Follow the ball on Twitter

The folks that are managing the Times Square Ball Twitter account (@timessquareball) are really doing a great job humanizing this big sparkling ball.  Here is an example of a recent tweet:

I’ve got to spend the rest of the night memorizing my moves. Tomorrow is#NYE2012. See you there! — Times Square Ball (@timessquareball) December 31, 2011

Like the Ball on Facebook

Along with several resources of how to “connect” with the Times Square Ball, you can view up-to-date status updates, photos, and more on the official Facebook Page: https://www.facebook.com/TimesSquareBall

Watch the Livestream Feed

If you are not going to be in front of a TV, but want to watch the ball drop the same way you have for so many years, you’re in luck!  The Times Square Alliance will be using Livestream to stream live video of Times Square and the ball drop.  Here is the Livestream channel: http://www.livestream.com/2012

There’s an App for That!

That’s right, the big shiny ball at the “crossroads of the world” has an app (or 2).  There are native apps for Apple iOS and Android devices, here are the links:

 http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/times-square-official-new/id408688944?mt=8 

 https://market.android.com/details?id=net.timessquareball.app

Here is a video to tell you more about the app:

The Official Website

Find all the information that you would ever want to know about the NYC New Years Ball.  You can also find photos of previous balls and the history of why the NYC ball has become so popular!  Here is a link to the official website: http://timessquareball.net/

Here is to a prosperous and uplifting 2012!  Do something different, smile more, create more, push the envelope more!  Cheers!

Sarah Milstein (TechWeb), Brady Forrest (O’Reilly Media, Inc.) on stage.

How to Tummel: Conversational Mechanics Heather Gold @Heathr (the Heather Gold Show) on stage.

• 1 to many can be intimidating…no participation
• Twitter lets you see many points and interests in the world at the same time.
• Don’t build on conflict…it will have some energy for a while, but then lose steam after a while.
• Difference is good; it is how people get interested and excited.
• Don’t stand back and be quite, engage…but it does not always have to be a conflict.
• Everyone is different but you do not need to please everyone and cater to everyone.
• http://www.unpresenting.com

A Conversation with Beth Noveck Tim O’Reilly @timoreilly (O’Reilly Media, Inc.), Beth Noveck (Executive Office of the President/OSTP) @whitehouse @opengov on stage.

• Talking about Government
• “President Obama is 100% committed to bringing innovation to government”
• President Obama signed memorandum for government transparency as first thing on first day in office.
• “How do we do our work in more open ways?”
• Ask people what the policy should be BEFORE implementing a program.
• Involve people that are the line workers, the people that are involved in using the ideas.
• The White House is closing the revolving door to lobbyist. Lobbyists are not serving on federal advisory committees.
• Noveck worked with Expert Labs (@expertlabs) before White House.
• We need expertise from the people that know. Social media is a good tool to connect with people rather than with committees and think tanks.
• Create do-tanks rather than think-tanks.
• There is an ecosystem of transparency that includes Federal, State, and Local Government.
• Need “machine readable data” from government in open formats that is accessible to developers to build apps on top of.
• “Technological Federalism”
• Innovation Gallery from the White House – showcasing innovation from the white house stage
• We don’t need thirty different platforms for collaboration, we need one.
• http://www.apps.gov – free software applications
• http://www.apps.dc.gov
• “Make a better applications that will make citizen lives better.” -Noveck
• http://public.resource.org
• Creating a culture where transparency is the norm
• http://www.manorlabs.org/ – polling citizens how to make their town better…awards points to citizens for certain things. Mannor TX.
   

Foursquare and dodgeball creator Dennis Crowley

• Foursquare uses badges to award people for certain activity.
• People are awarded points for doing more things…things that they haven’t done before.
• There is also a place to submit reviews of places and things.
• Helps you find places that you visited when you are there next time.
• Makes people feel motivated to go out and try new things.
• “Changing habits one user at a time.”
• Foursquare API: http://api.foursquare.com

Publics, Flow, Phatic, Tummeling and Out-groups – New Words You Need to Know to Understand the Web

• Kevin Marks @kevinmarks – British Telecom
• FLOW – thinking about how everything is connected
• FACES – lets people connect with other people when we see a photo
• Phatic – has social meaning
• Following – get a feeling for what people are up to w/o people knowing
• Publics – there are many public spaces that we are serving and listening to.
• Mutual Media – We are all filtering information and then sending it back out.
• Small World Networks
• “The social web is a sea of different countries”
• Tummling = Democratization

    What’s a Friend Worth? – Knowing Your Social Capital Ching-Yung Lin (IBM Research)

• What is a Friend Worth?
• 25% of IT spends their time on email
• The more diverse your network is, the more money you will make.

Cloud Computing Goes From Personal to Business Yousef Khalidi (Microsoft)

• Platform that allows you to write code across multiple platforms
• Pay as you go platform
• 3 components – Windows Azure, SQL Azure, .NET Services
• Can be called (and charged for) separately.
• http://www.Azure.com – visual studio tool
• http://www.Windowsazure4e.com PHP tool
• http://www.Windowsazure4j.com Java tool
• Been available for a year via tech preview…all features are now available to everyone.

Designing Web 2.0: Here Come The Anthropologists Gentry Underwood (IDEO)

• Facebook the first global social network Approaching ~400mil users
• Showed video: http://bit.ly/eL7k1
• When designing social networks we need to think about design, human interaction, thinking through how people are using the product.
• HCD – Human Center Design – how human needs are expressed and design for this.
• How do different cultures react to the same system?
• http://Labs.ideo.com Touch Screen
• http://blog.sxdsalon.org

• Needed for a way for servers to talk to other servers…decentralized social networks
• Instant syndication
• Data for mash-ups – real time
• Requirements: easy to deploy, topic-oriented, high-throughput, enables new use-cases
• Not trying to solve client/server
• Wave vs PubSubHubbub: wave is a reinvention of collaboration on the web
  PubSubHubbub bootstraps the web for real-time
• Publish subscribe hub = PubSubHubbub
• The Hub is the intermediary between the publisher and subscriber
• http://code.google.com/p/pubsubhubbub/

• “Use social media to communicate with, not market to, your customers.”
• Document all your choices (names, content, sites, and credentials)
• Search your company on Linkedin
• Addict-o-matic – http://www.addictomatic.com/
• Google Alerts – http://www.google.com/alerts
• Samepoint – http://www.samepoint.com/
• Does the company own content that is updated during company time?
• Need a unified voice so that there is a consistent style of content.
• “Social Media is not going away, it will only grow”
• “Many people are using tools to access twitter and completely by-passing we web”