This is just a quick note to let you know that the votes are in. Our expert panel of judges (including Max, Dave, Jonathan Bailey (from Plagiarism Today), Adii (from Woothemes) and myself) has finally come to a decision!

Once again thanks to everyone for their sterling input, time and energy. And so (he says opening the blue envelope…), the $1000 cash prize for overall coolest App that best met the criteria set is (drumroll) the very useful and well executed Myows Drupal Module developed by WildPeaks.

We will be in contact with you shortly to get your prize to you. Thanks again to everyone for contributing to the Myows vision and helping us help you!

From what I can tell, Stephen is one of those guys who like to get involved, who see life as a positive challenge. He works tirelessly works to make things better, cooler and fairer. We like Stephen for exactly these reasons. His curiosity and determination to actually do relevant stuff reminds us of our own. After all, that’s why we started Myows. Stephen has helped us with technical issues in the past, participated actively in idea generation and debate and is one of those members who make this project worthwhile.

If you want to check out Stephen’s work – take a look at http://poxmedia.com/ and http://stephenlovell.me/ . Here’s what he had to say for himself during a recent Skype interview…

Chris: Thanks for taking the time out to chat today man.

Stephen: You’re welcome, my pleasure.

Chris: You’ve been a pretty active member of the Myows community which is really cool and encouraging for us, when did you first sign up?

Stephen: Oh wow, it was right there near the beginning, I believe it was the week you guys ran the free account contest. I found out about it a day or two before that and then signed up.

Chris: Brilliant, and you work for yourself?

Stephen: For the most part. I’ve had a regular day job here and there along the way but it doesn’t offer enough variety for me and, as a creative person, I thrive on some variety in my life.

Chris: Well I was going to comment on that actually – because not only do you seem to enjoy straddling the fine line between design and developing… but your graphic styles are also pretty diverse.

Stephen: Yes, it helps keep me sane, “lol” but at the same time I think it gives me a versatile edge to be able to tackle a project from different angles depending on the needs of a project.

Chris: What kind of title would you hope to have applied to you in the course of your career? As in ” there goes Stephen, he’s a friggen’ amazing ……..”

Stephen: That’s a very good question. In a perfect world I think Artist would be most appropriate. It’s fluid and it’s not so much a static label. It breathes creativity, but at the same time can be used in a professional sense. But, for sensibility’s sake Designer would probably work best. It denotes one who follows some loose set of “rules” to convey a message, at least to most people I think.

Chris: Nice definition! That distinction between artist and designer is an interesting one I think – especially in these digital days… Creatives like us seem to have a tough time defining ourselves sometimes

Stephen: Yes, and since we are also self-marketers it’s more of a matter of which title sounds more professional and attainable for the [insert type of client] I’m trying to attract to hear.

Chris: Yeah, exactly.

Stephen: In the end, I’ll work my ass off, do what I’m passionate about and let whatever label falls on me be. In this world we live in, I’m not sure I could control it anyway.

Chris: True, speaking of self-marketing and professionalism, we’ve been looking at ways that Myows can help provide more services that not only protect and manage copyrights but also help the budding creative signal his professionalism to the outside world (including clients) – that and the fact that she/he takes her/his work seriously. Deterrent measures is one example of this.

Stephen: That sounds like a very bold and extremely useful direction to move in.

Chris:  I believe you were looking at some ideas with Max (one of the Myows founders) a little while back?

Stephen: I was in fact. To a degree I think the Drupal module got some of this right, but what I had suggested earlier was that depending upon the CMS the plugin/module is created for OR even the the service Myows is integrated with (Tumblr, Vimeo, Flickr, etc.), the person could have the ability to upload an image onto the site to put in a post, they are presented with a two way choice. 1.) Create a new OW, 2.) Attach to an existing ow (yes the second option could be abused, but the fact that the original image is on Myows the case would fall apart if the images didn’t match up in the end anyway)

Stephen: which ever route they went the image would then be wrapped in a (abstractly thinking) “box” denoting it is an OW within the site, blog, etc. and upon hover you’d get a little Myows graphic with the ow#. (The Drupal plugin has a similar functionality here), BUT moreover upon clicking the little graphic on hover a drawer, or whatever seemed UI appropriate at the time would appear and show more detailed information about the ow including a link to see the copyright, OR even the ability to click a link and request a license with the owner of the OW so that they could legally use the image.

Stephen: If this was handled generally through WYSIWYG editors within services and cms’s you could wrap text, video, images, etc. and have the Myows plugin/module/etc. detect the content type and give appropriate interfaces tailored to them if need be. So you could copyright a poem & the picture in the poem separately

Stephen: Furthermore, the ability to use a jQuery color picker to change the color of the Myows hover graphic would be a very nice touch to that module/plugin/etc.’s settings so you could match it to your site’s theme/design/and so on.

Stephen: I think that is pretty much the gist of it.

Chris: That would provide really nice seamless integration with the ‘outside world’ … makes good sense. This kind of functionality fits within a broader matrix taking Myows out there and at the same time provides Myows with a great opportunity to gain presence! We’re going to have to come back and pick your mind on this in due course as we begin developing on the platform we’ve built so far.

Stephen: Oh by all means feel free to ;D

Chris: Out of interest, seeing as you seem to be quite an adventurous guy in terms of trying new things out… have you ever tried any of the other copyright-related sites or non-repudiation services out there before we came along?

Stephen: nope, Max showed me two of them and to be honest I don’t think I would try them. One of them seems heavily involved into the education market I believe. They don’t have an inviting atmosphere, if you will. If you’ll pardon the unprofessional approach, Myows just feels inviting and cool, bottom-line. (And not the jock that beats you up cool, but the big brother everyone wants to be friends with)

Chris: Nice, that’s a great description of the brand and very much who we are / what we were going for

Chris: Glad we succeeded on the branding front

Chris: I really like your new site BTW.

Stephen: Oh, thank you. It took longer than it should have and there’s still work that hasn’t been put in there yet. Busy, busy ;)

Chris: Yeah – the cobbler’s kids have no shoes, my little design company also needs to revamp and clean up our site… (and it’s still Flash… very 2007)

Stephen: Oh well, you do what you can with the time that you have.

Chris: Yeah and it’s usually for clients…

Chris: Well, before we call time, is there anything else you want to put out on Myows – any other ideas, likes or dislikes?

Stephen: I mentioned it to Max, but I still think a badge system at some point would be fun and helpful in building a community in Myows.

Chris: Yes Max mentioned that – great idea, we’re putting it on the golden list!

Chris: One more quick question before I sign out and go hunt some dinner: Where does the name “Pox media” come from?

Stephen: Branding specialists would probably kill me. There is a Dr. Stephen Lovell of Russian History I believe, for as long as time has existed he has killed my search results, so I knew I needed a pseudonym. I wanted a word/title that wasn’t currently being used so I could have originality and I liked the letter “X” (lol), the way it sounded. So I wanted to also be fluid in title so I added media and eventually after Google search after Google search, etc. I decided on POX media. Not a grand adventure, but it worked. I’ve been using it ever since.

Chris: Cool, well it stuck in mind!

Chris: Awesome Stephen, well thanks again for your time man. I’m sure that we’ll be drawing on your enthusiasm and creativity again soon…

Stephen: Later!

Chris: Cheers!



I recently stumbled upon a Myows member with some very cool feedback and I wanted to pick his brain a little and share some of his ideas and insights with the rest of you . I love how regular guys and girls like us are getting together and essentially using the web as a platform to counter the kind of copyright theft and fraud that that same web interconnectedness has allowed for in the first place. Fighting fire with fire!

Antoine Guedès is a gifted illustrator and general web creative. This is the edited version of our conversation (with Antoine’s permission)

Chris: I like your work. Cool stuff!
Antoine: Hey! Thanks, I’m glad you like. I’m working on my new personal site actually… my first Tumblr theme.

Chris: Nice! How’s Belgium? You guys got summer yet?
Antoine: It’s just crazy in Belgium. Last week we had summer time with 24 C° like and this week… It falls to 12 C°, anyway it stays sunny so it’s enough

Chris: Climate change… riding that bike to work. Only problem is it’s raining down here! So Max tells me you do some cool illustration work?
Antoine: Yes, I do. I love doing illustrations.

Antoine: The two alien illustrations are protected with Myows. They’re part of my WordPress theme for alienatwork.be

Chris: Brilliant.
Antoine: And this one too, illustrations I made for Rubbik’s newsletter (a Belgian web agency):

Chris: So would you describe yourself first and foremost as a graphic artist? Web creator?
Antoine: Well, both graphic artist and web creator, so general digital creative would be better. I do design, xhtml/css and illustrations
Antoine: in fact, I’m a student. I’m studying for a bachelor in communication, but I work as freelancer at the same time – it’s my passion, a hobby.

Chris: Ambitious! Well your work is awesome!
Antoine: Thank you :-)

Chris: So how long have you been using Myows for?
Antoine: Mmmmh, well I think since January or February. I subscribed to Myows not long after it was launched. I first read an article about Myows on a blog and I found it interesting because as a graphic artist I really care about my copyrights… and about my customer’s copyrights too. I remember I talked a bit with Max. And he was really cool.

Chris: Yeah – We’ve realised since we started just how little the average creative knows about their rights – there’s a lot of knowledge sharing that needs to happen…
Antoine: Oh! And I uploaded my first work on Myows the 4th of March

Chris: How many OWs have you got saved so far?
Antoine: Seven so far. I’m waiting to finish my new personal website to upload some more. I have a lot of projects to show on my portfolio… and to protect too.

Chris: Well you should be able to upload those in bulk which will help when you start placing loads of material on your site. Also, with the API ready to roll, we’re hoping to get a few useful add-ons to make it even easier to protect files
Antoine: Yes, I think Myows is an awesome idea and I’m sure it’s got a crazy future!

Chris: I hope so. Do you find the process easy / user-friendly on the whole?
Antoine: Yes really! The concept is brilliant and that’s what I love about Myows. I’m sure even those who haven’t heard about their copyrights before will realize it’s importance. Myows really helped me for my personal use and also for a college project about copyright.

Chris: Well that’s what we’re aiming for so I’m glad it’s coming across that way.
Antoine: I saw about the API. I’m hoping to see some awesome stuff in the future. The dropbox things would be really great! Dropbox and Myows have both changed my life, so if the ideas could be merged it would be crazily better. I already spoke about that to a good developer friend

Chris: We’re looking into all sorts of interesting combinations at the moment so we’ll keep you posted!
Antoine: I think Myows could become really important… in Belgium we have a company that takes care of copyright issues in multimedia but it’s not free…

Chris: Well we hope we can provide you guys with the help you need. It’s why we started Myows in the first place – because there was no service to help us protect our own work! So tell me, if there was anything for us to add to Myows to make it even better for you, what would it be?
Antoine: I thought a lot about a payment service if we go over the free available space. I think for cheap cost it could be even interesting, especially for designers or other creatives who have a lot of work to protect or want to host/protect their customer’s work. I also thought about another thing… it would be great if we could creat fields. It’s hard to explain, so let me take an example: I finished a big project for a client, Rubbik for example… I have to protect the mockup, some illustrations, the wordpress theme zip file, and some others stuff. It could be great if I could post all of this in one field

Chris: So almost like creating an extra field for the job title so you could upload a bunch of files all as part of one job?
Antoine: yes, that’s it

Chris: That’s a great recommendation Antoine! We will definitely discuss this at our next Skype meeting on Friday (my meeting with Max and the Dave)
Antoine: I’m glad I could help out

Chris: I also love your idea about hosting customers’ work under your profile… We’ll look into that too!
Tell me about paying accounts, what do you think would be a fair price per extra gig of space? And what additional features would you like to see on a paying account (if any)?
Antoine: nice, happy you like the idea too. Well, I think personally that if a premium account doesn’t exceed 8 Euros per month it would be really cheap… it would suit me. About space, I don’t really know. In Belgium we often pay about 5euros for extra gigs. It’s quite expensive here though. As for additional features, why not suggest the possibility of multiple accounts to manage customers account for example?

Chris: Or perhaps for a company to have multiple users (staff) accessing one account at different levels of access? That all makes sense!
Antoine: oh yes… for a company to manage =)

Chris: Exactly! Well that’s all really helpful, thanks so much for your ideas and your support man! I will definitely bring all of these up for discussion with the rest of our little team. Whatever lands up being in paid accounts, if we launch these one day, you’ll have one for free! We’ll keep you posted!
Antoine: You’re welcome! Thanks for the interview. It’s a great chance to explain myself.

Chris: For sure, thanks for your time and good luck with your future studies and work…
Antoine: Nice, I look forward to see what’s next!

The web is currently buzzing about Twitter’s acquisition of Tweetie and this move is having unexpected consequences for the Twitterverse: dozens of businesses who were built on top of the Twitter API will now have to live in Tweetie’s shadow (renamed Twitter for iPhone) and choose between closing down or finding new avenues to explore.

So what does this have to do with Myows?

By everybody’s opinion, there are too many Twitter apps. But we have a solution for the global programmers’ community: Follow Myows

I’m not talking about following us on Twitter ( @Myows ). No. I’m talking about following us in our fight to curb down copyright infringement and help creatives worldwide help themselves.

The revolution is in it’s infancy but gaining fast momentum; so now is a great time to jump on board and make a name for yourself by creating some new, awesome, gob-smacking ways to interact with our platform.

And how are we supposed to do that?

The answer holds in 3 letters: API. Our development team has spent a great deal of time getting the API ready for release and last week we published both an API challenge in which everybody is a winner, and also a neat video tutorial showcasing how to create an app by using the Myows API.

We’re here to help with any question you may have. We’re doing our best to grow Myows’ reach and community, and to get to where we want to be, let’s be honest, we need you.

So before you start mapping your next Twitter app, I’d like you to ask yourself: “Does Twitter need me, my skills and a new app? Will i make a difference in the Twitterverse?”

…

I didn’t think so.

Then go back to the above question and replace the word “Twitter” with “Myows”.

There we go!

Follow us now, our API is calling for you and together we can make a big difference.

Amber Leigh Turner is a freelance web designer who recently launched a community website aptly called Students That Freelance.

In yesterday’s article, Amber relates how she discovered through Statcounter that someone was using her work without her permission. She subsequently used Myows to have the copy removed and even received a letter of apology.

Are you wondering how that is possible? Then read her very well written article Why No One is Invincible from Copyright Infringement on StudentsthatFreelance.com

DISCLAIMER: I’m the one who recommended Statcounter to Amber. If you decide to give it a try, I need to warn you: Statcounter will bring out the voyeur in you and can become very addictive. For small to medium websites I personally much prefer it to Google Analytics, and I’m slowly recovering from my stataholic addiction.

The early reviews we received from Web Appstorm, Freelanceswitch and others were hugely insightful and encouraging, but we also want to know and share how independent creatives interact with our interface.

If you are still unsure if Myows is for you or how to use the app, I invite you to read these 2 recent reviews.

From Ben Ellis – Myows Free Online Copyright Protection:

My favorite quote from this article would probably be:
“I uploaded all my stuff yesterday and it was a total cinch.”
Read the full Review

From Signorina Navarra – Myows.com has got your back:

I’m unable to single out a favorite quote from this brilliantly concise and engaging review, so read it for yourself if you are not yet convinced about joining Myows.

If you run a blog and publish a post detailing how you like to use Myows, please let us know. We love hearing your opinion.

Here’s something to help you get started with the 4 STEP API CHALLENGE and bring you closer to tapping on your own iPad or spending 1000$ on whatever you desire.

Nettuts*, the most awesome online programming resource, published an extensive tutorial on how to create a Myows App.

If you’re the kind to dream in code, be sure not to miss it.

*For those of you web developers and designers who haven’t spent a little time on nettuts, you’ll want to check out their great tutorials and articles covering everything from age old tricks-of-the-trade to brand spanking new technologies (and no, they aren’t paying us to say this). If you’re looking to improve or augment your skills in HTML, CSS, Javascript, CMS’s, PHP or Ruby on Rails, this is the right place to start!

Take fuss-free copyright management to the next level.

Get your hands dirty with Myows’ publicly available API, fresh from the desks of our globally-scattered development team. This brings us one step closer to our platform-vision: helping the planet’s switched-on creative community help themselves. We’re looking for Myows members to help us add further functionality to the existing app at Myows.com. The brief is straightforward:

1- Use the new Myows API to develop a plug-in, add-on or stand alone application that assists other Myows members in registering, protecting and/or managing their rights

2- Develop this solution in a way that allow users to access key functionality in 4 steps or less

3- Implement your code and design with integrity, simplicity and elegance

We’re looking for plug-ins, add-ons and stand alone applications that improve the user experience and add useful functionality. To participate, you’ll need to create a thread before 15th May in our API forum category and provide a link to a demo of your app.

Fellow Myows users will have the opportunity to vote for their favorites from 15th till 31st May 2010. The winner takes home an Apple iPad (yeah, we’re self-funded!) and so does the runner-up (…yet generous!). We are also busy putting together a panel of industry heavyweights to award a jury’s grand prize of 1000$ to the app that best fulfills conditions 1,2 & 3 above.

Finally, any developer who creates an app we deem to be even vaguely useful and presentable will receive a lifetime Myows pro account (valued at over 1000$). Again – that’s just the kind of guys we are.

Feel free to create apps for resale (on Themeforest or CodeCanyon for instance) or build your own business on top of the Myows API. Obviously, we’d like you much more if you made your work available to the world for free, but we’ll get over it.

Feel free to run ideas and questions by the Myows team and other members by posting them up on the Forum. We are all here to help. Good luck. Be creative.

EDIT: Nettuts has published a video tutorial prepared by Dave:
How to Create an App with the Myows API (15 minutes).