Bits of my weekend

Posted on by Sarah Cooley
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This weekend was a mild one here in NYC, but it was a welcome change from the heat wave we had been having. On my way home friday I stopped by Whole Foods to pick up some veggies for the weekend, but I also treated myself and bought some peonies!

I’ve been wanting to experiment more with arranging flowers and peonies are my new favorite. They were just beautiful and fluffy in the store, I couldn’t resist. I’ll have to take a picture now that they’ve bloomed fully. They really fill out and you can see the flecks of pink inside the white buds.

On Saturday I spent the day on the east river, kayaking. Last summer I started volunteering at Brooklyn Bridge Park Boathouse and this summer I’m doing it again!

The boathouse runs out of Pier 1 in Brooklyn Bridge Park and offers free kayaking to the public in the summer. The first day for this season in next saturday, June 11th. So this weekend some of the volunteers got together to get some more formal kayaking training. It was a lot of fun.

What did you do this weekend?

Ch Ch Ch Changes

Posted on by Sarah Cooley
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Welcome everyone to the new Random Sarah. I hope you like the new theme, but more importantly I hope you enjoy the new content. I’m moving towards having this be more of a personal blog again. I made an attempt to do that last year, but I’m giving it another shot.

I’m not yet ready to admit defeat and say that Tumblr killed my blog, but I will say that it wounded it. My Tumblr has become a place where I really can post about anything. It really is much more random than Random Sarah is these days.

But I’m not giving up on my blog just yet. I’m just allowing myself to explore all the different things I’m interested in here on Random Sarah.

Don’t worry, I still love the internet and I’m sure I will write about startups and tech from time to time. But I also want to feel free to post about art, photography, interior design, food, and all the other things that catch my interests.

That may seem a little unfocused, but I got some good advice recently about blogging, if you keep writing, it will get focused. That’s exactly what happened when I started Random Sarah back in 2008. The more I wrote, the more I found myself talking about social media, online communities, and gadgets. It was a great way for me to get involved in the community and learn. Now that I talk about a lot of that stuff on a daily basis for work, I want to explore new areas in the same way.

I hope you keep reading Random Sarah. Any feedback you have on the changes I’d love to hear it.

Cataloging Inspiration

Posted on by Sarah Cooley
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For over 6 months now I’ve been meaning to write a post about my love for Svpply. Svpply is a site that allows you to save what you may want to buy later from any retail website. I’ve been using it more like  virtual storage for all the things I like. In the beginning that was mostly clothes and accessories, but more and more it’s becoming more of a place for me to keep a catalog of products that inspire me.

Svpply is frequently compared to Pinterest. Pinterest lets you catalog the things you love. It has similar features to Svpply in that it allows you to grab images from the web and “pin” them. But it also acts like a social bookmarking tool, letting you place things into categories, called pinboards.

This is a style pin board by my friend Patrice. Unlike Svpply, Pinterest allows you to add text to the photos you are saving. It also has features similar to Tumblr. Users can “re-pin” a post, like it, or leave a comment.

I find both these tools more visual and more appealing than traditional bookmarking sites like Delicious. I love just scrolling through the main page on Svpply, and discovering new things from the people and stores I follow.

What are you using to save inspiration on the web?

The difference between loving the design and loving the service

Posted on by Sarah Cooley
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On my last day in Austin, TX I was wearing a Gowalla shirt. I walked into the Aol Studio and someone asked me how I got the shirt. Gowalla was doing a special SXSW promotion, you could get your Gowalla passport, fill it up with stickers and get Gowalla swag.

So when the guy asked me how I got the Gowalla shirt, I was honest with him. I said “I paid for this shirt”. He looked really confused, he said “wait, you paid money for that shirt?”. My response: “Yes, I paid cash money for this shirt”.

I love the design of Gowalla, so I am willing to pay to wear their brand. However, I was not really using Gowalla at SXSW. I was not willing to check in everywhere just to get a shirt, but I was willing to pay for one. That’s the difference between loving the design and loving the service!

I love Foursquare, and the new update makes me love it even more! Foursquare bringing back the leaderboard was smart! It feels like a game again. Every check-in counts and I’m loving it.

Foursquare is also showing me more about my check-in history. Gives me extra points for hanging out with the same people, and really is helping me to explore my city.

This is going to make foursquare tips more useful. Just the other day I got a thank you on twitter for a foursquare tip I left over a year ago.

My Gowalla shirt from SXSW 2010

It’s things like this that will make me add more tips because I know they are really useful to my friends. I also think this will turn into certain friends becoming experts in the categories of places that they check-in most. Of course my friends are going to look for my tips when they are looking for a good vegetarian place to eat. Hopefully foursquare will start to reflect the expertise that your friends have. They had the data, why not use it!

Gowalla hasn’t lost me as a user yet, I just use foursquare more at this point. That is why you will see me wearing a Gowalla shirt, while checking in on Foursquare.