I’m referring to this post as my spring cleaning event. The sidebar is clean. The theme is now clean. Rid the blog of an old non-functioning service (TipJoy was one that was causng a slowdown in page load since it shut down – check out Venmo for more payment fun), as well as updated the theme to a really simple b&w no frills, very fast loading theme.

Another thing I fixed on here earlier was the Past Writers page is now integrated into the Comments page. I also updated Mae Oakmont’s status with her new blog she is writing on (more than I am writing here!). That is her new Facebook profile picture.

Speaking of Facebook, one of the more annoying aspects is the whole e-mail thing when you comment or like a status. Annoyed me to no end. Of course someone reminded me that I could turn the notifications off. I just did. So the only time I’ll be notified is if someone e-mails me there, or one other item. So far, it’s nice an less inbox notices I’ve received. Nice.

Ever wonder if all the people complaining about privacy these days are all ga-ga over Foursquare? Kind of funny how the complaints about online privacy go up, yet the majority of writers out there are going bonkers about how great location everything is. Why does Twitter care? Why does Foursquare care? It’s all about the data. Data is money. The one who has the data at the end of the internet is the big winner.

One thing that people forget about as far as Twitter goes is what you can do with it. I always like reading a well written post by MK, and once again he nails another good read. Not only that, #pdxboom proves that those who are thinking ahead are going to be the ones that really take Twitter and other things to the next level.

What level is that? One that is not thought of yet, or in the early stages in late 2009 or 2010. That level. Those that want to venture out and try something different than the norm. Location everything was not the norm say 18 months ago, yet today it is the norm and becoming even more normal and not so next level anymore.

How many of you like Zemanta? Now that is a service that makes blogging so much easier for lazy non-updating bloggers like I have become. One of the things I do like about blogging here is that more people tend not to read my rambles more than ever before. That’s fine. It seems like the last time I had any readers here was when I offended an entire region or metropolitan area. The best way to tell if you have any real readers is via the comments. If there is a thread of comments, you are doing well. Obviously by the comment streams here, it’s the same six readers that I had back in 2006.

What do you think of work rant blog posts? I was reading one earlier today which reminded me of some items I put up back in 2004 about an old job I had at the time. The person blogging there might put up a work rant blog, on a new domain. We shall see if she decides to roll the dice and have some fun blogging about the weird yet cool experiences she has in her life. Those are usually the best blogs to read as well as the ones that receive the best traffic – and sometimes book deals, etc.

Technically Speaking, March 2010 now has a blog post entry!

SlappedStupid, Where Fun Exists In Every Post, as I alluded to my last post,

I have another site that will soon be resurrected from the “dead“. Look for it soon!

is now back alive – resurrected from the so called internet domain graveyard. You can pick up the RSS here. Read about how you can submit your own funny SlappedStupid items, and follow the twitter @slappedstupid.

Technically Speaking, enjoy!

I re-opened the Embargo Zone as of late yesterday. I had alluded to this in my last post of another PR release I received, and I have been receiving quite a few lately, most I archive/delete, but some I decide to post. Announcements right before Valentine’s Day such as the WooMe announcement, and the Slacker Radio announcement.

Here is how you can submit your PR, announcement, startup, etc… The first post on there is the cross post from this blog. Be sure to follow ‘the zone :) on twitter!

Technically Speaking, I have another site that will soon be resurrected from the “dead“. Look for it soon!

I’m going to re-open the EmbargoZone blog-PR site shortly. But for now, enjoy:

Friendgiftr First to Turn Multiple Social Media Sites Into E-commerce 2.0 Platforms

Friendgiftr first and only company to sell popular brand name gift cards through e-commerce storefront to hundreds of millions of social networking site users

Hollywood, CA. (Feb. 16) — E-commerce 2.0 pioneer and rising star Friendgiftr turned multiple social media websites, including Facebook, MySpace, iGoogle, Ning and Bebo, into commercial marketplaces for the first time with the debut of its new e-commerce storefront application network. Friendgiftr’s one-of-a-kind network is the first and only social media-based online storefront to offer actual purchasable retail and restaurant gift cards to hundreds of millions of social media site users.

Friendgiftr features the nation’s largest collection of gift cards for sale from a single source, with over 120 leading brand names like Gap, Dominos Pizza, Pottery Barn, Starbuck’s, Chili’s, Red Lobster, Regal Cinemas, Barnes & Noble, Applebee’s, Crate & Barrel, Marriott, P.F. Chang’s, Dell, Macy’s, Sephora, L.L. Bean, Banana Republic, and Overstock.com, among others. Through the Friendgiftr application, social media site users can now send gift cards in amounts from $10 to $100 to anyone in their network.

“Introducing our network of gift card storefronts across numerous social networking sites is a game-changing step forward in the commercialization of social media,” commented Rob Carpenter, Friendgiftr CEO. “It’s also a cornerstone of our unique business model. We partner with the companies whose gift cards we sell, which keeps our operating costs minimal, and unlike most web-based start-ups, we have multiple viable revenue streams, including commissions from cards we sell through a growing number of storefronts, slotting fees, advertisements and affiliate marketing programs.”

Another aspect of its unique model is that Friendgiftr is the only gift card merchant to allow card recipients to exchange the card given to them for a card they prefer from any of the merchants Friendgiftr offers, at no charge, and without the buyer knowing. Recipients can even split the gift card amount across multiple merchants’ cards, to make sure they get the gifts they really want. For example, someone who received a $50 Macy’s card can exchange it for a $25 card for Starbuck’s and a $25 card for Chili’s, or five $10 cards from five different stores.

With the simplest user interface of any online gift card source, Friendgiftr lets social media site users buy and send gift cards in just three simple steps: Â select the card and amount, enter the recipient’s name, email and a personalized message, then pay via Friendgiftr’s secure online payment platform.

About Friendgiftr, Inc.

Friendgiftr is the premier digital storefront company currently offering over 120 of America’s favorite retail and restaurant gift cards through its website and social media sites. Friendgiftr won the grand prize prestigious Henry Kravis Award in venture capital and entrepreneurship, and placed first in a VentureBeat.com technology trends competition held at the prestigious DEMO Conference for the concept of merging social networking and e-commerce. Friendgiftr partners with iCard Systems, a leading supplier of electronic and physical gift cards. Headquartered in Hollywood, CA, Friendgiftr is a Rob Carpenter production.

For Immediate Release: February 17, 2010

Contact: Rob Carpenter, (909) 851-8119, rob@friendgiftr.com

Press Info: Kendall Guimond, (909)262-2120, kendall.guimond@allterrain.net

Technically Speaking, look for the re-opening of EmbargoZone soon.

WooMe has a promotion running for Valentine’s day:

For the price of a tweet, WooMe is giving away an e-guide that will allow SINGLES to embrace Valentine’s Day as much as COUPLES do this year by giving them a play-by-play how-to guide on how to score a threesome.

While the rest of the world is focused on glorifying COUPLES this Valentine’s Day, WooMe is highlighting the benefits of being SINGLE by bringing you a how-to guide for a “taboo” practice generally accepted for SINGLES but not for COUPLES (well OK, that’s debatable). Hopefully our guide will allow SINGLES to embrace Valentine’s Day as much as COUPLES do this year! Check out the guide HERE

Valentine’s Day is typically considered a celebration of relationships, love, romance and monogamy throughout the world. COUPLES spend hundreds or even thousands of dollars proving to loved ones, themselves and the world exactly how much they care about their significant others, often showering them with gifts, chocolate, flowers, candy hearts, stuffed animals, overpriced sparkly rocks and cars with giant novelty bows. Unfortunately for SINGLES, Valentine’s Day is yet another reminder of society’s emphasis on relationships and its implicit scorn of the “single lifestyle” which can include dating, partying, casual non-committed relationships or simply enjoying life with a Japanese full-size body pillow.

As a site dedicated to helping people meet other people through LIVE video webcam chat for either long lasting relationships or casual friendships, WooMe.com believes both COUPLES and SINGLES should enjoy Valentine’s Day.

About WooMe

WooMe is the world’s largest in browser voice and video chat site. WooMe users meet live in timed sessions via webcam. Users can simply find a speed session that interest them, join and meet five people in five minutes. WooMe is easy, fast and free, allowing users to meet enw people around any shared interest for fun, too hook up, or for pure entertainment.

Founded in 2006, WooMe is an international company with offices in Los Angeles, San Francisco and London. Investors of the company include: Index Ventures, Atomico Ventures (founded by Niklas Zennstrom and JanusFriis, founders of Skype) and Mangrove Capital Partners. For more information, please visit http://woome.com.

–
@vlectronica on twitter
http://woome.com/vlectronica

WooMe on Facebook http://www.facebook.com/woome
WooMe on twitter: http://twitter.com/woome
WooMe Blog! http://blog.woome.com

Technically Speaking, wondering if I should fire back up the EmbargoZone?

UPDATE: I have FIVE (5) 3 month Slacker’s premium service “Radio Plus” subscriptions to giveaway. If you want one, ping me via DM with your e-mail address!

Received this notice today about a giveaway from Slacker Radio DJs. Here is the deal:

With Valentine’s Day coming I wanted to let you know that Slacker Radio DJs have created a collection of stations that you can listen to on the web or your Palm, iPhone, Android or BlackBerry smartphone. As always with Slacker, if you like a song “heart” it and it will play more often, and if you don’t like it, “ban” it and it will never play again.

Here are a few of the highlighted stations:
Love Songs - http://slacker.com/r/q4Yf
Rock Ballads – http://slacker.com/r/5Kyb
Country Love – http://slacker.com/r/HgZM
Broken Heart – http://slacker.com/r/5Ky5
Metropolitan Mood – http://slacker.com/r/q4Y5

Slacker allows anyone to quickly “save the moment” by playing romantic music wether they are in a restaurant or at home. Also, with Slacker, in a matter of minutes, you can create a custom station based on any artist or number of artists you like and then share that station with the one you love.

Technically Speaking, the person that dropped me this information may have possible giveaway information for Slacker’s premium service “Radio Plus”. Check back later!

Probably because they didn’t put the two commercial actors in a Colts and Saints jersey! Right? Right??? Please tell me this is 2010 and not 1910.

Originally seen here and on this very cool new user submits the story site called iSpotAStory out of NYC (met the brains behind this site when I lived there, glad to see she is really pushing it hard these days!).

CBS rejects ManCrunch.com Superbowl ad.

Technically Speaking, I thought this was America 2010, apparently hate, discrimination, and homophobia all run wild no matter what the news media tells you, even $2.6 million isn’t going to make this commercial air on Super Bowl Sunday!

MyContextualAds has an easy way for you to add a few bucks to your paypal account with their “Twist & Tweet” contest. You just have to tweet like I did here and here.

To participate in this contest, all you need to do is include the #mycontextualads tag in any tweet on Twitter. You can be creative with your tweet or re-tweet our message, it’s entirely upto you!
Don’t forget to follow @mycontextualads to find out if you’ve won!

You can tweet #mycontextualads as often as you like. Each of these tweets will be eligible and the winners chosen will be the top four highest tweeters! It’s as simple as that!

But please, no bots or automated scripts please! This is purely meant for fun and lets keep it that way!

Rules:
1. This competition is offered by Zytes Technologies Inc. (“Zytes”) and is open to anyone with a Twitter account who is at least 16 years of age. Employees and agents of Zytes and/or its affiliated companies and family members of such employees are not eligible to enter.
2. The competition starts on Dec 22nd 2009 and will continue till February 14th 2010
3. To enter the competition you must send out a tweet from your own Twitter account and include “#mycontextualads” in your message. The rest of the message is up to you, and you are welcome to retweet our competition tweet URL. Or just say whatever you feel like. And you don’t have to be a user of MyContextualAds to enter, so no purchase is required.
4. You can tweet as many times as you like (though entries using automated tweets will be disqualified).
5. Winners will be chosen at the end of the contest. Winners will be announced after the close of the contest from the MyContextualAds Twitter account and official blog.
6. 4 grand prizes will be available, one each for US $25
7. The prize money would be sent to the winner’s PayPal account – no other payment mechanisms would be entertained
8. Entrants’ personal details will be used by Zytes strictly in accordance with Zytes’s privacy policy.
9. Neither Zytes nor its affiliated companies shall have any liability for (i) any technical failures of any kind, including but not limited to malfunctions, interruptions or disconnections in phone lines or network hardware or software; (ii) technical or human error which may occur in the administration of the competition; (iii) any malfunction of or damage to the prizes; or (iv) any restrictions or delays imposed by any customs authorities or any import or other taxes of any kind imposed by any taxation authority in respect of the prizes.

Technically Speaking, it’s Friday, why not?

A person I know is selling the following. If you are interested, please contact me for a proper introduction:

1) Ojeez

A social networking system (like Facebook) of enterprise level comprising of profile, search function, blogs, videos, audios, forums application

2) Ecommerce application

State of the art shopping cart system already empowering hundreds of online retail stores.

3) Content management system for websites

An easy to use content management system for managing website page content, publishing, with modules such as FAQ builder, newsletter, dynamic form builder

4) Lead generation system

A marketing/sales CRM type of application that manages contacts, runs campaigns, track results, filter prospects for effective business development

5) Job Portal Application

6) A system like Craigslist

7) MLM backoffice application

Technically Speaking a twitter DM or @ is preferred method of contact. Thanks, and I’ll put you in touch with this person pronto!

Twitter is totally worthless. Won’t make it until next year. Just a flash in the pan.

If it is so worthless, how did the Red Cross become tangled up with such a worthless communication tool? Guess that $10 million isn’t worth anything either in helping victims of this terrible disaster in Haiti? Worthless, flash in the pan, won’t last next year.

Those are direct quotes said to me. While it might be totally worthless to send out your 140 character or less tweet, it appears that those that can think outside the box and utilize it as the tool it can be is making it a difference maker. Who would have thought that something that is nothing more than another communication tool would be the one to rally people around a disaster?

Technically Speaking, those that dismiss technological advancements are the ones resigned to working the jobs that we all hate to say is a job at all.

Facebook is more like a two faced bitch if you ask me. Awhile ago I use to be part of a small Facebook ad network called Lookery. Well even back then, Facebook’s constant rule changes annoyed the hell out our publishers as well as other ad networks we worked with. They were basically a big fat PITA.

Now one of the so called “rules” – or as I like to say – “it’s my ball, and I’ll take it home whenever I damn well please rules” was you can’t pull user info into a banner ad. Like the ones that were quite annoying, but intriguing nevertheless. The ones that said “Your friend Todd Sawicki is now playing Vampires R Us, you should too!” – those ads. Yes, while rather annoying, they made publishers and advertisers a ton of money.

Well a few minutes ago I logged onto my Facebook account. At the top I saw the below banner.

Facebook banned ad networks from running these type of ads, but now they basically steal the idea and put it into play for their own use – what is more annoying – stealing a great idea or first saying it’s illegal and then stealing it and using it for your own use?!

Technically Speaking, if you trust Facebook to do anything but make a ton of money, you really should look a little deeper at what they do. What they do is all for the benefit of Facebook only. Like any good enterprise company should do I suppose. Just drop the act, no one is buying it. You are not a startup. You are full on corporate American greed at it’s finest. Just re-tooled for the internet and 21st century.

Yes, I have been around. Busy, busy. Miss me?

Check out my Tumblr blog

My Twitter stream

My Facebook

AIM (rexdixon2006), Skype(rexdixon1), etc.

Yes, even still keep a MySpace page going.

And somewhere out there I have a Bebo, Hi5, and Friendster account(s)!

Technically Speaking, if you can’t find me, you haven’t tried hard enough – because I’m pretty easy to find! If you didn’t get the GeoCities vibe, you missed the boat sometime back in ’99.

This is a general question out to my readers. How many readers do I have? Probably zero at this point as I have posted very rarely lately, but this is a thought that I think many that work as I do would like an answer too. At least they should have an opinion to share via the comments or in some way? Most of the people I interact with regularly work online either from a shared space office, out of their home, or even 35,000 feet up on some airplane.

How do you hit the OFF switch on your lightbulb? Do you hit the OFF switch? Or are you on 24/7, connected at all time no matter what. iPhone, Black(crack)berry, Macbook only inches from your hands, bluetooth in your ear, while typing in two spots simultaneously! If you are too shy to leave a comment, ping me with @ via twitter or something!

Technically Speaking, I’m back from NYC and the short lived cubicle life, back in the STL for the holidays, and picking up new work for my 2010 dance card.

While I can’t really go into deep details here, the whole NYC experience was a costly yet interesting one. While the sun sets on the bright lights of life in the Big Apple, the twists and turns somehow end up working out. Note: The track that is auto-playing is “Little Wonders by Rob Thomas”; video at the end of the post. I feel the lyrics sum things up rather well at this time.

Sure, I will miss the location of living across the street and around the corner from the places where NYPD rolls on a call, as well as the views, I won’t miss other aspects of living in NYC.

If nothing else, I can always say that at one time, for 6 weeks, I lived right next door to the Empire State Building. I walked the streets at night exploring the neighborhood.

While for some people that love the whole NYC experience, such as my buddy in Chicago who loves brick and subways, I’m more of surfer dude and always have been.

Technically Speaking, while I wish that the whole situation in NYC would have been fully resolved and I could talk more about it openly, I just wanted to update everyone – as well as say – Happy Thanksgiving week! If you want more details, just ask me directly and I can provide them privately. I hope you know what you are thankful for. I sure have a lot to be thankful for this past year.

One last thing I want to share with those that have given me the crazy eye about my definition of a nice lawn – not so crazy am I? :)

Little Wonders by Rob Thomas

First week in NYC – moving, living, learning and becoming acclimated at least with the bars in the neighborhood!

Ate this for lunch on Saturday…

On a walk around the neighborhood I live in on Saturday night…

Technically Speaking, I now live in NYC, and this was the first week.

So glad that there are pro’s around that take the time to do decent LoFi videos. If you follow me on twitter you have already seen these links, but figured I’d put all the videos in one post for you to view.

It was a decently attended show especially when you consider that there were two major mainstream artists in concert that night at Verizon and ScottTrade (CrueFest 2 and Green Day). That is probably about ~30,000 people spending concert money alone that night! Sorry, no videos of the opening local band – 714 or 715.

Supe – openers on the hed to head tour – from Tokyo, Japan!

Straight line Stitch – bad video, decent band.

Mushroomhead – you can tell they have been around for a bit, true pros at putting on a show you will remember!

These two were shot with a different camera, not the flipcam like the other videos.

(hed) p.e. – these guys are fun to see live, and they pull no punches on their political agenda, and are old pro’s like the other head in hed to head tour!

Technically Speaking – That is it! Wish I had better videos, but doing this for fun, not a pro like Bill Streeter and LoFiSTL. This was a totally true LoFiRexDixon bootleg production. Enjoy!

The news of the moment is that Twitter has been officially down for about 1.5 hours now, and looks like Facebook has suffered it’s own meltdown.

MySpace however seems to be rockin’ right along just fine. I haven’t checked any of the other social net’s – but it seems that out of the big two, the one that everyone has abandoned seems to be working just fine. A little too messy looking still, but hopefully in time the new leadership sees the error of the past administration that was in charge there.

It does bring up an interesting thought of maybe just possibly the social net revolution isn’t over quite yet. Stay tuned for sure, as with this mornings meltdown and people that can get in to update their fb status, all are crying that Twitter is down. Now I’m sure once everyone wakes up and the services come back, there will be a lot of analysis of this event.

Technically Speaking, a new social world is in order about right now; well if someone can tune the cloud, but as someone once already stated “You can tune a piano, but you can’t tuna fish!” >:-?

It looks like one of the leaders of the podcasting, blogging, videocasting movement if you will has decided earlier today that he had enough. He paid someone to trim his stream to a trickle. That almost sounds like a cheap porn movie title. In reality the stream became Scoble’s porn. He was addicted to it. Blogging, Podcasting, Videocasting, Twitter, Friendfeed, Area 51! Er, Building43! I think you get my point. Someone who has made his livlihood by living in the stream, drinking from the stream, has declared stream bankruptcy.

I saw that coming though. While certain people like Marshall will never unfollow you, there are others like me who have taken smaller drinks from the stream known as twitter, Friendfeed, blogging, podcasting, and videocasting. Sorry, no Area 51 for the moment for me! I’ve come to find that my current ratio of follow to followers keeps things interesting enough, yet not overwhelming. It also keeps my stream a worthwhile pursuit vs a living daily nightmare to even look at or make any sense of.

The bigger picture of course is the graphic I found earlier today on Seth’s site this morning. That is the question of the moment more important than any stream trickle trick. The main question that is brought up while we are in this downturn time we live in is where do we go from here. He laid it out in a very simple graphic on two axis that made sense. We see what works. We also see what takes longer to work and requires more work to get there. Twitter is something that worked due to Scoble and some of the early believers in it. They kept squirting their stream all over everyone, every single moment, every single day – until you just had to try it!

Technically Speaking, with Seth’s graphic from this morning in mind – A television show about a book reader that likes to IM his or her friends, while occasionally e-mailing a mysterious person they saw at the movies last weekend while they were tweeting someone from their cell phone and watching cable news and blogging their reaction to it – should go over like gangbusters! Wait for it… Wait for it…. >:-?

After I posted my last on the RiverCity Rage being in the IFL Championship game, I was poking around on KSDK to see if they had anymore news or articles on the Rage. I was impressed to find that they have a Minor League sports page!

Wow! I was thinking “they must have them listed here“. Nope. If you want a good laugh and to show you how out of touch the sports departments are concerning coverage of minor league sports in the supposed city that is known for it’s sports (that would be the big STL) – click on the STL SkyHawks for that example!

Don’t you love it? A link to a minor league basketball team that is some page not related to that team. Looks to be a splog. Yet, where is the link to the minor league indoor football team – the RiverCity Rage? I didn’t even bother to see if the other links work.

I thought the STL liked it’s sports championship caliber teams? No matter if it is pro, college or even high school. I guess the exception to that rule comes when it it’s a winning football team, yes indoor football is different, but I find it enjoyable to watch. Hey – when you consider the debacle we have had to watch as a football fan in the STL for the past few years with our supposed major league NFL representation, the Rage actually do things well on the field. Plus they win when it counts – the playoffs!

Technically Speaking, doesn’t surprise me one bit, as KSDK’s site has to be the most supposedly updated yet archaic example of good web design – they still have pop under ads as an example of what I mean, which annoys me to no end. When did that advertising trend end? Like 2002?