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San Francisco - One of the most highly anticipated social media/web 2.0 conferences of the year ended much earlier than expected today due to poor planning on the organizers. What was hailed as the “must attend event of the year,” the Social Web Extravaganza Business Expo (SWEBE) was forced to shut down three days early due to lack of access to a cell phone or wireless signal, and no usable power outlets.

“Look, we warned attendees well in advance,” said event organizer F.T. Bailey, “it’s even part of the byline of the event - ‘Prepared to be charged and connected’…look at the sign!” Mr. Bailey added, pointing to a banner in an empty auditorium.

Almost immediately, problems began to surface when excited seminar attendees were routed to the concrete basement of the hotel. Cell phone signals were immediately lost, causing audible groans to rise from the auditorium.

Then, things took a turn for the worst when it was discovered that absolutely no wireless signal was available throughout the entire building: “Our apologies,” stated a recorded message that repeated over the loudspeakers, “in an effort to curtail costs, internet connectivity is currently not available. We apologize for the inconvenience.”

To add insult to injury, it was soon discovered that only one power outlet was available throughout the entire conference area, and it wasn’t compatible with any known electronic plug. One attendee took this picture on his iPhone, just before the device lost battery power:

When reached for comments, agitated attendees were quick to weigh in on their concerns:

“No wifi, no cell phone coverage, no power…c’mon, it only took two hours before my Android phone shut off - this is unacceptable, and not worth the $250 price admission!”

“I couldn’t get on Twitter for more than 45 minutes…how are my peeps going to know how horrible the event was? I need to find an outlet quick, so I could Tweet this travesty!”

Event organizers, after making a variety of excuses, quickly ducked out a side-door, presumably to recharge, reconnect, and write “plausible deniability” posts on their blogs.

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Happy Friday Fishrap! This is where we share the results of our latest “Is It Real?” poll, and then present an entertaining video from the web.

First: let’s share with you the results of our last “Is It Real?” -

Last Sunday we presented a new technology that the McCain campaign released in a desperate attempt to keep up with the Obama campaign. This iPhone application is designed to share with his supporters the latest smear ads and falsehoods….er, latest campaign ads and stump speeches. Taking unique advantage of the iPhone platform, they included a built-in game allowing McCain to fight back against imaginary domestic terrorist groups and voter registration groups out to “destroy to fundamentals of our economy.”

We then asked you to vote, if you think it’s real. Here are the results of that poll:

• 80% thought it was fake
• 13% thought it was real
• 7% weren’t sure

The actual is that the McCain iPhone application is NOT REAL (big surprise - this guy needs his secretary - er, Cindy - to use his Blackberry for him…evidently, even though he invented it, he still doesn’t know how to use it). Good guessing…and tune in this Sunday for a new edition of “Is It Real?’

Now, on to the video part of our show. Today, we feature a nice vignette that illustrates one man’s love for the progress bar. It might take a moment to load, but be patient…it’s worth it. Have a good one!

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In partnership with the new T-Mobile G1 Phone is one of the first open source applications built exclusively for the so-called “gPhone” - and just in time for the presidential election. While this new cell phone from Google (aka “the Android”)has  dubbed the “iPhone killer” and alternately the “Blackberry killer,” (in some circles, called the “McCain killer” in reference to the Republican Presidential nominations’ PR gaffe stating that the Senator invented the ubiquitous Blackberry).

“Grok the vote” (GTV) is the new G1 Phone application that monitors social networking sites such as MySpace and FaceBook in an attempt to determine your voting preferences automatically.

Every time a G1 phone user enters or updates their social networking profile through the phones interface, “Grok the Vote” gathers a listing of your preferences, including your music tastes (or lack thereof), books you’ve read (or censor), groups you belong to (or hate) and even the types of friends your connect to - all in attempt to “grok” your vote.

Do you have a video post of “I got a crush…on Obama” by the Obama Girl? Well, that’s an easy algorythm - one vote for Obama!

How about if you are part of the Facebook group for John McCain? One vote for McCain!

If you want to censor books in public and school libraries, support a plan for oil drilling in Alaska without considering the economic trama and the environmental destruction that it would cause, support abstinence only sex education, believe that Creationism should be taught in public schools, regardless of religion, support the National Rifle Association- but not the restriction of guns from known criminals, oppose same sex marriage or any sort of health benefits for same sex couples, oppose the listing of Polar Bears on the Endangered Species Act, do not believe that Global Warming is caused by human activity, and are against all forms of abortion, even in the case of rape or incest victims, then McCain it is!

GTV was introduced to combat the vast morass of voter apathy. In the last November election, voter turnout was estimated at 39%. What about the 61% of the rest? I mean, is that really a Democracy? Does that qualify for a mandate of the American people? 39%? I mean, c’mon!

Yet, popularity of social networking sites are at an all time high! Hence - “Grok the vote” to the rescue!!!

Once a person downloads and runs the GTV open source application on their new G1 phone, Google subtly adds a User Licencing Agreement which indicates that users agree that their vote will be cast, depending on the conclusion GTV draws from the “grokking” their Social Networking sites.

Definition from Wikipedia:
Grok is a word invented by science fiction author Robert A. Heinlein, first used in the 1961 novel Stranger in a Strange Land.

To grok is to share the same reality or line of thinking with another physical or conceptual entity.

When asked about those that do not display any online preferences, the makers of GTV replied: “Well, those votes would automatically go to the Democratic candidate. We do this in an effort to combat the known Diebold voting machine bias towards conservative presidential candidates. This is also to combat the seemingly inbred tendency for liberal infighting, such as Ralph Nader pulling votes from John Kerry in 2004, and the conspicuous silence from Hillary Clinton post-Obama nomination.”

But, recently Bush was heard saying (while he thought he was off-mike):

Well, those f–kers can do any dang thang they want y’all, the die bold guy sez they’ll still deliver that geezer, and the second run beauty queen.”

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Happy Sunday, yooRyoo readers. Today we present another verson of “Is It Real?” - the web 2.0 guessing game that’s sweeping the nation! Here’s how the rules work - every Sunday, we feature a web 2.0 company, application or service and give you a brief description of what it is and how it works. Then we ask our readers to vote on whether it is real, or not.

The twist is that you cannot use the web in anyway to help you find the answer. The voting polls stay open all week (encourage your friends to come out and vote). Then, the following Friday (in our Friday Fishwrap) we reveal the answer.

So, now that you understand the rules, let’s introduce today’s application - called “iHologram.”

This iPhone application is a 3D animation program, and works by assuming a constant viewing angle (35-45 degrees), typical for when the device is placed on a tabletop. The 3d scene’s perspective is then warped using anamorphic perspective, making the object appear to jump off the screen.

It’s hard to describe - it might be better just to see it in action:

While not available through the iTunes appstore yet, interest in the iHologram is high and sales are expected to go through the roof!

So, yooRyoo readers, we ask: without searching Google or using the web in any way, Is iHologram real? Vote below and tune in next Friday for the results.

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Fans of “Is It Real?” might have noticed a recent trend where most of our “Is It Real?” features are indeed real. That is not only a testament to the wide-breadth of companies on our Web 2.0 world, it also speaks to the strangeness of it all. In fact, a recent set of Google searches has revealed a number of the satirical companies that we created actually do exist!

To that end, today we are featuring a few of those companies. No polls this week - but be sure to tune in next Sunday for a brand new version of “Is It Real?“…

yooRyoo created company #1: Triangle Hero

Introduced on June 12, Triangle Hero was a parody of Guitar Hero, but with a less-sexy instrument. Designed to teach players how to patiently wait through 138 bars of rest in symphonic pieces before playing your triangle controller, we thought it was a smarmy commentary on those crazy instrument games. Well we weren’t the only ones…

The Cartoon Network started featuring this commercial for a suspiciously similar game…

yooRyoo created company #2: Toot and Toot 2.0

Created as a rip on Twitter, Toot (and Toot 2.0 - now available for the iPhone 3G!) is a faux company designed to provide your health updates to subscribed friends through a micro-blogging service. Now you can Toot all day long, and no one will be the wiser!

Did you know there’s a real Toot company? We didn’t either…here’s a description of their services:

Toot! is software for making rich résumés and portfolios.

A rich résumé includes examples of your work. It exchanges the dry chronology of dates, companies, job titles and duties for an enriched résumé with actual pieces of your work that prove you know your stuff. Those pieces can be presentations, reports, plans, lesson plans, budgets, schematics, art, music, dance — anything you can render in digital form.

A portfolio is a trove of your work, collected over time with reflections about each piece. With Toot!, you can keep an on-going record of your life, including artifacts from all its aspects — work, education, hobbies, family, vacations, etc. When it comes time to create a résumé for a specific opening, you can select those pieces from your portfolio that best exemplify your qualifications for the position.

yooRyoo created company #3: iClock

With Web 2.0 parody, Apple’s “i” series (iPod, iTouch, iPhone, etc.) is an easy target. yooRyoo imagined a time (hah!) when Steve jobs would create a clock where he could control - and enhance - the time-tracking experience.

However, there really is an iClock application. Here’s a review:

iClock’s simple, intuitive interface never lets me down. With a quick glance at the pull-down menu, I can see what time it is where I am….where I’m going…and where I’ve been. With another click, I can check the weather at my next destination. Its so much more than a digital timepiece for the Mac.

yooRyoo created company #4: the gPhone

In a clever twist to combat the popularity of the gPhone, yooRyoo introduced on July 22nd, our “open-source” version of a Google-created phone, called the gPhone. Ultimately, the gPhone is designed to do one thing really well - make phone calls! In addition, we added a feature called “I’m feeling lucky” which randomly calls people - it’s like the Web 2.0 version of drunk-dialing.

Since we debuted this clever satire piece, many people have started calling Google’s upcoming Android phone the “gPhone” (yes, Google is really creating a smart phone). We’ll take credit for where credit is due. Here are a few gPhone links:

• gPhone Finally Coming. About Time (published Aug 14th)
• iPhone and gPhone shakes up wireless world (published Aug 21)
• New g-Phone semi-revealed? (published Aug 26th)

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It’s clear that since we launched yooRyoo in mid-June, we’ve already had an impact on how technology is evolving. Stay tuned for more “OMG - It IS real!!” features in the future. Have a great rest of the weekend.

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Happy August 1st, everyone! It’s Friday, and that means it’s time for the Friday Fishwrap, where we not only share an end-of-the-week video with you, we also reveal the answer to this week’s “Is It Real?“…

If you recall, last Sunday we featured a company called Ribbit:

Ribbit is an open platform for telephony innovation giving their developers unprecedented access to their technology through the Ribbit API and allowing them to innovate at will. Their business is built more like a software company than a phone company, counting on their developers to create the next generation communications solutions the world has been waiting for.

Then, we asked you to vote on how real this company is. Here are the poll results:

• 66.7% of you said it was real
• 22% said that it wasn’t real
• 11% just weren’t sure

The answer: Ribbit is indeed real! Savvy readers could have discovered this by reading our comments - one of which came directly from a developer at Ribbit:

Well, as someone who has been on the team at Ribbit for most of this year, and have watched both their developer community and awesome innovations like Ribbit for Salesforce (letting you phone in CRM updates) and the AIR iPhone http://www.merhl.com/?p=29 gain popularity, I guess I can tell you without fear of croaking: yup. Ribbit’s real.

Thanks for those comments, Ellen Petry Leanse. I think it’s cool that Ribbit is available on the new iPhone!

Thanks for voting, and tune in this Sunday to vote for next week’s “Is It Real?” Until then, enjoy this Friday Fishwrap’s video: “The Machine is Us/ing Us”…

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Initial rumors of a “GooglePhone” subsided once Google leaked the news that their foray into the competitive cell market was actually not a cellphone to rival the iPhone, but rather as the main backer of the Android mobile software platform.

Looks like this was just a smokescreen designed to hide their efforts at their version of the iPhone killer: the gPhone!

Instead of The dark screen of the iPhone 3G, the gPhone uses a light colored screen. Also, in keeping with the simple interface of the Google search, the initial release of the gPhone does one thing and one thing well: make calls. It does not (at least initially) have other applications, like the iPhone, such as music player, calender and productivity suite, only a phone.

The gPhone offers a Google like search interface. Instead of dialing numbers you just input names into the search field, with auto-completion for commonly typed searches. The search also has the “I’m feeling lucky” button, also commonly associated with their online search. In this instance it selects a random phone number of a gPhone owner named similarly to your search query.

“The “I’m feeling lucky” button is the 21st century version of drunk-dialing,” says Google spokesperson I.P. Freely. “It’s a good way to get to know other gPhone owners. It approaches the randomness of real life.”

The model shown has the expansion pack with email, a browser and music player, but Google assures users that right out of the box, you are able to make that simple phone call.

“In this day and age of yearly upgrades, why would you tie all of your technologies into one piece of hardware?” Freely says. “I mean, as technology advances do you really want your music player, camera, browser, productivity suite, etcetera all on one piece of hardware? What if something more sexy comes along, like a new digital camera you can’t live without? Now you’ve got two cameras to contend with. It doesn’t make upgrade sense.

With the gPhone, much like the Google online search, it does one thing and one thing very well: make phone calls.”

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In a rush to release a new iPhone application through Apple’s iTunes store, Toot 2.0 has just been released for the new 3G platform.

Toot is a microblogging technology that allows connectivity to your online friends similar to Twitter. Using bio-tech implants, Toot allows you to automatically update your health status on the fly! Through wireless connectivity, Toot implants convey your biometric information status to a website console that integrates with all social software platforms (Facebook, LinkedIn, MySpace, WhoIsI). Imagine conveying your health status in 140 characters or less - what a breakthrough!!!

Now available for the iPhone, Toot 2.0 is already gaining a wide acceptance with users:

• “I waited in line two hours at the Apple store for my iPhone, had to wait another 45 for AT&T to run a background check and initiate my cell phone account…now I can’t wait to get home and Toot on my iPhone!” said one Apple zealot.
• Another user wrote: “I have been Tooting all day and all night since I got my new iPhone. It feels great - but I wonder if there is some way I could wash off my phone - it’s beginning to smell.”

Forget Twitter, forget FriendFeed, forget Google Talk - it’s time to Toot 2.0 on your iPhone!

Information regarding Toot1.0 can be found -> here.

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Time for the second installment of “Is It Real.” With all of the excitement surrounding the new iPhone 3G, and the release of the much anticipated iPhone apps store, a number of exciting applications are now available through iTunes. But none as more powerful as this week’s “Is It Real?” entry:

MiPhone (pronouned “My-Phone”) is a unique social-networking tool that allows iPhone users to identify other iPhone 3G users (using the internal GPS device), so they can mingle and congregate, and generally look down at all non-iPhone cell-phone users.

For only $4.99, MiPhone is available through the iTunes app-store for a limited time.

So, “Is It Real” fans, it’s time to guess - is MiPhone real?  No fair searching the apps store in iTunes to find out! The real answer will be given this Friday!

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iTele-phoni makes network cabling cool again!

Remember when Networking was cool? Okay, maybe you are too young, but back in the day anything to do with computer networking was cool with a capital “K”. It was sooo cool to be able to spout jargon like LAN/WAN or even PAN, are you withit MAN? With computer networks, you could even do the CAN/CAN!

iTele-phoni puts a cool sheen over network cabling: the cables are sheathed in a flexible plitanium coated surface which reflects the light in a prismatic effect. Aesthetics do matter, even if it’s the same old cabling being buried under 5 feet of dirt.

Critics, unfazed by the financial success of iTele-phoni, are unmoved:

“They are just encasing the same old network cable in a shiny sheath - nothing revolutionary about that,” responds John J. Jingleheimerschmidt, a networking exec at the Cable Stable. “It’s not even using new technology. Comcast came out with that sheath back in the 90’s. All they are doing is playing catch up.”

Mr. Jingleheimerschmidt did have to admit that iTele-Phoni’s marketing machine is second to none.

“Hey, they can put lipstick on a dog and make it sexy, I’ll give them that, but revolutionary it is not.”

iTele-Phoni was announced at the CableWorld Conference in San Francisco on June 8th. The iTele-Phoni’s network cable will transform IP packets into it’s own proprietary IP packet, which will only be able to be deciphered by users using Motorola modems. Software to jail break the proprietary IP packet is being released by independent software developers and is reportedly available on Craigslist and Ebay.

iTele-Phoni - bringing sexyback into the plumbing!

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