Social Media Posts

South by Southwest (“SXSW”) Interactive wrapped up last week, and one of the recurring themes was how location-based services (LBS) are changing the landscape of social media. When you port social media apps to the mobile phone, a world of LBSs are opened to you.

There are many use cases for LBS, many for social media, and the intersection of the two are even more interesting.

As seen with foursquare and Gowalla, bringing in LBS into a social application that lets you add tips/comments to restaurants, bars, etc. instantly turns it into a quick way to see where the “hot” places are currently in your area. Adding game mechanics (like badges) only makes foursquare even more addictive.

This is the new hotness.

The intersect between Location-based services and social media.

Is it any surprise that twitter started supporting location-based tweets this week? They’re simply keeping up with the trend. I expect to see location-appropriate contextual ads in applications on mobile phones more now. If you’re walking down 5th street, and you’ve given your application access to GPS information, advertisers would love to be able to tell you to drop by their shop on your way to wherever you’re headed.

ShopSavvy, for instance, could push notifications to customers using that app letting them know where deals are in their proximity.

There are detractors. Plenty of people still want to keep their location private. If you’re an at-risk person (in an abusive relationship, for instance) you should think twice before turning on location-based services. More and more websites/applications these days are starting to set very “open” defaults rather than restrictive defaults. As Danah Boyd recently said, we were once a people who kept information private and decided what to make public. Now we are more and more making data about ourselves public by default, and take more effort to decide what to make private.

Edit: A day after I posted this, I found an article by Kevin Nakao which provides more detail on location-based services. It is a great reader and can be found here.

8/24/2009 1:00PM – Just ordered 3 more servers from SL. Man I love how easy it is to order, and the provisioning time is incredible.

8/24/2009 11:45PM – Got the new servers setup; now I have redundancy for my app. G’nite.

9/04/2009 8:00AM – Suhweet, just passed 50K users for my app. Hitting the pool.

9/21/2009 6:42PM – Oops, app crashed too many users. Recovering now. Thank goodness for monitoring alerts.

9.21/2009 8:13PM – Sorry all, app back up. SL CloudLayer really helped. Their portal makes it all easy.

9/22/2009 3:13AM – Ok stayed up late tonight and added new functionality to the app and added a new app server, geographic load balancing baby!

10/6/2009 2:45PM – Thanks for all the support on the app, keep the new ideas coming. 450K users and growing.

10/31/2009 5:50PM – Happy Halloween! 627K users. Thank you!!

11/14/2009 6:02AM – Getting close 989K users. Party at 1 Million. Just added 2 new front end servers in each DC, adding cloud storage now for Data replication/protection.

11/21/2009 7:31AM– It’s finally here 1 Mil. Party time! Isn’t ad revenue the greatest. The in game pay to play money is fun too. Thanks all!

12/10/2009 4:42PM – Still growing. I was alerted that one server crashed. No users affected. Technology is cool.

12/18/2009 9:16PM– ‘Bout to go silent for the Holidays. Hope you all have good ones. See you at 1.5 million when I return.

12/19/2009 7:00AM – Decided to add a couple more cloud instances for good measure. App is smoking fast.

12/31/2009 10:45PM – Monitoring just hit my phone, at party will check asap.

12/31/2009 11:00PM – Found a netbook at the party. App is crashed. Looking.

12/31/2009 11:07 PM – WT? All servers down, hard down. SL up and friend app good on SL network. Investigating, sorry for outage.

12/31/2009 11:10 PM – Hackers? Not sure all servers affected. Ping only. Had very secure. No problem before.

12/31/2009 11:29PM – Portal password got hacked. Intruders OS reloaded every server with RedHat, turned off all CCI.

1/04/2009 6:00AM – Happy New Year, mine sucked – app back – 5000 daily users. Sad day.

While the above is completely fictional, it could happen to just about anyone. Don’t let it happen to you. No matter how long and how secure you think your password is, there is someone out there who can crack it. It is one thing keeping a server secure and most technical geniuses are very adept at doing just that. With all the time and effort it takes to keep your servers secure, you might find that you have slipped in other areas. SoftLayer is here to help in VIP Style.

The cutting edge SoftLayer portal now has optional Two Factor Authentication support using VeriSign’s Identity Protection. First, what is Two Factor Authentication? It is defined as, “something you know (password) and something you HAVE (pin number of sorts).” Here is how it works:

You buy a physical device in the form of a keychain token or a credit card token; or in the cool age of technology, you can simply get one of the free phone apps that do the same thing for you without the extra piece of equipment to carry. Once you get the device/app you would go to the portal and register the token’s unique ID and attach it to a username on the account. The master user gets this FREE and then if you want other users on your account to have this functionality it is $3 per user per month. If the master user does turn on this functionality no one else will be allowed into the system without using two factor authentication. Once this is setup, the user will login using their “known” password and then they will also have to enter the “code” (the thing you have) on the token device or phone app to gain access. The code changes on a fast schedule so this is extremely secure. This would have made the New Year’s celebration for the person above much more fun.

One last thing, since we partnered with VeriSign you can use the token device or phone app for different sites that use the VeriSign product. PayPal is one example. Here is a complete list.

Now that you know about it, and now that we offer it, don’t be the guy that doesn’t keep the portal secure and misses out on a Happy New Year!

As I sat in front of my computer Sunday evening, after the Cowboys flat out destroyed the Eagles in reality, just about to go play a few of my favorite Facebook games, I noticed a link to an article that I knew I had to read. I will give the writer his due at the end of the blog so you can read it for yourself and form your own opinion; but, I must say it was quite humorous.

Its title alone can be answered in one word I believe, and; the tag line under the picture in the article is simply amazing.

The title is “What does Farmville Mean for Farmers?” Wait for it… Wait for my one word answer… Nothing! The lone picture in the article is of some crop squares looking freshly plowed with no crops growing and a small avatar frowning instead of smiling with a single tear rolling down his cheek. The line under the picture states, “Stop caring about your virtual farm and start caring about real ones.” To quote the younger generation all I have to say is, “Really? Really?”

At first, I am thinking that farmers worldwide are neglecting their crops and prices are going up on wheat, corn, fruit, etc. I decided to read further. “The Sun Always Shines. Pink cows produce strawberry milk. Soybeans take two days to grow and ripen. Something is not right. It’s too clean. Nothing smells. Coffee beans grows next to squash.” Ok. At this point, I am having a hard time trying to correlate this to “actual” farming. By the way, it hasn’t gotten any clearer.

The author then goes on to discuss how virtual farming can be relaxing and give you a virtual country calm . It can transport you “somewhere else for a minute or an hour.” I can’t decide if the author thinks this is a good thing or not. I personally do. Sometimes it’s nice to just sit and click and not think about everything else going on in the world. Carpel tunnel or no carpel tunnel, it is just harmless mindless, clicking; oh and, you might make a new friend in a new state at the same time. I have a few myself. I have never met them in person, but they are nice folks and we have fun playing the games.

Then it takes a turn for the worse; the author suddenly switches from a social game to reality. He describes the trials of a person and her homesteading experience. After trying to live off the land, her marriage crumbed and she was forced to move back to the city. I am not making lite of the hardship of farmers with this blog—as I know this is a very hard lifestyle. In my neck of the woods, I see rows of corn never produce because of a lack of rain and end up baled for hay. I see winter wheat turn to dust. As it will this week when we have 3 days of freezing temperatures; and, the plants just aren’t big enough to make it through it yet. There are forces of nature that farmers just have to deal with and hope for the best; but, let’s not blame a Facebook application for their trials.

The final sentence in the article states, “It’s time to support actual small farmers and stop playing around.” I can agree with that statement. Maybe the makers of Farmville could start a fund for small farmers that are deserving of help, maybe. But the folks that actually play the game have no business driving the modern equipment used by farmers. So, please don’t ask them to show up at local farms and ask to help. That would be a huge social reality mess!

Normally this is the place where I would try to somehow tie this into SoftLayer, but in this one I am just drawing a blank.

For your reading and commenting pleasure http://www.good.is/post/What-Does-Farmville-Mean-for-Farmers/?GT1=48001.

It’s no hidden secret that a lot of older generation individuals are always struggling with technology. From sending an email to signing in to Facebook, most of our parents have struggled keeping up. One reason my parents have struggled with the internet is due to all the horror stories they hear. From viruses, to hackers, to identity theft they’ve almost been scared from logging into the monster that is called the Internet. I honestly never thought I would be able to convince them otherwise until last weekend when my son and I were playing peek-a-boo.

What better way to convince my parents, who live 965 miles away, to give technology and the internet another try then to play peek-a-boo with my son? I immediately gave my Dad a call and asked him to download Skype. He asked me the first question he always seems to ask which was, “How much is it?” To which, I replied free (This got his attention). After a brief argument on how he heard a co-worker’s computer crashed after downloading something on the internet, my Dad reluctantly downloaded Skype and we were on our way (this was about a 45 minute long ordeal, well worth it though).

Nowadays people in my generation thrive on technology, and we crave the latest and greatest gadgets and software we can get our hands on. With the internet becoming more accessible than ever before companies like Softlayer are able to provide the tools for anyone to claim a spot on the web all their own. Companies like Skype for instance have their servers housed somewhere in a datacenter just like Softlayer’s. I will probably never get my Dad to admit technology is his friend, but at least it’s beginning to become less of an enemy in his eyes. Especially since on any given Saturday morning he can login to Skype and within minutes be playing peek-a-boo with his first grandson.

I recently engaged in an interesting conversation with my significant other. It went something like this:

Her: “The company made us take our facebook page down, because it wasn’t official”
Me: “Really? I figured that’d be an awesome way to market your company… Create a group, invite all of your customers to join you, and advertise via facebook”
Her: …

While the actual conversation did last a lot longer, she later made a valid point. Being well versed in the web hosting industry (as she has to deal with my barrage of nerdery on a daily basis), she mentioned that it made complete sense that a company such as SoftLayer should use the Internet, and social networking to connect the employees, customers, and fans together, pushing that envelope just a little bit further. Our whole operation, after all, is in fact powered by the internet.

We have all avenues open for social networking to help us power our business. You can look at what’s going on in SoftLayer at any given moment via Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, The InnerLayer… the list goes on, and surely continues to grow. It’s only a matter of time until the next best thing comes around (does anyone remember MySpace, or Friendster?), I’ll bet a paycheck* that we’ll be quick** to jump on board.

After all, when all is said and done, there’s no wrong way to market yourself. People do it all the time in their social networking profiles. They may present themselves as a party animal, a scholar, or a hard worker, but regardless, they’re putting their image out for the world to see… and while it seems like a large paradigm shift for businesses, when one stops to think about it, it makes perfect sense; it’s a free outlet to market yourself!

So while some companies are stuck in low gear, SoftLayer has hit the throttle, and speeding ahead, continuously braving ahead into new and interesting ideas. We’ll continue to push the limits of what’s acceptable to most, and use every tool to get our name on the streets.

* Comment made in jest. I will NOT bet an entire paycheck.
** I make no guarantees as to exactly how “quick” quick will be

Social Networking in my eyes has been around for years since the old bulletin board system days, though now with the advancement of technology and the internet, we see it on a much larger scale. I remember in 2004 I told myself I would never join Myspace. That turned out to be wrong in October of 2005 I joined and connected with friends from the past.

Then came facebook, I once again refused to become a member of another social networking site, though in 2008 I joined to help diagnose one of our customers issues as they hosted an application on the site. I then later found additional friends that had one or the other, so I started using both to stay connected (Still all wondering why no one just uses email like it was intended for instead of just for notifications from your favorite social sites).

I then joined a more professional social networking site, LinkedIn, and became connected with former co-workers, contractors, professors, students, and industry people. Then came twitter, which I just signed up for a few months ago and haven’t really gotten into it, as I feel it is the same as status updates on facebook and myspace, while thinking to myself, do I really need to update my friends with what I am doing every hour on all three. No I don’t think so, but I have friends that do!

My blackberry has five main applications that are used on it: Email; Browser; SMS messages; Myspace; and Facebook. All get checked about every 30 minutes so I can stay in the know about everything from work, to friends. I rarely use personal email for things anymore as most of my friends contact me on one of the social networking sites. I have often thought about deleting one or the other if not both. I find myself telling myself, why it’s like when you disconnected text messaging from your cell phone in 2000 because you hated it, you’ll sign right back up for it as it has became an essential in my life.

I can’t say I couldn’t live without social networking sites, but it would require me to reorganize how I organize my already busy life. My answer is yes, social networking has changed my life and how I interact with people. Social Networking can be a very vital tool, if you are a restaurant / bar, band, sales person, etc. You can use Social Networking to expose yourself to that many more people and reach out!

Now I’m off to install TwitterBerry and see if that makes me like twitter anymore, ask me in three months.

Last week, more rumors about the valuation of Facebook were flowing. So, is Facebook the real deal? Or will it go the way of the CB radio “social networking” experiment in the 1970’s?

Last weekend, I attended an event that indicates that Facebook has more staying power than those old CB radios. It was a quasi high school reunion. Since a lot of graduates of Brownwood High School (my alma mater) wind up in the Dallas-Ft. Worth area, a 2-3 hour drive away from Brownwood, we had a get-together in Grapevine, TX for Brownwood High grads living in the area.

At the event, the oldest grad I bumped into was from the Class of ’81 and the youngest I saw was from the Class of ’90. Yes, there’s a “19” in front of those graduation years, making the age range of people I saw between ages 37 and 46 years of age. I won’t disclose where I fit in that group, but in the world of Facebook, we’re all pretty much “geezers” I imagine.

I wish I had counted the number of times I heard Facebook mentioned at the party on Saturday night. Many times people told of who they had found on Facebook that couldn’t make it to the party. Some of the comments I overheard went like this:

“I saw those pictures of your kids on Facebook. Man they’ve grown!”

Q: “So, is that crawfish boil you posted on Facebook an annual event?”
A: “Yeah, it got kinda wild this year.”

“You said in your Facebook status a while back that your daughter got hurt. How’s she doing now?”

You get the drift, I’m sure. Most everybody there in this age range was active on Facebook and was already connected to several in attendance on Facebook. Since the event, I’ve received friend requests from folks I saw, and I’ve also sent out a few friend requests.

After we all made it home early Sunday morning (hey we’re not THAT old – at least we think we’re not), the Facebook fun continued. My email account pinged all day letting me know I’d been tagged in a photo here, someone commented on a photo there, etc. Yes the cameras were out Saturday night, and the contents of those cameras got uploaded, tagged, and commented upon all day Sunday. In fact, I was tagged in one photo that had the caption “Brownwood High School geezers from class of __.”

As far as Facebook goes, I’ll bet stories like this occur all over the country by the thousands. Provided that Facebook keeps its financial house in order, they’re here for the long haul I think.

So, what’s the connection to SoftLayer here? Easy. We have a lot of customers who provide apps on Facebook. The infrastructure for those apps is hosted at SoftLayer. Consequently, we’re big cheerleaders for Facebook and the apps that run upon it. Go go go!

I recently signed up for a Twitter account, to add to my ever growing list of email, chat, and social networking groups—maybe just to give myself a new user name to forget. I wasn’t really familiar with Twitter and was surprised to learn that its sole function is to provide status updates. This got me thinking about our ever growing need as a society to share, broadcast, and receive information about ourselves. From Google alerts to Facebook and MySpace status updates I receive untold daily emails that are for the most part irrelevant.

But, I subject myself to this ever-growing, streaming feed of information in the hopes that I won’t miss anything and that at some point I might learn something useful. At SoftLayer we have streamlined this process through our industry leading customer portal, where monthly, daily, and even real-time reports are filed, sorted and posted to customers’ login accounts. Our portal provides a single interface to manage and monitor customers’ servers and IT infrastructure. If only my life were as simple as having a single, manageable interface, maybe I wouldn’t have already forgotten the password I set up 20 minutes ago.

-James

A blog is a strong commitment. I mean, if you just set up a web page, it’s obvious that you’re going to update occasionally, maybe once or twice a month, add a new page or two. I’ve seen viable websites that haven’t been updated since before Y2K. But it’s OK, because it’s a website. Not so with a blog! If you set up a blog engine*, you’re not allowed to make just one or two updates a month. You have to keep the pump primed with awesome content.

Most of this just has to do with the design of a blog engine. For one, each post is stamped with a date. The assumption seems to be that if you have a date on something, the date is important. The date on a carton of milk tells you when to drink it by, so maybe the date on a blog post is also some kind of content expiration date? The assumption seems to be that dates on text mean that you want people to notice the date and act upon it. Not to mention that most blog engines have some kind of calendar that points to listings of posts by date. If you have a calendar widget that only has one or two days highlighted, the assumption is you don’t care about your blog or something.

Again, it’s not any kind of failure, it’s just what’s expected. Blogs all look similar: they have a home page of posts, which link to full post pages. Pages are tagged for quick taxonomy identification and grouping. Blogs also generally allow comments, upping the conversational angle. So you have to keep your blog pumping content. I’ve discovered three different schemes of blog content generation:

The Panic Morning News: The Panic Morning News is a strategy where a blogger panics, struggling to create content every day. What you end up with is some content which is well written, and some content that seems to be filler, designed to put something up to fill this day’s update.

The Anything Goes Times: These are the blogs where you find incredibly boring posts about accounting suddenly appearing in between exciting posts. I’m not saying that accounting is boring, per se, more that suddenly discovering a post about accounting sandwiched between a post about video games and exploding cars sticks out. Of course, these blogs generally are a kind of string of consciousness blogs, where the blogs are more of a “What am I thinking now” type blog.

The Who Cares Star-Telegram: These are the trailblazers who don’t care that you think they’re lame for having only one or two posts a month. Their posts are well written, and it becomes obvious that, to them, a blog is more a Content Management Engine* than a two-way communication medium.

But this isn’t just a blogging phenomenon… it happens with anything that updates daily. Comic strips and books, websites, news feeds. And filler content usually follows some kind of pattern. For comics, a comic/cartoon character is usually put into a silly situation for a day. Batman has a birthday party thrown by Joker and the Penguin, or Naruto goes on a tangent about ramen noodles for a whole episode. Blogs and Webcomics tend to have their own special type of ‘filler,’ usually they have a whole update talking about how difficult it is to write blogs and/or webcomics.

-Shawn

* NOTE: If you want the convenience of a blog without the expectations of daily updates, look at making a wiki or use a Content Management System like Drupal.

Here at SoftLayer, all the developers stay on Jabber all day so we’re all accessible. As you know, we’ve recently been doing a major piece of software development: the new API. During development, we all were trying to get things finished as well as continue our day to day operations.

No fewer than 4 times during the last 3 weeks I have had the following conversation with a fellow developer.

Me: Hey, I need you to do something on this API class you wrote.
Other developer: Ok, no problem.
Me: Wait, you didn’t write this, did you?
Other developer: No, I didn’t.

Each time, when faced with a request to understand and modify something that they didn’t write, in addition to their already overwhelming workload, my fellow developers were more than happy to accept the new task.

It just goes to show what kind of environment we all work in here. Everyone is always willing to help, and it’s this attitude that allowed us to develop the API so quickly with such robust features. Each developer was willing to help the others, and that resulted in a tightly integrated product that we’re all very proud of.

The same sort of attitude pervades all of SoftLayer. I have had help on tasks from Networking, Accounting, and Sales since I got here, and each time everyone is more than happy to help out. The end result is, of course, that the customer gets their problems solved faster, and gets higher quality services out it the deal.

But really, fellow developers, if you’re reading this also, it’s acceptable to say “I didn’t write that” when I ask you to change it. I won’t be offended. Half the problem is that we have 5 developers with names starting with J, I just clicked the wrong guy!

-Daniel