Turns out Google Maps are even better when they include Microformats. This is great news from Google. Specifically, they are using the hCard microformat. Very nice!!!
You can get the benefits of microformats for your own maps applications if you change your HTML to contain the necessary hcard classes. In this simple example, we’ve changed the infowindow to contain an hCard formatted address. The code for that is below:
var html = '<div class="vcard"> <span class="adr">'
+ '<span class="fn n">Googleplex<br />'
+ '<span class="street-address">1300 Amphitheatre Parkway</span><br />'
+ '<span class="locality">Mountain View</span>, '
+ '<abbr class="region" title="California">CA</abbr>'
+ '<span class="postal-code">94043</span>'
+ '</span> </div>';
map.openInfoWindowHtml(map.getCenter(), html);
FX premiered their newest series, Damages, last night. Tom Shales of the Washington Post suggests,
“Damages,” making a sensational premiere tonight on the FX network, thoroughly justifies adding yet another high-powered law firm to the prime-time population. The firm is not only high-powered but it’s also “high-stakes,” we keep being told — and so is the show. “Damages” is also emphatically, and almost tortuously, high-tension, and the pilot script is one of the most artfully crafted since the debut back in the 20th century of “The Sopranos.”
FX decided to include our social podcasting application, FanPodCast (via API, design by Big Interactive), for the launch. Check it out here.
Just because you have a blog, a twitter account, a Facebook page, a MySpace page and an official YouTube page doesn’t mean you understand social media. I figured that out first hand. You would think by 2007 political campaigns would take bloggers seriously. Here is my story:
This afternoon I ran over to Love Field to cover Fred Thompson’s visit to Dallas for my blog. He is ‘considering‘ running for President in 2008. Who is Fred? You might have seen him in Top Gun, No Way Out, The Hunt for Red October, Days of Thunder or Die Hard 2. I have been a fan of Senator Thompsons for quite some time.
I grabbed my Nikon (with the big fat telephoto lens) and headed over to the private jet area. Three photographers were huddled together along with quite a few supporters waiting for the Senator. I started chatting with the camera guys since I was carrying a camera every bit as big and cumbersome as theirs. The guy to the right (he didn’t give me his name) came over and told the photographers that he had a special place for them. He looked at me and asked, “Who are you with?” I explained I was a blogger covering the campaign. He said, “Oh, BLOGs… Nope, you don’t get in.” He then ushered the ‘real’ photographers from the ‘traditional media’ to an honored spot in front of the supporters. The TV guys were next and in the end you had five SLRs and two video cameras pointed at the senator (see photo below) while my camera shot photos from 100 yards away.
The guy who wouldn’t let me in then came back and I snapped his photo (i.e. the photo in the upper right). He was bothered that I took his photo so he confronted me and asked me to spell the URL of my blog. His attitude was generally suspicious, condescending and dismissive. I couldn’t help but realize that he just doesn’t get it.
Citizen journalism (i.e. what I was/am doing) can be very powerful for candidates. Just ask Howard Dean. Don’t dismiss the guy wearing a “I’m with Fred” badge and a camera as “one of those Blogger types!” Instead embrace them, treat them just like you treat traditional media types (i.e. the ones that typically do not support GOP candidates). In any event, I decided not to let that ‘old fart‘ taint my support for Senator Thompson and I even got a few pictures of the senator as seen in my Flickrstream here or below:
In your online and offline life you will have positive and negative relationships. My suggestion, if you can’t have a positive relationship online don’t have one at all. Whenever I start an online relationship I select the DO NOT SEND ME PROMO EMAILS option (if available). In this way I help my vendor understand what sort of relationship I want to have (don’t call me, I’ll call you). However this morning, I got an email that appeared to be from Craig Strong at Lensbaby (he makes very cool selective focus lenses). From the subject it appeared to me that he might want me to show off some of the pictures I have taken with my Lensbaby, but as soon as I opened the email I realized it was a ‘form email’. Lots of pictures, links and an utter lack of a personal message were my first clue.
Had the email been from Craig to me and been more personal I would have been very interested in participating. How hard would it have been for Craig to write a simple email and send it to people who have purchased his lenses? How many emails can one person handle? Perhaps he should have sent out 100 and waited for the response. What is the response rate for personal email? I suspect it is fairly good, perhaps 20%. Assuming 20 people emailed him and half of those who responded were interested in participating he could easily call them. In less than a day Craig might have engaged 10 fans willing to help promote his product and in the process become even more connected to him and his brand. What if Craig did this sort of relationship building once a week for a year? It is possible that he would have formed a positive and direct relationship with as many as 500 of his customers. Oh and Craig doesn’t have to be the only person at Lensbaby building relationships, he could enlist other people to start a direct conversation with customers as well.
But I know, it is much easier to email 10,000 people than it is to call 100 people. But what have you gained? Have you built a positive relationship? Maybe, but I suspect for every positive relationship you form from SPAM, you lose the possibility for forming a relationship with 100 people FOREVER. Just my two cents…
Web 2.0 junkies, we have the perfect iPhone site for you ~ GetLeaflets. Mike Arrington pointed out the site earlier today in a post titled, “GetLeaflets: Must-Have iPhone App”. Very nice work. Note to guys: this is what I was talking about!
We are playing with the latest IM solution for the iPhone - FlickIM. Jury is still out, but it works…
Turns out lots of folks are dumping LinkedIn in favor of Facebook. Jeff Pulver actually wrote a post today titled, “Goodbye LinkedIn. Hello Facebook.“ Interesting post, check it out. Why the switch? Jeff explains,
I find that the interactions I have through Facebook are at once more rewarding and more nuanced and meaningful than what I experienced on LinkedIn. And in fact, in many cases it is easier to communicate with someone on Facebook than on email. Facebook IS the internet portal of 2007. And it is where you will find me.
Just a quick programming note here at Big in Japan. Jake McKee has been with the company as Lead Samurai for almost a year. He has been deeply involved with almost every project since joining Big in Japan and has made a huge impact on our business. Starting this week, Jake’s role within Big in Japan will be significantly scaled back allowing him to focus on his own speaking and writing efforts outside of the company. Jake will continue his work managing and supporting both the LEGO and TechData accounts for Big in Japan. Scott Bauer will take over his role with our other clients. We wish Jake the best of luck on his book and encourage anyone looking for a great speaker to give him a call!
iPhoneDevCamp was an excellent event. Thanks to Raven, Whurley and Dom for putting it together, we really enjoyed it. Over 51 applications were started or built over the weekend including one built by the Big in Japan team. We decided to build a tiny application that would use the ability the iPhone has to determine the orientation of its screen. Based on how you held your iPhone you would signify your agreement or disagreement with the speaker. We call it iPhoneVote and ironically it was voted one of the ‘top ten apps‘ from the event.
Other cool applications included: AppMarks, PickleView, Fluther, The Pool, itunes Remote-o-Matic, Tilt and moPhaic (read about them here). The coolest hack from the event was called the Fluid Navigation Hack as described by Andrew:
The iPhoneDevCamp opening reception is just about over, but iPhone news is coming out at record pace. Check out the flickrstream here. See you tomorrow at 9:30AM. News? The iPhoneInterface tool is out as well as reported by the iPhone Hacking News:
We have successfully written a tool named iPhoneInterface allowing for some basic manipulation of things on the phone, and are releasing it tonight. We are including source code so you can understand the techniques we have used so far. We will be expanding the functionality of this tool significantly tomorrow. The best news is that we have prototype code that allows the ability to:
- Run any desired application already residing on the phone.
- Control what processes run on the phone (currently implementation is very hackish)
- Move files around on the phone
- Enable viewing of verbose information during the restore process
- Activate the phone without iTunes and without a token
Note: Not all of the features listed above are necessarily included in tonight’s initial release.
We are continuing significant work on this tool and will probably have similarly worthwhile updates tomorrow.
