DygiScape

Cyber Monday with a Cause

Joe — Mon, 01 Dec 2008 15:59:22 +0000

Today, the Monday after Thanksgiving, is known as Cyber Monday due to the online sales on many retailers have on the Web. In conjunction with Cyber Monday, GoodSearch has a new feature on their Website, GoodShop, which enables you to give back a percentage of your purchases without costing you a penny. Shopping on the [...]

What to Do With Saved AOL Pictures?

Joe — Thu, 27 Nov 2008 02:59:58 +0000

Now that you downloaded your pictures from AOL before December 31, 2008, you probably want to know what to do with them afterward. I left off in my last tutorial guiding AOL users to download their AOL Pictures albums to their computer. This tutorial will suggest a few options for you on how you wish [...]

How to Backup and Save AOL Pictures

Joe — Wed, 26 Nov 2008 17:50:40 +0000

As you may know, AOL Pictures is shutting down. This product had a previous name, “You’ve Got Pictures (YGP)”; many users probably have photo albums stored there that they possibly paid for through Walgreen’s partnerships in the past. More likely, users have important, rare pictures that they don’t have saved on other devices. In a [...]

AOL Video Uploads Goes Dark (Shutdown)

Joe — Tue, 18 Nov 2008 14:32:54 +0000

AOL’s attempt to imitate the success of YouTube will be getting flushed down the Tubes in mid-December. AOL Video Uploads (previously known as “UnCut Video”). This is another online destination that AOL has successfully laid to rest. Although, I’ll admit that the site itself had a shameful amount of page views. The AOL Video Uploads [...]

Contextual Interactive Ad Widgets, Solution for Ad Spend Drop?

Joe — Mon, 17 Nov 2008 17:36:33 +0000

Internet advertising spending has been dropping out for a while, pretty much in line with the economic downturn. As users on the Web become more experienced with browsing, they grow cognitively blind to advertising locations on Web pages. Despite all this, the Internet ad business has remained handicapped when it comes to innovation. One advertising widget [...]

Barack Obama’s Twitter: Silence.

Joe — Wed, 12 Nov 2008 02:32:25 +0000

Nothing infuriates me more than people who don’t understand social media and trespass into the space only to boost their marketing efforts. Sadly, Obama gets a thumbs down from me regarding his Twitter account. He has a few opportunities to salvage his brand equity. Brand equity is the value that others have built in you; not [...]

We Elected Obama, Now What?

Joe — Wed, 05 Nov 2008 12:59:59 +0000

The Obama political campaign reflects a lot of advancements in our country. These advancements demonstrate the qualities in politics and the changing course. Now what? For the first time in politics, Obama’s capture of the White House declares a few things: Politicians can be YouTube’d, held accountable by people. Corporations can’t buy elections, any more. It’s the issues [...]

5 Things I Learned at PodCampAZ

Joe — Mon, 03 Nov 2008 06:19:34 +0000

I promised myself that I would follow through on an entry about PodCampAZ with respect to it being free, fun and exciting. This year, it was at UAT, in Tempe, AZ. Not too far from my residence. A handful of my friends and colleagues attended and we loved it. I’ll share the five big items I [...]

Social Media Introduction for Beginners

Joe — Mon, 03 Nov 2008 05:45:40 +0000

I really don’t intend to condescend my words, I really don’t. But there appears to be a major disconnect in the level of understanding among attendees about social media at social media conferences. I love newbs, I really do, and I love meeting rockstars; however, the disconnect is in the belief that we can’t build [...]

On Election Day, Follow Social Media

Joe — Sun, 02 Nov 2008 14:43:41 +0000

This Tuesday, there are plenty of destinations in social media (meaning, communication is in the people) related Websites. The challenge is, these social media platforms will be tested for scalability. I’ve got a few ideas on places around the Web to check up on your candidate. The Blog Herald has a great list of places [...]

Open Letter to AOL: You Still Don’t Get It

Joe — Sun, 02 Nov 2008 14:01:14 +0000

In a post on the AOL’s official Mail product blog, AOL insults Google’s GMail product in typical insincere tirade regarding product parity. If there was anything friendly about the entry, it wasn’t made clear to readers. Either this is a PR stunt, or the author had one too many spiked drinks at the office on [...]

I’m Going to PodCampAZ, Are You?

Joe — Sat, 25 Oct 2008 18:26:17 +0000

Hey, folks. It’s been a while since I blogged on here about my personal events. Well, I’m going to be hitting up a local/regional venue known as PodCampAZ. I’m going for a few reasons, but mainly because I’ve discovered a whole subculture out here of social media mavens and producers right here, in Phoenix! It’s no [...]

Social Media & Passion

Joe — Wed, 22 Oct 2008 10:29:05 +0000

Lately, I’ve been running into more people who are surprisingly passionate about social media. Given that not everyone gets to spend their life on the Web, they are excited to be a part of the action. For a moment, I’d like to step back and share why I love social media, and let you know [...]

Why Do You Receive Pill Offers in E-Mail? (’Cause you buy them)

Joe — Tue, 21 Oct 2008 02:42:11 +0000

Almost all e-mail users at unwillingly receive e-mails that offer discounted pharmaceuticals, such as Viagra, Cialis and even Oxycontin. During this discourse of e-mail, people often are quick to delete or use their Report Spam e-mail client feature. But many wonder why they receive it? Let’s find out. ZDNet performed a decent investigation and has [...]

OpenOffice 3.0 Released, Now Native on Mac

Joe — Wed, 15 Oct 2008 14:18:52 +0000

In the open-source world, one of the champions, OpenOffice, has been updated to 3.0. OpenOffice has been improved to be more user-friendly and now runs natively runs on the Mac, which means it’s faster. The demand for the new version has brought down servers operated by Sun Microsystems (you know, the same company who makes Java). [...]

Warning Shot Fired — Info on 50+ AOL Services to be Closed

Joe — Wed, 15 Oct 2008 07:08:17 +0000

If you’re reading this entry and still use AOL (many of you still are accessing my blog through AOL, sadly), count this as a warning shot which was fired — advising you to discontinue your service and migrate to better online services. AOL will be shutting down many services in an effort to mitigate “costs.” [...]

Ignorance and Hate are Alive and Well

Joe — Fri, 10 Oct 2008 02:33:27 +0000

Alright, I can’t handle it — the elections are getting near, so it’s time to start sharing my opinions on politics. I count these last few weeks to be the kick off for more intense politically related entries on my blog. You’ve been warned. Today, I saw a wonderful video which inspires me to believe [...]

To Bury, or Not to Bury (Features)?

Joe — Thu, 09 Oct 2008 13:57:29 +0000

Several folks who have the opportunity to work with me, know that I advocate for the end-user in nearly everything. One topic I tend to drive hard into is accessibility of useful features within products and services. That is, the struggle between Web properties which are “too busy” or “too light” for uninitiated users. In [...]

AOL Users: Migrate Your Journal to Blogger

Joe — Thu, 09 Oct 2008 00:04:13 +0000

Probably the best news yet for AOL Journals users — you can now migrate your AOL Journal to Google’s Blogger easily. AOL did make good on their promise to provide an easy way for users to export their blog contents to a third-party. If you haven’t heard, AOL will be shutting down their AOL Journals [...]

What Causes Half of Social Media Campaigns to Fail?

Joe — Tue, 07 Oct 2008 02:50:31 +0000

A lack of a genuine and authentic interest in facilitating relationships between users on the Web is the most frequent cause for social media campaigns to fail in business. It’s not only money and greed, it’s also the practice of using social media to silence the angry mob which more often than not, calculates to [...]

Three Ways to Back Up AOL Journals (and Hometown)

Joe — Fri, 03 Oct 2008 14:27:32 +0000

Yesterday, I posted one method to crawl and backup your entire AOL Journals destination. In theory, that can also work with Hometown. One limitation is that it is pretty advanced for people to do, and there is room for error. Today, Marah from Anti-AOL has another method that makes it much easier for AOL Users. [...]

AOL Users: How to Backup AOL Journals to Your Computer

Joe — Thu, 02 Oct 2008 14:21:48 +0000

It’s been a couple days since AOL users were notified about the fact AOL Journals is shutting down. In an effort to help those who need it, I’ve put together a guide on how to backup all your AOL journals content (blog entries, images, etc.) locally to your computer for later access. Until AOL provides [...]

AOL Journals and AOL Hometown Will Be Closed

Joe — Wed, 01 Oct 2008 02:05:12 +0000

Another day of product sunsets in the world of AOL — AOL will be shutting down AOL Journals (personal blogs) and AOL Hometown (personal web pages) effective October 31, 2008. In an announcement via Official AOL Mail, AOL gave users about 30 days to back up their personal life before they flush it all down [...]

Thoughts on: Twitter, Public Safety, Law Enforcement

Joe — Tue, 30 Sep 2008 04:18:07 +0000

In this entry, I’ll share my thoughts on Twitter as a public safety service and opine on Law Enforcement’s engagement on it as well as provide suggestions to law enforcement agencies nationwide to better interact with Twitter (ultimately, their citizens). Also, I compiled a comprehensive list of all the Police departments who are on Twitter. [...]

Phishing Alert: Apple MobileMe Billing Fradulent E-Mail

Joe — Mon, 29 Sep 2008 16:14:32 +0000

A cautionary note for anyone who receives an e-mail from Apple informing them they need to update their billing information — it’s a scam. This morning, I almost fell for it because it looked pretty darn good — but there’s always signs underneath the surface of the e-mail that I look for. Continue reading to [...]