Rev2.org

This is one of the oddly handsome organizers of the exceptional conference I recently attended last weekend in Jacksonville, Fl.  I would have put a photo of them both up, but I am uncertain they would both fit on the page.

LessConf was an idea conceptualized by Allan Branch (pictured to the right) and Steven Bristol.  Both are extraordinary Ruby on Rails programmers, making some of the webs simplest apps.  You can find them both on www.lesseverything.com.  Within a month or so, they managed to put together one of the most informative conferences I have attended in the recent years.

One of the things I truly dislike about some events, are the speaker lineups.  Many of the speakers are usually just chums with the organizer, and kind of get to speak out of friendship.  This was certainly not the case at www.lessconference.com.  The lineup was purely picked on knowledge and interest alone.  Personally there was only one speech I got bored of and walked out on, to catch up on some work.  Other than this one, each speaker taught me something that I can take back to my own business.

Since I do not want to point out this one speaker, I will try not to mention all the others I enjoyed, so that there is still some space for mystery.  Des Traynor and Eoghan (pronounced Owen) McCabe from Contrast.ie blew me away.  Their speech was entitled How to be awesome!, and after about 117 slides, I felt like even I could make things on my site more awesome.  These two guys and their company are on the list of guys to keep an eye on.  I am pretty sure you will be hearing about their accomplishments in the news often.

Although I have seen Mike McDerment from Freshbooks speak at what seems like every conference, each time I hear him I am reminded why his company is such a success. If there is one single company I could point to, who get customer service and retention, it would have to be Freshbooks.  Each time I hear about things they did for their customers, it just blows me away.  You can read some of their antics here.

One of the sponsors, Storenvy, also managed to show us how innovation is still alive.  Their new site enables anybody who wants to sell t-shits the ability have their own store and sell their products free of charge.  Cannot wait to try this out.

Allan and Steve, I am utterly amazed that you were able to pick a lineup that was so perfect for the crowd.  There was minimal self promotion from the speakers and the crowd, and it just make for a marvelous weekend.  Haven’t questioned myself once for taking the trek all the way up there.  Would gladly do it again, and I look forward to next years events.

Built on Ruby on Rails, Fedena is an open source school or campus management system meant as a solution for management-related issues at schools.  These include student databases, activity calendars, staff databases, etc.  The project is aimed at lowering technical costs for schools while providing them with the software needed to manage their needs efficiently.

Fedena was built and is maintained and coordinated by Foradian Technologies, a Mangalore, India company.  The concept began in 2008.

The site itself is simple and functions as an ERP for schools.  Most small campuses, private schools, and so forth will likely find something useful with Fedena, but the app is basically a beta offering that doesn’t have full functionality everywhere you’d expect.  It is free, however, and it appears Foradian plans to monetize it through value added services like phone support, online hosting for schools that don’t have their own, and possibly through some premium offers forthcoming.

The site has a relatively active community, for being so new to the Web.  Message boards with information relating to education, using the software, technical questions, etc. can be found there.

Overall, I would say that this is a good idea and probably something for which there is some need.  The question is whether this is really the solution for it.  At this stage, I’d have to honestly say that it isn’t because it still appears very much to be in its infancy.  Much of the website links to “Coming Soon” pages with little facts and the login process and approval appears manual.

Worth looking at and maybe useful to very small institutions or related groups, but for the most part it’s probably going to need some time to get up to enough functionality to really be useful for most.

Or maybe it’ll be to “engage semantic platforms.”  All of this depends on your particular needs when it comes to creating your new startup’s press release/business plan/mission statement mashup.  This is normally a tiring, harsh, and often a long-weekend workup for most entrepreneurs.

Now, you guessed it, there’s an app for that.

It’s called the Web 2.0 Bullshit Generator™ and it comes to you courtesy of emptybottle.org.

The author says it’s an update of the old favorite Web Economy Bullshit Generator from dack.com.  Updated with a new look, more current jargon, and a brighter smile.  The author even went so far as to give you full, step-by-step instructions on how to use the Web 2.0 B.S. Generator to make your Business Plan in 8 easy steps.

He includes links to useful tools like the Buzzphrase Generator and Dot-o-mator’s Web 2.0 Name Generator, and more.

So, using his formula, since I had some spare time on my hands, I came up with a great new startup that is now pending trademark and domain registration as I type.  Here’s my new Business Plan:

Startup Name (and .biz): Demilith

Mission Statement: Demilith has a two-fold mission: to design authentic weblogs and incentivize blogging value.  Through both avenues, the company will engage dynamic platforms as we reinvent Cluetrain networking.  As our blog begins to beta-test rich-client wikis, we will enable viral network effects by working with our partners to design citizen-media feeds.

With the dynamics therein, Demilith hopes to post embedded Web services while simultaneously working to integrate dynamic Web services to create a disintermediate peer-to-peer value.  The synergies thus created will remix social communities in a new way by building a shared user-centered API.

What do you think?  Is Demilith on the fast-track or what?  I’ve got my guy working on the logo right now.  We should be meeting with some angel investors sometime next week.  Tweet ya later.

Sounds goofy, doesn’t it?  But all of us, thanks to the fast-moving and engaging world of social media we exist in today, don’t always have the email addresses of all of our friends and contacts.  Maybe you got the latest joke in your inbox and you want to share it with your tweeps?  That’s where Moomeo.com comes in.

Somehow a moose works into all of this.  That part I haven’t figured out.  What I have figured out is how useful this (free) service can be.  Here’s how it works.

First, you send or forward the email you want to share to the Moomeo address (post@moomeo.com).  This will be responded to with a link in your inbox.  That link can be shared on any social networking platform like Facebook or Twitter, just like any other link.  When your friends click it, they are taken to a page that displays your email.  Easy!

The site was formed, the About page says, to facilitate the sharing of a great money-making opportunity from Nigeria that the two creators had received.

Joking aside, though, the site is a pretty cool service.  Email addresses are scanned for and removed from the email to be displayed on the Web.  There’s no registration needed and no cost.  Most attachments are supported, so your PowerPoint or photos will be included.  The post’s owner, along with the link to the email for sharing, is also given a link where you can go to disable the post (delete it) from Moomeo.

This is definitely a worthwhile idea and a great site.  Still no explanation what the moose is all about, though.

If you’re idea of great pizza starts with a “D” or has the word “Hut” in it, then you probably don’t need to read any further.  On the other hand, if your pizza requires a stone oven, charcoal grill, or something other than a conveyor belt with a heat source, then you’ll be interested in this.

Whether you own the restaurant or you frequent pizza joints, you probably have things you think could improve or are wondering how great your favorite pie really is.  Enter thePizzaExperts.com.

Building on the unexpected huge popularity of his blog, WorstPizza.com, Lapp (our editor) decided to move things to the next level.  He and his crew got so many questions from restaurants they’d visited and reviewed that he decided there must be a need for real, independent, critique and review of pizza.

The group offers consulting on website development and design for pizza restaurants, as well as marketing setups through their affiliated sites PizzaTweetup.com and WorstPizza.com.  They also offer, of course, fair and unbiased critique of the pizza offered by the restaurant, including what can improve as well as what’s being done right.

This is a very unique idea and is niche-marketing at its finest, I think.  The combination of IT development, social marketing, and expertise in pizza is unusual, so this idea would be hard to copy and beat.  Definitely a good one.

Many people like the idea of taking popular songs and adding their own video or photos to them to create their own music video.  These fill YouTube, Vimeo and similar sites and are, generally, a violation of the Terms of Service of those sites as well as copyright laws.  Sites that offer the music legally along with easy, Web-based tools for building videos have caught on, especially Animoto.

ClipGenerator.com is another of these sites and it has some things that could give Animoto a run for its money.  First and foremost, it’s faster and easier to use.  The music selection is roughly the same (mostly Sony/BMG and Universal artists) and caters heavily towards Top 40 and hip-hop.  The song’s title and info are displayed along with (C) info, meeting both YouTube and MetaCafe’s ToS requirements.

The videos also include advertising, of course, which is how ClipGenerator makes their money and pays for those song royalties.

The effect sequences and setups are about what you expect from these kinds of pop culture sites.  Some are kind of nice and very well done while others are just sort of, well, poppy.

You begin ClipGenerator by choosing music.  The songs are organized by category and artist and you can preview the song while watching a demo clip (made up of other people’s clips using that track, or generics).  Once you’ve chosen your song, you accept the usage terms for photos (ownership, content, etc.) and then you can begin embedding your pics.

These can come from your hard drive, Flickr, Picasa, Photobucket, Smugmug, Facebook and more.  You can also directly link your Web cam for pics or video clips.  You can put in up to 8 items for free, but must pay for more than that.  Then your video is compiled with the photos and Webcam shots being inserted and animated to match the music.

You can then link or download it to post to YouTube, Myspace, and other sites.

It’s fun to play with ClipGenerator, but it’s not something you’d use for your professional website or business, obviously.