Barcamp Los Angeles 3 Wrap-Up

I posted stuff we did at Barcamp Los Angeles 3 over at ibbydev.

Good times :)

Barcamp Los Angeles 3 Coming Up!

I'll be missing Saturday due to a prior engagement, but will be at Barcamp Los Angeles 3 Sunday, hoping to attend a lot of good sessions.

I had a blast at last year's Barcamp LA... That prezo tried to convey hopes we could soon stop relying on phone numbers to communicate with each-other, with all Web documents encoding SIP contact information in microformats, ready to be picked-up by smarter devices that could not only read that information, but also store it in their local address book, and enable the user to contact a person over SIP. One key reason we're still somewhat shackled to phone companies today, is that we depend on phone numbers.

Back then, I was working at EarthLink. After 8 good years there, last November, I joined Internet Brands, Inc, trading a 1+ hour commute each way for ... 15 minutes each way, and opening-up a new chapter in my career, with a brand new set of challenges and opportunities.

2007 should be a wild ride for IB. And we'll be needing more help. With this in mind, we'll be sponsoring Barcamp LA 3, hoping to connect with the L.A. geek community. We're hiring!

See also: Seeking Web User Interface Engineer.

Also hiring: Manager of Search Engine Optimization

Also hiring: Java Developer

Best Used Cars Search ... Ever Built? :)

After a few intense months, we've finally launched what could potentially be the best Used Cars Search application ... on the Internet ...

I know, those are fighting words. But when you think about it, "buying used cars on the Internet", isn't really a field that's typically catered to in any kind of glamorous fashion by the Tech Industry. So one might argue that the bar was damned low. This just makes the opportunity, and the challenges to deliver on that opportunity ... all the greater. While we've overcome some of them, many more lie ahead, but there comes a point when we have to launch. And learn from actual human beings interacting with, and breaking our application.

So tonight, we finally launched :)

Once on the used cars search results page, one thing i hope will strike you, is how obscenely fast it's possible to hone-in on a vehicle you might be interested in. You might narrow-things down by Year, Price, Mileage up-top, and by a slew of possibly available options in the left column:

• Make
• Color
• Dealer-Certified
• Private Party
• Photo Available
• City MPG
• Highway MPG
• ...

These options and/or others might show-up based on the current state of your searching activity. As you might expect, each click affects all other options.

During development, we had a "Picnic Table" choice on the left. I wonder where it went :(. Who knows, perhaps it'll resurface.

Chime-in with what you think ... *gulp*. The team's already pulled-out their notepads. We do need an official blog for this stuff though. We do now :) Here's our first post.

See Also: Seeking a Web User Interface Engineer

See also: CarsDirect on TechCrunch

See also: Loan.com on N.Y. Times