PLEASE NOTE: The next meeting will be Wednesday July 2nd.  It is not
on our "usual" second Tuesday of the odd month.

The Wednesday, July 2nd meeting of the Rocky Mountain Internet Users
Group (RMIUG) will discuss "The Unintended Consequence of the Spam
Wars:  Why Your Email Isn't Getting Delivered"

We all know spam.  We all hate spam.  It clutters our inbox, offends
us (do I really need to see another Viagra ad), and is just a pain in
the neck.  Some researchers have estimated that every 24 hours, 100
billion spam messages are sent.  That's 100 billion useless emails
every day.  Ferris Research estimates that the lost productivity costs
businesses $100 billion worldwide, of which $35 billion is in the USA
alone.  I think we can all agree that if we could obliterate it
completely we would.

While obliterating is probably impossible we sure are more or less
succeeding.  With a litany of cool-named products like Spam Assassin,
Spam Eater and Spam Agent, we are starting to see a decrease in spam's
growth rate.  2007 saw an increase of spam of about 10% down from a
53% the year before that and over 100% the year before that. Using
fancy algorithms and other methods, these products "read" your email
and determine whether the email is truly worthy of your attention.
While certainly not perfect, they are helping to reduce the clutter.

But are they doing their jobs "too" well?  Increasingly people are
finding that critical emails are lost in their "spam" folders because
some attributes of these legitimate communications fail the algorithm.
   Even if we win the battle against spam, are we ultimately going to
lose the war.

During the next meeting, we will bring in a guest speaker to discuss
this critical issue:
Anne P. Mitchell, Esq. (amitchell@...) Anne  is the CEO and
President of the Institute of Spam and Internet Public Policy.
Mitchell brings with her nearly 10 years of experience in the Internet
and email industries, both from the legal and technical side. Mitchell
was the Director of Legal and Public Affairs for Mail Abuse Prevention
Systems (MAPS), the original anti-spam blacklist. Following her time
at MAPS, Mitchell was co-founder and CEO of Habeas, the first of the
email reputation services.

Links:
Institute for Spam and Internet Public Policy: http://isipp.com


The meeting is Wednesday, July 2nd from 7:00 - 9:00 pm (with optional
6:30 pm start for refreshments and informal networking). The meeting
will be held at The National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) at
1850 Table Mesa Drive in Boulder. To get to NCAR from the Boulder
Turnpike (US 36) or Broadway (US 93), take Table Mesa Drive west
towards the mountains for approximately 2.5 miles into the foothills.
NCAR is at the top of the hill. For door-to-door driving directions,
go to MapQuest (http://www.mapquest.com/), click on Driving
Directions, enter your starting address, NCAR's address, and voila!
Park in the NCAR lot, go in the main door, and ask the guard to point
you to meeting, which is held in the main auditorium, right off the
lobby. The meeting is free and open to the public, but we may pass the
hat to help defray expenses.

Our meeting location seats about 120 people. That is usually enough
room to accommodate all attendees, but it's impossible for us to
predict how many people will show up for any given meeting. Seating is
always on a first-come, first serve basis, and in the event of more
attendees than seats, we won't be able to admit additional people into
the auditorium after all seats are filled.

Thanks to our three sponsors who help make RMIUG meetings happen:
---------------------------------------------------------------
MicroStaff (www.microstaff.com) which provides Creative and Technical
talent for Web, Interactive Media, Marketing Communications and
Software Development projects, is the sponsor of food and beverages
for RMIUG meetings.
ONEWARE (http://www.ONEWARE.com) -- a Colorado-based software company
that provides semi-custom web-based applications, sponsors the RMIUG
meeting minutes.
Copy Diva (http://www.copydiva.com) which provides marketing project
management, marketing communications consulting, and web content
development is the AV sponsor for RMIUG.

Consultants and companies are invited to bring Internet-related
Product information, brochures, and business cards which will be
displayed on an information table.

There are email mailing lists set up for this group. To subscribe or
unsubscribe, see http://www.rmiug.org/maillist.html. You can also
reach the RMIUG "Executive" Committee at rmiug-comm@.... Our web
site is at http://www.rmiug.org/


*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=
Please note that RMIUG is hosted at NCAR and we are their guests. NCAR
has security regulations in effect that we must follow in order to use
the facility. If any RMIUG attendee is unwilling to follow these
simple regulations, I would ask that he or she not attend and instead
read the minutes after the meeting.

Here are the NCAR security policies that must be followed:

1. No weapons.
2. Must sign in at front desk and provide name.
3. Cooperate with security folks including providing ID if requested.
4. We are guests of NCAR so cooperation and courtesy are expected when
dealing with NCAR staff.

If there are any questions or concerns with this policy, please
contact me directly.
Thanks, Josh Zapin (josh@...).
*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=

PLEASE NOTE: The next meeting will be Wednesday July 2nd.  It is not
on our "usual" second Tuesday of the odd month.

The Tuesday, May 13th meeting of the Rocky Mountain Internet Users
Group (RMIUG) will discuss "The Unintended Consequence of the Spam
Wars:  Why Your Email Isn't Getting
Delivered"

More details coming soon...

JZ

The meeting is Wednesday, Jul 2nd from 7:00 - 9:00 pm (with optional
6:30 pm start for refreshments and informal networking). The meeting
will be held at The National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) at
1850 Table Mesa Drive in Boulder. To get to NCAR from the Boulder
Turnpike (US 36) or Broadway (US 93), take Table Mesa Drive west
towards the mountains for approximately 2.5 miles into the foothills.
NCAR is at the top of the hill. For door-to-door driving directions,
go to MapQuest (http://www.mapquest.com/), click on Driving
Directions, enter your starting address, NCAR's address, and voila!
Park in the NCAR lot, go in the main door, and ask the guard to point
you to meeting, which is held in the main auditorium, right off the
lobby. The meeting is free and open to the public, but we may pass the
hat to help defray expenses.

Our meeting location seats about 120 people. That is usually enough
room to accommodate all attendees, but it's impossible for us to
predict how many people will show up for any given meeting. Seating is
always on a first-come, first serve basis, and in the event of more
attendees than seats, we won't be able to admit additional people into
the auditorium after all seats are filled.

Thanks to our three sponsors who help make RMIUG meetings happen:
---------------------------------------------------------------
MicroStaff (www.microstaff.com) which provides Creative and Technical
talent for Web, Interactive Media, Marketing Communications and
Software Development projects, is the sponsor of food and beverages
for RMIUG meetings.
ONEWARE (http://www.ONEWARE.com) -- a Colorado-based software company
that provides semi-custom web-based applications, sponsors the RMIUG
meeting minutes.
Copy Diva (http://www.copydiva.com) which provides marketing project
management, marketing communications consulting, and web content
development is the AV sponsor for RMIUG.

Consultants and companies are invited to bring Internet-related
Product information, brochures, and business cards which will be
displayed on an information table.

There are email mailing lists set up for this group. To subscribe or
unsubscribe, see http://www.rmiug.org/maillist.html. You can also
reach the RMIUG "Executive" Committee at rmiug-comm@.... Our web
site is at http://www.rmiug.org/


*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=
Please note that RMIUG is hosted at NCAR and we are their guests. NCAR
has security regulations in effect that we must follow in order to use
the facility. If any RMIUG attendee is unwilling to follow these
simple regulations, I would ask that he or she not attend and instead
read the minutes after the meeting.

Here are the NCAR security policies that must be followed:

1. No weapons.
2. Must sign in at front desk and provide name.
3. Cooperate with security folks including providing ID if requested.
4. We are guests of NCAR so cooperation and courtesy are expected when
dealing with NCAR staff.

If there are any questions or concerns with this policy, please
contact me directly.
Thanks, Josh Zapin (josh@...).
*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=

Attached are the overdue minutes from our May 13 meeting on "The Power
Of Collaborative Software."

Let me know if there are any questions/comments.

JZ


>>>>>>>>>>>

Rocky Mountain Internet Users Group
Minutes of the 13 May 2008 meeting, "The Power of Collaborative Software"

About 20 people attended tonight's meeting. Josh Zapin facilitated and
Jeremy Kohler recorded the minutes.

----------
MEETING SPONSORS

Microstaff (www.microstaff.com) provides refreshments, Copy Diva
(www.copydiva.com) provides the audio-visual equipment, NCAR
(www.ncar.ucar.edu) provides the facility, and ONEWARE
(www.oneware.com) sponsors these minutes.


------------------------------
ANNOUNCEMENTS
Please note the next (July) RMIUG meeting will take place on a
Wednesday, not Tuesday as usual, due to a scheduling issue.

If you have suggestions for topics and/or speakers for any upcoming
meeting, please send them to Josh Zapin.

------------------------------
INTRODUCTION (Josh Zapin)

Everyone uses digital things to collaborate, like Google Documents and
Skype. Consider Metcalf's Law: as more people use something, it
increases in value exponentially. This applies almost directly to
collaborative software--basically the lifeblood of the internet. Email
is the original collaborative system, and a good example of Metcalf's
Law. But it's clear email has its detriments: it's siloed, trapped
info, not readily searchable, not easy to share like a Google
document. And not secure--it's easily hackable. It's also not a
document manager and it's not great at communicating priority.

We've seen a massive growth in collaborative software. Lotus Notes is
an early example, the first foray. It allowed you to check documents
in and out. Microsoft is growing phenomenally in this area--they even
hired the Lotus Notes inventor. Collaborative software is a big part
of where Microsoft is moving. Their SharePoint product has seen
massive growth, with over 100 million licenses, making it the fastest
growing software product in Microsoft history.

----------------------
ABOUT THE SPEAKER

Mark Richtermeyer (mrichtermeyer@...) is President and
CEO of the Spitfire Group, a professional consultancy specializing in
helping clients achieve alignment between business objectives and
technology initiatives. Mark leads the team, ensuring excellence in
client delivery and operational efficiency at every level. Mark has
over 15 years of leadership experience in enterprise consulting with
Hitachi Consulting, iXL, and Managed Business Solutions, leaving him
firmly placed at the top of his field.

---------------------
LINKS

www.spitfiregroup.com
The Bad in Email (or Why we need Collaboration Software)



------------------------
MARK RICHTERMEYER

The Spitfire Group has been around about 4 years. I started the
company to deal with midmarket clients in the rocky mountain region.
We configure and customize Microsoft SharePoint, using it as a
platform for custom applications.

What's collaboration? Wikipedia says it's people working together
toward a common goal--but in reality, people tend to work toward their
own goals.

Collaboration is in all areas of life. Small local businesses and
worldwide corporations do it. Even musicians do it. But now the old
collaborative tools like the telephone and email have come together.
Collaboration today creates a space where we can all play together in
the same place using the same tools, like a virtual playground or a
common workspace.

Toolset integration is what gives collaborative software its label.
Now, for example, we can integrate SharePoint with Outlook and with
the phone system to see who's available at any given time. That makes
for better customer service and a faster business process.

It also deals with the aging workforce. Baby boomers are retiring with
decades of corporate knowledge in their heads. But now the tools are
automatically recording this corporate knowledge. It has the same
benefit for dealing with our transient workforce: We can capture their
knowledge too and access it whenever we might need it in the future.

Collaborative software provides enterprisewide oversight: It can
gather lots of siloed information. For example, you can use it to pull
together all information relating to a particular product or event.
This can be especially helpful for looking across silos to grab stuff
for litigation support.

Challenges

It also provides some challenges. How do you deal with change
management that cuts across information silos? Matrixed organization
charts can also give mixed priorities.

Participants will have varying levels of technical experience or
interest, and it can be hard to get people to use the same tool in the
same way. This makes it difficult to maintain consistency. But it's
not about the tool--it's about the process surrounding the tool and
getting the people into it and training them properly. You have to
establish and maintain best practices, otherwise your effort to
collaborate will just create a big mess.

How It Works

In business we work in portals, extranets, intranets, legacy systems,
business intelligence systems, content management systems,
intellectual capital management systems, and of course, real-time
communications systems. All of this comes together in
collaboration--you pull components of each into one place, which makes
it pretty powerful.

Collaborative technologies include messaging, conferencing, calendars,
social networking, mobile devices, etc. all working with each other.

Benefits

The way companies are using collaborative technology is in support of
business processes, like recruiting, for example. It brings together
teams that are not co-located; facilitates web content creation;
provides project management tools; and helps connect with customers
and business partners.

Benefits include:
- increased revenue from improved sales support
- savings through providing customer self-service tools, which are
derived from the collaboration tools
- reduced travel costs (it goes beyond teleconferencing because you
can not only talk, you can share documents in real time)
- higher quality products
- greener work habits (more telecommuting)
- better knowledge tracking and auditing compliance (archiving
requirements and providing security)

SharePoint

SharePoint 2007 is a key player in the collaborative space
It's hard to describe it at first because it doesn't fit in one
bucket. In certain areas, other tools do even better and they can
integrate with SharePoint.

SharePoint provides:
- web content management: publishing workflows and version control.
- document management: approvals and workspaces.
- project and team management: ties Outlook calendars together, etc.
Note that it doesn't actually replace anything.
- knowledge management: wikis, blogs, search, plus a slew of
aftermarket add-ons.
- secure access: a nice portal tool for clients, vendors, a shared
space for partners.
- Integration with Microsoft Project.

But doing this definitely requires some business analysis to figure
out what buckets we want to put things in.

Audience comment: I think it's difficult to describe all the different
benefits to different groups because you're talking about adding to
rather than replacing.

Case Studies

IT Consulting Firm (I'm talking about Spitfire):
We do everything on SharePoint. We created a slick recruiting tool. We
recruit by having different people interviewing the candidate on
different days. SharePoint collects all the interview results. You can
prioritize what you need and the recruiters can look at the info and
know what to pursue first. It provides an interviewing calendar. As a
manager, I can know exactly where every candidate is in the process
and see comments from each of the interviewers. The system also
maintains the interviewing questions, job descriptions, etc. Finally,
we can analyze the business process that the tool is managing, see how
the recruiting went for a particular position. Managing the whole
process, it tracks everything and can tell us how long it takes to
find someone.

Community Hospital:
This was a document management system to deal with process material.
It gives nurses and doctors a place to go for compliance documents and
policies. It archives documents and routes them to appropriate people
and places as required. Some really nice document management tools
also integrate with SharePoint.

Bank Branch:
This is also related to compliance. Documents are moving back and
forth between clients and the bank, and all kinds of things have to
happen to them to keep the process active. Lots of time can go by when
a document is missing from a transaction, for example. So the portal
reminds users to submit required documents, analyzes documents to see
that they are in compliance, sends documents where they need to
go--and keeps everything secure. It also mitigates confusion by
preventing multiple people from touching stuff unnecessarily. It sends
email notifications.

Note that SharePoint has its own workflow server, but it doesn't do
things like draw visio charts; there's just a basic workflow tool in
SharePoint. And it's not a BPM tool in my opinion.

Tech Company:
Software project management. It provides sharing of all the process
documents, schedules, risks, tasks, milestones, invoices, scope
management, change requests, and budgets. Everything associated with
the project is in one place.

Collaborative software is a powerful productivity tool. Where are the
people, how do I get a hold of them? The unified communications tools
can give you a face-to-face conversation right in the tool.

It's good for management of intellectual capital because all your
documents are being stored in the process, not stuck on someone's hard
drive.

It provides archiving with control, which is critical for legal purposes.

It creates new social paradigms, a new way of how we work together and
the way we communicate and interact as people.

Requires planning, analysis, and forethought of what you want your
business to be. If you don't do this you can get into trouble. So it
also creates misperceptions about what this tool can be.


Q & A

Q: What does it take to set up SharePoint? Do you need training?
A: It took us a few hours to set up the recruiting tool, and if you're
familiar with the 2003 version, the complexity is about the same.
We've used SharePoint as a layer in a dot net application to export to
databases.

Q: Did the hospital system you built actually improve healthcare?
A: No, it just made sure people were following the right regulations
at the right time. It provided a good process for versioning.

Q: Can you customize the interface?
A: Yes, your views of the workspace are customizable.

Q: Are people writing interfaces for Bugzilla and stuff?
A: Yes. SharePoint is all based on dot net architecture, so you can
pretty much write whatever you want for it.

Q: How well is it set up to work with Office products?
A: SharePoint is very tightly integrated with the Microsoft Office suite.

Q: What about Google apps?
A: I don't know about that.

Q: Can you VPN into it?
A: Yes, and there are various ways to authenticate. You set up your
users in a SQL database in SharePoint.

Q: Let's say I'm not using Microsoft products for email, database, and
spreadsheets. Are there other products out there similar to SharePoint
that will work in non-Microsoft environments?
A: There's lots of tools out there for different
environments--Microsoft isn't the only game in town for collaborative
software.

Q: Project.Net is like an open-source version of SharePoint. And there
are competitors like LiveLink. And maybe you can get by just using
Microsoft Project?
A: Microsoft Project comes with some lower-cost capabilities.

Q: Everything gets written down with this tool, so doesn't it require
really good typing skills?
A: Note that SharePoint also captures video and audio, so it isn't all
dependent on typing.

Q: Customer service reps at my company are using wiki forms to
document and publish information to a web knowledgebase. Do your
clients use much in the way of wikis and blogs to generate constantly
updated pages?
A: Development teams use wikis a lot. It's a good way to capture
intellectual capital knowledge.

Q: What do you think of capturing development lifecycle documentation
as a wiki--like a requirements document maintained on a wiki?
A: You can do it that way, but we have a mixture of our property and
client property, so you can't easily mix it up like that.

Just a quick reminder about next Tuesday's RMIUG meeting.

I hope to see you there.

JZ

>>>>>>>>>
The Tuesday, May 13th meeting of the Rocky Mountain Internet Users
Group (RMIUG) will discuss "The Power of Collaboration Software"

It has been suggested that Metcalfe's Law - the notion that as more
people use something, its value increases exponentially - applies
directly to collaborative software.  Consider how invaluable some of
the Internet's systems such as email, calendaring, text chat, wikis,
would be if only you used them to their full potential.

Email, arguably the Internet's "original" collaborative application,
is one of the best examples of Metcalfe's Law.  Through a simple
interface, you have the ability to connect and collaborate with,
literally, millions of people regardless of physical place and/or
time.   While this has enabled collaboration that would have otherwise
not existed, it is clear that email has its detriments including
(taken from "The Bad in Email (or Why We need Collaboration Software)":
•    Email is silo'ed, trapping information into personalized,
unsharable, unsearchable vacuums
•    Email is not a secure means of communication
•    Email is not a document manager
•    Email communications don't effectively communicate priority
Deficiencies in email and other earlier attempts at electronic
collaboration have given rise to a massive growth of collaborative
software: applications that enable multiple users to work together
relatively seamlessly.  Applications such as Lotus Notes and BaseCamp
enable countless users to share documents and communicate in a very
open and structured way that not only benefits the individual users,
but the organization as a whole.

Microsoft, in particular, has been growing phenomenally in the area of
collaborative software.  Besides hiring Ray Ozzie (inventor of Lotus
Notes) as its CTO, its Sharepoint product has seen massive growth
recently.   In March, Bill Gates noted that Sharepoint licenses have
exceeded 100 million surpassing sales of $1 billion and has called
Sharepoint the fastest growing software in Microsoft's history.

At the next RMIUG, we will discuss Collaborative Software and its
growth with a focus on Microsoft's Sharepoint product.  To help us
understand this product, we will bring in the following local expert:
Mark Richtermeyer (mrichtermeyer@...) is President and
CEO of the Spitfire Group, a professional consultancy specializing in
helping clients achieve alignment between business objectives and
technology initiatives. Mark leads the team, ensuring excellence in
client delivery and operational efficiency at every level. Mark has
over 15 years of leadership experience in enterprise consulting with
Hitachi Consulting, iXL and Managed Business Solutions, Mark is firmly
placed at the top of his field.

Links:
http://www.spitfiregroup.com
http://blog.centraldesktop.com/comments.php?y=06&m=05&entry=entry060501-194015
(The Bad In Email (or Why We Need Collaboration Software)

The meeting is Tuesday, May 13th from 7:00 - 9:00 pm (with optional
6:30 pm start for refreshments and informal networking). The meeting
will be held at The National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) at
1850 Table Mesa Drive in Boulder. To get to NCAR from the Boulder
Turnpike (US 36) or Broadway (US 93), take Table Mesa Drive west
towards the mountains for approximately 2.5 miles into the foothills.
NCAR is at the top of the hill. For door-to-door driving directions,
go to MapQuest (http://www.mapquest.com/), click on Driving
Directions, enter your starting address, NCAR's address, and voila!
Park in the NCAR lot, go in the main door, and ask the guard to point
you to meeting, which is held in the main auditorium, right off the
lobby. The meeting is free and open to the public, but we may pass the
hat to help defray expenses.

Our meeting location seats about 120 people. That is usually enough
room to accommodate all attendees, but it's impossible for us to
predict how many people will show up for any given meeting. Seating is
always on a first-come, first serve basis, and in the event of more
attendees than seats, we won't be able to admit additional people into
the auditorium after all seats are filled.

Thanks to our three sponsors who help make RMIUG meetings happen:
---------------------------------------------------------------
MicroStaff (www.microstaff.com) which provides Creative and Technical
talent for Web, Interactive Media, Marketing Communications and
Software Development projects, is the sponsor of food and beverages
for RMIUG meetings.
ONEWARE (http://www.ONEWARE.com) -- a Colorado-based software company
that provides semi-custom web-based applications, sponsors the RMIUG
meeting minutes.
Copy Diva (http://www.copydiva.com) which provides marketing project
management, marketing communications consulting, and web content
development is the AV sponsor for RMIUG.

Consultants and companies are invited to bring Internet-related
Product information, brochures, and business cards which will be
displayed on an information table.

There are email mailing lists set up for this group. To subscribe or
unsubscribe, see http://www.rmiug.org/maillist.html. You can also
reach the RMIUG "Executive" Committee at rmiug-comm@.... Our web
site is at http://www.rmiug.org/


*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=
Please note that RMIUG is hosted at NCAR and we are their guests. NCAR
has security regulations in effect that we must follow in order to use
the facility. If any RMIUG attendee is unwilling to follow these
simple regulations, I would ask that he or she not attend and instead
read the minutes after the meeting.

Here are the NCAR security policies that must be followed:

1. No weapons.
2. Must sign in at front desk and provide name.
3. Cooperate with security folks including providing ID if requested.
4. We are guests of NCAR so cooperation and courtesy are expected when
dealing with NCAR staff.

If there are any questions or concerns with this policy, please
contact me directly.
Thanks, Josh Zapin (josh@...).
*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=

The Tuesday, May 13th meeting of the Rocky Mountain Internet Users
Group (RMIUG) will discuss "The Power of Collaboration Software"

It has been suggested that Metcalfe's Law - the notion that as more
people use something, its value increases exponentially - applies
directly to collaborative software.  Consider how invaluable some of
the Internet's systems such as email, calendaring, text chat, wikis,
would be if only you used them to their full potential.

Email, arguably the Internet's "original" collaborative application,
is one of the best examples of Metcalfe's Law.  Through a simple
interface, you have the ability to connect and collaborate with,
literally, millions of people regardless of physical place and/or
time.   While this has enabled collaboration that would have otherwise
not existed, it is clear that email has its detriments including
(taken from "The Bad in Email (or Why We need Collaboration Software)":
•    Email is silo'ed, trapping information into personalized,
unsharable, unsearchable vacuums
•    Email is not a secure means of communication
•    Email is not a document manager
•    Email communications don't effectively communicate priority
Deficiencies in email and other earlier attempts at electronic
collaboration have given rise to a massive growth of collaborative
software: applications that enable multiple users to work together
relatively seamlessly.  Applications such as Lotus Notes andBaseCamp
enable countless users to share documents and communicate in a very
open and structured way that not only benefits the individual users,
but the organization as a whole.

Microsoft, in particular, has been growing phenomenally in the area of
collaborative software.  Besides hiring Ray Ozzie (inventor of Lotus
Notes) as itsCTO, its Sharepoint product has seen massive growth
recently.   In March, Bill Gates noted that Sharepoint licenses have
exceeded 100 million surpassing sales of $1 billion and has called
Sharepoint the fastest growing software in Microsoft's history.

At the next RMIUG, we will discuss Collaborative Software and its
growth with a focus on Microsoft's Sharepoint product.  To help us
understand this product, we will bring in the following local expert:
Mark Richtermeyer (mrichtermeyer@...) is President and
CEO of the Spitfire Group, a professional consultancy specializing in
helping clients achieve alignment between business objectives and
technology initiatives. Mark leads the team, ensuring excellence in
client delivery and operational efficiency at every level. Mark has
over 15 years of leadership experience in enterprise consulting with
Hitachi Consulting,iXL and Managed Business Solutions, Mark is firmly
placed at the top of his field.

Links:
http://www.spitfiregroup.com
http://blog.centraldesktop.com/comments.php?y=06&m=05&entry=entry060501-194015
(The Bad In Email (or Why We Need Collaboration Software)

The meeting is Tuesday, May 13th from 7:00 - 9:00 pm (with optional
6:30 pm start for refreshments and informal networking). The meeting
will be held at The National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) at
1850 Table Mesa Drive in Boulder. To get to NCAR from the Boulder
Turnpike (US 36) or Broadway (US 93), take Table Mesa Drive west
towards the mountains for approximately 2.5 miles into the
foothills.NCAR is at the top of the hill. For door-to-door driving
directions, go to MapQuest (http://www.mapquest.com/), click on
Driving Directions, enter your starting address, NCAR's address, and
voila! Park in the NCAR lot, go in the main door, and ask the guard to
point you to meeting, which is held in the main auditorium, right off
the lobby. The meeting is free and open to the public, but we may pass
the hat to help defray expenses.

Our meeting location seats about 120 people. That is usually enough
room to accommodate all attendees, but it's impossible for us to
predict how many people will show up for any given meeting. Seating is
always on a first-come, first serve basis, and in the event of more
attendees than seats, we won't be able to admit additional people into
the auditorium after all seats are filled.

Thanks to our three sponsors who help make RMIUG meetings happen:
---------------------------------------------------------------
MicroStaff (www.microstaff.com) which provides Creative and Technical
talent for Web, Interactive Media, Marketing Communications and
Software Development projects, is the sponsor of food and beverages
for RMIUG meetings.
ONEWARE (http://www.ONEWARE.com) -- a Colorado-based software company
that provides semi-custom web-based applications, sponsors the RMIUG
meeting minutes.
Copy Diva (http://www.copydiva.com) which provides marketing project
management, marketing communications consulting, and web content
development is the AV sponsor for RMIUG.

Consultants and companies are invited to bring Internet-related
Product information, brochures, and business cards which will be
displayed on an information table.

There are email mailing lists set up for this group. To subscribe or
unsubscribe, see http://www.rmiug.org/maillist.html. You can also
reach the RMIUG "Executive" Committee at rmiug-comm@.... Our web
site is at http://www.rmiug.org/


*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=
Please note that RMIUG is hosted at NCAR and we are their guests. NCAR
has security regulations in effect that we must follow in order to use
the facility. If any RMIUG attendee is unwilling to follow these
simple regulations, I would ask that he or she not attend and instead
read the minutes after the meeting.

Here are the NCAR security policies that must be followed:

1. No weapons.
2. Must sign in at front desk and provide name.
3. Cooperate with security folks including providing ID if requested.
4. We are guests of NCAR so cooperation and courtesy are expected when
dealing with NCAR staff.

If there are any questions or concerns with this policy, please
contact me directly.
Thanks, Josh Zapin (josh@...).
*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=

The minutes from the meeting are below.

You can also get a PDF of Dean's presentation by going to:
http://www.rmiug.org/pres-080311.pdf

Thanks,

JZ

>>>>>>>>>>
Contactless Payments or CASH 2.0

About the Presenter:

Dean Rizzuto (Dean.Rizzuto@...) recently worked for one of the
only active Mobile Payment companies in the US actively taking live
payments, called MocaPay. Dean was involved in all aspects of the
mobile payment engine from transaction processing, Banking/ACH
interfaces, SMS gateway integration and support, customer and merchant
support, POS integration and support as well as the design and
implementation of the core payment transaction processing engine.
Dean's experience has provided him with a unique perspective of the
design, development, support and growth of a Mobile Payment engine
from one of the only companies in the US currently doing live Mobile
Payment transactions.  Prior to working at Mocapay, Dean spent 10+
years in Online/Web Strategy and Analysis developing Website and Web
Application Strategies, developing Business and Functional
Requirements and producing and managing the implementation of
large-scale web applications and websites including nationally
recognized eCommerce sites, complex games associated with major
sporting events, citizen journalism, publishing platforms and many others.

Presentation

Most people in the audience have used cash, debit cards, credit cards.
Few of us have used cell phones to purchase items.

Why would consumers want to use this method to buy things?

Contact payment (credit or debit cards) – how it works:

Players in this field:

• Credit/debit cards (credit card processing players will also be
involved in contactless payment)
• Cashier
• Merchant Point of Sale (POS)
• Mobile Handset
• Acquiring bank (processes transactions)
• Issuing bank (they issue the card to you)
• Processing network (cost associated with line sending payment/credit
info)
• Credit card associations

Typical credit card transaction

• You hand card to cashier
• Cashier runs it through the POS system or dials out; whatever the
process, it costs someone money to perform this process
• Card account number, purchase amount, and merchant's purchase ID are
captured (the account number is captured from the magnetic stripe)
• The acquiring bank routes the information to the credit card
association into the Transaction Network; they verify that the card is
valid
• Credit card association routes to the Issuing Bank to check the
user's credit line (does the user have enough cash in account to make
this purchase?). These associations charge a fee, but they have a lot
of responsibility – they verify whether the purchase is valid, card is
good, etc.
• The purchase is approved or declined
• Billing/invoicing occurs

Settlement (before the merchant actually gets the money in their bank
account) may take a few days from time of purchase

There's a lot of money involved in this process and many people
handle/touch the transaction

Detailed Scenario

• Suppose Dean goes into a big box retailer (like Best Buy, Circuit
City, etc.)
• Dean is buying an MP3 player that costs $150
• 2-3% of total purchase price is a transaction fee

The merchant actually receives between $144-147 (purchase price less
the transaction fee)

Acquirer Costs, Credit Card Association fees, and Issuing Bank fees
may be between $3-5 (Interchange fee)

Issuing Bank handles the following:

Revenue 		 Costs
Interest fees 		 Billing / invoicing
Late payment fees 	 Charge backs
Over credit limit fees 	 Fraud prevention
Processing fees 	 Fraud recovery
					 Rewards points

Interchange fees

What affects the amount a Merchant pays to accept credit/debit/smartcards?

• Type of merchant
• Also average transaction amount
• Is card information hand-keyed in or magnetic stripe read?
• Is the card physically present? (phone or ecommerce trans)
• Card type (business cards cost more to process)
• Settlement date: the sooner merchant wants to receive payment, the
more they might have to pay

Why pay by credit card?

Consumers:
Convenience
Speed
Tracking
Get points

Merchants:
Speed
More secure than checks (because the bank guarantees the transaction)
Discourages employee theft

Security associated with credit cards
• Security is low, Fraud is very high
• Issuers are trying to reduce fraud to manageable levels, since it
can't be completely eliminated
• What is the cost to merchants and consumers?
o Big box retailers: get paid quickly and cost isn't that high
o Consumers: need a PIN, a CVV (card verification value on back of
card), SmartCards

Contactless Payments Scenario

Scenario: you are buying a cup of coffee

• Cost is $1.60
• 3-6% of that cost are transaction network fees (approximately $.25)
• Merchant receives approximately $1.30 – 1.25
• Acquiring bank costs, credit card association fees, issuing bank –
they get $.05 - .10 for this purchase

Merchant must ask:
• Can I afford to take credit cards for purchases? OR
• Can I afford NOT to take credit cards for purchases?
• How much is actually being saved by not taking credit cards?

RFID chip can be included in many things such as cell phones. iPods,
keychains, bracelets. RFID reader sits on counter and reads your chip.

Why consider contactless payments?

Consumers:
• Convenience
• Speed
• Tracking
• Points

Merchant:
• Speed
• More secure than checks

Average speed of transactions
Cash transaction takes 34 secs
Mag stripe card transaction takes 24 secs
Smartcard transaction takes15 secs

SmartCard contactless payments (contains an RFID chip)

• Can be used for purchases that are less than $25 (no signature required)
• Increase holder's propensity to spend (a plus for merchants)
• Card never has to leave the holder's hand – feels more secure

Disadvantages:
• New equipment is needed for merchants
• Doesn't work in all transaction situations (where pre-authorization
is required; tipping the wait staff)

SmartCards and Security

• It's secure because the device is always in purchaser's hand
• Phantom reader scenarios are unfounded (being too close to reader,
accidental scan) because of security:
o Triple DES with 128-bit encryption
o Account information is not transmitted (just transmits a transaction
number), unlike magnetic stripe cards
• Similar cardholder liability limitations on SmartCards; liability is
fairly limited in case of fraud
• Unproven technology, so some users may be scared to use them

Mobile Phone Contactless Payments

• RFID (or Near Field Communication – NFC) based
o Similar security issues to SmartCards
• Another mouth to feed (transmission costs money)

Beyond RFID – Mobile Phone/Technology Advancement

• Mobile Phones
• Processing Power
• Internet/data connectivity (SSL)
• Native applications can be developed to run on the phone
• Graphical interfaces (can use bar codes). Companies can send coupons
with bar code via cell phone
• People are more likely to leave their wallet at home rather than
their cell phone, so it's a definite part of their daily life

Typical RFID transaction

• Very similar to typical credit card transaction slide
• Big difference is that an encrypted transaction code is passed
rather than the user's account number
• This transaction uses the existing infrastructure used by credit
card systems

How can we use cell phone in ways that don't follow the typical path,
cut out some of the processing/transaction fees, middlemen, etc.?

Most likely scenario:

• RFID/NFC
• Use same magnetic stripe infrastructure
• Players remain the same
• Costs will probably be consistent

Alternatives include:

• SMS or
• Internet technology

SMS Based Scenario (similar to MocaPay)

• Set up account with them (all cash based)
• User enters store about to make a transaction and enters PIN into
cell phone (Sends SMS, which includes PIN, phone number)
• Text message goes to SMS aggregator and based on information from
user, validates information and returns a purchase code back to user
• Give code to clerk to make purchase
• Cashier enters code and sends it to MocaPay server; purchase is
approved or declined.
• Settlement happens every night so merchants get paid daily
• Flat $.19 transaction fee charged by MocaPay for all purchases,
regardless of amount
• High security because each phone has its own PIN and you need that
phone and that PIN to make a purchase.

Potential problems:
• SMS Aggregator may be very busy or down
• Cell phone doesn't have enough power or reception to make a call

Challenges to merchant:
• Need separate card reader or integrate into merchant's existing POS
system.
• Cashier must understand how to use it; they must be trained how to
use it

Internet-Based Scenario

1. Chase puts cell-top application on cell phone.
2. Securely sends PIN, phone ID, Merchant ID, Purchase amount
3. Phone is GPS-enabled so it pulls merchant ID into phone and pushes
it out, via SSL, to the Internet.
4. Validation: PIN, Phone ID, Funds availability (all via Internet/SSL)
5. Once information is validated, it's sent to POS and receipt it
automatically printed. This is contactless (no cashier is involved).

Another example:
• You go to supermarket with a cart filled with items.
• You walk by an RFID reader
• Cost of all items is calculated and you are given a payment total
for the entire purchase.

Security of Other Models

Mobile phone all can use SSL, so it's better than having phone in
hand. Account can be tied to your physical phone, so you can't take
another person's phone and access your account.

Limitations
• No connectivity, connectivity problems in remote locations
• You run out of battery power on your cell phone
• SMS charges (may be costly)
• SMS Aggregator problems (slow or down)

Contactless payments – What's in it for me?

Mobile Carriers
• Increased data and Internet usage on phone plans
• More loyalty to cell phone carriers because it's too much trouble to
switch all information to another carrier
• Sell more units
• Other RFID applications (handset manufacturers). Chip is already in
handset so it can be used for lots of other applications. Enables more
commerce – can buy tickets with your phone and using your phone as the
actual ticket.

Credit Card Issuers
• Ways to extend their current reach
• Want you to use existing infrastructure and want to stay in the loop
• Cut into cash payments; they want you to use cards instead of cash
• Less credit cards issues; cost saving for them
• Regular credit card business will still exist – ATMs, for example

Merchants
• Lower transaction costs
• Minimal equipment changes/upgrades
• More transactions = more money
• Contactless buyers may spend more
• Embrace new technology; be tech-friendly
• Change – need less cash on hand and no making change for customers
• Amex says: ExpressPay transaction is less than both cash and credit,
and typically users spend more

Consumers
• Device/card is secure because it never leaves your hand
• Same liability as with credit cards
• All-in-one device – Electronic Wallet
o Link phone to online banking
• Money transfers
o All accounts available

Summary – contactless payments

The technology is here; it's just a matter of time before it's used by
mainstream. Over next few years, technology will grow.

Make most sense for merchants with high-volume, cash-driven
• QSRs (quick serve restaurants) - 80% of trans under $25 – mean
transaction is $12
• Movie theaters
• Mass transit; some have even set up their own systems

Adoption of technology
• Chicken  / egg (merchants are waiting on users and vice versa)
• Potential fraud risk is much smaller



Architecture
• Standardized protocols (ISO 14443). Agreement that all transmissions
will be done in the same manner

RFID on cell phone
• Other scenarios – ticketing, contests, etc.

Q & A

Q. RFID – how long has it been small enough to use in mobile devices?

A. For awhile and now it's more secure. Technology has been around for
awhile but it's become improved and more secure. This is primarily
used for US-based transactions right now. iPhone takes away the need
for the cell phone company to be involved (because it uses WiFi) and
takes a cut.

Q. What happens to ecommerce transactions if this technology takes off?

A.  Might need credit card for those scenarios; this is one of the
areas that needs to be ironed out. Company that accomplishes this task
will have a great product.

Volume may lower the $.19 transaction fee charged by companies like
MocaPay. Big retailers have the ability to leverage their costs by
their volume. There is a hope that high overhead costs will go down.

Points are a big draw for using credit cards. But contactless payment
providers are exploring ways to reward users for using their service.

Part of the problem is that companies that want to use this technology
must educate their cashiers/workers, etc. about how to use it.
Education is a big part of the puzzle.

MocaPay technology may be more critical as a technology than as a
consumer product.

Just wanted to send a quick reminder about the upcoming RMIUG meeting.
  We hope to see you there.

JZ

>>>>>>>>>>
The Tuesday, March 11th meeting of the Rocky Mountain Internet Users
Group (RMIUG) will discuss "From Ring Ring to Ching Ching: Using
Cellphones to Buy things in Stores"

Contactless Payments, the process by which you can buy things using
devices like a cell phone, a smartcard or other Radio Frequency
Identification (RFID) device has been around 1997.  Remember Exxon's
SpeedPass?  That's the system Exxon introduced in 1997 that enabled
you to wave a key fob in front of gas pump to pay for your tank.  That
was the first example of a new wave of ways to buy stuff.

The promise of Contactless Payments is simple: reduce the time and
headache it takes for you to buy the small things in your life.
American Express recently concluded that Contactless Payments is 53%
faster than paying with payment cards with no signature, and 63%
faster than cash.  Think about how much time you can save at your
regular Starbucks visit if everyone used just waved their cellphone at
checkout instead of paying cash or a credit card?

With all the promise and a relatively high penetration rate (many of
us have cell phones and/or credit cards with the capability), we
haven't been buying that much with that system. Gartner recently did a
survey of 4,500 online U.S. adults, conducted in August of 2007, and
concluded that while banks and credit card issuers have put
significant efforts into marketing Contactless Payments, they have
failed to win over consumers.

Why would consumers want to use such methods to buy stuff?  Are there
advantages to them?  How about businesses?

To help us understand the ins-and-outs of this emerging technology we
will bring in the following local expert:

Dean Rizzuto (dean.rizzuto@...) Dean recently worked for one of
the only active Mobile Payment companies in the US actively taking
live payments, called MocaPay. Dean was involved in all aspects of the
mobile payment engine from transaction processing, Banking/ACH
interfaces, SMS gateway integration and support, customer and merchant
support, POS integration and support as well as the design and
implementation of the core payment transaction processing engine. Dean
will draw experience has provided him with a unique perspective of the
design, development, support and growth of a Mobile Payment engine
from one of the only companies in the US currently doing live Mobile
Payment transactions.  Prior to working at Mocapay, Dean spent 10+
years in Online/Web Strategy and Analysis developing Website and Web
Application Strategies, developing Business and Functional
Requirements and producing and managing the implementation of
large-scale web applications and websites including nationally
recognized eCommerce sites, complex games associated with major
sporting events, citizen journalism and publishing platforms and many
others.


Links:
http://www.mocapay.com'

The meeting is Tuesday, March 11th from 7:00 - 9:00 pm (with optional
6:30 pm start for refreshments and informal networking). The meeting
will be held at The National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) at
1850 Table Mesa Drive in Boulder. To get to NCAR from the Boulder
Turnpike (US 36) or Broadway (US 93), take Table Mesa Drive west
towards the mountains for approximately 2.5 miles into the foothills.
NCAR is at the top of the hill. For door-to-door driving directions,
go to MapQuest (http://www.mapquest.com/), click on Driving
Directions, enter your starting address, NCAR's address, and voila!
Park in the NCAR lot, go in the main door, and ask the guard to point
you to meeting, which is held in the main auditorium, right off the
lobby. The meeting is free and open to the public, but we may pass the
hat to help defray expenses.

Our meeting location seats about 120 people. That is usually enough
room to accommodate all attendees, but it's impossible for us to
predict how many people will show up for any given meeting. Seating is
always on a first-come, first serve basis, and in the event of more
attendees than seats, we won't be able to admit additional people into
the auditorium after all seats are filled.

Thanks to our three sponsors who help make RMIUG meetings happen:
---------------------------------------------------------------
MicroStaff (www.microstaff.com) which provides Creative and Technical
talent for Web, Interactive Media, Marketing Communications and
Software Development projects, is the sponsor of food and beverages
for RMIUG meetings.
ONEWARE (http://www.ONEWARE.com) -- a Colorado-based software company
that provides semi-custom web-based applications, sponsors the RMIUG
meeting minutes.
Copy Diva (http://www.copydiva.com) which provides marketing project
management, marketing communications consulting, and web content
development is the AV sponsor for RMIUG.

Consultants and companies are invited to bring Internet-related
Product information, brochures, and business cards which will be
displayed on an information table.

There are email mailing lists set up for this group. To subscribe or
unsubscribe, see http://www.rmiug.org/maillist.html. You can also
reach the RMIUG "Executive" Committee at rmiug-comm@.... Our web
site is at http://www.rmiug.org/


*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=
Please note that RMIUG is hosted at NCAR and we are their guests. NCAR
has security regulations in effect that we must follow in order to use
the facility. If any RMIUG attendee is unwilling to follow these
simple regulations, I would ask that he or she not attend and instead
read the minutes after the meeting.

Here are the NCAR security policies that must be followed:

1. No weapons.
2. Must sign in at front desk and provide name.
3. Cooperate with security folks including providing ID if requested.
4. We are guests of NCAR so cooperation and courtesy are expected when
dealing with NCAR staff.

If there are any questions or concerns with this policy, please
contact me directly.
Thanks, Josh Zapin (josh@...).
*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=

The Tuesday, March 11th meeting of the Rocky Mountain Internet Users
Group (RMIUG) will discuss "From Ring Ring to Ching Ching: Using
Cellphones to Buy things in Stores"

Contactless Payments, the process by which you can buy things using
devices like a cell phone, a smartcard or other Radio Frequency
Identification (RFID) device has been around 1997.  Remember Exxon's
SpeedPass?  That's the system Exxon introduced in 1997 that enabled
you to wave a key fob in front of gas pump to pay for your tank.  That
was the first example of a new wave of ways to buy stuff.

The promise of Contactless Payments is simple: reduce the time and
headache it takes for you to buy the small things in your life.
American Express recently concluded that Contactless Payments is 53%
faster than paying with payment cards with no signature, and 63%
faster than cash.  Think about how much time you can save at your
regular Starbucks visit if everyone used just waved their cellphone at
checkout instead of paying cash or a credit card?

With all the promise and a relatively high penetration rate (many of
us have cell phones and/or credit cards with the capability), we
haven't been buying that much with that system. Gartner recently did a
survey of 4,500 online U.S. adults, conducted in August of 2007, and
concluded that while banks and credit card issuers have put
significant efforts into marketing Contactless Payments, they have
failed to win over consumers.

Why would consumers want to use such methods to buy stuff?  Are there
advantages to them?  How about businesses?

To help us understand the ins-and-outs of this emerging technology we
will bring in the following local expert:

Dean Rizzuto (dean.rizzuto@...) Dean recently worked for one of
the only active Mobile Payment companies in the US actively taking
live payments, called MocaPay. Dean was involved in all aspects of the
mobile payment engine from transaction processing, Banking/ACH
interfaces, SMS gateway integration and support, customer and merchant
support, POS integration and support as well as the design and
implementation of the core payment transaction processing engine. Dean
will draw experience has provided him with a unique perspective of the
design, development, support and growth of a Mobile Payment engine
from one of the only companies in the US currently doing live Mobile
Payment transactions.  Prior to working at Mocapay, Dean spent 10+
years in Online/Web Strategy and Analysis developing Website and Web
Application Strategies, developing Business and Functional
Requirements and producing and managing the implementation of
large-scale web applications and websites including nationally
recognized eCommerce sites, complex games associated with major
sporting events, citizen journalism and publishing platforms and many
others.


Links:
http://www.mocapay.com'

The meeting is Tuesday, March 11th from 7:00 - 9:00 pm (with optional
6:30 pm start for refreshments and informal networking). The meeting
will be held at The National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) at
1850 Table Mesa Drive in Boulder. To get to NCAR from the Boulder
Turnpike (US 36) or Broadway (US 93), take Table Mesa Drive west
towards the mountains for approximately 2.5 miles into the foothills.
NCAR is at the top of the hill. For door-to-door driving directions,
go to MapQuest (http://www.mapquest.com/), click on Driving
Directions, enter your starting address, NCAR's address, and voila!
Park in the NCAR lot, go in the main door, and ask the guard to point
you to meeting, which is held in the main auditorium, right off the
lobby. The meeting is free and open to the public, but we may pass the
hat to help defray expenses.

Our meeting location seats about 120 people. That is usually enough
room to accommodate all attendees, but it's impossible for us to
predict how many people will show up for any given meeting. Seating is
always on a first-come, first serve basis, and in the event of more
attendees than seats, we won't be able to admit additional people into
the auditorium after all seats are filled.

Thanks to our three sponsors who help make RMIUG meetings happen:
---------------------------------------------------------------
MicroStaff (www.microstaff.com) which provides Creative and Technical
talent for Web, Interactive Media, Marketing Communications and
Software Development projects, is the sponsor of food and beverages
for RMIUG meetings.
ONEWARE (http://www.ONEWARE.com) -- a Colorado-based software company
that provides semi-custom web-based applications, sponsors the RMIUG
meeting minutes.
Copy Diva (http://www.copydiva.com) which provides marketing project
management, marketing communications consulting, and web content
development is the AV sponsor for RMIUG.

Consultants and companies are invited to bring Internet-related
Product information, brochures, and business cards which will be
displayed on an information table.

There are email mailing lists set up for this group. To subscribe or
unsubscribe, see http://www.rmiug.org/maillist.html. You can also
reach the RMIUG "Executive" Committee at rmiug-comm@.... Our web
site is at http://www.rmiug.org/


*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=
Please note that RMIUG is hosted at NCAR and we are their guests. NCAR
has security regulations in effect that we must follow in order to use
the facility. If any RMIUG attendee is unwilling to follow these
simple regulations, I would ask that he or she not attend and instead
read the minutes after the meeting.

Here are the NCAR security policies that must be followed:

1. No weapons.
2. Must sign in at front desk and provide name.
3. Cooperate with security folks including providing ID if requested.
4. We are guests of NCAR so cooperation and courtesy are expected when
dealing with NCAR staff.

If there are any questions or concerns with this policy, please
contact me directly.
Thanks, Josh Zapin (josh@...).
*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=

The following are the minutes from the January 8 RMIUG Meeting, the
secrets of Search Engine Marketing.

Thanks to all who attended and participated.

JZ

>>>>>>>>>>>
The Secrets of Search Engine Marketing (SEM)

Presenters: Peter Samland (petersamland@...) & Kelly Hall
(kellyhall@...)

RMIUG, January 8, 2008

Kelly Hall is a Project Manager with 90octane. She has been with the
interactive marketing agency for three years and has experience in the
strategic development and execution of both online lead generation and
search engine marketing programs. She has led SEM programs in the
manufacturing, technical, and nonprofit verticals, with a focus on
integrating new search technologies. She graduated summa cum laude
from the University of Colorado at Boulder with a major in Communications.

Peter Samland is the Senior Systems Engineer with 90octane. He has
been doing web site development since 2002. He has a Bachelor's Degree
in Computer Science/Philosophy and Religion and is currently finishing
his Master of Computer Science remotely at Kansas State University.
While he has worked with a variety of web technologies, he has always
been a proponent of open source, accessible technologies, and
standards-based development. At 90octane, he has driven micro-site
development that is search engine-friendly and fun to use.

90octane is a results-driven interactive marketing company that was
founded in 2000 by some of the first search engine optimization
experts in the world. The company takes a strategic approach, creating
a customized search engine marketing plan that generates sustained
results for your unique business needs. 90octane primarily does two
types of search engine work:

• Lead generation
• SEM

Introduction by Josh Zapin

2007 is known as the year that Search functionality grew up.

• Google owns 65% of the SEO market and growing
• Yahoo – 2nd
• MSN – 3rd

Search has matured and grown in the last year, in some of the
following ways:

• Social media sites that aggregate content (Facebook, MySpace, Digg)
have become more popular
• You can get "blended" search results; instead of just getting 10
"blue" links, you also get some pictures, video, audio




Peter's presentation

When you first start a Web site, the design may not be optimized for SEO

Current problems with web sites:

• Clients may think they know what's best, but they don't always
• Designers know how to make things look good, but make the SEO
process more difficult (no crawlable content)
• SEOers prioritize optimization above all else
• Other developers – their code may limit SEO
• The Web itself – standards are not uniformly enforced and there are
lots of variations.

We forget that the primary goal of web sites is to present information
(i.e., Information Superhighway).

Cool is a problem

Everyone wants to use cutting-edge technology, but it may get in the
way of SEO. For example, some cutting-edge technologies that interfere
with SEO include:

• Hosting solutions
• Content Management Solutions
• Ajax
• Flash
• Silverlight
• Anything in a box
• HTML5 Specs
• Widgets
• JavaFX
• WAP

Accessible content

• Web development is maturing: started out incredibly standards-based
(e.g., bulletin boards). Evolved into something more; now we have Best
Practices as a model for development.

• Real coders and coders who care about the Web

• Real standards and reasons to code for them.

• Return of information (the real ROI)
o Wikipedia
o Craigslist
o Google

Web design and where it's headed

Standards-based design

Validate your web page with the following tools:
HTML: http://validator.w3.org
CSS: http://jigsaw.w3.org
SpeedReport: http://www.websiteoptimization.com/services/analyze/

Accessible Design
Is your design 508 compatible?
Accessible Design validator:
http://www.cynthiasays.com/

• Use HTML to describe your information – use this as a way to mark up
the page for information, its importance on the page (H1 tags)
• CSS is a way to display described information
• JavaScript – a way to interact with the display of the info
• Flash and other apps are a black box. Back up your Flash content
with alternate content and navigation
• Content Management Systems should generate each type individually.
Have unique links to content/have an alternative.

HTML Accessible Design – a great example is the www.nasa.gov site.
Good example of separation between content and the JavaScript.

• The same site viewed in the Google Cache shows all the content and
the navigation in Google's cache. This info is easily crawlable.
• Google Cache is link at the bottom of the Google site.

You should know what your page looks like when:

• There's no JavaScript installed on a machine
• Old browser
• Viewed in another language
• Viewed with large text
• It is crawled (check the Google Cache)
• You have to make SEO changes


Kelly's presentation

Organic optimization – who are the players?

• Google (more than half of the searches take place here)
• Yahoo
• MSN
• AOL
• Ask.com

But don't focus only on Google, since that leaves a significant amount
of traffic at risk.

Keyword Selection

Content is king – foundation is the keywords you choose

Keyword Selection Process

• Knowing words/phrases that your audience will use when searching is
essential to good SEO.
• You can launch a paid campaign to locate keywords.
• You can now track how many leads you get from clicks on a web site.

3 Key Factors Control site placement on search engines

1. Onsite factors: everything you can do on back end, code of the site
2. Offsite factors: external linking, press releases, all links that
point to your site; everything that you do on this outside of your
site to get a better ranking.
3. Site wide factors: everything that emphasizes online collaboration
and sharing.

Key onsite factors

• URL structure should be flat structure: domain name,
• Navigation and links: SE must be able to crawl navigation
• Headers: use them to describe important info in your site rather
than for design on site
• Page copy: use 5-8 keywords per page
• Footer: important for historical and trust factors. Address and
email, physical address at bottom of page indicates to Google that
you're trustworthy. Local search (local address has become more important)
• Metadata: title, description, CSS info

Image Optimization – onsite factors

Many sites are image heavy. Use Alt tags. Best to describe your
picture instead of loading up site with lots of keywords.

To code your site to optimize specific images, use keywords in the
image file names and include in the image alt tag. Optimize the page
containing the images. Keep the image near supporting keyword rich
content.

PDF Optimization

• Develop PDFs so they're text based so they can be crawled. SE can't
read images.

• Complete the document properties (indicates the
content that will be displayed in the heading of the search results page)

• Optimize the copy for a PDF just as you would for web site. Fine
line between talking to user and talking to SE.

• Linking. Incorporate links in PDF.

• Version control. Don't use latest, greatest version.

XML Sitemaps

XML Sitemaps have nothing to do with the typical web site map. They
inform the search engine about the perceived relevancy of your pages.

Show example slide. XML Sitemaps can indicate how often the URL is
likely to change, last time URL was modified, priority of this page
relative to other pages on the same site.

Key offsite factors
Ways to drive traffic. Valuable incoming links, directories/local
search (your location), press releases.

Sitewide factors

• Social Bookmarking: People who use social networking sites can add
your content to their sites. Add links, buttons, etc. that makes it
easy for user to save to Digg, Delicious, others.
• Blogs: Keep in step with the culture and other blogs on your
industry. Good way to generate incoming links to your site and overall
buzz.
• Podcasts: Establish RSS feeds to syndicate your podcast and update
users about new content. Mostly used in B to C context now. Submit to
podcast search engines, too.
• RSS feeds: Push your content to users and sites that want it.
• Video: Produce traffic virally by posting them to sites like
YouTube, Meta Cafι, etc. Video is crawlable.

Good References – list of references to check:

• http://domscripting.com/presentations/xtech2006/
• http://www.toprankblog.com/2007/10/search-engine-optimization-basics/
• http://advertising.about.com/od/pressreleases/ss/prlayout_7.htm
•
http://seo-space.blogspot.com/2007/09/14-best-practices-and-tips-for-video.html
•
http://generousmarketing.typepad.com/junctiongen/2007/12/12-tips-for-wri.html#mo\
re
• http://searchengineland.com/070912-095906.php
• http://www.seobook.com/relevancy/
• http://www.pandecta.com/forum/checklist3.html
• http://www.dailyblogtips.com/seo-checklist/

Note: A PDF of this presentation can be found at:
http://www.rmiug.org/90octane_SEM.pdf


Audience Questions and Answers

Q. Is metadata no longer as important?
A. Title and description tag are very important; keywords are less
important in meta data.
Lowest common denominator – Search engines crawl only a certain number
of characters, so you want to design for the lowest common denominator.

Q. How do sites end up on garbage link sites?
A. Their partner may put content on untrustworthy sites OR one can pay
for links on these sites.

Q. Historical and trust factors. Can you talk more about this?
A. Historical factor: everyone has to register a domain. Small sites
that are set up to spam will often set up a short-time URL, so it's
suspect. SEs like to see a site registered for at least 10 years. New
sites end up in Google Sandbox.

Trust Factors: have a physical mailing address on your site. Be
careful with domain names because some are hard to come by.

Email contacts are often helpful to users but less important than
physical address.

Q. When you set up an account at Google, you are assigned a score and
you stay at that score. How do you deal with that aspect of how Google
looks at you (quality score for pay per click)?
A. It's a matter of keyword selection, your creative (are you offering
something of use and you taking user to the link you say you will).
Optimizing match types on things that aren't working. Fixing keywords
with low click thru-rate; all these factors have a positive impact on
your quality score. Optimize your campaign. Don't put in every keyword
if it doesn't match your creatives. You don't want to use keywords
that don't make any sense for your company.

Q: How do microsites relate to SEO? Should they target certain
keywords or pay per click?

A: Microsite development has been largely used for lead generation
purposes. Often good response when the site is content-rich. Used to
both drive traffic and to drive organic optimization.

Q. Flat directory structure: How important is this? Main point is that
it's SE crawlable. Underscores, content mgt system notations, keywords
buried several directories deep, avoid spam-like tactics -- these are
often dealbreakers for SEs.
Make sure you put in proper redirects when you move content.

Q. Client has not done any validation on very old web sites. Can they
run old web sites (like newspapers) through validation sites? Judgment
call about how much you want to spend and how much time to put in.

Q. How often does your company build sites as new, how often do you
redesign sites? Right now we do mostly redesigns, but the trend is to
have us start with designers, from the beginning.

Q. How do you get around Google sandbox?
A. New URL is put on "back burner" by them and may not exist to them
for a long time. Never submit to Google directly. Work with keywords,
site design to get best results.

Q. How do you use keywords effectively?

A. Use 5-8 keywords per page. Keywords must align with content. Don't
write to describe keywords; keywords describe content.

Q. On index page, s/company name be there?
A. Depends on client goals. Some clients have been around a long time,
don't need to do this. But newer company may need buzz around company
name. We (90octane) never start a tag with a company name.

Q. What's a good bounce rate?
A. Some sites have high bounce rate, without negative performance.
Biggest concern is that you don't want to lose clients. Content must
match what they're looking for. Bounce rate has had an impact in the
past on search ratings. Not so much of an impact today.

Q. What are the priorities for SEO?
A. Crawlable site, no funky URLs, no black hat stuff on your site,
content is king, content matches keywords, 5 keywords per page
(include in title and description, too), metadata (title and
description tags are important), offsite linking (pr, linking back to
your site).

Offsite linking includes: Press releases in Adobe, they hit newswires,
Google news, easy visibility. Lots of free distribution services.
PRnewswire and BusinessWire are the most popular paid ones.

Q. Video. My company did this (out on YouTube and other sites) and had
no ROI. How do you turn this into money?

Local search? We're located in Denver, but it's a national company.
How to be local with national presence? DO NOT have duplicate content
on both local and national sites. Big red flag for search engine. For
SEO, just have a national site but for pay per click you can do a lot
with geographical targeting in Google (certain marketing radius, etc.)

A. For lead generation: need to be pushing people to it. External push
media, pay per click. Even things like your own home page ads that
advertise YouTube videos, etc. Has to be not sales-ey, creative, etc.

Q. Any success from ad words, any ROI?
A. Yes, big success. Because you have analytics, it's amazing how much
you can track. One company has all its revenues driven from ad words.

Q. How to set up shopping carts for SEO?
A. Make sure products are accessible and you have good linking to your
products.

Q. Pre-Google days, it was more difficult to do SEO. With 53% Google
share growing, should a company just focus on Google as far as SEO?

A. Many companies will follow suit because they're the leader. Second
and third tier players are shifting. Ask.com is moving up. Don't know
how much Google will grow, so it's best to not design just for Google.
But since Google is so big, many lesser players are following their lead.


Q. Blended results. Any tips for getting those types of results?
A. It's new, so it's not understood that much. Could link to your
YouTube video so you're sure it comes up in the results.

Q. If you have a Google or other map on your site, does this give you
more visibility? The more content you have on your site, the more
traffic you get.

Q. For non-commerce site, does Google Analytics help?

Use a variety of services depending on what you're looking for. Some
companies pay for analytics because then they're accountable for what
the result is.

Just a quick reminder about our meeting tomorrow night.

We hope to see you there.

JZ


>>>>>>>>>>>
The Tuesday, January 8th meeting of the Rocky Mountain Internet Users
Group (RMIUG) will discuss "The Secrets of Search Engine Marketing."

SearchEngineWatch.com termed 2007 as "The Year that Search Grew Up."
Search, as a means to navigate the web, continues to be the dominant
portal to the World Wide Web with Google, specifically, owning the
lions-share of the market (65% according to HitWise), and still growing.

But beyond the incredible traffic that Search Engines have, Search as
a tool has matured as seen through some trends including:
* Blended Search Results - Launched initially by Google and followed
by Ask, Yahoo, and MSN, search is no longer about "10 blue links" made
popular by Google several years ago.  Now search results include
images, video, and audio to provide a multidimensional search result
experience.
* Social Media Sites as content aggregators - Social networks like
Facebook and MySpace, Social News sites such as Digg and Netscape all
have shown that the masses are just as valuable at organizing around
content as the algorithms of Search Engines at getting at content.
How many times have you noticed a Digg article come up in a search result?

All in all, it means that optimizing your content (and I mean all of
it, including videos, images, and audio) for the search engines is not
just important, it is essential to get your brand and message across.

To help us understand the ins-and-outs of search engine marketing
(SEM) and optimization, and the critical steps to take in developing a
search-friendly website, we will have two speakers from a local search
engine marketing firm. We'll consider the website development process
and SEM best practices that blend a good user experience with high
visibility.

Kelly Hall (kellyhall@...) is a Project Manager with
90octane. She has been with the interactive marketing agency for three
years and has experience in the strategic development and execution of
both online lead generation and search engine marketing programs. She
has led successful SEM programs in the manufacturing, technical and
nonprofit verticals, with a focus on integrating new search
technologies. She graduated summa cum laude from the University of
Colorado at Boulder with a major in Communications.

Peter Samland (petersamland@...) is the Senior Systems
Engineer with 90octane.  He has been doing web site development since
2002. He has his Bachelors in Computer Science/Philosophy and Religion
and is currently finishing his Master of Computer Science remotely at
Kansas State University.  While he has worked with a variety of web
technologies, he has always been a proponent of open source,
accessible technologies and standards based development. At 90octane
he has driven micro-site development that is search engine friendly
and fun to use.



Links:
http://www.90octane.com
http://searchenginewatch.com/showPage.html?page=3627989

The meeting is Tuesday, January 8th from 7:00 - 9:00 pm (with optional
6:30 pm start for refreshments and informal networking). The meeting
will be held at The National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) at
1850 Table Mesa Drive in Boulder. To get to NCAR from the Boulder
Turnpike (US 36) or Broadway (US 93), take Table Mesa Drive west
towards the mountains for approximately 2.5 miles into the foothills.
NCAR is at the top of the hill. For door-to-door driving directions,
go to MapQuest (http://www.mapquest.com/), click on Driving
Directions, enter your starting address, NCAR's address, and voila!
Park in the NCAR lot, go in the main door, and ask the guard to point
you to meeting, which is held in the main auditorium, right off the
lobby. The meeting is free and open to the public, but we may pass the
hat to help defray expenses.

Our meeting location seats about 120 people. That is usually enough
room to accommodate all attendees, but it's impossible for us to
predict how many people will show up for any given meeting. Seating is
always on a first-come, first serve basis, and in the event of more
attendees than seats, we won't be able to admit additional people into
the auditorium after all seats are filled.

Thanks to our three sponsors who help make RMIUG meetings happen:
---------------------------------------------------------------
MicroStaff (www.microstaff.com) which provides Creative and Technical
talent for Web, Interactive Media, Marketing Communications and
Software Development projects, is the sponsor of food and beverages
for RMIUG meetings.
ONEWARE (http://www.ONEWARE.com) -- a Colorado-based software company
that provides semi-custom web-based applications, sponsors the RMIUG
meeting minutes.
Copy Diva (http://www.copydiva.com) which provides marketing project
management, marketing communications consulting, and web content
development is the AV sponsor for RMIUG.

Consultants and companies are invited to bring Internet-related
Product information, brochures, and business cards which will be
displayed on an information table.

There are email mailing lists set up for this group. To subscribe or
unsubscribe, see http://www.rmiug.org/maillist.html. You can also
reach the RMIUG "Executive" Committee at rmiug-comm@.... Our web
site is at http://www.rmiug.org/


*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=
Please note that RMIUG is hosted at NCAR and we are their guests. NCAR
has security regulations in effect that we must follow in order to use
the facility. If any RMIUG attendee is unwilling to follow these
simple regulations, I would ask that he or she not attend and instead
read the minutes after the meeting.

Here are the NCAR security policies that must be followed:

1. No weapons.
2. Must sign in at front desk and provide name.
3. Cooperate with security folks including providing ID if requested.
4. We are guests of NCAR so cooperation and courtesy are expected when
dealing with NCAR staff.

If there are any questions or concerns with this policy, please
contact me directly.
Thanks, Josh Zapin (josh@...).
*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=

The Tuesday, January 8th meeting of the Rocky Mountain Internet Users
Group (RMIUG) will discuss "The Secrets of Search Engine Marketing."

SearchEngineWatch.com termed 2007 as "The Year that Search Grew Up."
Search, as a means to navigate the web, continues to be the dominant
portal to the World Wide Web with Google, specifically, owning the
lions-share of the market (65% according to HitWise), and still growing.

But beyond the incredible traffic that Search Engines have, Search as
a tool has matured as seen through some trends including:
* Blended Search Results - Launched initially by Google and followed
by Ask, Yahoo, and MSN, search is no longer about "10 blue links" made
popular by Google several years ago.  Now search results include
images, video, and audio to provide a multidimensional search result
experience.
* Social Media Sites as content aggregators - Social networks like
Facebook and MySpace, Social News sites such as Digg and Netscape all
have shown that the masses are just as valuable at organizing around
content as the algorithms of Search Engines at getting at content.
How many times have you noticed a Digg article come up in a search result?

All in all, it means that optimizing your content (and I mean all of
it, including videos, images, and audio) for the search engines is not
just important, it is essential to get your brand and message across.

To help us understand the ins-and-outs of search engine marketing
(SEM) and optimization, and the critical steps to take in developing a
search-friendly website, we will have two speakers from a local search
engine marketing firm. We'll consider the website development process
and SEM best practices that blend a good user experience with high
visibility.

Kelly Hall (kellyhall@...) is a Project Manager with
90octane. She has been with the interactive marketing agency for three
years and has experience in the strategic development and execution of
both online lead generation and search engine marketing programs. She
has led successful SEM programs in the manufacturing, technical and
nonprofit verticals, with a focus on integrating new search
technologies. She graduated summa cum laude from the University of
Colorado at Boulder with a major in Communications.

Peter Samland (petersamland@...) is the Senior Systems
Engineer with 90octane.  He has been doing web site development since
2002. He has his Bachelors in Computer Science/Philosophy and Religion
and is currently finishing his Master of Computer Science remotely at
Kansas State University.  While he has worked with a variety of web
technologies, he has always been a proponent of open source,
accessible technologies and standards based development. At 90octane
he has driven micro-site development that is search engine friendly
and fun to use.



Links:
http://www.90octane.com
http://searchenginewatch.com/showPage.html?page=3627989

The meeting is Tuesday, January 8th from 7:00 - 9:00 pm (with optional
6:30 pm start for refreshments and informal networking). The meeting
will be held at The National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) at
1850 Table Mesa Drive in Boulder. To get to NCAR from the Boulder
Turnpike (US 36) or Broadway (US 93), take Table Mesa Drive west
towards the mountains for approximately 2.5 miles into the foothills.
NCAR is at the top of the hill. For door-to-door driving directions,
go to MapQuest (http://www.mapquest.com/), click on Driving
Directions, enter your starting address, NCAR's address, and voila!
Park in the NCAR lot, go in the main door, and ask the guard to point
you to meeting, which is held in the main auditorium, right off the
lobby. The meeting is free and open to the public, but we may pass the
hat to help defray expenses.

Our meeting location seats about 120 people. That is usually enough
room to accommodate all attendees, but it's impossible for us to
predict how many people will show up for any given meeting. Seating is
always on a first-come, first serve basis, and in the event of more
attendees than seats, we won't be able to admit additional people into
the auditorium after all seats are filled.

Thanks to our three sponsors who help make RMIUG meetings happen:
---------------------------------------------------------------
MicroStaff (www.microstaff.com) which provides Creative and Technical
talent for Web, Interactive Media, Marketing Communications and
Software Development projects, is the sponsor of food and beverages
for RMIUG meetings.
ONEWARE (http://www.ONEWARE.com) -- a Colorado-based software company
that provides semi-custom web-based applications, sponsors the RMIUG
meeting minutes.
Copy Diva (http://www.copydiva.com) which provides marketing project
management, marketing communications consulting, and web content
development is the AV sponsor for RMIUG.

Consultants and companies are invited to bring Internet-related
Product information, brochures, and business cards which will be
displayed on an information table.

There are email mailing lists set up for this group. To subscribe or
unsubscribe, see http://www.rmiug.org/maillist.html. You can also
reach the RMIUG "Executive" Committee at rmiug-comm@.... Our web
site is at http://www.rmiug.org/


*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=
Please note that RMIUG is hosted at NCAR and we are their guests. NCAR
has security regulations in effect that we must follow in order to use
the facility. If any RMIUG attendee is unwilling to follow these
simple regulations, I would ask that he or she not attend and instead
read the minutes after the meeting.

Here are the NCAR security policies that must be followed:

1. No weapons.
2. Must sign in at front desk and provide name.
3. Cooperate with security folks including providing ID if requested.
4. We are guests of NCAR so cooperation and courtesy are expected when
dealing with NCAR staff.

If there are any questions or concerns with this policy, please
contact me directly.
Thanks, Josh Zapin (josh@...).
*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=

This is a pre-announcement about the Tuesday, January 8 RMIUG meeting,
The Secrets of SEM.  We are working on the final details of the
program and will announce it shortly.

JZ

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
The meeting is Tuesday, January 8th from 7:00 - 9:00 pm (with optional
6:30 pm start for refreshments and informal networking). The meeting
will be held at The National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) at
1850 Table Mesa Drive in Boulder. To get to NCAR from the Boulder
Turnpike (US 36) or Broadway (US 93), take Table Mesa Drive west
towards the mountains for approximately 2.5 miles into the foothills.
NCAR is at the top of the hill. For door-to-door driving directions,
go to MapQuest (http://www.mapquest.com/), click on Driving
Directions, enter your starting address, NCAR's address, and voila!
Park in the NCAR lot, go in the main door, and ask the guard to point
you to meeting, which is held in the main auditorium, right off the
lobby. The meeting is free and open to the public, but we may pass the
hat to help defray expenses.

Our meeting location seats about 120 people. That is usually enough
room to accommodate all attendees, but it's impossible for us to
predict how many people will show up for any given meeting. Seating is
always on a first-come, first serve basis, and in the event of more
attendees than seats, we won't be able to admit additional people into
the auditorium after all seats are filled.

Thanks to our three sponsors who help make RMIUG meetings happen:
---------------------------------------------------------------
MicroStaff (www.microstaff.com) which provides Creative and Technical
talent for Web, Interactive Media, Marketing Communications and
Software Development projects, is the sponsor of food and beverages
for RMIUG meetings.
ONEWARE (http://www.ONEWARE.com) -- a Colorado-based software company
that provides semi-custom web-based applications, sponsors the RMIUG
meeting minutes.
Copy Diva (http://www.copydiva.com) which provides marketing project
management, marketing communications consulting, and web content
development is the AV sponsor for RMIUG.

Consultants and companies are invited to bring Internet-related
Product information, brochures, and business cards which will be
displayed on an information table.

There are email mailing lists set up for this group. To subscribe or
unsubscribe, see http://www.rmiug.org/maillist.html. You can also
reach the RMIUG "Executive" Committee at rmiug-comm@.... Our web
site is at http://www.rmiug.org/


*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=
Please note that RMIUG is hosted at NCAR and we are their guests. NCAR
has security regulations in effect that we must follow in order to use
the facility. If any RMIUG attendee is unwilling to follow these
simple regulations, I would ask that he or she not attend and instead
read the minutes after the meeting.

Here are the NCAR security policies that must be followed:

1. No weapons.
2. Must sign in at front desk and provide name.
3. Cooperate with security folks including providing ID if requested.
4. We are guests of NCAR so cooperation and courtesy are expected when
dealing with NCAR staff.

If there are any questions or concerns with this policy, please
contact me directly.
Thanks, Josh Zapin (josh@...).
*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=

"Battle of the Brands: How Online Marketing Competes and Complements
Its Offline Counterpart"

Andrew Davison – President of texturemedia, a Boulder-based digital
interactive agency; has worked with clients such as Izze, Midas, and
Pentax. Presents the "online" perspective of marketing. Before joining
the firm, he was a senior executive at Pearl Izumi where he managed
all the sales efforts of the company.

Keith Greenawalt, Senior Strategy Associate at Greenhouse Partners, a
Boulder-based advertising agency that works on clients such as Molson,
Coors, Copper Mtn. Resort. Presents the "offline" perspective of
marketing.

Some introductory statistics:

TNS Media Research.

Internet marketing accounted for 6.5% of all media spent in 2006.
Disney, Verizon, spent over $2M on Web advertising.

Money spent on online advertising is still far behind other types of
advertising.

Greenhouse – a "holistic" branding and learning company. The company
works across a lot of different spaces and media. Greenawalt describes
the approach as "The Whole Brand" – the complete integration of the
internal and external brands.

Your brand is all about making and keeping promises. It's the
immediate reaction that people have as a result of images, words,
actions, ideas, etc. that someone relates to your organization.

What makes a great brand great:

A focused brand promise:
- is differentiated
- is relevant
- is consistent

Greenhouse Brand Philosophy: brands are fluid and constantly changing.

Communications Philosophy: Getting an emotional connection/attachment
to your client's brands.

Greenhouse has 3 practice areas:
Brand Consulting – Development of brand strategies
Brand Communication – Works across tv, print, point of sale, guerrilla
marketing
Brand Learning – Creating internal alignment with the brand

Question: How do you determine measurable output

Answer: Print ads are not particularly measurable. Direct marketing is
much more measurable. It depends on they type of media. ROI is not the
be all and end all. You can't easily measure the value of every single
tactic you implement.

Andrew Davison: Interactive agency formed in 2001.

• Business to consumer
• Business to business
• Consumer products include property development, outdoor, resort &
hospitality, technology, healthcare, financial services.

Their approach is bringing together business requirements and user
needs. Company asks:
• How does someone work through a process?
• How are we driving an action to a process?
• How do you take creative ideas and draw in users?
• How do you use technology and interaction to convey your message?

Clients include Google, Intuit, Pentax, Midas, Thule

Understand the user's needs. We seek to change consumer behavior.
Behavior changes based on the influence of technology in our lives.

Facilitating unique user experiences

• Create Unique User Personas
• Distinct Web properties
• To create customized content and functionality

We create perpetual data; never arrive at a goal because information
is constantly changing.

For the Gen Y demographic, technology is part of the fabric of their lives

Proprietary Strategy Tool: Create a baseline of information. Where are
we today and where do we want to go? Filling in the gap between the two.

Some Creative Tools texturemedia Uses:

Design Workshop: Collaborative Styleboard Exercise

eMarketing Planning: Strategy, Execution, Analysis, Optimization –
Achieving goals while maximizing ROI

Their Process: Traditional waterfall process: Discovery, Define,
Design, Develop, Optimize. How can we work together with other
agencies to create?


An Example of Online and Offline Marketing Working Together

Intrawest: Copper Mountain – The Cache (Keith Greenawalt discussed)

An interesting challenge: the resort is trying to sell units that are
not yet built. Want consumers to buy years in advance of the product
being finished (won't be complete for 3 years).

The Situation: Resort builds in a secluded area of the resort. They
attract huge number of skiers but has not been able to translate this
popularity into high-end real estate sales.


What is Copper Mountain all about?

Develop a brand personality statement: Inviting, Informative,
Inspiring, Provoking, Sophisticated. What are the words that get
consumers excited about this product?

The Cache Mood board: what photos evoke the feelings for this product?
Colors, visuals, photos, fabrics. What you show consumers is what will
actually be provided. Uses the same colors, fabrics in the units.
What's the "energy" associated with this product?

Examples of Integrated Campaigns

How do you deliver this campaign to the Web?

Cross Channel Marketing: multi-communication channels

Get consumer to:
• Buy
• Engage
• Try
• Buy again

• Greenhouse developed the brand and creative strategy: "Copper's
Greatest Secrets"

• texturemedia applied interactive strategy and process to match the
brand strategy with the web creative and interaction.

• Joint creative review with the client to arrive at a final product

From a Web perspective, it was very successful: 7500 unique visitors
in 4 months with 376 registrations (5% conversion rate)

texturemedia won 2007 Web Marketing Association Web Award for this
campaign

Sold out units within a very short time

The Cache – Whisper

This was a Web page to gather information from prospective customers.
Roll over images at the bottom to reveal different images about the
secret. Images are inviting the user to explore more.

The Cache – unveiling of what The Cache at Union Creek will be. Lots
of mood components. What makes Copper so special?

Companies worked together to create a direct mail, printed component –
focused on being an "insider" at Copper. The result was a booklet of
photos and images with specific colors describing specific locations
within Copper in which to do things like get lost in the woods, have a
drink, etc. Goal was to drive the consumer to the web to see more
about the units and get a feel for the product.

The focus is exclusivity – congratulations, you made it. Or, you
didn't make it, but give us your info so we can include you in the
next experience. Intrawest has lots of other properties so they want
to continue to build their database.

Once you give a deposit on a unit, you're sent a printed booklet with
little paper flaps (like an Advent calendar) that open up to reveal
more "secrets." Glossy coating, color on color, interesting photos of
skiers, maps, the actual units, floor plans, colors, amenities, what
you can expect if you become an owner at the Cache.

Tight integration between brand promise and support by web site.

Extending the Relationship

How interactive medium supports print, branding effort.

Examples of ad campaigns

Pentax Photogallery: users can upload their imagery. Can see work done
with actual product, actual camera by Pentax. All Flash site. Only
allows users with Pentax cameras to upload their photos.

Not just web site, but a web application.

Pentaxian: Loyalty community. Goals are co-creation, community,
conversation.
Kelly Slater Invitational: Tied Pentax waterproof camera to specific
celebrity. Extended brand footprint by being associated with Kelly
Slater. KS is a highly refined search term and when KS comes up, it
brings up Pentax with it.

Pearl Izumi – Coined the logo "We are not joggers."  Created a lot of
heat. Pushed PI up in their visibility and credibility. Created a mini
site that allowed users to customize the text and send an online post
card to someone. Blog that allowed users to respond to the marketing
campaign. Ties to campaign: Win free shoes for life.

Mossy Oak Apparel: Hunting apparel company. Photos of people's trophy
shots in a bulletin board format. Users can upload their own trophy
shots on an online bulletin board. Community votes on the photos.
Winner wins a thousand "bucks."

Aspen – Snowmass DVD-ROM. Took a distributable medium and put it on
DVD ROM and sending it out to users. Flipping it over and go into
their web site and get specific promo offers from the site; lets you
into the online halfpipe. Primarily for Gen Y.

Wells Fargo Link: 1% increase needed for a debit card; Wells Fargo got
3.5% increase from this online campaign. Focused on consumer loyalty
for Wells Fargo Link Card. Content management system that changes
weekly for different promotions and offers. If you use your card at
certain sites, you get a discount. Lots of "carrots" or motivators to
get a user to continue using the site. Your savings are targeted to
your interests, your region. A "loyalty engine" tailored to your user
experience. You get rewarded for using their products.

Summary: Interactive marketing will triple over the next 5 years to
$61 billion by 2012 (Forrester Research).

Some other key points:

• Online and offline marketing are much more effective when part of a
holistic strategy and integrated creatively and tactically

• Including URL address in print ads triples the percent visitation.

• Media synergy is important: 3 media are better than 2, 2 is better
than one

• eMarketed suggests that rather than a shift in viewership from tv to
the new-media channels

• New marketing is the focus, not just new media

• Blogs are good for some brands, but not all. Need to look at user needs.

Questions

Q. How do you deal with strategies for localizing B to B web sites?

For example, Midas – the pattern of how their customers are searching
their product is very localized, depends on where you're located. If
you live in Boulder, you'll type in "Boulder oil change." You'll get
paid listing, like Midas, Meineke, etc. When you click on their ad,
you end up on home page which is very complicated to find info for
local oil change. texturemedia created a tool that took you from page
search listed by getting you to a search path, Google page mapping
tool, where you'll provide city or zip code so you can get a regional
listing you're familiar with in a map interface. Also, direct coupons
that support local area dealerships. Blip windows show Midas logo with
quick description of specific shop to go to actual shops web page or
regional web page, along with more coupon offers. Created a brand
network for Midas. User gets more relevant, regional information. Can
also be made multilingual at flip of a switch. Better support of brand
footprint, customers look for coupons.

Q. Of total # of Copper Mountain units, how many sold thru traditional
real estate community channels?

More than half sold through those who had already purchased from
Intrawest previously.

What % of budget devoted to the web site vs. offline, print?

A minimal amount spent on the Cache. They needed a case built to spend
more on internet ad. We need you to show results and win awards and
prove that others validate your work. Overall spent was between
$30-40,000 spent on Web effort. $150-250,000 spent on print, offline
advertising.

Q. With new portal sites, like Facebook and Myspace, it seems like
you're not getting the same clickthrough as with a search engine like
Google.

Facebook is different because it's a social community. Whole new ad
system being developed within FB. Hasn't dampened the effect of Google
bec. people will still use that when searching for local oil changes.
FB impact on online marketing still remains to be seen. We focus on
targeted social communities, with specific needs, rather than a
community that's just trying to pull everyone in. Remains to be seen
how well we can leverage online marketing within those communities.

We feel we're 5-7 years maximum within a 30-year marketing cycle.
Facebook is still very new. Everything can be an interface – your car,
your office. There will be a loss of distinction between looking at
your computer and interacting with the internet.

Q. You mentioned Flash pages that are searchable, indexing. So when I
upload my photos to Pentax photo gallery, that's being sucked into a
Flash page? Is that metadata?

You're logging into a large Web application database that supports all
of user's workflow for uploading, editing photos, etc. A Flash
interface sits on top of that and presents your information in the
gallery. This can be seen and bookmarked by the user.

Q. There's still an incredible imbalance between print, TV, offline
ads. Are people seeing that they should spend more on online ads?

The relative dollar amount spent is so small, there's still a lot of
upward movement. Behaviors take a long time to change. We like to look
at print media for some things. It will be holistic for a long time. I
don't see people reorganizing their marketing budget. We have a client
with a large budget and they're starting to allocate more money to
interactive and pulling it out of TV. But it's still a very small
percentage compared to what's being spent on offline types of media.

Online is easier to measure and track, so that may drive more clients
to that type of medium.

Comment from audience member:  I think the big numbers that Forrester
shows are not coming from Web site design. People that control the
media purposes are not generally very sophisticated about interactive
media. Lots of big agencies are reluctant, not tech-savvy.

There's a real hesitancy to invest a lot of money in interactive media.

There's a distinction between interactive design and development are
not the same as interactive advertising. That's a small portion of the
budget.

Media strategy and media buying are very competitive.

Q. How do you determine the carrots to encourage user to continue
using the site?

Align behavior with brand needs. Web is driven in large part by
avarice and they want to know what they're going to get. Blogs let
people show off. Voyeurism – people want to lurk and check stuff out.
If you give people the chance to do one or more, you'll entice them to
use a site.

One thing we've seen is that while budgets are 6-10%, lots of
advertisers are in the 15-20% range. There's a lack of understanding
that good interactive requires technology, which is complex, and you
have to keep investing in the media so there needs to be a commitment
to make it work. The entire Cache marketing budget was still
underfunded. They didn't have a lot of marketing dollars because their
properties are not built yet.

A lot of highly successful brand presence doesn't have a carrot at the
end. Like Grey Goose vodka, they tout an image of special, exclusive
and they'll never give the user a coupon. Have to be careful about
what you offer as carrots. What do we stand for versus how do we
motivate people? Be careful about how aggressively you discount things
because it lessens the value of your product.

Some merchants like Pentax just want to focus on their exclusive
nature, so no coupon involved.

Q. I've been an Aspen passholder for years. One of the most effective
elements are the timely emails, esp. where you're showing empty rooms
and specials are very enticing.

Email is a very effective tool for targeted communications to those
who express an interest in being contacted.

Just a quick reminder about the RMIUG meeting on Tuesday night (11/13).

We've added another speaker to the program!  (See below.)

We look forward to seeing you there.

JZ

>>>>>>>>>>>
The Tuesday, November 13th meeting of the Rocky Mountain Internet
Users Group (RMIUG) will discuss "Battle of the Brands: How Online
Marketing Competes and Complements Offline Counterpart"

Since this is an Internet focused group, I probably don't need to
convince you of the importance of the online marketplace.  We know
it's huge, it continues to grow, and its importance continues to increase.

But if you like your gut feeling to be supplanted by numbers then
consider this: Internet display advertising overall increased 17.3
percent last year, easily outpacing any other media category,
according to data compiled by TNS Media Intelligence.

But here is another truth: The Internet accounted for just 6.5 percent
of overall media spending in 2006, according to TNS data. Even for top
online advertisers such as AT&T, Walt Disney Co., General Motors and
Verizon (many of whom spend more than $100 million online), the Web
amounted to a fraction of their total ad budgets. For these Fortune
500 brands, online spending was far smaller than TV dollars and
roughly on par with other formats, such as magazines, newspapers and
radio. In all cases, online ranked ahead of outdoor marketing.  (At
least we're ahead of outdoor billboards.)

What's going on here?  Are marketers missing the boat?  Or after 10+
years of digital marketing are there some realities about traditional
marketing that just cannot be ignored?

To debate the topic, we will bring in a few local gurus:

Andrew Davison (adavison@...) is President/CEO of
texturemedia, a Boulder-based digital interactive agency, working on
clients such as Izze, Midas, and Pentax.  In addition to overall brand
strategy, strategic positioning, and company performance, he is
responsible for overseeing the Client Services team for texturemedia.
  Prior to joining texturemedia's founding team, Andrew was a senior
executive at Pearl Izumi, a world-renowned outdoor apparel
manufacturer, where he managed all sales efforts for the company.

Keith Greenawalt (kgreenawalt@...) is a Senior Strategy
Associate at Greenhouse Partners, a Boulder-based advertising agency,
working on such clients as Molson Coors, Copper, and Winter Park.
Prior to joining Greenhouse Partners, Keith worked as a Manager at
WebFinance, a startup publisher of financial websites, where he did
everything from developing content to writing code to high-level
business strategy.


Links:
http://www.texturemedia.com
http://www.greenhousepartners.com


The meeting is Tuesday, November 13th from 7:00 - 9:00 pm (with
optional 6:30 pm start for refreshments and informal networking). The
meeting will be held at The National Center for Atmospheric Research
(NCAR) at 1850 Table Mesa Drive in Boulder. To get to NCAR from the
Boulder Turnpike (US 36) or Broadway (US 93), take Table Mesa Drive
west towards the mountains for approximately 2.5 miles into the
foothills. NCAR is at the top of the hill. For door-to-door driving
directions, go to MapQuest (http://www.mapquest.com/), click on
Driving Directions, enter your starting address, NCAR's address, and
voila! Park in the NCAR lot, go in the main door, and ask the guard to
point you to meeting, which is held in the main auditorium, right off
the lobby. The meeting is free and open to the public, but we may pass
the hat to help defray expenses.

Our meeting location seats about 120 people. That is usually enough
room to accommodate all attendees, but it's impossible for us to
predict how many people will show up for any given meeting. Seating is
always on a first-come, first serve basis, and in the event of more
attendees than seats, we won't be able to admit additional people into
the auditorium after all seats are filled.

Thanks to our three sponsors who help make RMIUG meetings happen:
---------------------------------------------------------------
MicroStaff (www.microstaff.com) which provides Creative and Technical
talent for Web, Interactive Media, Marketing Communications and
Software Development projects, is the sponsor of food and beverages
for RMIUG meetings.
ONEWARE (http://www.ONEWARE.com) -- a Colorado-based software company
that provides semi-custom web-based applications, sponsors the RMIUG
meeting minutes.
Copy Diva (http://www.copydiva.com) which provides marketing project
management, marketing communications consulting, and web content
development is the AV sponsor for RMIUG.

Consultants and companies are invited to bring Internet-related
Product information, brochures, and business cards which will be
displayed on an information table.

There are email mailing lists set up for this group. To subscribe or
unsubscribe, see http://www.rmiug.org/maillist.html. You can also
reach the RMIUG "Executive" Committee at rmiug-comm@.... Our web
site is at http://www.rmiug.org/


*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=
Please note that RMIUG is hosted at NCAR and we are their guests. NCAR
has security regulations in effect that we must follow in order to use
the facility. If any RMIUG attendee is unwilling to follow these
simple regulations, I would ask that he or she not attend and instead
read the minutes after the meeting.

Here are the NCAR security policies that must be followed:

1. No weapons.
2. Must sign in at front desk and provide name.
3. Cooperate with security folks including providing ID if requested.
4. We are guests of NCAR so cooperation and courtesy are expected when
dealing with NCAR staff.

If there are any questions or concerns with this policy, please
contact me directly.
Thanks, Josh Zapin (josh@...).
*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=

The Tuesday, November 13th meeting of the Rocky Mountain Internet
Users Group (RMIUG) will discuss "Battle of the Brands: How Online
Marketing Competes and Complements Offline Counterpart"

Since this is an Internet focused group, I probably don't need to
convince you of the importance of the online marketplace.  We know
it's huge, it continues to grow, and its importance continues to increase.

But if you like your gut feeling to be supplanted by numbers then
consider this: Internet display advertising overall increased 17.3
percent last year, easily outpacing any other media category,
according to data compiled by TNS Media Intelligence.

But here is another truth: The Internet accounted for just 6.5 percent
of overall media spending in 2006, according to TNS data. Even for top
online advertisers such as AT&T, Walt Disney Co., General Motors and
Verizon (many of whom spend more than $100 million online), the Web
amounted to a fraction of their total ad budgets. For these Fortune
500 brands, online spending was far smaller than TV dollars and
roughly on par with other formats, such as magazines, newspapers and
radio. In all cases, online ranked ahead of outdoor marketing.  (At
least we're ahead of outdoor billboards.)

What's going on here?  Are marketers missing the boat?  Or after 10+
years of digital marketing are there some realities about traditional
marketing that just cannot be ignored?

To debate the topic, we will bring in a few local gurus:

Andrew Davison (adavison@...) is President/CEO of
texturemedia, a Boulder-based digital interactive agency, working on
clients such as Izze, Midas, and Pentax.  In addition to overall brand
strategy, strategic positioning, and company performance, he is
responsible for overseeing the Client Services team for texturemedia.
  Prior to joining texturemedia's founding team, Andrew was a senior
executive at Pearl Izumi, a world renowned outdoor apparel
manufacturer, where he managed all sales efforts for the company.

Another speaker to be added soon.  Stay tuned...


Links:
http://www.texturemedia.com

The meeting is Tuesday, November 13th from 7:00 - 9:00 pm (with
optional 6:30 pm start for refreshments and informal networking). The
meeting will be held at The National Center for Atmospheric Research
(NCAR) at 1850 Table Mesa Drive in Boulder. To get to NCAR from the
Boulder Turnpike (US 36) or Broadway (US 93), take Table Mesa Drive
west towards the mountains for approximately 2.5 miles into the
foothills. NCAR is at the top of the hill. For door-to-door driving
directions, go to MapQuest (http://www.mapquest.com/), click on
Driving Directions, enter your starting address, NCAR's address, and
voila! Park in the NCAR lot, go in the main door, and ask the guard to
point you to meeting, which is held in the main auditorium, right off
the lobby. The meeting is free and open to the public, but we may pass
the hat to help defray expenses.

Our meeting location seats about 120 people. That is usually enough
room to accommodate all attendees, but it's impossible for us to
predict how many people will show up for any given meeting. Seating is
always on a first-come, first serve basis, and in the event of more
attendees than seats, we won't be able to admit additional people into
the auditorium after all seats are filled.

Thanks to our three sponsors who help make RMIUG meetings happen:
---------------------------------------------------------------
MicroStaff (www.microstaff.com) which provides Creative and Technical
talent for Web, Interactive Media, Marketing Communications and
Software Development projects, is the sponsor of food and beverages
for RMIUG meetings.
ONEWARE (http://www.ONEWARE.com) -- a Colorado-based software company
that provides semi-custom web-based applications, sponsors the RMIUG
meeting minutes.
Copy Diva (http://www.copydiva.com) which provides marketing project
management, marketing communications consulting, and web content
development is the AV sponsor for RMIUG.

Consultants and companies are invited to bring Internet-related
Product information, brochures, and business cards which will be
displayed on an information table.

There are email mailing lists set up for this group. To subscribe or
unsubscribe, see http://www.rmiug.org/maillist.html. You can also
reach the RMIUG "Executive" Committee at rmiug-comm@.... Our web
site is at http://www.rmiug.org/


*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=
Please note that RMIUG is hosted at NCAR and we are their guests. NCAR
has security regulations in effect that we must follow in order to use
the facility. If any RMIUG attendee is unwilling to follow these
simple regulations, I would ask that he or she not attend and instead
read the minutes after the meeting.

Here are the NCAR security policies that must be followed:

1. No weapons.
2. Must sign in at front desk and provide name.
3. Cooperate with security folks including providing ID if requested.
4. We are guests of NCAR so cooperation and courtesy are expected when
dealing with NCAR staff.

If there are any questions or concerns with this policy, please
contact me directly.
Thanks, Josh Zapin (josh@...).
*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=

This is a pre-announcement about the Tuesday, November 13 RMIUG
meeting.  We are working on the final details of the program and will
announce it shortly.

JZ

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
The meeting is Tuesday, November 13th from 7:00 - 9:00 pm (with
optional 6:30 pm start for refreshments and informal networking). The
meeting will be held at The National Center for Atmospheric Research
(NCAR) at 1850 Table Mesa Drive in Boulder. To get to NCAR from the
Boulder Turnpike (US 36) or Broadway (US 93), take Table Mesa Drive
west towards the mountains for approximately 2.5 miles into the
foothills. NCAR is at the top of the hill. For door-to-door driving
directions, go to MapQuest (http://www.mapquest.com/), click on
Driving Directions, enter your starting address, NCAR's address, and
voila! Park in the NCAR lot, go in the main door, and ask the guard to
point you to meeting, which is held in the main auditorium, right off
the lobby. The meeting is free and open to the public, but we may pass
the hat to help defray expenses.

Our meeting location seats about 120 people. That is usually enough
room to accommodate all attendees, but it's impossible for us to
predict how many people will show up for any given meeting. Seating is
always on a first-come, first serve basis, and in the event of more
attendees than seats, we won't be able to admit additional people into
the auditorium after all seats are filled.

Thanks to our three sponsors who help make RMIUG meetings happen:
---------------------------------------------------------------
MicroStaff (www.microstaff.com) which provides Creative and Technical
talent for Web, Interactive Media, Marketing Communications and
Software Development projects, is the sponsor of food and beverages
for RMIUG meetings.
ONEWARE (http://www.ONEWARE.com) -- a Colorado-based software company
that provides semi-custom web-based applications, sponsors the RMIUG
meeting minutes.
Copy Diva (http://www.copydiva.com) which provides marketing project
management, marketing communications consulting, and web content
development is the AV sponsor for RMIUG.

Consultants and companies are invited to bring Internet-related
Product information, brochures, and business cards which will be
displayed on an information table.

There are email mailing lists set up for this group. To subscribe or
unsubscribe, see http://www.rmiug.org/maillist.html. You can also
reach the RMIUG "Executive" Committee at rmiug-comm@.... Our web
site is at http://www.rmiug.org/


*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=
Please note that RMIUG is hosted at NCAR and we are their guests. NCAR
has security regulations in effect that we must follow in order to use
the facility. If any RMIUG attendee is unwilling to follow these
simple regulations, I would ask that he or she not attend and instead
read the minutes after the meeting.

Here are the NCAR security policies that must be followed:

1. No weapons.
2. Must sign in at front desk and provide name.
3. Cooperate with security folks including providing ID if requested.
4. We are guests of NCAR so cooperation and courtesy are expected when
dealing with NCAR staff.

If there are any questions or concerns with this policy, please
contact me directly.
Thanks, Josh Zapin (josh@...).
*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=

MEETING SPONSORS
Microstaff (www.microstaff.com) provided refreshments and pizza
Copy Diva (www.copydiva.com) provided the audio-visual equipment
NCAR (www.ncar.ucar.edu) provided the facility
ONEWARE (www.ONEWARE.com) sponsored these minutes.
We thank all of them for their support.
-------------
The meeting was held September 11, 2007 at The National Center for
Atmospheric Research (NCAR) in Boulder, Co.
About 25 people attended the meeting.
Facilitator:   Josh Zapin
Secretary for meeting notes:  Jill Arnson
----------------------
ANNOUNCEMENTS
Josh Zapin welcomes all suggestions for topics for future meetings,
please email Josh at   josh@... with your ideas.
Josh Zapin – Texturemedia – They are looking  for web designers
Elaine Miller – AITP  - upcoming lunch meeting 9/20  11AM - 3PM at
Park Hill Golf Club – topic: Microsoft across America
Gabe Swicegood - Booz Allen Hamilton - they have open positions SCI
clearance positions
Elijah Chancey – seeking - looking for Systems Administration position
Jay Roe – seeking – messaging  and security position jaehroh@...
   617-852-7932
Paige Sandborn - Gem Resourcing - recruiting – have a lot of open
positions
---------------
INTRODUCTION (Josh Zapin)
The incidence of web attacks has gone up as well as expenditures on
security
Relating to the airplane attacks on 9/11 What about our cyber-world?
Has it suffered the same types of attacks?
Are we more vulnerable than we think?
----------------------
ABOUT THE SPEAKERS
Gerhard Eschelbeck (geschelbeck@...) is the Chief Technology
Officer and Senior Vice President of engineering at Webroot Software,
Inc., Gerhard is responsible for developing and driving the company's
overall product strategy. He also manages Webroot's development and
threat research teams, and further expands the capabilities of
Webroot's Phileas, the industry's first and only automated spyware
research system. He was named one of InfoWorld's 25 Most Influential
CTOs in 2003 and 2004, and received this honor a third time in 2006 as
Webroot chief technology officer and senior vice president of
engineering. Gerhard holds masters and PhD degrees in computer science
from the University of Linz, Austria.

Dirk Anderson (Dirk.Anderson@...) is the Director of
IT Governance and Compliance Services for Coalfire Systems, Inc. His
fifteen years in the field of information technology has provided him
with extensive experience in the development of policy and awareness
programs for multi-national corporations, where he has held the
positions of Practice Lead/Sr. Analyst, Chief Security Architect, Sr.
Manager Global Security Architecture, and Manager of Information
Security & Internet Systems. He is a member of Vista Research's
Society of Industry Leaders and the Gerson Lehrman Group's Council of
Advisors. He also writes on the topic of information security, and has
contributed to works such as the SANS "Incident Handling - Step by
Step" guide.

-----------------------

The Internet as a Tool for Crime and Terrorism
presented by Dirk Anderson – Coalfire Systems
Defining the threat
	 Should we worry about a cyber Pearl Harbor?
	 Definition - Cyber-warfare – the use of computers and other devices
to attack an enemy's information systems as opposed to an enemy's
armies or factories
It is difficult to try to trace back a perceived attack to your
computer and where is it truly coming from if the IP address is
spoofed – this makes differentiating between and labeling attacks as
terrorist, criminal or warfare more difficult in a cyber attack than
in the "real world"
	 As time progresses, different technologies are used to support
terrorism – Internet is a great tool for propaganda – chatrooms,
information gathering, communications
Recent events:
• Italy: 10,000+ systems attacks within a few days,
• Estonia: DDoS in April 2007 , shut down central bank, and entire
country disconnected from the Internet to fix problem; initial thought
was that it was nationally organized, but seems at this point to be
renegade groups
• US 2007 – DNS DDoS Attacks – press as it was the Military G node
1 in 7 Americans had personal and/or credit card information stolen in
2006 – 246,035 cases of ID theft
2007 – 278 security breaches affecting 75,782,892 individuals
There is a lot of formal organization in attacks now, as well as
credit card numbers being sold in the open in chatrooms; some of the
info is email lists for phishing
Cost of the Theft of Intellectual Property $250Billion; loss of data
in 1/3 of companies in past 12 months – most common is to send the
information in an email

The world today
DWS – customer DB was hacked
FTC fined Choice Point $10 million for unfair business practices for
failure to protect consumer data
The impact
Legislation – SOX GLBA Privacy regulations
Private regulation – PCI DSS, ISO
Growth of regulatory requirements has grow exponentially
States now have a lot of privacy requirements and banks can no longer
keep it quiet, but must report intrusions
Economics - $182 / account but a company needs to keep its reputation
Costs are now as part of the cost of doing business - fines
Solutions
Layers of control
Risk based controls
Spyware detection
BOT hunting
Centralization of security mgmt and logging
End game
Need to be proactive – just because it hasn't happened doesn't mean we
don't have to be prepared; the means and methods keep growing

QUESTIONS FOR Dirk
• Attacks – is it just the front end and where are the holes?
If one can compromise a web server from the outside they can get to
rest of infrastructure as they are already past the firewall; holes in
FW are to let legit users in and are taken advantage of and what are
you exposing on the back end that aren't meant to be publicly seen
• Any through grove networks?
None I'm presently aware of
• Controls are no longer internal as many things are outsourced (e.g.
payroll, firewall monitoring, interconnectivity between business
partners – the perimeter is now nebulous
	 How to mitigate ID management?
Key in certain areas - restricted access

The State of Spyware
presented by Gerhard Eschelbeck –Webroot
Purpose is generally malicious – said to be stealing system resources,
unwanted advertisements, hijacking; now stealing information,
harvesting user information – accounts, files
Differences between Spyware and Viruses
• Viruses – user KNEW that there was something wrong with computer,
• Spyware – covert, harder to remove, harder to keep up, can change
hourly, someone generally is making money on it
Finding where spyware is coming from is the hardest, so generally not
bothered with, concentrate on removing and preventing
Browser is the main gateway to problems – often from mistyping the url
of a well known web site
Infections are often in peer-to-peer networks, Trojan horses-
so-called tools to remove spyware are often infecting the computer
e.g. Adware Pro  and Adaware
Some malware is encrypted, and injected into valid processes (e.g.
Internet Explorer)
Spyware can work on multiple process, so killing one process – the
other process brings it back
How to Research Spyware
Automate the process – global process that surfs the `dark corners' of
the Internet – distributed architecture with a centralized core to
perform task – root kits and how being used
Phileas – 7.9 billion urls found checking about 4,000,000 sites/week
for malicious content, with 2,000 new sites/day with potential malware
Major exploit sites -  US (34%) UK(14%) Italy(14%)
The largest increase in spyware has been with keyloggers and rootkits
Trojans are the most dangerous – not just as key loggers, but capture
the screen shots
Tips to avoid spyware
• Just say `no' to free software
• Use Mozilla Firefox as it is not a targeted environment YET
• Always patch your system – MS, Adobe, etc
• Avoid questionable sites
• Be suspicious of email
• Use public kiosks with extreme caution – often are loaded with malware
• Keep anti-virus and anti-spyware technology updated
• When on internet use non-admin account to login

QUESTIONS FOR Gerhard
• Is it safe to do business online?
	 Do on a dedicated computer; be aware of what you are doing and what
info is being transmitted
• What do you do if you get infected?
	 Continuous race between good guys and bad guys
• What authorities are notified and how are they contacted?
Some are established contacts; usually don't talk to the affect
organization – contact the FTC, FBI, etc.  These organizations are
specialized and given a technical assessment
Find tract and cure and then handed over to authorities
• What platforms are most affected?
Vista, 2000, and XP are reasonably secure as MS keeps them updated
with patches. Windows 98 is not secure anymore
Spyware is generally 100% on MS platform at this point
• Is concept of least privilege good?
A manner of degree

GENERAL QUESTIONS:
• What is the threat environment for mobile phones for financial
transactions?
	 Gerhard – just a matter of time before it is seen on phones Simbian
(mobile OS) a version of MS on them as well; transactions are lower so
not as big a target
	 Dirk – most people are not doing banking on phone currently
• Once a rootkit has been `neutralized' are they still considered a
threat?
Gerhard - Yes – cannot trust data; examine the hard disk directly and
not trust the integrity of the OS; need to find the raw data on disk
to neutralize rootkits
Dirk - are not always entirely successful in removing them entirely;
will be a continuous issue as they can be in a lot of different places
• Is it spyware heuristically based?
Gerhard - Take a heuristic and integrated fashion
• For spyware updates - How often is the server needed to be
contacted, especially if on a closed network?
Gerhard – It can be setup to be performed automatically; don't need a
permanent connection – can use an internal distribution
• Does threat of prosecution serve as a deterrent to misanthropes?
Dirk - no – not many cases have been prosecuted, international
barriers are an issue
Gerhard - sometime hard to tell where it is coming from
• Is there a worry about the Internet being brought down?
	 Gerhard – the botnets are the issue; spyware is being used to build
botnets; e.g. the issue in Estonia was from botnets; botnets are the
biggest challenge
	 Dirk – concur with Gerhard; still a lot of research in its infancy;
Homeland security is funding a lot of research in this area
• Are large scale botnets available for sale now?
Gerhard –Yes
• Is this threat part of extortion attempts?
Gerhard –Yes; much is not open to public discussion
Dirk – yes; spike during boxing matches and such
• Why hasn't al-Qaeda done this?
Hard to get bandwidth in a cave LOL!
Dirk – To look at the type of damage wanted, it will need to be
sustained for a fairly long period of time, for the economic chaos and
therefore is fairly difficult
• Why hasn't this happened to the critical infrastructure
Dirk - Other attack mechanisms are easier (bombs)
Backup and recovery are built into the systems, so would not go down
for long

LINKS
http://www.webroot.com
http://www.coalfiresystems.com

Just a quick reminder about our meeting on Tuesday.

Hope to see you there.

JZ

>>>>>>>>>>>>
The Tuesday, September 11th meeting of the Rocky Mountain Internet
Users Group (RMIUG) will discuss "The State Cyber-terrorism and
Malware 6 Years After 9/11"

Our next meeting will be held on the sixth anniversary of the worst
terrorist attacks on United States soil.

That fretful day has been marred in our psyche as the day we no longer
felt safe:  not with transportation, not safe going to work.  Our
physical world will never be the same.

What about our cyber-world?  Has it suffered the same types of attacks?

Our best estimates say that there hasn't been a large scale attack
against our digital infrastructures like the ones on our physical
structures had on September 11th.  I mean, has anyone noticed that
large scale outages of the Internet?

Or are we more vulnerable than we think?

To help us explore this topic, we are pleased to welcome the following
speakers:
Gerhard Eschelbeck (geschelbeck@...) is the chief technology
officer and senior vice president of engineering at Webroot Software,
Inc., Gerhard is responsible for developing and driving the company's
overall product strategy. He also manages Webroot's development and
threat research teams, and further expands the capabilities of
Webroot's Phileas, the industry's first and only automated spyware
research system. He was named one of InfoWorld's 25 Most Influential
CTOs in 2003 and 2004, and received this honor a third time in 2006 as
Webroot chief technology officer and senior vice president of
engineering. Gerhard holds masters and PhD degrees in computer science
from the University of Linz, Austria.

Dirk Anderson (Dirk.Anderson@...) is the Director of
IT Governance and Compliance Services for Coalfire Systems, Inc.  His
fifteen years in the field of information technology has provided him
with extensive experience in the development of policy and awareness
programs for multi-national corporations, where he has held the
positions of Practice Lead/Sr. Analyst, Chief Security Architect, Sr.
Manager Global Security Architecture, and Manager of Information
Security & Internet Systems. He is a member of Vista Research's
Society of Industry Leaders and the Gerson Lehrman Group's Council of
Advisors. He also writes on the topic of information security, and has
contributed to works such as the SANS "Incident Handling - Step by
Step" guide.

Links:
http://www.webroot.com
http://www.coalfiresystems.com

The meeting is Tuesday, July September 10th 11th from 7:00 - 9:00 pm
(with optional 6:30 pm start for refreshments and informal
networking). The meeting will be held at The National Center for
Atmospheric Research (NCAR) at 1850 Table Mesa Drive in Boulder. To
get to NCAR from the Boulder Turnpike (US 36) or Broadway (US 93),
take Table Mesa Drive west towards the mountains for approximately 2.5
miles into the foothills. NCAR is at the top of the hill. For
door-to-door driving directions, go to MapQuest
(http://www.mapquest.com/), click on Driving Directions, enter your
starting address, NCAR's address, and voila! Park in the NCAR lot, go
in the main door, and ask the guard to point you to meeting, which is
held in the main auditorium, right off the lobby. The meeting is free
and open to the public, but we may pass the hat to help defray expenses.

Our meeting location seats about 120 people. That is usually enough
room to accommodate all attendees, but it's impossible for us to
predict how many people will show up for any given meeting. Seating is
always on a first-come, first serve basis, and in the event of more
attendees than seats, we won't be able to admit additional people into
the auditorium after all seats are filled.

Thanks to our three sponsors who help make RMIUG meetings happen:
---------------------------------------------------------------
MicroStaff (www.microstaff.com) which provides Creative and Technical
talent for Web, Interactive Media, Marketing Communications and
Software Development projects, is the sponsor of food and beverages
for RMIUG meetings.
ONEWARE (http://www.ONEWARE.com) -- a Colorado-based software company
that provides semi-custom web-based applications, sponsors the RMIUG
meeting minutes.
Copy Diva (http://www.copydiva.com) which provides marketing project
management, marketing communications consulting, and web content
development is the AV sponsor for RMIUG.

Consultants and companies are invited to bring Internet-related
Product information, brochures, and business cards which will be
displayed on an information table.

There are email mailing lists set up for this group. To subscribe or
unsubscribe, see http://www.rmiug.org/maillist.html. You can also
reach the RMIUG "Executive" Committee at rmiug-comm@.... Our web
site is at http://www.rmiug.org/


*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=
Please note that RMIUG is hosted at NCAR and we are their guests. NCAR
has security regulations in effect that we must follow in order to use
the facility. If any RMIUG attendee is unwilling to follow these
simple regulations, I would ask that he or she not attend and instead
read the minutes after the meeting.

Here are the NCAR security policies that must be followed:

1. No weapons.
2. Must sign in at front desk and provide name.
3. Cooperate with security folks including providing ID if requested.
4. We are guests of NCAR so cooperation and courtesy are expected when
dealing with NCAR staff.

If there are any questions or concerns with this policy, please
contact me directly.
Thanks, Josh Zapin (josh@...).
*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=

The Tuesday, September 11th meeting of the Rocky Mountain Internet
Users Group (RMIUG) will discuss "The State Cyber-terrorism and
Malware 6 Years After 9/11"

Our next meeting will be held on the sixth anniversary of the worst
terrorist attacks on United States soil.

That fretful day has been marred in our psyche as the day we no longer
felt safe:  not with transportation, not safe going to work.  Our
physical world will never be the same.

What about our cyber-world?  Has it suffered the same types of attacks?

Our best estimates say that there hasn't been a large scale attack
against our digital infrastructures like the ones on our physical
structures had on September 11th.  I mean, has anyone noticed that
large scale outages of the Internet?

Or are we more vulnerable than we think?

To help us explore this topic, we are pleased to welcome the following
speakers:
Gerhard Eschelbeck (geschelbeck@...) is the chief technology
officer and senior vice president of engineering at Webroot Software,
Inc., Gerhard is responsible for developing and driving the company's
overall product strategy. He also manages Webroot's development and
threat research teams, and further expands the capabilities of
Webroot's Phileas, the industry's first and only automated spyware
research system. He was named one of InfoWorld's 25 Most Influential
CTOs in 2003 and 2004, and received this honor a third time in 2006 as
Webroot chief technology officer and senior vice president of
engineering. Gerhard holds masters and PhD degrees in computer science
from the University of Linz, Austria.

Dirk Anderson (Dirk.Anderson@...) is the Director of
IT Governance and Compliance Services for Coalfire Systems, Inc.  His
fifteen years in the field of information technology has provided him
with extensive experience in the development of policy and awareness
programs for multi-national corporations, where he has held the
positions of Practice Lead/Sr. Analyst, Chief Security Architect, Sr.
Manager Global Security Architecture, and Manager of Information
Security & Internet Systems. He is a member of Vista Research's
Society of Industry Leaders and the Gerson Lehrman Group's Council of
Advisors. He also writes on the topic of information security, and has
contributed to works such as the SANS "Incident Handling - Step by
Step" guide.

Chris Roberts (chris.roberts@...) is the Director of
Coalfire Labs, a team of cyber-security professionals who conduct
assessment & forensic investigations. Chris possesses over seventeen
years of experience in Information Technology with a focus in the
field of Information Security.  His professional career includes
responsibilities as Information Security Officer and Director of
Engineering and Architecture for a large retail company; a CTO and
Technical Architect for a Counter Intelligence firm; and a leader of
IT Security Architecture Project Management for a major international
retailer.  Chris's background in security assessment and vulnerability
testing includes penetration testing, compromise investigation,
analysis and documentation. He currently serves as a member of ISSC
and acts as an FBI business liaison.  His credentials include: CISSP,
CCIE and MCT.

Links:
http://www.webroot.com
http://www.coalfiresystems.com

The meeting is Tuesday, September 11th from 7:00 - 9:00 pm (with
optional 6:30 pm start for refreshments and informal networking). The
meeting will be held at The National Center for Atmospheric Research
(NCAR) at 1850 Table Mesa Drive in Boulder. To get to NCAR from the
Boulder Turnpike (US 36) or Broadway (US 93), take Table Mesa Drive
west towards the mountains for approximately 2.5 miles into the
foothills. NCAR is at the top of the hill. For door-to-door driving
directions, go to MapQuest (http://www.mapquest.com/), click on
Driving Directions, enter your starting address, NCAR's address, and
voila! Park in the NCAR lot, go in the main door, and ask the guard to
point you to meeting, which is held in the main auditorium, right off
the lobby. The meeting is free and open to the public, but we may pass
the hat to help defray expenses.

Our meeting location seats about 120 people. That is usually enough
room to accommodate all attendees, but it's impossible for us to
predict how many people will show up for any given meeting. Seating is
always on a first-come, first serve basis, and in the event of more
attendees than seats, we won't be able to admit additional people into
the auditorium after all seats are filled.

Thanks to our three sponsors who help make RMIUG meetings happen:
---------------------------------------------------------------
MicroStaff (www.microstaff.com) which provides Creative and Technical
talent for Web, Interactive Media, Marketing Communications and
Software Development projects, is the sponsor of food and beverages
for RMIUG meetings.
ONEWARE (http://www.ONEWARE.com) -- a Colorado-based software company
that provides semi-custom web-based applications, sponsors the RMIUG
meeting minutes.
Copy Diva (http://www.copydiva.com) which provides marketing project
management, marketing communications consulting, and web content
development is the AV sponsor for RMIUG.

Consultants and companies are invited to bring Internet-related
Product information, brochures, and business cards which will be
displayed on an information table.

There are email mailing lists set up for this group. To subscribe or
unsubscribe, see http://www.rmiug.org/maillist.html. You can also
reach the RMIUG "Executive" Committee at rmiug-comm@.... Our web
site is at http://www.rmiug.org/


*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=
Please note that RMIUG is hosted at NCAR and we are their guests. NCAR
has security regulations in effect that we must follow in order to use
the facility. If any RMIUG attendee is unwilling to follow these
simple regulations, I would ask that he or she not attend and instead
read the minutes after the meeting.

Here are the NCAR security policies that must be followed:

1. No weapons.
2. Must sign in at front desk and provide name.
3. Cooperate with security folks including providing ID if requested.
4. We are guests of NCAR so cooperation and courtesy are expected when
dealing with NCAR staff.

If there are any questions or concerns with this policy, please
contact me directly.
Thanks, Josh Zapin (josh@...).
*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=

Minutes of the 10 July 2007 meeting, "Affiliate Marketing: Making
Money Selling Other People's Stuff Online"

About 60 people attended tonight's meeting. Josh Zapin facilitated and
Bette Frick recorded the minutes.
----------
Meeting Sponsors

Microstaff (www.microstaff.com) provides refreshments, Copy Diva
(www.copydiva.com) provides the audio-visual equipment, NCAR
(www.ncar.ucar.edu) provides the facility, and ONEWARE
(www.oneware.com) sponsors these minutes. NCAR lets us use their
space. We thank all of them for their support.
-----------
Upcoming Meetings (2nd Tuesday of every other month
September 11: TBD
November 13: TBD
-----------
Announcements
World Usability Day: November 8 will focus on healthcare.
Worldusabilityday.org.
Texturemedia.com is looking for technical employees

Introduction (Josh Zapin)
As legend has it, Jeff Bezos, CEO and founder of Amazon.com, chatted
with a woman at a cocktail party about how she wanted to sell books
about divorce on her web site. After that exchange, Bezos thought
about having the woman link her site to Amazon.com and receive a
commission on the book sales. This was the impetus for creating the
"first on the Web" Amazon.com Associates Program.

That was 1996 and, if you believe the legend, the Affiliate Marketing
industry was born.

10 years later, Affiliate Marketing has grown, according to Marketing
Sherpa, into a $6.5 Billion industry. Thousands of people, known as
affiliates, literally earn their livings (or, as in yours truly, some
extra coffee money), selling other people's stuff online. Stuff that
they never have to touch, ship, or handle in anyway.

Our speakers were:

Bob Dunlap, director of marketing for ClickBank, one of the world's
largest online retailer for buyers and sellers of digitally delivered
products and services, has a long and successful career in the area of
planning, developing, launching, and marketing high tech products for
global markets. He came to ClickBank nearly two years ago and since
that time has worked closely with the company's nearly 11,000 product
vendors and 100,000 active affiliates. Bob will be addressing the
functionality of online networks and what the future holds for those
engaged with affiliate marketing.

Dan Murray (Dan@...) is Internet Marketing
Strategist at Ravenwood Marketing, a performance-based search engine
marketing firm in Boulder, and has spent the last five years as an
affiliate. He will be speaking from the affiliate perspective,
discussing various affiliate business models, networks and how
affiliate marketing works. Dan will also cover some economic
realities of the field as well as "a day in the life of an affiliate"
and some additional resources for affiliates.
----------
About the meeting topic:

The format was 20 minutes talk per person/10 minutes questions per
person and then open for general questions.

Bob Dunlap
ClickBank was founded in 1998. The model combines e-retailing with
affiliate network for downloadable goods. 2006 revenue was $200
million. ClickBank processes over 20,000 transactions per day. 70% of
sales are affiliate-assisted. Definition of affiliate marketing: A
method of promoting web buinesses (merchants/advertisers) in which an
affiliate (publisher) is rewarded for every visitor, subscriber,
customer, and/or sale provided through his/her efforts." (Source:
Wikipedia)

The affiliate creates sales and gets a commission for the sale. Who
uses affiliate marketing? Not just Amazon and WalMart; it's REI and
Blinds.com, and golfballs.com and other very small businesses. The
attraction is that you can be an entrepreneur with freedom to do your
own thing. This has created a new class of entrepreneurs.

Affiliate networks:

o Third party providing services to both merchants and affiliates
o Tools to match merchants and affiliates
o "Manage" affiliates on behalf of merchants
o Handle tracking of clicks and sales
o Make commission payments to affiliates
o Provide analytics and reporting interface
o Enforce terms of service

Top tier networks
o Linkshare
o Commission junction (CJ)
o Adsmarket.com
o Clickbank
o Shareasale
o Double click performics

Merchants' perspective
Pros/benefits
o Incremental channel
o Complimentary initiative
o Pay for performance
o Can start quickly
o Extend reach into new market segments significantly
o Target new segments
o Easy to measure results

Cons/challenges
o Internal buy-in
o 80/20 rule applies (more like 90/10: 10% of affiliates will produce
90% of your revenue), so focus on the 10%
o Program management
o Recruiting new affiliates
o Monitoring affiliate activity
o Brand protection (tricky topic)
o "Rogue" affiliates

Hot topics in affiliate marketing
o Confusion on what affiliate marketing is
o Competing with affiliates on search
o Bidding on brand and trademark terms
o Tracking and awarding correct affiliate credit
o Fraud and unlawful activity
o Privacy vs. monitoring (affiliates want to be left alone to do their
job; merchants want to know what their affiliates are doing); there's
a fine line between the two.

The future:

o Micro-niche marketing/merchandising (Hammocks.com, birdcages.com,
binoculars.com)
o Further development and exploitation of the "long tail"of products
and services
o Merchants working even more closely with key affiliates as business
partners
o Improved tracking, analytics, and reporting
o Monetizing Web 2.0
o
Questions:
The stigma of affiliate marketing is the e-mail delivery of messages;
another problem is that the merchant is unable to see where the lead
is coming from. Bob said these were valid points (10% and 90% rule);
monitoring is a big issue. Make sure you have the right terms of
service and enforce them. The more restrictions on the affiliates, the
more they will resist working with you.

Clickbank's main products are software products, ebooks, games,
ringtones, music files.

Using managed services may allow you to scale your business.

Good example of a brand that got hurt by affiliate marketing was
Vonage. Also, Victoria's Secret (both issues happened a few years ago).

Hard to characterize the 90% of sales; usually, these are not people
doing it as a hobby, but rather, they do it for a living.

Can it work for more complicated sales cycles? Yes, although most of
those want instant gratification.

The last click gets all the credit and it's hard to track correlation
v. causation when there's a lot of clicks in more and more complex
products (complex, multi-channel marketing).


Dan Murray: Life as an affiliate marketer.

Ravenwood does not have outside funding; it's profitable but not
taking on new customers. He's a big fan of affiliate marketing.
Ravenwood started 5 years ago and has 3 employees in the Boulder location.

What is affiliate marketing? "The use of third party specialists who
are capable of targeting audiences on behalf of advertisers/merchants
and who are also willing to take financial risks in the delivery and
performance of the traffic, in the form of no/low upfront fees and
instead higher backend/success payments (commission)." (VinnyLingham.com)

How does affiliate marketing differ from other marketing?

o You only get paid on performance (it's not about traffic,
clicks…only sales)
o You don't commit to any volume levels.
o You can easily drop a client.
o Affiliates can share in risk and upside.
o There is trust involved.
o More independence.
o There are rules, though! (terms of service; contractual legal
agreements)

Affiliate business models
o Organic search engine optimization
o Paid search engine marketing
o e-mail marketing
o Social networking
o Review sites
o Aggregation sites
o Widgets

Economics of affiliate marketing
o Click cost = 24 cents a click
o It takes 25 clicks for affiliate to land order (4% conversion rate)
o Average order = $30
o Merchant pays 12% ($3.60)
o Made 4 sales x $3.60 per sale=$14.40
o Profit: $14.40-$24 = $-9.60)
o (Upside down means you lost money)
o Smaller affiliates may get $150-200 in payments on $100 in clicks
o Clicks are priced on supply and demand; you can dial that up and down.

A day in the life

o Analyze results from recent campaigns
o Respond to email inquiry on new offers
o Conference call w/merchant on rate card
o Remove prohibited keyword from account
o Staying current on latest blogs and newsletters
o Pay credit cards online
o Find out why conversion rate dropped on one campaign
o Ask new merchant about PPC rules
o Build experimental campaign

Controversy in the field
o Trademark bidding
o Adware/spyware/malware
o "Rogue" affiliates
o Turf war with internal marketing teams
o Agency conflict
o Branding concerns (read the brand manual)

Future directions
o Affiliates migrating to agencies
o "Select few" affiliates get special perks
o Affiliate-developed widgets (software to promote the merchant's
products)
o Marketing $ going to affiliates from other channels

Questions of Dan:

Do you or others specialize in certain product lines? Yes, definitely;
some focus on hosting or insurance, for example. Dan is more broadly
oriented.

Dan does direct linking through Google and MSN.

Do you get to control the landing page? In general, they give you the
landing page and that's what you use. If you have a good relationship,
you can request a landing page.

If you want to add a new merchant, how to search for them? One thing
you look at is earnings per click. He recommends always keeping a
"bull pen" of possible new merchants to add when you have time.

A lot of affiliates are doing mobile clicks, but Dan is not.

Open Q & A with Both Dan and Bob

Can you use affiliate marketing for a startup? You can do it as long
as you can get affiliates interested.

Dan often gives merchants usability suggestions.

What is your attitude toward geography? Dan: local search, geo
targeting is going to be big; maps will be big. DashLocal, founded by
Dennis Yu in the audience, is doing local SEM.

Audience member comment: Google has unpublished policy that there is
only one affiliate per company on page one in organic results.

As an affiliate using PPC, how much of a problem is fraud? Dan: can't
really monitor it. Some affiliates have gotten refunds based on
documented click fraud. Dan thinks it's a cost of doing business.

Movement toward affiliates using landing pages? At various times,
there have been trends that pushed affiliates towards or away from
building their own landing pages.  It can be hard at times to create
landing pages that Google deems quality pages.

Is it more attractive to promote a merchant who has its own tracking
program? Dan: We grow that relationship slowly. Top tier affiliate
networks are a known quantity, totally bombproof but they take their cut.

Are consumers getting more sophisticated in pursuing a check back,
like Ebates? Dan doesn't think it's growing; Audience comment: it was
bigger five years ago. It's against terms of service.

If you can sell it online, you can use an affiliate.

Talk about the writing the ad copy itself: Testing is required! Try to
get a lot of different trials going. Dan says he's not a copywriting
expert. So try several ideas on a small scale and you'll find out what
works.

Meeting closed at 8:55.

Links:
http://www.clickbank.com
http://www.ravenwoodmarketing.com
Abestweb.com (affiliate discussions)
QuitYourDayJob.com—Jeremy Palmer (Dan highly recommends)
AffiliateTip.com
Affiliate Summit conference
VinnyLingham blog—VinnyLingham.com

Just a quick reminder.

We hope to see you on Tuesday.

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

The Tuesday, July 10th meeting of the Rocky Mountain Internet Users
Group (RMIUG) will discuss "Affiliate Marketing: Make Money Selling
Other People's Stuff Online"

As legend has it, Jeff Bezos, CEO and founder of Amazon.com, chatted
with a woman at a cocktail party about how she wanted to sell books
about divorce on her web site. After that exchange, Bezos thought
about having the woman link her site to Amazon.com and receive a
commission on the book sales. This was the impetus for creating the
"first on the Web" Amazon.com Associates Program.

That was 1996 and, if you believe the legend, the Affiliate Marketing
industry was born.

10 years later, Affiliate Marketing has grown, according to Marketing
Sherpa, into a $6.5 Billion industry.  Thousands of people, known as
affiliates, literally earn their livings (or, as in yours truly, some
extra coffee money), selling other people's stuff online.  Stuff that
they never have to touch, ship, or handle in anyway.

Nice way to make money, no?

At our next meeting, we will explore Affiliate Marketing industry,
learn how it is structured, what the future holds for it, and get
insight from someone who earns his living as an affiliate.

We are pleased to welcome the following speakers

Bob Dunlap, director of marketing for ClickBank, one of the world's
largest online retailer for buyers and sellers of digitally delivered
products and services, has a long and successful career in the area of
planning, developing, launching, and marketing high tech products for
global markets. He came to ClickBank nearly two years ago and since
that time has worked closely with the company's nearly 11,000 product
vendors and 100,000 active affiliates. Bob will be addressing the
functionality of online networks and what the future holds for those
engaged with affiliate marketing.


Dan Murray (Dan@...) is Internet Marketing
Strategist at Ravenwood Marketing, a performance-based search engine
marketing firm in Boulder, and has spent the last five years as an
affiliate.  He will be speaking from the affiliate perspective,
discussing various affiliate business models, networks and how
affiliate marketing works.  Dan will also cover some economic
realities of the field as well as "a day in the life of an affiliate"
and some additional resources for affiliates.

Links:
http://www.clickbank.com
http://www.ravenwoodmarketing.com


The meeting is Tuesday, July 10th from 7:00 - 9:00 pm (with optional
6:30 pm start for refreshments and informal networking). The meeting
will be held at The National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) at
1850 Table Mesa Drive in Boulder. To get to NCAR from the Boulder
Turnpike (US 36) or Broadway (US 93), take Table Mesa Drive west
towards the mountains for approximately 2.5 miles into the foothills.
NCAR is at the top of the hill. For door-to-door driving directions,
go to MapQuest (http://www.mapquest.com/), click on Driving
Directions, enter your starting address, NCAR's address, and voila!
Park in the NCAR lot, go in the main door, and ask the guard to point
you to meeting, which is held in the main auditorium, right off the
lobby. The meeting is free and open to the public, but we may pass the
hat to help defray expenses.

Our meeting location seats about 120 people. That is usually enough
room to accommodate all attendees, but it's impossible for us to
predict how many people will show up for any given meeting. Seating is
always on a first-come, first serve basis, and in the event of more
attendees than seats, we won't be able to admit additional people into
the auditorium after all seats are filled.

Thanks to our three sponsors who help make RMIUG meetings happen:
---------------------------------------------------------------
MicroStaff (www.microstaff.com) which provides Creative and Technical
talent for Web, Interactive Media, Marketing Communications and
Software Development projects, is the sponsor of food and beverages
for RMIUG meetings.
ONEWARE (http://www.ONEWARE.com) -- a Colorado-based software company
that provides semi-custom web-based applications, sponsors the RMIUG
meeting minutes.
Copy Diva (http://www.copydiva.com) which provides marketing project
management, marketing communications consulting, and web content
development is the AV sponsor for RMIUG.

Consultants and companies are invited to bring Internet-related
Product information, brochures, and business cards which will be
displayed on an information table.

There are email mailing lists set up for this group. To subscribe or
unsubscribe, see http://www.rmiug.org/maillist.html. You can also
reach the RMIUG "Executive" Committee at rmiug-comm@.... Our web
site is at http://www.rmiug.org/


*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=
Please note that RMIUG is hosted at NCAR and we are their guests. NCAR
has security regulations in effect that we must follow in order to use
the facility. If any RMIUG attendee is unwilling to follow these
simple regulations, I would ask that he or she not attend and instead
read the minutes after the meeting.

Here are the NCAR security policies that must be followed:

1. No weapons.
2. Must sign in at front desk and provide name.
3. Cooperate with security folks including providing ID if requested.
4. We are guests of NCAR so cooperation and courtesy are expected when
dealing with NCAR staff.

If there are any questions or concerns with this policy, please
contact me directly.
Thanks, Josh Zapin (josh@...).
*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=

The Tuesday, July 10th meeting of the Rocky Mountain Internet Users
Group (RMIUG) will discuss "Affiliate Marketing: Make Money Selling
Other People's Products Online"

As legend has it, Jeff Bezos, CEO and founder of Amazon.com, chatted
with a woman at a cocktail party about how she wanted to sell books
about divorce on her web site. After that exchange, Bezos thought
about having the woman link her site to Amazon.com and receive a
commission on the book sales. This was the impetus for creating the
"first on the Web" Amazon.com Associates Program.

That was 1996 and, if you believe the legend, the Affiliate Marketing
industry was born.

10 years later, Affiliate Marketing has grown, according to Marketing
Sherpa, into a $6.5 Billion industry.  Thousands of people, known as
affiliates, literally earn their livings (or, as in yours truly, some
extra coffee money), selling other people's stuff online.  Stuff that
they never have to touch, ship, or handle in anyway.

Nice way to make money, no?

At our next meeting, we will explore Affiliate Marketing industry,
learn how it is structured, what the future holds for it, and get
insight from someone who earns his living as an affiliate.

We are pleased to welcome the following speakers

Bob Dunlap, director of marketing for ClickBank, one of the world's
largest online retailer for buyers and sellers of digitally delivered
products and services, has a long and successful career in the area of
planning, developing, launching, and marketing high tech products for
global markets. He came to ClickBank nearly two years ago and since
that time has worked closely with the company's nearly 11,000 product
vendors and 100,000 active affiliates. Bob will be addressing the
functionality of online networks and what the future holds for those
engaged with affiliate marketing.


Dan Murray (Dan@...) is Internet Marketing
Strategist at Ravenwood Marketing, a performance-based search engine
marketing firm in Boulder, and has spent the last five years as an
affiliate.  He will be speaking from the affiliate perspective,
discussing various affiliate business models, networks and how
affiliate marketing works.  Dan will also cover some economic
realities of the field as well as "a day in the life of an affiliate"
and some additional resources for affiliates.

Links:
http://www.clickbank.com
http://www.ravenwoodmarketing.com


The meeting is Tuesday, July 10th from 7:00 - 9:00 pm (with optional
6:30 pm start for refreshments and informal networking). The meeting
will be held at The National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) at
1850 Table Mesa Drive in Boulder. To get to NCAR from the Boulder
Turnpike (US 36) or Broadway (US 93), take Table Mesa Drive west
towards the mountains for approximately 2.5 miles into the foothills.
NCAR is at the top of the hill. For door-to-door driving directions,
go to MapQuest (http://www.mapquest.com/), click on Driving
Directions, enter your starting address, NCAR's address, and voila!
Park in the NCAR lot, go in the main door, and ask the guard to point
you to meeting, which is held in the main auditorium, right off the
lobby. The meeting is free and open to the public, but we may pass the
hat to help defray expenses.

Our meeting location seats about 120 people. That is usually enough
room to accommodate all attendees, but it's impossible for us to
predict how many people will show up for any given meeting. Seating is
always on a first-come, first serve basis, and in the event of more
attendees than seats, we won't be able to admit additional people into
the auditorium after all seats are filled.

Thanks to our three sponsors who help make RMIUG meetings happen:
---------------------------------------------------------------
MicroStaff (www.microstaff.com) which provides Creative and Technical
talent for Web, Interactive Media, Marketing Communications and
Software Development projects, is the sponsor of food and beverages
for RMIUG meetings.
ONEWARE (http://www.ONEWARE.com) -- a Colorado-based software company
that provides semi-custom web-based applications, sponsors the RMIUG
meeting minutes.
Copy Diva (http://www.copydiva.com) which provides marketing project
management, marketing communications consulting, and web content
development is the AV sponsor for RMIUG.

Consultants and companies are invited to bring Internet-related
Product information, brochures, and business cards which will be
displayed on an information table.

There are email mailing lists set up for this group. To subscribe or
unsubscribe, see http://www.rmiug.org/maillist.html. You can also
reach the RMIUG "Executive" Committee at rmiug-comm@.... Our web
site is at http://www.rmiug.org/


*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=
Please note that RMIUG is hosted at NCAR and we are their guests. NCAR
has security regulations in effect that we must follow in order to use
the facility. If any RMIUG attendee is unwilling to follow these
simple regulations, I would ask that he or she not attend and instead
read the minutes after the meeting.

Here are the NCAR security policies that must be followed:

1. No weapons.
2. Must sign in at front desk and provide name.
3. Cooperate with security folks including providing ID if requested.
4. We are guests of NCAR so cooperation and courtesy are expected when
dealing with NCAR staff.

If there are any questions or concerns with this policy, please
contact me directly.
Thanks, Josh Zapin (josh@...).
*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=

I'm sorry for the delay in getting these out.

I will follow up with a link to the speaker notes.

JZ

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
About 50 people attended tonight's meeting. Josh Zapin facilitated and
Jeremy Kohler recorded the minutes.

----------
MEETING SPONSORS

Microstaff (www.microstaff.com) provides refreshments, Copy Diva
(www.copydiva.com) provides the audio-visual equipment, NCAR
(www.ncar.ucar.edu) provides the facility, and ONEWARE
(www.oneware.com) sponsors these minutes.


---------------
ANNOUNCEMENTS

Josh welcomes suggestions for topics and speakers for future meetings,
please email Josh with your ideas.

Derailed is an RoR user's group in Denver, and there's also a Ruby
user's group that meets at Collective Intellect. Google it to find out
more.
---------------
INTRODUCTION (Josh Zapin)

Ruby On Rails (RoR) has taken the programming world by storm since it
was released to the public in July 2004. RoR combines Ruby, an object
oriented programming language with super-clean syntax, with Rails, an
open-source Model-View-Controller (MVC) based framework that enables
development, according to rubyonrails.org, ten times faster than
typical frameworks. The two together enable programmers to create
fully functioning websites in a fraction of the time. There are demos
on rubyonrails.org allowing you to build five-minute websites.
Sounds too good to be true? Consider the following:
- The official RoR website features two almost-too-good-to-be-true
demos: Creating a Weblog in 15 minutes and a Flickr interface in 5
minutes. (I've personally tried them and it's true)
- RoR has built in AJAX libraries such as Script.aculo.us to make very
slick user experiences within a typical web browsers, enabling a high
level of usability.
- Apple will be adding RoR as part of their next version of OS X (due
in October).
But how many times have we heard and tried new development platforms
only to have them not meet up with the hype, and is RoR all what it's
cracked up to be? Well maybe not, as fantasy doesn't always match
reality. So let's put our geekiness hats on.

----------------------
ABOUT THE SPEAKER

David Gustafson (mailto:dave.gustafson@...) is Vice
President of Technology and Product Development for Wyant Data
Systems, Inc. Dave joined WDS from his position as Founder and Chief
Architect of Cold Mountain Software, a provider of software services
and products for project management and enterprise knowledge
management. Prior to Cold Mountain Software, Dave was Chief Architect
and Co-Founder of Accumedia.com, Inc., a provider of hosted and
managed content management, control, and delivery systems targeted to
the media and entertainment industries. Dave holds a BA in Physics
from Middlebury College and has done graduate study in Computer
Science at Worcester Polytech and the University of Colorado.

---------------------
LINKS

wyantdata.com
rubyonrails.org


------------------------
DAVID GUSTAFSON

Ruby on Rails in Context: Should we care?

Where does RoR fit in the context of the programming world at large?
Yes, We should care.
If you don't remember much of this presentation, or if you completely
forget that you were even here, just remember these two things:

1. How to peel a banana. Seems absurd. Well, monkeys peel it
differently. They pinch the bottom to split it open, and that's the
proper way to peel a banana. Go try it, but do it first at home where
no one can see...you might make  a mess.

2. Ruby and Rails are Real! You can't just dismiss the hype, so make a
small investment to see how it might fit in the context of your work.

I'm not an expert on RoR, but I manage complexity and risk. I deal
with problem spaces and solutions. What I do for a living: last week I
testified before the CO legislature, doing IV&V for a voter
registration system. So I have to testify about how well millions of
dollars are being spent on this system. Would I advocate using RoR for
implementing voter registration? Forget about it. It's just not mature
enough for that.

I have a passion for programming languages. I was managing a Java app
and a .Net app. The Java was a disaster, .Net was working well. So I
did some experiments comparing productivity of various apps, timing
how long it took to do a mini project. I threw Ruby into the mix. The
result: What took 2.5 hours in Java took 15 minutes in Ruby.

Philip Greenspun says, "Java is the SUV of programming tools" It's
like driving your giant SUV just to go to a 7-11.

Risk: "There are old climbers, there are bold climbers, but there are
no old bold climbers."
Climbing gear is heavy. Are you going to carry 60 pounds of gear just
go bouldering?  So Java is too heavy for some stuff.

Why should we care about RoR?

- In the right circumstances it gives you a 5- to 10-fold increase in
productivity.

- It is subject to programmer motivation. Linus's Law: programmers go
through Survival, Social Life, and Entertainment (the highest
pinnacle). RoR can help them get there.

- It is subject to business motivation: productivity = $$

WHAT IS RAILS?

Rails is a full-stack framework for developing database-backed web
applications. This is what most web apps are now. Database, reports,
and forms. That's it. Based on Model-View-Controller pattern, which
came out of Smalltalk. It all happens in the browser as part of Ajax.

Convention over Configuration: this is controversial. Instead of
having a way to configure everything under the sun, you have to follow
conventions. But if you do follow the conventions, everything just
falls into place.

Meta-programming: This is generating dynamic code on the fly (you
never see it) to process the tables you tell it about. It finds all
the columns, like magic.

A language for mapping: It's very easy to specify class relationships.
Little statements like "has many pictures" tells it about a
one-to-many relationship, which saves you a lot of time.


WHAT IS RUBY?

Ruby is an interpreted scripting language for quick and easy
object-oriented programming. It was created by an amateur who put
together some small stuff to make Ruby: combining features of
Smalltalk, Perl, and Lisp.

"High-level languages are often all treated as equivalent. They're
not" --Paul Graham.

Using Lisp, Graham said he could add new features faster than his
competitors could announce them. This is a historical example of using
a language as a "secret weapon" to gain significant competitive advantage.

What's it like?

Convention over Configuration: Say here's a table, and it will go off
and find all the columns. Not like XML which you configure like crazy.
Don't get me started about XML. You screw up there and you could be
chasing down issues for days.

With Ruby, it just feels like configuration, but you're really writing
code. Like Emacs.

LANGUAGE INTERLUDE

Embedded DSLs.
Rails is a domain-specific language specifically in the domain of
creating database web applications. Ruby is very well suited to
creating DSLs. It's not like Python, where there is only one way to do
things. Ruby gives you a zillion ways to do things. Totally object
oriented. "33.multiplynext" for example, is an object in Ruby if you
want it to be.

Thoughts on Languages: The highest correlation between implementations
is the programmer. Wide range of skills and speed. The difference
between programmers is larger than the difference between languages.
Usually the guy that knows more languages is going to be more
productive.

RoR BUZZ

Productivity questions: performance, scalability, legacy integration,
range of application.  It can't handle multiple-column primary keys,
so often you must create views to handle legacy integration. So that's
a bit tricky.

Should I bet my job on RoR? Go to my boss and take a stand?

CROSSING THE CHASM

Marketing and selling disruptive products to mainstream customers: for
high technology, any successful item must cross the chasm between the
"early adopters" and the "early majority" starting to adopt the
technology. It's very difficult for a language to cross that chasm.
Fortran, Cobol, C, C++, Java all did it. Now what's the next language?
Will Ruby cross the chasm?

It needs critical mass of a programmer community, people who will bet
their jobs on learning this language. Or a "killer app" can do it. Is
Rails the killer app that will help Ruby cross the chasm?

Before Rails, I thought Ruby lagged behind Python and Perl because of
less complete and less mature libraries.

Ruby Risk vs. Java Risk.
Ruby risk is going down, and Java risk is going up (because of its
increasing complexity over time). Java generates confusion over which
framework to use. But it's very hard to sell Ruby to someone who has
already bet their job and critical software on Java.

EXCITING DEVELOPMENTS

- JRuby: a jar you put into your Java application, to quickly map out
business rules. Running Rails on top of Java should soon be an
alternative.
- Ruby on the CLR (Microsoft common language runtime)
- Microsoft is joining the party by announcing Silverlight and DLR
(Dynamic Language Runtime), based on Jim Hugunin's work with
IronPython, faster than CPython, made a DLR on top of thatCLR, that
runsin the future should be able to run Ruby in the browser: no more
javascript!

Pitfalls and Opportunities

It's simple and easy to get started, but subtle to achieve the kind of
power that Rails displays. See the Ruby Quiz on rubyonrails.org.

When you create a Rails application you could approach it in a variety
of ways. #1(good) Build your application on top of the Rails
framework. #2(great!) When you build a Rails app, think how to extend
Rails to build your own dynamic language for your specific domain.

This might be the most valuable recommendation you hear tonight…
Implement your app as a DSL that extends the Rails framework. Make a
DSL for your business domain.

Get Started!

Learn Ruby!

Explore Rails as an implementation for internal tools.

Make quick demos to get early validation of your ideas.

Parallel Development: Go have a horse race. Race the Java team to get
attention. Do it for free to start.

Embedding Ruby: Scripting inside of other apps, like JRuby inside
Java. Helps you streamline your development.

CASE STUDY

JokeVision.com was a perfect opportunity to try RoR. They were
producing comedy video, originally targeting the cable TV market. Lots
of content, but no buyers. They needed a database-backed website to
engage viewers and gather new content. So they did it with RoR. It
remains to be seen whether JokeVision will succeed.

Remember the banana?  We think we know how to do something, and we are
creatures of habit. But try something different. RoR should be taken
seriously. It's not a silver bullet, it hasn't crossed that chasm
beyond the early adopters, and so has a lot of risk. But it's a lot of
fun too.

Q & A

Q: Is it scalable?
A: It's more scalable for the size of apps that people would do in
short order. But there are going to be integration problems with more
complicated stuff. So I don't know. I was using an RoR based project
management website called Basecamp (basecamphq.com): SomeoneI
overloaded it because we they had too many milestones. The service was
basically unavailable for a day. That hurt my confidence in its
scalability. They did solve it, but you can find yourself outside RoR
technology pretty quickly when trying to scale.

Q: You can break the conventions if you really want to.
A: Yes that's true, it requires some extra effort to do so.

Q: What doesn't scale well?
A: Adding functionality to apps and changing requirements tends to
create scaling issues. Like when your requirements for performance,
volume, etc. change. For example, suddenly you find you have to handle
huge image files and suddenly there's no infrastructure to handle it.
More people can be trouble too: things don't scale easily to handle
more people working on a project.

Q: How do you use AJAX and libraries to make it look pretty?
A: I'm still exploring this stuff. Libraries like Prototype can give
an object-oriented feel to the javascript. RoR doesn't necessarily
have a clear advantage, library-wise.

Q: Any high-scale web apps out there?
A: Basecamp is big, and I hear Amazon and Yahoo are using it
experimentally.

Q: When do you know something can't scale any more? Where is the limit
point?
Audience Comment: Ruby is single-threaded, handles one request at a
time. So user scaling backed people up quickly, and you have to deal
with the single-threaded problem using other technology like
ApacheLib. This could change in the future.
A: This is one of the interesting things: like starting up the Ruby
interpreter in fast-cgi to solve problems, and this chips away at your
10x productivity. But the same tricks you've used before will work here.
Audience Comment: There are some evolving technologies and people are
coming up with solutions for scaling issues. It's a hot issue about
RoR scalability.

Q: How mature are the tools for developing Ruby, other than Emacs?
A: All the usual tools work pretty well. I use RadRails which is a
module for Eclipse. TextMate in Mac OS is good. More and more
environments are out there to help you be productive. Create the
database, create a Rails app, then create a migration. It's very
rapid. It automatically creates unit tests. So you're using standard
extreme programming tools to build things.

Q: What do you use for Ruby development?
A: Emacs and Eclipse. And a lot of command lines.

Q: What about IntelliJ?
A: It's a great environment, so keep an eye on it. Rails generates a
console for you to allow you interactively create instances of a class
and manage them.

Q: Any famous Ruby failures?
Audience Comment: It's too new.
A: Worst I know of is my own experience with Basecamp, but that was
just a blip. I don't know how they resolved it, but they did.

Q: How about Rails as a cost-effective beta?
A: It's all about evaluating market acceptance. If you try something
and mess up, you get bad press and it's hard to come back. So you need
to build enough foundation to get started and to stay ahead of it.
It's risky.
Audience Comment: You can't afford to go dark for six months while
you're rebuilding.

Q: After the database is developed, do you still have the 10x advantage?
A: No, not in my experience. In Java we had to build some code
generation to get it to work like Rails. Do I just switch to RoR? It
depends on how much pain you're experiencing in your current process.
Right now you need be in quite a bit of pain before risking a switch.
It's risky to do wholesale switches; better to ease into it with
something new.

Audience Comment: We're building a public site to track all CO
legislation. We'll see how it goes with scaling.

Audience Comment: I started a website starting in PHP and then JSP and
then stopped because it was just too hard. Then we switched to Ruby
and suddenly we found ourselves doing things we couldn't even have
imagined before. It sure got us off a plateau.

Q: Can you call DLL's and other compiled things?
A: Yes, you can extend Ruby with C extensions, embed Ruby in C. It's a
pretty good technology for building in those kinds of things.

Q: Any good books and tutorials?
A: That depends on your learning style. The "bible" is the Picaxe book
by Dave Thomas. Typographically strange, but pretty good. Also "Ruby
For Rails": good for understanding Ruby as you need it for working
with Rails. Also "Enterprise Integration with Ruby".

Audience Comment: Check out tryruby.hobix.com. It's got interactive
cartoon web pages on Ruby that guide you. It's very good.
Audience Comment: There are also good resources at rubyonrails.org.

A: Continuations and Closures and Blocks take some time for you to get
your brain around.

Just a quick reminder about our meeting tomorrow (5/8) night.

We hope to see you there.

JZ

>>>>>>>>>>>
The Tuesday, May 8th meeting of the Rocky Mountain Internet Users
Group (RMIUG) will discuss "Ruby On Rails: The Good, the Bad, and the
Foobarly"

Ruby On Rails (RoR) has taken the programming world by storm since it
was released to the public in July 2004.

RoR combines Ruby, an object oriented programming language with
super-clean syntax, with Rails, an open-source Model-View-Controller
(MVC) based framework that enables development ten times faster than
typical frameworks.  The two together enables programmers to create
fully functioning websites in a fraction of the time.

Sounds too good to be true?  Well, consider the following:
* The official RoR website features two almost-too-good-to-be-true
demos: Creating a Weblog in 15 minutes and a Flickr interface in 5
minutes.  (I've personally tried them and it's true...JZ)
* RoR has built in AJAX libraries such as Script.aculo.us to make very
slick user experiences within a typical Web browsers.
* Apple Computer will be adding RoR as part of their next version of
OSX (due to be released in October)

But is it all what is cracks up to be?  How many times have we heard
and tried new development platforms only to have it not meet up with
the hype?

For our next meeting, we will explore RoR, get wowed by its
capabilities, but also get a better understanding of what it can (and
cannot) do.  So, put on your geeky-ness for this discussion, as the
following guest speaker will demonstrate RoR and talk about his recent
study comparing it to other programming frameworks:

David Gustafson (dave.gustafson@...) is Vice President of
Technology and Product Development for Wyant Data Systems, Inc.  Dave
joined WDS from his position as Founder and Chief Architect of Cold
Mountain Software, a provider of software services and products for
project management and enterprise knowledge management.   Prior to
Cold Mountain Software, Dave was Chief Architect and Co-Founder of
Accumedia.com, Inc., a provider of hosted and managed content
management, control and delivery systems targeted for the needs of the
media and entertainment industries. Dave holds a BA in Physics from
Middlebury College and has done graduate study in Computer Science at
Worcester Polytech and University of Colorado.

Links:
http://www.wyantdata.com
http://www.rubyonrails.org


The meeting is Tuesday, May 8th from 7:00 - 9:00 pm (with optional
6:30 pm start for refreshments and informal networking). The meeting
will be held at The National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) at
1850 Table Mesa Drive in Boulder. To get to NCAR from the Boulder
Turnpike (US 36) or Broadway (US 93), take Table Mesa Drive west
towards the mountains for approximately 2.5 miles into the foothills.
NCAR is at the top of the hill. For door-to-door driving directions,
go to MapQuest (http://www.mapquest.com/), click on Driving
Directions, enter your starting address, NCAR's address, and voila!
Park in the NCAR lot, go in the main door, and ask the guard to point
you to meeting, which is held in the main auditorium, right off the
lobby. The meeting is free and open to the public, but we may pass the
hat to help defray expenses.

Our meeting location seats about 120 people. That is usually enough
room to accommodate all attendees, but it's impossible for us to
predict how many people will show up for any given meeting. Seating is
always on a first-come, first serve basis, and in the event of more
attendees than seats, we won't be able to admit additional people into
the auditorium after all seats are filled.

Thanks to our three sponsors who help make RMIUG meetings happen:
---------------------------------------------------------------
MicroStaff (www.microstaff.com) which provides Creative and Technical
talent for Web, Interactive Media, Marketing Communications and
Software Development projects, is the sponsor of food and beverages
for RMIUG meetings.
ONEWARE (http://www.ONEWARE.com) -- a Colorado-based software company
that provides semi-custom web-based applications, sponsors the RMIUG
meeting minutes.
Copy Diva (http://www.copydiva.com) which provides marketing project
management, marketing communications consulting, and web content
development is the AV sponsor for RMIUG.

Consultants and companies are invited to bring Internet-related
Product information, brochures, and business cards which will be
displayed on an information table.

There are email mailing lists set up for this group. To subscribe or
unsubscribe, see http://www.rmiug.org/maillist.html. You can also
reach the RMIUG "Executive" Committee at rmiug-comm@.... Our web
site is at http://www.rmiug.org/


*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=
Please note that RMIUG is hosted at NCAR and we are their guests. NCAR
has security regulations in effect that we must follow in order to use
the facility. If any RMIUG attendee is unwilling to follow these
simple regulations, I would ask that he or she not attend and instead
read the minutes after the meeting.

Here are the NCAR security policies that must be followed:

1. No weapons.
2. Must sign in at front desk and provide name.
3. Cooperate with security folks including providing ID if requested.
4. We are guests of NCAR so cooperation and courtesy are expected when
dealing with NCAR staff.

If there are any questions or concerns with this policy, please
contact me directly.
Thanks, Josh Zapin (josh@...).
*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=

The Tuesday, May 8th meeting of the Rocky Mountain Internet Users
Group (RMIUG) will discuss "Ruby On Rails: The Good, the Bad, and the
Foobarly"

Ruby On Rails (RoR) has taken the programming world by storm since it
was released to the public in July 2004.

RoR combines Ruby, an object oriented programming language with
super-clean syntax, with Rails, an open-source Model-View-Controller
(MVC) based framework that  enables development ten times faster than
typical frameworks.  The two together enables programmers to create
fully functioning websites in a fraction of the time.

Sounds too good to be true?  Well, consider the following:
• The official RoR website features two almost-too-good-to-be-true
demos: Creating a Weblog in 15 minutes and a Flickr interface in 5
minutes.  (I've personally tried them and it's true...JZ)
• RoR has built in AJAX libraries such as Script.aculo.us to make very
slick user experiences within a typical Web browsers.
• Apple Computer will be adding RoR as part of their next version of
OSX (due to be released in October)

But is it all what is cracks up to be?  How many times have we heard
and tried new development platforms only to have it not meet up with
the hype?

For our next meeting, we will explore RoR, get wowed by its
capabilities, but also get a better understanding of what it can (and
cannot) do.  So, put on your geeky-ness for this discussion, as the
following guest speaker will demonstrate RoR and talk about his recent
study comparing it to other programming frameworks:

David Gustafson (dave.gustafson@...) is Vice President of
Technology and Product Development for Wyant Data Systems, Inc.  Dave
joined WDS from his position as Founder and Chief Architect of Cold
Mountain Software, a provider of software services and products for
project management and enterprise knowledge management.   Prior to
Cold Mountain Software, Dave was Chief Architect and Co-Founder of
Accumedia.com, Inc., a provider of hosted and managed content
management, control and delivery systems targeted for the needs of the
media and entertainment industries. Dave holds a BA in Physics from
Middlebury College and has done graduate study in Computer Science at
Worcester Polytech and University of Colorado.

Links:
http://www.wyantdata.com
http://www.rubyonrails.org


The meeting is Tuesday, May 8th from 7:00 - 9:00 pm (with optional
6:30 pm start for refreshments and informal networking). The meeting
will be held at The National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) at
1850 Table Mesa Drive in Boulder. To get to NCAR from the Boulder
Turnpike (US 36) or Broadway (US 93), take Table Mesa Drive west
towards the mountains for approximately 2.5 miles into the foothills.
NCAR is at the top of the hill. For door-to-door driving directions,
go to MapQuest (http://www.mapquest.com/), click on Driving
Directions, enter your starting address, NCAR's address, and voila!
Park in the NCAR lot, go in the main door, and ask the guard to point
you to meeting, which is held in the main auditorium, right off the
lobby. The meeting is free and open to the public, but we may pass the
hat to help defray expenses.

Our meeting location seats about 120 people. That is usually enough
room to accommodate all attendees, but it's impossible for us to
predict how many people will show up for any given meeting. Seating is
always on a first-come, first serve basis, and in the event of more
attendees than seats, we won't be able to admit additional people into
the auditorium after all seats are filled.

Thanks to our three sponsors who help make RMIUG meetings happen:
---------------------------------------------------------------
MicroStaff (www.microstaff.com) which provides Creative and Technical
talent for Web, Interactive Media, Marketing Communications and
Software Development projects, is the sponsor of food and beverages
for RMIUG meetings.
ONEWARE (http://www.ONEWARE.com) -- a Colorado-based software company
that provides semi-custom web-based applications, sponsors the RMIUG
meeting minutes.
Copy Diva (http://www.copydiva.com) which provides marketing project
management, marketing communications consulting, and web content
development is the AV sponsor for RMIUG.

Consultants and companies are invited to bring Internet-related
Product information, brochures, and business cards which will be
displayed on an information table.

There are email mailing lists set up for this group. To subscribe or
unsubscribe, see http://www.rmiug.org/maillist.html. You can also
reach the RMIUG "Executive" Committee at rmiug-comm@.... Our web
site is at http://www.rmiug.org/


*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=
Please note that RMIUG is hosted at NCAR and we are their guests. NCAR
has security regulations in effect that we must follow in order to use
the facility. If any RMIUG attendee is unwilling to follow these
simple regulations, I would ask that he or she not attend and instead
read the minutes after the meeting.

Here are the NCAR security policies that must be followed:

1. No weapons.
2. Must sign in at front desk and provide name.
3. Cooperate with security folks including providing ID if requested.
4. We are guests of NCAR so cooperation and courtesy are expected when
dealing with NCAR staff.

If there are any questions or concerns with this policy, please
contact me directly.
Thanks, Josh Zapin (josh@...).
*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=

The Tuesday, May 8th meeting of the Rocky Mountain Internet Users
Group (RMIUG) will discuss "Ruby On Rails: The Good, the Bad, and the
Foobarly"

Ruby On Rails (RoR) has taken the programming world by storm since it
was released to the public in July 2004.

RoR combines Ruby, an object oriented programming language with
super-clean syntax, with Rails, an open-source Model-View-Controller
(MVC) based framework that enables development ten times faster than
typical frameworks.  The two together enables programmers to create
fully functioning websites in a fraction of the time.

Sounds too good to be true?  Well, consider the following:
* The official RoR website features two almost-too-good-to-be-true
demos: Creating a Weblog in 15 minutes and a Flickr interface in 5
minutes.  (I've personally tried them and it's true...JZ)
* RoR has built in AJAX libraries such as Script.aculo.us to make very
slick user experiences within a typical Web browsers.
* Apple Computer will be adding RoR as part of their next version of
OSX (due to be released in October)

But is it all what is cracks up to be?  How many times have we heard
and tried new development platforms only to have it not meet up with
the hype?

For our next meeting, we will explore RoR, get wowed by its
capabilities, but also get a better understanding of what it can (and
cannot) do.  So, put on your geeky-ness for this discussion, as the
following guest speaker will demonstrate RoR and talk about his recent
study comparing it to other programming frameworks:

David Gustafson (dave.gustafson@...) is Vice President of
Technology and Product Development for Wyant Data Systems, Inc.  Dave
joined WDS from his position as Founder and Chief Architect of Cold
Mountain Software, a provider of software services and products for
project management and enterprise knowledge management.   Prior to
Cold Mountain Software, Dave was Chief Architect and Co-Founder of
Accumedia.com, Inc., a provider of hosted and managed content
management, control and delivery systems targeted for the needs of the
media and entertainment industries. Dave holds a BA in Physics from
Middlebury College and has done graduate study in Computer Science at
Worcester Polytech and University of Colorado.

Links:
http://www.wyantdata.com
http://www.rubyonrails.org


The meeting is Tuesday, May 8th from 7:00 - 9:00 pm (with optional
6:30 pm start for refreshments and informal networking). The meeting
will be held at The National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) at
1850 Table Mesa Drive in Boulder. To get to NCAR from the Boulder
Turnpike (US 36) or Broadway (US 93), take Table Mesa Drive west
towards the mountains for approximately 2.5 miles into the foothills.
NCAR is at the top of the hill. For door-to-door driving directions,
go to MapQuest (http://www.mapquest.com/), click on Driving
Directions, enter your starting address, NCAR's address, and voila!
Park in the NCAR lot, go in the main door, and ask the guard to point
you to meeting, which is held in the main auditorium, right off the
lobby. The meeting is free and open to the public, but we may pass the
hat to help defray expenses.

Our meeting location seats about 120 people. That is usually enough
room to accommodate all attendees, but it's impossible for us to
predict how many people will show up for any given meeting. Seating is
always on a first-come, first serve basis, and in the event of more
attendees than seats, we won't be able to admit additional people into
the auditorium after all seats are filled.

Thanks to our three sponsors who help make RMIUG meetings happen:
---------------------------------------------------------------
MicroStaff (www.microstaff.com) which provides Creative and Technical
talent for Web, Interactive Media, Marketing Communications and
Software Development projects, is the sponsor of food and beverages
for RMIUG meetings.
ONEWARE (http://www.ONEWARE.com) -- a Colorado-based software company
that provides semi-custom web-based applications, sponsors the RMIUG
meeting minutes.
Copy Diva (http://www.copydiva.com) which provides marketing project
management, marketing communications consulting, and web content
development is the AV sponsor for RMIUG.

Consultants and companies are invited to bring Internet-related
Product information, brochures, and business cards which will be
displayed on an information table.

There are email mailing lists set up for this group. To subscribe or
unsubscribe, see http://www.rmiug.org/maillist.html. You can also
reach the RMIUG "Executive" Committee at rmiug-comm@.... Our web
site is at http://www.rmiug.org/


*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=
Please note that RMIUG is hosted at NCAR and we are their guests. NCAR
has security regulations in effect that we must follow in order to use
the facility. If any RMIUG attendee is unwilling to follow these
simple regulations, I would ask that he or she not attend and instead
read the minutes after the meeting.

Here are the NCAR security policies that must be followed:

1. No weapons.
2. Must sign in at front desk and provide name.
3. Cooperate with security folks including providing ID if requested.
4. We are guests of NCAR so cooperation and courtesy are expected when
dealing with NCAR staff.

If there are any questions or concerns with this policy, please
contact me directly.
Thanks, Josh Zapin (josh@...).
*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=

Thanks OneWare (http://www.oneware.com) for the notes sponsorship.

Thanks to Eric Hackathorn for an awesome meeting.

JZ
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Rocky Mountain Internet Users Group
Minutes of the 13 March 2007 meeting, "Second Life: First World"

About 35 people attended tonight's meeting. Josh Zapin facilitated and
Jeremy Kohler recorded the minutes.

----------
MEETING SPONSORS

Microstaff (www.microstaff.com) provides refreshments, Copy Diva
(www.copydiva.com) provides the audio-visual equipment, NCAR
(www.ncar.ucar.edu) provides the facility, and ONEWARE
(www.oneware.com) sponsors these minutes.

The next RMIUG meeting will be on May 8, about Ruby on Rails. It's a
little techy, and interesting.

---------------
ANNOUNCEMENTS

Josh welcomes suggestions for topics for future meetings, please email
Josh with your ideas.

There is a Bar Camp movement, which provides a wide open learning
environment, where you can make your own conferences. There is one
here in Boulder on March 30-31. Just google "barcampboulder." We need
a location and a couple of meeting rooms. Bar camps have been
happening all over the world for a couple of years now.

Consider attending a Second Life meet-up workshop. Bring your laptop
and experience Second Life.

The Denver cold fusion users group will be talking about Adobe Cold
Fusion 8 to be released in April. Contact Gene Lewis  at
www.denvercfug.org for info.

---------------
INTRODUCTION (Josh Zapin)

Second Life is a virtual 3-D world built and maintained entirely by
its 4 million residents, with over a million users in the last 60
days. It's pretty new. A libertarian dream, it's completely controlled
by the marketplace. And it has evolved in ways the creators probably
never imagined. The business world has gotten involved, along with
technology CEOs, millionaires, and people looking to do business.

- Dell Computers opened up its on Island in November offering
residents the ability to purchase PCs for their Second Life and
"first-life" selves

- Sam Palmisano, IBM's Chief Executive Officer, held a town hall
meeting in Beijing and Second Life (he has his own avatar) to announce
a $100 Million investment in real- and virtual-world initiatives.

- Starwood Hotel tested a new loft-style hotel in Second Life and got
lots of feedback from visitors

- Anshe Chung, one of Second Life's virtual land real estate brokers
(her real name is Ailin Graef), has become a millionare (that's in
REAL US dollars).

----------------------
ABOUT THE SPEAKER

ERIC HACKATHORN (eric.j.hackathorn@...) started with his first
computer before he learned to ride a bicycle. His father was kind
enough to allocate him 100 KB of the family's 10 MB hard drive: one of
the first commercially available of its kind. Since that time, he has
dabbled in all things computer. After graduating from high school, he
started working for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric
Administration_(NOAA) in Boulder, Colorado. At the same time, he
attended the University of Colorado, majoring in electrical and
computer engineering. He continues his work at NOAA today as an IT
specialist. Recently Eric has taken a back seat to his much handsomer
counterpart, Hackshaven Harford. Hackshaven is Eric's avatar (a
virtual representation of himself) and exists only in the virtual
world known as Second Life. Together they have been busy designing a
public 3-D space to highlight the research NOAA performs.

---------------------
LINKS

NOAA/ESRL's Virtual Education Demonstration: www.esrl.noaa.gov/outreach/sl
Second Life: www.secondlife.com

------------------------
ERIC HACKATHORN

I'm the Chief Architect of NOAA's island in Second Life.

My Second Life name is hackshaven (which is meant as "hack's haven").
That's my father's hunting lodge. I'm here to describe NOAA's
adventure in Second Life:

OVERVIEW: WHAT ARE VIRTUAL WORLDS?

A virtual world or "metaverse" is an extension of the traditional 2-D
web. Businesses set up an "island" where you can walk into a store and
buy stuff for your avatar or get a discount on real mail-order. Dell,
Toyota, and other big names are using this world as a next level in
marketing because it gives you a much deeper experience than a website.

A company called Linden Lab created Second Life, now the most
well-known metaverse. Everything about Second Life is growing
exponentially. People buy "land" in the environment to create their
own presences, and it's growing by 20 percent per month, with 4.6
million served. It is 100 percent user-generated content. Unlike other
virtual worlds, you maintain ownership of your island or land area.

Linden Lab will soon be putting up a rack of servers every week, and
they are going to need outside help very soon.

Let's watch a little movie now [showing movie]: Here is someone (an
avatar) building up themselves and their island. Buildings, roads,
clothing, etc. It takes 30 minutes to an hour investment just to get
oriented in Second Life, so there is a little bit of an entrance barrier.

Second Life client hardware requires a "gaming" computer, at least a
1.6 GHz pentium and a screaming video card. It can take a little while
to load, and crowded or badly-built places can be very slow. There are
tricks to learn about building lean to minimize the size of your
graphics, just like with 2D web pages.

The client is cross platform, and has recently been open sourced. So
soon there will be other ways to connect, such as via browsers, cell
phones, etc. They open-sourced their client at the top of their game,
which is unusual--it's a protection strategy against people who are
trying to capitalize and kill.

Accounts are free. 30,000 people online at a time typically.
Estimating more than 50,000 simultaneous users within six months.

When visiting Second Life, your first task is to create your avatar, a
character for yourself. You can adjust your appearance in quite a few
ways such as height, weight, etc. There's a great deal of fascination
in looking however you want, changing your gender around, weird
clothes, whatever. Part of the economics of Second Life is that you
can give stuff away for free like a nice custom jacket for your avatar.

You can walk around and fly, look in all directions.

SLURL (www.slurl.com) is a specially formatted URL that teleports a
visitor to your area.

NOAA'S VIRTUAL ISLAND

Let's visit NOAA's virtual island. It has 16 virtual acres, which is
equivalent to one computer node. Here on NOAA's island, it's Disney
World meets science education. It runs simulations (tsunami, sea level
rise, glaciers melting, hurricane hunter flights). NOAA pays for the
land (just like you might pay for ISP disk space and access). NOAA got
an educational discount: paid only $1000 and $150 per month for
maintenance. Not very expensive compared to what companies often pay
for a web presence. We dropped another $15,000 for all the outside
development by Aimee Weber Studios.

You have lots of neighbors on adjacent land masses. Some people have
private islands, others are sharing land masses. An island gives you
more control over your content and visitors. People are buying land
and developing it. Planning communities, homeowners associations, etc.
People can buy and sell virtual real estate to make money.

When someone visits your land or island, you can go look at them. You
interact with your visitors. Chatting is done mostly through text
bubbles. Soon Second Life will include audio as dynamic talk channels,
stereo spatial sound too. This is much more powerful than telephones
and there is a potential for teleconferencing here.

You can right-click on anyone to see their info. You can buy a
translator to talk to foreigners live. The level of interaction you
have with people from all over the world is truly amazing. You can
have a conversation with a guy from Brazil who only speaks Portuguese,
and for fun make it rain on him. You can make "friends" and then keep
track of when they are logged in or out.

You can include video--called machinima--if, for example, you want to
have an introductory video play for your visitors.

Currently you use an installed client (local) program to access Second
Life. It extends experiences to people that would not otherwise have
access to them. For example, in Second Life you can ride a weather
balloon, fly into a hurricane on an Orion P3 hurricane hunter
aircraft. This is where people can learn about what we do at NOAA.
Swim around a hydrothermal vent, visit a glacier. You can create it
all yourself or get stuff for your space from someone else (who might
give it away or sell it to you). The client includes a simplified CAD
development tool that allows you to create shapes, apply textures, etc.

Second Life is unusual in that the client is very dumb.

Making objects is free. The land is what costs. You can't yet import
objects from other programs, but that is being worked on. You just put
building blocks together and apply textures. We spent $15,000 hiring
people to build our airplanes and buildings and everything else.

We use the glacier to promote discussion on global warming--but this
is a much more immersive and memorable experience than you'd have by
reading about glaciers in a book.

While we still have a six-foot sphere with science on it (see
http://sos.noaa.gov/), we also have a virtual sphere on our island and
we're sending it all over the world.

Toyota has an island dealership with a race track. You can go there
and build your dream car, then go drive it around. If you decide to
buy the virtual version of the car, you also get a discount on the
real thing.

I got a book called "Designing Disney" to help me see how to design a
virtual world. A lot of companies don't realize that you don't want
your virtual space to look like and work like the real world.

Users can make their own weather, and this affects the local
ecosystem. Our next project is to recreate Hawaii and overlay it with
real current weather conditions. Built into Second Life is a
programming language similar to javascript that allows you to do
things like http calls to grab data, like from the National Weather
Service, and then run a script to apply it to your land map. The
script is called LSL and it runs on the server. Google LSL wiki and
you'll see all about it.

Here on NOAA's island we are projecting live data onto a US weather
map. We'd like to do the whole globe someday. Imagine combining
technologies like Google Earth--Google Earth is not a shared
experience, but it could be. There's a real potential for tying the
real world into Second Life to create a more immersive experience.

You can do a virtual tour of the solar system, go for a walk on Mars.

VISITOR FEEDBACK

How do you know if you're reaching your audience? In the 2-D web,
there's Google Analytics to analyze all your site traffic. And that's
pretty important information. But in 3D worlds like Second Life, there
is no analog (yet) to Google analytics. So instead we created a little
virtual feedback form for people to fill out voluntarily. Quite
strikingly, 40 percent of visitors are filling out our
questionnaire--this is huge compared to traditional websites that
typically get 1 percent. It's because this medium is so much more
interactive that we get this level of feedback. We also created a neat
sensor grid to record all visits, even when they don't submit feedback.

The average age of our visitor is upper 30's, which is higher than
you'd think.

35 percent of visitors didn't know about NOAA before visiting our
island, so we are now reaching customers we otherwise wouldn't reach.

Traditional media is not what gets people to visit our island. It's
mostly friends and web searches. Social networks are really driving
the visitors to our site.

DEFINING TRAFFIC FUNNELS AND GOALS
You can track where people went on your island. Did they go for a
hurricane ride? Did they go and look in a store, buy a virtual product?

SPOT TRAFFIC ANALYSIS
This shows where all the avatars were standing. Here can see that even
though everyone can fly, most people take the stairs. No one spends
any time sitting in our lobby. Now here's someone standing on the dock
but not getting in the water--maybe we need signage to tell him to
check out the undersea environment. You can also use this technology
to design a virtual store and see what people do, letting you work out
the kinks before building the real thing.

Traffic and metrics are important, and more people will be building
sensor grids like ours.

WHAT'S NEXT?
We'll be able to create customized avatar experiences, like
rearranging your products for individuals (kind of the way Amazon.com
does it).

I think conferences will be important too.

Some new clients are being created, like DTV: a camera that an avatar
holds and beams video out to the web. So you can make a webcast of a
virtual place.

Museums are setting up virtual tours now.

SECURITY
There are still security issues. You can allow visitors to make
objects that expire, and people can put graffiti on your stuff if
you're not careful.

Can you get in trouble in Second Life? There is limited damage that
people can do to you. People can do sort of denial of service attacks
against you and prevent you from doing your job. There are phishing
scams going around, but it's pretty minor. You can't really get mugged.

Copybot: a devious thing that lets you copy intellectual property
(objects) and steal them. Linden had to respond to address this and
similar threats. But this is the price of doing business on the web.
Music has the same problem. Some of the secret lies in finding a
business model that work within this environment.

ECONOMICS
You can sell your objects, or invite visitors to create objects on
your island for you. Permissions can be set to allow visitors access
to objects of yours that they buy.

You get a certain number of free shapes depending on the size of your
land area.

And yes, you can buy and sell the land.

You can also move your island for a fee, which can be useful if you
want to organize collaborations.

You have an inventory pocket and can go drop gifts on visitors (or
sell them). We use gifts for viral marketing. Objects can teleport
people into your space.

Currency to buy stuff: Lindens = game currency. 260 Lindens to the
dollar right now, tracked by the Lindex. It's a real currency, even
with people playing the Linden market. This is a wake-up call. There
are legal implications. Is it money earned in a foreign country? Do
you pay taxes on it?

People are investing in companies that are creating virtual worlds.

SEARCHING
It sucks. Instead you can go to www.slexchange.com and
www.slboutique.com and use a 2D search to find stuff. The 3D search is
really bad right now because there is not yet any equivalent of a web
crawler.

PHYSICS
There is a limit to how many avatars can occupy a space at one time.
There is a built-in physics engine (at version 1) and it needs work.


SOUND
We created a tour guide that shows text and speaks as you tour. You
can upload 10-second chunks to play on the fly, also listen to live
radio and video streams coming into the virtual world.

PARENTAL CONTROL
There is adult content in Second Life, and there is an adult world for
18 and up. There is also a teen grid where adults aren't allowed so I
can't advertise to them directly. But we can give out stuff to kids
and let them do viral marketing to attract visitors. It's not
foolproof, just like controls on the web aren't foolproof.

RESOURCES
There is a Boulder meet-up group for Second Life. Visit
secondlife.meetup.com/9/ to join.

Just a quick reminder about our meeting on Tuesday, March 13th.

I hope you can attend.

JZ

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
The Tuesday, Mar 13th meeting of the Rocky Mountain Internet Users
Group (RMIUG) will discuss "Second Life: First World"

Second Life (http://www.secondlife.com), is a virtual 3D world built
and maintained entirely by its residents. Boasting over 4 million
residents (with over million logging in over the last 60 days) and
over $1.5 million dollars in transactions, it is as vibrant as any
major city.

The World of Second Life has a vast array of people, entertainment,
experiences, and opportunity.  Because everything in Second Life is
controlled by its users and supported through a Marketplace, the world
has grown in ways its inventor, San-Francisco based Linden Labs,
probably never imagined:
* Dell Computers opened up its on Island in November offering
residents the ability to purchase PCs for the Second Life and their
"first-life" selves
* Sam Palmisano, IBM's Chief Executive Officer, held a town hall
meeting in Beijing and Second Life (he has his own avatar) to announce
a $100 Million investment in real and virtual world initiatives.
* Starwood Hotel tested a new loft style hotel in Second Life and got
lots of feedback from visitors
* Anshe Chung, one of Second Life's virtual land real-estate brokers
(her real name is Ailin Graef), has become a millionare (that's in
REAL US dollars)

For our next meeting, we will explore Second Life and learn about the
National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's (NOAA) own virtual
education island in with of its residents, Hackshaven Harford (aka
Eric Hackathorn).

Eric Hackathorn (eric.j.hackathorn@...) started with his first
computer before he learned to ride a bicycle.  His father was kind
enough to allocate him 100 KB of the family's 10 MB hard drive: one of
the first commercially available of its kind.  Since that time, he has
spent a majority of his time dabbling in all things computer related.
  After graduating from high school, he started working for the
National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) in Boulder,
Colorado.  At the same time, he attended the University of Colorado
majoring in electrical and computer engineering.  He continues his
work at NOAA today as an IT specialist.  Recently Eric has taken a
back seat to his much handsomer counterpart Hackshaven Harford.
Hackshaven is Eric's avatar (a virtual representation of himself) and
exists only in the virtual world known as Second Life.  Together they
have been busy designing a public 3-D space to highlight the research
NOAA performs.

Links:
NOAA/ESRL's Virtual Education Demonstration:
http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/outreach/sl
Second Life: http://www.secondlife.com/


The meeting is Tuesday, March 13th from 7:00 - 9:00 pm (with optional
6:30 pm start for refreshments and informal networking). The meeting
will be held at The National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) at
1850 Table Mesa Drive in Boulder. To get to NCAR from the Boulder
Turnpike (US 36) or Broadway (US 93), take Table Mesa Drive west
towards the mountains for approximately 2.5 miles into the foothills.
NCAR is at the top of the hill. For door-to-door driving directions,
go to MapQuest (http://www.mapquest.com/), click on Driving
Directions, enter your starting address, NCAR's address, and voila!
Park in the NCAR lot, go in the main door, and ask the guard to point
you to meeting, which is held in the main auditorium, right off the
lobby. The meeting is free and open to the public, but we may pass the
hat to help defray expenses.

Our meeting location seats about 120 people. That is usually enough
room to accommodate all attendees, but it's impossible for us to
predict how many people will show up for any given meeting. Seating is
always on a first-come, first serve basis, and in the event of more
attendees than seats, we won't be able to admit additional people into
the auditorium after all seats are filled.

Thanks to our three sponsors who help make RMIUG meetings happen:
---------------------------------------------------------------
MicroStaff (www.microstaff.com) which provides Creative and Technical
talent for Web, Interactive Media, Marketing Communications and
Software Development projects, is the sponsor of food and beverages
for RMIUG meetings.
ONEWARE (http://www.ONEWARE.com) -- a Colorado-based software company
that provides semi-custom web-based applications, sponsors the RMIUG
meeting minutes.
Copy Diva (http://www.copydiva.com) which provides marketing project
management, marketing communications consulting, and web content
development is the AV sponsor for RMIUG.

Consultants and companies are invited to bring Internet-related
Product information, brochures, and business cards which will be
displayed on an information table.

There are email mailing lists set up for this group. To subscribe or
unsubscribe, see http://www.rmiug.org/maillist.html. You can also
reach the RMIUG "Executive" Committee at rmiug-comm@.... Our web
site is at http://www.rmiug.org/


*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=
Please note that RMIUG is hosted at NCAR and we are their guests. NCAR
has security regulations in effect that we must follow in order to use
the facility. If any RMIUG attendee is unwilling to follow these
simple regulations, I would ask that he or she not attend and instead
read the minutes after the meeting.

Here are the NCAR security policies that must be followed:

1. No weapons.
2. Must sign in at front desk and provide name.
3. Cooperate with security folks including providing ID if requested.
4. We are guests of NCAR so cooperation and courtesy are expected when
dealing with NCAR staff.

If there are any questions or concerns with this policy, please
contact me directly.
Thanks, Josh Zapin (josh@...).
*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=

The Tuesday, Mar 13th meeting of the Rocky Mountain Internet Users
Group (RMIUG) will discuss "Second Life: First World"

Second Life (http://www.secondlife.com), is a virtual 3D world built
and maintained entirely by its residents. Boasting over 4 million
residents (with over million logging in over the last 60 days) and
over $1.5 million dollars in transactions, it is
as vibrant as any major city.

The World of Second Life has a vast array of people, entertainment,
experiences, and opportunity.  Because everything in Second Life is
controlled by its users and supported through a Marketplace, the world
has grown in ways its inventor, San-Francisco based Linden Labs,
probably never imagined:
* Dell Computers opened up its on Island in November offering residents
the ability to purchase PCs for the Second Life and their "first-life"
selves
* Sam Palmisano, IBM's Chief Executive Officer, held a town
hall meeting in Beijing and Second Life (he has his own avatar) to
announce a $100 Million investment in real and virtual world
initiatives.
* Starwood Hotel tested a new loft style hotel in Second Life and got
lots of feedback from visitors
* Anshe Chung, one of Second Life's virtual land real-estate brokers (her
real name is Ailin Graef), has become a millionare (that's in REAL US
dollars)

For our next meeting, we will explore Second Life and
learn about the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's
(NOAA) own virtual education island in with of its residents,
Hackshaven Harford (aka Eric Hackathorn).

Eric Hackathorn (eric.j.hackathorn@...) started with his first
computer before he learned to ride a bicycle.  His father was kind
enough to allocate him
100 KB of the family's 10 MB hard drive: one of the first commercially
available of its kind.  Since that time, he has spent a majority of his
time dabbling in all things computer related.  After graduating from
high school, he started working for the National Oceanic and
Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) in Boulder, Colorado.  At the same
time, he attended the University of Colorado majoring in electrical and
computer engineering.  He continues his work at NOAA today as an IT
specialist.  Recently Eric has taken a back seat to his much handsomer
counterpart Hackshaven Harford.  Hackshaven is Eric's avatar (a virtual
representation of himself) and exists only in the virtual world known
as Second Life.  Together they have been busy designing a public 3-D
space to highlight the research NOAA performs.

Links:
NOAA/ESRL's Virtual Education Demonstration:
http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/outreach/sl
Second Life: http://www.secondlife.com/


The meeting is Tuesday, March 13th from 7:00 - 9:00 pm (with optional 6:30
pm start for refreshments and informal networking). The meeting will be
held at The National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) at 1850
Table Mesa Drive in Boulder. To get to NCAR from the Boulder Turnpike
(US 36) or Broadway (US 93), take Table Mesa Drive west towards the
mountains for approximately 2.5 miles into the foothills. NCAR is at
the top of the hill. For door-to-door driving directions, go to
MapQuest (http://www.mapquest.com/), click on Driving Directions,
enter your starting address, NCAR's address, and voila! Park in the
NCAR lot, go in the main door, and ask the guard to point you to
meeting, which is held in the main
auditorium, right off the lobby. The meeting is free and open to the
public, but we may pass the hat to help defray expenses.

Our meeting location seats about 120 people. That is usually enough
room to
accommodate all attendees, but it's impossible for us to predict how
many people will show up for any given meeting. Seating is always on a
first-come, first serve basis, and in the event of more attendees than
seats, we won't be able to admit additional people into the auditorium
after all seats are filled.

Thanks to our three sponsors who help make RMIUG meetings happen:
---------------------------------------------------------------
MicroStaff (www.microstaff.com)
which provides Creative and Technical talent for Web, Interactive
Media, Marketing Communications and Software Development projects, is
the sponsor of food and beverages for RMIUG meetings.
ONEWARE (http://www.ONEWARE.com) -- a Colorado-based software company
that provides semi-custom web-based applications, sponsors the RMIUG
meeting minutes.
Copy Diva (http://www.copydiva.com)
which provides marketing project management, marketing communications
consulting, and web content development is the AV sponsor for RMIUG.

Consultants and companies are invited to bring Internet-related Product
information, brochures, and business cards which will be displayed on
an information table.

There are email mailing lists set up for this group. To subscribe or
unsubscribe, see http://www.rmiug.org/maillist.html. You can also
reach the RMIUG "Executive" Committee at rmiug-comm@.... Our web
site is at http://www.rmiug.org/


*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=
Please note that RMIUG is hosted at NCAR and we are their guests. NCAR
has security regulations in effect that we must follow in order to use
the facility. If any RMIUG attendee is unwilling to follow these
simple regulations, I would ask that he or she not attend and instead
read the minutes after the meeting.

Here are the NCAR security policies that must be followed:
1. No weapons.
2. Must sign in at front desk and provide name.
3. Cooperate with security folks including providing ID if requested.
4. We are guests of NCAR so cooperation and courtesy are expected when
dealing with NCAR staff.

If there are any questions or concerns with this policy, please
contact me directly.
Thanks, Josh Zapin (josh@...).
*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=

The Tuesday, Jan 9th meeting of the Rocky Mountain
Internet Users Group (RMIUG) will discuss "Digital
Photography: The Analog Lens"

To say that the digital camera has become ubiquitous
is an understatement.  Consider the following facts:
* 2006 shipments of Digital Cameras in the US in 2006
are expected to be 30 million double the number of
2003 and 20% increase from 2005 says market research
group NPD
* In 2007, worldwide shipments of digital still
cameras are expected to be 82 million; a 7% increase
from 2006 says IC Insights.
* By the end of 2006, Flickr (one the most popular
online photo sharing sites) was reporting it was
sharing nearly 250 million photographs from over 2
million users.
* Do you know anyone that still uses a traditional
film camera?

And while digital photography is all the rage (and its
convenience and economy unmatched), there is still
something missing when looking at a photograph on a
computer screen.  How many of remember going to
grandma's house and flipping through her "rolodex" of
pictures only to find some embarrassing, but faded,
photo of our parents when they were young.  The
tactile satisfaction of holding that paper (or slide!)
is something that digital can't ever match.

And the numbers prove this feeling: 6.9 Billion
digital prints will be ordered in 2006 up from 4.6
Billion prints in 2005 (Photo Marketing Association
International).


For the next RMIUG meeting, we will take a slightly
different approach to our techie-infused discussions:
How something so innately digital percolates and
thrives in an analog world?

To help us explore this topic, RMIUG will bring in
following speaker:

Ken McDonald(kenm@...) is Vice President of
Marketing and Operations for LifePics a local online
imaging technology and applications company.  Ken has
worked in the software industry since the mid 1980's
in a variety of capacities. He spent 5 years in
marketing positions at Oracle and helped drive
Oracle's e-commerce initiatives. He also spent 3 years
at Sequel Venture Partners, a venture capital firm,
making investments in software companies. He has been
on the starting team of two software companies, Topica
and Open Horizon, and spent 3 years doing IT
consulting at Booz Allen and Hamilton, The New York
Times, and The Wall Street Journal.

Additional speakers may be added.

Links:
LifePics: http://www.lifepics.com

The meeting is Tuesday, January 9th from 7:00 - 9:00
pm (with optional 6:30 pm start for refreshments and
informal networking). The meeting will be held at The
National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) at
1850 Table Mesa Drive in Boulder. To get to NCAR from
the Boulder Turnpike (US 36) or Broadway (US 93), take
Table Mesa Drive west towards the mountains for
approximately 2.5 miles into the foothills. NCAR is at
the top of the hill. For door-to-door driving
directions, go to MapQuest (http://www.mapquest.com/),
click on Driving Directions, enter your starting
address, NCAR's address, and voila! Park in the NCAR
lot, go in the main door, and ask the guard to point
you to meeting, which is held in the main auditorium,
right off the lobby. The meeting is free and open to
the public, but we may pass the hat to help defray
expenses.

Our meeting location seats about 120 people. That is
usually enough room to accommodate all attendees, but
it's impossible for us to predict how many people will
show up for any given meeting. Seating is always on a
first-come, first serve basis, and in the event of
more attendees than seats, we won't be able to admit
additional people into the auditorium after all seats
are filled.

Thanks to our three sponsors who help make RMIUG
meetings happen:
---------------------------------------------------------------
MicroStaff (www.microstaff.com) which provides
Creative and Technical talent for Web, Interactive
Media, Marketing Communications and Software
Development projects, is the sponsor of food and
beverages for RMIUG meetings.
ONEWARE (http://www.ONEWARE.com) -- a Colorado-based
software company that provides semi-custom web-based
applications, sponsors the RMIUG meeting minutes.
Copy Diva (http://www.copydiva.com) which provides
marketing project management, marketing communications
consulting, and web content development is the AV
sponsor for RMIUG.

Consultants and companies are invited to bring
Internet-related Product information, brochures, and
business cards which will be displayed on an
information table.

There are email mailing lists set up for this group.
To subscribe or unsubscribe, see
http://www.rmiug.org/maillist.html. You can also reach
the RMIUG "Executive" Committee at
rmiug-comm@.... Our web site is at
http://www.rmiug.org/


*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=
Please note that RMIUG is hosted at NCAR and we are
their guests. NCAR has security regulations in effect
that we must follow in order to use the facility. If
any RMIUG attendee is unwilling to follow these simple
regulations, I would ask that he or she not attend and
instead read the minutes after the meeting.

Here are the NCAR security policies that must be
followed:

1. No weapons.
2. Must sign in at front desk and provide name.
3. Cooperate with security folks including providing
ID if requested.
4. We are guests of NCAR so cooperation and courtesy
are expected when dealing with NCAR staff.

If there are any questions or concerns with this
policy, please contact me directly.
Thanks, Josh Zapin (josh@...).
*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=