Archive for February, 2011

Posted on February 22, 2011 - by Wayne Sutton

Day 22: People of color impacting the social web – Denise R. Jacobs #28DaysofDiversity

As we all know, February is Black History Month. It’s a month where we honor those who have made an impact on American culture for equal rights, those who have invented, those who have a helped others and those who have inspired everyone to be the best they can be, not only as a person of color but as a human. Last year for Black History Month, I started an online series called 28 Days Diversity where I would feature someone new everyday during the month of February for just being awesome in their own right. Even though it’s black history month, the goal for 28 Days of Diversity is to feature not just African-Americans but other minorities in the web/tech space. Also note that 28 Days of Diversity is not a popularity contest or an influencer list but a list of thought leaders in the social web sector, including entrepreneurs, bloggers, conference organizers, IT professionals and friends not ranked in any particular order who I have either met in person or followed online. Each post will include a picture, bio, two links from the selected person and this paragraph.

For 2011 I wanted to not just feature individuals but also address a topic that affects everyone. For 28 Days of Diversity 2011 each post/person will answer the question “How can we use technology to close the digital divide?” So for the next 28 days, come back to visit SocialWayne.com/tag/28daysofdiversity and 28daysofdiversity.com to see who’s on the list. For day 22, I would like to introduce to some and present to others:

Denise R. Jacobs

Twitter: @denisejacobs

Website/Blog: http://DeniseJacobs.com / CssDetectiveGuide.com

Bio

Denise R. Jacobs is a web industry veteran with over 13 years of experience, ranging from software localization project management, enterprise website implementation, and web design/development technical training. Currently, she is finally doing what she likes best: being an Author, Speaker & Educator, Web Designer, and Consultant. Denise wrote The CSS Detective Guide and is a contributing author to Interact with Web Standards: A holistic approach to Web Design. In addition to writing about the web, Denise presents at various conferences worldwide, develops curricula for the Web Standards Project Education Task Force (WaSP InterAct), and is a member of the Social Media Club South Florida organizing committee. Denise was nominated for .Net Magazine’s 2010 Best of the Web “Standards Champion” award. Through consulting on web strategies and solutions, Denise helps individuals and businesses transform their web presence by increasing their knowledge of current web technologies.

How can we use technology to close the digital divide?

The first place to start is with creating a major shift in perspective. Many don’t even see the need, much less the value of bridging the digital divide, be it on a local scale or a global scale. Before we can think critically about how to use technology to close the digital divide, there needs to be a process of raising awareness about the importance of and issues around the digital divide, an assessment of what are and to how to best serve the needs of those on the other side of the digital divide, and then how to best deliver solutions to those who need them the most. Once the needs of the audience in question are assessed, then the appropriate technologies of both delivery and devices can be chosen and implemented. Creating or increasing access to the devices and delivering technologies is the next step once this is accomplished.

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You can follow the status of 28 Days of Diversity 2011 on http://28daysofdiversity.com, http://socialwayne.com/category/28-days-of-diversity/ and syndicated on BlackWeb 2.0.

Posted on February 21, 2011 - by Wayne Sutton

First look at the new Yobongo commercial and screenshots to see why it could be the next big thing

I first wrote about Yobongo back in early January when it was seeking more beta testers quietly sparking interest from location-based geeks. A lot has changes since then. Yobongo now has a new logo and is one of the most anticipated startups to open to launch for the general public to test along with being predicted as one of the breakout apps of SXSW 2011 on Quora and other news sites. I’ve been lucky enough to be one of the few East Coast beta testers of Yobongo and I must say the app is great.

Yobongo is founded by Caleb Elston and David Kasper. Caleb is former VP Of Product of Justin.tv and David is programming ninja. Yobongo’s goal is to make “it fun and easy to chat with people nearby on your iPhone“. By creating rooms based on your location, Yobongo will connect users to serendipitous conversations. For example lets say if you’re at a coffee shop, conference or university and launch Yobongo. Based on your location you would be “magically” placed in a room with other Yobongo users to start a conversation about what’s happening. From there you can leave the room and/or join other rooms or send private messages to have a private conversation with someone nearby. Yobongo is a chat app but with a slick and simple interface but has powerful functionality to live up to the hype and be used not only by early adopters but the everyday mobile users.

As Yobongo is prepping for public release they recently recorded a promotional video to show how you can “Yobongo”. Take a look.

There are still a lot of questions surrounding Yobongo as the two cofounder competes with other Location-Based Messaging Apps but between the current users and conversations I’ve seen in Yobongo so far I believe the app is a winner. For instance I’ve seen employees from Twitter, Zynga, foodspotting, groupon, along with bloggers and entrepreneurs such as Om, Robert Scoble, Louis Gray and Andrew Hyde using Yobongo. Just yesterday I had conversation with Boy Genius Report founder Jonathan Geller in Yobongo and conducted a short Yobongo interview as you can see below.

For Yobongo to succeed it will depend on the continued growth of mobile users starting off with the iPhone iOS platform, the social media/word of mouth buzz and early beta testers telling their friends. Yobongo cofounder Caleb Elston says “Yobongo’s goals is to create a stealer communication experience” and so far with Yobongo they have done just that.

Here are few more screenshots of Yobongo.

Yobongo is still in private beta but you can sign up for early beta at Yobongo.com.

After watching Yobongo commercial video, do you think you will use Yobongo?

Posted on February 21, 2011 - by Wayne Sutton

Day 21: People of color impacting the social web – Henry Balanon #28DaysofDiversity

As we all know, February is Black History Month. It’s a month where we honor those who have made an impact on American culture for equal rights, those who have invented, those who have a helped others and those who have inspired everyone to be the best they can be, not only as a person of color but as a human. Last year for Black History Month, I started an online series called 28 Days Diversity where I would feature someone new everyday during the month of February for just being awesome in their own right. Even though it’s black history month, the goal for 28 Days of Diversity is to feature not just African-Americans but other minorities in the web/tech space. Also note that 28 Days of Diversity is not a popularity contest or an influencer list but a list of thought leaders in the social web sector, including entrepreneurs, bloggers, conference organizers, IT professionals and friends not ranked in any particular order who I have either met in person or followed online. Each post will include a picture, bio, two links from the selected person and this paragraph.

For 2011 I wanted to not just feature individuals but also address a topic that affects everyone. For 28 Days of Diversity 2011 each post/person will answer the question “How can we use technology to close the digital divide?” So for the next 28 days, come back to visit SocialWayne.com/tag/28daysofdiversity and 28daysofdiversity.com to see who’s on the list. For day 21, I would like to introduce to some and present to others:

Henry Balanon

Twitter: @balanon

Website/Blog: http://balanon.com

Bio

Henry Balanon create iPhone and iPad apps for his company Bickbot (http://bickbot.com). Most recently, they’ve completed an app for Stryker (http://stryker.com), a Fortune-500 medical technology company.

He is a national speaker on mobile technologies (mostly iPhone/iPad). Most recently TEDx, #140conf, and 360iDev. Every so often he’ll show up in some newspapers like the Detroit News, Detroit Free Press, and the New York Times.

How can we use technology to close the digital divide?

I think the a big challenge with the digital divide is education on digital technologies. Digital technology is still tough to understand for people who aren’t exposed to it on a regular basis.

The traditional approach is to offer more training to those who need it but the real issue is a technology’s user interface and user experience.

Most people don’t seek out education on technology.

If people don’t know how to use something, they’ll resist using it.

If people hate using something, they’ll stop using it.

A few weeks ago, I saw an 18-month old find her favorite game on her mom’s iPad, and she knew exactly how to interact with it. I’ve heard similar stories about elderly and non-tech people becoming digital citizens when they received their iPads or iPhones.

We’re seeing all sorts of demographics enter the digital ages because people can use these tablets and smartphones with little or no effort to learn how to use it.

We will see the digital divide close very fast as we see more technology user experience improvements and user interaction improvements.

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You can follow the status of 28 Days of Diversity 2011 on http://28daysofdiversity.com, http://socialwayne.com/category/28-days-of-diversity/ and syndicated on BlackWeb 2.0.

Posted on February 20, 2011 - by Wayne Sutton

Day 20: People of color impacting the social web – The Mamalaw Media Group #28DaysofDiversity

As we all know, February is Black History Month. It’s a month where we honor those who have made an impact on American culture for equal rights, those who have invented, those who have a helped others and those who have inspired everyone to be the best they can be, not only as a person of color but as a human. Last year for Black History Month, I started an online series called 28 Days Diversity where I would feature someone new everyday during the month of February for just being awesome in their own right. Even though it’s black history month, the goal for 28 Days of Diversity is to feature not just African-Americans but other minorities in the web/tech space. Also note that 28 Days of Diversity is not a popularity contest or an influencer list but a list of thought leaders in the social web sector, including entrepreneurs, bloggers, conference organizers, IT professionals and friends not ranked in any particular order who I have either met in person or followed online. Each post will include a picture, bio, two links from the selected person and this paragraph.

For 2011 I wanted to not just feature individuals but also address a topic that affects everyone. For 28 Days of Diversity 2011 each post/person will answer the question “How can we use technology to close the digital divide?” So for the next 28 days, come back to visit SocialWayne.com/tag/28daysofdiversity and 28daysofdiversity.com to see who’s on the list. For day 20, I would like to introduce to some and present to others:

Mamalaw Media Group

Twitter: @mamalawgrp

Website/Blog: http://MamalawMediaGroup.com

Bio

MamaLaw Media Group (MMG) is  the parent company of the Blogalicious Weekend Conferences, The b-Link Marketing Network, My Blogalicious.com and Mamalaw, the blog.  MMG’s mission is to raise the profile of women of color online, all while networking, building relationships, and promoting inspiration and success for the multicultural blogging community.  MMG was founded by Nadia Jones, Nyasha Smith, and Stacey Ferguson, otherwise known as Justice Jonesie, Justice Ny, and Justice Fergie.

How can we use technology to close the digital divide?

We can use accessible technology, such as mobile devices, to expose our community to the possibilities of the Internet and other high-tech services. In addition, we can push for the integration of technology based learning tools in our schools.

Through our yearly Blogalicious Weekend conferences, as well as our series of monthly webinars called “Blogalicious Bytes: Lessons in Social Media,” we aim to educate, inform and inspire our community about the wealth of resources that social media presents and how the multicultural community can benefit.

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You can follow the status of 28 Days of Diversity 2011 on http://28daysofdiversity.com, http://socialwayne.com/category/28-days-of-diversity/ and syndicated on BlackWeb 2.0.

Posted on February 19, 2011 - by Wayne Sutton

Day 19: People of color impacting the social web – Donald Harris #28DaysofDiversity

As we all know, February is Black History Month. It’s a month where we honor those who have made an impact on American culture for equal rights, those who have invented, those who have a helped others and those who have inspired everyone to be the best they can be, not only as a person of color but as a human. Last year for Black History Month, I started an online series called 28 Days Diversity where I would feature someone new everyday during the month of February for just being awesome in their own right. Even though it’s black history month, the goal for 28 Days of Diversity is to feature not just African-Americans but other minorities in the web/tech space. Also note that 28 Days of Diversity is not a popularity contest or an influencer list but a list of thought leaders in the social web sector, including entrepreneurs, bloggers, conference organizers, IT professionals and friends not ranked in any particular order who I have either met in person or followed online. Each post will include a picture, bio, two links from the selected person and this paragraph.

For 2011 I wanted to not just feature individuals but also address a topic that affects everyone. For 28 Days of Diversity 2011 each post/person will answer the question “How can we use technology to close the digital divide?” So for the next 28 days, come back to visit SocialWayne.com/tag/28daysofdiversity and 28daysofdiversity.com to see who’s on the list. For day 19, I would like to introduce to some and present to others:

Donald Harris

Twitter: @Tallgamer

Website/Blog: http://www.marveloper.com

Bio

I am a son of God and a follower of His Son. I have 2 children and I have been married to my lovely wife since 2002. For the last couple of years I have been working at Dell as an Inside Sales Rep. I was promoted to the Social Media Marketing Department for the K-12 arena. My passion of technology helped me at my job at Dell. This is a love my father has put into my heart when he brought home a Tandy TRS-80… yes I am that old.

My other love is gaming. I began working with the group Studio IL (http;//www.studioil.com) around January 2009. We have managed to put out two iPhone games at the time of this writing. Along with Studio IL, I have done work for several other companies such as GarageGames and a lot of work for several different local Austin,TX gaming companies. I was able to work for InstantAction for a few month before the company closed its doors in November 2010. I have been in the gaming scene for quite sometime and I owe a great deal of my gaming success to Jay Moore (linkedin). Even more so he has help me develop professionally overall.
The latest update to this ever changing bio is that I am now working for myself. Building the company that I have always wanted to work for and do the things I love doing. I am now fully immerse in the Video Game industry and could not be happier. I think my journey on this section of my life is just now starting and should be a good show to watch and you can you watch it unfold here www.marveloper.com

How can we use technology to close the digital divide?

I think the best way to close the gap would be to continue efforts like OLPC (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/One_Laptop_per_Child). I find it funny how we no longer hear about the project itself or anything else like it. In the states we have the ‘smart classroom’ or ‘connected classroom’ we need to focus on research that would allow us to create a connected classroom in a third world country for a similar cost structure as the OLPC project. Another focus we could look into is education. In our own country as well as the rest of the world, children are not being taught the needed skills to function in a connected world.

We also need to realize that the digital divide is a multi-faceted challenge and there isn’t necessarily a “one size fits all” solution. Economics and infrastructure are key barriers but social, cultural and political factors come into play as well. So the digital divide has different implications in each community. We could use technology as a tool to explore this issue and share ideas. We need to leverage digital media and social media to tap into the insights, knowledge and experiences of people from a wide variety of backgrounds including: arts, education, entertainment, marketing, science, anthropology, sociology and, of course, technology. If we leverage technology to communicate about this challenge, crowdsource ideas, and collaborate on solutions, we can take a holistic and interdisciplinary approach to better understanding the digital divide and closing the gap.

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You can follow the status of 28 Days of Diversity 2011 on http://28daysofdiversity.com, http://socialwayne.com/category/28-days-of-diversity/ and syndicated on BlackWeb 2.0.