I have written this post a number of times now, but never published it due to my own silliness. See, I’m always discovering new applications, that’s part of the fun of the iPhone, and I never really wanted to put my foot down and say “this is my top list.”

So, this is a list of the 5 iPhone apps I use most often, and can’t imagine my iPhone without them….as of right now.

1) White Noise – I’ve used this app every single night since I got it. It has a bunch of different “white noises” it plays, I think the one I use is technically called ‘brown noise,’ but I love it. I’ve used a white noise machine for years, but have always hated trying to wake up in the morning with the machine still going (and there are studies now saying that any noise – including white noise – effects sleep negatively). With the app, I can set a timer and it’ll turn itself off once I’m asleep. I also have chronic insomnia, so for me, anyway, it’s also useful to tell me if I’ve been awake in bed for far too long. If the noise turns off and I’m still awake, it’s time to get out of bed for half an hour (I think my wacky sleeping habits could probably be a post in and of itself, I know they’re weird).

2) Flashlight (link to itunes) – Really. All this does is make your iPhone light up like a flashlight. For me, it’s handy navigating my apartment in the dark so as to not wake up or step on the cats. If you’re uber l33t, you can find a version of Flashlight embedded within Tweetie. Which takes me to…

3) Tweetie – My favorite twitter client so far. There are many, and which one I like changes regularly, but as of right now, I prefer Tweetie. The fact that it has a flashlight is a silly cute thing too.

4) Evernote – I’ve always been one for simple note taking programs, my main requirement being that it needs to sync between my computer(s) and my phone without me plugging the iPhone into the computer (I rarely do that). I tried a bunch of apps, but Evernote is absolutely the best (toodledoo would be my #2). It does exactly what I want – lets me type something in as a note on my computer, then turn around and see it on my phone (or on another computer). It’s more powerful than that, it does audio, images, to do lists, but all I want are text notes. And it’s fully cross-platform, with apps for both Mac and PC. The PC app also contains a little screen clipper thing that works like Grab does on a mac, I likey.

5) Taxi Magic – this one probably isn’t all that helpful to everyone, but for me, I love. This uses GPS to find taxi companies near your location, and, if it can, will electronically order the cab for you. According to the cab drivers, the call shows up on their end just like a regular dispatch.

6) ZumoDrive – This was supposed to be a top 5 list, but had to include this. ZumoDrive lets you store files on a “z” drive (or just upload to their website), and access them from anywhere. Like Evernote, it is fully cross platform (Mac, PC, iPhone, Web), and syncs without any effort on my part. I use it for basic file storage, but one of the cooler things it will do is play mp3′s stored on ZumoDrive on your iphone…all streaming.

I’m still hunting for a great calendar app and a great poker or hearts game, but these apps have transformed my iPhone from being just a phone to being a real handheld computer. Applications are what the iPhone is all about. If you own an iPhone and haven’t played with any applications, you’re truly missing out.

There has been a lot of discussion around the blogosphere the past few days about Twitter’s Suggested Users feature and whether or not it’s fair, valuable, and so on. Jason Calacanis offered up $250,000 to be near the top of the list for two years, and stated he thought that price was a bargain. (Jason has also been pushing the value of Twitter followers for a long time now, but that’s a whole other story. For this, let’s assume there is some value to the number of followers you have.)

I gotta admit – I agree with folks on this – there is a problem here.

Twitter is like any other social network – it’s no fun unless you have friends to follow. It does make sense to create a list of people for new users to add and it avoids having to create a “Tom” (MySpace) type person who will give you something to do when you first join.

My problem is around the way the list has been implemented. I have multiple problems with it:

• The only people being listed are those who already have thousands and thousands of followers. I was personally already following anyone on that list I cared about.
• The list is fairly static
• There is no clear way to get yourself on the list, beyond knowing someone at twitter.
• The list isn’t “fair.” One newspaper has already complained because another newspaper has had multiple feeds listed, they have done, and can’t figure out how to fix it.
• There doesn’t seem to be any actual logic to what’s in the list. You’d expect the list to cover a wide range of interests, but it’s all sorts of weird.

The list is truly akin to an advertisement, which, let me make clear, I have absolutely no problem with. When I was at MySpace, we created (and this still exists) an Editor’s Pick spot for applications that would receive the same sort of promotion as paid ads, but would be clearly designated as an editorial choice. Ads would be marked as ads, and anyone who wanted to be featured could ask to be listed (btw, if interested, head over to http://developer.myspace.com) more information about this program is here:  In fact, everywhere I’ve worked in the last, oh, 10+ years, has a rule that ads must state they’re ads.

The Suggested User “ads,” while not being a result of money being paid (as far as we know), are clearly there because of….something. Is it knowing the right person at Twitter, is it having a certain number of followers, is it ‘quality’ of what the person says, is it some sort of evaluation of the person themselves, what? “Payments” do not always involve cash.

Suggesting users is a great idea. The problem is in the execution, and, really, all issues that are fairly easily fixed. It is to Twitter’s benefit in the long run to make sure their users are not all following the same 20 people, and to possibly create a revenue model that doesn’t exist right now.

If the list is editorial, it should be rotated, and be pulling from a larger segment of users than just the ones who are already popular. Twitter should also tell people what the requirements are to end up on that list. If the list is going to be the result of paid sponsorships, that’s fine as well, it should just be marked as such.

Until the issues with that list are fixed, if you want to find new people to follow, I recommend checking out the #followfriday hashtag over at twitter search. You’ll be exposed to a much larger and more diverse segment of the Twitterverse than you will on the Suggested Users page.

I’m a huge fan of user generated content. I think the greatest copy, ideas, and criticism can come from your own users. However, there is such a thing as going too far.

Last night at some point, http://www.skittles.com switched its page to become a constant feed of a twitter search for skittles. Almost immediately, people began talking about all sorts of random, not-skittles related stuff, just to appear on the page. I even sent a message about prefering M&M’s to skittles (which I do).

You just can’t put unfiltered user content out there. Sorry. I learned this lesson the hard way years ago. Back when I was at Pseudo, I had to do an interview with Dick Morris, who at the time was embroiled in quite a scandal surrounding the Clinton white house. We had this fantbulous idea of showing the live chatroom on a plasma screen right in between the two of us during the interview.

As you can imagine, the room was filled with things that weren’t appropriate for anyone to see, much less the target of them – Dick Morris himself.

The ONLY way to do this kind of content is to very, very cautiously moderate. You don’t need only positive statements going out, actually, if you want to really show what your users are saying, you should include some negative statements. But you absolutely need to be able to block messages like this:

PMansellSheep: fighting the cult @ XENUXENUXENUXENUXENUXENUXENUXENUXENUXENUXENUoYOUoJUSToLOSToTHE

I don’t understand why Skittles didn’t know better, and why they haven’t taken the page down yet. There’s a warning that you need to be an adult…but when the first comment is “skittles sux,” does being over 18 matter? In my case with Pseudo, we yanked that chatroom screen down before I was 10 minutes into the interview.

Over the summer, a lot of concerts did a deal with Verizon where you could text a message to have it shown on the big screen. Those messages appeared quickly, and looked “live,” but they were heavily moderated. And I know this cuz, um, I sent something inappropriate to see if it’d get through. I had to try, I almost ALWAYS try. I sent “scream if you love porn,” which I thought would be fun. But nope – lots of “Scream if you love linkin park” and the like, but no joy for me.

There is also the question of privacy, something people have been talking about a lot lately. Is my Twitter appearing on Skittles going to be seen as an endorsement? Do they actually even have the rights to do it (I need to dig through various terms to figure that out – expect a follow up post when I have time to do that). I can’t block it…at least I can block myself from appearing in Facebook’s social ads. But this is a whole other thing, and not one I’m entirely sure I’m comfortable with.

All that said, would I have ever written a blog entry about Skittles today if they hadn’t done this? If “any press is good press,” then Skittles has done a fantastic job at that – everyone’s talking about them on Twitter. Not talking about the candy, of course, they’re talking about the mess on the Skittles homepage. In what probably took them 10 minutes, they redid their website to something that people can’t stop talking about. Well done for that.

In the long run, is this going to make me buy more candy? Absolutely not. But I will be pointing to this as an example of UGC gone bad for years to come.

So for that, thanks Skittles!!

This morning Facebook announced that in light of the latest TOS blowup, they were going to be making some changes, shrinking their Terms, and allowing users to vote & contribute to any future changes.

While I think this is a really nice, utopian idea, I do NOT think it works in any practical form for a commercial business.

I mean, seriously. Are you even interested in voting on the terms of a site you visit? You don’t even read them. Are you really going to analyze them in any true, thoughtful manner? Beyond “copyrite sux.”

I was all set to write a long, rambling entry on why, but ya know, I shouldn’t be surprised – Read Write Web nailed it (as they often do, fabulous site). So, just go there, check it out: Facebook Management Has Lost Its Grip on Reality

This is most certainly not the last we’ve heard of this issue. This is a dangerous path for Facebook to be going down, and it will either work extremely well, or be a huge collossal disaster. I predict another blowup is on the way.

We shall see.

I often find myself twittering links that would otherwise have made it into a blog entry. So, here are some of those links, with a bit more annotation around them than the 140 character limit on Twitter. I want to try to do this every once in a while…some links are silly, some actual news.

A&E Releases iPhone app for checking Paranormal activity – Really funny, really neat. I can’t wait to see the boys on Supernatural holding up an iPhone instead of their funny EMF reader thingy.

RyanAir Calls Blogger Idiot – This is just awful. I fully believe companies absolutely have to respond to negative criticism publicly, but even if the person they’re talking about IS an idiot, you just don’t do that! Don’t insult your customers. Period.

Bank of Obama – This site lets you generate a “Stimulus Check” to send to your friends. You can send it via email, or you can pay a small fee to have it sent by paper mail. I sent all of you a check here. As a cute added benefit, you get a “thank you from obama” for doing your part to help bailout America. Glad I could help!!

F***MyLife – their tag line is “my life sucks but I dont give a fuck” It’s funny, or at least, I think so.

Secret Tweet – along the same lines as fmylife, except for twitter, and tends to be much more serious and sad. Anonymous tweets, with links attached so you can discuss, if you’re so inclined. Always an interesting service, but has taken on a whole new life now with the comments. Read the site, or follow ‘em on twitter.

Yesterday, Today, and Tomorrow – Last but not least, from Stargate SG-1 writer Joseph Mallozzi’s blog, an episode outline for a story that will never air. It’s a time travel/alternate universe typey thing set during the 10th season. I looove the time travel/alternate universe stuff.

Enjoy the links!

Note – for those of you reading this through RSS, I recently switched my feedburner feed over to google. Please let me know if you see any wonkyness – all seems to be working ok, but I keep hearing stories of other folks having big problems.

Two weeks ago, Facebook updated their terms of service. This past weekend someone wrote a blog entry pointing out the changes, and that people should maybe worry.

And people flipped the frack out….about something they didn’t understand. At all.

Sheesh. Before freaking out, let’s talk about a bit of the basic information behind this first. This issue involves user data and a site’s Terms of Service.

1) Terms of Use/Service and Privacy Policies

Every single site out there could benefit from a Terms of Service/Use & Privacy Policy, and any commercial site launching without one is asking for trouble. The documents generally cover what a user can and cannot do with the site, what the site is responsible for in the event of illegal activity or police involvement, what the site will or won’t do with a user’s information, and the typical indemnification “it’s not our fault if your computer breaks.” ToS aren’t unique to websites or tech, but sites are bringing these things to the attention of mainstream folks a bit more.

These docs are important for the legal protection of the company, but also to make as clear as possible to a user what will be done with any information they may provide. I don’t have one for this blog, because, well, I don’t much care, this isn’t a business, it’s my blabbering and your comments here are your own. But folks who take their blogs a bit more seriously will include something.

The moment you hit a website you’ve agreed to their Terms of Service, whether there’s a registration process or not (“your use of this site is governed by this agreement between you and whatevercompany, inc”). Ignoring a site’s terms is the same as signing up for a credit card without reading the fine print.  One month later, you get your bill:

“I didn’t see anything about 35% interest!?”
“Sure you did, you signed on the bottom of the form that you agreed to the fee.”
“I didn’t notice, so take the money back.”
*hysterical laughter* “Is this a crank call?”

Yeah, that doesn’t go over so well. There isn’t much difference between that and a site’s TOS. You agreed to it, you’re stuck with it.  And just like credit card agreements, it can be changed at anytime, with all changes taking place retroactively.

Personally? I read ‘em all, have found some fun doozies buried in various agreements, and have refused to sign up for sites or services because of them. Most recently, a line in a beta user agreement required that I “never say anything negative about the site or service.” Add to that the “this agreement exists in perpetuity,” and suddenly I’ve agreed to a gag order. I don’t think so! I was truly amazed people did sign up, but then again, I’m sure they didn’t read that.

2) User Data = You Online. Forever.

I talked about this a lot in one of my entries from she’s geeky, since it’s a big issue I don’t think people understand (and this Facebook mess just proves that).

ONCE YOU PUT SOMETHING ONLINE IT NEVER EVER EVER EVER EVER GOES AWAY.

Ok? One more time.

ONCE YOU PUT SOMETHING ONLINE IT NEVER EVER EVER EVER EVER GOES AWAY.

It doesn’t matter if you’ve locked your Facebook, if you’ve deleted it, whatever. It’s there. If not somewhere you can find it, then it’s in Google cache, or on the wayback machine, in your friend’s inbox, on flickr, somewhere. Don’t think that if you can’t find it it’s not online – the Wayback Machine, for example, only keeps a small fraction of their archive available online.

Now – this latest Facebook blowup.

The freak out was over the fact that Facebook added some language to their Terms saying they would keep a user’s content and licenses even after the person deleted the profile, and removed some other language about users being able to remove content to invalidate the license.

Hey, guess what people? This is nothing new – Facebook just put it in clear text. With the massively complicated architecture of today’s websites, there are caches and archives all over the place of things you’ve put online. If you delete something, it may no longer be delinked, but don’t kid yourself into thinking it’s gone. It’s probably not.

Should facebook have updated it’s TOS like that? Eh. They should have probably been a bit more subtle in their language, but the fact is, had a blog not pointed out what the changes meant, nobody would have noticed.

Want to read some spooky legalese? Check out Google’s Privacy Policy:

When you access Google services, our servers automatically record information that your browser sends whenever you visit a website. These server logs may include information such as your web request, Internet Protocol address, browser type, browser language, the date and time of your request and one or more cookies that may uniquely identify your browser. Also, in order to protect you from fraud, phishing, and other misconduct, we may collect information about your interaction with our services. Any such information we collect will only be used to detect and prevent fraud or other misconduct.

Know what that means? They track you online, and save that data. The wording is nice and light, but that’s what it means.  That’s scarier to me than thinking that Facebook may keep a record of “25 things about me..” even after I delete my account.

The lesson here is twofold. Just as in real life, don’t sign anything you haven’t read. If you don’t like what you’re reading, don’t use the service. And don’t think your information can ever be taken offline once you’ve put it there. It’s there forever, and even if one website says they’ll protect your information, they can always change their terms of service to say otherwise.

Be smart, be careful, and stuff like this really won’t matter.

Update: Just wanted to add a link to this article, “What Facebook’s Stumble Can Teach Your Company.” I think the opinion expressed in the article is highly idealistic and probably extremely unrealistic, but it’s still a good read.

I’ve been getting increasingly frustrated with the so called feminist movement in the web community. There have been a lot of these “hey, why isn’t a woman listed on this,” complaints over the last couple of months, more than I’ve seen in a long time. I really don’t like it, and think it hurts, rather than helps, our cause.

Earlier today, a question was thrown out on twitter about whether or not a woman should have been included in this article about A-Listers who have stopped blogging, Jason Calacanis, Michael Arrington, and the latest to join the list…Dan Lyons.’

My answer was no, I couldn’t think of an A-lister who belonged on the list. In fact, the only female blogger I could of who would even remotely fit the concept of the article was Kathy Sierra, but that was almost a year ago now, and the article was listing recent blogging drop outs.

Fact is, there isn’t a woman to put on the list. Period. It is one thing to not include a woman on a keynote of a conference about women (as happened a couple of weeks ago). It’s a whole other thing to ask why women aren’t included in everything.

10 years ago, I did lots and lots of interviews and panels about women and technology. The internet was male dominated, it still is, but it was certainly worse back then. There was blatant hostility towards women, we were genuinely afraid (at times) to openly be a woman online and it was important that we talked about it to change things. I took the same view then I did now. Don’t treat us any differently, don’t make concessions or lower standards because we’re women. We can totally rise to the challenge and beat you at your own game.

I thought things were getting better, and have said as much over the last few years. Sure, the industry is still male dominated – hell, my own company is comprised of 11 men and me, but so what. This generation of teenagers are growing up with computers, and I fully believe they will be heading into technology in mass numbers. Things are, without a doubt, going to change.

I never, ever expected to hear “women must be included everywhere just because they’re women.” That’s just not true, and it really upsets me to hear that. I think it’s destructive to our fight for equality, and only perpetuates the belief that men need to pander to women.

I don’t know where this came from. I’m a little concerned that it’s related in some part to the mommy blogger movement, which, for better or worse, is convincing some (with emphasis on SOME, I’m not trashing the entire movement) women that they should be rich and famous just because they blog about pampers. Male or female, you’re not going to get rich off of a blog. Period.

Do I sound bitter? Good, because I am. We’re taking steps backwards, not forwards.

Women are looking at gender first, then content. Please stop it. I can’t believe I’m saying this, but the problem now really is with the women, not the men. And that’s pathetic.

Equality needs to start with us. If women can’t even act like they’re equal to men, then we can’t expect men to treat us that way. Stop using gender as a sword, and acting like you’re entitled to something special because you’re female.  Act like you’re equal, and you’ll be treated equally.

To get back to the original point here, stop pointing out every single thing that doesn’t include a woman! It doesn’t matter, and it sure as hell doesn’t help.

Yesterday both the New York Times and Time Magazine published articles about the new trend on Facebook of answering silly little quizzes like “25 things you didn’t know about me.”These quizzes have been known for years as “memes.” I’ve done two of the meme’s in here, and if you really want more to do, there has been a website called the Daily Meme for a while now. The New York Times article was a ‘real’ newspaper article, researched, with real information. The Time Magazine article was a whiny diatribe about how “stupid” these things are and how dare they show up on this reporter’s Facebook.

Oh please, grow up.

According to Wikipedia, meme’s in internet culture refer to humor spreading quickly over the internet. For example, the “tell me 25 things about you…” survey that’s been flying around facebook.

These things have been around forever. They were mainly spread by email, but you’d also see them on people’s blogs (LiveJournal, or Xanga, mainly), or .plan files. Sometimes they were fun, sometimes they were dumb, but they always had a serious distribution problem that resulted in most people despising them. They would very easily turn into spam. One person would fill out the quiz, send it to 20 friends. Then that person would reply to all, add another 20 people, and…you get the picture. Those were truly the days of “25 things I didn’t want to know about you.” I didn’t even know you!

If these things are really coming back again (and it certainly seems like they are), Facebook is the perfect space for them, since they are so easy to ignore. Facebook is not like LiveJournal where a long quiz is making your Friends page huge, or like email where one quiz turns into 40 responses from people you don’t even know.  On facebook, by default, you will only see the subject line and one or two questions…if that. You’ll also only see those from your friends. There isn’t a gun being held to your head forcing you to read someone’s silly note.

Nobody has to be on Facebook. It’s a choice. If you are there, you have tools to control who and what you see. But at its core, Facebook is about sharing information among friends. Don’t want to share or see information? Don’t be there. And I’m talking to you, Time Magazine reporter. I don’t go to espn.com or foxsports.com and mock what they’re doing. You don’t have to go to facebook.com and spoil our fun.

(On a side note, someone’s gotta get this guy on MyYearbook. I think his head would explode.)

Personally, I am thrilled to see these things flying around Facebook. It means things be a changin, although I couldn’t tell you if it’s for the better or worse. Meme’s never really took over MySpace even though people do them all the time in bulletins. But, meme’s completely changed the culture of LiveJournal and Xanga. Many, many people wrote blogs that were full of nothing but meme’s. Not something I ever wanted to read, sure, but these were people who wouldn’t have been blogging without the memes. These dumb quizzes and surveys increased usage of all of these sites, and that’s ultimately a good thing.

Will Facebook users revolt, or will memes result in people spending even more time on Facebook, viewing even more pages? It’ll be interesting to see what happens from here.

Yes, this is another meme. I fully admit that I do not read blogs that are full of nothing but meme’s, so it is kind of pathetic for me to be doing these. They’re lazy ways to fill blogs with junk. That said, for some wacked out reason these things are making a comeback on Facebook, I was tagged over there, and I since I avoided meme’s like the plague before, ‘they’re new to me!’

Now, I don’t actually BLOG on Facebook – Facebook notes aren’t quite a blog to me – and have no intention to start now. Plus, I’ve written enough “real” stuff over here that I think I’m allowed a meme. Or two. Right?

Skip this post unless you’re interested….and I’m not sure many people would be. Once again, I’ll tag people on Facebook. If you want to see who I tag or whatever, just add me over there.

Okie, now for the meme. I have strange taste in music, including lots and lots of broadway, so this will be interesting. To me, at least.
The rules:
1. Put your iTunes/iPod/MP3 on shuffle.
2. For each question, press the next button to get your next answer.
3. You must write that song name down no matter how outrageous it sounds!
4. Tag 10 friends who might enjoy doing the game as well as the person you got the note from.
5. Add commentary

IF SOMEONE SAYS, “IS THIS OKAY” YOU SAY?
“Looking Down” – Audiovent

WHAT WOULD BEST DESCRIBE YOUR PERSONALITY?
“I’d Be Surprisingly Good For You” – Evita

WHAT DO YOU LIKE IN A GUY/GIRL?
“To Have and To Hold” – Depeche Mode
(I guess this one kind of makes sense? Ish?)

WHAT IS YOUR LIFE’S PURPOSE?
“Tether” – Indigo Girls

WHAT IS YOUR MOTTO?
“My Grown Up Christmas List” – Kelly Clarkson
(uhhhhh. Ok?)

WHAT DO YOUR FRIENDS THINK OF YOU?
“The Answer” – Bad Religion

WHAT DO YOU THINK ABOUT OFTEN?
“Take Me Away” – Avril Levigne
(hahahahaha)

WHAT DO YOU THINK OF YOUR BEST FRIEND?
“How Much Longer – Eve6

WHAT DO YOU THINK OF THE PERSON YOU LIKE?
“As Long As You Love Me” – Backstreet Boys
(ok, finally something kind of accurate. Kind of).

WHAT IS YOUR LIFE STORY?
“Could I Be You” – Matchbox 20

WHAT DO YOU WANT TO BE WHEN YOU GROW UP?
“Nobody’s Home” – Avril Lavigne

WHAT DO YOU THINK WHEN YOU SEE THE PERSON YOU LIKE?
“King of the Stereo” – Saliva

WHAT DO YOUR PARENTS THINK OF YOU?
“Contrary Mary” – Kix

WHAT WILL YOU DANCE TO AT YOUR WEDDING?
“Only the Young” – Journey

WHAT WILL THEY PLAY AT YOUR FUNERAL?
“The Rules” – Hoobastank

WHAT IS YOUR HOBBY/INTEREST?
“Symphony no. 35″ – Mozart

WHAT DO YOU THINK OF YOUR FRIENDS?
“Touch of my Hand” – Britney Spears
(Kinky!)

WHAT’S THE WORST THING THAT COULD HAPPEN?
“Perfect Stranger” – Erasure

HOW WILL YOU DIE?
“The Stone” – Ashes Divide

WHAT IS THE ONE THING YOU REGRET?
“I’ll Be There for You” – Bon Jovi

WHAT MAKES YOU LAUGH?
“Strange” Tori Amos

WHAT MAKES YOU CRY?
“Are You Happy Now?” – Michelle Branch

WILL YOU EVER GET MARRIED?
“Coming Home Now” – Boyzone

WHAT SCARES YOU THE MOST?
“Bones in the Sky” – Dan Fogelberg

DOES ANYONE LIKE YOU?
“I Remember You” – Skid Row
(kind of fits. I guess?)

IF YOU COULD GO BACK IN TIME, WHAT WOULD YOU CHANGE?
“How I Know You” – Aida
(Surprisingly accurate…if you know the musical and where the song fits in)

WHAT HURTS RIGHT NOW?
“Two Steps Back” Saliva

WHAT WILL YOU POST THIS AS?
“I Go To Rio” – Finale from Boy From Oz

Best subject line ever!! Why? Because the only thing you can possibly do when you hear this song is dance around. I wish anyone luck sitting still, really, it’s not possible. Da da da daaaa….

Gotta admit, this was kind of fun – I rarely put my ipod on shuffle, primarily because the soundtrack music does bleed in, and I hate listening to musicals out of sequence. I did hear some music I haven’t listened to in ages, though.

But now I’m off to listen to all of Aida. Because, ya know, that song got me started….

I really can’t compare this conference to any other I’ve ever been to. The session topics are all over the map, some are similar to those you’d find at something like web 2.0, some are completely different.

The first afternoon session I attended was on identity and privacy online, I’m guessing pulled together after yesterday’s fantastic session. Some of the people here are the same as those in yesterday’s session, but a lot of them are different, with very different perspectives.

One of the big questions we keep coming up against is whether or not it is a good idea to maintain two online personalities, one public, one private. Some women here very much do, I personally think it’s impossible. For those that do maintain the second identity, how do you live behind it when so much you do is attached to your name or personal information?

The second, and final afternoon session was mine, on “how to launch a product.” I have had a lot of good (and pretty bad) experiences with product launches, so this was pretty much me just recounting all the things to remember when launching a product, and all the things that can go wrong.

Notes from both the sessions I gave will be online at shesgeeky.org – the ones from yesterday are there, the ones from today still need to be written by me (teehe – to do tomorrow).

This was a really fun conference, and a great two days.

Signing off from she’s geeky – proud geek, Stephanie BamBam