Meetup Archive

This Saturday, January 28, 2012, the LoneStar PhoneGap group will hold their first meetup. PhoneGap is a mobile platform that helps you easily create mobile applications and more importantly helps you distribute one set of code to all of the major phone OS systems (Apple iOS, Google Android, Blackberry, WebOS, Windows Phone 7, Symbian and Bada). Nitobi, the parent company of PhoneGap, was acquired by Adobe last October.

I think it is awesome that a group is meeting on a Saturday afternoon! The meetup will be held at a public library just west of the university area. Free pizza and drinks will be served.

Here’s the event description, “Lets kickstart the first PhoneGap meetup in Austin. Come to learn about PhoneGap, network with other PhoneGappers in Austin, and discuss best coding practices. On the program is a 15 minute coding session where we will develop a simple PhoneGap application demonstrating some of the key features and coding style. You are wlecome to bring your laptop and code along with us.”

The big news in the startup world is that Israeli startup Shaker won the big prize at the Techcrunch conference this week. Many, including AOL employees, wonder what it is that Shaker is “disrupting” while others are talking about the conflicts regarding the finalists and AOL/CrunchFund’s funding of 2 of the top 3 and an upcoming investment in the winner. Of course questions are nothing new with Techcrunch (now aol) conferences – heck, I wrote about MC Hammer investment questions with regards to DanceJam at the first TC40.

When I saw Shaker, the first thing that popped into my head was, “oh it’s the new version of that game!” But I couldn’t remember the name of the game until Dean Collins replied to my message on the NYTM messageboard noting that Shaker is Leisure Suit Larry! And yep that’s exactly what it looks like.

TC writer Leena Rao describes Shaker as, “…a mixture of Second Life, The Sims, and Turntable.fm all mixed together using your Facebook data and connections. Your Facebook profile becomes a walking avatar, your pictures are placed on an virtual wall, you can choose what music is playing in the room for everyone to hear and you can even buy people drinks.”

Shaker looks like a fun game but what frustrated me in the Shaker demos is that the founders kept suggesting that this virtual world was, ” just like real life”. It is absolutely nothing like real life.

Rackspace startup blogger Robert Scoble seems to love Shaker – I just don’t see it here. I mean seriously – maybe I am missing something – but it’s a virtual world where you walk around and chat – AOL 1996 called. Sure you can click on a person and get their info but otherwise what, you dance on a bar? And just wait – the minute a woman “walks in” to the virtual chatroom, you will watch all the males run over. Something tells me these “bars” will be all male. Maybe it will work for the concert concept but even that will be a stretch.

As I watched the two demos of Shaker, I could only think of one thing (which applies to more than just Shaker)…

HOW ABOUT CALLING UP A COUPLE OF YOUR REAL FUCKING FRIENDS AND GOING OUT TO A REAL FUCKING BAR AND HAVING A DRINK OR DINNER AND SOME FUCKING CONVERSATION INSTEAD OF SITTING IN SOME FUCKING VIRTUAL WORLD.

And if you don’t have local friends or are new to your town, go to Meetup.com or Plancast, find a freaking meetup and get the gosh damn fuck out of your house. Walk up to a person, shake a hand, exchange a business card (heh), and smile. Learn something in your conversation.

I know it’s not easy to go outside and it’s way easier to stay home/office and chat on a social network or, now, play some 2.0 version of Leisure Suit Larry. But trust me, the more we sit at home and live online, the less we will be able to live offline.

Ok I am done. Now get out there and do something.

This afternoon I attended the Affiliate Summit meetup in Austin. The Affiliate Summit monthly events take place around the world so you can locate the one nearest to you. The event included lunch and a talk by Affiliate Summit founder Shawn Collins. Unfortunately I got lost locating the pizza joint so I missed the lunch bit (of course as a real NY’er, I would never eat “Chicago” stuffed pizza, especially outside of Chicago).

I’ve embedded Shawn’s presentation below — the slides are somewhat hard to read in the video so download the slides here.

Shawn covers the following topics:

• Finding topics you care about
• How and where to find the best affiliate programs for your topic or niche
• Domain names and hosting
• The importance of patience

Lastly Shawn explained that instead of writing a book directly, he setup ExtraMoneyAnswer to create his book by blogging about how to make money online.
Continue reading “Shawn Collins on Affiliate Marketing for Newbies (video)” »

Earlier tonight Aaron Price announced the launch of a new tech meetup based in Hoboken, New Jersey. For you NY’ers, that’s right across the river to the West of Manhattan and is accesible via the PATH subway system. The Hoboken Tech Meetup will take place monthly and the first meetup is scheduled for June 14th.

Five startups will demo their products and services at each Hoboken Tech Meetup. If you are interested in presenting, complete this interest form. Aaron has noted that the dates for the HTM won’t conflict with the New York Tech Meetup.

I’ve heard about a variety of startups working out of Hoboken. It’s great to see another venue for all of us to share our work!

Two years ago nextNY held the first MatchupCamp. Check out our review of the event including photos and videos. The idea was simple: people who have ideas meet people who want to build ideas and the outcome is startup love. Now the event is coming back to NYC next month with more oomph!

MatchupCamp organizer Ed Costello notes, “MatchupCamp — matchmaking for startups – is all about startup
networking, creating a place for ideas and talent to meet. MatchupCamp has the sole objective of bringing together people looking to start, expand, or join a startup in New York (and the tri-state area).  If you want to get your hands dirty and build something new, this is the place.”

If you are looking for a job with a startup in NYC, you better be at this event. And if you are planning to look for help for your startup, be ready to clearly explain what your startup does and why someone should want to join the team. Just like finding that special someone at a speed dating event, both sides need to see interest.

MatchUp Camp II will be held at the For Your Imagination studios on December 8th. You can register here – Ed notes that he is looking for a few sponsors to help with some minor expenses.

Tonight at the NY Tech Meetup, seven startups presented their services to a packed house. Here’s a brief overview of each of the companies that presented:

ChallengePost - we wrote about ChallengePost earlier today as they are the service powering the NYC Big Apps competition. ChallengePost is a market place where you can find, solve and post challenges for others to complete. From the site, “Once a challenge is created, other people can JOIN the challenge and pledge money or simply appreciation. Those incentives, which are payable only if a challenge is solved, encourage others to solve a problem and earn their rewards.”

SetJam - the service will open in private beta next week and is trying to help you get away from having to buy cable tv each month.  You can search for shows you like, create guides, find out where to watch every episode of each show, etc. You actually watch the shows on the video hosting sites — SetJam adds a frame with the social aspects. Looks like it could be a good partner for Adaptive Blue.
Continue reading “New York Tech Meetup October Recap” »

Tonight at 7pm Eastern the NY Tech Meetup will convene in NYC. You can watch the meetup live below. You can also checkout the over 100 videos we’ve recorded from companies who have presented at the NY Tech Meetup. The list includes demos from CoTweet, eDopter and Wirewize.