If you had planned on going to the gpsAssassin launch party announced last week, you either are feeling guilty or know that it was postponed at the last minute due to a scheduling conflict. As far as I know the party will still happen but has just been put on hold.
As soon as I find out the details I’ll alert the Internets, (which means I’ll probably just update this post). 7deqcwrspu
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Meetups | Tagged: gpsassassin, Launch Party, Postponed | 
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Posted by tomcheredar
Dave Delaney sent out a call for a new logo to represent Geek Breakfast, a once-a-month gathering of geeks who meetup for breakfast. It started in Nashville at the West End Noshville but has since grown to include several other cities.
The logo will accompany an all new universal Geek Breakfast Web site that will facilitate all the morning meetups. The decision to do this, according to Dave, is due to the frequent malicious attacks on the groups local Nashville site.
I’ve posted Dave’s letter below for anyone interested in showing of their rockstar design skills.
Via Geek Breakfast Facebook Group:
Hey gang,
www.geekbreakfast.org has been attacked over and over again lately. Vandals keep hitting it, it’s very annoying.
We are currently working on a solution. It’s going to be a universal site for all local Geek Breakfasts. I’ll have more information on that soon.
I’m reaching out to you, because I’m hoping some of you may want to help by creating a new logo for Geek Breakfast. You will be credited of course, plus your credit will link to your site or blog.
The idea of this logo is something similar to the BarCamp.org or PodCamp.org logo. Each local event takes a reoccurring element (the RSS flame) to incorporate into their own logo. For example: http://www.flickr.com/search/?w=all&q=barcamp+logo&m=text
What I’m hoping for is a logo that can incorporate a reoccurring element, like a cup of coffee or the sun. Something that others can take and make their own local versions from.
The colors of the new site will be: light orange: ffcc67, dark orange: ff9900 and light green: b4d27d. You don’t have to use these, but the logo will need to fit the site style please.
I think the breakfast department at your local grocery store will be very inspiring.
I encourage you to please submit your logos to me: davemadethat AT gmail DOT com by the end of the month please.
I’ve extended this offer only to the Nashville Geek Breakfast peeps, because this is where it all began. YOU make Geek Breakfast the international success is has become. Thanks!
See you on June 25th.
Cheers,
Dave
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Design, Meetups | Tagged: Dave Delaney, Geek Breakfast, Hacked, New Logo, Universal Geek Breakfast | 
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Posted by tomcheredar
Anyone following the progress of home-grown iPhone game gpsAssassin knows the time and effort spent to get it pushed out into the app store. Perhaps the most grueling portion of this process was waiting for confirmation from apple that it indeed had been approved. They don’t indicate how long it’ll take — so planning a launch party is equally difficult.
So without further ado, I’m happy to announce the “Kill Your Neighbor While You Kill Your Beer” gpsAssassin Launch Party hosted by Nicholas Holland and Jackson Miller of Side Hobby June 16 from 5:30 – 7:30 at Castle Centre{source} [click here for a map].
Bring your iPhone or iPod Touch to celebrate the text-based violence and mayhem that is gpsAssassin. Wearing a costume or steath assassin attire is encouraged as is taking pictures/screenshots for your Flickr account. I have no doubt that there will be some kind of exclusive launch party weapon/item/thing to entice you to pick people off as they casually sip beer. And if you aren’t yet smitten by Apple handhelds, there will be plenty of people at the party available to give you a demo (and by that I mean text-death/humiliation).
As For the Beer Killing…
Like I said in a previous post, the app is currently priced at $4.99, but will likely get cheaper (or free) in the near future. All the money made on the app between now and June 16 will be used to buy a Yazoo Keg for the launch party. So the five duckets you spent to show support for local developers is also beer money.
That my fellow geeks is a truly awesome way to give back to the community.
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Meetups, Technology | Tagged: apps, games, gpsassassin, gpsassassins, iPhone, Launch Party, Side Hobby | 
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Posted by tomcheredar
Few things can match the effectiveness of a well placed sign and lots of foot traffic. When you factor in the cost and energy that goes into coordinating other attention grabbing tactics — television commercials, event sponsorship, product placement in films — good signage is kind of still the leader.
So when Chris Lee of Anode first told me the basic concept for FireSign Digital Signage, it immediately made perfect sense. Their digital, interactive, signage takes the best parts of the current technology and combines it with the unyielding effectiveness of foot traffic.
Never was this made more apparent than during 2008 BarCamp Nashville which featured digital signs in front of each presenter room. These signs scrolled twitter messages with BarCamp hashtags. Mind you, this was prior to the twitter-app revolution and at that time, an early, severely limited version of Twitterific was the *best* iPhone Twitter client. So yes, these digital signs were extremely helpful in determining which room had the most interesting discussion going on.
But, the BarCamp demonstration was really the tip of the iceberg in terms of what the FireSign software is capable of doing.
Anode recently launched a site to show off the extent of those capabilities with three unique uses of the FireSign software: an event finder, A digital scrapbook and an interactive time line. Rather than trying to explain them in this post (and probably either over or under simplify things), check out the web site and watch the videos.
[And on a side note, I would really love to see what these guys can come up with for the iPhone. It seems like their natural habitat.]
Leave a Comment » | Tech Industry News, Technology | Tagged: Anode, Chris Lee, Digital Signs, FireSign, FireSign Digital Signage, FireSign DS | Permalink
Posted by tomcheredar
Although you guys probably heard it from Jackson Miller earlier tonight via Twitter, Apple has approved Side Hobby’s first iPhone application gpsAssassin, a location-based role playing game that lets you kill your neighbors with weapons made of words.
First let me clarify the official spelling of the app so that people can (hopefully) follow suit when (hopefully) spreading the word in the future. Previously I had incorrectly listed it as GPS assassins, which again is completely wrong. You won’t find it in the app store unless you spell it gpsAssassin. I’m also going to go a step further and provide a link to the iTunes download.
As for cost, the app is currently priced at $4.99, however Jackson said “we are still exploring the pricing and it will likely change.”
Sadly I’m going to refrain from speaking about the specifics of the game. This time I’m holding back because Jackson and Nicholas Holland (the other half of Side Hobby) asked me if I’d be interested in helping run a media blitz, which I of course said yes to.
Now that the app is published, what I will say is there are lots of things to do over the next week. I’m so excited my head feels like it may explode [or implode... which ever is more mighty and/or awesome]. They still haven’t nailed down most of the official communication, but I’m pretty sure there will be a beta tester appreciation launch party about a week from now. Also, there are other head exploding ideas I’ve suggested and I hope end up happening. Either way check back for new developments, as I’ll be gathering the discussion on this site as it comes along.
In the meantime, go to the iTunes Store’s gpsAssassin page and inflict some murderous review love if you’ve enjoyed playing the game. If you aren’t the reviewing type, then just marvel at the fishwreck screen shot (or else).
1 Comment | Home Grown Code, Tech Industry News, Technology | Tagged: App, apple, games, gps, gpsassassin, gpsassassins, iPhone, Jackson Miller, Launch, Nicholas Holland, rpg, Side Hobby | Permalink
Posted by tomcheredar
If you missed out on the Nashville RoadTwip stop because you didn’t know it was happening or what it was about, don’t feel bad, Dave Delaney spread word of Nashville’s digital community in an interview with ReadWriteWeb’s Jolie ODell.
The Roadtwip consists of Jolie and two other tech geeks (Kurt Daradics and Jonathan Dingman) who decided to “take two weeks to travel around half the country, go to a conference in Omaha, & meet up with friends & thought leaders along the way.”
After explaining the nickname “Mr Tech Nashville” given to him by CC Chapman (although I doubt anyone is going to dispute that title), Dave does us proud yet again by talking up BarCamp Nashville and of course the Geek Breakfast. Jolie also interview’s Nashville native Katy Kirby of Remarkable Wit, who gives an excellent 2-minutes history of how Nashville got to where it is now AND gave a shout out to Nashville Geeks! [Hopefully ReadWriteWeb's Lidija Davis isn't too far down on the list of future visitors, pending she has a wacky cross-country voyage scheme in place of course.]
Head over to Dave Delaney’s Blog — DaveMadeThat — for both YouTube interviews and a video of the RoadTwip meetup that took place earlier in the week. [But honestly, go check out Dave's blog even if you are uninterested in the interviews because...well, Dave's got a pretty great blog.]
1 Comment | Meetups, Technology | Tagged: Dave Delaney, Dave Made That, Interview, Jolie ODell, Katy Kirby, Nashville Tech Scene, ReadWriteWeb, RoadTwip | Permalink
Posted by tomcheredar
Kl.am is the short url site from Raven SEO that specializes in tracking individual links across the Web and even digests the information that is derived directly from Twitter itself (as shown in the screenshots below). Think of it as a more ambitious bit.ly-like site that aims to track stats from social media in addition to the web. Specialist/Social Princess Alison Groves answered some questions to help clarify the service and how it plans to grow in the future…
Q: For the sake of ignorance, what specific pieces of information can kl.am capture without signing up for an account?
A: Although creating an account provides you with more options, you can still get a lot of features without it. For example, every kl.am link that’s made has a public stats page. That page displays how many people have clicked on the link, all of the websites that used the link, and how many people used the link in a Twitter post (or tweet!)
Q: What are they able to track if they sign up?
A: They can track the same information, but with an account, you can keep track of all the links you make. You can also edit existing links to add things like Campaign Variables for Google Analytic.
Q: How long will the link tracking campaigns be accessible to users?
A: As long as our servers don’t blow up. In all seriousness, they’ll be accessible forever.
Q: Why differentiate kl.am from the principle Raven tools?
A: Kl.am was just something we did for fun one day, mainly so we could control all of the aspects of a URL shortener that we’d want to. Kl.am is just a taste really of what Raven can do. If you enjoy digging into the information kl.am outputs, then you’ll love all of the bells and whistles built into Raven, especially the new Social Mention tool. And we don’t mean to brag, but it is one precious character shorter than bit.ly.
Q: Do the two sets of tools compliment each other?
A: Absolutely. The stats that you get in kl.am are just the tip of the iceberg as far as Raven is concerned. A successful internet marketing campaign doesn’t just stop with tracking your links across social media sites. While that is an awesome place to start, you need the whole package to really make the most out of your site or campaign.
Q: Kl.am scans twitter and spits out every tweet containing the short url that’s being tracked. Will kl.am offer relevant stats about other social media networks/services in the future?
… And how might kl.am expand its reach of other social media sites to get relevant tracking info?
Q: You mentioned that Sitening can build a short url tracking service for virtually anything… What kind of sites or businesses might benefit the most from using short url tracking?
A: Virtually any business can benefit from short url tracking. Newspapers, TV networks, record labels, content portals, and any other sort of brand can use it in a myriad of ways, whether that is just to make that link to ROI on social media, to generate ad revenue (you’re excited now aren’t you?!), or to just keep tabs on traffic and trends across their content. There are also additional value-added features that can be added to kl.am that can extend a website’s exposure and reach. We’ll be introducing those features, and the clients that are using them, very soon.
Q: How different would the information tracking be for each individual site you worked with?
A: First off we could white label any shortened URL for any client, so it could be branded for their own specific needs, which already opens up a world of opportunity. From there, we would just assess the needs of the individual client and build the entire service specifically for their needs.
Q: Both the NY Times and TechCrunch are now either using or testing their own short url service… What additional degree of control does a site have over tracking (statistics and usage) if it uses it’s own specific short url domain?
A: Like I said above, we can customize whatever the needs of the client are for the specific project, so not only can we give you the amount and kind of tracking that is a perfect fit for you, it can also be branded. Win win!
1 Comment | Social Media, Tech Industry News, Technology, Web Stats | Tagged: Alison Groves, kl.am, Raven SEO, Short URL, Sitening, Social Media Statistics, Social Media Stats, URL shortener | Permalink
Posted by tomcheredar
