Meet, Greet, Create, Collaborate!

Our friends over at Handmade Spark are stirring up some really exciting things these days! They are currently building a companion site called, “Things People Make” that will allow buyers and sellers to give feedback on products they are in the making. Think of it as a working studio, but online! Before a seller releases their product to the world they can use Things People Make to refine their product by getting feedback from other sellers and buyers. Things People Make will be a social site where people can share their items before they post them on online marketplaces like Meylah and Etsy.

Signup for email updates regarding their launch if you don’t want to miss a thing at www.thingspeoplemake.com! They are currently in hardcore development mode so stay tuned for lots of exciting things to come from Things People Make!

LinkedIn's IPO Is No Bubble - PCmag.com

A great take on LinkedIn as a company and its IPO today.  

A few lines from the article:

LinkedIn has always been like the more mature, smarter and neater brother to the plethora of other social-networking environments that sprung up over the last decade. It's not messy or confused like MySpace or overly friendly like the dearly departed Friendster. It's not about family and friends like Facebook or brief, pithy posts like Twitter. LinkedIn can plug into other software, like Microsoft Office, but unlike Twitter, it's never been cannibalized by its own third-party APIs. The LinkedIn site is a true destination.

With that said, congratulations to our good friend Michael (Phongzie) Nguyen!  We're so happy for you!  I'm off to polish off my Linked-In profile now...

Pesky Little Brother

I love how fast technology moves and how new technology now has the ability to reach more people in a shorter period of time.  Unfortunately, technology can also move in the wrong direction.  It used to be that hacking technology was very expensive, but now any average Joe can be a hacker!

While driving yesterday, I heard an alarming story on Marketplace titled, Little Brother is Watching.  It reports on how just about anybody can access your personal data with easy-to-use programs like Firesheep.

"Firesheep, someone can get on an open wireless network, cafe or hotel whatever, see who is on there, double-click a name, and access what that person's doing online. So someone is logged in as you on Facebook, on Twitter, any unencrypted site. 

Seattle software developer Eric Butler says he created Firesheep to call attention to the inherent security problems presented by unsecured networks and by unencrypted web sites. Big name sites like Facebook or Twitter will encrypt your password as you log in, but after that a lot of that information is out there for the taking."

Sure makes me think twice about getting on an open wifi network next time I'm at a cafe.  Eeks!

Angry Birds Game Coming to Facebook

I predict a high drop in productivity levels next month... especially for Miss Mai. 

"Rovio CEO Mikael Hed says the immensely popular Angry Birdsgame is coming to Facebook next month with “completely new aspects to it that just haven’t been experienced in any other platform.” 

According to All Facebook, Hed used the word “collaborative” to describe aspects of the game, adding that “the pigs will have a more prominent role.” 

Take a look at the Angry Birds page on Facebook, and you’ll see that something is up. If you “like” the page, Rovio promises to keep you posted on all the latest news about the upcoming Angry Birds migration to Facebook. 

Other game developers must be envious of the meteoric rise of Angry Birds. First it starts out as an iPhone game, then it’s ported to Android, Palm and Nokia, then suddenly there are multiple versions of the game, and it’s showing up on PCs, PSP/PS3, Windows 7 Phone, there’s a movie tie-in, an animated series, and there’s even a 3D version in the works. And next month we’ll be playing it on the largest social network in the world. 

Please tell us in the comments how you think Angry Birds will do on Facebook, and what you think that collaborative aspect of the game might be."

by Charlie White on Mashable

It's getting Haute!

 The emergence of flash sales sites like Hautelook and Gilt in recent years has really brought down barriers of distribution and pricing of high-end items for shoppers who would have never been in the market for high-end luxury goods.  Yesterday, Nordstrom announced that it is acquiring Hautelook for a whopping $270 million.  Goes to show that the mash up between fashion and tech is starting to really pay off, and not just for consumers. Brick and mortar retails giants are starting to take notice of the shift in the way consumers make purchases.  Gone are the days of pushing, shoving, and hair-pulling over a dress or a bag or a pair of jeans at an in-store sample sale.  We can be much more civil about our moderately priced, name brand purchases now.  Thank goodness!

Swirl is a flash sales site Mai and I frequent often.  We love the site design, the illustrations, the clothes, the everything about it.  Give it a swirl!  Happy go shopping!

Biz Stone on Fresh Air

By now, everyone has heard much about the protests in Egypt and how the internet was completely shutdown to prevent communication.  Living in the Bay Area, listening to the constant bombardment of news, I still felt really removed from the situation.  After listening to this interview with Biz Stone, I was amazed by the extent of which Twitter and Google came together to push freedom of speech:

During the Egyptian demonstrations last month, the Egyptian government cut off access to the Internet to try to disrupt the planned protests. Twitter worked with Google to create a system to allow Egyptians to call local phone numbers in Egypt and speak into the phone, which would then be translated into tweets.

Truly a great synergy for a great cause.  Definitely makes me feel a sense pride and excitement to be living in the center of the tech hub! Give the interview a listen, it really gets you thinking about all the possibilities of tech in relation to local and global communication.