 1/3 of the users that sign up become regular frequent users. We have been live for approx 2 months, and out of every 100 people that visit the site 15 people sign up. Which is good news. But we need to continue to make noise and expose the solution to more people. The current conversion rates are not bad at all, but we do want to improve them. That is why part of our commercial game plan is to bring our user experience to sites that have large user bases – basically making them better. We are actually in the design/building phase of a licensing deal with a very large international portal.

Q. How many people do you have your team?

A. Four full time, and two contractors.

Q. Is SimplyBox funded?

A. Yes, by an angel. Luckly we raised money before the crisis. We are actually in a good funding position.

–

Jennifer,

I have been reading your blog and I really enjoy your articles, and that is why I am writing you. We have recently launched a self marketing webesite that is free for users in the sales and service industry.

Have you ever needed that perfect some one for a certain job and didn’t know where to start looking for them? You may ask around, but if no one can refer you to someone then you usually end up opening up the phonebook or going online, you end up just looking at lists and lists of businesses. How do you choose that Insurance guy or that Realtor? Throw darts at your computer? Choose a cool sounding name? This is where MyCityFaces.com comes in!

MyCityFaces.com is a service industry networking and advertising site allowing people to post profiles for free, offering products they sell or a service they perform by including photos, videos, contact info and an about me section. It also allows consumers to go to their local city, choose a category, and peruse the profiles and find someone that is qualified and understands their wants and desires.

MyCityFaces.com was started out of the need for everyday people to advertise themselves in a personable and professional manner, and for others to find the right person for everyday needs. To help, we’ve built the premier Web service for bringing people together…Face to Face!

This fresh approach has not been over done, chewed up and spit out!. We are not another business networking site or a traditional directory site, we are the must “have a profile” self advertising site on the Internet today! Think of us as LinkedIn meets Myspace. We feel the service industry is often ignored and people resort to advertising themselves on social networking sites, which is not the most professional medium, and often obscures that line between business and personal. On MyCityFaces.com people can in a respectable and classy adult way, have a profile, tell about what they do, recommend others on the site and post photos, coupons, and videos. Think of it as an Internet billboard and an electronic business card. MyCityFaces.com will replace the “other” sites as the premier service industry advertising site!

Today there are tens of thousands of people in any city in any given occupation, we bring a personable side to finding that Handy Man, or that new Hairstylists. Finally a way to test drive before you call!

MyCityFaces.com is for the individual people to advertise themselves, we focus on the people that make up a business first! You can go to the site and find a hairstylists that fits your needs and you can learn a little about them before you schedule that appt. You can see what there qualifications are or just find out if you are going to see eye to eye with them. What if you are the conservative type or want a funky style you would get a lot of info from their profile. Also how many times have you found that perfect stylists only to find out they left the salon and you have no way of contacting them, and since the salon they were just at wont tell you where they went you can now return to their updated profile. They can keep a profile on mycityfaces.com and just update it with the new salons name. The same goes with any service.

By creating a profile with photos of you, your product, your place of business, and offering coupons, discounts, an about me section and even video, you become a real person to someone looking for your service. It’s more than just a name on an ever growing list.

While we are new to the San Diego market, I think your readers would benefit highly from this free self advertising platform in this challenging economy.

Check out http://phoenix.mycityfaces.com for an example city.

1. Sign up with Notify.me. They’re in private beta, but Wieland gave me this link to share with StartupSD readers and you.

2. Go to the Account tab and select “Destinations.” Follow the steps to configure IM as a desitination.

3. Use FreeMyFeed to get an RSS feed for your Twitter updates. Enter – http://twitter.com/statuses/friends_timeline.rss into the feed url text box. Also enter your Twitter username and password.

4. Copy the output URL.

5. Navigate back to Notify.me and select “Sources” from the Account options.

6. Paste the URL in the Feed textbox and click “Add Feed.”

If you do nothing else, you’ll receive all your Twitter friends’ updates via IM, but if you’d like to filter the tweets you receive you can either exclude keywords (like twitter usernames) or include keywords (like jbruin, sdtweetup, and “san diego” to track a filtered subset of tweets. It works really well and it’s about 1 – 2 minutes faster per notification than the TwitterSpy/GoogleTalk work around. So go have fun!

I’m in the process of finalizing my presentation, but I’d really like to add your thoughts, experiences, and opinions on why you think startups should or should not use social media to build their customer communities, what you think the best practices and pitfalls are, and which startups you think are using social media in ground breaking ways. All thoughts and opinions and welcome, and if I quote you, I will give you credit and a little link love.

Help a girl out!

What Do Startups Need to Know About Blogging? from Jennifer Van Grove on Vimeo.