GlitchNYC

Is it just me, or is there an abnormally large number of great folks in the new web communities that have sprung up in the past few years? Maybe it’s the fact that most of the people I’m working with lately are into the idea of creating or participating in something great, rather than making a boatload of money, but I’ve met more than my fair share of kick-ass people this year.

That said, even among these great people, it’s not often you meet someone who is genuinely cool and also willing to give you their time and enthusiasm with no thoughts of what they’ll get in return.

I’ve been developing a Wordpress widget for Clipmarks that allows you to add clips to the side of your blog. It’s only my second wordpress plugin, so I figured it would be a bit rough around the edges and would benefit from some true beta testing. We invited the incredibly awesome Torley to be our first beta tester Thursday night, and not only did he test it out and give us great feedback, but he’s also blogged about the tool and has done the legwork of installing an updated version of the beta just a day later!

I’ve spent the past year getting involved in communities and meeting amazing people, but it still always astounds me when people are this cool. It makes me really excited for the things that we’re capable of building if we continue to work together!

Long blog-post short: Thanks Torley!

PS - I’d love to test this widget out on a bunch of blogs before we go live with it, and could really use the help, if you’ve got a wordpress blog. Just drop me a comment on this post and I’ll get in touch!

I just noticed that Digg now allows you to specify thumbnails that will appear next to Digg stories pointing to videos hosted on your site!

Digg already has cool video thumbnails at the right for youtube videos, but I use blip.tv to host my videos, and I’d actually rather have my videos dugg right from FeltUpTv.com. To make it easy to specify thumbnails for each video, I’ve hacked together a quick wordpress plugin so I can do it right from the “write post” page.

This means that anyone running a videoblog on wordpress can install this plugin, get in touch with Digg, and start seeing thumbnails of their videos show up next to their Digg stories. I’ve just submitted Felt Up TV, so hopefully Digg will include thumbnails from there soon!

This is my first publicly released wordpress plugin, so please let me know in the comments if you find any bugs or need help with it, and I’ll do my best to get it working for you.

Download the Digg Video Thumbnails wordpress plugin.

Remember, you have to let Digg know that you’re including thumbnails before they’ll start picking them up!

Installation procedure:

• Download the Digg Video Thumbnails plugin.
• Unzip the file and upload the plugin to ~/wp-content/plugins/
• Activate the plugin on the plugins page
• Specify a thumbnail for each video by editing the posts. You’ll see a Video Thumbnail URL field where you can put the URL.
• Get in touch with Digg and let them know you’re providing thumbnails using the “link element” method.

BarcampBoston is coming up, and one of the members of an email group I’m on wasn’t quite sure what to make of it. The following was my response. I think it sums up barcamp fairly well from a personal perspective, so I’m reposting it here.

Barcamp is, simply put, an unconference. No vendors, no high level keynote speakers, no preset agenda.

People get together in a space (which is often loaned by a local business) and talk about things they want to talk about. You’re very much encouraged to present if you go. Attendees are also enlisted to run all the tech, bring wifi nodes and projectors, and do just about everything (including developing the presentation tracks) themselves. It ends up working surprisingly well.

Oh yeah, and it’s free.

At BarcampNYC, I heard presentations from people who were actually excited about what they were doing. I chatted with Andrew Baron of Rocketboom and got inspired. I gave a well-attended talk with John Resig on “gaming social networks” and using myspace for promotions. I met and began working relationships and friendships with  Amit Gupta, Chris Messina, and Tara Hunt. I connected with bloggers, podcasters, coders, and “web 2.0″ business people.

At BarcampAustin, I chatted with Matt Mullenweg from wordpress and sat next to Doc Searls for hours as we attended the same talks. I heard about the municipal wifi network Austin is building and the business and technological opportunities there. I talked endlessly with folks about the potential of IPTV and why 100mbps to the home might not be enough. I heard the beginnings of Tara’s Pinko Marketing and how she’s using and building upon the cluetrain to promote Riya. I learned more and interacted more in the 1 day at BarcampAustin than I did at the whole of the much bigger and more expensive SXSW.

People don’t just present, chat, and connect at barcamp. Sometimes they just sit right down and code. Mashups and new projects have resulted. It’s an incredible event that’s spreading across the globe like wildfire. You don’t need a massive convention to convey and consume good ideas… We don’t need a “convention industry.” We don’t need to fly all over creation to meet the movers and shakers - we’ve got plenty in our own backyards. We just need to start getting together.

That’s what barcamp is about.