Val Vladescu

Leadership Obsessive

To DM or not to DM?

Twitter lists have been around for a while. And I’m quite an active user of the feature. I know there’s many ways in which lists are used so let me remind you about mine:

I’ve just sorted out all the people I follow into lists so I don’t get my timeline full 24/7. And it’s a wonderful thing. I follow just the ones whose content I’d consume at any time of the day while leaving the rest for on-demand requests of their tweets.

And it’s great! My main Twitter window is clean, Android does not bing every 5mins, needless to point out all these advantages.

My approach has only one problem: I actually FOLLOW the users that are in the lists. They are my FRIENDS. But Twitter does not see them that way so every now and then I’m forced to follow someone just for the sake of receiving a DM.

I know that this does not apply to all the usage models of Twitter lists but here’s my 2 cents: I’d categorize the lists. I’d add an extra feature called “Friends List”, just to mark a particular list as full-featured as the main following one.

Of course for those who really want to ping me there are 2 not-as-quick options:

1) check my background image. My email’s in there.

or

2) use http://buzzdm.com/ a service that sends regular @ replies but only lets the intended receipient see the content of the message when he signs in with his Twitter account.

Speaking of BuzzDm it has become quite popular amongst teenagers. Wondering where this will go :)

So tell me: would you like people you follow in certain lists to be able to DM you?

 

 

 

 

 

Posted via web from Val Vladescu

20 January 2010 at 02:04 - Comments

MIT Personas

MIT Personas results for Val Vladescu and VVladescu

 

Personas is a webapp built by MIT that basically defines “How the Internet sees you”

or, as the creators want to describe it:

“Personas is a component of the Metropath(ologies) exhibit, currently on display at the MIT Museum by the Sociable Media Group from the MIT Media Lab. It uses sophisticated natural language processing and the Internet to create a data portrait of one’s aggregated online identity.”

My experience with it was similar to the Johari Window, only it’s machine built. What is your Persona?

Posted via web from Val Vladescu

13 January 2010 at 18:31 - Comments
il stiu, l-am incercat, este fain :)
13 January 10 at 17:52

Another TechCrunch myth busted

Off goes the myth that @techcrunch is for startups like Digg for websites. After 4 days since publishing this article, there’s roughly 100 actions performed.

See bellow:

screenshot of @parislemon check in

 

My latest update minutes ago was photo # 118 (http://photocheck.in/pictures/118) after trying the service myself 4 times.

Wondering what caused this?

Is it the bad looking photocheck.in? The little interest of people in Geo stuff? Or the fact that very few of the TC readers are also adopters?

What do you think?

Posted via web from Val Vladescu

8 January 2010 at 20:37 - Comments

Wildfire: Promotion Service promoting the wrong way

I just got this email from Victoria Ransom, Founder and CEO of WildFire, a service launched in March 2009 who is handling.. guess what? Promotions!


Hi Val,

Happy New Year! I hope that you have had a wonderful start to 2010! We have some very exciting things planned for the coming year, which I think you'll find very useful and which I look forward to telling you more about over the coming days and weeks. In the meantime, I actually wanted to ask you for a small favor. We were very excited to learn a few days ago that Wildfire was selected as one of the finalists for the TechCrunch Crunchie Awards (According to TechCrunch: "The Crunchies are to technology what the Oscars are to Hollywood."). The winners will be chosen based on voting…..which is where you come in! Would you be willing to vote for us? It'll take you two seconds – just visit the link below:

Vote for Wildfire: http://crunchies2009.techcrunch.com/vote/?NjozNQ==

There are only two days of voting left so please help us out by voting daily!

Thanks so much for your help and all the best for a wonderful 2010!

Victoria Ransom
Founder & CEO

Here's the math:

103 characters wishing me good stuff.
823 characters of crappy shameless self-promotion
30 characters of signature.

Let me get this straight, Victoria :

DO NOT, I repeat, DO NOT send an email to anyone wishing stuff days after some event has passed pretending that you care, while all you want is a stupid vote for the Crunchies.
And you want  me to vote for a promotion service that cannot even handle it's own promotion? Think again!

p.s. If you would have bothered just to wish good stuff and say who you are, it would have fit in a tweet! Check it out !

Posted via email from Val Vladescu

4 January 2010 at 23:38 - Comments

100 things I did in 2009

As a follow-up to the post written by Dragos, I tried to build a similar list. And must admit, this was not an easy task.

While 100 may not seam a great number of events for a whole 365 days timespan, personally I had trouble to actually remember what mattered. If I were to restrict this list to the things that really had an impact on myself, I’d strip it down to 30-40 items.

Nevertheless, these are things that I actually did, so just for the most important ones, if you haven’t achieved them yet, there’s a DreamLink attached. Clicking on the Dreamlink will let you share this with others who did or did not achieve it yet, courtesy of Trigwee.

Lived in Prague 

As part of a very nice project I traveled a lot in Prague this year. And stayed there for over a week each time.
** I dream to live in Prague

Joined BucharestHubb

Read more about BucharestHubb here.

** I dream to have my office In BucharestHubb

Dreamed more often

** I want to find dreamers like me

Visited Budapest

** I dream to visit Budapest

Raluca and I turned 6

Actually… almost seven since our birthday is in the beginning of January. We are one of the few couples from the old high school gang who are still together :)

Climbed the Prague Television Tower

In 2000, sculptures by Czech artist David Cerný of crawling babies were temporarily attached to the tower’s pillars. The sculptures were admired by many and were returned in 2001 as a permanent installation.

Built a habit of reading at least one Wikipedia article a day

From this perspective I miss the old times when education was intended to bring you information which now seems like common sense. I believe that most people passing college level find it difficult to keep their minds focused on both their professional stuff and maintain decent levels of culture. While reading a book or traveling help a lot, without such a habit I felt like losing a lot.

Took a course on Quantum mechanics and Superstring theory.

How else was I going to understand what’s going on at Cern? All this has helped me a lot in gaining a comprehensive view of the world we live in and even develop my own theory on the “supernatural”

Went to my first Luboš Andršt concert

Luboš Andršt is a wonderful blues guitarist. I’m extremely glad I had the opportunity of seeing him at Agartha

Offered free Wifi to everyone in Vama Veche

This is sort of geeky. Take the following ingredients:

1 open hostpot 2 miles away from the beach

1 mesh of unworking hotspots covering the whole resort including the beach

1 geek (aka me) with a handful of DD-WRT distributions.

Recipe is simple: take the farthest router in the mesh and make it a client connected to the online hotspot, then use all the others as repeaters. Voila! Everyone’s happy :)

Gave up Windows Mobile

It’s been a rough 3 year ride. But no more. Android is the mobile OS of the future. Not IPhone OS, not WM , not Symbian. Don’t make me comment on that.

Became a Mangaloo Fan

Mangaloo is a fresh bar in the office building I used to hang out in while visiting Prague. If POMERANC S CITRÓN A ZÁZVOR sounds weird to you, think that the ginger should be a key ingredient in any fresh combination of sour fruits you can think of :) dobrou chut !

Went to my very first true beer festival

in Prague. Then had a nice surprise to have the experience somehow repeated at this year’s Tuborg GreenFest. Must admit it was the first time ever when I was able to buy stuff at such an event with my credit card. I mean, for Romania, that’s impressive

Experienced by first neuralgia

… in fact I am still experiencing it as I write this post. It’s already been a couple of days and my no-medication strategy is starting to fail. Go,go, Vicodin! Kidding :P

Made some good financial investments

Thought about taking up the guitar again, didn’t do it

** I dream of singing in a rock band

Joined StartupSchool and met wonderful entrepreneurs

** Join SuperCoolSchool

 

Got a Google Voice account

Call me: +1(601)vladesc

Had my 5 years high school reunion

… and sadly discovered all the lost potential of my brilliant ex-colleagues

Made my first wishlist to share with my friends

What are you waiting for? Make me happy!

Gave up city center pubs in favor to the more posh ones in Northern Bucharest

… then reverted because of the people. Although I don’t see things in black and white anymore. Amongst all the people who are incredibly stupid but got rich overnight there’s a great deal of quality persons you can interact with even in those places.

Started enjoying medical talks more

… Blame Raluca for that and for my hypochondria.

Got myself a pedometer

just to count my steps. Average day in office proved to be a health killer!

Got my first Android device

The T-Mobile G1/HTC Dream. Don’t want to argue on this. It’s the best device you can get (besides the Nexus One) Don’t HTC Hero me! I will tell you to ask yourself only one thing:

You’re aware Google knows all about you, right? Hero’s kernel + apps are closed source, hell knows what data the HTC dudes gather.

You trust Goog, but would you trust HTC with your sensitive data?

Became a Cyanogen fan

If you own an Android device make sure you try his mod to push your smartphone harder!

Might be mistaking about this but kept my opinion that Opera is a waste of time

and I’m not talking about the browser here :P

Lived in Hradec Kralove for a week

… in which time I got to know better one of the kindest persons I ever met. All my nice thoughts to Michal Volák!

Attended Launch48

with an idea that did not turn into an actual project by that time, then as part of the Decily team

Went to World Blogging Forum

World Blogging Forum was a controversial blogging event due to the patronage of the to-be-president, Traian Basescu

Rediscovered George Baicea Blues band

sort of Andrest Lubos, Romanian version. He plays often at Green Hours so, find him there if you’re an electric blues fan.

Asked for more money in mid-crisis

and got it! Great project just underrated budget.

Had my dad follow my online activity

He’s now using Google Chrome with a nice IGoogle homepage

Got my first friend who owns a Yacht

… looking forward to the 2010 summer :)

Joined a new group

meet me on thursdays at OpenCoffee

Started my Facebook Fan Page

Dedicated to all the people I haven’t personally met yet. Fan me!

Laughed

I think I’m addicted to endorphines.

Got 3 new partners

I’m lying, it’s actually 2, since one of them is an old buddy I used to have a very nice business with

Started Sobraa

Sobraa is the Social brand awareness engine built on top of UberVu api (ContextVoice)

Went to Webstock

Webstock is a local web technology conference

Founded BuzzDM

Go ahead and send messages to people who are not following you on Twitter

Made a new habit

several ones. Good ones. Mental and physical health targeted

Met Loic LeMeur

as he was a guest speaker at the World Blogging Forum.

Learned a child implies a lot of responsibility

Not that I’m having one :) I just watched the torment of an old friend

Went to see Guano Apes

as part of the show at Tuborg Greenfest

Started Favhub

read more here

Broke up with Vodafone

if you need reference

Became more social

in the person-to-person live interaction way

Started accepting superficial people and extreme materialism

This is not as bad as it seems. Sometimes there’s something you can learn from anyone.

Skipped Madonna concert in Bucharest

still, bought the Sticky and sweet album and played it over and over for a couple of days

Evangelized for Yahoo

namely for great products like YQL, Pipes, Patterns. Wonderful resources!

Became a SeedMoney advisor

 

Felt sadness about putting at least one dream on hold

Switched to Skype as my main IM/Voice provider

Put my dream of premanently moving to Sibiu on hold

Played the WII. A lot!

Lost 13 pounds

Learned that old friends’ envy can be very destructive

Started a diet

Gained interest in local slice of the pie

Made new friends

Imposed self-discipline

Switched offices

Had a really hot sauna experience

Imposed self-discipline

Turned 23

Got myself a Nescafe Dolce Gusto  after the old espresso machine broke

Disappointed my parents. Twice

Watched DrWho old series

Whatched the whole House MD series

Went to vote despite having nobody to vote for

Been on a plane more then 10 times in a year

Started learning Czech

Presided my first meeting

Had many wonderful lunches with friends

Coached 2 old friends

Gained 6 pounds

Learned that befriending someone who makes 20 grant a month unaware of his revenue is way better then then if you knew it

Became a tiramisu addict

Made a complete and utter fool of myself

Started going to the theater more often

Set a target to make at least 10000 steps a day

Arm wrestled

DIY Heaven in my ex-room back at my parents’ home

Called and met an old friend

Planted a tree

Started marking the path and looking less at the initial thought of what I was expecting as a final result

Understood(or at least think I did) a big part of the Silicon Valley chemistry

Spent more time outdoors

Spent more time in my home town

Ate in a approximately 40 new places in Bucharest

Tried to learn Ruby

Moved house

Interviewed more then 30 people for various positions

Gave nice Christmas presents

Sorted out Twitter people in Lists

Watched the whole Grey’s Anatomy series

Read more news on paper

Started writing my posts in English

Met a great number of entrepreneurs

 

Made believe 2k10 will be fantastic!

 

Posted via web from Val Vladescu

30 December 2009 at 02:42 - Comments

35 Google open-source projects that ys.comou probably don’t know

http://blog.0×1fff.com/2009/12/35-google-open-source-projects-that-you.html

Posted via email from Val Vladescu

27 December 2009 at 17:28 - Comments

Waving Goodbye to 2009

Posted via web from Val Vladescu

27 December 2009 at 12:25 - Comments

Android Holidays Mistery revealed – Nexus one easter Egg

In the last couple of days rumors have spread about the next Google Phone.

Here are some pictures, there are videos also, we have an official name: “Nexus One” and the Technical Specs of the device ( 1 GHz CPU is a must have in 2010 btw.. )

Anyhow, ever since I saw the picture of the back of the device I wondered what’s with the QR code, where does it link, what does it do? Only hours later I discovered that someone researched it and got the same answer: a link to http://android.com/holidays. But that’s where it stoped. The link apparently redirected to the Android homepage.

Spoiler alert: If you want to see the the rest of the post Click here

Hope you enjoy and … have a Merry X-Mas!

 

25 December 2009 at 16:19 - Comments

Geo-freakiness

brightkite screenshot from Slatina

 

Geolocation is cool but can sometimes get really spooky. Check this out: I’m visiting my hometown once every few months. Last time I’ve been here I checked in with Brightkite. Now, as I browse the hompage unauthenticated, the very first (and only) thing I see in the activity line is one photo I posted 3 months ago.

This can easily get extended to privacy issues. When you are one out of many, things are easy, it’s ok, you can blend in. But when you get “featured” ’cause you’re alone, we have a problem here.  See, not until long ago Facebook refused to display demographics or other analytics since I had less then 50 Fans on my page.Ok, say 50 is too high, but let’s face it. When you’ve got only one result, displaying it is a little over the line.

And I’m not talking about me here. I do share a lot. My walking tweets are Geotagged and rarely even bother removing the option. ‘Cause it’s cool and nice and useful for me, just keeping track of myself.

However, one of 1938media’s predictions for 2010 sounds like this: “A famous blogger will be stalked and murdered. The perp will have used social media geo location services.” Substract Loren’s typical style from the phrase and think about it. Geodata is the new exploitable piece of information. We’ve seen social engineering before.

Google latitude, Foursquare, Gowalla, now even Twitter with enabling their geoTagged Tweets and having Mixx’s product turn latitude and longitude into names of streets/closest public places. Need I name more?

Who’s vulnerable? For the time being, just the social media enthusiasts. But as soon as this becomes mainstream and defaultly gets enabled*, unless powerful regulations and policies are enforced, I believe we will see a lot of bad stories coming out of it.

What do you think?

 

 

*don’t start telling me about TOS/Disclaimers/App startup warnings, nobody reads those

Posted via web from Val Vladescu

25 December 2009 at 02:58 - Comments

Unique update point for all social services

I decided to give out a try to Posterous . That's not only because people asked for a lightweight version of my blog, but also because I need a single point feeding and updating all the services I use. We will see how this turns out, hope it's ok and overlapping of several ones ( e.g. ping.fm or friendfeed ) won't cause too much trouble

Posted via email from Val Vladescu

25 December 2009 at 02:18 - Comments