All Posts By

Jon Gatrell

SoCon09: Oh the people you meet outside the perimeter

#SoCon09 basically proved it was Atlanta’s premier Social Media event yesterday without question.  The event however was not located in Atlanta, much to the chagrin of Andrew Wilson, who just might understand that Atlanta has a brand identity issue.   The conference had record attendance of like 325 folks.

Some of the highlights from my perspective:

  • KSU got a $1.5M grant to research journalism in context of social media
  • Chris Carfi rearranged the room and lead the engaging keynote discussion on markets
  • Search.twitter.com basically STOPPED due to refreshes for those on the KSU network
  • #SoCon09 sustained as a trending topic right up until the end of the day
  • Met at least 6 people from Twitter I hadn’t met before – real life can be fun
  • Met EVEN MORE people who I will now get to know better on Twitter
  • Learned about really cool stuff people are doing in Atlanta – where are you people the rest of the year?
  • Jeff Haynie reaffirmed that Your Idea Sucks and it is about execution!
  • I met a person more theoretical and conceptual than myself, ok I met Greg Bond before, just didn’t realize it.
  • Plenty of pictures shared in real-time
  • I learned that facilitating a discussion is far more rewarding than giving a presentation
  • I figured out you can go to a conference and make it to baby shower without issue, even if you start your day in Kennesaw

So who was there? A bunch of people, but to highlight a few and create pseudo blog roll:

At the end of the day, a big thanks has to go out to Leonard Witt, Sherry Heyl and all the folks at KSU.  The event clearly shows that technology interest and expertise isn’t in short supply in Atlanta.   As a follow up, I started trolling through the event tweets and the tweet below made me ask myself a question: So why would we wait until next year to synch up?

nextyear

We shouldn’t!  Every month ATL Tweeters and Social Media Club Atlanta meet to share ideas, discuss things we are seeing in the community and try to find ways to get just a little more social in ATL.

If I left you off the “blog roll”, I apologize, I recreated via hash tags and cards I had in my pocket – so leave a comment and your link so everyone can read other folks out there in the Greater Atlanta Area.

Great meeting y’all and see you at either ATL Tweeters or the next Social Media Club meeting.

Cheers!

~jon

Cartography finally has a killer app: Google Latitude

2 revolutionary product posts in two days.  Today’s, ok a day late, if a mobile app from Google. The launch of Google Latitude is bound to represent a new mode of interaction…  Spatially driven personal interactions – like real people and stuff – potentially.  Clearly an interesting product for product manager – lots o’ uses.  So here is the overview:

Latitude is a new feature for Google Maps on your mobile device. It’s also an iGoogle gadget on your computer. Once you’ve opted in to Latitude, you can see the approximate location of your friends and loved ones who have decided to share their location with you. So now you can do things like see if your spouse is stuck in traffic on the way home from work, notice that a buddy is in town for the weekend, or take comfort in knowing that a loved one’s flight landed safely, despite bad weather.

And with Latitude, not only can you see your friends’ locations on a map, but you can also be in touch directly via SMS, Google Talk, Gmail, or by updating your status message; you can even upload a new profile photo on the fly. It’s a fun way to feel close to the people you care about.

Yup a killer app – safety, spying, OCD management and visual “where are you” answers.   With “fine grained” privacy management it may just be what makes each of our Google account more valuable – I just synched my feedburner account – so why not another Google app.

Oh – yeah – a little delay for the iPhone version… Very cool share cool of wallet play Google folks.  Android anyone?