Social Networks are cool, social networks are fun, they make their food, from ... well, everyone.

So, you'd think the hype around social networks would be long gone by now? NOT! I actually think we're just getting to the good part. Despite however our economy is doing, there is still lots of money to be made in social networking if you know where to look.

All the easy stuff is out of the way by now, and even much of the obvious stuff at the level after that is done or underway. So where do you look? I'll tell you: "integration with all the niches".

We're at a point where networks are driving traffic from one to another. It's a lot of the same users, trying on different shoes. You can be king of your throne one day, and find out 20,000 users just leaped to Facebook the next.

Don't quote me to anybody important too fast, but just food for thought: I think the next successful social network move is one that keeps you linked in no matter where you are. Wether that be more with mobile devices bringing the off-line world online, technologies such as Open Social or OpenID linking gaps from site to site, platforms for extending social sites to niches -- possibly allowing niches to take advantage of the rich user base of larger sites?

I know there is a lot of debate on this, mostly because everybody is trying to come up with the next scheme! So what's it gonna be......

Btw, I've been getting an eery feeling that my laptop is tapped? How common is that? I won't explain what happened in this post, maybe the next.

Generate any HTML tag with these two functions.

I was working on a form generation API on Typhoon PHP Framework today and came up with two wonderful functions for generating any HTML tag using PHP.

Here are the functions, enjoy!:

public static function tag($element,$attributes=array())
{
   $buffer = '<' . $element;               
   foreach($attributes as $key => $val) {
       $buffer .= ' ' . $key . '="' . $val . '"';
   }
   $buffer .= '/>';

   return $buffer;
}

public static function blocktag($element,$attributes=array())
{
   $content = $attributes['content'];
   unset($attributes['content']);

   $buffer = '<' . $element;               
   foreach($attributes as $key => $val) {
       $buffer .= ' ' . $key . '="' . $val . '"';
   }
   $buffer .= '>';

   $buffer .= $content;
   $buffer .= '</' . $element . '>';

   return $buffer;
}

Currently I use these in conjunction with Smarty helpers to create consistent markup across a project I'm working on. Any thoughts are appreciated!

Google's April Fools, Starcraft 2, The New Relics

Google, April Fools!

How many people got caught by Google's April fools joke this year?

"Virgle: Earth has issues, and it's time humanity got started on a Plan B. So, starting in 2014, Virgin founder Richard Branson and Google co-founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin will be leading hundreds of users on one of the grandest adventures in human history: Project Virgle, the first permanent human colony on Mars."

I managed to get Mary, COO at Moguldom, to fall for it. Hehehe! Everybody else was on to my scheme though, oh well! I love Google.

Starcraft 2

I was practically born on the original Starcraft and Brood Wars expansion. I spent much of my teenage life perfecting the Zerg rush, and eventually mastered the Terran defense with a wonderful firebat-drop counter attack. So I was quite excited yesterday when Dan sent me a link to the new units in Starcraft 2. I like what I see. At the very bottom of the Tauren Marine page there seems to be a spoiler hint, though I can't be certain. Will mercenaries be apart of the new game?

So many questions! Though, I'm glad it's still at least a year away from release, as I have a lot of business plans to knock out beforehand! It'd be a shame to make a mistake and drown all the potential in a video game. Though, it's not just any video game, Starcraft 2 looks to be the nectar of the gods IMHO.

The New Relics - one rock'n band!

Aside of Google's games and video games, everybody go check out The New Relics. They are a Morgantown, WV based band, and they pretty much rock. I saw them a few times when I lived out in Morgantown, they are touring up and down the east coast these days. I'm on a mission to hook them up with a Venue in Shepherdstown so they have an excuse to come play for me. I'll be posting MySpace bulletins, and what not, if it pans out, so you locals better show up!