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Coffee and Code coming to Durham Region!

Offline coding ftw!

Image by kungfootv via Flickr

Last night, at Energize IT (hosted by Microsoft Canada at their Mississauga headquarters), I got to talk with Joey deVilla about a few different things. One of those topics, which I'm pleased to share with you now, is an upcoming Coffee and Code for Durham Region!

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Real-time: Web 2.0 for headache-inducing

BloodShot

Image by mattbatt0 via Flickr

FriendFeed 2.0 came out in beta today, the social aggregator showing off a number of changes to its service. It's a lot nicer than the classic FriendFeed, but I'm not here to talk about what's new and improved; half the blogs out there have already covered that ground. Instead, I'm going to complain about the move to real-time.

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The business plan and social media

Business Plan in a Day book

Image by Raymond Yee via Flickr

Where are the business plans for social networking & social media ventures? Do any exist? Really? Because I keep hearing how they're needed, but never any evidence that they exist.

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Perhaps it's time to abandon Twitter

Image representing Twitter as depicted in Crun...

Image via CrunchBase

We all know that Twitter has jumped the shark. The recent additions of the suggested users list, the influx of celebrity and brand accounts (and all the silent, creepy stalker accounts that follow them), and the incredible gaming of the friend/follower system demonstrates that quite clearly. But that's not why I say it's time to take our tweets and go elsewhere.

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Hashtags are dead. Long live real-time search and filtering!

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I don't know if Scoble will beat me to the punch (he's blogging this too) but I got to say this: You don't need hashtags any more. The reason? Real-time search and filtering exists and works well in the places where hashtags are primarily used. If you don't get it, dwell on that for a bit. Once it sinks in, you'll know.

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How did I ever survive this long?

This is a short blog post, existing merely to inform all of you that as of today, I am 26 years old. I may act young, but I feel old. Old enough that I can't even stare at the college girls without feeling lecherous.

Now geddof the lawn, you damn kids, and let me enjoy my birthday! :D

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The numbers game and asocial media

LONDON, ENGLAND - MARCH 25: In this photo illu...

Image by Getty Images via Daylife

When is social media no longer social? When you're playing it for the numbers. It seems the great promises of social media have fallen by the wayside, as users play a game of one-upmanship with each other, trying to have the most followers, tweets, comments, what-have-you. You know what? That's not social media. That's asocial media.

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Do any of us really know what we're doing?

Tabula Rogeriana, 1154

Image via Wikipedia

Who here actually has a real clue about what they're doing in social media? I'm not talking about that ado from months ago about people claiming to be social media experts when they were no such thing. I'm talking about us folk who are starting social media ventures, the people who fund us, etc. Who knows where this crazy ride is leading us?

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Twitter's celebrity storm: Which social network is next?

Image representing Twitter as depicted in Crun...

Image via CrunchBase

If you're involved in social networking and you've not heard about the Ashton Kutcher/CNN showdown, you should probably check yourself for a pulse. In a nutshell, Kutcher has promised to prank Ted Turner if his Twitter account, @aplusk, makes it to 1 million followers before @cnnbrk (which, prior to this week, wasn't even owned by CNN). Even with the stuff Kutcher is promising if he wins, this is still rank stupidity.

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Will Oracle embrace or extinguish MySQL?

MySQL

Image via Wikipedia

By now you've certainly heard the news about Oracle's purchase of Sun Microsystems. But what does this mean for MySQL, which Sun has owned since 2008?

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