Look for some new things coming your way from the Ants crew. Plan on seeing a little more than the typical weekly blog post. Expect to see more pictures, postings, and even video as we continue in our journey. We fully intend on bringing you into our world with this blog, so check back often!

I hope you enjoy your stay.

Other than heading up to Ruth's Diner for breakfast this morning with the RoyalAnts crew I have spent the entire day doing more research and more planning and this is both frustrating and amazing. Frustrating because there is so much info out there and I'm finding new stuff hourly and there is no way to know it all and all you can do is try to keep up. That is also what is so amazing about it. Social Media is so broad and so diverse that you can use these tools to do anything you want. It's so amazing and so fascinating that I see why I am so drawn to it. It's like the never ending erector set of online pieces that all fit together in any way you can imagine. The way you use a product won't be the way that everyone else does. The endless and always growing combinations are so much fun to learn about and explore that it's easy to have a whole Saturday just kind of... slip away.

Right now I'm sitting at my computer working on stuff for RoyalAnts. My laptop is in my living room facing towards the TV which is playing KungFu Hustle (which is on Spike at the moment) and I have my receiver switched to AUX where I have my media server (which is hooked up to my TV and surround sound) playing my mp3's on random. I'm sitting here and I can't help but be amazed at the technology that surrounds us on a daily basis that we just completely take for granted because we are just used to it. When I was a kid I couldn't fathom a computer as small as my laptop, I would never have thought of using my computer on my TV and watching movies by playing a file instead of using some physical media was just plain preposterous. That's not to say that I didn't do this type of thing when I was a kid, I just went about it differently. I used to turn on my parents record player (then later the cassette and after that the cd player) then turn off the sound to the TV and watch tv shows, commercials, infomercials, movies and anything else with my very own soundtrack. That's how I used to play my Atari, original NES, and later computer games as well. I have long used this means of visual audio combination as a tool to help me create. It gives me something to look at that isn't what ever I've been obsessing over for the last several hours yet doesn't completely distract me, and I always look forward to those neat little moments where what's on TV matched up so well with the song I was listening to at the time.

But what does this have to do with RoyalAnts? What does this have to do with you and me and the rest of the world? What does this have to do with Social Media? Well it's the same age old answer that grandparents and philosophers alike love to throw about, and that answer is everything and nothing. On the superficial level it means nothing. It's just me talking about under what conditions I like to create. There's nothing wrong with that, other bloggers do it all the time. But lets look at the first part of that answer, the everything part.

I shared a story about how I have been doing the exact same thing that I have done since i was a kid and as new technology came about I just adapted and found newer, easier, and more interactive ways of doing it. This to me is a metaphor for social networking. When we were kids and all the way on up through young adults we had a mandatory way of networking in the form of schools. Meeting people with similar interests, learning from them, exchanging ideas, stories, and media (through cassettes, dvds, books, etc). College was a bit less in the area of entertainment and a bit more in the area of professional interests but we still did the same thing. We sought out people of like interests and shared media (content) with them (who then became our friends) and they exposed us to new stuff and new people and on and on the cycle went.

I guess when you boil it all down what I'm trying to say is that social networking (even social media) isn't anything new at all, it's just the next step in how humans connect. For the skeptics out there who say it's a fad, for the businesses who don't want to see the value in it, and for those who are stubbornly refusing to "jump on the band wagon" I say quit dragging your heels. This isn't something new, it's just a new way of doing the same thing we've been doing since we climbed out of the primordial ooze and started making guttural noises at each other. We're finding new ways of connecting.

T-Mobile is going to try and open their own app store later this fall. They will be opening up the developers platform for all of their handsets from sidekicks to their new Andriod based handset which will be also be coming out this fall. I can understand why they would be doing this, with the Apple store bringing in over $30 million in their first month who wouldn't want in on this emerging market? I can see the inherent problems with trying to get so many platforms supported under one roof, like massive amounts of apps for one phone but a scant few for others, but maybe that's what they're hoping for. For instance lets say that Johhny has something like a Samsung rocker and his friend Jimmy has a sidekick. If there are more apps for higher end devices like Sidekicks Johnny is going to get jealous and want to upgrade to a higher end device which will bring in more money on devices and data plans for T-Mobile (not to mention their cut of the application sell price).

Personally, I'm looking forward to this app store. I'm a die-hard T-Mobile fan. Their customer service is amazing and I have my 2 year contract renewal coming up this winter. I won't deny that I want an iPhone, in fact the only reason I haven't gotten one is because I would have to use AT&T, Cingular, or what ever they are calling themselves this week, and in my own horrific experience their customer service is abysmal at best. I'm looking forward to my experience this winter when I renew my T-Mobil contract and pick up some form of smart phone so I can start Downloading apps until my bank account runs dry. As for RoyalAnts, we will be looking into the various platforms and deciding which ones we want to develop apps for (of course the iPhone is top priority because it makes the most business sense). Mobile is the way the world is going and we plan on being there.

I have written three different posts about this article and they all come out sounding like crap compared to the article itself. This post from Mashable talks about how affordable broadband effects our economy and the way we do business. It's just a fantastic article and I learned a ton from it and now view my internet usage a bit differently. I'm done talking, now go read the article.
http://mashable.com/2008/08/05/cheap-broadband/

Hola From the ROLA!

One of the Ants (Me!) marched south to Sin City this weekend and I wanted to make sure to report that although it was sketchy for a while, I survived! Also, if you have a chance, check out Robot Report. It is a group of photogs that travel Vegas/L.A. taking party pictures. They were at the Beauty Bar on Freemont Street Saturday night snappin shots and they are a rad bunch of guys/gals. Go show them some love!

The post below was created using an awesome new web app called SocialNotes. Technology like this is exactly what we at RA are always looking for to help our site become more usable and accessible to everyone. It's a great way to share content and is definitely something we are looking into. Try it out, enjoy it, and tell other people all about it.

At RoyalAnts we hope to help drive customers to local businesses. I wonder which of those businesses will turn out to be the next big thing and transform their owner from a man/woman with an idea into a very rich person. This is a great article with links to stories of rags to riches in all different fields.

http://finance.yahoo.com/career-work/article/105067/unlikely-millionaires

I came across an interesting article I thought I would share. If you ask someone why they use Facebook, or Myspace the answers will range, but I would guess the most common answer would be something like "To keep in touch with people I don't get to see often."

This article makes me wonder if the highschool gossip side of our brains isn't what motivates us to get on and search for old classmates we never had any intentions of seeing again. I think all of us have had that moment where you saw a profile of someone you knew in highschool and you said "Damn! Little Liz put on a few pounds!"

http://www.dailynews.com/news/ci_9188419

Let me know what you think!

46... forty... six... I have reviewed, cataloged, came up with strategies for, listed pros and cos, subscribed to and used 46 social networking sites. We have created some solid strategies, and found some great ways to integrate our own site into these other sites. After all this work, after researching and viewing and spending days of my life working on this info (seriously I took a week and a half off of my day job and did this from 12pm-4am every single day) I have come to one very real and very important conclusion. There is NO ONE out there like us. NO ONE has taken a social events calendar and ran with it like we have. NO ONE has considered the need for flexibility, platform compatibility, dynamic usability, or even the social aspect of it like we have. Stay posted and make sure to sign up on the left for notification of our launch.

Here it is 2:21 AM, and I am once again watching movies on demand while doing even more research for this venture of ours. I am finding more and more that social networking isn't a fad, that it isn't a dirty phrase, and that it's just flat out the way things are going and I think this is both a good thing and a bad thing. The good part of this wacky "new" use for the web is that we are getting connected with people more and more. We are making friends in parts of the world we may never see, we get to interact with a greater variety of people and we get to experience just a little bit more of that human interaction thing that we as a world culture seem to lack at times. A good example of this is what I was doing today between bouts of research. I had firefox running with Facebook open and in one tab I was buying and selling my friends that are in Utah, Finland, UK, etc and on another tab I was playing Texas hold 'em with some people I "know" from Canada and on yet another I had Mob Wars running with my mob made up of people from every corner of this little blue marble. That's something that as a kid I would have never imagined was even possible, heck even a few years I wouldn't have even thought of that.


Now for the bad part. There is indeed a dark side to this fantastic new toy of ours and that is our lack of actual human contact. As we get more and more wrapped up in our online lives and people rushing home from school and work to see what new crazy app theirs friends are asking them to try and what JimBob0_O13 posted on their comments section we are slowly segregating ourselves from the outside world, the physical world, the "real" world. We are losing touch with the people around us, our friends and family and the community we live in. And that my friends is where RoyalAnts comes in. We will be using these sites and their myriad features to keep you and the people that matter most connected with your local community, friends, family, online friends that can become your real life friends, small businesses, venues, galleries, etc. It will be unlike anything else and it's why i am up this late making a blog post yet again.

It's 2 A.M. on a friday night / saturday morning and what do I find myself doing? Reading a book on Business Planning and researching social networking sites while Tommy knockers plays in the background. The guy who plays the dad in it (Robert Carradine) was Louis from Revenge of the Nerds, and also, who puts a door leading outside with no balcony attached, that just seems like a dumb thing to do. Anyways me and Rola went to the Governors Economic summit "Manging the Growth" (I know it sounds like a medical problem, but it really was about business) and we got a very good response from everyone we met. I think it's a great thing that we are doing and I definitely have a larger fire lit under me, why else would be I be doing this at 2 am?

Progress! I know it's something we all like, and believe me it's happening. Adam and Coat have been cranking out some killer stuff for our dev site and it's looking VERY good. I think you will all be pleased when it comes out. Now remember if you want to be a part of the beta or just want to know when this crazy project of ours finally hits the streets just put your info into the boxon the right and sign up today. I'm so excited i gots ants in me pants just from thinking about it.

Hola Once Again From Rola -

As we continue to search the web for sites that may be considered "competition" to find out who they are and what they are about, we here at Ant headquarters continue to gain a gleaming confidence in our product.

There look to be 26 or so "social networking" sites that have a user base of 10+ million users. A large portion of these sites are nothing more than clones of sites that are popular here in the U.S. such as Facebook and Myspace. Other sites such as Habbo add something different to attract a different user base. Then there are a few that have niche audiences such as Flixter (movies) and Classmates (finding old schoolmates). I see the appeal of a large majority of these sites, but I continue to be blown away by the raw number of people these sites attract.

Now, to our ever growing confidence. As mentioned in a previous post by Shua, this social networking frenzy is no trend. It is a product of the technology age we live in, and it is here to stay. What may go by the wayside are the dozens of sites popping up that have the same old feature set and general appearance as many of the current powerhouses. The ones already existing will probably continue to prosper as long as they continue to hold people's interest with innovative new features. RoyalAnts intends to burst onto the scene with recognizable features that people have come to enjoy and expect, but at the same time we intend on giving users an experience they have not had before. RoyalAnts will enable you to stay connected with all of your favorite people, events, and businesses in a way that will bring you closer to those people and your community. It will be simple for you to find out what is going on in your area on any given night. After you have created a profile and done a little browsing around, events will find you rather than you having to waste time searching all night. You will be able to plan your day/week/month or your entire life in you want! This is a totally different experience than what you get on all the above mentioned sites and that is one of many reasons we truly believe we will be a success when we hit the market.

I am being painfully vague on how the site will work, but I can't give away all of our secrets now! Just know we are working hard to bring you something that is not just fun, but functional.

Ryan

Is anyone else getting tired of the "marching" theme? It's all I got...

There is wonderful forward progress (we must move forward, not backward, sideways not forward, and always whirling whirling twirling towards freedom) in the world of da Ant.

Adam and the Koat have been making things happen at a pace we have not seen before and it is getting extra exciting. We have set a tentative beta launch of later this month, and it is looking possible. That's right folks, a useable (mostly), functional (sort of), pretty (well, not ugly), RoyalAnts.com beta is on its way and we couldn't be more excited. Please keep checking back here for updates, but expect us to come calling/emailing/knocking on your door to help us test the beta sooner than later...Enjoy some new pictures brought to you by the camera de coat.