Some Random Dude

Some Random Dude is a blog by P.J. Onori that covers design & technology in the broadest sense possible.

Archive for the ‘Current Events’ Category

Click on one of the items below to go to the post

Franklin Street In a Month?

If you have been to this site in the lately, you have most likely seen the cryptic banner on the top right signaling that something by the name of Franklin Street will be released in Winter 2008. Well, there is not too much winter left in this year, but now that sayhear.org has launched and a couple other projects have reached their conclusion, I can concentrate on this project once again. Yes, as it is almost certainly apparent, the blog redesign is what I am calling Franklin Street, but it is a whole lot more than just that. I am going to try something fairly ambitious, but it is going to take some time to get it right.

The new blog is coming along nicely and I have hopes that it will be completed before December. The total project however will take a tremendous amount of time to finalize correctly. I am curious, if anyone cares, how you would like to see this play out? Would you like to see a soft launch of Franklin Street in a month or two with progressive enhancements during the course of the following 2-3 months? Or would you find it better to launch everything finalized at once and wait another month or four? I am conflicted on this subject as I just want to get back to actually writing instead of building something to write.

I would be foolish and presumptuous to think anyone would ultimately care about this project – no matter how it launches. That being said, if anyone does have a thought they’d like to share on this subject, please leave your ideas/opinions in the comments.

5 Days, 500 Messages, Several Extremely Proud People

Not too long ago, Brendan Lee over at Ribbit got a hold of me to work with them to showcase their technology. We bounced around a bunch of different ideas, that we really liked, but it was a conversation I had with Gil Gershoni of the creative agency Gershoni where we came to the idea you see at sayhear.org. We both loved the idea of using Ribbit’s telephony technology to give a voice to the voter and create an open sounding board for people to put in their two cents on this election. What you see at sayhear.org is the culmination of real cooperative work between Gershoni, myself and Ribbit. This was not a top-down production but rather a equal collaboration between all partners. I really do believe it is that relationship which allowed us to launch the site that is up today.
Read On…

sayHear.org Launches

With 3 days left until the election, I am oh-so-proud to announce the launch of sayHear.org, a site intended to literally give voice to the voters of America. You participate by calling one of the numbers on the sayHear.org website based off of who you are voting for and leave a message explaining why you are. Your audio recording will then show up on the site for others to hear.

This site was a joint-collaboration between myself, Gershoni and Ribbit. Without Ribbit’s technology, there would be no way this could have been created – I cannot thank them enough for their time and generosity. In addition, working with the Gershoni crew was absolutely amazing and I am still amazing at how much we were able to accomplish in such little time.

Please, do take the time out to go to sayHear.org and leave a message. It will take less than a minute and in return you will help keep the political discussion going all the way until election day. You should also check out electionmyx.com for some really cool election 2008 video mashups. Big hat tip to Neil Voss for the great work on that site.

YouTube Opens Up, Levels Video Playing Field… Almost

Say what you want about Google, they are the gargantuan multi-billion-dollar conglomerate, but the news from YouTube to radically open its platform has Google written all over it. With the features they have opened up, developers can (almost) essentially use YouTube as a free video hosting/serving solution. As expected, the videos will also be viewable on YouTube, but for people with little wallets and big ideas, this does not seem like a bad tradeoff. Services like Brightcove are going to no doubt lose some clients with less hefty pocketbooks.
Read On…

Google Reader Has Changed My (Online) Life

I really fail to understand how long it took me to start using Google Reader, but it is frankly changing how I consume content/information online. In the week or so I have used it, the amount of articles I have digested has taken off exponentially. I previously had a hard time regularly checking my favorite blogs as the process was cumbersome and plagued with too many steps. As usual, Google nailed the process and made something which previously was a pain into something I thoroughly enjoy.

I have noticed that I already have been commenting on my favorite blogs more frequently (which still is not enough) as well as getting ideas for new content on this blog. It is truly amazing what a good tool can do to impact your daily life.