Jenni Hogan: Twitter Celeb & Hot Mission Mom!

Tech fashionista, Jenni Hogan's bio pretty much speaks for itself:  

"This Australian native is currently the most followed local TV anchor on Twitter in the nation. In 2011 she was named one of 6 finalist in the worldwide Shorty Awards, the “Oscars” of Twitter and she currently holds the title of Top Twitter Personality in the Seattle NBC affiliate’s Best Of Western Washington awards, voted on by the consumer. The Huffington Post just name her one of the top female geeks in the world and she sits in the 2nd position as the most influential top media brand in Seattle, right behind the Seattle Times. Jenni uses her online platform to empower her followers to better themselves or to help others."

We are green with envy of her tech accomplishments!  She truly is an inspiration.  What more can we say other than "Jenni, keep up the good work being a mentor to the many women and moms you reach through your personable online network."

If you'd like to connect with Jenni you can follow her on Twitter @jennihogan.

Recently, we teamed up with Jenni to offer her network of moms on Mission Hot Mama a Techy Fashionista Giveaway.  There are prizes for mom, dad, and baby, too!

• a Zune HD package, includes a device, accessories and a case
• your choice of a beautiful handmade Kindle case or iPad 2 case
• PLUS we can’t forget the rest of the family! You’ll also get..
• an awesome leather iPad 2 case (for your hot husband)
• and fun twitter pillow for the baby (this is too cute)

If you know of any moms who love tech and fashion, please tell them about this giveaway as it's right up their alley!

P.s.  Even Jenni's one year old daughter tweets!  She got it from her mission hot mama!

Promote Your Business "Like" Contest Winner: Artistic Bend

Tulika of Artistic Bend will be showcasing her jewelry at the expo!  She is the winner of Meylah's Promote Your Business "Like" contest.  Tulika got 101 Likes on Facebook on her celtic charm earrings which won her a table at the expo.  

Meylah is doing a great job in aiding small businesses in connecting to the ever changing world of the web through their easy to use interface and free basic tutorials like this one.

Below is Tulika's testimonial on how Meylah has helped her become more tech savvy:

"Meylah has made me so savvy I would say. I WAS a person who was happy just checking emails and once in a while writing a blog. I always loved the way my friends monetized on their blogs about different things. For me there was a gap between doing it and not. Meylah helped me bridge that gap and the reluctance. Meylah made me look at myself as a person who could do it without feeling overwhelmed. I am doing pictures for my products and shipping them on a regular basis. It has helped me build my brand image. Meylah has preserved my hobby and yet helped me convert it into a business without making it like a job. I simply love it and love growing in both areas, technically as well as in my art. I was scared that once it became a job, it would not be fun anymore nut I was wrong."

Keep up the great work guys!

Expo Vendor: Craftsquatch

Our newest expo vendor, Craftsquatch™, makes geeky and internet themed pillows for geeks everywhere! Helping one geek at a time to sleep tight at night.

These pillows are ridiculously cute and are 100% handmade with care. Sleep tight at night knowing that your favorite internet application is right there with you. They also make great decor for your couch and bed.

Especially love this set of Google icon pillows!

If you can't make it to the Happy Go Techy Expo this year you can purchase your internet pillow by Craftsquatch here. Custom orders are also welcome!

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!

Welcoming Meylah As A Happy Go Techy Expo Sponsor!

We’re so happy go announce that Meylah, the ever so awesome and powerful all in one e-commerce platform and marketplace, will be joining us as a sponsor at the Happy Go Techy Expo on June 25h.

Meylah is devoted to building an online creative community for individuals to learn, share and support each other’s business growth online. They know how hard and time consuming being an entrepreneur can be so they offer the tools to help creative business entrepreneurs succeed.

Here are the things you can do on Meylah:



Meylah's Online Marketplace to Drive Sales for Their Sellers:



It’s been a great pleasure getting to know the founding team at Meylah, they are truly devoted to helping their sellers gain visibility and I especially love the story about how Meylah got started:

“Once upon a time, a group of creative individuals who, perhaps like you, hold down serious day jobs — decided it was time to create a new kind of creative community. Having found that it is hard to get your bearings in the online creative world, we imagined a place for like-minded people to share and advance creatively, while getting step-by-step directions to turn our passion into a business.”

The artists on Meylah are phenomenal. Check it out today and stop by their booth at the Happy Go Techy Expo!

Handmade Spark Connects & Promotes. You Design & Inspire.

Handmade Spark is a awesome SEO and marketing service for Etsy sellers, and a creative blog for the indie and handmade community. They fuel the creative process and give members product pages, a mini-site, social marketing tools, directory listing, high traffic volumes, and google analytics/SEO insights. All this for just $6.00/month.

They are constantly promoting on social networks, blogs, and sites, generating even more visibility for the sellers!



Example of a Handmade Spark Mini-Site:



Today we launched a contest to find the most geeky of crafters on Handmade Spark to give a free virtual vendor package to the Happy Go Techy Expo! You can see complete details on the contest on Handmade Spark’s blog post.

It’s easy to qualify.

All you have to do is sign up for a paid Handmade Spark membership in the Geekery category by midnight Thursday, May 26th, and you’ll automatically be submitted to win a virtual booth in the upcoming Happy Go Techy Expo.

Everyone in the Geekery category will be considered, so if you’re already a member, then you’re golden. (Though it never hurts to spruce up your shop with geek-centric treasures.) Submissions will be reviewed based on relevance to tech & geekery, craftsmanship and uniqueness.

What are you waiting for, go to Handmade Spark and join today!

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...

Happy Go Online Shopper Contest

All you have to do is share the online shopping destination with us in less than 140 characters.

Submit your entry by:

following us on Twitter and tweeting it to @happygotechy using #happygoshopper

example: @happygotechy I love to shop on Swirl by Daily Candy http://bit.ly/3pvENB #happygoshopper

or

liking us on Facebook and posting a comment to discussion thread titled "Happy Go Online Shopper Contest" on our Facebook Page.

Submissions will be judged based on fashionability and site design.

Call to Bloggers!  Post this contest on your blog and send us the link to info@happygotechyexpo.com and gain exposure for your blog by receiving a complimentary Happy Go Mini sponsorship ($150 value) for the Happy Go Techy Expo. 

The Fine Print

Contest Timeline
Tuesday, May 17, 2011 - Contest begins at 12:00am PST
Friday, May 27, 2011 - Contest ends at 11:59pm PST
Monday, May 30, 2011 - Winners will be notified and announced

Rules

• You may only submit one entry. If you submit more than one, every title after the first submitted will not be counted.
• Abide by Twitter’s and Facebook’s Rules and Terms of Service.
• Derogatory, profane, crude, and inappropriate submissions as deemed by Happy Go Techy will not be accepted. 

Terms and Conditions:  Submission of any entry acknowledges the right of Happy Go Techy to use it for exhibition, promotion and publication purposes in any medium.

"May the fourth be with you!"

We've been using MailChimp for some e-mail outreach campaigns.  I went to their login page today and pleasantly found this:

Super cute!  Love it.  Love their clear and crisp web design and messaging as well.

But they're not all brawns and beauty, they have (non-monkey) brains, too!

They have a slew of functions that makes e-mail marketing campaigns easy and efficient.  Importing contact lists can be done in a number of ways; you can import lists from Google Docs, Excel, and a variety of different CRM systems.  Reports are straight forward and simple; easily track how many people have opened your e-mails and how many have clicked through to links.

I would even suggest using it for invites for social functions or for social announcements - their templates are customizable and quite sassy & stylish!

Best of all, if you have smaller campaigns, it's all free with their Forever Free Plan.  What's better than free?  Forever free!

Fail Whale the Success Tale

Alright, I'm starting to think the twitter fail whale is all a big conspiracy.  Twitter's symbol for their system down (a ridiculously cute whale being rescued by fluterry orange birds) has gained so much popularity that it could be likely for them to throw this image up for fun from time to time.  A company with that much funding and following couldn't possibly go down as much as they do.

Tri was at Baker and Banker bakery in San Francisco and sent me this picture.  The poster child for an epic fail success story.

Ads Worth Spreading

TED recently named the winners of their Ads Worth Spreading competition in which contestants were asked to submit ads that would compel viewers to share.

TED curator Chris Anderson says of the ads: "We're seeking to reverse the trend of ads being aggressively forced on users. We want to nurture ads so good you choose to watch—and share. On TED.com, ads run after our talks, not before. As well as avoiding the annoyance of interruption, this positioning means they can run longer than the TV-standard 30-seconds. And that's the key. In 2-3 minutes, there's more time to tell a story, share an idea, make an authentic human connection. These winning ads, many of them long-form, powerfully demonstrate these strengths. We think they represent an exciting new way for companies to engage with the world in the internet age."

Nonintrusive ads would be much more compelling, targeted, and effective.  We're all for the idea!  We'd like to do our part in spreading these amazing ads.  Below are our favorite ads from the competition.

Girl Effect: The Clock is Ticking

The World’s Smallest Stop-motion Character Animation

Enjoy and happy go spreading!

Watch all the ads here.

Tool removes past flames from one's social networks

I think this is a tad on the silly side but for some people breaking up and letting go can be hard. Facebook can make it extra hard since there are so many photos, comments, notes, pokes, between you and your ex stored on thier network. A gal named Jes built Block Your Ex to give a little helping hand.  Now you don't have to manually go through and untag the hundreds of pictures that other people have tagged of you two together. That could take ages and the process could rekindle some fond memories and probably drive you crazy-making you do crazy things like drunk dialing or rebound hunt.  Don't do it!  Just don't do it!

Stop facebook stalking your ex to see if he's got a new gf. If he does... block her too! You don't need to see that shit.  :)

Facebook Face Recognition

Today I noticed that facebook now has a "Whose face is this?" feature. Personally, I think this is a good thing since I get pretty OCD about tagging photos properly on facebook. This feature probably indicates that facebook will be able to automatically tag your photos for you in the near future.