Girls In Tech

As we venture into 2010, I can’t help but get excited about new and innovative internet tools and resources that will launch this year, which will help us become more efficient, effective and productive, both professionally and personally. In 2009, there were certainly a lot of cool tools that served as fantastic resources for my very active lifestyle, and I’m sure that they will continue to be useful in the coming years. Check out my list and please comment on sites and web resources that were useful to you this year!

Be a Better Networker

LinkedIn

Facebook

Squidoo

Ning

Twitter

Organize Your Finances

LearnVest

Mint.com

BillShrink

Find That Perfect Vacation

TripIt

RUBA

Tripwiser

TripCart

TripAdvisor

Kayak

Entertain Yourself

Yelp

Craigslist

DapperUp

Bargain Shop Online

Shopittome

Sale.com

Weardrobe

Chictopia

GiltGroup

Polyvore

Tags: Adriana Gascoigne, BillShrink, Chitopia, Craigslist, DapperUp, facebook, GiltGroup, girls in tech, Kayak, LearnVest, linkedin, Mint, Ning, Online resources, Polyvore, RUBA, Sale.com, Shopittome, Squidoo, Tripadvisor, Tripcart, TripIt, Tripwiser, twitter, Weardrobe, women, Yelp
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Girls in Tech was on the scene yesterday as Virtual Goods Summit 2009 kicked off with VGS University.  Hundreds of people came out to the half day seminar to learn from case studies and presentations by Linden Lab, Mochi Media, IMVU, Gaia Online, Ning, Viximo, Shufflebrain and others.

The afternoon panel on the Payments Landscape featuring SuperRewards, TrialPay, BOKU, PlaySpan, and ORCA garnered a packed ballroom.  Charles Hudson, host of VGS09, moderated the panel and asked whether it’s a good or bad thing that the payments space is so chockfull of players.  Not surprisingly, the panel thought it was a good thing – and that it speaks to the vast potential opportunity for virtual goods in games.  They also agreed that the need for payment solution providers is high since payments are complex, requiring relationships with often hundreds of banks and wireless carriers if you take into account the international landscape.  Then there’s the sticky issue of fraud and security.  Finally, there’s scale of economies, and the idea that a game producer should concentrate on making great games instead of getting caught up with building a payment solution.  Overall, more payment providers means more choice for game publishers, and more pressure for payment providers to deliver better products and customer service.

The panel shared the following statistics: For free to play games on social networks, virtual goods conversion for those who actually pay is 3-4%. This of course varies depending on the virality and engagement quality of the game.  Lex Bayer from PlaySpan suggested that for each daily active user associated with a game on a social network, there is ten dollars of annual revenue potential.  Therefore, if you have five million DAU’s your potential revenue is $50 million in annual revenue.  Not shabby.

Big revenue potential and a young market makes for great energy, an eagerness for learning, sharing, and collaborating, with a good measure of competition and creativity thrown in.  This is going to be one good summit.  Join us today for part two of the third annual Virtual Goods Summit taking place today at the Westin in downtown San Francisco.  And stick around for the after party that Girls in Tech is co-hosting with Offerpal at Harlot nightclub!

Tags: Charles Hudson, Games, Lindin Lab, Mochi Media, Ning, social networks, Super Rewards, Tina Tran, TrialPay, Virtual Currency, Virtual Good Summit, Virutal Payments
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Those of you with young children, watch out! With computational information at their fingertips they will learn everything they need to know about the 3Rs (Reading, ‘Riting and ‘Rithmetic) within six years. No Joke. In six years or so, expect to see more 11-year-olds graduating with same knowledge it took us years to acquire. This is the power of rapid cognition. The current tool that could make such a phenomenon possible: The search engine, Wolfram Alpha. On October 21st 12PM-2AM Central Standard Time, it will make its grand debut. This 12-minute screen capture and voiceover link says it all.

I know that I have blogged about the creative genius, Stephen Wolfram, but his invention accesses the ability of students to use their natural skills of rapid cognition. Combine this skill with a teacher’s knowledge and you will get students leaning collective concepts in two-days time that may have taken an entire semester to absorb. Wolfram Alpha is an educational tool worth using. (Yes, I am partial to this tool because it is the closest thing out there to what I pitched for funding a few years back—there were no business models at the time to make investors understand such a concept, but now there is, so have your children take advantage of it!)

Jing: Have you ever wished that your lessons could teach themselves. Well, Jing makes that possible. Create your introductory lesson plans with active screen capture and voiceovers and sit back. Let your computer do the talking and you and your students do the watching. And, Jing is free—within the budget of our teacher salaries!

Ning: I used to use Facebook as a teaching and homework support tool, but since our school—like many schools—blocked it, I had to find another social network. This past spring I introduced Ning to my staff. Ning is a great way to create a social network for your school community. It can be monitored by the community and have the same codes of conduct of your school: No cursing or writing foul remarks on the walls! Ning will also be featured in Wolfram Alpha’s debut on the 21st of October (see link for event listings).

W3Schools: Though this has been out for some time, it is a great way to offer your students a fun avenue to certification in HTML, JavaScript, XML and more. Forget the students, but an entire IT staff could become certified by learning simple coding at their own pace.

Until we teachers become obsolete, these are just a few tools that will keep your students loving your class and maybe even homework.

Tags: GIT, HTML, JavaScript, Jing, Ning, Stephen Wolfram, students, teaching tools, W3Schools, Wolfram Alpha, XML
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