TokBox

Tokbox is a free service that lets you talk with your friends over live video. Here’s how it works: you sign up and they give you a link. When you want to talk with anyone, just give them the link – they click and you chat.

Now out of the many ways that anyone can video chat these days why would you choose Tokbox? There is iChat, Gchat, Skype, etc… They all have video. I was introduced to Tokbox and impressed by Tokbox by my friend Rob Blatt. He was showing me how it works and we did a quick video conference call with 6 people! And the video was clear and the sound wasn’t delayed!

Needless to say I was amazed! Tokbox has a bunch of interesting features and it is a pretty new service so I expect it to grow a lot. One of my main complaints about it is the sketch factor. Early on I did not update my privacy settings and I got a video chat request from someone I did not know who just wanted to chat with me.

I wasn’t really ok with that. But once I updated my privacy settings everything was all good.

Tokbox also has twitter integration so that you can send out a tweet if you are on a public conference call you want people to be able to join in on.

There are a few different things you can embed with Tokbox. You can embed video chat right on your website or blog, or embed a video mail box where people can leave you video messages on Tokbox. So check it out and let me know what you think! You can also add me as a friend on Tokbox here.

Reblog this post [with Zemanta]

Getting to SXSW 2009

It has been a long year for Random Sarah. I joined twitter, started a new blog, started video blogging, started a video podcast, created a community blog project, met a ton of people….man I’m tired already. But I had one goal when I started all this and that was to make it to SXSW interactive in 2009. I know it sounds like a strange goal, but I figured if I could only attend one conference all year I would pick that one.

The plan was pretty simple: Find a company that needed help during SXSWi and work for them for the week in exchange for a conference pass and accommodations. It was a plan that I had seen many other people execute before so it didn’t seem to difficult to me. However, over the last few months it has become very clear that this year we are dealing with SXSW recession edition.  More and more, companies didn’t have the same big budget for conferences that they once had. They were going to try and get by with as little as possible. And in this economy who can blame them.

But I still have a problem: I have a plane ticket to Austin and no conference pass. I am planning on shooting a few episodes of my show What’s it all about: Web 2.0 at SXSW but this all requires a sponsorship that I don’t have. So, I have come up with a new SXSW recession plan. I will be there for all 5 days of the conference. So I am looking for 5 Companies who would like me to represent their brand during the conference. (This idea was totally inspired by Girl in your shirt and I Wear Your Shirt)

The plan is simple: Each day I will wear the shirt of a different company. On your day I will be required to wear your shirt all around the expo and to any events I attend that evening. You would send me a company shirt along with something about your company that I would tell people every time they asked me about my shirt. I will be your active brand ambassador for the day. In addition to talking about your company, I will wear the shirt on my show that will be seen by many more people than just people physically in Austin attending SXSW. Your company will be the sponsor of that episode. All of this would only cost you $150 for the day! Seriously, I know you have $150 in your budget to sponsor a totally deserving blogger to go to SXSW!

UPDATE: In addition to having me wear your shirt and talk about the company for a day, and a sponsor spot on What’s it all about: Web 2.0, I will blog about your company before SXSW in a post about my SXSW Sponsors, and a post after SXSW, thanking my sponsors with links to all the photos, and videos taken of me during the conference. You will also get ad space on Random Sarah for the month of March. (125×125)

Why should your company do this? That’s easy! Because it would cost you a lot less than paying for my whole pass and hotel stay, and you get a up and comming girl in the world of social media to talk about your company all day. This is especially great for companies that may not have the budget to attend SXSWi this year. I will attend for you!

If you are looking for more information about me you can check out the rest of Random Sarah which is my personal blog, including my old video blogs. Check me out on Twitter and Tumblr. And check out my old episodes of What’s it all about: Web 2.0

Please contact me if your company is interested in me being your brand ambassador for the day.

Related links:

Want a brand ambassador for SXSW, meet Sarah (Sanford Dickert, Social Engineer)

Keep me out

Do you find yourself wasting time all day on the same websites?

Do you refresh the page every single time you see that there is something new?

Well if you answered yes then you are a lot like me.

Maybe this simple service would help us claim back a little bit of productivity. It’s called keep me out! and the premise is pretty simple.

  • Enter the address of the website you visit too often.
  • Bookmark the KeepMeOut alias and use the bookmark to navigate to the website instead.
  • Reclaim your life!

Let’s test it to see how well it works! Post your results in the comments below.

Social Media Week

Next week is Social Media Week in NYC. I am most excited about being able to attend the Social Communications Summit.

At SocComm, we will explore the state of Social Communications, where things are headed in the future and where the money is today and will be tomorrow.

It’s shaping up to be a great day with some wonderful speakers.

9:00am Jeff Pulver, founder SocComm, “Connected Culture”
9:20am David Kirkpatrick, Senior Editor, Fortune Magazine
9:40am Fred Wilson, Partner, Union Square Ventures
10:00am Gary Vaynerchuk, Wine Library TV
10:20am Peter Hirschberg, co-founder + Chairman,The Conversation Group (+ Special Guest)
10:40am Steve Greenberg CEO and Founder, S-Curve records and Chairman of Nabbr, former President, Columbia Records
11:20am Jeff Jarvis, Associate Professor and Director of the Interactive Journalism program at the City University of New York Graduate School of Journalism
11:40am “Will Law and Policy Kill the Social Communications Revolution Before It Starts?” – Glenn Manishin, Partner, Duane Morris LLP; Brock N. Meeks, Center for Democracy & Technology; Peter Corbett, CEO, iStrategyLabs; Beau Phillips, Partner, CLS.
12:10pm “Being a Mom in the Digital Social Evolution” – Lindsay Maines, Katja Presnal, Audrey McClelland, Beth Feldman
2:00pm Shelly Palmer, Managing Director of Advanced Media Ventures Group, LLC
2:20pm “SoMo: A look at the future of Social Mobile Space” – Matthew Snyder, CEO, ADObjects; Nihal Mehta, CEO, Buzzd; Justin Segal, CEO, Mocospace
2:50pm Kenny Miller, EVP, MTV Networks Global Digital Media
3:10pm Advertising & Social Communications: Demonstrating value to Big Advertisers” – Jeff Greenfield, COO & Co-Founder, C3 Metrics; Anthony Pitts, Director of Strategic Analysis, Burst Direct; Vanessa Branco, CEO, Versa 9
3:40pm Chris Brogan, President of New Marketing Labs, They Shall Know Us by Our Dialtone
4:00pm Social Media & Multiple Personality Disorder. Sandra Fathi, President, Affect Strategies; Rob Key, Converseon
4:45pm “Exploring the effects of Social Media on the future of Communications” – Howard Greenstein, Alon Cohen, Doug Levin, Aswath Rao
5:15pm Laura Roeder, “Running the online world of a Real-World celebrity”
5:35pm Social Gaming: Kevin Slavin, Area Code; Monty Sharma, co-founder, Vivox

The last time I attended a Jeff Pulver event I wrote this post and it quickly became one of my most commented posts ever. I know great things will come from me attending SocComm. Jeff Pulver was kind enough to award me a scholarship so that I would be able to attend (since there was no way I could afford the nearly $500 pass). I know great things will come from me attending SocComm.

Here is the rest of the event schedule for social media week.

Feb 09:

Feb 10:

Feb 11:

Feb 12:

  • Social Media Breakfast (8:30am-10:30am at Roger Smith Hotel)
  • The Politics of Social Media (12pm-2pm Venue TBD)*
  • drop.io stream ‘speakeasy’ (4pm-6pm at Drop.io offices)*
  • NYC Twestival (7:30pm-10:30pm at M:2)

Feb 13:

  • Urban Music meets Social Media (5pm-7pm Venue TBD)*
  • Social Media Week – Closing party/drinks (7pm-9pm Venue TBD)*

RSVP details for SMW events will be available shortly.

* Official Social Media Week events