NASA Will Stand Before Colbert Nation on April 14

I'm feeling like a little follow-up is necessary tonight, as I want to draw whatever viewers I can to the naming announcement of the International Space Station's Node 3.

News of the naming contest has been bouncing around pretty regularly since it was announced that "Colbert" received the most votes at the conclusion of voting on March 20.

NASA has been rather closed lipped about this result since it happened--vowing to pick an appropriate name out of all the suggestions. 

Colbert offered up his show as a platform for whatever announcement was made, and this past Friday NASA issued a press release stating that astronaut Sunita "Suni" Williams will do just that at 11:30pm EST during tomorrow's Colbert Report.

Good for NASA for deciding to engage in this conversation with Colbert, who is already quoted in the release:

"I certainly hope NASA does the right thing," said Colbert. "Just kidding, I hope they name it after me."

There was some talk that the "branding" aspects of picking the name Colbert would be inappropriate for a piece of equipment paid for by US tax payers.  In fact, Stephen Colbert wasn't the only brand out there egging on its fans to go vote. Other top write-ins included the social networking sites myYearbook and SocialVibe as well as the Linux platform Ubuntu.  (Behold the mighty power of online communities!)

As an alternative, some NASA insiders reported to Space.com that they might suggest a compromise by naming the toilet within the node after Colbert. In a lighthearted response, NASA spokesman John Yembrick replied:

"As for the toilet rumor, we don't want to flush away any goodwill by announcing something before we are ready."

Personally, I think the branding worries were quite overblown. After all, if the node was named after the runner-up, Serenity, think of all the opportunities for...

Battle of the Entrepreneurs: My First NY Tech Meet Up

I have fond memories from the early '90s of visiting NYC to see my buddies' band (Before She Kills) in little clubs around the East Village and Lower East Side.  Then, as now, 5-6 random bands might play during a night. There was sometimes sincere respect shown among them, and the veneer of it in most other cases, but the air felt sticky with hidden criticism.

This is the atmosphere I felt on Tuesday night while attending my first NY Tech Meet Up at the FIT Haft Auditorium with my buddies at (DIS)Engaged and Indienomics.

It was a room full of hundreds of skilled minds, all with passions, all wondering what everyone else in the room was working on--and whether they had the chops to do it well.

Six brave groups took the stage to demo their products, and by and large they received a lively and positive reception from the crowd.

But, befitting the vibe of the room, there was one exception; the demo presented by Real Time Content, an online video advertising platform with some personalization elements, all delivered through pre-stored clips. Scott Heiferman, Co-Founder and CEO of Meet Up, was guest MC for the evening and he, as well as some in the crowd, basically called out the product for not being interesting. I see the service as a small step towards more targeted online marketing, but I'd agree that it's not all that innovative.  Despite the poor reception, the company is probably laughing all the way to the bank as they already have relationships with Nationwide Building Society (UK) and Manchester United.

While it's not sexy, I was most impressed by Alitora Systems, an information and networking service using semantic data analysis to develop links between highly complex pieces of information (e.g. pharmaceutical research). The companies' founder and CTO, Marc Hadfield, did the best he could to show off the technology in a mere five minutes. I couldn't do it justice here without an extended post.  Sometimes, though, its best to leave 'em wanting more so check out the site and the 8 minute video demo--and hopefully you'll begin to get a picture of the system.

There were also two useful widget creation tools for non-developers:

• Place Local (still in stealth mode) will allow users to generate pre-templated dynamic advertising widgets from existing online data (photos, text, reviews, etc.) that the service is able to pull from the public domain or partners. The founders think that local Web sites could use the site to create an ad for a local business on spec and then pitch the idea of running the ad to that business.
• Sprout has broader user possibilities as a WYSIWYG widget design tool that allows users many functionality options for any widget they want to develop.

We also got a taste of PR innovation with MatchPoint, a search platform to help users quickly uncover the specific topics that reporters and bloggers work on, along with their contact information. How nice, for just $65/month, a chance to pitch story ideas only to targets that you know have a real interest in your topic. (Plus, that blogging category may be more and more useful if newspapers really do die ;-)

Ok, you must be ready for a drink by now, yes?  The remaining presenter, Snooth, a social networking site for wine lovers, can help there. It is a nicely designed platform, but I noted one drawback in using the site that was explained at the event--the platform can only provide data on brick & mortar locations and their inventories from stores that have active and detailed Web sites. So there must be some big gaps around the country, as I already know my own Astoria zip code is not represented. I'm sure the community will continue to grow, though, and more stores will add themselves.

Due to other commitments I didn't get to mingle very long after the event, but I'm looking forward to that aspect of things at the next Meet Up.