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#RefreshCA Geo-Social Showdown

February 1, 2010 By 26 Comments

If you missed out on the January meeting of the Central Arkansas Refresh group where Nick Brewer from CJRW did a presentation on PODS CMS for WordPress, you missed out on an awesome presentation.  Nick did an awesome job presenting PODS, hopefully we will have his presentation slides and audio online for you to download in the very near future, he is working on them now.

When we opened the meeting I asked the group what they wanted to do for the next months meeting, since the conversations prior to opening the meeting that night were primarily about all of the Geo-Social apps that are on the market right now such as Gowalla, Foursquare, loopt, Brightkite, and Waze, I proposed that we have some sort of broad scope group discussion on these apps to discuss where we all see these apps going.  I think we all agreed that this is the next wave of social media.

The idea that we came up with was that we could have different representatives from within our group kind of give a 5 minute overview of their favorite Geo-Social app and then we could open the floor to discuss these apps and how we can leverage them to meet our clients needs as well as our own moving forward from an industry perspective.

Now, here’s where I need some feedback:

  1. What does everyone think of this meeting layout?
  2. Do you have any format suggestions?
  3. If this is cool, then we will need volunteers to do 5 minute overviews of each product, here’s what we have so far in terms of volunteers:  * Cotton Rohrscheib (Gowalla), Khara Cavaness (Yelp), ** Amy Bradley Hole (Foursquare), and Bryan Jones (Loopt).  I guess that leaves us needing someone to do an overview of Brightkite and Waze, any takers??  @AkValley, @tsudo, @brantc ???

The meeting is scheduled for the last Tuesday in February, that falls on February 23, 2010, I think given the popularity of this topic we stand a chance of having another really good turnout, possibly rivaling our Google Wave discussion.  The location will still be The Flying Saucer in Downtown Little Rock and will kick off around 6-6:30pm.

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* = I can easily speak on Waze too if someone wants to take Gowalla
** = She is awesome and was volunteered by the group. Hopefully we can convince her!!! :-)

 

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Filed Under: Central Arkansas Refresh, Social Media / Web 2.0 Tagged With: , , , , , ,
  • http://anthonykvalley.com Anthony K. Valley

    You can put me down for BrightKite. I anyone covering Whhrl? Bryan Jones (http://wholebrevitything.com/) got me into it.

    • http://www.cottonrohrscheib.com Cotton Rohrscheib

      Awesome, I am putting you down for Brightkite overview. Also, good suggestion w/ Whhrl, I totally overlooked that one. Will add it to the list, I already have Bryan Jones down for Loopt but maybe we can get someone else that's familiar w/ it to help out or ask Bryan to pull a doubleheader! ha.

      • http://KnowtheNetwork.com Keith

        @denajill uses whrrl alot she'd be great

        • http://www.cottonrohrscheib.com Cotton Rohrscheib

          Yeah I actually sent her a tweet last night and told her that you had volunteered her to see if she might be interested, :-)

  • http://www.facebook.com/danielspillers Daniel Spillers

    I think a single person should give an overview of the apps (moderator) and then the moderator should ask the “panel” questions to answer/debate/discuss. The panel members should be knowledgeable enough about geo-social apps and their own in particular to answer/dispute. The questions shouldn't be about primacy of one app or another, but instead about the current advantages/disadvantages, changes, behaviors, etc. (as well as the predictions of the future). The reason to have panel members “represent” a particular app would be so that they can offer examples from their app of choice to support their answers. That should be the bulk of the session, with the normal Q&A at the end.

    • http://www.cottonrohrscheib.com Cotton Rohrscheib

      Thanks for the input, that's almost exactly as I had kind of seen it in my head just didn't have the right words to describe it. Does this sound pretty cool to everyone??

  • http://www.cottonrohrscheib.com Cotton Rohrscheib

    Just to post another update to this, Justin Wright sent me a tweet this morning that he and Greg Henderson spoke w/ @AmyBhole the other day at lunch and she has agreed to come onboard and give an overview of Foursquare. So if you run into AmyBhole anywhere, be sure to tell her how much you are looking forward to hearing her at #RefreshCA, we don't get a lot of ladies at our meetings, LOL.

  • gordonapple

    I could do a demo of our Real-Time Presenter program sometime if you would like. It is a sophisticated product with a lot of capabilities. It would take most of a session.

    • http://www.cottonrohrscheib.com Cotton Rohrscheib

      Hey Gordon, thanks for offering. That sounds like an interesting product, can you email me some information on it and I will share it w/ the group. Thanks.

      • gordonapple

        Word and PDF Data Sheet enclosed.

  • http://twitter.com/khara Khara Cavaness

    Cotton,

    I can take Gowalla if you want to be the moderator, we could leave Yelp! out if no one else wants it.

    I agree with Daniel, but should the panel members give a brief detailed overview of each app then we start in on the panel discussion? This way everyone in the audience knows a decent bit about each and it saves the moderator from having to research each app in detail. If we all use one computer and have our presentations loaded and ready to go on the machine it should go smoothly.

    • http://www.cottonrohrscheib.com Cotton Rohrscheib

      I don't know that we have to go as elaborate as having a presentation ready for each app, it could be that each person that does an overview (about 5 minutes) touching on the high points for their app and then we have a moderator who can more or less go around the room and kind of lead the conversation flow so it kind of stays orderly. I might be wrong though, if we wanted to do presentations for each app that's cool w/ me, the only consideration though would be time, if we have 5 people doing 5-10 minute presentations then that might not allow a lot of time for open discussion amongst the group, Thoughts?

      Good idea, if you want to take Gowalla I can moderate or do Waze, either way. Keith Crawford might also be a good person to talk about Waze, he has used it a lot.

      • http://twitter.com/khara Khara Cavaness

        I figured they would be short powerpoint overviews, seeing what an app looks like really helps me, so I would just do screen shots and a little text. I think it should just be 5 minutes. I think the only thing that would cause a hang up would be technical computer/projector stuff. A 5 minute presentation always goes faster live anyway. It seemed like the last meeting ran pretty fast.

        (do I not get a notification on DISQUS that my post has been replied to? I signed into it using twitter)

        • http://www.cottonrohrscheib.com Cotton Rohrscheib

          That's a good point, we could have a PC hooked up to a projector and the presenters could utilize that for their presentation, that shouldn't be a prob.

          On the Disqus thing, I show that you logged in using Twitter and there is no email address available for you inside of Disqus, that's probably why you didn't get a notification by email. You might want to setup a Disqus account and plug in your Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, etc. into that. I love Disqus.

          • amybhole

            How about rather than a presentation, we each do a quick live demo of each app. Log in, show a few features, etc.

          • http://www.cottonrohrscheib.com Cotton Rohrscheib

            That sounds like a good plan to me.

  • http://www.facebook.com/danielspillers Daniel Spillers

    To reinforce Cotton's concerns (the entire conversation didn't appear when I first viewed the page, strange): If you have 4-5 panelists, that's 20-25 minutes minimum spent on overviews. And as I've never seen a 5 minute tech presentation in my life, and there'd be the shift between panelists, it could end up being more like 30-45 minutes of overview. And add 2 minutes per panelist for introductions, and your first hour has nothing to do with it being a discussion/debate panel at all. It's just a rushed set of presentations, not enough time to get into anything meaningful.

    Since we are a tech-heavy audience, I suggest that we don't need overviews or demos of each app by the panelists. We're used to going out and finding product information for ourselves. If the panelists could provide the moderator with a one/two-line description of each app, I bet a moderator could get out what people need to know in 5-10 minutes, especially if they had ONE screenshot per app. The idea is to set the context in less than 10 minutes and then spend the entire time responding to intriguing or controversial discussion points.

    The original idea was to not be a product information session, but a discussion panel about the impact of the products on social behaviors, whether or not these products can / should be monetized, etc.

    I'd like this panel format to succeed in a big way, but it needs to be lithe and quick to get into the “meat” of the discussion. Otherwise, I feel like people will be frustrated watching it. Thoughts?

    • http://www.cottonrohrscheib.com Cotton Rohrscheib

      You bring up a good point, although while I think a lot of us that are “regulars” have a pretty good grasp on GeoSocial applications, I think that there are quite a few people that will show up for this meetup that aren't regulars, or tech-heavy like the rest of us. In fact I have had a few people express interest to me in attending that are totally clueless and are looking at this meeting as a way to get acquainted from the ground floor w/ GeoSocial. I think that if we give everyone 4-5 minutes to describe the app (maybe not use a powerpoint or anything like that) but just a quick once over as to what the app does it would go a long way toward acquainting these people.

      One of the biggest crowds and most interactive meetings we had was on Google Wave. We had a lot of new faces from the area show up for that meeting and they gained a lot of good information w/ the overview and then discussion that followed. I felt like Greg's overview during that meeting was key in acquainting the non-technical folks that were there.

      Let's keep the discussion going on this though, I am totally open to whatever. I just want to make sure that we have everything so that people from the community that aren't as big of nerds as we are can get something out of it. I am planning on posting an update tonight so we can continue the debate.

  • http://www.facebook.com/danielspillers Daniel Spillers

    Also, since this my suggestion is an alternative to the way Cotton first explained the format, we can always try a moderated panel discussion format on another topic at a later date. I just know there is a desire to have multiple formats beyond product demo/information. We need those too, just want to shake it up a bit. :)

    • http://www.cottonrohrscheib.com Cotton Rohrscheib

      No doubt, I think that this is a format that would be a lot of fun, especially given all of the talented folks we have in the group to share. I am amazed at every meeting at the level of our discussions. On another note, you and I have to do lunch soon to discuss some WP stuff. LOL.

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  • http://KnowtheNetwork.com Keith

    I'll be glad to take Waze if unless you'd rather.

    • http://www.cottonrohrscheib.com Cotton Rohrscheib

      You can take it, I thought I would sort of moderate if we needed one. Honestly I think the thing will run itself once we get started.

  • http://KnowtheNetwork.com Keith

    I come back to wondering what matters about these apps and the geosocial trend?

    1. Implications
    2. Differentation

    Geeks want to know what's different, what are the benefits, social network etc?
    Biz wants to know what's in it for them? How is this going to change social networking?

    Give each app 2-3min for an intro. Then have moderator lead a discussion. Take questions but focus on how these can be used for conferences, mobile advertising, event promotion…etc.

    • http://www.cottonrohrscheib.com Cotton Rohrscheib

      That's sort of how I am leaning as well. I agree w/ Daniel that we don't want to have 30 minutes of overviews for each app but I think that a good, quick 2-3 minute overview for each app would go a long way.

      Daniel, your thoughts? I think we can keep it around 3 minutes for all 5 platforms (Gowalla, Foursquare, Loopt, brightkite, and Waze). If we do, that would only take about 15-20 minutes to kick the thing off. It usually takes everyone that long to get their beers and get settled in. :-)

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