Somewhere I heard a rumor that a Walmart might be opening up in Midtown. I did not believe it and so made no effort to check into this statement. This morning I saw it mentioned in my Twitter feed along with a petition to sign. Without hesitation I signed the petition and hope you will too.

Here are a few links you can check out in regards to the Walmart in Midtown Debate:

Grant Stern wrote an opinion piece published in Miami Herald

Follow Grant Stern on Twitter @grantstern

Follow the conversation on Twitter #nowalmartinmidtown

Click here to read and sign the online petition

“Walmart Coming to Midtown Miami” on Miami Herald “…Preliminary plans call for a 155,000-square-foot store with a full-service grocery store, which would be just slightly larger than the center’s existing Target; it would be located on undeveloped property at the south end of Midtown Miami on North Miami Avenue. The store would likely open in late 2013 or early 2014.”

“Walmart’s Midtown Miami Plan Sparks Anger, Confusion —  and Surprise Support” on Miami New Times by Tim Elfrink

“Walmart Collapses U.S. Cities and Towns”

“Walmart Collapses on Civil War Battlefield” on Huffington Post by Al Norman

Trailer for “Walmart: The High Cost of Low Price”

DATE: 02/17/2012 – 02/18/2012
TIME: 08:00 am – 06:00 pm
LOCATION: UM School of Communications Building
5100 Brunson Drive, Coral Gables
PARKING: There is ample free parking available.

Click HERE to visit event website 

CONTACT: Visit the event’s contact page of follow them on Twitter @wordcampmiami #wcmiami

WordCamp Miami is a multi-day event for passionate bloggers, designers, developers, WordPress users and anyone else who is interested in learning all about WordPress, website development, and marketing/blogging topics. Last year our event sold-out, so this year we are planning on bigger and better topics and surprises. The event will be hosting over 20 speakers from across the USA, Canada, and other countries from around the world.

This event sells out! Make sure you visit the website to buy your tickets in advance!

Click here to buy your tickets!

Imagine being stuck on a bus, for 3 days, with 29 other strangers, and having to rely on each other to build a start-up company, from scratch.  Those that hear about it have compared it to “The Apprentice” meets “The Amazing Race” meets “Road Rules”, but without the cameras.

Well, after a bar bet last year, that’s exactly how the idea of The Startup Bus came into existence.

Now, only one year later, 6 alumni from that inaugural trip are back. This time they are each heading up their own bus.

Among those alumni include our own fellow South Floridian – Steve Repetti from RadWebTech. Steve is not only the Miami conductor, but his company, RadWebTech is also helping to sponsor the Miami Bus.  RadWebTech is always on the lookout for standout startups that they can invest in, and actively encourages our local startup community to help bring innovation and business to South Florida.  They welcome this opportunity to help give great minds this chance to bring their ideas to life.  Steve also sits on the Board of the International Data Portability Organization which is devoted to give users control over their own data without proprietary control and the ability to take that data with them to any service they want.

Over the past several weeks, hundreds of invitations and applications have gone out, and as of this writing, the conductors are still combing through them to pick the cream of the crop.

Once they board the bus, anyone with an idea, a vision, a concept, or that entrepreneurial spirit can present to everyone else what they think is a potential winner.

Then, as everyone gets to know each other, they will break into several teams, determining each other’s strengths and weaknesses.  Together each team will build their own business and then pitch it to each other March 11th and 12th at their final

destination, Austin, TX during SxSWi (SouthBySouthWestInteractive).  Those interested to hear from the winning teams should be on the lookout for the final presentations on March 14th.

South Florida Social Geeks are helping the Miami The StartupBus find sponsors. If you are a local business that would like to help sponsor the Miami StartupBus, please click HERE.

To learn more about The StartupBus, head over to their website and subscribe to their blog.  Soon, they will be announcing how you can follow the buses along their road trip via each individual bus and team’s blog and twitter account.

The South Florida Facebook Bash live event is expected to be one of the biggest events of the year simply due to the extreme viral promotion that Facebook provides. The event is taking place at one of the most popular clubs in South Florida today in MI-VI (Mi6) at Gulftstream Park in Hallandale Beach, Florida.

Who exactly are all your Facebook friends? Do you really know everyone who is friending you? Would you like to connect and socialize with new friends? Would you feel more comfortable if you met some of the facebook friends before you connect with them? Could you generate more leads for your business if you met these contacts?

This is your best chance to get some face time with your FB friends. Compete for “Most Influential Person in South Florida on Facebook”.

Date: Thursday, June 24, 2010
Time: 6pm – 10pm
Location: MI-VI @ Gulfstream Park - 901 S Federal Hwy, Hallandale FL 33009
Cover:  $10 Pre-Paid, $12 w/RSVP or $15 At The Door
To RSVP for the event click here!

For Sponsorship Information call Mike (954) 667-9193

This event is not promoted or endorsed by Facebook Inc. and is a virally promoted event sponsored by Business Events Florida.

Saturday, April 24th, 2010 was a day my stomach will never forget. There are other blog posts explaining in detail a play-by-play of the day. You can visit Toby or not Toby , Chris Fullman, or the king of it all Worst Pizza. You can also see all related commentaries on Twitter using the hashtag #ChevyPizzaCrawl. I will leave the judging of the pizzas to the pizza experts and the judging of the cars to the those that know best. I prefer to recall the things that made the day special for me.

I was on sensory overload by the end of the day. I rode in five different Chevrolet cars. Ate more pizza in one day than I did in all of 2009. Made lots of new friends that I needed to remember not just their first names but also their Twitter handles. Remembered to take pictures. Wrestled with UberTwitter on my painfully slow Blackberry. And kept my mini-skirt from riding up at revealing moments!

I give thanks that my turn in the Corvette was for the shortest trip of the route. When @JunglJim revved up the engine and took off I realized I may never be able to comb my hair again. Reminder to any girls taking the ‘vette for a ride with the top down wear a hat or ponytail!

I remember when @Lapp offered me a set of keys to drive one of the cars. I must have looked at him like he was an alien. My reaction…ME drive?? No thanks! I want to let the boys drive me around. I drive myself around every single day of the week! I had the thrill of riding in the Camaro with @MikeLaMonica. He was cool and in control of that “Hugger”. I can testify to the effectiveness of the seatbelt in that car. It wouldn’t let me lean forward to take a pic with him at the stoplight. So not only does the Camaro hug the turns, but it hugs its passengers too…very tightly.

I must have been drunk with pizza love when we took pics in front of Slice because I am not sure what came over me when I was posing for the group pic alongside of @LaurenLisaP. @VitAlex had a bit of trouble snapping those pictures. So far no evidence has surfaced thank goodness.

I was really surprised to get a riccotta cheesecake with a candle on top at Amici’s Pizza Cafe. Thanks to Amici’s for the dessert and the bottle of wine they gave each of us. The group sang happy birthday and took way too many pics of that moment. I wasn’t sure which way to look and was a little freaked by the number of phones and cameras pointed in my direction. There’s a picture somewhere of me with a deer in the headlights look.

My favorite place of the day was the Sicilian Oven in Coral Springs and I reviewed it on Yelp. Although I had decided I was done eating for the day as I entered the restaurant the game changed when the Sicilian salad with candied walnuts were served. Thanks to them I may be driving again to Coral Springs for another visit.

Want to attend the next Chevy Pizza Crawl? Stay tuned for more information on WorstPizza.com or via @WorstPizza on Twitter.

I went to a New Tech Community meeting last week in Boca Raton. I casually listened to that night’s presentation on social media which had great highlights and pointers. My ears perked and I definitely sat forward in my chair when the presenter mentioned Lady Gaga. What is Lady Gaga doing up on the projection screen?? Well I learned my new factoid of the week which I happily told some of my closer friends. None of them knew that Lady Gaga had hit big on YouTube with 180 million views. And everyday that number just keeps on growing. See the video below!

There was the “Evolution of Dance” video that had the top spot for quite some time. Then I read about “Charlie Bit My Finger”. Both of these are funny comical videos. Lady Gaga isn’t funny or comical. There is that bold creative genius though that has to be admired.

It took over two years for “Charlie Bit My Finger” to earn the title of “Most Viewed”. Lady Gaga succeeded in getting the top spot in only a few months, the video was uploaded in November 2009.

I am a fan, but if I had not gone to a technology meeting I would not have known about her hitting #1. Seems like that number of views keeps growing by the day. Probably because the reputation keeps propelling the video forward. So I thought I would share this little bit of trivia with the Go Live Miami readers and with her Little Monsters…

goLIVEmiami.com attended Wordcamp Miami 2010 which brought together over 200 people from South Florida and across the United States – forming a group of WordPress-loving bloggers and developers. With over 20 speakers, session tracks, and parties/activities, it was the premier tech conference for developers and the “average Joe” in South Florida! Jane Wells from WordPress announced a new game changing plug-in that will get users excited. She also gave us a preview of the upcoming upgrade to WordPress 3.0. Let us know your thoughts!

For more videos on technology in Miami visit http://goLIVEmiami.com. You can also become a fan on Facebook by visiting facebook.com/goLIVEmiami.

BarCamp Miami 2009. Since goLIVEmiami.com is an internet startup, we are trying to learn as much as possible about how to grow our site. Luckily, South Miami is growing as a tech center as demonstrated by last Monday’s BarCamp Miami in Coconut Grove where over 700 people signed up to attend BarCamp Miami 2009.
Jeile and Richard were there to learn and document the whole thing as you can see in this video. It’s only an overview of the event, but we interviewed a lot of the ‘superstars’. You should check out their sites, blogs and follow them on Twitter if you are someone who is interested in the web and building your own presence. It’s a little longer than our usual Webisodes, but it’s full of good info.

This is a quickie video taken at Refresh Miami on Richard’s new IPhone 3G. I feel a little silly about how many times I said goLIVEmiami.com. The first time I said it I meant to say RefreshMiami.org but I drew a blank and so saved the moment as best I could. You could hear me stutter a little. Gary Vaynerchuk gave me his professional opinion that I should keep the flubs in because it makes the moment more real. The perfectionist in me would of course prefer a do-over. I have been letting go of my control tendencies through this journey of video blogging.

I had way more fun than I anticipated. They tossed into the crowd t-shirts and stickers. It started out with a Twitter contest to see who could type the fastest on Twitter. Brian Breslin asked the crowd to send @bs #RefreshMiami loves you. There was a delay in the messages showing up in the Twitter stream and so the contest was abandoned and they resorted to tossing out the t-shirts randomly in the crowd. I won a t-shirt with the Twitter logo on it which I posted to Pikchur. @JewGoneWild won the t-shirt that said “In space noone can hear you Tweet”. There was another t-shirt that said “140 is the new 420″ which @PeterCN got through a trade.  There were tons of stickers tossed over the railing and I have no idea who won them.

I’m excited about the next Refresh Miami.

Jeile Marie, Kemila Velan and Richard meet to set up Tech Girls Gone Wild and search for a third member of the Supergirl Group of Bloggerettes. iJustine didn’t make the cut. We’re still trying to think of what to call ourselves. Something kind of like the Pink Ladies of Rydell High. Or perhaps reminiscent of Charlie’s Angels with Richard being Charlie. If you have any suggestions feel free to comment below.

Kemila also did a blog post on our video. Her blog post includes the storyline of how we met and got together. I like reading the story from her perspective because it almost doesn’t even feel real to me. Also, I agree with her perspective that there is alot of creative energy that needs to be harnessed in Miami. There are so many creative and talented people running around this city. We just need to keep pushing ourselves to raise the bar and set a new standard. Click here to see Kemila’s Post.

This video was shot with Richard’s new IPhone 3G. He is like a kid in a candy store. When he watches this video, all he sees is the quality of the video and not the content. Come on Charlie, we’re looking for a new blogger girl.


We will be doing a series of videos, so you can subscribe to our YouTube Channel for the latest videos.