Webcraft Studios

In a little more than 3 months since my last blog post, little to nothing has changed. I’m currently still seeking payment on overdue invoices from the company that bought out my last client. My legal council is very confident that it’s merely a matter of time and stepping through process. The debt is clear and the documentation solid. As I’ve mentioned before, the experience of having a client (by proxy) being so blatantly unethical drives me away from my desires to put further energy into this type of work.
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In a nutshell, Webcraft Studios is on ice – as in long term storage. My big 2008 client reported that my social media marketing campaign yielded better results for less money than another similar project running for another of their products. The other campaign was an ARG while my campaign was Digital Theatrics. Near the end of the project, I suddenly received a request to freeze all activity. Turns out, my client was bought out by South Peak Interactive.

When the buyout occured, I’d just submitted my second invoice. I was still awaiting payment on the first invoice. Ultimately, Southpeak has refused to pay on any of the invoices. I have since learned that they’ve been treating many of the smaller contractors the same way. With more than $9,000 in subcontractor fees piled up during the project, no payment from Southpeak, and all of my savings gone, I was left in financial despair.
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I just saw an interesting article on Cnet about Obama collecting information on open source software. I agree with the author, Matt, in that a mandate would be somewhat inappropriate. However, I am very disappointed in another aspect of McNealy’s quote.

Sure, if we manage to save some money in the US by operating on open source software, that’s great. The thing is, if we spend more money by switching to open source software, it’s still the right thing to do for many other reasons. I hope that McNealy did not make his entire argument entirely based on economics. More to the point, I hope Obama is actually interested in understanding what the open source initiative is really about.
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Dear Palm,

I’m very excited about your new Palm Pre. No, I did not buy your first generation Palm Pilot. I did, however, buy one of those first generation Handspring devices. Yes, the Handspring, made by those guys that left Palm to start a new company. A company you later bought, because they were doing it right. I cut my teeth on a Handspring. At the time, it was a life saver.

Fast forward to now. The Pre promises to do exactly what I want it to do. It will bring all of my contacts and calendars together into a central device. It has a solid Web browser. It has a great interface without excluding the value of a keyboard with tactile feedback. It even makes phone calls.
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Last June, I made a post titled “A Call For A Distributed And Open Twitter Service“. A friend recently sent me a direct tweet that made me very happy. Apparently, the ground work on an open microblogging format is in the works!

Evan’s comparison of an open microblogging standard with current email standards were directly in tune with how I feel. My biggest concern is that the standard won’t see adoption by key players such as Twitter itself. The only true value that Twitter has over the competition – well, aside from being “the verb” for microblogging – is the existing user base. You see, if you want to communicate with me via microblogging, you currently have to use a service I use. Since I use Twitter, you would have to use twitter. Folks choose Twitter because their friends are already on Twitter (or Plurk or Brightkite or …). By allowing their users to talk openly with other services, they will risk losing the strongest advantage they have.
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