About Image X

I’m really excited for my friends at Image X Media. They launched a redesigned web site last week complete with a shiny, new web design and development blog!

Image X Media is a top-notch Drupal development and web design studio out here in BC. The team plans to get their hands dirty with this thing we call blogging and I know they’ll do great. Who knows, you might even find some guest posts from yours truly every once in a while, so go on and subscribe

I had the privilege of working on design and usability planning for a number of Image X clients, as well as SEO and other Internet marketing programs for a handful of them from 2006-2007.

Social Networking Rockstars!

Being the social media cheerleader that I am, getting the opportunity to work on social networking design and development projects was a blast. I also got to learn a lot about Drupal which is an open source CMS (content management system) that has won many awards and recognition for its flexibility, its quality, its passionate development community and even its SEO friendliness. Many companies and educational institutions are seeking out Drupal development companies for redevelopment and redesign as a result.

I know first hand how honest, hard-working, funny, creative and talented the Image X team is. I can’t recommend them enough. And they’ve now got a full-time usability consultant on deck so you know your information architecture is going to be solid. They’re truly a full-service design firm.

Recent Social Networking Development and Design Projects

Image X has really developed a knack for creating social media sites, and has built up an impressive client list of social networks on the Drupal platform including:

Discovery Education

Sun Microsystems’ Fresh Brain

Creative Pro

Arizona State University

Wishing Well Giving

Global Oneness Project

Puppet Hub

UC Berkeley

UC Berkeley

Peace Portal Alliance Church

Fantasy Sports Matrix

PSST

You can check out the whole Drupal portfolio here.

What better place to celebrate the most mischievous day of the year than swinging by the Vancouver Exhibition and Convention Center for the Massive Technology Show? While you’re schmoozing with the technorati, you can also catch me and the rest of the New Media: Collaboration in Business panel.

I’ll be joined by Warren Baxley of Intercall, Rebecca Bolwitt aka Miss 604 and Rob Cottingham of Social Signal - with the fabulous Monica Hamburg keeping us in line.

Hey, even if you don’t give a hoot about tech, marketing or da Internets - admit it, you’ve never seen a better lookin’ panel.

We’ll see you there.

Hey with Rebecca on the panel, who oh who is going to live blog the session? Maybe you?

I had the awesome privilege of attending September’s Shop.org Annual Summit in Las Vegas - staying at the lovely Luxor and enjoying the most amazing ice cream from Svendsen’s.

We don’t have Svendsen’s here in Canada, so all I can hope is that someday I win a caption contest for ICanHazCheeseburger plus $500 spending money. With Svendsen’s double scoop at $6 a pop, I can almost haz 100 servings of ice cream. Then I can haz Jenny Craigs when I get back.

What else is cool is this contest was the idea of Neil Patel, who also did a neat little social media webinar with us last year, and was also kickin’ around at Shop.org, rockin’ the social media panels.

Here’s my entry and link to vote for me! Please spread the link to your friends if you like, it’s my birthday on Thursday and that would make an excellent virtual gift from my virtual friends.

Vote for Me!

Hands down the funniest Facebook Ad I’ve seen to date:

What on Earth could this possibly mean? Amazing results as in:

a. Reduction of heaving through drugs and pills, therefore better attractiveness to others
b. Reduction of heaving induced by drugs and pills, therefore better attractiveness to others
c. Have better attraction, this is just a typo, the rest explains itself
d. Train yourself on drugs and pills, pose as a doctor, move to Mexico, set up your own cancer clinic/plastic surgery outfit and watch the money and the women roll in
e. SEX! Now that we have your attention, read our drugs and pills blog!

Any other stabs in the dark??

It’s been far too long since I’ve posted here on Smogger. As you may or may not know, I’m blogging full time for Elastic Path, an ecommerce software company. Get Elastic is an ecommerce blog and I post every weekday so do subscribe, pleease!

A New Year’s resolution of mine is to post more often here on Smogger. I’ve decided to turn the focus from social media discussion and advice to highlighting the hip and happenin’ tech community here in Vancouver (or “Vangroovy” as some refer to it). Over the past couple months, I’ve met social network startup founders, Facebook developers, bloggers, podcasters, photographers and other hip-cats and I feel blessed to live in a city that is so vibrant.

I thought I’d kick off 2008 with 8 pieces of news I’m excited about (and we’re only half way thru January)

• RainCity Studios was so kind to include me amongst the ranks of Vancouver’s Tech Women to Watch
  , the femme side of Techvibes’ list of guys. I’m looking forward to rubbin’ shoulders with the gurls & guys this Friday at Launch Party here in Vancouver. Will post pics!

• This Thursday I’m teaming up with the legendary Jason Billingsley for a webinar “12 Things To Learn From Christmas” - it’s an ecommerce focused session, but I believe any marketer could get some value out of it. (Sign up if you like). This is my first live webinar so wish me luck.

• Last year I waited too long to register for Moose Camp / Northern Voice and was shut out *sob.* This year I’ll be sharing some tips on social media 101 for the Internet Boot Camp portion of the un-conference, so at least I’m guaranteed to get in this time!

• Brian Chappel rounded up all the Internet Marketing types he could find on Twitter. Yours truly (Roxyyo) appeared on the list, though I’m not quite a “guru,” I’m thankful all the same! I also resolve to make better use of Twitter this year.

• Yesterday Get Elastic showed over 1500 subscribers. Sure, it was likely due to a glitch with Feedburner (Rohit Bhargava’s Facebook status tipped me off) - but we’re not that far off from that number. I want to see 2000 subscribers by September. I think that’s a reasonable goal.

• Smogger is still #1 in Google for “Social Media Blog” (thanks Jordan Behan for including me on the Z list shortly after this blog’s launch, which is the major reason why this is so) and even #10 for “social media” — and has been for about a year. You’d think that would bring in more traffic than it does, but hey, bragging rights. Actually, my top referring keyword every month, by a LANDSLIDE is “Leprechaun.” Go fig. I’m bracing for a wave of traffic in mid-March, LOL.

• Get Elastic made the AdAge Power 150 not long ago, we sort of hover around the 150 mark, and would probably be much higher if Google Reader count was included. Our highest position was in the 70’s.

• Elastic Path made this year’s Ready to Rocket list again this year, which means the company is outperforming the IT sector by a whole bunch. Sure I have nothing to do with this but I’m happy for the EP crew that work so hard to get us there.

Photo credit: Suprabiz

Ever wanted to slice and dice a YouTube video to mash up something new?

Searchles TV Remash is a recently launched social search and social networking hybrid with an online video-editing tool that allows you to edit ANY YouTube video and mashup the video cuts. You get your own Searchles channel which is a player that streams the video clips back-to-back seamlessly, and the Searchles Remasher gives you an in-browser editing tool without plug-ins or downloads.

You can also embed your mashups or others’ anywhere you want and any updates you make to your creation will automatically update wherever your Remash channel is posted — pretty cool.

You can pull existing videos from your Searchles profile, or search for relevant videos within the full Searchles video library or even YouTube. And you can edit all your videos on one page.

Like other social networks, you can make friends, create and join groups and surf tags…you know.

Here’s some tips for workin’ the Searchles popularity system:

Have you given this tool a test drive? Post a link to your video in the comments!

Ever wondered who the power-Stumblers are? Well now you can check out the StumbleUpon leaderboard over at StumbleRank.

Remember, this table works like a spreadsheet so you can click on any heading to “sort by.” For example, I sorted the table by # of Fans (because all social media really is just a popularity contest, right?

The stats are updated every 12 hours.

Remember, StumbleUpon limits you to 200 friends, but you can have unlimited fans. So your chances are slim these stumble-rati are gonna friend you back when they’ve got 5,000 fans already, but if they’re stumbling items of interest, go ahead and friend for that reason.

If you’re feeling competitive, you may want to put on a pot of coffee and get stumbling for the next…ohhh…6 weeks straight.

Thanks to Muhammad Saleem for the heads up, which won my thumbs up. Muhammad happens to be the brains behind StumbleRank. Good times!

Via GetElastic.

Just having some fun with Photoshop today. I may not be posting much here on Smogger since joining ecommerce software solution provider Elastic Path, but I’m still Postergirl, and I am still your homegirl.

Is Google planning to take over the world one social media app at a time? Just announced, Google’s bought cat-blogging social network Jaiku. And isn’t that every startup’s dream, to get bought out by the big G? My question is, why didn’t Google buy Twitter? Do you use Twitter/Jaiku/Pownce? Do you think Google’s acquisition will hurt Twitter? And how long before Google buys Facebook?

On a side note, I just can’t say “Pownce” without conjuring up images of cat food and hairball treatment Talk about “cat-blogging!”