tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-106878472011-07-28T03:53:49.779-07:00Since 1994, I've been involved in developing virtual communities. Now that they are all the rage, I've taken the time to start sharing my related thoughts. With a little luck, someone might find some valuable information in my rambling.Zaskodahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04671229259722833124noreply@blogger.comBlogger731100tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10687847.post-87079133483664604062009-10-17T20:24:00.000-07:002009-10-17T20:25:46.389-07:00

I've moved all of the posts from this blog to my new site here:http://Zaskoda.comI will not be posting here again. At some point, I will remove this site. Thank you.

Zaskodahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04671229259722833124noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10687847.post-56682958125626355912008-02-22T10:10:00.000-08:002008-02-22T11:17:32.711-08:00

It's been some 5 months since my last update to this blog. I've been somewhat absorbed in the Gaia Community project. I hired on full time at Gaiam and started this project last June. After 9 months, we've given birth to a very healthy little community.We began with nothing. Gaiam was grown as a catalog company that grew onto the Web via e-commerce. Like many other corporations, Gaiam knew

Zaskodahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04671229259722833124noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10687847.post-48891148157620847792007-09-03T21:06:00.000-07:002007-09-03T21:09:15.535-07:00

Tonight I launched a new online community. Other than myself, it has zero members. It probably won't ever have any. The intent is to allow spam bots to infest the site and post at will. I call it:BOTARCHY!...only because bothole.com was already registered...

Zaskodahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04671229259722833124noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10687847.post-62201861456273527922007-07-18T09:12:00.000-07:002007-07-18T09:17:10.797-07:00

This particular interview is making the rounds because of a Bartle's comments about closing down World of Warcraft. Personally, I think it's a brilliant read from start to finish. The story caries a high level of relevance to the recent rise in social websites as well as the state of online gaming worlds. I was involved in the gaming industry for about a decade; there's still a great deal that

Zaskodahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04671229259722833124noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10687847.post-42047910954914104602007-07-16T10:27:00.000-07:002007-07-16T10:31:26.040-07:00

In Sept of last year, I posted Myspace: The Beginning Of The End. The post was a mix of my personal observations along with a little bit of supporting news media. Last Friday, MSNBC picked up on the trend in a story titled, "OMG! YR still on MySpace? Loser!" Awesome title, and a good read. There is a growing trend of users seeking out communities with a sense of integrity and purpose. MySpace has

Zaskodahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04671229259722833124noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10687847.post-18168255120745864032007-07-05T14:21:00.000-07:002007-07-05T14:34:13.161-07:00

I kept hearing about this new site called Virb but never remembered to check it out while I was at my computer. I've been on Virb for all of about 20 minutes and, I must say, I am overwhelmed. This site is clean, easy to use, and just plain sexy. The little light bulb to dim the page while watching a video is brilliant. The use of Ajax is excellent - it makes the site more functional in nice

Zaskodahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04671229259722833124noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10687847.post-29300774757858810932007-06-14T09:31:00.000-07:002007-06-14T09:33:08.293-07:00

This made it's rounds near the beginning of the year. It says it all, so I'll just let the video speak for itself:

Zaskodahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04671229259722833124noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10687847.post-72420090638578083702007-06-12T08:06:00.001-07:002007-06-12T08:11:20.319-07:00

A little while back, a friend of mine registered hasaportal.com and started working on a site. The site was designed to help people setup portal pages that kept track of all of the communities they're members of. Basically, when someone asks what sites you're on, you could point them to your portal and then they could find you on any sites they happen to also be members of. At the time, we

Zaskodahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04671229259722833124noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10687847.post-90215605670527010472007-06-11T15:16:00.001-07:002007-06-11T16:04:48.841-07:00

On the same journey that prompted my previous post, I ran across a good read by Jeremiah Owyang titled, " Voices from the Community, Corporate Websites are Irrelevant". It was a follow up to his previous post titled, "Web Strategy: How to evolve your irrelevant corporate website". The basic point of the original article is that consumers don't need to concern themselves with the company line as

Zaskodahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04671229259722833124noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10687847.post-15195053439643717122007-06-11T14:54:00.000-07:002007-06-11T15:00:13.533-07:00

I've read a slew of great community articles today. A post titled Community 2.0 by John Hagel stood out as a particularly important read. He has an excellent high level view of virtual communities. Here but one of many excellent quotes:push programs treat people as passive consumers even when they are producers like workers on an assembly line. In contrast, pull platforms treat people as

Zaskodahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04671229259722833124noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10687847.post-5596080338717158942007-05-23T15:00:00.000-07:002007-05-23T15:30:47.450-07:00

I'm getting bad about off topic posts. I really should start up another blog somewhere. For now, I'll rant here. Today's rant is about Ameriprise Financial. Back in 2004, a friend of a friend went to work at what was then American Express Financial Services or something like that. She called herself an advisor and promised to help me invest my money for a small (re: huge) fee. I wanted to support

Zaskodahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04671229259722833124noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10687847.post-28525736010084378592007-05-23T13:29:00.000-07:002007-05-23T13:34:52.539-07:00

I love any company that's willing to self deprecate a little. It shows they have enough confidence that they don't have to try to spin public opinion. Check out comment number 11 on this blues news thread. After you've read it, swing over to the official Gearbox Forums and look at the header. Gotta love it!

Zaskodahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04671229259722833124noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10687847.post-36828432832137096312007-05-19T21:10:00.001-07:002008-08-27T17:56:14.098-07:00

I just read this quote after following a reddit link:“I’d just like to see thinking come back in style. I haven’t heard a new idea in eight years. Let’s get ordinary people arguing and talking again. I want to trigger new circuits in their nervous systems. That’s the philosopher’s job and I am the most important philosopher at this time.”- Timothy LearyI've long held and idea I wanted to execute

Zaskodahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04671229259722833124noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10687847.post-75984737489812713422007-03-11T20:18:00.000-07:002007-03-11T20:31:33.300-07:00

Today we started to notice missed recordings on our Verizon provided DVR. Some shows weren't recorded while others were cut off. Then we noticed that the time on the box was off - way off. It wasn't just the wrong time, but several hours too far ahead. It looked to us that it was the result of a botched daylight savings time change. Not entirely sure where the box gets the time from, we tried

Zaskodahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04671229259722833124noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10687847.post-58734138869869624392007-02-16T09:26:00.000-08:002007-02-16T09:45:41.196-08:00

It's been about four months since we launched DallasSnowboarding.com. With the initial launch, we did a lot of promotional work. However, that lasted about a month and then we got distracted. Since then, we've merely used the site as if we were just community members - aside from some moderation here and there. Here are some stats on the community's growth and development:100 Users Registrations

Zaskodahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04671229259722833124noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10687847.post-1164780115475758102006-11-28T21:58:00.000-08:002006-11-28T22:06:01.136-08:00

How handy would this be? - A rich media based version of Wikipedia where all the content was video based. No, I don't mean a flash website. I mean a huge organized archive of video clips that present useful information.Now how cool would it be if you could sync your iPod style device to this database at any time and keep it up to date with the database?As an example, you could hook it up to a

Zaskodahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04671229259722833124noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10687847.post-1163573370464223712006-11-14T22:42:00.000-08:002006-11-14T22:54:28.080-08:00

A couple of weeks ago, I mentioned DallasSnowboarders.com. We did some basic promotion by announcing the site in a few places online and started spreading the word of mouth. In the past two weeks we have had about 15,000 page loads. As of the time of this post, we have 29 registered users. If we can maintain such a good pace, we should be a very respectable looking community in a few months to a

Zaskodahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04671229259722833124noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10687847.post-1162400379426046902006-11-01T08:47:00.000-08:002006-11-01T08:59:39.643-08:00

Social Networking is easy. Any user can jump online and join one of hundreds of social networking sites. The "friends list" concept is popping up all over the place. You can find social networks for posting pictures, videos, and even finding dates. Perhaps it's the ease of use that enables them to be so popular.What I would like to see happen next wouldn't be as "easy" as our current batch of

Zaskodahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04671229259722833124noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10687847.post-1162399549881901322006-11-01T08:34:00.000-08:002006-11-01T08:45:49.973-08:00

There's nothing particularly unique about the virtual community I helped launch recently. The community is for the small but quickly growing group of snowboarding enthusiasts in the Dallas area. Thus, the site is appropriately called Dallas Snowboarders.Here's our banner:As I said, there's not much unique about it. We used PHPBB as our forum software with a few extra mods for a photo album,

Zaskodahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04671229259722833124noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10687847.post-1160692012118197802006-10-12T15:21:00.000-07:002006-10-12T15:27:40.080-07:00

When Flickr sold to Yahoo, some users were concerned about the fate of their community. More recently, Google bought YouTube and now users are complaining:"Since it was the `people' that made YouTube, why aren't they being paid billions?"What did you think was going on? That some how people with lots of investment money just wanted to provide you with free bandwidth and tools to put your media

Zaskodahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04671229259722833124noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10687847.post-1159286578445610022006-09-26T08:43:00.000-07:002006-09-26T09:05:52.193-07:00

I'm all excited this morning. I ran into Jack Slocum's PHPBB+YUI project. You can see the default PHPBB install here and then check out the YUI version here. The readability improvements are absolutly astounding. I've seen attempts to create multi-pane forum views fail many times. This version seems to take a lot of cues from a mail client interface - and takes them very well.I don't know just

Zaskodahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04671229259722833124noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10687847.post-1158166149627441752006-09-13T09:04:00.000-07:002006-09-14T11:53:27.266-07:00

So, on some random day a year or two ago, a friend from Austin informs me that I should get a MySpace account because there are so many chicks on there. After explaining that I had a girlfriend, I created an account. After all, I'm into learning about virtual communities.I was shocked at who I found online. I found old high school friends. I found old college friends. I found friends from other

Zaskodahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04671229259722833124noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10687847.post-1156396677961487402006-08-23T22:16:00.000-07:002006-08-23T22:17:57.970-07:00

I'm almost to that point where I want to evaluate Python and some frameworks and I just happened to find this article. In a nutshell... it's one developer's reasons to go Python over Ruby.

Zaskodahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04671229259722833124noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10687847.post-1155655140553328782006-08-15T07:57:00.000-07:002006-08-15T08:24:34.203-07:00

I was scrounging Digg (tho, I prefer reddit) and found a blog post titled "STFU Ubuntu Users!!!". What an angry blogger, I think he should have tossed some 1's into his !'s just for good measure. It seems his main attack on Ubuntu was for being too... corporate?I've supported Ubuntu in other posts. While Ubuntu probably has more buzz than the product deserves on its technical merits alone, at

Zaskodahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04671229259722833124noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10687847.post-1155333518016138702006-08-11T14:44:00.000-07:002006-08-11T15:29:23.176-07:00

As promised, I started exploring Ruby on Rails... slowly... I installed Instant Rails and it lay dormant for weeks before I started to explore. I think I'm resisting the change. There's something about right now that reminds me of something about ten years ago - and this troubles me.Coming out of high school in 1994, I had a lot of programming projects in the works. A big one, The Legend of

Zaskodahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04671229259722833124noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10687847.post-1155050782764860942006-08-08T08:07:00.000-07:002006-08-08T08:26:22.970-07:00

According to this report on the financial times, Viacon might be looking to buy the social networking site Bebo. The report implies that the purchase is in response to Fox's purchase of MySpace.Viacom lost out to its rival in a bidding war last year for MySpace, now the world’s leading social networking site, when News Corp paid $580m (£304m) for the young company.As a side, it could be that

Zaskodahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04671229259722833124noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10687847.post-1154450696916210822006-08-01T09:23:00.000-07:002006-08-01T09:44:56.970-07:00

I can't begin to guess how many times I've complained when someone with my e-mail address would forward something silly to me and a few hundred friends - with all of our names exposed in the CC - only to have half a dozen people hit "reply-all" instead of responding directly to her. (Admittedly, occasionally a person on the list might find that the forward was a scam and link everyone to snopes

Zaskodahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04671229259722833124noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10687847.post-1152714486709610982006-07-12T07:20:00.000-07:002006-07-12T07:28:59.000-07:00

I'm about to move, possibly making me a potential new customer for SBC Internet service. I just spent 15 minutes on the phone with one question."How much is the service."I called sales. The first service rep said he didn't do Texas and transferred my call. I was transferred to an automated system where I could report outages, optionally in spanish. Once I got through the automated system and to

Zaskodahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04671229259722833124noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10687847.post-1152633077434149172006-07-11T08:37:00.000-07:002006-07-11T08:51:17.450-07:00

Habbo Hotel is a browser based virtual world (browser + shockwave). You can create a world character for free and then explore the hotel. Certain in-world actions require Habbo coins which can be purchased for $0.20 each. I just read on TC that Habbo hotel a reported $30 million in revenue last year.

Zaskodahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04671229259722833124noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10687847.post-1152599974965699502006-07-10T23:20:00.000-07:002006-07-10T23:39:34.983-07:00

A couple of weeks ago, the hard drive on my local web server crashed. I had all of my personal development work, login information, tracked hours, and only God knows what else on that server. All I gotta do is get a new drive and restore from backups, right?I didn't back anything up. I never even meant for that system to become so very important. If I had, I probably wouldn't have gone with a

Zaskodahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04671229259722833124noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10687847.post-1149544000702692882006-06-05T14:36:00.000-07:002006-06-05T14:53:35.133-07:00

Ruby on Rails has a lot of buzz going for it lately. Most of the code I write these days is PHP. I've been wondering if RoR is something that could be useful for me. I'm sure that taking the time to explore a new language will only benefit me; however, I'm aweful busy doing things in PHP and I haven't had a whole lot of downtime.So, I've been keeping my eyes peeled for good articles and poking

Zaskodahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04671229259722833124noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10687847.post-1148596781727694382006-05-25T15:36:00.000-07:002006-05-25T15:39:41.743-07:00

Blog : A public forum where only one user can create a thread.Forum : A community blog, or collection of blogs organized by subject, where any community member can create a thread.

Zaskodahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04671229259722833124noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10687847.post-1148416609625045522006-05-23T13:36:00.000-07:002006-05-23T13:41:18.686-07:00

I've always loved video games. My first non-pen-and-paper RPG was Dragon Warrior for the NES. I got it free with my subscription to Nintendo Power - so it was long after the game was originally published. My next RPG was a step up - Final Fantasy II (us) for the SNES. I loved the genre and decided to use what programming and artistic skills I had to make my own RPG for the computer. The computer

Zaskodahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04671229259722833124noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10687847.post-1146624594988352972006-05-02T19:28:00.000-07:002006-05-02T19:49:55.003-07:00

Here's an overview of my evening. I booted my Inspiron 630m up in Ubuntu. I activated my bluetooth mouse and then connected my Z22 via USB and synched it with Evolution. I logged in to gAIM and started working on a biz plan with Open Office. I got to thinking about the logo I put together using InkScape while chatting about the features of the Gimp. Before posting a entry online, I decided to

Zaskodahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04671229259722833124noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10687847.post-1146242964465736412006-04-28T09:21:00.000-07:002006-04-28T10:03:27.576-07:00

DisclaimerI'm using the term 'blog' as it's accurate to the subject; however, any source of original syndicated content would apply. To assume that what I present here is limited to the scope of blogging is rather close minded.The SetupAs folks who know me are aware, I work at a video game development company. About a year and a half ago, I launched Gearblogs. The idea of a developer giving

Zaskodahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04671229259722833124noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10687847.post-1146159198209944562006-04-27T10:21:00.000-07:002006-04-27T10:37:06.146-07:00

So, I'm wanting to find out more about this projected called Citadel. It's a groupware package for lots of important stuff like calendars, email, and chat. I actually found it while looking for a good calendar server solution. Citadel is more than a calendar for sure, the site says it can be used like a BBS.While learning more, I ended up reading this blog post. It is a must read, particularly

Zaskodahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04671229259722833124noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10687847.post-1144909336197183992006-04-12T23:00:00.000-07:002006-04-13T09:37:27.316-07:00

The title says it all, it is time to give Firefox an audio mixer.The web is becoming increasingly more multimedia. While the bulk of web content is still text, and will likely remain text for a long time to come; multimedia is here to stay. The curent state of multimedia on the web is painful, particularly on sites such as MySpace where opening a single page could result in several movies or MP3s

Zaskodahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04671229259722833124noreply@blogger.com9tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10687847.post-1144293004022730852006-04-05T19:57:00.000-07:002006-04-05T20:17:25.926-07:00

Over the past couple of days, I've had an e-mail dialog with the organizer of a meetup.com group for marketing. It all began shortly after I added the group to my list. I noticed several very pointed e-mails asking people to RSVP for the upcoming gathering. So, I submitted my RSVP. On the day of the meetup itself, I learned that if I attended the meetup - I would be there alone.I would like to

Zaskodahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04671229259722833124noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10687847.post-1143791548501272852006-03-30T23:21:00.000-08:002006-03-31T09:21:18.276-08:00

What We DidNear the end of the first bubble, I joined a cool idea for a startup company. We had a subscription based product to sell online and I was hired as the Director of Web Development. I was stoked; but it didn't take things long to fall apart. Even if the bubble hadn't popped, our gig was doomed to fail. I'll now share with the world one of our biggest mistakes - spamming.We were getting

Zaskodahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04671229259722833124noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10687847.post-1143091380001757962006-03-22T21:10:00.000-08:002006-03-23T09:19:55.903-08:00

I just found Frappr.com tonight. What a surprise! As this post's title suggests, the best way to sum the site up is as "a Web 2.0 version of MySpace". It really is kinda nifty.From what I've found about the site tonight, it looks like it began as a way of mapping your social network and kinda grew from there. The map is provided via the infamous GoogleMaps, of course. The 20 minutes I've spent

Zaskodahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04671229259722833124noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10687847.post-1140074019716567302006-02-15T23:13:00.000-08:002006-02-15T23:17:33.266-08:00

I was reading Web Development 2.0 and found a lot of really interesting information. One bit relates well to virtual communities.One example: Flickr had a report of users with no contacts in the Flickr social network, which they called the "Loneliest Users" report. What a great report -- a way to see who is uploading photos but not sharing them with anyone! With that, they could go add themselves

Zaskodahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04671229259722833124noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10687847.post-1140044612866776402006-02-15T14:55:00.000-08:002006-02-15T15:03:32.866-08:00

I recently hit a couple of interesting posts by Guy Kawasaki. For the most part, I like his content. However, he threw me a curve ball in his last post titled "The Art of Creating a Community". The curve ball is the term "Thunderlizards". Sweet, another buzzword! But what is it? My first thought was to ask wikipedia, because it knows all. There was no entry in wikipedia for Thunderlizards, but a

Zaskodahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04671229259722833124noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10687847.post-1139294161417650902006-02-06T22:36:00.000-08:002006-02-15T14:55:17.056-08:00

I recently bought a Dell Inspiron 630m laptop. I'm really enjoying this machine. I made a ghost of the hard drive right away and started installing various alternative operating systems. After a couple of cd based boot tests and a trial install of FreeBSD, I installed Ubuntu 5.1. While using the slick application manager, I noticed this posting tool called Drivel and installed it. This post is

Zaskodahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04671229259722833124noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10687847.post-1134625829850483602005-12-14T20:43:00.000-08:002005-12-14T21:54:11.526-08:00

The WikiI remember reading about the wiki so many years ago (mid 90s?). I wish my college Technical Writing classes would have included them. Wiki would have made the class far more interesting to those of us that were also CS majors, which accounted for a good 80%.Only in recent times have I had a life situation that called for a wiki. Our office environment is one that uses a lot of shared

Zaskodahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04671229259722833124noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10687847.post-1130112017336942602005-10-23T16:20:00.000-07:002005-10-23T17:18:02.430-07:00

I recently had lunch with someone that got me thinking about video blogging. I still cringe at the word "blog" so "vlog" is no better. I'm a little more comfortable with the term podcasting. Maybe I'm starting to fall for all that trendy mac advertising.Anyway, podcasting is catching on. Generally speaking, a podcaster wants to be heard and/or seen. Regardless of the type of content a podcaster

Zaskodahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04671229259722833124noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10687847.post-1128437572619654822005-10-04T07:46:00.000-07:002005-10-04T07:52:52.626-07:00

Back around March of this year, Vito Miliano created a greasemonkey "Autosave" script for Gmail. It was a great idea and solved a very annoying problem.This morning I logged into Gmail and noticed the "New! Auto-save and more" link in bright red at the top of the page. Turns out, Gmail went ahead - some 8 months later - and added an autosave.I had to post and give some public kudos to Vito for

Zaskodahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04671229259722833124noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10687847.post-1128095973494120952005-09-30T08:53:00.000-07:002005-09-30T08:59:33.503-07:00

My identity concept was horribly flawed. I'm a little surprised I overlooked something so terribly obvious. As such, I suddenly realize what aspect of the identity problem OpenID serves to solve so nicely.I wanted to have a "home" system... and when logging on to a community, you would pass your login, password, and home system to that community - then the community software would ping your home

Zaskodahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04671229259722833124noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10687847.post-1127747406880049542005-09-26T08:05:00.000-07:002005-09-26T09:58:51.540-07:00

I'm a huge advocate for the creation of a new generation of online identification.Dick Hardt of Sxip explained the current identity scene very well at OSCON. You can watch the entire presenation of Identity 2.0 right here.I'm was blown away at with Dick's presentation. It was both informative and entertaining. He's given me confidence in Sxip before learning any specifics about the project.I'm

Zaskodahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04671229259722833124noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10687847.post-1127584176014311312005-09-24T10:08:00.000-07:002005-09-27T13:33:59.706-07:00

In June I made a post titled "A Few Good Forum Ideas" where I first mentioned the idea of putting a jail on the Gearbox Forums. I said I would discuss the results of the jail if we actually implemented it - and we did.I'll jump straight to the point - the jail, or "Ban Bin" as we call it, is very successful.How it works...Previously, when a forum user broke the rules, the user was banned. If the

Zaskodahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04671229259722833124noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10687847.post-1126393703088150412005-09-10T15:50:00.000-07:002005-09-10T16:14:32.443-07:00

Several months ago, I started a project I called Isogame. Using bits of programmer art, art from old projects, and art borrowed from google images (apologies to artists) - I built a very basic isometric map with an html interface. Using some custom forum software I'd developed for another project, I connect each tile to it's own thread. Then, I changed the map's tile based on the number of posts

Zaskodahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04671229259722833124noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10687847.post-1126374441882886582005-09-10T10:34:00.000-07:002005-09-10T16:22:04.560-07:00

News Corp must have a plan. Either that, or they're still operating off of that mentality that drove so many investors to waste cash during the bubble. Recently I mentioned that News Corp picked up Myspace for $580 million. This time, News Corp purchased the massive gaming community network IGN. The price tag on IGN? How about $650 million! Myspace and IGN are completely different networks.

Zaskodahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04671229259722833124noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10687847.post-1126197150518551262005-09-08T09:29:00.000-07:002005-09-08T09:32:30.523-07:00

I am stoked! I've been tinkering with this snowboarding community idea and I haven't been able to find the right name. The name came to me while writing out a check to reserve a room for a snowboarding trip this fall. I wrote "snow tripping" in the little comment line, and it suddenly clicked. I flipped over to GoDaddy.com and snap - it was mine. Shuweet!It's so freak'n hard to snag good domain

Zaskodahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04671229259722833124noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10687847.post-1123864940311188242005-08-12T09:35:00.000-07:002005-08-12T09:42:20.330-07:00

Is it just me, or is it getting to be impossible to secure a reasonable domain name? I recently had several of my domains expire. Some were live projects that I eventually stopped caring about, others were projects I never got posted and gave up on. I was considering revisiting one of these projects and I found one of those search pages wrapped up with lots of keywords related to the domain. I

Zaskodahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04671229259722833124noreply@blogger.com9tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10687847.post-1123772449864254722005-08-11T07:41:00.000-07:002005-08-11T09:50:21.570-07:00

The Social Software Weblog posted a bit about comScore's "Behaviors of the Blogosphere". Halfway through the report, I was shocked. Ranking high in a graph titled "Top Blogs Ranked by Visits", I found sites such as Drudge Report, Fark, and Slashdot. First I thought, "these sites aren't blogs, what are they doing in this report?" That's when I realized that these three sites were some of the top

Zaskodahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04671229259722833124noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10687847.post-1123301053856116482005-08-05T20:08:00.000-07:002005-08-05T21:10:35.180-07:00

Problem: I frequent several different communities on a regular basis and I must maintain an individual profile on each of them.Solution: One login to rule them all.The monolithic dark lords of all that is digital tried to solve this problem; but they have failed... Users did not want to sell their private lives to the dark lords for the gift of easy identity management. The dark lords failed

Zaskodahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04671229259722833124noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10687847.post-1122654842362287412005-07-29T07:30:00.000-07:002005-08-05T09:56:45.623-07:00

Blog Blog Blogidy BlogI suppose I've been a blogger longer than I realized. In August of 1996, I started making weekly web updates regarding the progress I was (or wasn't) making on a computer RPG project. Back then, we just called them websites. Actually, to be more accurate, we called them Web sites as the Web was still something special enough to warrent a capitol letter.I remember hearing the

Zaskodahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04671229259722833124noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10687847.post-1122311214465015972005-07-25T09:53:00.000-07:002005-07-25T10:06:54.473-07:00

Winamp used to be this nice little mp3 player. This weekend I got tired of Winamp bugging me to upgrade, so I did. For the first time in a long time, I started exploring the new features in Winamp. That's when I discovered ShoutcastTV. I've been a Shoutcast Radio listener for a long time now. Two of my favorite shoutcast stations(?) are DI.fm and Soma.fm. But this TV thing - it's crazy. There

Zaskodahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04671229259722833124noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10687847.post-1121874558474532642005-07-20T08:47:00.000-07:002005-07-20T08:49:18.490-07:00

Ok, this has to be checked out: Google MoonTake a moment to zoom all the way in.I love google. Too bad microsoft doesn't.

Zaskodahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04671229259722833124noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10687847.post-1121744032612516702005-07-18T20:23:00.000-07:002005-07-18T20:42:31.196-07:00

Kids in TV land, you're being duped! - Bart Simpson"Hello" to all of the members of virtual communities out there. I just wanted you to know, you're being grown and sold in a brand new emerging market. A special congrats to all the people who've joined myspace over the years. It seems you've helped the founders of myspace.com earn a wopping $580 MILLION by selling to Fox Interactive. Hang on kids

Zaskodahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04671229259722833124noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10687847.post-1121269037959743162005-07-13T07:49:00.000-07:002005-07-13T08:51:06.840-07:00

This is a rant...I hate HTML based forms. Since I started scrapping together bits of html a decade ago, forms have not significantly changed. They are still the same clunky limited user feedback interface they have always been. We're building 2K5 website with the exact same level of technology we had in 1995.The textbox is lame. The idea is wonderful, a box you could type lots of text into and

Zaskodahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04671229259722833124noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10687847.post-1120760099300018772005-07-07T11:06:00.000-07:002005-07-07T11:30:03.333-07:00

Statistics are generally fun and interesting, although today a bit depressing. Glilad Mishne of the ILPS built a nifty tool for tracking the current moods in the livejournal community. A friend of mine just pointed out an increase in "sad" and "worried". Was it possibly related to the recent london blasts? Anyway, I think this illustrates a potential we've rarely explored in understanding online

Zaskodahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04671229259722833124noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10687847.post-1118279892664967122005-06-08T17:57:00.000-07:002005-06-11T15:57:42.246-07:00

I'd like to share a couple of forum structure ideas that have made managing the Gearbox Software Forums a little easier and an idea we've yet to try.Internal CombustionMany message boards offer a forum dedicated to allowing users to flame. For example, the Xterra Owners Club used the traditional and cleverly name, "The Asbestos Lined Room". Our message board lacked such a forum, and the entire

Zaskodahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04671229259722833124noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10687847.post-1117641543570860182005-06-01T08:40:00.000-07:002005-06-01T09:05:23.906-07:00

In a previous entry, I mentioned that my official work title at Gearbox would be changing - and it has. Originally, I hired on as community manager. Once here, I started overhauling Gearbox's online image and have recently redesigned the company's intranet. I am currently shifting into a completely new set of responsibilities, and will be handing community management off to a new hire.I am now a

Zaskodahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04671229259722833124noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10687847.post-1116994165553182922005-05-24T20:23:00.000-07:002005-06-01T09:13:39.733-07:00

IntroductionI began development on the DallasFestEvil.com website around July of 2004. I was working in conjunction with a promoter (now retired). Up-to and during the event, we worked to build an online following. Our budget was very limited and we were working with a previously unsuccessful festival. Somehow, we managed to pull it off. Here are a few of the techniques we

Zaskodahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04671229259722833124noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10687847.post-1115852307804684022005-05-11T15:53:00.000-07:002005-05-11T15:58:51.743-07:00

I just caught wind of this article that gives a bit of fresh evidence that Google may, indeed, be building a Web browser. The topic isn't new, but golly jeepers if it isn't exciting. Google has a long tradition of "doing things right" so I would expect G-Browser to spark a fire.

Zaskodahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04671229259722833124noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10687847.post-1115742260630850392005-05-10T09:18:00.000-07:002005-05-10T09:24:20.643-07:00

Ok world, help me out.What's another word that means exactly the same thing as "cyber" ???The term was such a sub-culture classic that was blown into the trendy mainstream with such force it blew right in, through, and out the other end and is now considered rather lame...I think it's time the term came back...

Zaskodahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04671229259722833124noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10687847.post-1115104705585680372005-05-02T22:33:00.000-07:002005-05-03T10:33:26.613-07:00

Definition of a Virtual Community I could simply post a link to wikipedia's definition of virtual community and leave it at that. The free encyclopedia says: "A virtual community is a group whose members are connected by means of information technologies, typically the Internet." However, I think it important to carefully consider the scope of this definition. In 1910, an information technology

Zaskodahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04671229259722833124noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10687847.post-1112842438837802772005-04-06T19:17:00.000-07:002006-02-08T14:59:56.660-08:00

It suddenly occurred to me last night, CSS should include a state machine.In a subtle way, it already does with ":hover".The hover state is triggered based on the mouse cursor's position. This very basic state allows designers to produce some interesting results.Additionally, perhaps CSS should allow designers to create their own custom states. It could allow designers to assign state changes

Zaskodahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04671229259722833124noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10687847.post-1111287907750749392005-03-19T16:41:00.000-08:002005-03-19T19:35:41.796-08:00

Introduction... It's been a few days since I returned from SXSW. The trip as a whole was wonderful. I enjoy being in Austin no matter the reason; and this trip was particularly rewarding. However, the Interactive Festival itself was less than I had hoped for.I hoped I would find myself surrounded by scores of seasoned professionals. Rather, I found myself waste deep in blogosphere evangelists.

Zaskodahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04671229259722833124noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10687847.post-1110602666668456922005-03-11T20:39:00.000-08:002005-03-11T20:53:48.863-08:00

It snuck up on me a lot faster than I thought it would... I barely finished upgrading our forums to vBulletin in time to go...Tomorrow morning I'm off to the SXSW Interactive Festival. Many of the interactive panels have sparked my interest including: The New New Economy, Web Design 2010, Digital Convergence In Central Texas, and Open Source Marketing. The interactive segment of the event has

Zaskodahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04671229259722833124noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10687847.post-1108861358115756702005-02-19T16:01:00.000-08:002005-05-03T10:46:03.806-07:00

Every industry has it's own jargon. It follows that the Internet, and every industry built around it, has it's own jargon. Jargon develops because early adopters of - something - have to find words to describe the new concepts they discover, learn, or create. I've just reached a point where I may need to create another word for our Industry's jargon.But first, let me tell a story (warning, I'm

Zaskodahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04671229259722833124noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10687847.post-1108069123880856632005-02-10T22:47:00.000-08:002005-03-19T20:00:11.340-08:00

Have you used MeetUp.com? Have you found it to be a success? I tried it. I spent months failing to find any of the groups I hoped to; but finally, I attended my first meet.For anyone who doesn't know, MeetUp is all about finding groups of people who meet locally. These groups are based on a particular interest. Groups range from politics to hobbies. After all, Time Magazine said, "No matter what

Zaskodahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04671229259722833124noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10687847.post-1107816252130117192005-02-06T22:00:00.000-08:002005-02-23T15:21:39.096-08:00

Understanding and developing online communities is, perhaps, the fastest growing concern among Internet professionals today.I've been working as Gearbox Software's community manager since July 12th, 2004. My job at Gearbox involves being a liaison between the developer and community as well as managing the development of the community itlsef. With the upcoming launch of Gearbox Software's first

Zaskodahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04671229259722833124noreply@blogger.com0