One of my favorite iPhone apps is FourSquare, which allows me to “check in” and tell my friends where I am. When you check in, you can leave a “tip” to improve others’ experience at those places. For example, I might leave a tip saying “try the West Coast Burger” when I check in at Downtown Huey’s (of which I am the mayor on Foursquare).
Well, this morning LifeHacker linked to a new web application called FourWhere, which lets you see all available tips in a given area. This seems like it would be a great “tips from the locals” idea when you travel to an unfamiliar neighborhood or city. Or a familiar one… I bet it helps me find some tips about Downtown I wasn’t aware of, and I’ve lived here 8 years.
The MPACT Memphis Soul of the City Gala is this Friday at Central Station. They’ll have the MPACT Maker Awards and the unveiling of the new Voice of MPACT Survey, but let’s talk about the things people who read this blog REALLY care about… all you can drink beer and wine, and all you can eat food. All you can eat? Wonder if the Nuh-Uh Girl will show up. Tickets are $50 and you can get them here.
The Peabody has announced its 2010 Thursday night rooftop party season. They’ve extended the time to 10:30 PM this year, and cover charge has gone up to $10 but now includes one free drink. Season runs April 15-August 5, and the April-May schedule can be viewed here.
Bad news this morning… due to an extremely unfair law passed by the Colorado legislature, Amazon has been forced to drop all its Colorado affiliates. The law states that if Amazon has any affiliate partnerships within the state of Colorado, then Amazon is presumed to have a physical location within the state, and purchases are therefore subject to Colorado sales tax.
As someone who has many websites which are Amazon affiliate stores (almost all the stores on the right sidebar are), it’s ludicrous to call those physical locations. I don’t keep any inventory. I don’t ship any items. I simply forward business to Amazon, which completes the transactions. Heck, my web server isn’t even located in the same state I am. Thankfully Tennessee hasn’t passed such a stupid law, but my sympathies go out to the thousands of mom-and-pop individual businesses in Colorado who will be hurt by this law. How much do I make from my sites? Not on the order of, say, five grand a month (if I did, it’d be time to re-evaluate this “having a day job” thingy). However, when I got laid off from VP in October 2008, affiliate income in addition to my severance pay allowed me to take a 5-month hiatus before returning to the world of work, and without drawing a cent in unemployment benefits. It’s nice to have that extra cushion to fall back on. It’s unsettling to think it could be taken away by stupid, unfair laws like the one passed in Colorado.
That’s all for now. My plans for tonight are the SMA meeting with Director Godwin at Local, then over to the Saucer for trivia. Possibly a trip to the Silly Goose to hear Stepbrothers after that.