I met Simon Chen at the last DemoCamp in Ottawa and he mentioned his new project called Sixent.com. I just tried out the service and created my own personal profile here: http://sixent.com/aydin/Public
Here is a screenshot:
I like Sixent since it gives me LOTS of privacy options… I get to determine who sees what and what is publicly displayed… I’d love for this profile to appear when people are searching for me… I definitely recommend everyone create one of these profiles for themselves!
The Web Weekend is the first weekend being organized (May 9-11). Motivated professionals and amateurs work together in order to create a company and launch a web product in a weekend. Make sure to sign up here: http://www.ottawaw.com/
* Date: Monday, May 26, 2008 from 7pm to 9pm
* Location: The Velvet Room, 62 1/2 York Street, in the market
* Format for 6 demos: 2 minute introduction, 8 minute demo, 5 minutes for Q&A and discussion
Scott Simpson from BitHeads really stood out as the person everyone remembered at the OCRI Awards. He gave the most entertaining and funny acceptance speech that I have ever seen when his company, BitHeads, won the award. He had the whole audience captivated and as a result, I think everyone knows about him and knows about BitHeads… Congratulations to Scott!
On another note, I happened to bump into John Roese who is CTO at Nortel (I used to work @ Nortel). He also won an award tonight (Next Generation Executive of the Year). Nortel is the 4th major company for which John has served as CTO (and he’s still under 40 - pretty impressive). You can check out his biography here. Amongst other things he has written two books and he’s also named on 16 different patents… and of course he’s an amazing public speaker… good to see him win.
Other than that, BridgeWater Systems won the Technology Company of the year award [I think that's what it was called] (Doug Somers was sitting at my table).
Well, I had a great time at the awards and can’t wait until next year
I’m a big Facebook fan but in the last little while I have been wondering about what Facebook will look like in the future… Just thinking about the advantages of having Facebook (especially with all the new privacy features) for government agencies seems like a godsend. I mean, if you think about it, people “without any coercion” are documenting their every move online… If anyone wanted to track you, wouldn’t the best place be Facebook /Twitter ?
Ok, so, how unreasonable is it to assume that some of the following are possible in the future?
-no passport: why would you use a passport when you can add a “Passport Facebook Application” that will do the same thing? All you’d have to do when you get to the airport is show them your “virtual passport” on your Phone/PDA or perhaps give a secret access code to anyone who wants to check it out (possibly via bluetooth)?
-Facebook pages mandatory: Already, if you don’t want to fall behind in life, you need a facebook profile…. is it unreasonable to assume that one day everyone will be required to have a facebook page? Remember, as we go forward, privacy features will only get better (or so we hope)… so, its not all that unreasonable…
-verify with birth certificate: what if you had to verify your facebook page with your original birth certificate in order to prove your identity? Could your facebook page also act as your birth certificate? what if you were given login access credentials in the hospital when you were born?
-driver’s license: why show your driver’s license when you are standing in line for a 19+ bar/club when you can show your facebook page? yeah, yeah, you can show it when you get pulled over by a cop too…
big brother: Is it also unreasonable to assume that government agencies will be freely able to browse through all of this material online? I for one think that one is not so unreasonable at all…
Anywho… a lot of this stuff sounds ridiculous, I know. But, the world changes fast… I remember when I was first telling people about Facebook in Ottawa, Canada they would say: “why would I join? so people could stalk me?” and now look at where we are… people’s ideas and beliefs are changing.
This Monday, we’re holding Ottawa’s favorite Tech Event: DemoCampOttawa!
Marc-Andre and I will be introducing Chide.it on Monday and we hope to get a lot of feedback from the crowd. We want to make Chide.it a great tool for use at DemoCamp / BarCamp / StartupCamp events. Chide.it is a tool to gather feedback. All startups that present at these events want feedback… Chide.it can help capture all this feedback for the presenters
Globex Pro 3.5: Software suite to ease the daily pains of doing business globally
Trade Wars Rising Beta MMOG: See the game in development and an engine capable of allowing player-generated games !
Devshop v2: “Devshop Returns” - a sneak peak at the upcoming product. First time demo’d anywhere.
FaveQuest facebook app: Version 3 of the facebook video app. You can now create and share your own video channels and we fill them automatically for you from all over the web!
Well, what else do you call someone who tours the country and holds events at every major city? I thought that’s what Rockstars did… Well, anywho… that’s exactly what Rick Segal is doing He’ll be in Ottawa on the 16th of April to hold a “VC Roundtable.” If you’re looking to raise money for your startup at any point, this is one of those events that would be useful to you. I’m still uncertain as to whether I’ll make it or not since I may be in NYC at that time… If I can’t make it, I’ll have to drop Rick a line to get some feedback with respect to http://chide.it - but, I hope to be there… Here is some more info:
Ottawa Edition of the VC Round Table
Something’s missing in Canada’s tech community - the chance to informally interact with VCs, learn about what it is exactly that they do and how the funding process works.
The VC Roundtable series aims to fill this gap, by hosting small (free!) get together across Canada’s major cities where RickSegal, JLA Ventures Partner and VC blogger (http://ricksegal.typepad.com) will walk through what getting involved with VCs is all about.
RickSegal will be hosting the Ottawa edition of the VC travelling roundtable on April 16th from 11am to 1pm at everyone’s favourite pub TheClockTower at 575 Bank Street. If you would like to attend sign up on the link below.
After hearing all of the ads on the radio from Telus, I called them to see what all the commotion was about and ended up upgrading my plan… yes, yes, I know, again
So, what did I get?
$30/month Calling Plan:
150 daytime minutes + unlimited incoming calls + unlimited nights& weekends.
150 minutes is really all I need since I use http://www.bOKnow.com to get as many extra minutes I want to anywhere in North America for about 3 cent/minute. bOKnow also covers my calling needs to Europe with their international rates.
Unlimited Data Plan - $45
Unlimited Web Surfing (which also means unlimited Facebook :)) + Unlimited Text Messaging + VoiceMail + CallerID + Unlimited Email
What’s the Catch?
Well, apparently, when they say “unlimited web surfing”, that doesn’t include “over-the-air downloads”… in other words, if you want to download the facebook/gmail application onto your blackberry, you’ll be charged… or at least that’s what the customer rep told me on the phone… if I’m wrong about this one, let me know After I hung up the phone with the customer rep, I also started wondering if this “unlimited email” actually included downloading attachments… not sure about this… if anyone does know, please leave a comment…
So, the other day, my dad sends me a text message saying that he got an iPhone… wtf?
a) text message?
b) iPhone?
Alright, so, what’s wrong with this picture? I don’t even have an iPhone -not available in Canada & Telus [CDMA] has me locked in for 3 years- and now my dad [living in New York] does Not only that, I didn’t even know my dad knew what a text message was!
At the end of the day, wow! The iPhone has really led a revolution… everyone’s buying them (not only techies)… but, it is also leading people to try new things… I just learned that my dad now accesses facebook through his phone… hmmm…
