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social|median design contest and invites

social|median social|median harnesses social filtering to help you keep up-to-date with news that matters to you.

From their website:

socialmedian is a social news service that connects people with personalized news and information. socialmedian enables you to easily keep up-to-date on the news that matters to you and to people who share your interests.

Currently, they are in ALPHA (heard of web applications in BETA before? eg: Gmail. Alpha is a milestone just before BETA 😉

What I like about them the most is their approach. Jason the founder and his team at TrueSparrow are not churning up code all the time (like you would like to believe of a product in ALPHA) but constantly looking for feedback from their ALPHA users. At the time of writing this post they already had 2468 alpha users signed up and most of them active.

Now, it is this approach of theirs which I highly appreciate and when Jason announced the social|median design contest I had to pitch in.

I throughly enjoyed the whole experience of participating in the design contest while the product is in its ALPHA and probably help shape its vision/roadmap. My participation in the contest is a story in itself and it will probably unfold sometime soon on this blog (may be partially).

Interested in seeing my entry for the contest? For you all I have a special annotated version of the files I sent to Jason unlike the ones uploaded in the contest.

(I would recommend you to see the first and the third at its original size by clicking on the preview images below. The notes would also help you figure out what’s the application about.)

User’s signed in homepage:

home-compact-profile-notes

User’s signed in homepage after clicking on expand profile:

home-extended-profile-notes

Web 2.0 network on social|median:

network-web-20-notes

You can go through all the entries here. To vote for me you can follow this link. I would highly appreciate if you take time out and make an informed decision by going through all the entries. Since, all the designs are also effectively ALPHA 😉 do leave your comments here or on the individual design pages for the designs.

Thanks for taking time out and participating in the voting process. Looking forward for your feedback.

Update
Jason has been grateful and has extended some ALPHA invites to social|median for you! Grab them soon before they are gone. Leave me a message along with your email and I shall send you the code for the ALPHA invite.

Results are out:
Results are out and you can read more about it here. I didn’t win but I hope I did add value to the whole process. In all I am extremely happy with the contest and my entry for the feedback I received from fellow contestants, unknown friends (from what I noticed there were atleast 3 comments which went missing from that post after I read them. so if you see your feedback missing do push it to me on my email as I really value it) and well wishers. Thanks once again for your support.

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How is the T-Shirt?

Had been to BarCampMumbai2 at IIT Bombay yesterday wearing the socialsync.in t-shirt. Tell me how do you like it?

socialsync-tshirt.jpg

Here is the reciepe:

Ingredients: Adobe Photoshop, T-shirt printing service, Watch, Mom, Friends, Bike
Preparation Time: 55 mins
Procedure:

  • Decided on getting a T-shirt at the very last moment. For me it was around 7:05pm
  • Fire-up Adobe Photoshop and start experimenting
  • Ask mom for help with colors, placement etc.
  • Keep track of time all this while. You can’t expect a shop getting it printed for you after 10 pm
  • Freeze on the design only when you are satisfied position and color of all the pixels. (18 mins)
  • Call up and ask friends if they have any clue of T-shirt printing services nearby?
  • Get your bike and reach the shop with all the PSDs (22 mins)
  • Consider yourself more intelligent than the shopkeeper as finally its you who is going to wear it. At the same time seek and value his strategic advice. Its routine for them but special for you.
  • Wait patiently first while the negative gets printed (15mins) and then while it gets ironed (2mins) on the T-shirt
  • Show it off 😉

Credits:
Mom (Color and Design inputs)
Sankool (For pointing out the small shop at Spencers in Inorbit Mall where I could get the T-shirt printed.)

P.S BarCampMumbai2 and SocialSync.in deserve dedicated posts 😉

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WrKsHoP in UMIT

I will be conducting a workshop in UMIT, Santacruz at 9:30am on Morphing (images) using Adobe Photoshop and it would be probably attended by atleast 100 students considering the enormous response the registration has recieved. Initially the workshop was to be conducted last semester but due to other prior appointments (;-) it didnt materialise.

By the way many more than 100 registrations have been recieved. Also, the other thing to note here is that Saturday being a holiday, if even 100 students (or for that matter 50) do make it for the workshop then it would surely be surprising for everyone including me.

Now, this is my BIG* day… hope I dont screw up.

Things I need to look out for:

  • Be on time… OR atleast try to.
  • Keep my ONE liners to myself and better concentrate on the topic.
  • Don’t go overboard and jst show ppl fireworks and not show them the techniques to create them.
  • I also need to define what I am giong to cover. I hope everyone who attends the workshop feels more confident after attending it.

Things I need to seriously worry about:

  • Control my nerves… now this is going to be tough bcoz I would be the only male among 50-60 girls (per batch) in the lab.
  • Girls…girls and more girls. ( bachaaaaooOOoo)
  • Hope I get to see few familiar faces around… otherwise it is gonna be tough. If you are reading this then do come down and say hi. (acha lagta hai…)

Amen

*BIG- considering its the first time I am conducting a workshop in some other college

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Update: Will update this place once I come from the workshop…
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Wow I am back !

Just to put in on record I was a little(15 mins) late but then everyone was and so it wasnt embarassing at all. Sejal(UMIT CSI chair) did ask me to meet her at the ITW(Institute of Technology for Women) entrance and there I was standing quietly having no idea who she was. Though I was sure to recognised her as I had seen her during the Robotics competition in our college but wasnt sure which one of the four girls she was as we not formally introduced to eachother then. Finally, there I was gazing at my own creation on the notice board (logo of Colosseum poster) and jst wondering when Sejal would show up and take me to the karmabhoomi. And there she was walking camly towards me and I didnt take time to realize that it was her. We said our Hi’s and she asked me if I would lik to see Barkha and I readily agreed. (BTW was good to meet you Barkha after so long…! and Nikita after so so so long…!!! Was wondering wher she was all this while…? No contact at all.. not even offlines? Didnt meet anyone else…). Later, she took me straight to the CC2 lab, well its the same lab where I had participated in the WebD competitions for the past two years(that means effectively spent 9 hours thinking in the same lab). Met Neha there. We hadn’t met before but knew eachother(LoL). So sweet of her for making sure that I dnt get bored up there.

Now it was around 10:15 and everyone started assembling in the lab. I was so skeptical of ppl turing up on a Saturday for a workshop but then they did and soon the lab was on the brink of being overflown. It was hard for me to be inside waiting for them to get settled. So, there I was peeking at notice boards and calming myself down. Just to point the fact that final year student projects there were much more interesting then ones in our college.

Now it was time for me to start the workshop. Sejal gave a brief introduction about me stressing on the following keywords… frm DBIT, won webD competitions, now placed in Patni (this was a shocker). The workshop I would say was very typically ME… saying so bcoz I lik it if there is no script to stick to and everything jst bulids up as it needs to.

The first batch ended up at 12 and it was tiring. Was served a paneer frankie at the end of it which was much needed bt then made me feel a bit lazier. The first batch kept me on my toes all the time bcoz it was full and everyone I felt was entusiastic while the second batch was soft, coOL and laid back.

Did read the feedback sheet which was passed after the wrkshop and it was satisfying to say the least. Overall I must say it was a fulfilling experience for me and keep looking for more such opportunities in other colleges too.

Finally, my sincere thanks to Neha and Sejal for inviting me. It surely is a memorable experience… thnx so so much.