Maybe it’s because I’ve had so many jobs.

So when she asked me about a possible daily gig with Yahoo! I was concerned. Shira after all is typically all over the map, both figuratively and literally. With appearances on everything from CBS to Mahalo Daily, a heavy travel calendar, and afternoon massages, how would she ever find the time?

Well Shira assures me she can do it, and I don’t doubt her. So what if Tubefilter is calling her the Ryan Seacrest of Web TV, we know that’s not true. For one Shira is actually enjoyable to watch.

So now you can see her daily over on new Yahoo! show “What’s So Funny“. Sponsored by Conagra Foods, the series takes a look at the funniest moments from TV the night before. Shira and Co-Host Mike Bachman both present their favorite clip and viewers can vote on which one they liked the best.

You can watch the first episode below, and please, don’t make any more job offers to Shira, she’s now officially booked.

Please do enjoy.

So here are some of the best Twitpics I could find from the day. Please join me at the Kodak for my panel at 3pm where I hope to show you how to put 140 characters into a text field.

Buddy you lost @marlooz and @freakcast look pretty involved!

People barely showing up… Will this be the *real* jack nicholson ;-) this theater is so damn cool! #140conf

Nice pic of @allechristine and @madbm with sponsor backdrop at #140conf. So fun!

“While youre at your #140conf panels, @georgeruiz, Paul Alan Smith and I are donating platelets”

Behind the scenes of @tinker #140conf video with @allechristine and @diannarae

At the Wine Bar at #140conf with @benparr @jbruin @doctorparadox

Morning break w @ciaobella50 @BethFrysztak at #140conf #hotties

@wmmarc taking the stage at #140conf

Great picture of @allechristine under pic of Julia Roberts winning an Oscar. at the Kodak Theater during #140conf

Lunch time fun with @LoriMoreno @WeirdChina #140conf

Michael Jackson’s star on the Hollywood walk of fame. ( right outside Kodak Theater) #140conf

Dinner… #140conf

(Header photo by earthXplorer)

However after using the feature for a few days, I can’t help but notice some ways it could greatly be improved. Since the slow roll out seems to show a buffer for feedback I thought I would offer mine. Off we go!

Listability

Right off the bat you’ll find it’s not that easy to add people to lists. You either have to be on their profile page or some type of followers/following list to add them. In other words, you can’t add someone directly to a list when viewing said list. This results in a lot of hunting around and digging to find everyone you want to add to a list. Would be better to start typing names here and quickly building out the list.

You Autocomplete Me

Autocomplete is probably one the greatest inventions, right up there with the Snuggie. I’d love the ability to not only start typing names on a list but also get a populated drop down as I type. You see this feature on sites like Facebook and Google but not so much on Twitter. I just want to quickly throw out names of people who are either smart or good enough looking to make my various lists and add them right there.

Suggested User List of Lists

While the SUL or Suggested User List is already a controversial topic, I’d love to see some suggested lists to get me started. Since you can follow other peoples lists, it would be nice to see examples right off the bat. In some cases it may even save you the trouble of building that ultimate (and not doubt social media related) list that already exists.

Rankings

One really cool feature about Twitter lists is how they expose not only who is following a list, but how many in total are following a given list. So it makes sense that Twitter or a 3rd party might want to rank this data in some way. It would be interesting to see which lists have the largest following and perhaps find some new lists to follow.

If you’ve been using Twitter lists what do you think so far? And what does this mean for some of the recent 3rd party Twitter lists sites like Twillist and Mixtweet?

Being a social founder isn’t for everyone, but there are a few who have done it well. Let’s go through some of the best, look at their numbers and learn some of their secrets.

Who are some of your favorite social media founders, and what are their super powers? Let us know in the comments.

Crafting that masterpiece of shared knowledge and attribution in just 140 characters is not always easy. Being a good retweetist takes practice and some discipline. Seeing as I have already mastered the art of the retweet, I thought I would teach you how to turn a child’s painting into a Picasso.

To get us started let’s look at a typical retweet:

It’s a real mess. A hodge podge of attribution, personal commentary and extra meta. It’s kinda like when you’re at a party or family get together and the most annoying person in the room walks up to you and says “So Bobby told me that Jennifer told her cousin that Tommy told her about something important, by the way I have a rash”. It’s like a horrible game of telephone with the interesting message diluted by all types of useless back story.

Now lets look at a proper retweet:

Ahh look at that, a thing of beauty really. I sorta want to print that out and hang it on my wall. Notice we haven’t really done much but strip out the extra junk and smooth out some of the formating.

For shits and giggles let’s break down each element of a proper retweet.

The Breakdown

Headline: In most cases the original headline of the article will do. Writers (bloggers too!) tend write a good headline already so don’t be afraid to use them. However there is sometimes room for improvement. If you want a high CTR (click-through-rate) make sure the headline conveys a message, asks a question or moves some type of emotion.

Short URL: Of course when you retweet you’re also sometimes inheriting a short URL from someone else. This might require you to re-create the short URL with something a little prettier. My personal favorite is Bit.ly which seems to be the most trouble free and useful. I would avoid any shortners that include a frame or lame top hat.

Source: I’m not sure who established the rules of thanking sources 3 levels down the line but it’s not necessary. At the most you should include one source, preferably with the Twitter name of the contents original creator. This gives the user an idea of what to expect from the link. Citing @mashable tells them it will most likely be a Twitter story, citing @joeblow tells the reader nothing. It may be a little snobby to not thank someone for introducing you to a story, but this is art we’re talking about here, not good housekeeping.

The Variables

To RT or not to RT: Do you preface each retweet with the text RT? My personal preference is to drop the RT and start of with the headline. Some programs will auto-insert the RT for you, and users sometimes find it helpful to know right away the tweet is a rebroadcast. If you drop the RT, you should cite your source at the end with a (via @name).

Hashtags: Including hashtags in your tweets and retweets is fine, within reason. The biggest value of the hashtag is to help people search and find related content. So let’s say you’re at an event or the retweet is about a trending topic, hashtag away. Trying to be funny by including ironic hashtags and you’ve changed the masterpiece into a velvet black light poster.

Now that you know the proper format, go ahead and retweet this. With feeling this time.

If you’ve had the pleasure of getting to know Jason you’d probably agree. Sure he doesn’t have any super powers, and he needs to find his Lois Lane, but Jason is still a superhero to many.

The LA Business Journal seems to agree. They just awarded him with the 2009 Most Admired CEO of the Year Award. Check out the video below to see Jason accept the award and share his experiences of growing up in LA, starting Docstoc and his mentors.

(Photo (CC) Brian Solis. www.briansolis.com)

Users can setup profiles and easily list various items they’d like to lend out, sell or even give away. Transactions are then tracked through the site which adds a nice layer of security to your dealings. I don’t know about you, but lately Craigslist has been giving me the heebie jeebies. Having a feedback loop that shows a profiles transaction history is really nice to have. Being able to do deals with local friends who are already part of your social graph is even better.

Founded by local radtrepeneur Micki Krimmel, Neighborgoods has been in running in private beta for the last few months. Today however it’s open to anyone with a Los Angeles zip code. So our lalaland based readers you can now signup and get started.

Micki took some time sit down tell us more about the site. Lets see what she had to say.

Tuesday October 6th

Dealmaker – The Workshop

Brought to you by the team who produces Startonomics and Dealmaker LA, this hands-on “workshop-style” event will allow entrepreneurs to drill down on the key issues we face when laying the foundation to build and fund their company.

The Details:

When: Tuesday October 6, 2009 | 1:00pm – 6:00pm
Where: Microsoft LA | 333 S. Grand Ave. 33rd Floor, Suite 3300
How Much: $125 Members | $195 Non-Members
Bonus: $20 off with this link.

Thursday October 8th-Saturday October 10th

New Noise Santa Barbara

New Noise brings together music industry professionals, music technology professionals, entrepreneurs, artists, artist managers, agents, producers, lawyers, publishers, and fans. Anyone interested in the convergence of art, commerce and technology will benefit from the creative, educational, and networking opportunities that NEW NOISE presents. Plus: We like to party, so expect that too.

The Details:

When: Thursday October 8th to Saturday October 10th
Where: Canary Hotel | 31 West Carrillo Santa Barbara, CA 93101
How Much: $40-$199

Friday October 9th

Hollywood 2.0

The first panel will feature Alexia Tsotsis of the LA Weekly, Sean and Laurie Percival of Lalawag.com, and Alex Albrecht of Diggnation. The panelists will discuss (from their perspective, as journalists) new media/technology companies they have come across that are changing the face of Hollywood.

The Details:

When: Friday October 9th | 7:00-9:00pm
Where: UCLA Anderson School of Management – Korn Hall
How Much: Free

These are all important questions that can only be answered south of the border.

During one of these trips you may also notice that Latin America sometimes borrows from various American intellectual properties. Be it on a shirt, a mug or that wonderful pottery. For the most part its nickel and dime stuff, nothing too major. I’d assume even the most hardened Disney exec would get a chuckle out of the seeing Donald Duck across a T-shirt proclaiming “One Tequila, Two Tequila, Three Tequila, Floor…”

However the web is a different story. Here knock offs can reach millions and even make some serious cash. Companies like Google and Yahoo have fought almost to the death to dominate various International locations and spaces there. Now Twitter is getting its own Spanish “re-imagining”, this time from a 19-year-old Argentinian developer named Martin Lio.

His site Birddi is of course a complete lift of Twitter. Everything from the colors, the logo and more. They even put @Ev on their landing page! However for being just a clone it’s actually pretty impressive. Sure it lacks some of the polish the Twitter UI has received recently, but overall it’s not a complete hack job.

We can only assume Twitter will send some nasty letters about this. Martin will then re-skin the site to be less “stealy” and hopefully continue on building his little birdie.

If you like you can follow or seguir me on Birddi. I’m really trying to get ~salsasaturday trending over there.

(Via TechCrunch)

Since Violet is a little shy she hasn’t said much about this publicly. For us that represents a great chance to both embarrass and congratulate her. If you have had the pleasure of meeting or getting to know Violet well, lucky you. She’s one of the more genuine folks in the local scene and likely to have a bright future.

So please take the chance to send Violet out a tweet and make her feel loved. Just don’t fret if you don’t get a reply right away. Turns out she’s spending some time in Paris before starting the new gig. Rough life huh?

Writing your first blog post somewhere always feels like a big deal. How do I begin? It’s like making your grand entrance on your own red carpet or to a big meeting. Do you stomp in and make your presence known, be fashionably late (I guess I can’t do that on my own blog), or just play it super cool and casual?

Of course for those who know Shira, she is pretty much always fashionably late. Just don’t tell CBS that. Either way, we vote for cool and casual!

She also picked up an interview with Katie Couric. Let’s see what these two ladies had to say:

Google released 100,000 golden tickets into the wild this week, in the process enabling thousands of poor folks to generally make an ass of themselves begging for, spamming about and even selling the exclusive invites. Basically it’s a feeding frenzy of Apple-like proportions clogging up Twitter streams nationwide.

I can understand the fuss to a certain extent, after all it is Google, and real time is HOT HOT HOT. However this app feels more likely to be an ankle slapper than a revolutionary tidal wave.

Here’s why I hate it:

Email has become for many a chore, an endless dance of back and forth to get the job done. For me the inbox is also my to-do list. I use it to organize tasks and pending items. So the last thing I want here is more noise and more things to do or click.

Call me crazy, but there are few things I love more in life than a good IMAP connection and Microsoft Outlook. Yes, I don’t even use Gmail, so maybe that’s why I’m not so gaga over Wave. I’m not sure if I have some type of sickness or I’m just stuck in my ways; all I know is that my email stays sync’d across all my various devices and you won’t see me crying during one of the many Gmail outages.

I think I’ve just been a bad geek, running Windows and not Apple, and Outlook and not Gmail. Forgive me Jobs for I have sinned!

Who should love Google Wave:

Small teams that like to be hyper-connected and hate having actual conversations with one another. As far as collaborative tools go, this platform is amazing. I can see a small team of 5-10 people having a great experience with Google Wave. Sharing docs, appending people into beautiful threaded conversations–it’s all so magical really.

The Stream, The River, The Wave

So I guess the real time web is all about more water, huh? Most of us started with a slow moving stream (Twitter, RSS), eventually graduated to a river (FriendFeed, Aggregation) and so the next logical step would be a huge freaking wave.

That’s a frightening idea in an already saturated space of news, content and people. At some point it all has to be just too much. As we pipe in more and more water to the web I’m really looking for volume control, and at least a bucket to bail some objects overboard.

Take a look at what others have to say and let us know your own thoughts in the comments. Just please don’t ask for an invite. ;)

What Others Are Saying:

• Robert Scoble: Google Wave crashes on beach of overhype
• Louis Gray: Google Wave Hits Shore. Flash Flood Warning In Effect.
• Alexia Tsotsis: Ten Things to Do While You Sweat Out Your Google Wave Invite

Lucky for you we have (2) free passes to the upcoming New Noise conference in Santa Barbara October 8th-10th. You’ll even get a priority badge that comes with all these great bonuses.

• Priority access to New Noise showcases at our sponsored clubs (October 8-10)
• Guaranteed access to New Noise conference sessions (October 9-10)
• Complimentary New Noise Welcome Bag with discounts, freebies and more.
• New Noise Program guide
• Limited Edition Inaugural New Noise T-Shirt

To enter to win simply send out a mighty tweet saying:

“Hey @lalawag, I want to go to @newnoisesb because ______________ http://bit.ly/Rio62” and tell us why you deserve to win.

Get your entries in by end of the day Friday and we’ll pick two lucky winners to attend the show. Best of luck!

About New Noise Santa Barbara

New Noise brings together music industry professionals, music technology professionals, entrepreneurs, artists, artist managers, agents, producers, lawyers, publishers, and fans. Anyone interested in the convergence of art, commerce and technology will benefit from the creative, educational, and networking opportunities that NEW NOISE presents. Plus: We like to party, so expect that too.

Learn more on their official site.

It was only 9 months ago we first met Alexia in of all places the girls bathroom. Since then she has become a fixture at most tech events, usually sitting front row and center. Along the way she learned a few things and made a notable impact at the LAWeekly. Now she plans to do the same up north for the SF Weekly.

From Her Blog:

Yes, the rumors are true.

I am moving to San Francisco to become web editor of the S.F.Weekly, which, much like the L.A. Weekly is part of a group of websites known as Village Voice Media.

I am extremely thankful for all the support I have received from the technology sector in both Los Angeles and San Francisco and gratefully hope that we can continue to work together and grow under the auspices of my new role.

We want to wish Alexia the best of luck with the new gig. In this case our loss is certainly San Francisco’s gain.

Judging by his FourSquare feed he also managed to do a lot of sightseeing while in Los Angeles. Along the way he took a few photos, here are some of our favorites:

All Photos by Scott Beale / Laughing Squid

See the rest of Scott’s photos on Flickr

Learn what it takes to get your startup off the ground from some and get funded. You’ll get to play around with actual term sheets and go through the entire Herman Miller catalog. OK, maybe not that last thing but it’s worth a browse anyway.

Check out just some of the line up:

• Dan Gould, VP Technology, Fox Interactive Media
• Dave McClure, Founders Fund
• Frank Addante, CEO, Rubicon Project
• Jason Nazar, CEO, DocStoc
• Mark Suster, Partner, GRP Partners
• Seth Sternberg, CEO, meebo
• William Quigley, Partner, Clearstone Ventures

The Details:

When: Tuesday October 6, 2009 | 1:00pm – 6:00pm
Where: Microsoft LA | 333 S. Grand Ave. 33rd Floor, Suite 3300
How Much: $125 Members | $195 Non-Members

Apply now to attend this event.

About DealMaker:

Dealmaker Media operates at the intersection of business, technology, venture capital, and the future. We are a network of innovators from early-stage startups with an eye for disruption, to some of the most influential companies in the world. Our conferences, roundtables, blogs, and research are designed to inter-connect CEOs, technology and entertainment executives, investors, analysts and press.

Watch the trailer below and if you’d like to join the exclusive private screening tonight at 7:30 we have 2 free passes available for our readers.

Just tweet out:

“Hey @lalawag, I want to see @wlip because ___________” and give us your best reason why.

The Trailer

About We Live In Public
Ten years in the making and culled from 5000 hours of footage, WE LIVE IN PUBLIC reveals the effect the web is having on our society, as seen through the eyes of “the greatest Internet pioneer you’ve never heard of”, artist, futurist and visionary Josh Harris. Award-winning director Ondi Timoner (DIG! — which also won the Sundance Grand Jury Prize in 2004 — making Timoner the only director to win that prestigious award twice) documented his tumultuous life for more than a decade to create a riveting, cautionary tale of what to expect as the virtual world inevitably takes control of our lives.

Harris, often called the “Warhol of the Web”, founded Pseudo.com, the first Internet television network during the infamous dot-com boom of the 1990s. He also curated and funded the ground breaking project “Quiet” in an underground bunker in NYC where over 100 people lived together on camera for 30 days at the turn of the millennium. With Quiet, Harris proved how we willingly trade our privacy for the connection and recognition we all deeply desire, but with every technological advancement such as MySpace, Facebook and Twitter, becomes more elusive. Through his experiments, including a six-month stint living with his girlfriend under 24-hour electronic surveillance which led to his mental collapse, Harris demonstrated the price we pay for living in public.

Quick someone grab some beers and whip up a batch of Blue Screen of Death dip. Yes Windows 7 is finally here and Microsoft really wants you to celebrate. They put together this United Colors of Benetton inspired video that tells you all you need to know. Checklist time!

• One old lady who TOTALLY gets technology
• Middle Americian white women who is “hip”
• Token black guy
• Watered down family friendly version of Sean Bonner
• Balloons

I guess it’s better than a lemon party, barely.

It was created using the MobileRoadie platform which allows anyone to roll their own custom iPhone App in minutes (Disclosure: I have an active consulting agreement with them).  So I can pretty much say with some bias that these guys basically rule and offer the best solution for developing your own iPhone app.

Lets go through some features of the app now.

Videos

Sometimes we make videos including the classic Tony Adam Clear Coat Prank. Enjoy them all right here.

We hope you have fun with our new iPhone app and look forward to seeing your comments there. Besides, why waste your entire day on Twitter when you can get some lala to go?

Serena says Wok don’t run.

Recordless DJ spins the tunes.

Jolie O’ Dell does Mad Men, makes men mad.

Adam Weinroth of Demand Media.

Michael Pilla and Tony Adam (aka “The Bachelors”).

Alexia Tsotsis against the wall.

Soon to be married Andrew Warner enjoys some last fleeting moments of freedom ;).

Stacey Broadwell turns heads and IT talent.

Too young to drink, but not too young to launch a startup.

The Jason Calacanis dream machine waits in the valet while its owner picks up dinner for everyone (as usual).

I did however make it some of the most important parts of any conference, the after hours mixers and parties.

Here is what I found:

At the Ad.ly launch mixer I finally got to meet the one and only Guy Kawasaki. His response was “You mean *THE* Sean Percival?” which is flattering to say the least.

Meet Digi Jeff who puts the G in digital for folks like @Chamillionaire.

Social media enthusiast mrbabyman.

Your own lalawag editor Laurie Percival won something!

Time for the after-after party with Brian Solis.

Jeff Henderson some how manages to get the number of a girl way out of his league.

Only someone as hot as Shira Lazar can make this monocle look this good.

Only someone as rad as Rocky Barbanica could make it look this awesome.

Justine Ezarik at the bar, don’t worry she’s just having coffee!

Recognize the mystery hot feet featured in this post? Tell us who they belong to in the comments and win a free “I’m Tweeting This” T-shirt from Thinkgeek.

Through your travels on Foursquare you may have also noticed you can earn badges for some activities. There isn’t a ton of information online about these badges so we thought we compile a list for you. I’ll even tell you how you can earn each one.

The Badges

Foursquare has several city based badges only available in those locations so we’ll just focus on the badges everyone can get. Rumor has it that soon the users themselves will be able to make their own badges.

That should be interesting.

]]> http://js-kit.com/rss/lalawag.com/p=7381 2 newbie[1] adventurer[1] explorer[1] superstar[1] bender[1] crunked[1] local[1] superuser[1] playerplease[1] schoolnight[1] photogenic[1] karaoke[1] gymrat[1] overshare[1] http://lalawag.com/for-tony-adam-shrinkage-is-good/ http://lalawag.com/for-tony-adam-shrinkage-is-good/#comments Mon, 21 Sep 2009 18:38:46 +0000 Sean Percival http://lalawag.com/?p=7340 Beloved local SEO and baker Tony Adam is moving on up. lalawag has been able to confirm that Tony will leave his post at Yahoo! to join BillShrink as Director of Search Marketing.

BillShrink provides a free service for consumers to help them make better purchasing decisions on items like cell phones and credit cards. Earlier this year they scored a huge marketing deal with T-mobile appearing in national commercials along side Catherine Zeta-Jones.

I would be lying to say I haven’t been egging Tony on for months now to leave Yahoo!. I guess I just never thought he would do it! Here at lalawag we’re just happy he managed hookup with such a great company. Now if we could only find him a nice girl to settle down with…

Unfortunately this means Tony will be relocating back to San Francisco for the job. Of course we’ll miss him down here in lalaland, but happy to know he has finally stopped bleeding purple and started to make some green.

(Photo by Wm. Marc Salsberry)

Here is what they had to say:

It also happens to be Co-Founded by local radtrepeneur Kurt Daradics. He was nice enough to take the time to answer a few questions for lalawag.

Lets hear what he had to say:

1) You just launched at TechCrunch50, how did it go?

It was awesome, it felt like we were a crowd favorite. We pulled a few publicity stunts (including bringing our first customer, Councilman Pete Constant from San Jose, on stage. (check out the presentation below)

2) Tell us more about Citysourced, what’s it all about?

CitySourced is a real time mobile civic engagement tool. CitySourced provides a free, simple, and intuitive tool empowering citizens to identify civil issues (potholes, graffiti, trash, snow removal, etc.) and report them to city hall for quick resolution; an opportunity for government to use technology to save money and improve accountability to those they govern; and a positive, collaborative platform for real action. Our platform is called CitySourced, as it empowers everyday citizens to use their smart phones to make their cities a better place. CitySourced is powered by FreedomSpeaks, the leader in interactive civic engagement.

3) Sounds like something great for Los Angeles, how long before we can use it here?

Should be out by Halloween. Trick or tweet.

4) Is this something coming to other mobile phones as well?

Yeah next platform is Palm (by Thanksgiving) and then Blackberry & Android by Christmas

5) What’s next for CitySourced?

Aggressively closing some funding, hiring some more talent, closing more deals, and scaling quickly. Basically it’s time to wake up the neighborhood

Thanks for taking the time to chat with us. We want to send a personal huge congrats out to Kurt and the entire team. Join Kurt this Saturday to celebrate his birthday and wish him continued success.

Here’s what some other folks had to say about it.

“City Sourced is particularly useful to the denizens of Los Angeles because of the fragmented nature of our environment. This could be a boon for traffic, especially on the hellbeast we like to call the 405.”
-Alexia Tsotis, LA Weekly, “Tweet-Up on the 405: L.A. Start-Up Wows Techcrunch50″

“CitySourced was Awesome. I thought that was cool.  Kinda like a throwback to the old neighborhood watch programs, but 2.0…I’ve moved to Angel Investing…I’m looking at that one too.”
-Digg Founder & CEO Kevin Rose (Via Digg.com & YouTube).

“CitySourced will have the biggest impact. At least in my opinion.”
-Robert Scoble (Via Twitter and his blog).

“It’s about time people got excited over here…judges, audience, and organizers seemed thoroughly impressed by an app that they could actually use. But none of the existing civic-engagement apps have caught on yet, and Citysourced’s mix of no-brainer efficiency and easy-to-read maps seemed to impress both the judges and the audience…This new mobile start-up is one to watch.”

-Caroline McCarthy, C|Net.

Later that night I tried to steal his iPhone to get a sneak peek at the upcoming Seesmic iPhone App. However despite John having a few drinks, his grip remained ninja like.

Learn more about the new features over on TechCrunch.

(Photo by Loic)

The final marquee?

Mike Arrington

Jason Calacanis

This guy is going up (realtime)stream

Robert Scoble

Ayelet Noff

Jeremy Schoemaker and Loren Feldman

Laguna Arrington

Alexia Tsotsis

Laser engraving by Coveroo

Ashley Biever

Jason Hirschhorn (and the infamous flag)

Anna Webber

Trading room floor

]]> http://js-kit.com/rss/lalawag.com/p=7246 5 TechCrunch50 big mike the bulldog going upstream DSC_0018 DSC_0188 shoemoney and money DSC_0116 DSC_0196 DSC_0139 a snack hisspace a new lens working on a living http://lalawag.com/techcrunch50-thread/ http://lalawag.com/techcrunch50-thread/#comments Tue, 15 Sep 2009 17:44:47 +0000 Sean Percival http://lalawag.com/?p=7242 Yesterday I met up with Thread in the TechCrunch50 demo pit. They offer a new way to find and connect with people you may want to date (or just roll around the bed with). It uses Facebook connect to survey your friends to make a good match.

Lets see what they have to say.

Lets take a look:

We keep hearing chatter about a “recession” and “economic downturn” but there is no sign of it at the conference. In fact the show appears to have the same level of excitement and anxious companies eager to launch as previous years.

Since I tend to do a pretty horrible job covering events live (I blame the open bars), I can’t promise you too much. However keep an eye on the official lalawag Twitter account and my Flickr Stream for highlights.

Also checkout these TC50 related social media resources:

Twitter: #techcrunch50 or #tc50

FriendFeed: #techcrunch50 or #tc50

Flickr: techcrunch50 or tc50

Take @drew for example, he was diagnosed with cancer and has been using the hashtag #blamedrewscancer to help raise awareness and money to fight it. Since its inception some 12,000 folks have blamed an astounding 28,000 things on Drew’s cancer. He recently held a 24 blame-o-thon and has raised over $3500 for the LiveStrong foundation. Not bad!

I’ve made a few donations to @drew already, but we want to do something really big for the guy. So I’m happy to announce that lalawag will sponsor the next 500 #blamedrewscancer tweets at $1 a pop. I just ask for your help with one thing.

Some of you may know Los Angeles local Wm. Marc Salsberry lost his brother Robert to cancer last week. And while we’ve never met Robert we want to sponsor these tweets in his honor. So along with your 140 masterpiece, please include the hashtag #robert as well. Your message can be anything really, but here are some ideas of what I’d love to see:

• The Classic: Fire off a classic #blamedrewscancer tweet blamming anything you like
• For @wmmarc: Since Marc has a lot of friends both here in Los Angeles and beyond, share a memory you have of him.
• Something Personal: If you have a personal experience with cancer tell us your thoughts.

Just hashtag it up #robert and #blamedrewscancer so we can track and count up the tweets. Once 500 have been counted lalawag will make the donation to the Livestrong foundation in Robert’s name.

From Things Labs, Brizzly boasts some nice features and a great UI. The service offers a new view on your Tweeter stream, with AJAX-y goodness and better handling of tweeted media.

For example, if someone posts a photo or video link as part of your stream, Brizzly automatically expands it for you. You no longer have to click on the link and be taken to another page, the content is right there for you. There is a slew of other interesting features as well, highlighted in the below video.

So if you’ve heard of Brizzly, or just want to give it a shot, we have 100 invites for our lalawag readers. Simply use the invite code amusingcow during signup and you’re in.

So we’ve created this field guide to help you identify the most common strains of Twitter spam. We’re also going to teach you how to report the little bastards. While this won’t stop the flow of all spam, it can certainly help.

Let’s get started.

How to Report Spammers

Now that you know how to identify the worst offenders it’s time to learn how to send them directly to the Twitter Spam Department. Actually it’s just one guy, and he’s sorta an intern and he comes in like every other week.

I guess I’m trying to say that this method is not the greatest solution, but it’s the best we have right now. One might assume that if enough folks report a particular user, some type of smart and killer algorithm will suspend the account, and in the process make Twitter a better place to play.

Here is what to do:

1. Follow @spam
2. Wait for them to follow you back
3. Check out the @spam favorites for more tips while you wait for the return follow
4. Report spammers via DM  by sending the user name and a link to an offending tweet. Or you can @reply spam with the user name
5. Pat yourself on the back
6. Go make a sammich

Bonus Points:

Report spam even easier with Seesmic Desktop. This Twitter client has a spam reporting feature build right in that automatically crafts your DM to @spam.

Here are some of my favorites from Flickr. Click the image to enlarge.

Photo by Mike S Etc

Photo by Das Miller

Photo by SARhounds

Photo by nielsfrenzen

Photo by Laszlo

Photo by Laszlo

However Tumblr’s true greatness is usually seen through its collection of meme or themed sites. Some of these Internet gems even get book deals, others just make us laugh. Here are some of my favorites.

THERE CAN BE ONLY ONE!

Los Angeles has two Twitter conferences coming up. Yes two. After all, what fun is one when two will do?

However, in my experience, this industry works much like the epic film Highlander. So that logic tells me there can be only one and these conferences must throw-down with an epic sword fight to the death.

Ok maybe not, but you may be wondering which one is best for you (if any). Robert Scoble weighed in with some of his thoughts yesterday and I wanted to share mine as well.

So there you have it; do you plan to attend one (or both) of these Twitter conferences? Let us know in the comments, you can even say more than 140 characters.

This is a huge win for the community.

Founded by local VC Marc Suster, Launchpad LA hopes to provide mentorship to the next generation of Los Angeles based entrepreneurs. Others involved with the project include Abdul Khan from iBeatYou, Michael Schneider from MobileRoadie, and Ryan Born from AudioMicro.

Having worked with the greatest CEOs in Los Angeles (Jason Calacanis, Jason Nazar and Mike Jones) I can personally tell you how valuable good mentorship can be. So for new entrepreneurs this is a great way to get involved with the community and meet some of the players. It might even be the chance to cozy up with a local VC and take your apartment based idea to a beach side office space.

Apply now for inclusion, class begins in November.

From the official site:

Launchpad LA was founded in 2009 by Mark Suster with the idea of helping young talented startup entrepreneurs get funded and grow while remaining in Southern California. The idea came from Mark’s frustration of seeing too many companies receive funding by Northern California VCs and then relocate their teams. Mark was further inspired by the aims and initiatives of John Morris, the former head of the Tech Coast Angels. The Launchpad LA initiative is a true collaboration amongst Los Angeles’ best VCs who have a shared interest in seeing a robust tech community continue to thrive in Los Angeles.

Yes I’m happy to say, this is one YouTube music video that is not completely horrible. In fact it’s quite enjoyable.

Being the author of the The Second Life Travel Guide (I’m not making this up) I am well versed in the ways of avatar dating rituals. In the song Felica highlights some of the benefits of virtual dating. Things like making yourself hotter than reality, role play and of course being able to log them off.

Check out the video below and once the song gets stuck in your head, go download the MP3 on Amazon.

In addition to all the basic commenting functions, ECHO goes out and aggregates social activity around this URL. So if someone tweets this blog post, or posts it to their FriendFeed, we also see that activity here. You can login through a few services like Facebook and Twitter, making it even easier to post your comment. Finally you can also choose to share this content directly from the comments box. Genius!

Here are some videos demostrations of the ECHO platform by Chris Saad. Ladies please help us test the new comment system below by telling us how much you enjoy Chris’s accent.

Login Demo

Sharing Demo

I’m sitting in a restaurant on the west side of Los Angeles called the California Chicken Cafe. It’s awful, I just know she is going to hate it.

Given the last minute arrangement of our meeting, her location and many pending appointments, it was the best I could whip up. I nervously wait while the patrons around me proceed to gnaw on various chicken bones. I’m pretty sure she’s a vegetarian. She is really going to hate this place.

My iPhone dings, it’s her texting while driving one of those eco friendly Smart Cars. Loaned to her for the week, this is just one of the many perks of being Julia. I go to meet her at the street, anything to get out of this cafe. I see her right away, holding up traffic as she slowly makes her way down Westwood Blvd.

She pulls up the curb, smiles and waves. She has the sunroof open, through it I get my first good glance at Julia Allison. Immediately I can’t help but notice how hot her body is. I say that not to be crude, but because it’s something that is often critiqued online. As I get an even closer look, I can tell you the only thing turning me off about Julia is her inability to park. Everything else is quite nice.

We go inside, and sure enough Julia hates the place. She apologizes about being such a snob, not realizing I’m one too. We see another restaurant across the street and decide to check it out. Julia leads and walks right out into traffic, gracefully floating across the street. I remind her this isn’t New York and that Los Angeles drivers tend to not stop for pedestrians.  She laughs it off as we enter the next place. It’s even worse, Julia barely makes it through the door before turning around.

This wasn’t going well at all.

I need to get her to Westwood proper, I need somewhere with overpriced parking and food stat. We squeeze into the Smart Car and head up the street, finally getting a chance to really chat. Julia has a lot to say, I don’t mind. I’m getting a chance really understand her, beyond the hokey videos and reblogging.

As we locate a nice cafe, Julia has some trouble parking once again. I guess that’s OK though. After all, Julia doesn’t stand still very often, let alone park. We find a table outside where she agrees to a quick informal interview before she dashes off to her next adventure.

Thanks Julia, for taking the time to chat with me. Next time, I’ll find a better place to dine. I’ll even make reservations.

(Photos by Julia Allison)

Some photos are starting to roll in, here are some of our favorites so far.

Photo by socaltech

Photo (cc) Kenneth Yeung - www.thelettertwo.com

Photo (CC) Brian Solis. www.briansolis.com

Photo by Wm. Marc Salsberry

Photo (cc) Kenneth Yeung - www.thelettertwo.com

Photo by Jim TechFrog Alden

Photo by Jim TechFrog Alden

Photo by Wm. Marc Salsberry

Photo (cc) Kenneth Yeung - www.thelettertwo.com

Photo (cc) Kenneth Yeung - www.thelettertwo.com

Photo by Wm. Marc Salsberry

Photo by Wm. Marc Salsberry

Photo (CC) Brian Solis. www.briansolis.com

Photo by Jim TechFrog Alden

Photo by Sean

]]> http://js-kit.com/rss/lalawag.com/p=6054 4 twiistup-wall vip the maven and red kissy kissy twiistup-ladies asian sammich red hi! lol-naire social media sammich invest this! oy-vey pumping the bulldog and theman thx mgmt http://lalawag.com/sued-for-50000-over-moldy-tweet/ http://lalawag.com/sued-for-50000-over-moldy-tweet/#comments Tue, 28 Jul 2009 19:56:32 +0000 Sean Percival http://lalawag.com/?p=5950 Apartment management companies are well known for their greedy horrible ways. Anyone who has ever tried to get a fair amount of their deposit back already know this. Personally I’ve come to accept that when I rent an apartment I won’t be getting much else besides a roof over my head. I know my requests for maintenance will go unanswered, and come move out day my deposit shall become nothing more than a fleeting memory.

I would complain about such things on Twitter however now it appears even that can get you sued. Yes, Horizon Group Management LLC is suing a Twitter user for $50,000 after they expressed concern over mold found in one of their buildings. The Twitter user had a whooping 20 followers. As you can imagine, this message was read by millions and caused permanent damage to the company.

Like any good clueless corporation, they were quick to mention they’re a “sue first and ask questions later kind of an organization.” We tried to contact them for additional information but unfortunetly we only managed to reach their voicemail.

So we decieded to have a little fun. Enjoy.

Introducing Smaknews, a local startup providing social news voting for women. I had a chance to talk with the Smaknews Editrix, Gina Mom, about the site. Here’s what she had to tell us.

Thanks for taking the time to chat with us Gina. You can follow Smaknews on Twitter and of course through their website.

Did you get lost during last week’s Twitter hack or #twittergate? Don’t worry if you did, there was a lot of information and opinions being thrown around. For those who would like to catch up and recap, I’ve prepared a little timeline for you. You can click on any underlined text to learn more about that timeline event. Enjoy.

Please feel free to use this image on your blog, just give credit and a link back here to this post. For your convience you can copy the following embed code and paste it into your blog post:

Here are some photos by Wm. Marc Salsberry from the Los Angeles tour stop.

In classic LA style the RV arrived late

Wuffaoke pit stop at Paige Craig’s beach house

Tour groupie Karen Hartline and gracious host Paige Craig

Author and lounge singer Tara Hunt

Tony Adam takes a break from baking to indulge his other passion, grilling

Singing their heart out until the cops politely as them to stop

SEE MORE PHOTOS

]]> http://js-kit.com/rss/lalawag.com/p=5610 1 rv upskirt the house tequila built karen and paige tara! tony loves baking next track, the police http://lalawag.com/how-to-get-a-techmeme-headline/ http://lalawag.com/how-to-get-a-techmeme-headline/#comments Tue, 14 Jul 2009 16:30:46 +0000 Sean Percival http://lalawag.com/?p=5541 I’m not sure how many Angelinos read TechMeme, but if you’re not pulling it up daily, well you’re probably doing it wrong. Created by Gabe Rivera, this aggregator serves a small but influential crowd of tech journalists and entrepreneurs. It’s basically the place to get the hottest technology news of the moment.

If you’re new to Techmeme and wondering how items become headlines, check out this handy flowchart we made. It should help you better understand this complex algorithm, and get your own stories published as the next big headline.

CLICK TO ENLARGE

We’ll pick a winner and announce it on Tuesday morning. The best comment will win, and that will be decided purely on how we are feeling at that particular moment. Comments about which comment you like are also encouraged.

About the Meetup

With over 3,500 of web television’s top creators, producers, studio executives, agents, managers, technologists, and distributors on its roster, Tubefilter’s Hollywood Web Television Meetup brings together the most dynamic group of professionals in the online entertainment industry. Each month’s event features presentations from influential web television creators, talent, and industry executives who are leading the charge in shaping the future of our industry. It provides an unrivaled opportunity to bring together this powerful community, share resources, collaborate, and together discover who we are and where we are going.

This Months Speakers

Hayden Black creator of Goodnight Burbank and Abigail’s Teen Diary.

Alex Albrecht of Diggnation, Project Lore and The Totally Rad Show.

Details

Date: Thursday, July 16, 2009

Time: 7:00pm to 11:00pm

Location:
Busby’s East (Mid Wilshire)
5364 Wilshire Blvd
Los Angeles, CA 90036

RSVP

The packed patio at August Capital

Tonight’s liquid courage brought to you by…

Francisco Dao, Mike Macadaan, Randi Zuckerberg and Neil Patel

TechCrunch CEO Heather Harde and Mahalo’s Tyler Crowley

Laurie Percival, Seesmic Founder Loic Le Meur and AV Flox

Facebook’s Randi Zuckerberg and the big guy himself Michael Arrington

Laura Fitton and Dan Martell

Your lalawag editors Laurie and Sean Percival

Photos by Wm. Marc Salsberry

SEE MORE PHOTOS