Adam-Jackson

I have a couple of things to say about the SXSW PanelPicker and how it kinda ruins things. It’s easy for me to spam my Twitter followers and ask them to vote for something caught my eye on this page. It turns out that only 30% of the overall votes on the PanelPicker actually weigh in on the consideration of that panel being selected. The rest is decided by SXSW Staff and an Advisory Board of experts. This makes sense and I’m extremely happy to hear it.

Every year, SXSW voting opens up at the end of August and soon everyone is flooding Twitter with their links to vote for them and it ultimately results in just a ton of noise. Yes I’ll be contributing to this a bit but not an insane amount of noise, just a tweet every couple of days for the week that voting is open but it’ll be something where I just remember to tweet it and will because there’s no science to being chosen.

Additionally, people that win the popularity aspect of SXSW Panel judging are usually the people that are popular. When you’re popular, you get more votes and that’s how it was in high school and how it will be for the rest of our lives. Even the 80 year old man in the retirement home will get that bowl of Jell-O before you because he was an Iraq War veteran and had a heart transplant from a 25 year old. I’m happy to see that the popular kids aren’t the only votes that weigh in because it would be tons of the same cool kids that get to do everything.

I was told last year that if you want to have a panel, just invite all of the coolest people to be on it and those with the most Twitter followers. The guy that told me this wasn’t popular at all but he managed to get those people to join his panel but he still didn’t get in because it all comes down to quality and what the Staff+Advisory Board think. If your panel gets 50 thousand votes, you could still not get your panel chosen.

This tweet from Sean Percival was perfect. (ps look at the link)

“Please vote for my panel at SXSW “How to Annoy Your Friends with Social Media Pestering to Vote for Your SXSW Panel” http://is.not.good/uhh”

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For the first time in 3 years, I was finally chosen as a qualifier to be in the PanelPicker which means it’s still up to votes, staff and the advisory board for my talk to be chosen. I won’t be getting paid by SXSW but I will get a free badge as a thank you which is around a $400 value. Below are the details of my SXSW Panel.

You’re on Camera. Live-Streaming Everything!

Your vote: Yes No

Event: Interactive 2010

Level: Intermediate

Type: Solo

Category: Accessibility / Web Standards, Cloud Storage / Delivery, Community / Online Community, Digital Filmmaking, Online Video

Organizer: Adam Jackson, OurBlock, Inc.

Questions:

1. How many devices are out there to record me and push it to the web in real time?
2. What’s the difference between government and citizen journalism?
3. What are the most popular ways to get footage online?
4. Video of me is online. What can I do about it?
5. How can I take control of what goes online?
6. What’s the benefit of streaming video to the web?
7. What hardware & software do I need to become the filmmaker
8. What’s the line between big brother and safety?

Description: You’re on camera everywhere you go. Cell phones, webcams, CCTV and surveillance. Where is the footage going and who’s holding the key? Let’s open the footage and make it public.

That’s the basics but to explain myself a bit more. I spent months researching camera technology, who owns footage and who the key players are in recording our lives. I also spent a great deal of time researching camera and broadcasting technologies and applied this knowledge to launching AdamsBlock. I have helped the OurBlock guys in the past but my knowledge of this subject would be a great addition to SXSW 2010 and I think is interesting beyond the typical social media panels.

You can vote for this panel RIGHT HERE but trust me when I say that my 100 votes won’t matter if the judges think it’s a stupid idea. Thanks everyone for your support.

I’ll be 23 on August 26th. I’m not having a party. In fact, I’m going to work and will probably be working late. I don’t want any cards or gifts but if you’re committed to giving me something, I want it to be a donation to a charity.

Since I was a young boy, my Dad always told me and his students to not give him gifts. Instead, he wanted us to spend the money on a charity foundation that is helping the Earth to be a better place. This is my request to you. I’m a year older but I don’t want any gifts.

A month ago, I wrote a blog post that discussed The Uncultured Project. I’ve copied the text below. DONATE TO THIS PROJECT because it’s the best group who is actually putting the money to good and that means all 100% of the money is going to good! It’s one guy and a video camera and you need to give to him so he can keep funding relief efforts for people in 3rd world countries. Please read the text below.

I’m in awe after my friend sent me a link to a video of a man who is truly making a difference. It’s amazing how we tend to boost our ego or make ourselves feel better by saying that we’re charitable or “green” or care about our Earth and its inhabitants but we’re doing the bare minimum. I donate money & time once a month to help people in my community. It’s not as much as I used to do before truly becoming incredibly busy but I can say that I’m not ignoring the state of our world and little things do make a difference. There’s a man who is doing something that I’ve only dreamed of and he’s proved to me that big change is possible even on a small level. Please watch the video below.

Shawn left his middle-class American lifestyle and didn’t start a blog or picking up trash in his neighborhood and he didn’t petition for homeless programs in his area which, in my opinion is easy work that every single person should do. Shawn actually purchased a one-way ticket to Bangladesh and used his savings to truly make a difference. His project is called “Uncultured” and it’s not a non-profit, it’s not a corporation. It’s a project started by one guy and supported by one guy with donations from people like us. Instead of our donations going to a huge non-profit where 75% of the money goes to “operating expenses” and the other 25% is diluted and spread around the world, the donations to Uncultured go to people and Shawn posts video online of your donations going to buy food and supplies for real people.

What an amazing concept brought to us by The Internet. I give $50 and Shawn films that money being converted into relief supplies for people affected by natural disasters & poverty and puts it on the web. This concept is powerful, beautiful and extraordinary. Shawn, hat-tip to you and I’m sending you a virtual pat on the back for starting something amazing.

Below are links to learn more about Uncultured and I hope you can find $10 a month to donate as a recurring payment. Teachers in Bangladesh make no more than $13 US Dollars teaching kids so every dollar can go a long way!

• Twitter
• About
• Homepage
• YouTube
• Flickr
• Facebook
• DONATE

Before reading this post. Read this first.

On August 26th, 2009, I will turn 23 years old. This is when things really start to set in. For the first 22 years of my life I was just screwing around but now it’s time to think big and focus on something awesome. What’s amazing about this game of life is that I’ve been rolling the dice since I was young. I started blogging 9.5 years ago when I was only 12 years old and no one gave a crap what I had to say but I was out there and loving it. At the age of 16, after blogging for 4 years and making money on advertising sales, I saved enough money to fly to New York for Macworld Expo. In the same year I flew to Boston for Macworld Expo and 6 months later I made it to San Francisco for Macworld Expo. That was the beginning of my career in technology and it wasn’t long before I was being asked to speak and lend expert insight into emerging trends and new products. I went to Macworld 9 times, CES twice and spoke at many Florida based tech conferences and began making real money from it.

Today I posted to Twitter that I was turning 23 and 25% of the responses were inquisitive, “you’re only 23!?!?” That made me laugh a bit but it’s true and I have a little secret to share. When I was 17, I threw my first party at Macworld San Francisco. It was a nightclub called Liquid and I put down 2 grand to secure the spot, got sponsors and had over 150 people show up. In 2007, I hosted 3 parties that week and I was still only 20 years old that year. My Macworld parties weren’t the largest or coolest but they were the most fun and my inspiration was that I simply wanted to be able to drink an was tired of being carded at places. The beauty of it was that I could throw a party and make the bar well over $15K and they never asked to see an ID because, “who the hell throws a party at 17 years old where they rent out an entire club?” It also helped that I have always looked older than I really am.

Despite going to school 7 hours a day and then coming home to work an additional 8 hours a night on the computer, I still wasn’t making the headway I wanted. The reason was that no one gave a crap what a 16-19 year old kid has to say. I was a little kid that had passion, commitment and insight but the age thing really put a stop to just how far I could go. I didn’t come from a rich family. My mom worked for the post office and my dad at a health club and they did all that they could to support my very expensive technology habit and trips but it was up to me to make something of it.

When I turned 21, it was off to San Francisco to rent a house and live. That was a scary journey but a successful one. When you’re 22, it’s a great thing because you’re now one year in to drinking age. At 21, you’re still a baby but at 22, you’ve been drinking a year and you’re usually out of college so people look at you differently and I enjoyed the benefits. 23 isn’t “old” but it’s a normal thing. Every birthday is a big deal until your 23rd when you’re just turning 23 and that’s it. Having never lived to 23 before, I may be in for a treat but my bet is that it will come and go and soon I’ll be 24 which will roll into 25 which will roll into 30. I have low expectations for the next few years as far as fanfare goes but what is guaranteed is that I will succeed at something because I have what it takes and amazing friends & family who back me up on everything. I love you guys and owe you everything!

My blog entry honestly has no focus or point but it’s just a few random thoughts attached in a single post to inform and confuse. it’s a sign that I’m getting older that I canceled my first vacation in a very long time. I’ve never traveled anywhere for vacation. It’s always been a business expense to a conference or meeting. I planned on going to Burning Man this year and even got a ticket and booked a van but the event is 4 days after my birthday and I’m not going to go. Why? Because my new project has a deadline and taking a vacation would ultimately ruin it and delay it and thus criple a project that I’ve been working on for over a year. This is what some people call sacrifice but I call it progress. My constant fear is that I’ll be 40 and still continue cancelling vacations, trips and joy-rides. Life should be a joy-ride but I don’t know what I would do if I took one. If I took a joy ride, what would I be doing? Responding to emails, making calls and making sure my projects are going smoothly but I only have myself to blame.

One thing that I haven’t mastered yet is delegation. It’s the reason why I didn’t enjoy my time while working at Apple computer and something I had to quickly evolve into when working as a dispatcher / lead administrator for an IT company. Delegate is a big issue for me and on every single one of my projects, there’s not a single person I can trust to take care of things for one day. This leads to me exhausting myself and sometimes even dropping projects. I have high expectations for people and they always end up disappointing me and maybe I suck at hiring or maybe I just can’t find someone that truly fits my high standards.

Another sign that I’m getting older would be my complete focus and sometimes distracting mindset of missing my family. My entire family lived within a one hour radius of my home in Florida. My great great grandmother was alive until just a few months ago when she died at the age of 104. I have over 30 1st & 2nd cousins and over 100 family members that I know closely. They’re all in Florida and I’m here. It’s hard to hear that my sister is going into high school and the other is starting middle school. It’s difficult to hear my Mom may be remarrying and my Dad is embarking on a new business and I’m not there to help him. My cousins are getting married, having children and I haven’t seen half of my family in over 2 years. Family has become so important to me but I’m thousands of miles away and make no effort to call them or visit them. Well I make an effort to visit my immediately family but money and deadlines are always getting in the way. I let them get in the way and it’s my fault but at 23, I should be more responsible to my family and I want to be but I have this need to accomplish more and more and eats me away.

Dad, I know you don’t read this blog but I love you and I miss my sister and I miss helping you teach and take out the garbage. I miss my room and talking about philosophy until 2AM and our midnight weapons training sessions in the back yard and rolling out of bed at 7AM to see you’ve made green tea and eggs for us to share before I go to work. I miss our workouts, surfing sessions and training. It’s hard as hell to not have you nearby and there are some days where I want to come home, give up this dream of changing the world and just give you and the girls a hug. It’s hard but I press on because I dream of one day buying you and mom a home, paying for my sisters to go to college and buying you a dojo that is deserving of your martial art and your commitment to training everyone you can, even if they can’t pay for lessons. I love you that much that I will spend a life time in San Francisco in my 150 square foot apartment sacrificing everything so I can make that million dollars to take care of you. This has and will be my goal for a long time and that’s what I want for you guys.

I dream of one day changing the world but age is always holding me back so luckily, I get older and people respect me more and I make more money and am given more responsibility. This is a good thing and I’m happy that age is helping me achieve my goals. Without growing older, I would have never broken out of that teen blogger label and some kid who goes to tech conferences instead of spring break like he should.

Then again, age is also the enemy. I would never pause time and disobey nature so I could be 22 forever but I’m constantly reminding that the only constant is change and everything is a circle. One day my mom and dad will pass away and it will just be me. At that time, I’ll have about 20 years left on my life and I too will die and that’s life. I was taught as a young kid to never have regrets or be unhappy with your situation. You are in control of your own destiny and suffering is self-inflicted. A life of suffering can be changed and I should always be happy and thankful for what I have.

I am truly happy with my location, mindset, age and progress in life. I have accomplished so much as a 22 year old guy from farm country and I have so much more to contribute. it’s crazy because I’ve actually had dreams of doing something big and I’ve been doing big things for the past 10 years (since I was 12) so now I feel like I’m 10 years into this game but honestly, people think I’m just getting started. I have people either think I’m 27 years old and have accomplished so much or that I’m 22 and I just got out of college and am just a big dreamer. Actually, I started at the age of 12 and have been working my ass off since then to do something amazing and I’m finally achieving success and I’m completely happy.

One thing that has bothered me lately that I’m trying to ignore is my current personal life. Business is always going to be successful for me. I will always succeed at something if there’s a dollar sign attached to it. That’s how I function and how I live. What is bothering me is Laura. Before I begin, Laura is the most amazing thing that has happened to me right behind my Father who is responsible for every bit of success in my life. His teachings and drive made me who I am today but Laura has been my co-pilot. Dad has been my drill sergeant but Laura was riding shotgun during my entire professional life. I met her shortly after turning 19 and now I’m about to turn 23 and she’s still with me. She doesn’t wait on me like a maid and nor do I cater to her every need. We never argue, we always see eye to eye and every night we go to sleep with a kiss and a simple “I love you”. Her love for me and who I am is beyond anything I could ever ask for. I am the happiest when I’m with her and she makes up for every ounce of my shortcomings.

I have never known another person that was so supportive of everything. I asked her to give up a great job in Florida and move to San Francisco where I put her in a 150 square foot studio apartment in the worst part of the city and every day she wakes up with a smile and offers to make breakfast. I ask her to do anything for me and she never says “no” but our relationship is equal. I acknowledge that she has sacrificed more for me than anyone in my adult life and I know for sure that I will spend the rest of my life with her. I can wake up to her every morning and never be sad and I know she and I will make a beautiful child one day and she’s going to be the most loving mother ever. My Mom was never a winner when it came to raising kids. I’m happy to report that Laura is going to have the best relationship with her child and I’ll be there to teach him or her everything I know and show my child just how beautiful our world is and how you have to appreciate and love all things because they’re all a part of you. I trust Laura with everything and would sacrifice myself to save her life because she has so much to offer this world and she’s still so young.

On the other hand, it’s important to address my inner feelings and i address these best in a public forum.

I recommend you read this blog post from me. You won’t appreciate the rest of this post without reading it.

I have regrets that I’m settling down too soon. What’s interesting is that I don’t care if I settle down and even if I was freed from the grips of a life partner, nothing would change. I’ve only dated two women in my life. I’ve only had sex with 3 women and yeah I’m a 22 year old male who, in my opinion, has a chance of having sex with more than 3 women in his lifetime. The thing is, I physically don’t care. I don’t want to have sex with everyone. I don’t even like sex! The point is, I want to make sure I didn’t miss out on anything. I want to make sure that when I’m 40 I have stories to tell. War stories of crazy girls, wild parties, trips around the world and nights where I woke up not knowing where I was. I want to be free to have a one night stand because I’ve never had one before and hopefully life to tell the tale of how awesome it was or maybe how not awesome it was. I want to try different cocktails, meet people from all around the world and not have a woman at home waiting up for me. The thing is, I love having that comfort.

Is this what all men at 22-23 years old go through? Nearly every guy I went to school with has just spent their last 4 years in college partying and living it up and many more will party for another 2-3 years before settling down. Nearly every person I know in tech / San Francisco is still single in their 30s and they appear to be loving life. I meet guys who have started and sold companies and now at 35 they’re ready to find someone to settle down with. Am I making a mistake? I don’t honestly want to date girls and force myself to have sex with them nor do I want to wake up with a hangover or having made mistakes that I’ll regret for life but there aren’t any romantic comedies that involve a 23 year old guy and his love for a woman. That stuff is reserved for late 20s and the 23 year old guys are always in movies set in vegas or some wild night like “dude where’s my car”

Hell I haven’t even done drugs before or traveled just for the hell of it or talked to a girl at random and got her number or gone out and tried to pick up girls. I never have but I also don’t really have an intention to. I love having Laura and focusing on these projects but I honestly feel empty because I haven’t lived. My Dad might read this and say that I’m happy so why should I try to be someone I’m not but then again, hey may say that I am too young and I haven’t actually lived out my life yet so I need to explore and enjoy before settling down.

What’s so amazing about Laura is she would look at me with tears in her eyes and say, “let’s split up so you can be young. I’ll wait for you and when you’ve explored, traveled and had your fun, we can get back together and have a child.” She’ll be 27 in April and I’ll still be 23 so her words would be honest, truthful and full of love but I can’t do that. I can’t throw away the most trust worthy and committed person in my life just so I can find out what it’s like to be 22 and actually enjoy my 20s like a normal 20 year old. But then again, I can’t force myself to be a 30 year old and ready to have a kid. I wanted to get married when I was 30 and have a kid when I was 35. Laura will be 34 by then and 39 when I am ready to have kids. I can’t do that to her.

I’m one year older and age can’t come soon enough from a professional standpoint but not a day goes by where I don’t wish I was enjoying life instead of working all of the god damn time. I end this blog entry with a question….

If you had the most amazing woman in the world and the most amazing career but feel that you matured before your time, would you throw it all away to live life to the fullest or stay the course with a chance of regretting your path later in life?

I’m 23. I feel like I’m 30 and I wish I was still 21. Looks like I’m falling into the typical middle class profile and I need to buck up and enjoy life because it’ll be over before I know it and stop being such a whiny bitch. It’s confusing and this blog entry was a waste of time.

When I started using Twitter (December, 2006), there was a feature added shortly after I started called “Track”. When it was released, I immediately added unlimited SMS to my mobile phone. Twitter explains it in this blog post from September, 2007 but Justine Ezarik really explains it the best in this blog post (copied below).

I’ve avidly been using this new feature on twitter called ‘twitter tracking’. Basically, you can choose any word or phrase to atomically search the public timeline and then have it filtered directly to your phone.

I’ve found it most useful tracking @ijustine and ijustine (or for you, track yourself). Anytime anyone twitters my screen name, it’s sent directly to my phone via SMS. Beautiful! It’ll constantly keep you in the loop even while away from your computer — which is ultimately the main goal of twitter.

A few of my other favorites to track is “Steve Jobs”, “overheard” and “Pittsburgh”. While in Dallas last week, I added “Dallas” to my list of words to track. I was quite surprised find a lot of fellow twitters stuck in Dallas traffic. You’d be amazed at what you might find.

How do you set it up? It’s quite simple! You’ll just need to set up twitter on your mobile device and then send track whatever you want to track here to twitter’s short code 40404. That’s it! Happy tracking.

Track was a very cool feature. Long before there were iPhone or Blackberry apps and long before tracking replies was easy, we had Track and it was my favorite feature. Well, when Twitter was having a ton of downtime issues in 2008, they removed Track with a blog post that sounded like it was coming back soon. Of course, it’s August of 2009 (1.5 years after removing the feature) and Track has yet to re-appear.

When Apple announced Push Notifications for the iPhone in June 2008 (finally releasing them in June 2009) I was stoked because it wouldn’t take very long before an app developer used this to notify me of Replies. Boxcar was the first app that did this right and I’m stoked but have some concerns.

Boxcar will notify you with an SMS style notification when someone replies or DMs you. You can disable the DM notifications if you would rather get actual text messages. I prefer this method because AT&T service is crap and I get SMS no matter what but a push notification requires an Internet connection which wouldn’t work if in an elevator or basically anywhere in San Francisco. Additionally, I usually DM people using SMS anyway by sending, “D USERNAME MESSAGE” and it goes through even with very limited cell signal.

Boxcar is $2.99 which is steep for a single purpose application. My justification is that push notifications require the app developer run a server that negotiates with Apple and that server costs money. My $2.99 pays for the app and server to push the notifications so that’s valuable to me. What does bother me though is when I buy an application, the developer isn’t required to keep that server up forever. If he decides to take the serve down and pull the app in 60 days, my $2.99 is useless since this app’s only purpose is for push notifications.

Another shortfall of Boxcar is that it only sends replies and DMs. The beauty of Twitter Track is that I could track ANYTHING! I could send an SMS to 40404 (Twitter) that says, “Track iPhone” and soon I’d get an SMS update for every mention of iPhone. or I could stalk people replying to my girlfriend (which I’m guilty of doing) but Boxcar doesn’t allow me to do that. It would be great to also enter keywords and have Boxcar notify me of those as well.

Boxcar works great though. I have it set to notify me of replies, when I unlock the iPhone, Tweetie opens automatically ( you can choose a few different apps depending on what you have installed) but when Tweetie opens it doesn’t open a reply automatically. Once Tweetie opens, I have to click, “Replies” and then reply to that person.

Boxcar doesn’t work when EDGE or 3G is Unavailable so it’s very dependent on your Internet connection unless you have Wi-Fi. The app is easy to configure and easy to use for a single purpose app. Of course, I don’t think the dominance of this app will last for long once the more popular apps like Tweetie, Birdfeed and Twittelator add the feature themselves as a value add but for now I’m happy with Boxcar and would recommend it for power Twitter users that want a little bit more power, notifications and those that loved Twitter Track back in 2007 and want a bit of that feature back (even if it’s limited and relies on an Internet connection).

Search The app store for Boxcar to download this app and check out more details. This review also covers the app and its features in picture form. I’m lazy so won’t be taking photos for this blog post.

I very rarely write blog posts like this. It’s long and self-serving but maybe someone out there will enjoy reading it.

Ever had a moment, day, week or year that you think, “My Mom would be proud!”? Well, that’s how it was this weekend and I’d thought it was fitting to share it here and also share it with my Mom & Dad. For the record, this weekend wasn’t that much different or more amazing than most of my experiences since moving to San Francisco and pursuing my dream but I rarely stop to smell the roses and reflect in this manner.

I do reflect from a spiritual standpoint every morning as my Father has taught me throughout the last 22 years but the “reflection” on the past few days is a bit self-centered or absorbed than I’d usually share publicly but what the hell. Back in June when I was lucky enough to be first in line for the iPhone 3GS (Blogged here), the press coverage was insane! The past week wasn’t about press coverage but was about meeting new people and having incredible experiences.

The awesome week started on Wednesday when I worked from 6AM-3PM and took the rest of the day off to prepare for 5 days of traveling. At 3, I went to The Creamery with coffee with Lara Long who is starting a social media outreach program for a non-profit. I was as helpful as possible but she had some awesome ideas. We both left the meeting feeling equally as inspired about marketing in this new world of online media. After that, I had coffee with a woman who will be riding with me to Burning Man which will help Gas and Car Rental expenses. Turned out we had tons in common and now I’m really looking forward to that 6 hour drive at the end of August. That evening, Laura and I saw Harry Potter in 3D at IMAX. Very well done and worth seeing if you have an IMAX theatre in the area. Laura and I celebrated a small success which I can’t reveal by going to California Pizza Kitchen which resulted in a $70 bill. San Francisco is so expensive! Hell, our IMAX Tickets were $20 each!

Thursday, it was a 4AM wake up (after going to sleep at midnight) for a flight to LAX for Twiistup. Twiistup is a so-cal event that is geared to startups and technology. It’s a 2-day conference and a huge party. The great thing about Twiistup is the glam & attendees and it’s always been a party that appeals to new media (web 2.0) folks and the celebrities which makes for a great time! I arrived in LA at 7:30AM and spent an hour in traffic getting to Universal Studios. The day conference was great as I heard talks and advice from Chamillionaire, Brian Solis, Micah, Justin Kan and Brooke Burke.

At the party that evening, I realized that in this small micro-culture and one year in to my full time career in tech that people know me, follow my blog and were interested in meeting me. It blew me away when someone was talking to Chamillionaire (Grammy award winning celebrity) and stopped to grab me and say, “You’re Adam Jackson? Dude I follow your blog!”

I always enjoy visiting LA and it was very surprising time and time again that people knew me and were stoked to meet me and it’s a sign that I’m doing something right. There were over 1,000 people at Twiistup and yet I stood out especially given that I was not in SF. This was LA and people still knew me. The cities are very linked virtually but there was some justification in the experience. The evening ended with some awesome new connections and me playing poker with some cool people from all over the world in the Hilton penthouse. When the night was coming to an end (around 2AM and after being up for 22 hours), I looked out the window of a 24 story hotel and smiled because this moment and the road leading up to it wasn’t easy; in fact, it was damn hard but I was here and it was worth appreciating, enjoying and living because I’ll never get this moment back.

The next day (Friday) was quiet. I went to some Twiistup morning sessions and headed out for a 2:50 flight back to SF. Once again, I was in LA but for only 30 hours. Before boarding the plane, I was FriendFeed chatting with Robert Scoble. I told him my flight details and it turned out we were on the same flight. Once in the air, Scoble stood up at the front of the plane and called my name. We chatted for a few minutes during the flight and after the plane landed. Turned out he was with Rocky of Rackspace and I have been trying to form a relationship with them for a while. The chat led to details about my upcoming project and I think we’ve found our web host now which is very exciting.

I left straight from SFO to Sunnyvale / San Jose for iPhoneDevCamp which was located at Yahoo! HQ. I was partly responsible for hooking the organizer, my friend Dom, up with BT (Brian Transeau) to play at iPDC. Brian is a world famous DJ and I’m happy to consider him a friend so helping Dom and team with booking him as a performer was an awesome experience. I arrived in Sunnyvale at 6PM, just enough time to help BT setup and see him perform a 90 minute set. The crowd of 550 iPhone geeks went insane as he spinned classic and new songs.

Afterward, I chilled with BT as some of the die hard fans came up all googly eyed and exclaimed things like, “oooh i have every one of your albums!” Afterward, a Yahoo! employee took Brian and I on a tour of their operations datacenter. I walked through 200 feet of server racks and drooled over the amount of technology in that room. My tech background is in small business & some enterprise server deployments so this was something to make any geek go insane. We were able to take some photos and hear more about Yahoo!’s operations.

Afterward, it was time for dinner so we (Dom, BT, Laura, me and the medialets crew) went to Oola in San Francisco for dinner. Oola catered one of my parties back in 2008 and the food was amazing but this was the first time I had Oola in their restaurant and it was fantastic. Dinner started at 11 and we talked Twitter on a VERY DEEP LEVEL until after 1AM. At one point the topic was about Twitter and how it relates to relationships, sharing and everyone’s style of who to follow and why. The conversation even led to Dom finding the ending to his Book.

i went to sleep at 4AM on Saturday morning because I was behind on emails and to-dos. Saturday, it was up at 8AM for day 2 of iPhoneDevCamp. This was a relaxing day but enabled me to catch up on work from being MIA for 3 days. I did go to some sessions and one of those resulting in finding the company that was the missing link to a side project I’m working on. It’s pretty amazing how things work out but this company will help me achieve exactly what we’ve been missing and I couldn’t be happier! I also watched BT demo his app, Sonifi and reveal some of the future of his app and where it’s going. What Brian is doing will revolutionize the music industry. Sonifi is rebirth of the mix tape, it will decrease piracy and inspire young artists to create, share, learn and appreciate music on a new level. That’s about all I can say and Sonifi is currently only 1.0 and is on the iTunes App Store.

Saturday night was great. Left iPhoneDevCamp at 10PM and took time to catch up with everything. I was finally caught up and reached Inbox Zero for the first time in days but I got an email from a buy in Bangladesh who wanted to put a surveillance camera on AdamsBlock so he can catch the people who keep breaking into his cars and stores. If you’ve never received an email from someone across the world that wants to use your product, it’s an amazing feeling.

Sunday was considered “chill” but still involved tons of work. I took Sunday night to go shopping. I needed new clothes and shoes BADLY. After talking to the Nike employee for a while about my work at Apple and in social networking, they hooked me up with a 50% discount. Then I got 35% off at GAP for no reason. I was using a “green bag” instead of getting one of their plastic bags to hold my new jeans and she was so excited that I was “going green” that I got a discount. Very odd but needless to say I got new clothes and shoes for a lot cheaper than I expected.

Something else unexpected happened at Nike. I was trying on some new shoes and a guy asked if I was Adam Jackson. I said yes and he said, “Hi my name is Mats and I follow you on Twitter.” Of course, I’m not surprised when someone tells me that but it’s usually at a tech event with tech people and the likelihood that someone follows you is high. It turns out Mats was visiting San Francisco from Norway. So a guy from Norway who’s visiting San Francisco is in the Nike store and I happen to be there as well. I’m still freaked out by the experience.

I found this photo drawn of Laura and I by David Newman. He did a fantastic job and it was really cool to see our moment working at iPhoneDevCamp captured in time!

Last night ended with more excitement over email after a celebrity emailed me asking for some tweets about a project they’re working on and maybe forwarding those tweets to some of my friends. I have to say that this weekend was a complete drain, a whirlwind and pretty insane but I have to say that things have changed and that “Momma would be proud…

It’s not luck. I thought it was but now that I’ve lived it and have started getting limited success, I’ve realized it’s a ton of hard work, dedication and studying. I’m not going to say it’s skills or talent because I don’t consider myself talented. I have a long way to go and cherish every bit of success I’ve received so far. Everyone around me is to thank for this because I couldn’t do it alone and my journey has only begun.

Back to work…

Two weeks ago, I posted this blog post about Twitter and how the API is making it less user friendly and annoying new users. The API is the cause for Twitter’s success and it could serve as the demise of Twitter as well and slow adoption rate. Without revisiting the point I made, let’s move forward and I’ll explain how Twables and FB140 are taking the very forgiving API and really pissing people off.

Last week, @Ev sent this status update to Twitter which was an endorsement of a service that helped you find which of your Facebook friends are on Twitter and it made it easy to follow them. I immediately jumped on board because I was very interested in seeing this in action.

The concept is, visit http://www.twables.com/fb140 and Connect your Facebook Account. Then connect your Twitter account. Both of these use OAuth so I was pretty stoked about that but once you set this up, the pain begins.

The site it self wasn’t designed well and I had some issues getting started and really taking advantage of it for the intended purpose. The issue is with spam and how Twables OR FB140 is leveraging Twitter’s way of handling spammers.

Once I used the service, I removed it from my “authorized apps” on Twitter which usually means, “hey I’m done using you now. go away” but I failed to remove it from Facebook as an authorized app but no problem I’ll do it when it comes to mind and I don’t think it’s hurting anything at this time.

Well, I received a reply on Twitter from @FB140 the next day that “Jad” is a Facebok friend who is now on Twitter. I was lazy and away from my computer so I just blocked the account. That would resolve the issue and I’d never hear from them again. WRONG!

The next day I received another reply, thinking I had somehow made a mistake when blocking the user, I blocked again but since then I have received SEVEN replies from FB140 and here’s how they’re circumventing the blocked feature.

As you can see from this Search.Twitter.com result, they have multiple accounts. At this time I know of 10 so I’ve pre-emptively blocked all of them but I don’t know if that will fix it but what is confusing is how they’re gaming the system.

Does FB140 or Twables know when they’ve been blocked and their software registers a new account and sends a reply using another account automatically? That’s what’s curious to me because if so, that’s a great idea that more app developers will adopt that is sure to piss people off.

I’ve removed FB140 as an authorized app on Facebook and that might be the last link that resolves this once and for all, if not I’ll be calling the company directly and telling them to bug off because this is becoming ridiculous.

There’s a reason Twitter added the block functionality and when someone blocks you, that’s your queue to screw off but FB140 thinks that it’s a mistake because, “if this user still has our FB app authorized, maybe they blocked us by mistake” no because after 7 replies, the last account to reply to me was @FB140_7 so they’re clearly not taking a clue.

Just to prove I’m not pulling the typical social media douche bag crap, Here’s a link to Search.Twitter.com showing some other people are are clearly pissed off. This TWEET shows exactly what I’m going through as well.

[UPDATED]: Clearly removing the app from Twitter and removing the app from Facebook did NOT fix the problem. I just received THIS REPLY from FB140 (copied below).