Ryan Snyder

(This is a more personal variation of my post on the Shizzow blog: Shizzow!)

Over the past 10 months, I've been working on a location-based social web service startup called Shizzow with Sam Keen, Mark Wallaert and Dawn Foster. Today we're finally releasing it into private beta for a select group of Portlanders.

Let me backtrack a bit and talk about how Shizzow came to be. Throughout 2007 I found myself in countless conversations about online social networks, and the recurring theme was that the number of friends that you had was supposed to serve as some sort of an barometer of how important you were or what your status was. My argument over and over again was that friendships, as most things in life, should never be about quantity, but should always be about quality.

The Google Maps developers just announced that they have released an update that will cause map markers to be automatically placed closer to their actual locations. The markers will now be placed on rooftops on the appropriate side of the street for U.S. businesses and residences. Pretty cool.

I see this screen at least 5 times each week. Something is technically wrong with Twitter. Yet something also must be technically right with Twitter, considering Twitter users are willing to accept such a large amount of down time. I'm curious as to why this is? Is it because there is no other viable alternative? Is it because we are addicted? Is it because our friends haven't switched? Would it take a concerted community mass-migration in order to switch to Pownce or Jaiku?

I've been using a task management program called Things for about a month now. I'm digging it. It's the only digital solution I've found that's made me stop using pen and paper for my daily and long-term to-do lists.

The Oregonian just featured an interview with the organizers of Ignite Portland 2, which is coming up quickly on February 5th. Here's the Oregonian link:
What’s on your mind? You’ve got five minutes ...