As this is Jamison’s first foray into New York or the business world, Elizabeth and I thought it was appropriate to prepare some slides in advance.

I’m honestly pretty excited about the Facebook integration at the Ushuaïa Beach Hotel in Ibiza. Yes, it might give me an excuse (as if I need one) to hit the clubs and do some “research” for “work.” But more importantly it allows people to update their social networking profiles without staring blankly at their devices (iPhones, Androids, crackberries, etc.).

Maybe it’s just a personal pet-peeve, but waiting to start your breakfast, lunch, dinner, birthday party, Bar Mitzvah or wedding because a friend “needs” to check-in to FourSquare first is a serious drag. Multiply that by the number of social networks they feel compelled to update and it’s damn-near unbearable. Hence the reason I’ve been such a fan of passive location tracking and broadcasting – such as Google Latitude or even cellular network location services.

The implementation at Ushuaïa looks to be a custom designed, one-off setup that I’m sure took many days and weeks to plan, build and code. However, imagine a service that would allow you to pre-authorize check-ins, likes, posts, whatever simply by waving your phone, watch, bracelet, subdermal microchip, etc in front of a nifty “Like Box.” If the boxes were abundant enough (and cheap enough) then stores, restaurants, art galleries, museums, etc. could easily integrate social media (read “social marketing”) into the core customer experience at their location. Now that’s a world I’d like to live in…

Application programming interfaces in femtocells may have a lot of potential, but who is going to exploit it? Mobile operators have historically been used to ‘walled garden’ models, in which applications are developed in-house to retain carrier control over revenues. But the key lesson learned from this is that they must break down those walls.

The most successful projects are open. Operators are starting to realize this, due in large part to the huge success of Apple’s iOS, and Google’s Android, both of which are open models that let independent developers craft their own applications. However, many carriers may need help engaging that broader community.

Making developers aware of the opportunities associated with femtocell APIs is the first hurdle. Tied to that is an understanding of the business model, and how those developers gain access to these APIs, and pay for them.

Moving outside the walled garden doesn’t necessarily mean that API customers can’t be strategic. Business partners with which the mobile operator has an existing relationship are likely to consume these services. Examples could be home security companies: they might use the information from femtocell APIs to alert one person via SMS message when another person in the family arrives home, for example. One can see similar potential business partners in areas such as home healthcare, perhaps.

For this to work, developers must be given easy access to APIs. Alcatel-Lucent makes the Open API Platform available to developers. Primarily an API management tool, it enables an operator or an enterprise to expose APIs in a secure, controlled manner, using software keys provided to authorized developers. They can provide those APIs to professional partners to set up a developer portal, including blogs and forums for exchanging information.

Such tools are fundamental to the creation of developer communities. The other critical part of the process is understanding the value chain and using it to promote customer engagement. One option for carriers interested in making femtocell APIs available is to follow the ‘B2B2C’ model. The enterprise partners they work with consume the APIs, incorporate them into their own services, and then expose those to consumers. This effectively turns the business partners into channel partners that make the raw femtocell data relevant to a consumer audience.

What might this look like in practice? A coffee shop could create a branded app that would give away a free coffee to its customers on every fifth visit. Perhaps it could prompt staff to get the customer’s customary latte going when she walks in the door and joins the line-up.

Software companies the world over understand the relevance of developers to their success. Microsoft’s Steve Ballmer is on the record preaching this point, and Google’s I/O developer conference regularly foregrounds mobile application development. Mobile operators, used to closed communities, face a significant amount of cultural rewiring to embrace this idea, but it is crucial to making femtocell APIs relevant. Let’s hope that they’re up to the challenge.

This article was originally published over at Alcatel-Lucent’s Wilson Street blog. A site dedicated to evangelizing femtocell technology.

• If you build it… they won’t come
• Common Building Blocks
• Innovative Building Blocks
• Developer ≠ Developer
• Monetization
• Customers ≠ Customers
• Make it concrete.
• Evangelism

The Connected Traveler application prototype uses some cool APIs from mobile network operators, such as presence, network location (one of my favorites) and messaging. Mix those with a dash of airlines APIs like travel profile, loyalty rewards, and perhaps a CRM (customer relationship management) API or two and you get a swift demo that people apparently like a lot. The response at MWC was tremendous, with airlines and mobile operators alike clamoring for more detail and follow-up meetings. Go team!

I can’t show you the demo itself (NDA’s, lawyers and what-not), so in the mean time check out these wireframes from the prototype application.

What’s network location? Glad you asked. Check out this article I wrote for Read Write Web that goes into detail on network location, a bit of its history and some potential use cases. Once you grok that, drop back here and check out the Get Location Demo.

This web demo is making a call out to a virtual location service exposed as an API on the Open API Platform and displaying where our “virtual users” are located on a map. Simple. But highly effective when discussing APIs, network capabilities, “mashups” and a variety of use cases for network location.

The app started as a few simple wireframes in OmniGraffle (love, love that software). Check them out below.

Change the World App – Grand Prize Winner

“Late Runner” by margarita

The contest judges overwhelmingly selected “Late Runner” for the ”Change the World” grand prize because of it’s unique blend of network APIs, usability and overall polish on the final application. “It’s a nice show-case of how you can use the information in the carrier network (vs. just your phone) to program your day-to-day life,” Michael Cote, industry analyst with RedMonk. “Late Runner” utilizes the SMS and Location APIS from Alcatel-Lucent Open API Service to help your friends, family and colleagues when they’re running late for an appointment or meeting. Users can choose with whom their location information is shared and for how long with built-in privacy controls.

Change the Game Apps – Runner Up

“SMS Geo Notify” by abkqz

Don’t just add another task onto your never ending todo list, instead use “SMS Geo Notify” to send you task reminders and notes when you’re near stores, friends, work or home. This app uses the Location API and the SMS API from Alcatel-Lucent’s Open API Service to track users’ location and send SMS messages at the appropriate times. It’s not just an app, its a framework – complete with its own API. “Novel idea to implement a ‘framework’ for the contest entry – very programmableweb-like,” John Musser, founder of ProgrammableWeb.com.

“Smart Redirect” and “GPS Now” by dhbellol

“Smart Redirect” utilizes the Location API from Alcatel-Lucent’s Open API Service to intelligently route your phone calls to any number of preconfigured locations. If you’re at the office your calls get routed to your desk phone; on the road they go to your mobile; and at home they’ll ring your home line. All based on network location so you won’t miss that important phone call. “Smart Redirect starts to combine location and presence information in interesting ways using technologies most users already have in their pocket,” Richard Karpinski, Editor-in-Chief of Connected Planet Online. Get spoken turn by turn directions, just like an actual GPS device, from any cell phone with “GPS Now.” Utilizing the Location API from Alcatel-Lucent’s Open API Service “GPS Now” is capable of retrieving accurate location information from any cell phone and through a special mashup with the Google Maps API return directions to users directly on their phone. Turn by turn directions are just a free phone-call away.

“Cheapee” by oshows

We’ve all seen the barcode scanner apps for our favorite smart phones, but what about the rest of us with regular phones? With “Cheapee” users can send the UPC code from just about any product, in any store from any phone capable of sending an SMS message, and they’ll get a return message containing the lowest three prices from online retailers. Simple. Easy. And a great way to save some cash when you’re out shopping. “Cheapee” uses the SMS API from Alcatel-Lucent’s Open API Service for its messaging capabilities and retrieves pricing information from online retailers. “Like RedLaser for the rest of us,” John Musser, founder of ProgrammableWeb.com. In addition to the trips, we awarded big cash prizes to the winners in each of the following categories and platforms.

100 Apps In 100 Days – Category Winners

Healthcare

1. LifeSaver (rominirani)
2. inPatientLocator (maximuscoder)
3. HandsUp (westine)

Travel

1. LateRunner (margarita)
2. SMS Geo Notify (abkqz)
3. GPSNow (dhbellol)
4. SmartRedirect (dhbelloll)
5. iNavigator (subchap)

Financial

1. Personal Finance Portal (mashuper)
2. Startup Validator (amiune)
3. FETAC (frozenfx)

Media

1. Debate Wall (amiune)
2. SlideShowRemote (supercharger)
3. PhotoChat (dhbelloll)
4. Watch Together (mashuper)
5. RecipePal (oshows)

Retail

1. Cheapee (oshows)
2. Shopping Assistant (dhbellol)

Other

1. Match 2 Friends (amiune)
2. QuickWeather (oshows)
3. Mashup Editor (mashuper)
4. SaveMyDate (sach.in)
5. Transport Monitoring (grey220022)

100 Apps In 100 Days – Platform Winners

Web

1. SmartRedirect (dhbelloll)
2. Debate Wall (amiune)
3. PhotoChat (dhbelloll)
4. Startup Validator (amiune)
5. Match 2 Friends (amiune)

iOS

1. Shopping Assistant (dhbelloll)
2. iNavigator (subchap)
3. SlideShowRemote (supercharger)
4. GeoFigures (real_vg)
5. SaveMyDate (sach.in)

Feature Phone

1. GPSNow (dhbelloll)
2. SMS Geo Notify (abkqz)
3. LateRunner (margarita)
4. QuickWeather (oshows)
5. Cheapee (oshows)

Android

1. LifeSaver (rominirani)
2. EmotionalStats (amiune)
3. inPatientLocator (maximuscoder)
4. FETAC (frozenfx)
5. zoneAlarm (premvijay)

Congratulations to all of the winners and thank you to all of the developers who participated in this contest and made it such a resounding success.

For those of you sitting on the fence or who may be running low on energy in the final days and hours of the contest, we hope this piece of news will pick you up and give you some motivation to get your apps in before the December 10th deadline. How about a heaping of industry experts to review your apps and pick the grand prize winners?

We’ve gathered the best an brightest from Alcatel-Lucent, Connected Planet Online, Programmable Web, Read Write Web and RedMonk to help pick our “Change the World” and “Change the Game” top prizes. Yes, the wicked-cool trips to SXSW Interactive in Austin and Mobile World Congress in Barcelona are in their hands. So be nice to them … In addition to our Alcatel-Lucent judges we’d like to introduce you to our panel of industry experts.

• Michael Cote – A software Industry Analyst with RedMonk, who covers software: making it, using it, and living with it.
• Richard Karpinski – Editor-in-Chief of Connected Planet Online, covers IP/NGN technologies, wireline infrastructure and industry/competitive issues.
• Marshall Kirkpatrick – Co-Editor and Lead Writer at ReadWriteWeb.com, one of the most widely read technology blogs online and syndicated daily by the New York Times.
• John Musser – Founder of ProgrammableWeb.com, the online resource for mashups, APIs and the web as platform.

We’re very excited these folks have volunteered to help pick our grand prize winners. Good luck to all the competitors. (And don’t forget to submit your code before 10 PM EST on December 10.)

Sure, there are plenty of services that will let you “check-in” to your favorite restaurant, bar, club, airport, or friend’s girlfriend’s house. The process is usually quite simple: Fire up an app on your iPhone, Android or smart phone of choice, choose your location, add a witty blurb (or not), and you’ve joined the throngs of other hipsters broadcasting their latest conquest. Heck, you might even earn a badge or a coveted mayorship for your hard work.

Unfortunately, if your square friends aren’t using one of these services they’ll never know how hip you are, so you’d have to resort to publishing your location out to your status message, wall, feed or some other activity stream. Facebook’s announcement today changes things slightly in that it will aggregate your check-ins from a variety of sources and then make that location data available in their semantically friendly Graph API. Facebook, FTW.

@bhavishya: Checkin to Foursquare and find out where your friends who checked in on Gowalla are #FBMobile

Bam! Now your friends can drop a pin on a map, get turn-by-turn directions and know what bars to avoid just by pinging your Facebook location.

Now, your non-smartphone-carrying friend (c’mon, we all have them) is saying: “Man, I wish I could use one of these awesome location services, but my $29.97 phone won’t run any of these apps.” Fear not, there’s an app for that. Or to be more precise, there’s an API for that. It’s called Location Based Services and your cell phone knows all about it.

Back in the day emergency folks found it hard to dispatch fire and police to 911 calls from cell phones. Luckily, the government stepped in and mandated that all mobile operators provide latitude and longitude information with every call to 911. What does this mean for you and me (and Facebook)? That nifty, GPS-lacking feature phone in your friend’s pocket and your grandmother’s purse is just as capable of broadcasting its location as your wiz-bang smartphone. In fact, over at Open API Service, we’re aggregating network location from a variety of carriers and making it available to developers in a ridiculously simple API. (Even I can use it, and I’m not a developer, by far.)

But what if you or your friend are too lazy to check-in all the time? Ah, so there’s the catch. You don’t need to check in. Your phone is always broadcasting so the carriers always know where you are. Creepy? Then don’t opt-in. But this could solve a serious issue with user interaction on location services. I may be going out on a limb here, but I’d venture that most of us probably don’t think to check-in to every place we visit. Network location provided by Location Based Services is an easy way to passively provide your location to friends. You just need your phone turned on and preferably somewhere near you.

No, network location probably can’t tell whether you’re in the coffee shop or the bookstore next door. Perhaps you could store your path through a city and then check-in to a few spots when you get back to your house (like after-the-fact GPS waypoints or a quasi-form of geocaching). Who knows? The point is, users don’t have to do anything to enable this. And, as mobile operators start to deploy more and more femto (or small cell) technology, the accuracy of these services will increase, too. Eventually they could tell that you’re at Gate 13 in DFW as opposed to Gate 14.

So, hey, developers, what do you say we take the millions of feature phones out there, chuck the need to build an app, opt-in users’ phones and help them start broadcasting locations to their friends today.

Justin Tormey is the senior manager of API programs at Alcatel-Lucent and the former director of product management for MTV’s APIs, video platform and digital distribution. Follow Justin on Twitter at twitter.com/justintormey.

This article was originally published over at ReadWriteWeb.

It’s not much to look at, but its an app nonetheless. Check out the screen shots (above) from my iPhone and Android phones. My app will work for any phone that can send a text message. You can try it yourself, just send a text message (SMS) to 73777 with the following message, “citytime New York” … You should receive a message back that looks something like this:

The current time in New York is October 13, 11:50:21.

Okay, so we all have clocks and the internets will tell us what time it is in other cities! What’s the big deal?

First of all, my app uses the SMS service made available over on the Alcatel-Lucent OpenAPIService (where I work). That gave me all the power I needed. Without it I wouldn’t have a handy shortcode – 73777 – to send or receive the text messages. I just had to create an account and register for a new API key. This is a big deal, as traditionally it’s been rather difficult and expensive to get a shortcode setup.

Secondly, I WROTE IT… so it has to be awesome. I’m far from a developer and it was actually incredibly easy to do. Took me less than two hours start to finish. I blame that entirely on Google. Here are a few of the search terms I used to pull pieces of code from various websites:

• PHP method POST - How do I get the query parameters from a POST request?
• PHP POST XML – How do I POST my XML blob back to the API?
• PHP CURLINFO – Turns out this handy thing called curl will do lots of this stuff for me!
• PHP Current Time – What time is it?
• PHP Get World Time – Took me down a strange path of old javascript clocks, etc. Initially decided the wrong time was acceptable for this demo, then upgraded to use the True Knowledge API.
• PHP Echo Referrer – Thought I’d show where the request was coming from in the logs. Turns out its easier to grab the IP address.
• PHP fwrite new line – Made the logs look a lot nicer. Trick was the double quotes.

Since the initial demo, I’ve upgraded the app (with help from my friends over at TopCoder) to return the correct time for your requested city. If you’re inclined to try this yourself, here’s the PHP source.

It took us a while, but we were finally able to sift through all of the submissions and pick the top two proposals in each category and platform. Without further ado, we’re pleased to present the 25-Day Milestone winners for the 100 Apps In 100 Days contest.

25-Day Milestone – Category Winners

25-Day Milestone – Platform Winners

Every developer who submitted an idea also gets a wicked, cool contest T-Shirt! Of course, if your idea didn’t win, or you didn’t submit an idea, fear not… you can still enter the contest and win! The 50-Day and 75-Day Milestones are quickly approaching, as is the final submission deadline on December 10, 2010.

The judges were very excited by a number of the applications and want to wish the developers the best of luck in turning their idea into fully functional apps!

Our friends over at OpenPlug have kindly donated 100-day licenses to their OpenPlug ELIPS Studio software for every developer who registers for the contest. (So far we’ve fulfilled requests for over 50 licenses!) We though it would be a good time to catch up with Eric Baissus, CEO of OpenPlug, and get his thoughts on the apps movement.

JT: Can you provide us with some background on yourself and your company?

Eric: Sure. I am co-founder and CEO of OpenPlug, a company specialized in mobile software development, based in France. In OpenPlug, we provide platforms and tools facilitating mobile application development. Our customers are both the large handset companies as well as any mobile application developers in the world.

JT: What types of apps / software do you use personally / for business?

Eric: I am not downloading 10 apps per day but I tend to use my phone more and more for both business and personal life. For example, I use my iPhone a lot as a music tuner, and during my jogging as a speed tracker.

JT: Have you seen anything hot / fun / exciting in the mobile space recently?

Eric: Mobile space is still at the very beginning and I am sure we will see a lot of new and exciting applications coming soon. Many domains are hot. For example, I very much like an application such as Livetalkback which allows audience to participate in real time with an event and influence the way it goes. More generally, I definitely believe that participation models will have a great influence on the way we think and rule. What’s better than asking your customer to vote for a new feature when you are doing marketing?

JT: What excites you about the OpenPlug software?

Eric: With OpenPlug, we have the chance to work with two very different types of customers. On one hand, we provide a cross platform software environment to the largest handset makers in the world. Working with such demanding customers is an every day challenge but is also extremely exciting when our customers’ products, embedding our software, are shipped in million of devices. On the other hand, with ELIPS|Studio, our cross-platform development environment for application developers, we are in touch with thousands of developers worldwide,  always having new and fresh ideas. This combination of professionalism, innovation and fun is what we try to bring into our software and this is what excites me the most with OpenPlug products.

JT: How are people “Changing the Game” or “Changing the World” with your software? (Two prize categories for the contest… )

Eric: In a way, our software is changing the game as it dramatically facilitates development of cool mobile applications: it unleashes the innovation of developers, whatever their expertise is, and without compromising the end result for end-users. At the end, it is up to ELIPS|Studio users to change the world. We do not have such an ambitious goal! We just want to facilitate their life and also enable them address all the markets, including the vast mass-market which is not properly addressed right now.

JT: Are you looking forward to any specific types of apps coming from the 100 Apps In 100 Days contest?

Eric: No. I am really looking forward to the apps that will come out of this contest, whatever they are!

JT: What’s your “killer app” idea?

Eric: If I had a killer app in mind, do you really think I would let you know? …

JT: Any other thoughts or ideas you’d like to share?

Eric: Just one comment. I am always amazed by the innovation spirit of application developers. So I just want to express my admiration for the mobile application developers and wish all of them good luck.

We’re giving away over $165,000 in cash and prizes! Plus three trips to SXSW 2011 for the “Change the Game” app and a grand-prize trip to Mobile World Congress 2011 for the “Change the World” app.

As if that isn’t awesome enough, every developer who registers for the contest will get a free 100-day license to use the OpenPlug Elips Studio (compliments of our new colleagues in the south of France).

Can’t wait to see what apps you folks can create in the coming weeks and months! So get coding …

• 100 Apps In 100 Days Contest Site
• ProgrammableWeb
• OpenPlug

The Alcatel-Lucent App Strike Force not only made the aforementioned What’s Happening Now!! App, but the team also somehow found time to build, demonstrate and win two prizes for their own personal apps.

Winning the Paypal sponsored “Best use of PayPal API” was David Bello’s, PayFace, which uses the Face.com APIs to do facial recognition and send money to friends. He took home an iPad and a goodie bag full of various technology, gift certificates and assorted happiness.

Winning the Apigee sponsored “Best use of Web API” was Flickr Photo Map by Tyler White. His app mashes Flickr against Google Maps to show you images from around the world as you browse a map. He also won an iPad and a bag of techie loot.

This has been a fantastic experience for the whole team and we look forward to bringing the App Strike Force to a hack-a-thon near you.

The team’s also been earning karma points by doing some design work for the Pivotal Lab’s app and helping some folks with the video embeds on their cooking app. In the true spirit of a hack-a-thon the hours are long, but the camaraderie is strong.

The app uses the Open API Service Location API to find your friends or coworkers and places them on a map. From there we pull in their Twitter feed to see what they’ve been up to or thinking. This could be useful for a distributed workforce (ahem, Alcatel-Lucent and TopCoder). We ping Fwix to grab local news around your contacts and place the headlines on the map. Then just for added collaboration awesomeness you can call or SMS via Twilio.

Down the road, we’re thinking this app could be modified to support non-governmental organizations or disaster relief efforts by adding in some geofencing and alerting systems. We happen to have some experience with geofencing and alerting, but thought that might be a bit too much to tackle this weekend at iOSDevCamp. There’s always another a hack-a-thon…

After some brief introductory remarks from the iOSDevCamp crew and a word from the event’s primary sponsor, PayPalX, the teams broke out into small rooms with whiteboards and caffeinated beverages. So far we’ve set our eyes on a location aware news and alert app – maybe we’ll play up a non-profit or non-governmental organization use case and toss it out into the open source community.

Tomorrow we code.

We’re looking to build a team of developers and designers to take the iOSDevCamp 2010 by storm. Teams need to submit their idea for an app to be built at the event and if their idea is chosen, the team will be flying high to San Jose to attend the event and build it. So gather your crew and start brainstorming!

Prizes include the trip to the iOSDevCamp 2010, cash, and whatever your team wins at the event is yours!

The contest is running now over at TopCoder Studio and will conclude on August 12.

Paul Iverson, Redg Snodgrass & Justin Tormey

If you had any doubt about how serious we are with this whole App Strike Force thing… Allow me to put your mind at ease. Now we’ve got a logo! Bam. And the bowling shirts just arrived.

Last month Alcatel-Lucent (my new gig) announced the $40,000 Location-Based iPad App Challenge. The premise was remarkably simple, make an iPad app that uses our LBS API, if it rocks you win. Well, it’s been 31 days, the contest has ended and boy do we have some cool apps to show off.

With some help from our friends over at TopCoder (Veredox, I’m looking at you) more than 70 developers registered for the contest and we received 17 shiny new app submissions. Developers from around the world took part in this contest; we saw folks from Brazil, Canada, China, Colombia, Egypt, Estonia, Finland, France, India, Indonesia, Italy, Jordan, Morocco, Nigeria, Philippines, Romania, Russia, United Kingdom, Ukraine and the United States. There was even one developer registered in Antarctica; our SWAT team of researchers are still trying to verify this one.

I know, enough yammering about the contest, get to the apps. Of the 17 submissions we chose 4 apps that best utilized the LBS API, appealed to our fine sensibilities, were highly functional and well implemented. Check out some screen grabs from the apps below. Developers, your checks are in the mail (well, as soon as we pay our Top Coder bill… heh).

Peer Peer – legendapps, United States

A fun mashup that displays geocoded Flickr photos that are close to your friends. LBS + Flickr = sweet visualization to tap into the national zeitgeist. This app also begs the question, “What if you happened to peer on a peer on a pier?”

GeoTrack – dhbellol, Colombia

Use your iPad to track people, vehicles, field/sales employees or even family members via an interactive map powered by the LBS API. GeoTracker also allows you to make calls and send SMS messages via a swift Twillio API integration.

Radar – loveislife, India

Discover who’s around you in an immersive game like experience. Friends and enemies appear as dots moving around in a radar scope complete with toggle switches, rotating bezel to zoom and scanning overlays.

GeoTracker – subchap, China

Use your iPad to track your friends, family and coworkers. GeoTracker also utilizes the LBS API’s powerful “geofence” methods to send email alerts when users enter and exit specific areas. Get an email notification when Dad leaves work, your boss is near the office or your pizza delivery dude is near.

As a new member of the Alcatel-Lucent team, it was pretty exciting to see the company pony up some serious cash for this contest. The APIs are clearly in demand and can support some wicked cool apps. Keep an eye on the Open API Service site for more contests and hack-a-thons coming soon.

If you haven’t already, please donate to the relief efforts.

Born out of a single, undeniable precept, “Reach our audience wherever they are,” with the implied sub-text of “or somebody else will.” The MTV Networks Content API launched in September 2008, having completed six months of limited release, private beta with a handful of developers. The API gave third-party developers access to the entire MTV music video library, with standards compliant (MRSS, Atom, OpenSearch) and easy to integrate REST services.

This was MTV’s first stab at reaching out to third-party developers and growing a community of technical users. The integrations were fast and furious, growing the off-site video traffic substantially for the MTV Music & Logo Group and giving users a glimpse into the data services that would soon be used to power MTVMusic.com.

The concept is simple, load a series of Flash-based displays into a widget container. Mix and match as you see fit, add some Flex styling and you’re ready for launch. The container handled all of the communication between displays, via PureMVC, and the share functionality, thanks to our good friends at Gigya.

Here’s a presentation that gives a good overview of the product:

The site was re-launched on WordPress using a highly customized version of the Mimbo theme. The design was simple and matched their existing printed marketing materials but it gave the committee many new tools to reach out to both new members and facilitate communication between existing church groups.

About a year later we revisited the site design and made some small improvements based on user feedback and metrics gathered through Google Analytics. We also added video sermons to the site, hosted by Vimeo but integrated into the overall site design. There’s a nifty solar counter widget, too, that tracks the amount of carbon saved to-date by the church’s newly installed solar panels.

The goals were quite simple, along with fashion writer Farrah Weinstein, turn Javier the intern into Davey Havok from AFI, and Danielle into the girl from “The Grudge.” Get creeped out with these photos from MTV News’ Halloween makeover.

MTV News was producing the VMA Preshow and I was tapped to produce the Instant Fashion Profile with Diddy’s latest start, Cassie. The goal was to shoot photos while Cassie and her team prepped for the VMA red carpet and get those photos online and on-air in time for her live interview with Suchin Pak.

As you can see, the on-air interview went off without a hitch and the photos (below) came out beautifully.