team.onesite.com blog listings.

Updates Galore

Fri, 20 Aug 2010 21:40:04 -0500

Today was a crazy day, upgraded thrift and all of our cassandra clusters. We use thrift as an ipc for some of our daemons and services within our platform. With this upgrade came some struggles since the thrift php socket transport had been neglected for some time and need a massive overhaul. We also created connection pooling wrappers with caching for php and python to make it easier to communicate with cassandra and improve performance.

Also this week integrate twitter oAuth into our iphone and android code bases. Will be pushing updates out for our Static.com mobile application shortly with these new updates, good luck finding the new easter eggs!

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Your brand website is dead. Adding a facebook URL won’t save it.

Wed, 18 Aug 2010 14:02:15 -0500

Your brand website is dead. Adding a facebook URL won’t save it.

The web has undergone an unmistakable and irreversible shift – it has become more dynamic, interactive, and mobile. What began as participation on social networks has forever altered the visitor expectations for any and every website. The capabilities of the latest mobile devices have created an audience that demands a level of experience unprecedented on the mobile web just a few short years ago.

The web now has more, and more engaged, participants than ever before. It has unmatched reach to people’s attention. That reach carries with it almost limitless opportunities for brands to connect with their customers, prospects, and reap the benefits of allowing those same individuals to connect with one another.

To take advantage of that reach, your website must offer a true blend of editorial and social content and functionality. It must natively integrate with the other destinations that make up a your web presence. And they must look to extending onto any and every mobile device. To be successful this all must present an integrated, seamless, and coordinated experience for the user.

You can not hope to be successful by simply moving your stale content and presence to facebook.com/wastedeffort.

In spite of what the “Social Media Expert” plying for a consultancy may say, now is not the time to ditch your website in favor of a Facebook Page or Twitter account.

No, your website – that branded destination on the web whose experience you full control - gives you the best and most effective real estate of your online presence. It is the one closest to your brand that you can do the most with. While your total presence may include any number of satellite channels or sites – from Facebook Pages to Youtube Channels – those should be built to feed your site, and your site should be built to feed them content to draw people back.

The next generation of web and mobile sites and destinations is going to require the next generation of tools and platforms to create, monitor, and manage them. Not only will the skills required need to evolve, but the tools must as well.

At ONEsite, we're creating those tools and those next generation experiences today – many of our clients are creating destinations that blend their editorial content with their communities and audiences, that natively integrate with social networks and other sites, and that are beginning to extend onto mobile devices. Not only does this make their central websites and presence more effective, but increases the effectiveness of their Facebook and Twitter sites by creating better integration and content flows between the two.

They are working towards the next generation of sites that prove more engaging, and ultimately more competitive and successful.

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Social Integration in the real world

Wed, 21 Jul 2010 12:55:42 -0500

Don't you love it when people take a common term (like Social Integration) and repeat it over and over in a new context? Now, I'd studied Social Integration in my sociology class back in college so I thought I had a pretty good idea of what Social Integration was, but I couldn’t see where it related to Facebook at all. Well, as it turns out, least in the context of things internet, it refers to the grouping or unifying of social networks.

"What do you mean you can group them? Why would I want to do that? I have Facebook, that's all I need."

This has been the typical response I’ve gotten from people when trying to explain Social Integration. It seems that most people are only interested in learning something new if it is a solution to an immediate problem.

If you can remember, last year a mass migration from Myspace to Facebook took place. "Ugh, half my friends are on MySpace while others are on Facebook." Twitter was well on the rise as well. Now do you remember? I do, it sucked. Especially while attempting to travel.

Maybe I remember it so well because I was getting ready to leave the country for a 9 month motorcycle trip to South America. How on earth am I going to be able to keep up with my friends when they are spread across 3 or more different social networks?

The solution to my problem came when ONESite developers created "Static" (see static.com). This was my first exposure to social integration. Admittedly I was at first, skeptical. “Great, here we go again, signup, invite friends, ect ect.” But I was relieved to learn that I didn’t have to sign up for it at all. No new login to remember and my email address stayed private. And the coolest thing? Static also offers a free application that downloads to your smart phone. I simply needed to login using my existing Facebook, Twitter or MySpace account

"Ok, I login at Static.com so what does that do?" Well, once you login, (use any of your existing network logins) you will have access to a tool that allows you to synch all of your other Social Networks together. Now when you "broadcast" a message (yes you can send a picture too) using Static, it updates your Facebook status, your MySpace and Twitter account. Your friends and followers are updated simultaneously.

From the jungles of Peru to Southern Arctic regions of Tierra Del Fuego, I was able to broadcast live message to all of my friends regardless of what social network they use. If I could pick up a phone signal or connect via wifi, I only needed to whip out my phone, muy bien!

When I flooded my engine with water attempting to forge a deep river, I was able to broadcast live pictures to all of my network friends via Static’s Social Integration technology.

When the corrupt police in Peru took away my passport and demanded $8 for its return, I pretended to make a phone call while capturing and broadcasting this image for everyone to see.

The ability to easily publish to the web (during a shakedown) was a great assistance when I arrived at police headquarters 3 hours later to file a complaint about the incident.

I showed the police chief my Static website (though I could have just as easily showed him Facebook. Twitter or MySpace) and I received a mayoral document to present to the next crooked cop that came my way. “That’s right, don’t mess with me buddy, I’m Socially Integrated!”

On the more eventful days, I would send as many as 12 broadcasts. I could interact with those who commented on my broadcasts and remember, this was across all my social networks.

“Hey look, they love guinea pigs in Ecuador…

…smoking on a hot plate!”

“I’ll never complain about the US economy again!”

“This “commando” wearing the homemade uniform was hanging out in the jungle begging for money. Shotguns make begging easy!”

“Crap! How’d I get way down here?”

“Merry Christmas, from the bottom of the world!”

These are only a few examples of the hundreds of broadcast sent while I was traveling about.

My entire 9 month journey, breakdowns, border crossing scams, Spanish school, food, culture fear and fun were broadcast live to a larger audience because of ONESite’s ability to integrate all social media into one easy to use application. Simply amazing! And, ahead of its time.

But all of this talk about Static is so last year.

These same concepts that made Static successful, have been improved, expounded upon and are now being offered to ONESite clients.

The Australian sports network, Bigpond Sport, will be showcasing ONESite’s newest take on Social Integration with SSO (means user sign up is optional) and a single status update field which will (you guessed it) allow users to broadcast to all of their social networks as well as Bigpond’s own social network simply by typing their update into one field. I’ll let you in on more details next time I update my blog.

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Oklahoma 2.0: Success in the Silicon Prairie

Wed, 21 Jul 2010 10:37:06 -0500

To many the prairie is windswept fields of waving wheat and the steady, nodding rhythm of pumpjacks stretched out under an endless blue sky. Too often to those on the coasts, the prairie is a great place to raise corn or cattle, but not a tech company. Slowly, surely, and undeniably that perception is beginning to change.

CNN published an article this week on the spurring growth of ‘Silicon Prairie’ as tech companies begin to take root throughout the central states. You can read it here.

Places whose history is steeped in the rugged determination of pioneers are turning that spirit to success in tech. Oklahoma as first a territory and then a state built itself on the motto Labor Omnia Vincit – Hard Work Conquers All.

We have built ONEsite with hard-work and determination. Our clients now include some of the most recognized global brands. From clients on either coast like Fox, Univision, Marvel, the NBA, and TIME to those in Europe and Asia like News International’s The Sun, CAPCOM, Panasonic, and Telstra, ONEsite has an unmatched caliber of clients for a company in the state, region, and rivals that of any competitor worldwide. We’ve won many of those clients with a visit to our Oklahoma headquarters.

ONEsite has grown its team from barely 20 to well over 50 and continues to actively hire, recruiting some of the region’s best new talent. Few things have made this job more rewarding than the ability to create those opportunities in the state.

Even as the economy has struggled we’ve had strong growth month to month and year to year.

It is disciplined business we have built, without outside investment and through the efforts of an incredible team, that now gives us a razor sharp competitive edge. We are proud to be an example of success that can come from anywhere, and can’t wait to see the success in the coming years for our company, our state, and our region.

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Smart phone sales escalate causing a greater need for mobile sites

Fri, 16 Jul 2010 17:29:06 -0500

Researchers at comScore Inc. say that as of May, about 21 percent of cell phone owners in the U.S. had smart phones. What does this mean to you and your communities' members. More people are opting to own a cell phone that can surf the Web, check emails, play music, movies and games, shoot home movies and run a number of programs for everyday use. Their phones are staying with them and with that is thirst and a need for more information. Your community can keep them interacted pretty much anywhere your members are. Feed your members needs with built out apps for phone usage and figure in that they will stay with you longer. Keep them interested. Target your demographic.

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