Cervo Business Card Idea
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April 2006 Posts
Kissimmee's Monument of States
Having grown up in Kissimmee, I am no stranger to its hostorical landmarks. In fact, I like to share the features of my hometown with friends and visitors. One such attractive structure is the Monument of States at the Kissimmee Lakefront Park. Featuring stones, artifacts and plaques from all 50 US States as well as several foreign countries.
For a bit of statewide or national recognition of the monument, you can also check out the monument and hundreds of other interesting Florida landmarks in Weird Florida
If you are ever in Kissimmee, the Historic Downtown Districs is extremely charming, and a great place to shop for antiques and knick-knacks, get a bite to eat, and take a walk through a piece of Florida's history.
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Katharine is a MAKE All-Star
My friend Katharine (of WHiRR) got her sweet and cuddly self posted on the MAKE Blog yesterday. OPAH!
She is local, and DIY, and loves Kids in the Hall, and selling her home-brew crafts. Super-cool. Plus, she appeared on 2 episodes of Crapface last week.
We also might be snatching up a table at Fringe (weekend only) for her to sell some stuff, and me to podcast from, and also have a small stack of CDs. Look for us near the beer tent!
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St. Cloud Wi-Fi getting more press: WIRED
Reportedly, some residents are experiencing weak signals and inconsistent connectivity, but the article states that "...there were only 842 help-line calls out of more than 50,000 user sessions in the first 45 days of service." The help line and much of the construction and maintenance of the service was contracted to Hewlett-Packard.
I have used the free access in downtown St. Cloud a few times: it was below standards in my opinion. Downtown itself seems to be a black hole for cell phone signal, and the wi-fi was not much better. The speed is restricted to 1 Mbit/s for casual users, but I'm sure the ambulances and city employees the service was created for get unrestricted bandwidth. The speed is still light years ahead of the dial-up connection at my parents' house, so I can check my email much faster, and at least get that out of the way before my first disconnection.
St. Cloud sports a number of cafes and restaraunts to sit and eat (and potentially work) in, but I have only tried O'Dougherty's and the Lunch Spot next door, which either sported outdoor seating or seats near windows, and the staff members were fairly receptive to the idea that I just wanted to sit and work. I was the only kid with a laptop or any other wi-fi device, so I guess most people are still used to getting Internet access at home.
Really, this service is for the residents of St. Cloud. The city says it opened up the service so that families could save an average of $450 a year that would normally be spent on Internet connectivity. I'm sure they don't mind all the publicity thecity has been getting either.
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Re-re-posting: Beer as Journalism
I saw this re-posted at Kottke.com:
Glenn Reynolds makes an interesting analogy about journalism and beer making in his new book:
Without formal training and using cheap equipment, almost anyone can do it. The quality may be variable, but the best home-brews are tastier than the stuff you see advertised during the Super Bowl. This is because big brewers, particularly in America, have long aimed to reach the largest market by pushing bland brands that offend no one. The rise of home-brewing, however, has forced them to create "micro-brews" that actually taste of something. In the same way, argues Mr Reynolds, bloggers--individuals who publish their thoughts on the internet--have shaken up the mainstream media (or MSM, in blogger parlance).
What, no "drunk on power" quip? Curiously, the Economist piece fails to mention the name of Reynolds' book, An Army of Davids, although it appears over in the right sidebar, almost camouflaged as an ad.
I'm not sure what else to say. This man has covered quite a bit of what I would have said in a very concise and witty manner.I can say that I am a fan of the microbrew. As soon as I had sampled enough of the domestic (network) watered-down stuff, I started looking for something that would appeal to my taste. As far as beers go, Lost Coast Brewery's Great White and Rogue Brewery's Dead Guy Ale are my current favorites.
I am a consumer and producer of home-brew journalism, and I am even trying to sell my wares (as well as help others sell theirs). As for beer, I have not tried it yet, but I am very eager to do so. The combinations possible are as varied as the number of people on the planet. Some will be more pleasing than others, and certain people will prefer some flavors that have been deemed not-so-pleasing by the public (or the guys with the money).
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Netvibes is the best
Especially love the RSS reader. I have tried Google’s and Bloglines and a few Dashboard/Konfabulator widgets, but none of them can match what Netvibes is doing.
I also like getting updates on both my gMail accounts right there, and how they let me discover the IceRocket search engine, which gives you thumbnails and preview panes for websites inside the search engine (but I think it is a Google mashup).
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Podcasts Are Bigger Than DVDs
Reposted from Burning Questions:
[A] promising indicator of the success of podcasting is its comparison to... The DVD. Back in 2000, the DVD format, just 3 years old at the time, was declared the most successful product launch in consumer electronics history, outselling the VCR five to one. ...the number of podcasts available online is tenfold that of DVD titles in nearly half the time.
PodNova says they're indexing 74,265 podcasts. FeedBurner claims to be publishing somewhere between 47,000 or more of those channels. More than half by my count.
What does this mean? Podcasts are mainstream, whether the mainstreamers realise it or not. Forrester research claims that podcasts are consumed by less than 1 percent of all internet households, but what was the adoption of braodband like in the past?
From TMCNet:
a new CEA study reveals that 43 million U.S. households now have broadband Internet access — in 1999, that figure was just two million.
The point is, podcasting is not going away. Actually, the number of podcasts and the subjects they cover are growing all the time. The pope and the Queen have iPods now, along with several members of congress. People are getting used to time-shifted on-demand content that they choose to consume, instead of what is broadcast over the air and cable. I am excited to be someone taking advantage of the opportunity this medium provides, and I am very hopeful about the possible payoff to my hard work. These statistics only make me more confident; today is a good day to be me.
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About
View a list of Ryan Price's past clients at ClaimID — Ryan Price's LinkedIn Profile
Ryan Price is a community-building, local-blogging, drum-playing, video-making, open-sourcing geek with a love of storytelling and an endless desire to discover how things work. (named a top-30 "Who to follow" for Drupal on Twitter) In the past year, he has started a Drupal training business; attended interactive technology and open source conferences all over the world; helped to create several BarCamp, Ignite, DrupalCamp, and social media events; recorded over 80 hours of podcasts; uploaded almost 1,000 photos and 100 or more videos; written over 400 blog posts, plus thousands of comments and tweets(Ryan also controls 2 of the top 10 twitter accounts in Orlando); given talks on writing mission statements, storytelling, building communities with media, trends in technology and freelance; sat on an industry advisory council; not to mention hosting and attending dozens of meetups, art openings, theatre performances, local concerts, film screenings, poetry readings and supporting local businesses.
Oh, and sometimes he builds websites, starts companies, and listens to a painful number of podcasts, all while thinking the big thoughts. To see a bigger list of sites he has compiled, visit Ryan Price's ClaimID page. To see a "lifestream" of all Ryan's activity on the public web, check out RyanPrice.org
He would doesn't use the word "social media expert", that's too slimy. He does help people understand how to use these tools and push all kinds of information out on to the web, both for himself, and on behalf of others.
Ryan wants to help you build a community, design a product, get inside the heads of your customers, or just learn how to post some videos to your website.
Ryan graduated from the University of Central Florida in 2004 with a degree in Digital Media: Internet and Interactive Systems and a minor in Applied Computer Science. While in school, Ryan began working as a web developer, taking on contracts when his school schedule allowed. Ryan's experiences leading a Senior Project on Pervasive Computing and the Digital Media Student Service team helped him solidify his goals to become a producer for all kinds of media, from traditional music and film to new and convergent media.
After college Ryan moved away from home to Ann Arbor, MI, where he became closely connected with SEMAFX, the SouthEast Michigan ACM SiGGRAPH Chapter, which was his inspiration for creating the Florida Creatives Happy Hours. Ryan returned to Orlando in the Summer of 2005, and became a partner in Cervo Systems, and started building websites with Drupal. Ryan created an Internet TV show called Orlando Scene TV - part of a podcast and blog network called Liberatr.net. He is the host of several of his own podcasts, starting with the chaos that is You can't spell crapface without PFA, as well as community/theatre 'zine Blogging Fringe, and Shrink Your Ecological Footprint. Ryan is also the producer of a pro football podcast, The Student of the Game. He knows nothing about football except what he learned watching from the sidelines in marching band, he just wanted Kyle to have fun with podcasting.
Most recently is the new Our Yellow House podcast, where Ryan and his guests will attempt to dig deep on at least one subject - the future of creative work, software licensing, new models for social interaction, and lots more in the future.
In 2008, Ryan had the privilege of maintaining PopSci.com, and building new sites for Field and Stream and Outdoor Life magazines. While working for Bonnier, Ryan started a Drupal blog, which later turned into a Drupal podcast and a training business. Ryan also helped found the Florida Drupal Group, and regularly contributes there.
I should mention…
I have started my own blogging/media/podcasting network! It is called Liberatr.net, and I am loving every minute of it sofar. I have 5 podcasts and one blog now, and very soon will be adding a second blog, and soon thereafter an internet TV show…
Wish me luck!
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Scents that Sell
Re-posted from AdPulp:
Something's In The Air - AdPulp
The gist of this article is that businesses are starting to pull from a library of over 1,500 scents compiled by a company called ScentAir to enhance the sale. I originally found this story because two of the businesses referenced are in Orlando: Coors Brewing Company's annual distributors meeting and the Hard Rock Live. Hard Rock was using sugar-cookie smells to entice people to go downstairs and check out the ice cream shop, and Coors used a vanilla-peppermint blend to create an atmosphere that made people think 'cold'.
Apparently the atmospheric applications are popular, but I am more intrigued by the idea of inserting the smell of a hot pizza outside a classroom on a college campus to try and bolster slice sales. Now, I don't mean every day, maybe they would just set up shop for a week and move it along, but I bet the campaign would be a success. Even just strategically positioning someone with a fresh hot pizza sitting on the bench could possibly have the same effect.
Two more stories ScentAir mentions on their site are even more compelling. First of all, the SonyStyle Stores apparently use a mixture of citrus and vanilla to create a brand recognition experience based on the 5th untouched sense, which is apparently the strongest sense tied to memory. The final example could only come from a town called Celebration. In their branch of Florida Hospital, simply named 'Celebration Health', they created a beach themed MRI room to make people feel more comfortable about going inside the big evil pulsating magner machine, complete with beach chairs, a sandcastle (the evil machine itself) and of course, coconut and ocean scents.
One fact remains: even though ScentAir is located in Charlotte, NC, they have quite a few success stories in the Orlando area. This could be because of the influence of the entertainment and convention industry on our town, or just a strange coincidence. Florida is certainly a "hard sell, but with pageantry" sort of place. Someday my dissertation on the influence of theatrics and big productions on Orlando business and arts will come, but not today. For now, I'll stick to thinking of those Fresh Baked Sugar Cookies that aren't really there... ::sniff::
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