New York Tech Meetup June Wrap-Up

I dragged my new partner, @bethanydiggins to the New York Tech Meetup last night. It was her second day on the job, but she come along and loved it! (Good news, Bethany, this is going to work.) There were some great demos. Here are some highlights.

Sleep with the Fishes

This was the second month in a row where a student's weekend project killed it. This time it was a guy who's still in high school's first Rails project, sleepwiththefish.es. (Get the name right. It's sleep, not sleeps.) The game is all about rickrolling people on Twitter. You sign up, get a mark, and take them down. Get them to click through to the rickroll and they're dead.

Yackit

Yackit gives you 11.5 seconds to respond via video to any content on the web (especially Facebook). You can start a quick debate and your friends can respond. They also support live debating of topics with up to 4 people (it's turn based). It'll be really interesting to see where these guys end up.

Sparkrelief

When there's a natural disaster, we all want to help out. Sparkrelief is here to make it easy to do just that. They get beyond just cash donations (though they'll facilitate those too). Right now they're focused on offering up housing to displaced people, but it seems like this one's got a whole lot of legs.

Skillshare

Skillshare connects teachers (sometimes just knowledgeable amateurs) with students interested in what they have to share. They can be on just about any topic. Teachers can actually make some pretty decent money teaching the classes. Pretty amazing idea all around. I'm trying to get my fiancée to teach a class on tinctures and extractions (she makes some mean vanilla extract and homemade ginger ale).

VHX

I signed up for VHX a few months ago. I really love the site. It pulls video from your various social graphs and lets you share your favorites. Love the idea, love the execution, they've added some great new features. The only question I have is "Why don't I watch more?"