I have read many articles lately about the impending digital takeover. Amber Case, founder of Geoloqui.com and a keynote speaker at the South by Southwest Convention, recently compared people who use up-to-date technology, as cyborgs. Neither I nor she believes an IRobot-type doom is impending, however, reading “The Next Generation of Student Support Systems” article on Higher Ed Live led me to question just how fast are students becoming technology dependent?

Last week I chatted with a man who grew up around the time of the first electronic digital computer. I was in my elementary school computer class when I first used a computer. My point is that everyone can say some form of the phrase “I was born before the (insert technological device here) was invented,” but is there a point where we won’t be able to reverse our dependence on the technology we've grown up using? Has this point in time already passed?

In my freshmen year of high school my English teacher assigned us a project while reading 1984. We were to stop using technology for a week. Yes, an entire week. No phones. No television. No computer. For the first couple of days I did very well…then I gave up. I tried this again over this past week as it was Spring Break and did surprisingly well. Being aboard a cruise ship without service definitely helped, but I did realize what Amber Case pointed out in her speech: “the best technology is invisible and just gets out of your way to let you live your life.”

So my questions for you are: Are you busy fiddling around with your apps and social media websites while life is happening around you? Or can you put the smartphone down for an hour or two each week, go out with friends and enjoy it before the cyborgs takeover?

Hello!

Kevin Wu here, with RoomSync! I am a student at the University of Florida, studying information systems and operations management. My projects here at RoomSync has ranged everywhere from making icons, business cards, and the like, to creating a new landing page for a client. I don’t really fancy having a concrete title, but a common theme for my working title is: "The person who makes everything look good."

My deep passion for design and aesthetics has been within me for quite some time; as a little kid, I used to draw Dragon Ball Z characters from video stills on my TV. After all, where is the value in something if it isn't functional and also aesthetically pleasing? I'm hoping here at RoomSync, I can add value through my design skills, whether it's decorating the office, creating business cards, or improving the RoomSync app user experience (commonly referred to UX in the tech world). I love the idea of diving into office design and functionality, even though I'm traditionally a Graphic Desginer.

Besides my fondness for design, I enjoy playing piano, guitar, sports, performing magic, and doing other fun things. I consider myself a lifelong learner who, from both professional and personal life expereinces, continues to enhance his skills and knowledge. We get true value from our experiences when we elegantly take the thought processes from one subject and apply it to a completely different area.  

They say, "You can’t teach an old dog new tricks." I urge you to prove this statement wrong by learning something new each day and taking on a challenge into your lifetime and building continuously on each of your experiences.

Yesterday was a very interesting day for the Internet.

The Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) is a U.S. House bill to fight online trafficking in copyrighted intellectual property and counterfeit goods. While the bill has good intentions, it poses a serious threat to emerging startups as well as established websites such as YouTube, Wikipedia and countless others.

To this end, a coordinated day of protest among websites occurred on January 18th, where each company took their own spin on how to let visitors know of the threats that SOPA presents. TechCrunch compiled a list of top onilne SOPA protests, which were particularly extensive and interesting.

While there were some memorable ones and also a few that were very effective in getting the point across, my favorite was done by The Oatmeal. Granted that the comic is a bit immature, you have to admit that it explains the risks that SOPA represents beautifully.

I believe that the best way to get through to most people about important issues is with humor. That is why I watch The Daily Show every day, because they deliver important news through the lens of comedy. It makes me more receptive and wanting to know what is going on in Iraq or what stance Ron Paul is taking on foreign policy.

What is the best SOPA protest website that you saw? Leave a comment below and let me know! 

Our RoomSync development team has been hard at work developing new features. We've just rolled out 'auto-reminder emails' so that automatic reminders are sent out to users on selected days counting down to the close of your matching network. This is a great way to gently remind users to make their final roommate requests before their network closes.

The feature will allow you to select a maximum of 4 times at which these e-mails are sent out from RoomSync, including 10, 5, 3 and 1 day prior to the close of the matching network.

To modify your e-mail settings, simply login into the RoomSync administration website and click 'View/Modify Network Closing Reminder E-mails' under the Network Administration section.



What do you think of this feature? How can we improve this in the future? Leave a comment!

The RoomSync team is traveling to the EDUCAUSE annual conference in Philadelphia this week to participate in Startup Alley. The spirit of Startup Alley will be this: Shape the Future.  Startups are asked to sit at coffee tables and have conversations where their goal is to learn from potential customers – what their problems are, what the challenges are, and whether the new product and services offering are headed in the right direction, meeting a real need, or even outright desirable. We'll even have an opportunity to meet and discuss higher education with the CTO of the United States, Aneesh Chopra.

We whipped up a little video for the event where I discuss what our goals are for the conference and our key learning objectives.

Startup Alley is being organized by Michael Staton, CEO of Inigral, the makers of the Schools app on Facebook. You can read more about Startup Alley in Michael's blog post here.

If you'll be attending EDUCAUSE this week, be sure and stop by our booth to say hello! 

The web is brimming with all types of content, some good and some bad. In the RoomSync application, there is also a lot of content that users can access while searching for the perfect roommate at their university or off-campus apartment. We give users access to Facebook profiles and lifestyle preferences to help them make the roommate decision. As we were building the application, we received a lot of great feedback from our clients. What we heard is that they wanted to see an editable text area where users can write down what they are looking for in a roommate. This was a great idea and we decided to implement the “About Me” and “About My Roommate” tabs for this purpose.

With great power comes great responsibility. Now that we have given users the ability to enter whatever descriptive text they would like to, how do we make sure that they enter appropriate content? With thousands of users, it becomes difficult to monitor language through manually searching each RoomSync network. Enter Defensio!

Defensio is a new security suite for the Web, and it has the ability to integrate directly into Facebook applications like RoomSync. What Defensio does is allow the RoomSync application to block users from entering inappropriate and malicious content within these two sections, helping to keep the site clean of offensive language.

If a user is attempting to post content with a word that Defensio deems offensive, the user will be directed go back and edit their content because of the profanity. In a case where the content passes through, the user will be prompted with a message that their About Me section was updated successfully.

Let us know what you think about our integration with Defensio, comments are always welcome!

Over the past several months, we have received excellent feedback from our clients and from our college-aged user base. The team is working diligently on upgrading the RoomSync application to make for an easier experience during roommate-selection. Below are the features that we plan to roll out in the latest version of the RoomSync application this fall.

Recommendations List
The top feature requested by our users was an easier way to find a short list of ideal roommates. Currently, users can filter all users by a set of lifestyle preferences like preferred bedtime. To expand upon this lifestyle preference filter, the ‘Suggested Roommates’ feature will present each user with a list of their top 20 recommended matches. These top matches are based upon the lifestyle preferences set by each user and will make it easier for users to find a small group of highly compatible potential roommates.

Academic Major and Hall Preference
Academics are a very important college roommate characteristic and was something that up until now, we were not asking users to enter. No more! Users will be able to select one or more majors and then search roommates based upon their majors. In addition, users will be able to enter their desired hall preference and then search other users with the same hall preference. This is important for on-campus users who desire to reside in a certain area of campus or be involved with a specific living/learning community. All of this information is customized based upon the institution’s available academic majors and residence halls.

Tag Favorites
Another feature we received lots of requests for was the ability to tag potential roommates as favorites that could later be officially requested as roommates. This useful tool lets our users self-organize a short list of potential roommates and easily keep track of their matching process. All tagged users will be placed in a ‘Favorite Roommates’ section on the RoomSync app home page, from which they can easily request them as a roommate.

Automatic Reminder E-mails
As exciting as choosing your own roommate on Facebook is, life can be hectic. We all have lots of stuff going on and we can all use reminders from time to time. As residents approach the end of the network’s closing date for matching, reminder e-mails will automatically be sent out encouraging them to find the roommate(s) of their dreams if they have not done so already. Administrators will be able to send up to three reminder e-mails to residents and will also receive their own reminder email about the network close date approaching. All of this means higher usage and more roommate matches.

E-mail Access
As an administrator, you may need to communicate with everyone inside of the matching network beyond simply reminding about network access close dates. Administrators will be given access to the e-mail addresses for users, which can be used to communicate additional information about roommate matching and/or other important housing information.

The Writing on the Wall
The Facebook wall is a great communication method on Facebook, whether its on a fan page, a personal profile, a group or a Facebook app like RoomSync. Moving forward, we will be replacing our community discussion board with an interactive wall on each community matching network for residents to easily interact and connect.

Increased Speed & Flexibility with iFrame
All of these new features will be introduced in a new iFrame version of the RoomSync app. The app previously functioned as an FBML (Facebook Markup Language) app, however the new iFrame version app allows for increased web surfing speed within RoomSync, greater flexibility for increased features and increased application analytics.

Have ideas for additional app features? Post your comments here, we’d love to hear them!

Although RoomSync users have generally been satisfied with our process of making life easier to find the perfect roommate(s), it is not all sunshine and lollipops.

In recent weeks, some RoomSync users have expressed dissatisfaction with our “About Me” and “About My Roommate” sections. These sections allow users to input any information they would like about themselves and their ideal roommate(s). Complaints involved the application’s prevention of certain words some of our users wanted to use. Such terms, when used in a negative and derogatory context, could be considered offensive to other users. The same terms on the other hand may be used positively and casually within certain communities.

Our Defensio filter ensures that possibly offensive terms may not be used when filling out profiles. This precaution facilitates a better experience for all our users in a respectable environment.  You can learn more about Defensio on their website. 

In today’s society, discrimination against people of different races, religions, sexualities and genders still exists. Though our users may have good intentions when using certain words for filling out their profile, allowing such words would open up the possibility of others to use these words for inappropriate reasons. RoomSync would like to eliminate any possible messages of hate or discrimination.

We apologize for any inconvenience this may have caused for our users. If you have any questions about or comments on improving our filtering processes, we would love to hear your comments below.