Startup Query – Simple School Course Registration?

Any one else out there frustrated with how archaic & arcane high school, college & other school class registration processes still are, especially when done in paper, yes in 2012? If so, contact @thoughtpuzzle on Twitter.

Content Creation and Tech Startups – Week in Review – 1/14/2012 – 1/21/2012 – Video via YouTube

Content index listed below video. Section top-level links correspond to indicated time hacks. Weekly review also available in 480-resolution.

• 0:00 - Introduction
• Thought Puzzle intro by Chris Augeri
• Recording Date – Saturday, 1/21/2012 – Wikipedia
• Recording Location – Omaha, NE – Google Maps

• 0:22 - Prior week recap
• 1/13/2012 - CES ends
• 1/13/2012 - SXSW registration – price bump
• 1/14/2012 - Obama Administration – responds to ‘We the People’ petitions on SOPA & Online Piracy
• 1/15/2012 - Why SOPA is unconstitutional – Cory Doctorow – Boing Boing

• 1:05 - PandoDaily Launch
• Sarah Lacy launches PandoDaily – startup “site-of-record” – CNET
• Sarah Lacy (@sarahcuda) - Twitter
• Why I Started PandoDaily - Sarah Lacy - PandoDaily Blog
• Pando Tree – Largest Living Organism – Wikipedia
• PandoDaily – site-of-record for Silicon Valley

• 1:59 - Internet Blackout Background
• reddit blog – stopped they must be; on this all depends
• SOPA Infographic
• Keep Web Open – infographic – public comment on OPEN Act
• Lumin Interactive – Infographic – via Search Engine Journal
• Ape Con Myth - Super PIPA-SOPA Flowchart
• Thought Puzzle – A to Z – The Definitive Guide to SOPA
• NLB Creations – anti-SOPA Blackout day – Google Cache
• Google Custom Search Engine – Internet Blackout Search Demo – curated by ThoughtPuzzle, data via Nikki Blight Creations
• Google Custom Search Engine – Default Search sans Redaction - curated by ThoughtPuzzle

• 4:41 - Blackout Pages
• TechDirt Gallery – reddit & other SOPA Blackout Protest Screens
• Wikipedia blackout page – via Best About Pages
• End Piracy, Not Liberty – Google – also in our blackout screenshot archive
• Thought Puzzle Blackout Pop-Up – powered by Stop SOPA WordPress widget
• Thought Puzzle -Haiku – Widespread Interwoven Protest Acts – WIPA SOPA

• 5:50 - SOPA/PIPA Protest Politics
• Protesting anti-piracy bill [w/ my interview] – Omaha.com – Omaha World-Herald
• SOPA: Lee listens, Saddle Creek sets record straight and Moran reaffirms – Silicon Prairie News
• Silicon Prairie politicians distance themselves from SOPA, PIPA – Silicon Prairie News
• Senate postpones PIPA vote; SOPA delayed indefinitely – Consumer Reports
• SOPA Markup to resume in February? – via House.gov
• Reddit blog – Thank You – Technical Analysis, SOPA & PIPA

• 7:10 - Megaupload Takedown
• Before shutdown, Megaupload ate up more corporate bandwidth than Dropbox – ars technica
• Anonymous goes nuclear; everybody loses? – Molly Wood – CNET News

• 7:50 - Silicon Valley vs. Hollywood
• YCRFS 9: Kill Hollywood – Y Combinator
• Request for Startups: Kill Hollywood. – Hacker News [powered by Y Combinator]
• Now, We Need to Build the Internet Defense System – Ben Huh
• Y Combinator’s Short-sighted and Irresponsible Declaration of War Against Hollywood – Ben Parr

• 9:16 - Facebook Happenings
• Facebook Expands Open Graph To 60 New Apps, Many More Coming – Forbes
• Facebook Could Replace YouTube As Vevo Host – NBC San Diego

• 9:53 - Google Happenings
• Google To Close Social Graph API, Not OpenSocial -
• Google Pulls The Trigger On Three More Services – Gizmodo Australia
• Picnik Image Editing [to be shuttered by Google]
• Google Abandons Anonymous Accounts With New Signup Form – Webmonkey@ Wired
• New Google Accounts Require Gmail and Google+

• 11:11 - Twitter acquires Summify
• Summify - Twitter Acquisition Announcement
• Twitter buys Summify, helps you automatically turn off the noise – Engadget
• News.me, Percolate vie for Summify users after Twitter buy – GigaOM

• 12:16 - Also in news
• @bigomahacow – Big Omaha Cow – Twitter
• Big Omaha 2012 – register for latest info
• Enormous solar outburst could dazzle your weekend – Christian Science Monitor

• 13:30 - Wrap-up
• @thoughtpuzzle – Chris Augeri – Twitter
• ThoughtPuzzle.com - now redirects to Chris-Augeri.com/blog

Thanks for watching & tune in again next week!

Startup Memes – This, That, the Other

Quid pro quo loosely translates to ‘this for that’, a concept intrinsically core to society. This meme is woven into Paul Graham’s 18 Mistakes That Kill Startups essay – complete with (33) of this, (107) of that, & (16) of the other. Tech startups similarly leverage the ‘this, that, the other’ meme.

1. ShareThis provides link-sharing services such as shortening, social media integration, and analytics. Competitors include AddThis & Lockerz_Share (formerly AddToAny), along with publisher-direct options, such as Twitter’s tweet this & Facebook’s like.

In market for link-sharing services? Check ‘do not track’ / ‘opt out’ privacy policies and user conveniences, e.g., bookmarklets / browser extensions & blog / content management platform integration.

FastShare Tutorial via ShareThis

<em>Click for info about (4) more startup sites leveraging the ‘this & that’ meme.</em>

Could UPS Reboot America?

Borders and Barnes & Noble opened Omaha bookstores in 1996 [between launch of Amazon.com &  half.com]. Web use was nascent and the Mosaic browser was yes, still being actively developed.

Such bookstores, like libraries often fostered regional intellectual growth. I recall buying Graph Drawing by Di Battista et al., a tech tome on visualizing attributed vertices & edges social networks.

Today, Borders is bankrupt, Barnes & Noble may be on the ropes, Amazon.com is surging, Half.com still doesn’t accept Paypal [both are eBay subsidiaries], & Mosaic is memorialized vis-à-vis Mozilla Firefox.

How does UPS jump in this mix help reboot U.S. commerce, other than continuing to do a great job shipping books & other goods?

Click to discover how UPS can help reboot the U.S. economy.

Wizora – Landing Page Wizardry

Wizora is a Chicago startup headed by Daniel Novaes, the same person who’s also driving The Founders Desk.

Wizora’s ‘this for that’ meme is the ‘Pandora for food & entertainment’. This analogy is also suggested by their Twitter handle, @WizOra_Genome.

Wizora’s landing page, or to be more precise, their squeeze page, wonderfully synergizes click for thoughts on building semantically rich landing pages.