Just a quick update for anyone who happens to read this blog and not follow me on Twitter. Monday morning at 5:10 AM, I became a father. My amazing wife delivered Alexandra Rose at 5 lbs, 15 oz, and 18 inches long. She was 5.5 weeks early and needs to stay in the NICU for a short while to rest up.
You can see way more pictures than you probably care to look at on my flickr page.
I recently came across (and started using) a new website called FeaturedUsers.com. They are a Twitter app ad network:
…If you’re a Twitter user, it’s a great way to get more followers and support your favorite Twitter apps. If you’re a Twitter app developer, it’s a simple way to start monetizing your application.
The basic idea is that Twitter users can gain exposure and followers by paying to have their Twitter details show up on various Twitter app websites. The idea is simple, cheap, and will not turn you into a Twitter superstar overnight. However, it’s a great way to help support 3rd party Twitter apps and gain some followers in the process.
As Twitter spam is on the rise, many are quick to denounce anything that even looks like spam on Twitter (and usually with good reason). This kind of Twitter ad network is a great alternative to spamming people directly on Twitter. Advertising yourself here still gets your name in front of a highly targeted audience (Twitter users) without cluttering up people’s tweet streams.
In a way, FeaturedUsers.com helps keep spam out of your twitter stream. And that should make any tweep happy.
Check ‘em out over at FeaturedUsers.com.
This past weekend marked the third successful close to an Indiana-based Startup Weekend. Startup Weekend Indianapolis was a long time in coming, but in the end managed to pull together over 40 local technology and startup enthusiasts and crank out 5 viable projects/companies in 54 hours.
Starting around 5:00 PM on Friday, everyone crowded into the first floor of the ET building at the Purdue School of Engineering & Technology (sponsor) at IUPUI for check-in, pizza, and shelter from the cold. After heading over to the auditorium, introductions, sponsor thank-yous, and the pitches began.
Five projects eventually emerged (originally 4– the children’s book team split Saturday morning after some spirited discussions). Having spent most of my time in Bloomington Startup Weekend in the developers group, I wanted to float around more at this weekend and take live video and photos. Below are the logos and links to the projects created at the weekend.
It is worth noting that ShoutNow had a rather unique and awesome final presentation that involved the presenter answering his phone, recording a brief message, pasting the phone numbers of about 20 members of the audience into their application, and seconds later phones everywhere started ringing throughout the auditorium. Several people flipped on their speakerphone and you could hear the message being played back to everyone. It was a very engaging and fun effect.
Here are the 5 projects:
ShoutNow
A rapid voice messaging service which allows users to instantly share voicemails with an unlimited network of contacts by placing just one phone call.
Pocket Story Book (I consulted on the logo design) 
A service to create custom children’s books which can be shared via download to the Web or iPhone, or by printing through a 3rd party book publisher.
Pocket Tales
Interactive children’s eBooks for the iPhone and the iPod touch. Sold through Apple’s AppStore, Pockettales’ applications convert ordinary mobile devices into fun, educational tools.
More Than A Meal
Bad things can happen to good people. When the unexpected happens, your friends need More Than A Meal.
ScatterGear
A market-specific online storefront that offers goods and services to and for military personnel and their families.
Local technology coach and consultant, Mr. Noobie, is giving away a free Nintendo Wii on his site, www.noobie.com. All you need to do is click over and sign-up.
After you sign-up to win, I’d highly recommend browsing the website for a little bit. No matter what your technical skill level is, noobie.com is one website you’ll want to bookmark and return to again and again. Patric has put together one of the few local sites that always makes me pause and think, “wow, he has put a lot of time and effort into building this website.”
From articles and blog posts to events and personal coaching services, Mr. Noobie is full of relevant and easy-to-understand guides to just about anything technology related. If you are the kind of person that likes to figure stuff out on your own, but sometimes needs a little help, I highly recommend noobie.com.
That, and a chance to win a Nintendo Wii… what more excuse do you need?
Just a fun little example of how even the big guys can still screw things up royally. This morning, CNN posted a little widget that displayed various grades for both Biden and Palin from the Vice Presidential Debate last night. At the bottom of the widget was an area for you to select your own grade for a particular candidate and a “Next” button to submit and view the results.
Seems simple enough. The problem was that if you (like myself) simply want to skip giving your own grade and just view the results, something unexpected happens. By clicking “Next” without selecting a grade, you automatically submit a grade of F!
Oops! At the time of taking this screenshot early this morning, over 16,000 visitors had voted. How many of them had accidentally graded someone with an F? Both candidates had an average grade of D, which leads me to believe that a significant number of people simply clicked next.
While I’m sure this gaffe is the result of rushing to put together a widget, it isn’t like the debates were a surprise. As an update, I’ve noticed that CNN has now corrected the problem by requiring the user to either select a grade before the “Next” button becomes active, or clicking a “View results” link which does not auto-select a grade in the process.
Most people that know me know that I’m a bit domain-crazy. Any half-good idea that I have usually results in a domain name purchase–mostly as a “just in case” I decide to actually develop it. Despite the fact that this is a self-enabling and productivity damaging practice, I still partake in it. However, I have significantly limited myself in terms of what I let myself purchase (the next step was locking my laptop in a trunk and burying it in the back yard).
With that being said, a business parter and I have had our eyes on a particular domain name that is perfect for a future expansion of our current project, IndyDads.com. The domain name we wanted was DadNation.com. I’ll let your capable mind explore exactly what our future idea is with this domain instead of writing about it here. As luck would have it, the domain was up for expiration last month and I was excited at the prospect of snagging it. This is where I ran into trouble.
I was all ready to go. I had my domain name backorder set through GoDaddy and was just waiting for the good news. Now, I understand a thing or two about how competitive the domain name aftermarket can be and that for most good domains, it’s difficult and expensive to snap up expiring names. However, I figured with the relatively low demand for this domain, I would have no problem getting it. I knew I was in trouble when I received my very first email from a domain taster.
Because I had already registered DadNation.org, the domain taster’s automated system had managed to snap up the dot com AND generate a marketing email to me explaining that I could acquire the dot com easily by purchasing it through their company. The asking price? $997!
Ouch! No way. Perhaps if I was some big company that just had to have the domain, $997 wouldn’t seem like so much. But, for a side-project that is mostly a labor of love, that is out of the question.
So, I figured I had lost the domain for good. But, the way the email was written, I figured it was a form letter and not an actual human sending me the message. Two days later, I received another email that was similar, but contained a slightly more urgent call to action. I did some research on domain tasters and confirmed that they indeed only had 5 days to return their domains for a refund. Also, based on what I had read, often times domain tasters base the value of a domain off of the traffic hitting the domain. So, I was careful to neither visit the domain DadNation.com or respond to any of the emails.
I held my breath for 2 more days (not literally).
Then, on August 3rd, I received an email from GoDaddy alerting me that the name servers had changed to GoDaddy name servers! Then, another email telling me my backorder had been successful! It worked! The domain taster returned the domain after getting nothing out of me and I was able to register it for the normal price.
Having lost good domains in the past to a variety of frustrating reasons, it was nice to actually win one (and without spending a small fortune). While I’m sure the situation would change depending on the exact domain name in question, but my parting advice is that your best weapon against a domain taster is patience and silence (and an active backorder on the domain).
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