I tend to try to not mix business with blogging, but I wanted to give a quick post about my new gig. Friday, was my last day at Yahoo!, but being someone who doesn’t like to slow down, I am already hard at work on my new project: MySpace’s Data Availability platform.
I am passionate about openness on the web and its potential to catalyze more meaningful user experiences. It was this passion that brought me to Yahoo! to be a product manager on the Games team, where I was tasked with working to build out our community tools. In November I switched over to the Yahoo! Open Strategy (Y!OS) team to help Yahoo! create an application platform to open our properties to 3rd party developers. It was an amazing year, and I was fortunate to work with many dedicated and intelligent individuals who were passionate about helping Yahoo! embrace an open strategy. Today I took my next step in my work on creating platforms to help social interactions on the web, but it required a change in scenery.
As of this morning I am an employee of MySpace, working as the Product Manager for the Data Availability project. I strongly believe in the value of having an evolved sense of online identity, one that empowers users by giving them control over their digital self. I’m thrilled to have the opportunity to work with the community to create a more open and social web. So keep a look out for what is coming down the pipes from the project, and find me on MySpace at: http://www.myspace.com/pixelelated.
For those in the Los Angeles area, the Getty will be hosting one of its “Fridays Off the 405″ events tomorrow. This will be a chance to enjoy some cocktails, art, and live music, which always go well together. I haven’t been to one yet, but am planning on making this.
My favorite instant messaging client on the Mac is Adium. It is a robust open-source project that supports a variety of IM protocols (Yahoo!, AIM, MSN, etc.) all from one client. I have been a loyal user for years, but the depth of the product features continues to present me with surprises.
The most recent discovery I stumbled across by accident one day when I was trying to do a “Spotlight” search. It turns out that all you need to do to search your contacts is start typing a query. For people like me, this is a great way to avoid scrolling through a lengthy list for the right person. Enjoy!
As I was spending some quality time in a hotel bathroom last weekend, it occurred to me that in all my many stays as a variety of hotels around the world, I have never once had any reason to use the retractable clothesline. For those that haver absolutely no idea what I am talking about, next time your are in a hotel room, check in the shower, and there is a good chance you will find the contraption pictured above hiding in plain sight.
Now, I understand why there is an iron in the closet, even if I don’t choose to use it, but the clothesline makes no sense to me. How many people are doing laundry in their room? When I was in Alaska I had this utility powder that could be used as detergent or body wash, and I may have used the clothesline in one of the lodges I was in, but that is pretty much the only time I had all the right ingredients on hand to make a hotel room laundromat. However, does the Westin at Union Square in downtown San Francisco really get that many people that make use of this? Unless Macgyver is staying there, I imagine not.
However, this is coming from a man who owns no pots or pans, so I can’t claim to have much understanding of the ways of being a real adult. So, dear readers, have you ever been a guest in a hotel and had a reason to use the clothesline?
