Download Squad

How sustainable are you?

Grant Robertson — Fri, 11 Apr 2008 12:00:00 EST

Filed under: Video, Web services, Social Software

Make Me Sustainable from Download Squad on Vimeo.

You know you should go green, you want to make a difference but, how? It's not easy, few things worth doing are. Make Me Sustainable takes an interesting approach to the green problem by giving you a way to track your own impact, and the impact of your influence.

Christina caught up with the guys from Make Me Sustainable during South By Southwest, and they gave us a lot to think about, and a great preview of what you'll find at MakeMeSustainable.com

How sustainable are you? originally appeared on Download Squad on Fri, 11 Apr 2008 12:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Download Squad Week in Review

Brad Linder — Sat, 05 Apr 2008 14:00:00 EST

Filed under: Weekend Review

Been so busy trying to decide whether or not to drop out of the presidential race that you haven't had time to keep up on the week's technology news? Worry not dear reader, we've got you covered. Here are some of our favorite articles from the past week.

Download Squad does April Fools

In case you didn't notice, we had a few articles on April 1st that were a bit... factually challenged. We had a great time writing these stories and we hope you enjoyed them. For the record, here's a roundup of the stories that weren't entirely true. But we're holding out hope that some of them could still happen one day:

Working through out SXSW interview backlog

SXSW may have been last month, but we managed to catch up with so many awesome folks that we're still working through our backlog of interview videos. Here are some of the latest:

Continue reading Download Squad Week in Review

Download Squad Week in Review originally appeared on Download Squad on Sat, 05 Apr 2008 14:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Download Squad talks Data Portability at SXSW

Christina Warren — Mon, 31 Mar 2008 19:00:00 EST

Filed under: Internet, Video, web 2.0

Download Squad talks to Chris Saad of Dataportability.org from Download Squad on Vimeo.

We've written about the DataPortability Project before (we even linked to a video explaining the concept) but at SXSWi 2008 we were lucky enough to talk about the project with co-founder and chairperson, Chris Saad. The project is still in the early stages of development, but the premise is powerful and the momentum that has taken place in just the last 90 days is extremely impressive.

Download Squad talks Data Portability at SXSW originally appeared on Download Squad on Mon, 31 Mar 2008 19:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Being "radool" with Gary Vaynerchuk

Christina Warren — Mon, 31 Mar 2008 13:00:00 EST

Filed under: Internet, Video, Features, Social Software

Untitled from Download Squad on Vimeo.

At SXSWi 2008 we had the pleasure of speaking with Gary Vaynerchuk, wine connoisseur and host of Wine Library TV's daily videocast. Gary, who is truly one of the most dynamic individuals we have ever met, spoke with us about the importance of loving your community, the power of online video and the essence of "radool."

Being "radool" with Gary Vaynerchuk originally appeared on Download Squad on Mon, 31 Mar 2008 13:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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SXSWi 2008: Freshbooks

Christina Warren — Sun, 30 Mar 2008 19:00:00 EST

Filed under: Finance, Internet, Features, Social Software, DLS Podcast, web 2.0

SXSWi 2008: Freshbooks talks to Download Squad from Download Squad on Vimeo.

We've written about Freshbooks -- the online invoicing system -- before and have been big fans of their approach and service. We were even more impressed upon meeting Saul and Sunir, two of Freshbook's team members, at SXSWi 2008.

Grant talked to Saul and Sunir about the service, the importance of community and traveling from Miami to Austin in an RV and stopping along the way to eat breakfast, lunch and dinner with customers.

SXSWi 2008: Freshbooks originally appeared on Download Squad on Sun, 30 Mar 2008 19:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Talking OpenSocial with Google's Kevin Marks

Grant Robertson — Wed, 26 Mar 2008 16:30:00 EST

Filed under: Developer, Web services, Social Software, web 2.0

Kevin Marks talks Open Social with Download Squad's Christina Warren from Download Squad on Vimeo.
With all the buzz around OpenSocial, it's easy to get lost in hype. While we were at SXSW we caught up with Kevin Marks, a man with more techno-credibility than you can shake a stick at. He's currently working on OpenSocial for Google, and he's got a lot to say about the concepts behind organizing and connecting the diaspora which is the current state of the social web. Our own Christina Warren cuts through the hype in this short interview.

Talking OpenSocial with Google's Kevin Marks originally appeared on Download Squad on Wed, 26 Mar 2008 16:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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OpenSocial Bonanza

Christina Warren — Tue, 25 Mar 2008 18:30:00 EST

Filed under: Developer, Internet, Features, Google, Social Software, web 2.0

Yahoo!, MySpace and Google announced the creation of the OpenSocial Foundation today. The foundation is a non-profit entity aimed at ensuring "...open and transparent governance of the OpenSocial specifications and intellectual property."

On the final day of SXSW Interactive 2008, we were lucky enough to sit down with Kevin Marks from Google's OpenSocial project. Kevin broke down what OpenSocial is, where it is going (MySpace, Hi5, and Orkut among others had already signed on as of our interview) and what the plans are for the future. We'll be posting our interview with Marks shortly.

In the meantime, you can read more about the new foundation after the jump

Continue reading OpenSocial Bonanza

OpenSocial Bonanza originally appeared on Download Squad on Tue, 25 Mar 2008 18:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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SXSW 2008: Guy Kawasaki interview

Christina Warren — Fri, 14 Mar 2008 14:00:00 EST

Filed under: Video, Web services, web 2.0

SXSW 2008: Guy Kawasaki talks to Download Squad from Download Squad on Vimeo.
We were lucky enough to have the opportunity to interview Guy Kawasaki about his latest venture, Alltop.com. We wrote about Alltop last month and were really impressed with the service and the interface. Guy goes into more detail about how categories and top sites are chosen, the role Twitter has played in the project and more.

If you want an iPod/iPhone compatible file, click here.

SXSW 2008: Guy Kawasaki interview originally appeared on Download Squad on Fri, 14 Mar 2008 14:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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SXSW iF! Trade Show Floor

Victor Agreda, Jr. — Wed, 12 Mar 2008 11:30:00 EST

Filed under: Features, web 2.0

Gallery: SXSW iF! Trade Show Floor

SXSW is a junction of film, music and interactive folks with the iF! trade show floor reflecting that eclectic mix. We found a healthy smattering of music booths, some film schools and lots of web app companies. Big booths included Sony, Mapquest, Opera, Yahoo and O'Reilly while smaller booths from Axiom, Kyte and AIM provided a smorgasbord of interactive wares. You can see the full list on the SXSW site or just peep our gallery for a virtual tour.

Trade show floors often take on a circus-like atmosphere, with booths doing what they can to lure you to their wares. At iF! the "cool thing" was Guitar Hero. We counted no less than four booths with the ubiquitous guitar controllers and LCD screens (even if they were often unmanned). One booth broke with tradition and had Rock Band. Brave, no?

Our money for Most Fun Demo is on Bitstrips, a killer app for making your own comic strips online. Imagine mixing Mii-creation tools with Comic Life and you get the idea. Lots of fun, diverse and powerful, and stupid simple to use. Most boring? Well, hard to say because by the time we hit the floor a few booth attendees had left, leaving their booths sitting there, dejected and stickerless.

SXSW iF! Trade Show Floor originally appeared on Download Squad on Wed, 12 Mar 2008 11:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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SXSW Day Four

Brad Linder — Tue, 11 Mar 2008 09:30:00 EST

Filed under: Internet, Web services, Social Software, web 2.0

Day four and we've lost track of which hurt more, our livers or our feet. After yesterday's Facebook keynote revolt, we planned on a day of exceptional interviews and kept our tightly packed schedules close at hand. As they often warn, life is what happens when you're making other plans.

We did manage to hook up with the folks at Twine for a fantastic interview which really explained what's behind their beta mode invite only fortress. After that the guys from Five Runs stopped by to talk about their fantastic new app for monitoring your Ruby on Rails server, a piece that's sorely needed in the modern web services space. Shiv Signh from Razorfish then met up with us to talk about how social media can work for large corporations, and some of the hurdles they face in adopting healty social marketing practices.

The bad sprits Zuckerberg left in the event hall yesterday were still floating heavy in the air. Around 2pm the word came down that there would be a rematch. Zuckerberg a mulligan, a do-over in the vernacular of the playground, this time off site, and the inter-conference grapevine was douced with gasoline and set ablaze. There would be blood, someone's milkshake would be drank, and the whole thing was going down at 4pm.

Continue reading SXSW Day Four

SXSW Day Four originally appeared on Download Squad on Tue, 11 Mar 2008 09:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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SXSWi Day Three

Grant Robertson — Mon, 10 Mar 2008 10:00:00 EST

Filed under: Internet, Blogging, Web services, web 2.0

Oh day three, where the point values are doubled and the hangover is permanent. If you decided to skip SXSWi this year, joining the hip kids who claimed it was "too commercial" and "too over-hyped", shame on you. The only thing too commercial were the panels and, frankly, no one goes to those anyway.

So far today we've caught up with the guys from Bloxes, which although not a tech product is remarkably cool in its simplicity. They're also the same guys behind the uber-cool Songza, which embodies the exact same dead-simple "Why didn't I think of that?" logic. Interlocking cardboard forms may not be terribly sexy from a software perspective but, who can argue with the ability to build 3d forms out of recycled content. Bloxes are the things you use to build cheap structures in the ultra-hip loft office space where you create the future of the web.

During the day we also had a great interview with Mindbites, which we'll have encoded and uploaded for your vicarious viewing pleasure, soon. Christina talked with Chris Saad, the founder of Dataportability.org, who is also working on a new version of his other great idea, Particls. I caught up with Saul Colt from Freshbooks, the web app that finally brought the sexyback to invoicing all your freelance clients.

We'd also like to take a minute to address a pressing social issue, Public Relations consultants. These hardworking mavens of the tech universe are largely underpaid, over worked, and almost never get glamorous perks like party invites, expensive bottles of wine and the adoration of beautiful women. You've probably asked yourself, as you lay awake at night, unable to sleep for worry over their living conditions and the status of their multi-million dollar contracts, "What can I do to help?" Fear not, there is a solution. For only hundreds of dollars a day, you can fill the tanks of their luxury cars with precious gasoline, and make the difference between the regular coffee Seattle's Best and a latte at Starbuck's.

The numbers:

Tweets about the Zuckerberg disaster: immeasurable given available tools
Sandwiches consumed in Bloghaus: 134
Times the guy in the press room breaks your concentration to ask, "Can I get you anything?": 17
Shirts we've acquired to give to our readers: 2
Approximate number of man-minutes Mark Zuckerberg and Sarah Lacy wasted with a useless interview: 112,500
Newly coined words overheard : 1 ("Radool", Gary Vaynerchuk)
Parties we skipped to bring you this content: 3 (well, 2.. we couldn't resist making an appearance at Gawker)
Times we've left messages for Mullenweg about an interview: 3
Times Mullenweg has left return messages with no schedule detail: 1

(Matt, we love you and we're only concerned that you're ok. Please, we're worried sick. We've called all the hospitals, homeless shelters and even the morgue. Where are you?)

SXSWi Day Three originally appeared on Download Squad on Mon, 10 Mar 2008 10:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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"Beacon Sucks" sums up SXSWi Facebook keynote

Christina Warren — Mon, 10 Mar 2008 09:00:00 EST

Filed under: Features, Analysis

While Grant and I been having a great time at SXSWi, meeting lots of great people and learning about really cool services, Sunday's keynote/interview with Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg was definitely a low-light.

I would write up a humorous transcript of what actually happened, but someone else already did (and frankly, better than anything I could have achieved). Suffice to say, the most apt description of the entire hour long interview of nothingness (we learned that Facebook will be launching in French, everything else was a rehash of every interview or article about Zuckerberg and/or Facebook written in the last year) was b5media's Aaron Brazell's heckle, upon the first mention of advertising, "Beacon sucks." (Full disclosure: I told Brazell I would pay him $20 if he yelled that out)

South by Southwest Interactive is a conference for people interested in interactive technologies and media. We do not want to exclusively hear about the business model. We do not want to only hear the PR scripted blurbs about the company and something that seems like a venture capital pitch, especially from the Goliath of the social media sphere. We wanted to hear about where Facebook is going in the future and why users should continue to care, not a reenactment of the 60-Minutes interview with softball questions, especially concerning the very valid user privacy fears.

The web has been buzzing about the interview, how disastrous it was (especially at the Q&A section, which basically turned into a revolt), with much of the blame being put on interviewer Sarah Lacy (from BusinessWeek and Yahoo's Tech Ticker). While I agree that Lacy was less than stellar, I disagree with the assertion that the audience was pro-Zuckerberg and anti-Lacy; by the end of the whole thing, we were all pretty anti-Facebook.

In the aftermath, it's interesting to read Lacy's post just before the interview, noting that she did the exact opposite. It's even more interesting in light of this video interview right after the backlash, where Lacy seems to place the blame on the audience rather than the fact that Zuckerberg is an awful speaker and that she wasn't prepared for the conference she was actually at.

The whole Facebook backlash groundswell has been coming for a long time, and frankly, is totally unsurprising. As soon as anything has a breakout moment, the detractors are already lined up predicting a fall from grace. However, after that trainwreck of a keynote, the whole "Facebook has jumped the shark" cliche feels a little bit closer to reality. Don't get me wrong, I hardly think Facebook is going anywhere, but a surefire way to make your service less useful for its actual members is to anger the community of program developers who are using your API to make add-ons to your service for free.

Lacy may not think that people like Zuckerberg need to talk about APIs and the future of the site as a whole -- and she may have a point, that isn't typical CEO speak for a company with the hype level and on-paper value as Facebook -- but that doesn't mean the issue shouldn't be addressed. If Zuckerberg is incapable of doing it, he should have the foresight to hire someone who is and send that person to an event like SXSWi.

In the end, I find that this whole experience perfectly personifies why many members "mainstream media" can't connect with web savvy audiences. We don't want to be fed the same lines and the same pitch over and over again. When the undercurrent of this conference is making personal and real connections, its pretty telling when the #1 social network on the planet comes across as the most impersonal.

"Beacon Sucks" sums up SXSWi Facebook keynote originally appeared on Download Squad on Mon, 10 Mar 2008 09:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Connect with your community with SezWho

Christina Warren — Sun, 09 Mar 2008 15:00:00 EST

Filed under: Internet, Features, Blogging, Social Software, web 2.0

One of the more difficult aspects of reading websites with an active reader or user community is separating the useful comments from, well, the cruft. Oftentimes the really interesting an useful content can get buried or lost under than a ton of "me too" replies. This is where the new comment plugin system, SezWho comes into play.

SezWho, as their site states, "is a distributed context, rating and reputation service for blogs, forums, wikis and other social sites." Essentially it's plugin that allows both visitors and web site owners to rate the content and value of comments. If a website uses SezWho, it becomes much, much easier to parse content based on its rating and overall usefulness. Download Squad is having a BLAST at SXSWi 2008 and today we had a chance to sit down with SezWho's founder and CEO Jitendra Gupta. Jitendra showed us the various features of SezWho, and we have to say, we're impressed.

The most interesting aspect of SezWho, to us, is that user comments can be linked across blogs. So if you leave a comment at one site with SezWho, other readers can view your other comments to other SezWho sites. This makes it easy to find out how helpful/informative/useful a comment actually is and to build your own reputation and rating system across a number of blogs. Ratings are based not just on user votes, but also how often you contribute and the context of the comment itself. So if you post a comment on a political website, that is not going to adversely (or positively, for that matter) affect your overall user rating if you comment on a sports website. For commenters, people can view your profile, find out other sites you've contributed to and find your own website.

SezWho's comment display

For website owners, you can use SezWho not only to engage your community and to build interaction, but if you want, you can even highlight your most popular and highest rated commenters. You can also track how many referral links various comments or commenters bring in.

SezWho is currently available as a plugin for both Movable Type (versions 3.3 and 4.0) and WordPress. In the next week, Blogger, phpBB, Drupal will be added to that list. OpenID support is also on the way, making it even easier for people to leave a comment without having to sign-up for yet another service. The overall look of the

plugin on your comment page will soon be fully customizable via CSS and various themes and styles are coming in the future.

If you have your own blog and are looking for a good way to interact with your readers, consider giving SezWho a try. For readers and commenters, its a great way to build reputation across various sites and also view the best content immediately.

Connect with your community with SezWho originally appeared on Download Squad on Sun, 09 Mar 2008 15:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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SXSW 2008 Schwag Unboxing

Christina Warren — Fri, 07 Mar 2008 16:30:00 EST

Filed under: Features

Schwag. We has some. Tradeshows are universally loved for their goody bags loaded with tons of stuff you'll have to find room for in your suitcase.

If you couldn't make it to SXSW, at least you can live vicariously through our own personal schwag unboxing. We've painstakingly created a mess in the hallway of the convention center, just for your amusement. Don't you love us?

If you did make it to Austin, even with the crazy snowstorm in Dallas, make sure you stop by our Download Squad meetup, Saturday afternoon.

Gallery: SXSWi 2008 Schwag Unboxing

SXSW 2008 Schwag Unboxing originally appeared on Download Squad on Fri, 07 Mar 2008 16:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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SXSWi 2008 Day 1

Christina Warren — Fri, 07 Mar 2008 16:00:00 EST

Filed under: Features

Download Squad is happily attending SXSW Interactive 2008. While grabbing our press badges this morning, we took some time to take some pictures of the Austin Convention Center as attendees checked-in at the registration booths and workers busily set-up spaces.

As the convention kicks off, we'll be taking more pictures of booths, panels and more.

Take a look at our gallery and don't forget to join us at our SXSW meet-up Saturday!

Gallery: SXSWi 2008 Day 1

SXSWi 2008 Day 1 originally appeared on Download Squad on Fri, 07 Mar 2008 16:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Download Squad meetup at SXSW

Grant Robertson — Thu, 06 Mar 2008 19:00:00 EST

Filed under: News, Blogging, Time-Wasters

Are you in Austin for SXSW? Come meet a few of the people who make Download Squad tick. We'll be at Lovejoy's on Neches St, Saturday the 8th, from 4pm to 5:30. We'll even have a few things to give away.

Drop by, say hello and make yourself known. If you're lost, you can find me or Christina on Twitter and we'll try to help guide you in.

Download Squad meetup at SXSW originally appeared on Download Squad on Thu, 06 Mar 2008 19:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Got SXSW questions? Try asking Fluther

Jay Hathaway — Wed, 05 Mar 2008 16:00:00 EST

Filed under: Social Software, web 2.0

Download Squad is hitting SXSW tomorrow, and we know some of you are going too. Before you head to Austin, though, you might want to check out the SXSW page at Fluther. Fluther is a live question and answer service, designed to draw on the collective knowledge of its users to help one another out, and they've launched a dedicated SXSW page.

There are a few good questions up so far, so give it a shot if you're wondering anything about SXSW or what to do in Austin. In case you're curious about what in the world a "fluther" is, the site explains that it's a group of jellyfish that all communicate with one another. Hey, that's one question answered already. While you're waiting for someone to answer yours, keep watching Download Squad for more SXSW coverage!

Got SXSW questions? Try asking Fluther originally appeared on Download Squad on Wed, 05 Mar 2008 16:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Download Squad at SXSW

Grant Robertson — Wed, 05 Mar 2008 09:30:00 EST

Filed under: Business, Design, Developer, Internet, News, Productivity, Social Software, web 2.0

Officially it's "five days of exciting panel content and amazing parties", unofficially it's the biggest event of the software geek calendar. SXSW Interactive starts Friday in Austin, Texas and we'll be hitting the ground tomorrow like some sort of invading army.

We've already managed to book plenty of interviews with tech luminaries, and we're sure to stumble across more. We'll also be doing some live blogging, taking lots of photos and video, and posting to Twitter.

Keep checking Download Squad for all the SXSW happenings, or if you're more of a river of news kind of person, we've got this SXSW 2008 RSS feed you can use to make sure you don't miss a thing.

Download Squad at SXSW originally appeared on Download Squad on Wed, 05 Mar 2008 09:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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