BrainFuel

By the end of the year, Google will come out with a product that allows me to share my contacts with my co workers. That’s my prediction.

I found these two screens really interesting. The original docs can be downloaded here.

If you’re in the Phoenix area and want to meet up with some folks for breakfast on March 14th, be sure to attend the first CerealBarPhoenix.

The event is being organized by Steve Swedler, and I’ll be there as well providing advice on coffee. If you’re building web apps, or anything web related, the invite is open to all to attend.

This sounds like an event not to miss (if you are in Phoenix).

What: Refresh Phoenix
When: Tuesday, March 6th at 6:30pm
Where: Inza Coffee
Topic: Author of Designing the Obvious: A Common Sense Approach to Web Application Design will be joining us for a conversation on the principles of design. Check it out on Amazon.

There’s a possibility that we might be attending the Web 2.0 Expo, and if we do, we’re planning to spend some time networking with potential customers of our product.

We’re going to be attending along with several people from Viddler. The show is on April 15th through the 18th in San Francisco. It will be the perfect opportunity to hand out business cards and meet potential “early adopters” of our product, while at the same time spreading the word about Viddler.

I was at Refresh Phoenix last night and the question asked of everyone was about predictions for 2007. I predicted that there will be a lot of MySpace clones in tight niches. I also predicted that A/B Split Testing will grow in popularity. Some of the other predictions surrounded Web 2.0 and the eventual busting of the bubble. While a few thought it would be a financial burst, most thought it was just a slowdown that we could expect.

A few people think the iPhone will rock things. I’d say they might be right, however it’s a rather expensive phone and right now most of my friends don’t have $500 phones. We’ll have to see. One person made a rather funny prediction: MySpace will re launch as an all CSS design. Everyone laughed.

What are some of your predictions for the web in 2007?

Webware (a CNET Site) just gave Viddler a positive review. I especially enjoyed this title in their article: Viddler one ups Youtube, Google Video.

Here’s an excerpt:

The other thing I like about Viddler is its navigation. Its Explore page in particular gives you a half dozen ways to browse videos, but it’s not nearly as overwhelming as Youtube can be. Videos are quick to load, and the quality is comparable with other Flash video providers. I would like to see one of these services offer a variable quality by connection, but it appears we’re not there yet.

Viddler is a really impressive service. If anything it improves on Youtube’s browsing and uploading experience in almost every way. People feeling hindered by time and size limitations on competing services should give Viddler a chance, as their 500MB cap is very generous and the uploader is easy to use and powerful. The community features and commenting system are also very developed for a young web service. Video bloggers can also enjoy cutting a step out of their production process, and not having to use any actual software for the recording. Recommended.

I promise this is the last post about BarCamp Phoenix, which was held on Saturday.

I took some photos at the event which are below with commentary. Enjoy!

The way an Unconference works is exactly as you see. The first thing that happens is that people brainstorm topics. The only rule is that you have to be willing to also moderate that discussion (or suggest someone).

James Britt votes for a topic as Sean Tierney tallies votes.

About 50 percent of the people brought laptops.

Josh Padnick leads a discussion on web site project management / sales process.

Quick grab a shirt!

Sean Tierney wearing his BarCamp Phoenix shirt wraps everything up and gathers feedback.

I’d have to say that the strangest moment of all was when they held the Zune giveaway, which was sponsored by Microsoft. Here’s how it went down: Someone got up with his Powerbook and demonstrated the randomizer script he had written that morning. It was written in Ruby on Rails, and was pretty slick. Then, he opened it up in Firefox and ran the program. Too funny.