There’s a lot of misinformation, falsehood, and panic tearing around Facebook right now about Facebook Places.

Here’s the FACTS:
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Yesterday was MISE2010 in Portland- and it was awesome! To help prevent the food comas that usually set in after lunch, we (The MISE2010 Team) put together a this little video.

Enjoy!

I had a blast hanging out with Brett Eddy, Michael Forney, Jesse Rice, Jake Schwein, Renee Johnson, Jim Gray, Aaron Smith, Tim Engstrom, Tyler Braun, Jenni Clayville, and Brett Aljets and am looking forward to the next MISE2010 in the early fall- stay tuned for deets on that!

OK. If you’re in an RSS reader, please jump out and come to the blog. Please, please, please!

This has the potential to be epic- and if not, pretty cool.

A couple points of order.

• Do have clothes on. I’m going to ask you to submit your video via Vimeo or YouTube, so please make sure that your content is PG and that you’re ok with it being public.
• This isn’t going to scare, embarrass, shame, or otherwise do anything demeaning to anyone. This is just fun. (If at the end of this you don’t want to submit you’re video- you don’t have to! Problem solved right? Cool- glad we agree.)

There are some things you’ll need in order to participate.

1. Computer (hopefully you’ve all *checked*)

2. Webcam or video camera.

2.5 Decent lighting. Please just turn the light switch on in the room your in. Your face needs to be clearly viewable, please.

3. Ability to follow instructions. (seriously, if you can’t do this, just stop now. This entire experiment hinges on your ability to follow directions precisely.)

Get ready to begin after the jump- and DO NOT scroll to the bottom! Follow the directions, please!
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The Mission Igniter Social Experience in Portland (ok- Wilsonville) has just been announced! Are you gonna be there? You should be there!

Two reasons I’m so stoked.

Numero Uno: MISE is about community. Don’t get me wrong, conferences are great, but it’s what happens after them- the groundswell so to speak- that really makes them beneficial. MISE is all about fostering and creating that groundswell and community.

Two: I have the amazing honor of leading two breakout sessions at MISE2010 PDX on June 5th! I am honestly humbled to be a part of this awesome conversation.

More on my sessions after the jump….
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I know my son, Jax, is going to ask me this question someday.

How do I know? Because I just dug those suckers out from the cupboard above the fridge last night!

What’s even crazier is that only one of those are NEW. That’s right- I recycled all of the other new ones the moment they showed up on my doorstep. And the ONLY reason I kept that one new book was because of the pretty sweet coupons in it- but that one is gone now too because I realized I could just take the coupons out and save my cupboards the space. (I actually tweeted about how I’m going to use these this year here.)
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I was just over at ChurchCrunch reading through the open thread comments about how Google’s latest addition to Gmail, Buzz, is or isn’t the stuff for ministry.

While I’m still withholding the jury on this one while I let it sink in and really take some time to check it out, a lot of people have already written it off. Calling Buzz “noise“, “more noise“, and “the coolest new technology that I won’t be using.“.

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Product Manager Peter Deng explains the ins and outs of the redesign, as well as the reasoning behind it. Spoiler alert- it’s for a better UI (user interface) experience.
Here’s the video from Mashable‘s Ben Parr:

More features after the jump!
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The release of the new homepage for Facebook has begun recently, and if yours hasn’t shifted yet, don’t worry, it will. Facebook has simplified the homepage to make it more user friendly. The same information is there, just in less space- something needed with the popularity of netbooks.

1. New requests, messages, and notifications are grouped together by the logo (clicking on the logo will take you to the home page as well). If you’re wondering what I’m talking about- they’re the shadowed icons to the right of the logo.

2. News Feed: The News Feed now includes the ability to update your status, as well as Top News (the most popular happenings among your friends, be it comments, becoming a fan, or joining a group) and Most Recent (what’s happening now- the live update). Formerly these were were labeled View News Feed and View Live Feed respectively.

3. Account drop-down. This is where all the buttons that used to be on the top bar went to. Edit Friends, Account Settings, Privacy Settings, Application Settings, Credits Balance, Help Center, and Logout now live here.

4. Bookmarks. If you didn’t even know these existed before, don’t worry too much about it (they used to be on the bottom left, opposite the chat box).

5. Friends Online. This is a new feature. The friends that will show up here are the ones you interact with the most on Facebook- be it messages, chat or wall posts- the rest of your online friends are viewable in chat.

6. Chat. Almost the same as before- the drag and drop feature has been removed, so you’ll just have to add friends to lists by typing.

Like it, love it, hate it?

You might be saying to yourself, but wait- don’t you already have a site?

Yes.

Then why this new one?

I have my own business now- and I thought it was time to get my own real website- not just a decent blog.

And with that, NickShoe.org begins.

~NickShoe

Ok- so I’ve been busy!

On with the shininess!

Ode to WordPress
By NickShoe

WordPress, oh WordPress…
You push me to success.
I do not fear your code,
I embrace what others may loathe.

Easy as a button,
It’s almost like doin’ nothin’.
~Fin~

THAT’S RIGHT! WORDPRESS is being featured this week- why? BECAUSE IT’S MY FREAKIN’ BLOG, THAT’S WHY!

And because it’s so great! For example, check out my portfolio site that I put up BEFORE 10AM this morning! While it’s not even near finished, the basics are there- and that’s the important part.

WordPress truly is plug and play. And when teamed with Dreamhost things really get cooking.

There are TWO options when it comes to WordPress. WordPress.com is free, but there are limits to free. WordPress.org breaks the glass ceiling of blogging- something I really like!

Here’s the run-down:
What ➲ WordPress
Cost ➲ FREE! (for WordPress.com hosting; to sign up a site on WordPress.org’s platform, you need to get some hosting and domain registration. I recommend Dreamhost because I use it!)
Where to get it ➲ WordPress.com or WordPress.org
Shininess ➲ 4.75 out of 5
My Recommendation ➲ Absofreakinlutely!
Got a Shiny Object for SHiNY FRiDAY!? Let me know about it!!
~NickShoe