Can the Skiff save the magazine industry? – There has been quite a bit of talk about Hearst’s Skiff ereader and we got a hands-on last night before the show closed. The device is about as big as a Kindle DX (11.5-inch display and a very thin bezel) but quite thin (.25-inches). They use a metal board spun-coated with e-ink instead of a glass sheet for the screen, which will definitely prevent the heartbreak of shattered ereaders for the next generation of readers. It uses Sprint’s 3G network.
Google Toilet Paper : Optimize Your Wipe | Search Engine Journal – Here’s a fun Friday post about what could be easily mistaken for a new Google product launch to accompany the Nexus One and other new Google products : Google Toilet Paper (which gives a new meaning to “just Google it”).
MediaPost – news and directories for media, marketing and online advertising professionals – If you were on vacation, similar to me, during the end of December you might have missed Twitter's big announcement. The company acquired Mixer Labs, the creator of GeoAPI, which provides developers with the ability to query data. That data can come from about 16 million businesses and thousands of points of interest. The technology also offers developers a layer on which to handle complex geographical queries and location-based services.
National Weather Service: Twitter Storm Reports – GeoTagging is the act of associating geographical information with something, and Twitter has recently added the capability GeoTagging individual Tweets. This allows the NWS to correlate each Tweet to your location when it was sent. This capability will help to enhance and increase timely & accurate online weather reporting and communications between the public and their local weather forecast offices.
Wanted: Your Weather Reports, Geotagged and Tweeted – If your natural reflex when the weather gets rough is to tweet about it, that reflex can now help the National Weather Service do its job better thanks to a new Twitter storm reporting program.
Top CMOs on Twitter – These are the top 63 Chief Marketing Officers around the world who 1) provide useful content and consistently engage with their followers on Twitter, 2) truly "get it" when it comes to the best ways to use Twitter and other forms of social media, and 3) were active on Twitter as of January 7, 2010. Please let me know if I have missed any CMOs who have 500 or more followers. After the review and confirmation process, he/she may be added to this list, which is updated regularly.
The Dawn of Facebook’s People-organized Web – GigaOM – In 2010, Facebook is setting out to structure a social layer of the web, indexing web pages and objects by harnessing what its users say about them, including whether those users like them or not, and what they tag within them.
A few years ago, when Apple originally set out with the idea of giving the iPhone to one carrier exclusively in the U.S., they first went to Verizon. But the network balked at some of Apple’s demands, which at the time of complete and utter carrier dominance in this country, must have seemed like a joke. So instead, Apple with with AT&T, and the rest is history.
Anxious Yahoo BOSS Developers To Speak With DOJ About Microsoft Deal – In July 2008, Yahoo announced a radical new product called BOSS, or “Build Your Own Search Service” that lets developers tap into Yahoo’s core search index with an unprecedented amount of flexibility. Now, in light of the Microsoft/Yahoo search deal that was announced last summer, the future of BOSS is uncertain. That’s bad news for the many developers who have built projects on the BOSS APIs, some of whom are building businesses off of the service. Now, after being met with months of silence and uncertainty, some BOSS developers are taking action: they’ve scheduled a conference call with the Department of Justice to discuss their concerns.
Apple Seizes 16 Domain Names From A Guy In One Fell Swoop – When you own domain names associated with the trademarks of a large company, more often than not, they’re going to file a complaint with the ICANN UDRP (Uniform Domain-Name Dispute-Resolution Policy). And more often than not, they’re going to win control of the name. Such was the case yesterday with 16 names related to Apple that one man happened to own.
Qualcomm Chip to Power Verizon iPhone [RUMOR] – Qualcomm’s CEO Paul Jacobs has openly expressed interest in inserting a Qualcomm chip into Apple’s popular iPhone. New rumors reported by TheStreet.com indicate that Qualcomm’s endeavors were successful: A Qualcomm chip will power a new version of the iPhone on Verizon in the summer.
DASH: Sony Reveals Pocket Internet Device – Sony has revealed details about their Internet device at the CES – Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. Read on find out more.
Vimeo to Launch Support for 1080p – In case 720p wasn’t enough for your gorgeous, transcendent works of motion picture art, Vimeo will begin hosting 1080p videos by the end of this month.
The Rise of Digital Music & The Return of the Record – According to the report, sales were up 2.1 percent in 2009 from 2008, with consumers snagging 1.16 million digital tracks (an 8.3 percent increase from ‘08) and 76.4 million digital albums (a 16.1 percent bump). In fact, 40 percent of all music purchases in 2009 were digital.
Tweetdeck Infiltrates the News Room – Sky News — a 24-hour UK news site owned by News Corp. — is changing up their entire newsroom to focus more on Twitter.
Near Me Now: Google’s Mobile Homepage is Location Aware – Go to Google.com in your iPhone or Android browser and you’ll see a small new addition to the homepage: a tiny Near Me Now option below the search box. The new functionality turns your location into an automated search query and makes finding or learning about places in your immediate vicinity a no brainer.
Bra Color Facebook Status Updates Go Viral, But Why? – Facebook is quite the colorful place today. An odd meme — bra color status updates — has made its way around the network, but no one really knows how or why the what-color-is-your-bra meme took off.
Delete Giant Email Chains to Speed Up Gmail Mobile Webapp – Gmail – Lifehacker – Gmail's iPhone/Android-optimized webapp is nearly as good as a mail client, but not if you keep multi-multi-message threads near the top of your queue. One blogger saw a nearly 7-second decrease in loading time after killing one seemingly endless chain.
These are my links for January 4th through January 6th:
Keep All Those Resolutions You Just Made: Try mySomeday – So, this year, you've resolved to lose weight, take a class, learn a new language and buy a better mobile device. Good for you – but we all know how well most new year's resolutions go.
Facebook’s 1st CTO Launches His Next Company (Screen Shots) – Adam D'Angelo was a programming genius who knew Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg in high school, became the young company's first CTO and has just begun to unveil his new startup company, Quora. Built by D'Angelo and a team of crack young engineers, Quora is a real-time enabled Q&A site. The company calls itself "A continually improving collection of questions and answers." In our very early testing it's a pleasure to use, but we're going to share screen shots with you tonight and write about it in depth after more extensive use tomorrow.
Social Media Today | 3 Helpful Social Media Marketing Predictions for 2010 – I read a lot of 2010 predictions to end up with 3 that I felt were truly helpful to a seasoned marketer from a major business. There are a lot of common clams out there from "this is the year of mobile marketing" to the many ways people guess that location-based marketing will take off (this ranges form the 'augmented reality' fans to the predictions that Four Square is a harbinger of major innovation).
How Data Will Impact the Way We Do Business – Outliers like Factual, WolframAlpha, Daytum (Daytum), FlowingData, and InfoChimps have proven that painting our world in data (and metadata) is a rather valuable endeavor for any business.
Facebook for iPhone 3.1 Adds Push Notifications, Address Book Syncing – Up until now, the Facebook iPhone app [iTunes link] had everything but push notifications. The launch of version 3.1, however, remedies that ill. The other 3.1 biggie is the ability to sync your Facebook friends with your phone’s address book contacts — photos and all.
28 Days Later: Say Goodbye to the Netflix New Release Rental – Today is sad day for Netflix customers. The online video rental supplier has just announced an agreement with Warner Bros. that will forever alter your online rental experience. Now should you wish to rent a Warner Bros. flick you’ll have to wait out a 28-day holding period after the film’s initial DVD release date.
Is Microsoft’s DRM Patent for P2P Networks Too Late, or Ahead of Its Time? – If Microsoft’s freshly granted patent for a digital rights management system sounds like a 2003 idea coming to fruition in 2009, that’s because it is — the patent that was granted yesterday was filed six years ago. The newly codified bit of intellectual property is a DRM system that’s distributed over peer-to-peer networks, decentralizing a processing mechanism that traditionally resides on a central server. The entertainment industry has used DRM to prevent unauthorized duplication of copyrighted material, but it’s been largely abandoned by the music business in response to customer demand for unprotected files.
Twitter Gets an Unofficial App Store [INVITES] – One of Twitter’s fundamental strengths is its third-party ecosystem. From sending tweets, tracking stats or sharing media, there are web apps, desktop clients, mobile apps and services that add value to the microblogging juggernaut.
Google Wave Team Gives Up on Internet Explorer | Smarterware – After “countless hours” of work, the Google Wave team has thrown up their hands and decided not to make Wave work in Internet Explorer natively. Instead, they released Google Chrome Frame, an IE add-on that puts Chrome’s backend inside Internet Explorer. Next week another batch of Google Wave invitations will go out, and IE users will have to install Chrome Frame or switch to Firefox or Safari to try Wave. (The screenshot is the prompt IE users will get when they try to log into Wave.)
Why Your Company Needs Social Media | Search Engine Journal – There are case studies abound of how big brands such as Zappos, Jet Blue, Comcast, etc. have put social media into action and the success that they’ve had with it. Can small businesses be just as successful using social media? Absolutely! There are many advantages of using social media during the sales process for customer service, sales prospecting and customer retention for small businesses.
Google Says, Referrer Spam Does Not Hurt Your Google Rankings – Referrer spam is a kind of spamdexing (spamming aimed at search engines). The technique involves making repeated web site requests using a fake referrer url that points to the site the spammer wishes to advertise. Sites that publicize their access logs, including referrer statistics, will then end up linking to the spammer's site, which will in turn be indexed by the search engines as they crawl the access logs.
This benefits the spammer because of the free link, and also gives the spammer's site improved search engine placement due to link-counting algorithms that search engines use.
Apple: New Nano Not Banned By Health Club Chain – Tech Trader Daily – Barrons.com – The hot button topic of the day among Apple (AAPL) obsessives was the theory that the new video-camera equipped iPod Nano might be banned in health clubs. That would not be good news, given the number of people that buy iPods specifically to listen to music while working out.
Google Steps Where Many Have Stumbled: Sidewiki – By 2001 web startup Third Voice, which let people annotate websites via a browser plugin, was done. Website owners just didn’t like the idea of people “defacing” their websites with comments they couldn’t control. But the idea has lingered (really), and now Google is taking a shot at their own version of the service. It’s called Sidewiki, and it just launched.
Microsoft’s Courier Tablet Is ‘Astonishing’ – Technology News Briefs | Newser – Microsoft’s foray into tablet computers looks to be “astonishing,” Gizmodo blogger The Paperboy raves after getting a look at leaked photo of the Courier, which has two screens and opens like a book. It has touch-screen and stylus capabilities, and is in the “late prototype” stage, sources say.
Courier: Microsoft Has an Apple Tablet Rival, And It Looks Impressive – microsoft courierAlthough the Apple Tablet remains one of the most hyped (and mysterious) upcoming devices, it’s now not expected to launch until February. In the meantime, a variety of other innovations are looking to steal some of its thunder.
STATS: 84% of Social Media Programs Don’t Measure ROI – We talk a lot about the rapid adoption of social media in a wide array of industries. According to an August 2009 survey by Mzinga and Babson Executive Education, 86% of professionals in a variety fields said that they have adopted social media in some way.
Google Crowdsources Reader, Docs and Search Features – Google has just opened the floodgates. With millions of users, it's only natural that the company is prioritizing features and crowdsourcing new product ideas. In a recent blog post, the company has revamped Google Product Ideas as a series of separate feedback pages for iGoogle, Google Docs, Google SketchUp, Google Ad Planner, Google Custom Search and as of today, Google Reader.
Picasa 3.5: Ruining Your Good Name with Face Recognition Tagging – Say goodbye to your controlled web presence and say hello to Picasa 3.5. Google released Picasa 3.5 with a slew of new features including facial recognition and name-based batch tagging, faster geo-tagging and better web uploading functionality. The service is so good at finding your mug and tagging it that wild photos from yesteryear can resurface and wreak havoc on your reputation.
Yahoo! Search Gets a Massive Revamp | Search Engine Journal – There you go, Yahoo has just announced a major revamp of its search portal, particulary the search results format. According to the Yahoo Search blog the new Yahoo Search format aligns with the previous changes recently made on Yahoo’s other products such as the Yahoo homepage, Yahoo Mail, and Yahoo Messengers video calling feature.
EduFire Raises $1.3 Million For Video Education Platform – EduFire, the startup that offers online video classes for a variety of subjects, has raised $1.3 million in Series A funding from Battery Ventures, with Google AdSense godfather Gokul Rajaram and Western Technology Investment participating.
The Top 20 VC Bloggers (September 2009) – When it comes to lists of top VCs, one of our favorites is the top VC bloggers. Larry Cheng, a partner at Fidelity Ventures, started keeping just such a list last May, based on how many subscribers each VC blogger has on Google Reader. This morning he updated his VC blogger leaderboard. The top 20 are below, all 100 are on his own blog, Thinking About Thinking (No. 71).
Smart.fm: How Well Do You Know Your Facebook Friends? – Smart.fm aims to act as a full-fledge learning platform, wherein users can access the site, say “I want to learn about this topic” and be presented with tools, quizzes and world lists that test memory retention and understanding. There is a social element too, and users can both add their own information to existing courses, and share their learning schedules, remix content and ask and offer help.
While the companies are not each others' biggest rivals, they are increasingly competing with each other.
This follows years of enjoying one of the coziest relationships in Silicon Valley — one that will now get more complicated as the companies compete in more areas.
10 Incredibly Cool DIY Projects – 2009 Backyard Genius Awards – Popular Mechanics – To create an incredibly cool car-crusher or oversize rocket or solar-pedal powered contraption that the world had no idea it needed takes brilliance, determination and a healthy dose of crazy. The winners of our Backyard Genius Awards have all those qualities, and we salute them for it.
Be Careful When Evaluating Paid Search Tests – Interpreting test results for paid search campaigns can be surprisingly difficult. One reason for this is order latency. The fact today’s clicks don’t all generate orders today, but instead sales trickle in over time means that analyzing new launches and tests can be tricky. Two ways to address this complication are described below.
Problem: Successful tests can look bad initially because of order latency
Adobe Buys Business Catalyst / GoodBarry – Adobe will own the American part of the Australian company. Business Catalyst / GoodBarry provides tools that help web designers set up online businesses for their clients with minimal cost and effort and no programming skills required, combining website content management, e-commerce features, e-mail marketing, business analytics and basic CRM tools into one system.
Wikipedia Will Use Colors to Add Layers of Trust to its Articles – Wikipedia plans on signifying the level of their trustworthiness by adding layers of color. It’s easier to trust editors with a high number of entries and revisions than those who are new to the site, and now registered users will be able to easily discern between the two by looking at the color of the text’s background. This will most likely make Wikipedia more authoritative.
Why Don’t Teens Tweet? We Asked Over 10,000 of Them. – Over the last few months everyone has weighed in on the question of “Why Don’t Teens Tweet” — except, it would appear, teens. We recently ran a survey of 10,000+ US teens aged 13 – 17 to see if we could add anything new to the question. As it turns out, the question itself is flawed.
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