I have announced on Twitter that I have stopped Magpie from sending sponsored advertising into my Twitter feed. Basically it comes down to the fact that a lot of people expressed the fact they did not like advertising going into the Twitter and would ruin it’s image as a networking tool.

I would like to explain why I signed up for the service. Apart from writing a review for this very blog, I have been looking for ways to make a little bit of money on the side of my full time job, none of my web apps make money as they are just there for other users’ benefit. Like TwitterLeage, which was created to enhance the fun and competitive nature of follower counts. So this seemed a nice (not too intrusive way) of making a few pence.

But I didn’t see the line between making a bit of money on the side and clogging up my feed with advertising that may well have been suited to people following me.

So there you go. No hard feelings to anyone and thank you to the users who pointed out what I was doing.

This is the fastest blog I have ever created. Using my great managed VPS at Everycity I set up the blog and edited the theme inside 3 hours including 2 stories to launch with!

The blog is called Tweeter Stuff and is all about Twitter. This can be Twitter applications, news and intersting info about the awesome micro-blogging service.

Please have a look and let me know what you think. Also don’t forget to follow me on Twitter twitter.com/ollieparsley

I started listening to this weeks episode of Tuck In To Tech (awesome new site coming soon!) called “Blister Packaging…why? Just why?” [download]. Anyway thats slightly by the topic. So the co-host, James announced that he had an “angry” to get off his chest. I was intrigued! But I was shocked to hear that he was blaming Alistair for not producing a good enough show and losing 12 listeners . One point to remember is that I helped Alistair by co-hosting the episode from 2 weeks ago. So really I can twist it to say that 12 listeners just like me!

Anyway I am not trying to pass blame :p. So instead I am asking you, the readers, where have the 12 listeners gone? Are you one of them? If so please leave a comment.

On a separate not please submit your answer to the poll below. 

I had the great pleasure of going with my dad to Wembley stadium. There was some confusion about if we could get our tickets! My dads friend bought them from TicketMaster, they failed to deliver the tickets to her address and that meant we needed her and her ID to collect the tickets at the stadium! How ridiculous! Anyway she was stuck at gatwick airport after getting back from holiday so we didn’t have her or her ID when collecting the tickets, just her credit card. This is not fraud by the way! We know her and she bought the tickets and my dad paid her back!

Anyway we got to the ticket office and managed to get the tickets after a bit of convincing. So then it was into the statium! The atmosphere was amazing, we all got three flags.

The Sterophonics started us off with their new single and then my favourite track of theirs “Dakota”. Then Neyo sang the american national anthem so well, Joss Stone sang ours, not easy to sing along to with all her high pitch melody! 

Then the game started. Thats all your getting about the game!

At half time we had a stripped down New Orleans Mardi-Gras. I have a few photos attached.

The whole evening was amazing and I would do it again when it comes back next year. The actually game was more entertaining with last yeat. The New Orleans Saints have a new fan!

Funny Signs was my first Facebook application, it was as simple as I dared make it! I wanted to just learn the Facebook API.

But today the app lept over the 1500 user mark. That means that over 1500 people currently have it on their profile.

Ok so what is Funny Signs? Basically get a random funny road sign whenever you or anyone visits your profile. It automatically add a random funny road sign from the database. You don’t need to do anything at all, just add the app to your page.

Please check out the app and let me know your thoughts. Also if you have any signs let me know by e-mailing me using the contact page.

If you are reading this the chances are that you have come from the EveryCity website. If you have then please take a look at my blogroll to see web apps I have done recently.

So how did I win? Well I just wrote down my details when I was at the Future of Web Apps in london. I generally think I am an unlucky person and “good things never happen to me”, but I was suprised to receive an e-mail from EveryCity saying I was a runner up and won a years web hosting!

I do have an web app in the pipeline that will be hosted with them. Along with probably moving my existing web apps over to their service.

Subscribe to my RSS feed to keep up with what I am doing! Don’t forget to follow me on Twitter at twitter.com/ollieparsley

Also check out EveryCity if you haven’t already!

Whenever there are rumors about Apple products the chances are that they’re true. But today I was disappointed to hear that only one of the 3 big rumors was true. I am the sort of person that does not have alot of spare cash and so the big savings on a cheaper MacBook would have suited me fine. I wouldn’t care if it didn’t have blu-ray and wasn’t carved out of aluminum.

But I was disappointed to hear that the price had come down a bit, but on the expensive MacBook. I will admit that it looks awesome, the trackpad is a great touch (pardon the pun). But they will still sell the same white plastic MacBook at the same price. Which for the spec is a ridiculous price at £719.00.

So as you can see this has not made me a happy mac fan. It has just made the little bit in my brain saying “Apple is just after money and is a walled garden” that little bit bigger. I still love my iPhone but I don’t see myself getting a MacBook until they lower the price or someone pays me enough to get one.

What was your take on the MacBook announcement? For more Mac news have a look at The Mac Cafe.

The expo floor

The biggest difference between this event and the other carsonified “Future of …..” is the fact there is an expo floor. This year was similar to last year where you have some big names with expensive looking expo areas, going all the way down to the low budget startups. All of these give away free stuff from pens to t-shirts. Also there are competitions galore. Microsoft was giving away and xbox and YuuGuu are giving away a MacBook Air!

On top of that Microsoft had a “Surface” demo that you could get your hands on. Along with that were some xbox machines for playing Grid or Guitar Hero.

Eye catchers

I wondered round the expo and approached some of the the companies exhibiting and these were the ones that I thought were really good.

• PhoneFromHere. They have a simple but clever service where you click a link on a website and it will instantly ring a landline number for free where a real support person or contact can answer.
• Zembly. Apart from the free shirt they have a great app that makes it easy to create Facebook apps. They do this by intergrating as many API’s as possibly and they are interested in using TwitterLeague’s simple API in a new feature they are building called “bring my API”.
• YuuGuu. They were giving away a MacBook AIR, what else do you want from me? :p

Expo floor video

Below is my Qik video of the expo floor. Sorry for the dodgey camera work!

Another change since last time was I have now spread onto another page of apps. I have used 3 pages (Which is quite a low number). But if I don’t use an app for a while or lose interest I delete it.

This is the only app that survived my top 3! Twinkle is made by Tapulous, who also make Tap Tap Revenge. It’s a Twitter application that originated in the installer.app on the old jailbroken iPhone. I used it briefly because I actually used Hahlo, a Twitter web app. The simple reason was that it worked faster and looked better. But being a web app it was prone to problems.

I have kept this app on my phone since I first got the device. I use Twitter all the time and to me this is by far the best free Twitter client on the iPhone. There are a few problems with it but version 2.1 of the software is currently being approved by Apple, it should be out any month now!

App Store Link

This app was created by a couple of guys who obviously love football (soccer to you americans). It is exactly what you need from a football application. I am a die hard Reading FC fan and love keeping up with how their are doing, latest news, upcoming fixtures and results. This app does just that by using all the information from the BBC’s football website.

The only time I see myself not using this app is if a better one comes out. Or it’s just the end of the season and there is no news to catch up on!

App Store Link

This app is developed by Apple, this annoys me a bit as they have built in extra functionality into iTunes to make this work. Which other apps obviously do not have! Anyway, I have only really started using this app over the weekend. I have a mac mini on my desk and was sitting with my Windows laptop on my bed coding away and wanted to start the lastest Diggnation podcast episode. All I did was go to Remote, find the podcast and click on it. It then started playing on the Mac mini, through the speakers. Simple as that!

But my girlfriends dad used it just to annoy her. He would sit downstairs while she was upstairs on the internet. He would randomly start playing Abba really loud! That of course is the fun way to use it

App Store Link

What are your favourite apps? Leave your comments below please

With that in mind I thought I would just talk about how I use my personal brand and spread the word of Ollie Parsley! This is not a post about trying to boost my ego but to show you what your personal brand is and how you can be more effective in the way you connect to your community/audience and expand your personal brand.

WTF?

You might be thinking, what is my “personal brand” and why would I want to use it? Well your personal brand in terms of the internet is everything you do. The majority of the time this is using social networking, or having your own website. Basically anywhere that your name is written or has a link. Immediately you have a personal brand a community based around that brand. If you have communications with people who visit your site, send you an e-mail, tweet on Twitter then you are starting to utilise your personal brand and community.

Now you personal brand can be used to help you, chat to or support you. So there are lots of ways of utilising the community.

Better than zero

This is actually the name of a video blog by Gary and it fits well with what I want to say. The chances are that if you are on any social network that you have people following you and what you are up to. If you do, then you have a personal brand already!

First of all, to me the people that follow me on Twitter a really really important both as social interaction but also using them to help me out. This is because these people have similar interests to me and are likely to think in a similar way to me.

Facebook is a different entity altogether. I use it for just friends and using these people for helping me is not really that effective, but remember never to leave anyone out!

So I have 120 odd followers on Twitter, that is a great number, but there is also a lot of people that have thousands more than me. Of course I would love follower counts as big as them, but at least I have more than zero! So be thankful that someone is following you, if one person is, then there are a lot more people out there that can find and interact with your personal brand.

How do I use “Ollie Parsley”?

I am a member of numerous social networks and to me that, along with this website (ollieparsley.com) are the main focus of my personal brand. People that follow me, who may certainly be reading this (hello loyal Twitter follower! post a comment below if you follow me please!).

As a web developer, designer and podcaster I am always trying new things and pushing myself to learn new technologies. When I have done a website, for example, TwitterLeague, I immediately went to my community and sent them out a link with an invite code to use the site. I posted these invite codes on here, pownce, identica, twitter and all over the place. This was because the people visiting those sites, if they know me at all, would maybe want to look at what I have done, use it and comment on it. Now this is not a guarantee that even one person will visit that site, but if it is more than 0 then I have utilised my community. The art of utilizing your personal brand is to push that percentage of your “followers” up and up.

Making everyone happy

Another aspect to personal brand, in my opinion is to make sure you have a good name. Even though “all publicity is good publicity”, that is not always what you want!

So how do I attempt to make everyone happy? Well I respond to every single e-mail, comment and message I receive. Now I think this is just common sense but it is surprising the number of people that do not realize that. If one person doesn’t get a response from you that may lead to that person now following you any more. If so, that loss can be noticeable and others might pick up on that, possibly if that persons talks about his experience.

Another thing I do is respond to people that have talked about me in a bad light. Even if I am unsuccessful in changing someones opinion of me, I put the effort in and if I can’t turn them around then they are not the right person to be following me anyway.

Real world example of using the community

On top of that I respond to people talking about me, a website I have done or anything I am involved with. An example of this is a tweet that was written about TwitterLeague.com. The lady saw that the league was not ordered correctly if two people had the same follower count. Now she didn’t tell me, but she did tell her followers on Twitter. I immediately saw that this could cause her followers to steer clear of TwitterLeague. So I solved the problem as quickly as I could and sent her a response back and explained the problem had been solved.

Now I thought that might be enough to possubly fix the situation and her followers might pick up on the fact that I replied to her. But she then sent a tweet out saying how effective I was at solving the problem and actually talking to her about it. It was only 3 tweets altogether, but I turned round what could be a negative impact on TwitterLeague into a more positive impact than If she hadn’t said anything at all.

Her initial tweet:

GillClough: @mweller twitterleague democratic. If 2 twitterers have same no. of followers, it alternates which one is top. Am competing with Openpad

My response after fixing the problem:

ollieparsley: @GillClough I saw your tweet about TwitterLeague. I now have set the ordering so 2 people on same follower count are ordered by username

Response to her followers:

GillClough: TwitterLeague author saw my tweet and modified application to improve how it worked. Role for Twitter as channel for rapid app feedback?

So that was a very brief introduction to your personal brand, if you have any comments at all please don’t hesitate to add one below. If you feel I have missed anything out or you have an opinion on what I have written then please let me know in the comments.

I was watching the keynote by Gary Vaynerchuk at the New Media Expo. He was talking about personal brand and the fact he regrets getting the @garyvee username. The reason for this was that it had not relation to his e-mail addresses or other usernames. For example his e-mail address is garyv[at]winelibrary.com and his website is garyvaynerchuk.com. Obviously this has no relation to his Twitter username. An example of this is use is when a fan tries to e-mail him at Wine Library after seeing his Twitter account, if the fan tries to e-mail garyvee@winelibrary.com it will not get to him (I assume they have set up an e-mail forwarder in this case), but you get what I mean.

Anyway when I signed up for twitter I used a username I use for everything “olliedude2k”. I started using this name in the year 200 (y2k etc) and just use it for everything. As I am starting to pick up, and use my name as my brand I have used the username “ollieparsley“. For instance this site is ollieparsley.com, my viddler username is ollieparsley etc. So using @olliedude2k on Twitter seems to be counter productive as noone could make the link between olliedude2k and Ollie Parsley.

Anyway when I initially realised that i just signed up a separate Twitter account using the name @ollieparsley. I then posted one tweet with a link to my @olliedude2k account.

It was than after seeing Gary’s keynote I went straight to some websites and saw what the impact of name changing would be. There are some points that I needed to know and looked at the list of effects the name change would have.

1. You do not lose your followers or people you are following
2. Everything about your account stays the same (except your username)
3. People replying to your old name will NOT get to you.

With that in mind I decided to take the plunge. In my case I have 2 Twitter accounts and really just wanted to swap the names over.

Changing Twitter username

Please follow these instructions carefully. The aim of this process is to simply change your username and use a second account to capture possible tweets to your “old” username.

1. Set up a user with the username you want to change to
2. Open up a separate browser (for instance I used Firefox and safari) This is because you can have 2 accounts open at the same time. If you do not have 2 browsers just log in and out of each account instead of swapping browsers.
3. This stage needs to be done quickly. If you have a popular username there is a change it might get take in the few seconds between swapping names round.
4. Log in to the new account and rename by just placing a letter after it. For instance I put ollieparsley2. Then save it. This allows your current account to use the username.
5. Log in to your current Twitter account and change the username to the new username. For instance I changed olliedude2k to ollieparsley. Save your changes.
6. Swap back to the old account (remember you changed the name). So I logged in as ollieparsley2.
7. Change the username to your old name. So I changed ollieparsley2 to olliedude2k.

Now you will have successfully swapped your usernames over. Once done put a message on your old account saying you changed your username etc. Also don’t forget ot log in for the new week or so to check noone has messages the wrong account.

All you need to do is make sure people are using the correct username and also make sure that any web address links point to the right username.

If you have any questions please use the contact form. I really hope this was useful, any comments on this post area welcomed.

I have been quite for a week or so now and that is because I have been working on a secret project that I didn’t want to tell anyone about, except for the odd tease on Twitter!

I set myself the task of creating a web app in 7 days and in that time I have created TwitterLeague, the site where you can create a league of any Twitter users that is based on Twitter follower counts. For instance check out this link to see the Diggnation League. WordPress.com is rubbish at being able to embed anything so instead I have an image of the Diggnation League for you to see.

For now it is in invite-only beta and therefore needs an invitation code inorder to login. So I have on here just for the readers of this blog! But hurry, there are only 500 invites!

Go to twitterleague.com and enter the invite code: ollieblog

Let me know what you think of the site.

The podcast is based on discussions about the latest technology news, with focuses on web apps, iPhone apps, gaming and conflicts about which is better, PC or Mac! I am a subscriber to the podcast as it is just my cup of tea, guys talking casually about technology.

The following quote is from the about section of the Tuck In To Tech the website:

Broadcasted by two 18 year olds from the north of England, the show briefly covers some of the top technology news from a UK perspective. With the guys’ light hearted banter and coverage of obscure news this show is a must-listen.

It was great fun and thanks to Alistair for making me feel welcome. You can listen to the podcast below. Hopefully I will be linking up with James and Alistair in the future and you will be one of the first to know when I do!

You can subscribe to the podcast using the following links:

• Podcast feed
• iTunes feed
• tuckintotech.com
• twitter.com/tuckintotech

Let me know what you think by commenting below or using the contact form.

Don’t forget if you have any questions I will most likely answer them in the next video blog so please contact me using the contact form or message me at twitter.com/olliedude2k

Don’t forget to send me your questions.

Ollie

But at the moment I try to keep one set of apps on the second page on the home screen. Even though I keep a low number of apps on my phone, they change all the time. Below are the top 3 of the apps I have used and kept so far. Other than these 3 the apps stay for a few days and get deleted, generally its when the novelty value runs out.

Twinkle is made by Tapulous, who also make Tap Tap Revenge. It’s a Twitter application that originated in the installer.app on the old jailbroken iPhone. I used it briefly because I actually used Hahlo, a Twitter web app. The simple reason was that it worked faster and looked better. But being a web app it was prone to problems.

I have had this app since I first upgraded my old iPhone to the 2.0 firmware. It has interesting noises when you get replies, general tweets and direct messages. There is also a tab that has tweets near you, the distance can be set to your preference. I have found that the 50km is good for me.

A downside is that there is no way to see the original message when a person you follow replies. In other clients you can see the original message, but Twinkle doesn’t have that.

App Store Link

This app was created by Apple, and it shows. The quality of it is quite incredible. There is some clipping and other tiny flaws but the rest of the app is amazing. It does costs money, bet when have Apple ever done anything for free? This is the only app I have paid for because I knew I would get quality.

The game play is clever, there are 2 views, the first person view has video clips of actual people moving chips around, this is all integrated into various settings, be it garage or a boat etc. It really brings something extra to the app, almost along the line of PKR. There is also quite high AI too which makes for fun game play. You can’t win real money but if you have 2 phones connected to the same wireless access point you can play against each other which i suspect would be entertaining, but I haven’t played the multiplayer mode yet.

App Store Link

Now if you read my previous post (which i think you should do) you will notice that PhoneSaber (created by TheMacBox) is no longer in the app store. See my post to see what actually happened.

But what I can do is tell you why I will be keeping it on my phone. The main reason I have kept it is the exact reason I thought I would get rid of it after a few days. That reason is novelty value. Ok so it is a lightsaber on your phone that changes sounds depending on what the accelerometer is doing, big deal! Well when I first got it I suspected that that is all it would be, a few hours of fun (not all at once!) and then get rid of it.

I have had the app on my phone for 3 weeks and that that thought has not crossed my mind, until I wrote this post, but I do not see my self deleting it any time soon! If you really want an app like it there is the new iSaber, but the chances are that will be taken down too! So get iSaber here while you can.

No App Store Link (see why)

So I literally just read this on TheMacBox blog, the makers of the iPhone application. It is my favourite app and it looks as though Lucas doesnt want PhoneSaber in the app store. THQ Wireless (who own the rights for Star Wars apps on mobiles) didnt write a cease and decist notice to TheMacBox, but instead want to collaborate on an offical version of the app.

Here is what they said on their blog post:

They want to do some sort of official, Star Wars branded version of PhoneSaber, and will be working with us on that one.  I don’t know any information beyond that, whether they plan to charge for it, advertise with it or what, but we’ll keep you updated on as much as we’re allowed to tell you.

So it is really unlucky for the people who haven’t had a chance to download PhoneSaber. But the people who have it already will still get to keep theirs.

Update: But even keeping the app might be a problem. This is since a hacker has found that the iPhone will check for a list of blacklisted applications and remove them from the phone. If THQ want to be nasty they could do that.

There is an alternative for the people who do not have PhoneSaber, but want to turn their iPhone into a lightsaber! iSaber has been launched in the App Store, so get it quickly before that gets taken down too. Lets hope PhoneSaber is back bigger and better than ever before! Oh and please don’t make us pay for it!
]]> http://ollieparsley.wordpress.com/2008/08/07/lucas-takes-down-phonesaber/feed/ 1 olliedude2k http://ollieparsley.wordpress.com/2008/08/01/the-story-of-selling-my-old-iphone/ http://ollieparsley.wordpress.com/2008/08/01/the-story-of-selling-my-old-iphone/#comments Fri, 01 Aug 2008 14:25:55 +0000 Ollie Parsley http://ollieparsley.wordpress.com/?p=296 ]]> So I got the new 3G iPhone last Tuesday. That was all well and good, but what about my old iPhone?

Well I actually had 3 people lined up who wanted it. I thought this could possibly develop into a bidding war, it turns out that one person couldn’t wait and got an N95 and the second person disappeared off the face of the earth. This left one person.

So I sold it to that person, Chuck-e, a friend of John my work colleague. So he bought it from me for an undisclosed fee that was quite low. So low in fact that I got a fee replies on Twitter effectively saying they wish I was their friend!

Anyway so I sold it to Chuck-e and his SIM card worked as I unlocked it and even supplied the unlocked 2.0 firmware on CD for him. So his SIM card worked but he couldn’t get a signal where he lived on the network. So he has returned it to me. This leaves me with my iPhone again! Obviously I refunded him!

So now I need to sell it again. This is what I am supplying:

• An unlocked 1st gen iPhone with 2.0 firmware
• Original box
• NEW headphone from my 3G iPhone!
• Original dock
• Original USB cable
• All original documentation including stickers

I will be putting it up on eBay! I will keep you posted. If you want to bid for it before I put it on eBay I am asking for atleast £100. Contact me using the form, emailing me or message me on Twitter.

Don’t forget if you have any questions I will most likely answer them in the next video blog so please contact me using the contact form or message me at twitter.com/olliedude2k

Don’t forget to send me your questions.

Ollie

If you know me quite well you will know that I went to the Future of Web Apps (FOWA) in London last year. I even have my lanyard still hanging up . I went as a student as I am still doing a degree in Computing and Internet Technology so I got a great discount.

The highlights of last year include hearing the following awesome speakers:

• Danial Burka (Creative Director at Digg)
• Leah Culver (Developer and co-founder of Pownce)
• Kevin Rose (Founder of Digg, Revision3 and Pownce)
• Mike Arrington (Founder of TechCrunch)
• Matt Mullenweg (Founder of WordPress and Automattic)
• Steve Souders (Developer at Yahoo)
• Robin Christopherson (AbilityNet)

There was also an expo hall for the first time. This included stands from big names such as Sun Microsystems, Zoho, Adobe and Microsoft. They all gave away free gear, plus I was very close to winning an xbox! On top of that there was 4 xbox’s linked up together, Adobe provided 2 Wii systems linked up to massive TV screens. There was one small little event… Live Diggnation, it was legendary.

But the main reason I started to write this post was to say that I should be going to FOWA this year! I am just awaiting confirmation. I should hopefully be there with my friend John.

Having someone else there should enable me to record my video blog live and at the scene and maybe even fit in a few interviews with some speakers and people I see there. I might get a bit of footage from the afterparty too. Oh and it’s the afterparty for Diggnation! Yes thats right, it is back at FOWA and should be bigger then last year.

There are also some people that I am looking forward to seeing: Kevin Rose, Gary Vaynerchuk and Blaine Cook. Check out the list of speakers.

There will be more info coming soon. If your going to FOWA then let me know, comment below or use the contact form. Also If you want me to hunt down specific people to interview then let me know who you want and a question or 2 to ask them.

Don’t forget if you have any questions I will most likely answer them in the next video blog so please contact me using the contact form or message me at twitter.com/olliedude2k

Don’t forget to send me your questions

Ollie