http://newsclipper.org/#100236
The actor talks about his new role in the upcoming holiday movie.
Friday, October 30, 2009
Josh Rothkopf suggests moon walking to the new Michael Jackson documentary.
http://newsclipper.org/#100257
Josh Rothkopf suggests moon walking to the new Michael Jackson documentary.
Josh Rothkopf suggests moon walking to the new Michael Jackson documentary.
The new generation of smart phones
Find the best cell phone plans and more graphics at BillShrink.com
Google Music: What Were Ticketmaster And Facebook Thinking?
Google Music: What Were Ticketmaster And Facebook Thinking?
Posted: 29 Oct 2009 03:14 PM PDT
Now that the dust is settling on the newly launched Google Music (if you don’t yet have it in your normal Google search results, you can use it here) that integrates LaLa and iLike/MySpace streaming music, all I can think of is this: What were Facebook and Ticketmaster thinking when they passed up the opportunity to acquire iLike?
MySpace is the big lottery winner here. They bought iLike for $20 million in August. What they got: a talented (literally) team that is starting to fill the executive ranks at MySpace, the biggest music application on Facebook, and, it turns out, a deal with Google that is now sending massive traffic flow directly to MySpace Music.
Our understanding from sources is that MySpace made an offer to iLike without knowing about the Google deal. Supposedly, since iLike was under NDA, all they knew was that iLike had a big partnership opportunity with some big company, nothing more. In hindsight the iLike deal looks smart even without Google. Add that in and it looks absolutely brilliant. I’m no fan of MySpace CEO Owen Van Natta, but I’ll give the man credit here.
Giving Facebook The Benefit Of The Doubt
Facebook decided not to aggresively pursue iLike. They seem to have firmly moved away from any desire to deal with content directly, so this looks less like a mistake and more like a strategic decision.
But one thing is clear. Facebook utterly failed to execute on their music strategy from last year, even while trying to work via a partner application to avoid direct contact with content. Meanwhile, Google stepped in and quickly brought streaming music directly to users, without paying anything at all for it.
iLike CEO and now MySpace exec Ali Partovi, speaking at the launch event last night, didn’t hold any punches against Facebook. He gave huge credit to Google for pulling off a win-win-win-win (labels, google, users, MySpace/LaLa) in the difficult online music space. And he noted that “others have tried or are still trying and have failed miserably.” He was quite clearly referring to Facebook.
The truth is that we don’t know if Facebook flailed on a huge opportunity to get into the Google search stream, or if they just decided they don’t want the hassle of dealing with music directly. We’ll give them the benefit of the doubt. And they certainly had no idea of the Google deal back when they were trying to buy iLike anyway.
Ticketmaster Flubs It
None of Facebook’s excuses (didn’t know about the Google deal, strategically not what they want, etc.) apply to Ticketmaster. The company was a big shareholder in iLike, had a board seat, and certainly new every detail of the Google deal. They could easily have acquired iLike, probably for not much more cash than the $13.3 million they already had invested. But instead they let the company go to MySpace, knowing full well that they were enabling a huge potential competitor.
If Ticketmaster had acquired iLike all that Google music search traffic would be under their control. Click throughs to the iLike site could be monetized through event ticket sales. It would probably be a matter of months, not years, before they got their investment back in additional ticket sales.
And what’s worse is that MySpace now controls all that traffic. MySpace actually has a much more complete worldwide database of concert events than even Ticketmaster has, and they already flow through a lot of traffic to ticket sales at Ticketmaster and competitors. Now that database is combined with iLike’s impressive concert discovery and alert product. When you plug Google search traffic into all of that, its got to be scary for Ticketmaster:
“MySpace has the world’s largest database of live events, and iLike has already built some of the world’s best concert-discovery features available online,” Courtney Holt, president of MySpace Music, wrote in a blog post. “We’re delighted to have implemented the first structured integration of concert data into Google search, and this is only the beginning of our efforts to innovate in the live event space.”
We frankly can’t see any reason at all for Ticketmaster to let iLike go to a potential competitor, particularly with this Google deal locked up. Ticketmaster CEO Irving Azoff certainly knew what was happening. So why did he make such a huge misstep? Possibly because he’s in the middle of a divestiture of topline assets as part of a merger with Live Nation. Azoff is rumored to be looking for a huge personal payout as part of that deal, and may even be spinning himself off along with assets.
In other words, maybe Azoff couldn’t care less about the future of Ticketmaster.
Thursday, October 29, 2009
Photo Story 3 - Video Tutorial (English)
This is Video tutorial; How to use Photo Story 3 for Windows; Photo Story used to make Photo Slideshows....
Digital Storytelling in Plain English
Mission Accomplished?: NASA releasing new video of Ares 1-X rocket launch
http://www.newsclipper.org/#100146
Mission Accomplished?: NASA releasing new video of Ares 1-X rocket launch
Miracle Baby 17oz PhotoStory - Friend of Mark Coffman (Updated!)
Miracle Baby 17oz PhotoStory - Friend of Mark Coffman (Updated!)
Stuart Brown: Why play is vital -- no matter your age
A pioneer in research on play, Stuart Brown says humor, games, roughhousing, flirtation and fantasy are more than just fun. Plenty of play in childhood makes for happy, smart adults -- and keeping it up can make us smarter at any age.
102809 Ron Paul Placing Sanctions on Iran is an Act of War! Foreign Affairs Committee Hearing
102809 Ron Paul Placing Sanctions on Iran is an Act of War! Foreign Affairs Committee Hearing
He has ran for President many times but the media won't give him air time and Fox cuts him out in debates.US congress is a disgrace.
Ian Goldin: Navigating our global future
http://www.ted.com As globalization and technological advances bring us hurtling towards a new integrated future, Ian Goldin warns that not all people may benefit equally. But, he says, if we can recognize this danger, we might yet realize the possibility of improved life for everyone.
TEDTalks is a daily video podcast of the best talks and performances from the TED Conference, where the world's leading thinkers and doers give the talk of their lives in 18 minutes. Featured speakers have included Al Gore on climate change, Philippe Starck on design, Jill Bolte Taylor on observing her own stroke, Nicholas Negroponte on One Laptop per Child, Jane Goodall on chimpanzees, Bill Gates on malaria and mosquitoes, Pattie Maes on the "Sixth Sense" wearable tech, and "Lost" producer JJ Abrams on the allure of mystery. TED stands for Technology, Entertainment, Design, and TEDTalks cover these topics as well as science, business, development and the arts. Closed captions and translated subtitles in a variety of languages are now available on TED.com, athttp://www.ted.com/translate. Watch a highlight reel of the Top 10 TEDTalks athttp://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/top10
John Taylor Gatto: Schooling is not Education - Part 1
In this 1991 interview, former school teacher John Taylor Gatto talks about the difference between "schooling" through public schools and true education. What really matters? Does "Schooling" as we know it today create whole human beings?
I hope that you find this interview as inspiring and informative as I did.
For more information visit: www.johntaylorgatto.com
The Underground History of American Education: A Schoolteacher’s Intimate Investigation Into the Problem of Modern Schooling (ISBN 0-945700-05-9, pbk. ISBN 0-945700-04-0) is a critique of the U.S. education system by John Taylor Gatto.
Gatto, a former teacher, left the classroom the same year in which he was named New York State Teacher of the Year. He announced his decision in a letter titled "I Quit, I Think".
Using anecdotes gathered from thirty years of teaching, Gatto presents his view of modern compulsion schooling, describing a "conflict between systems which offer physical safety and certainty at the cost of suppressing free will, and those which offer liberty at the price of constant risk". Gatto argues that educational strategies promoted by government and industry leaders for over a century included the creation of a system that keeps real power in the hands of very few people.
From the book's Introduction:
- "... Underground History isn’t a history proper, but a collection of materials toward a history, embedded in a personal essay analyzing why mass compulsion schooling is unreformable. The history I have unearthed is important to our understanding; it’s a good start, I believe, but much remains undone."
- "... what I’m trying to describe [is] that what has happened to our schools was inherent in the original design for a planned economy and a planned society laid down so proudly at the end of the nineteenth century."
Russ Kick offers this in summary:
- "In other words, the captains of industry and government explicitly wanted an educational system that would maintain social order by teaching us just enough to get by but not enough so that we could think for ourselves, question the sociopolitical order, or communicate articulately."
Classrooms of the Heart - John Gatto (1991)
John Taylor Gatto speaks about schools and brainwashing
John Taylor Gatto: Schooling is not Education - Part 4
Dutch Lessons For The Royal Mail
http://newsclipper.org/#100118
The postal service in the Netherlands has already ben privatised, but does it offer a better service? Alex Rossi has been to find out.
The postal service in the Netherlands has already ben privatised, but does it offer a better service? Alex Rossi has been to find out.
Wednesday, October 28, 2009
Live: Storming The Beaches Of Facebook’s Developer Roadmap Event
We’re here today at the Facebook Developer Garage being held at the company’s headquarters in Palo Alto, CA. The point of this rather large meetup for developers and the press is to talk about the future of Facebook’s Platform. As such, they’re calling this event the “Roadmap Edition.” As we noted earlier, big changes are expected to be announced today that will alter the way developers interact with Facebook’s Platform; this is D-Day.
Below find our live notes (paraphrased):
Mark Zuckerberg: Thanks for coming to our first ever edition of the roadmap developer garage. The Platform and Connect are quick becoming the most important part of our strategy today. We hope what we’re doing will help foster innovation. The first key is a really good team. We’ve added some really good people recently to our engineering and Connect teams.
We want to build out a real middle structure for our platform. It’s all about “eating our own dogfood.” This will take a while to complete, but it will improve speed and stability.
On the product side, Bret Taylor (from FriendFeed); he’s now the director of product management for Platform. There’s a lot of cool stuff coming out. Some of which we’ll talk about today.
This is the roadmap for the next few months. It’s progress for us to do a roadmap (laughs). Ethan (Beard) has been bugging me to do this for a while now. We knew we needed to do this for the developers. Ethan is one of the real stars at Facebook, he came from Google and runs the developer network now. We couldn’t think of a better person than Ethan to do this. The roadmap is the next step for all of this.
Ethan Beard: Some of our biggest developers are here, and some of our smallest. All of you are totally kicking butt on platform today. We have over 1 million developers now, the growth is incredible. Over 350,000 applications, and 10s of thousands are sites. 3 of the 10 ten iphone games now use Facebook Connect.
Our goal today is to reduce the amount of anxiety, despite what you heard in the press – “the death of Platform is greatly exaggerated.” 70% of Facebook users are touching the things you guys build every month.
You guys are building businesses, so you need a roadmap. Facebook is very fast moving and dynamic, so it’s challenging to nail down what exactly is coming out in the future and tell you guys. But Platform is so important to us.
Today: Communication Channel, Discovery and Engagement, and New Things. This is a 3 to 6 month roadmap. These are mock-ups, not final designs. We’re not launching any new products today, we’re just talking about what we’re launching in the future. This is a discussion we want to have with you and the public for what we should be doing.
First up:
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Communication Channels
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When users come to Facebook, they struggle to understand where they should go to get messages. There are too many places to go. This is one thing we want to fix. And from the developer perspective, there is also confusion. In Notifications we know that bad messages drown out the good ones. So which ones do you want to get across.
First important one to use is the Stream. This is the best location for one to many broadcasts. Nothing will changes about the Stream other than small things.
Second one is User-to-User communication. This is the source of some confusion. We’re going to consolidate all the various ways you do one-to-one in the inbox. You should send messages directly to users with attachments as you can now.
But you should also be able to send out a mass message (this is still user-to-user). We’re experimenting with how to have these in the inbox without blowing out the other one-to-one messages. We need better selectors for multiple users. Maybe if you’re talking about Scrabble, it only shows your friends who play the Scrabble app.
Third, we are going to make available to developers user email addresses. This will allow developers to prompt users and they can share their email with you. No longer will this be about ‘who owns the user.
These will allow you to future-proof your business.
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Discovery and Engagement
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Users struggle to find applications – we know where it is but they don’t. We’re moving navigation from bottom to the left side, we think this will be a big improvement. In the left side there will be notifications to let you know if there’s a new message to see. This will drive user re-engagement.
We will also have a one-click bookmark button to allow users to easily find the apps they want.
Another new thing: Dashboards. There will be an applications and a games dashboard. Our users love games, so this is for finding their existing games, and find new ones. We’ll use Dashboards for our own products as well.
User Interface updates. We’re working on changes to the top navigation – we’re going to downplay that it’s a Facebook page, and show that it’s your page (for apps).
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New Products And Programs
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We’ve spent a lot of time developing new products for developers. There’s an entirely new developer website. developers.facebook.com – there will be all new documentation, better collaboration and community features.
This will be all on the public-facing developer roadmap shortly. And we’ll keep updating it.
There will also be a new Platform Live Status area. It’s hard for developers to know if it’s on their side or our side – we get that. This should help.
Platform Policies – ours are exceptionally confusing now. We have over 14 pages on Platform policies – no one knows them all. Our goal is that everyone should understand them. Key ones:Be Trustworthy – Create a great user experience
14 pages have been reduced to 3 pages now. It’s much more simple. This is all about ‘what can i do, what can’t i do?’ This will be much easier.
Enforcement is another key focus now. We’re ending the verifications as a stand-alone program. Platform will still be free to use and open to everyone, but we’ll be checking. If we see something we don’t like, we’ll work with those developers to get their apps right.
Analytics is something we’re improving a lot now too. There will be a new Insights tool, and it will be available through an API, for the dashboards you guys use.
An entirely new API – Open Graph API – This allows any page on the web to have the same features as a fan page inside Facebook. These web pages can post info into that users News Feed. This is a continuation to the move to add objects and people into the graph, but now the graph can be anywhere on the web. And we’re opening this up – you guys can help build out the core social graph.
F8 will be happen in the first half of 2010. This will be a return to our roots. Building great tech and providing you with the building blocks.
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Q&A
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Q: Can we vote on the features?
EB: We’re not launching any voting tools on the site. But you can voice your opinion. We expect to see that happen, but no voting.
Q: Can you speed up mobile SDK?
EB: Absolutely.
Q: I don’t get Open Graph API, more details?
EB: We think the graph is more than just people – also objects, products, and things. This shouldn’t all have to be in Facebook proper. So we want the functionality on any URL. This will be good for brands like Coke.
Q: The distinction between applications and games, is there a difference between the two?
EB: No difference in privacy settings. Our goal is just to make it easier to find games. But it’s all the same.
Q: Is the Dashboard for apps the same?
EB: Yes.
Q: Where does Facebook Currency fit into this?
EB: Nothing to announce today. But Facebook Credits today are used to purchase items in the gift store – and we’ve been running some tests to use those credits with developers and good they’re selling. That’s as far as we’ve gotten.
Q: Will developers be able to store email addresses?
EB: Yes. It will be valid and up-to-date for the users. We’re not sure about the names, but I think that will be ‘yes.’
Q: Other changes for permissions?
EB: This is something we hear a lot – frustration with the variety of authorization dialogues. We’re spending some time investigating how to simplify that. There will be more granular controls for users to see what they’re sharing with developers.
Q: Will Open Graph site owners be able to interact easily?
EB: Through the API, yes.
Q: Will there also be age-verification?
EB: Nothing to announce now, but we have some APIs for age verification already.
Q: Are Notifications going away.
EB: For applications, yes.
Q: So what if users don’t feel comfortable giving the email address?
EB: That’s like saying I want to get a phone call from you, but don’t want to give you my phone number (laughs). It’s important for developers to be able to email users, but users have to see what is going on.
Q: Can users choose which email to give them?
EB: We haven’t decided that yet, but we’ll figure that out.
Q: Will there be proxy emails for these notifications?
EB: Email addresses will be actual real email addresses – like Gmails.
Q: Talk a bit more about the counters thing in the new sidebar.
EB: It shows up next to the bookmark, if a user has bookmarked an app. Developers can set the counter for any reason they choose. We expect it to be for good reasons, we’ll be watching it. It should be obvious to the user. The counters shouldn’t always be on.
Q: What about publishing to the wall now?
EB: That hasn’t been addressed yet, but I don’t think we have plans to take that away from the Stream perspective.
Q: With verified apps, are you killiing that program, and just raising the standards across the board?
EB: The program as you know it now will be ending. We’ll be using the same tools broadly across the platform.
Q: Will search results be effected?
EB: Not sure yet, I don’t think so though.
Q: Will you be verifying apps below a certain size?
EB: Our goal is to extend our policies very broadly. We’ll obviously focus on the bigger ones more, but we care about all of them.
Q: What are you thoughts on all these changes for developers?
EB: There are very few platforms that are this open about the changes, like we’re doing today. Our goal is not to break backwards compatibility. We want to maintain it whenever possible, but Facebook as a product changes very quickly – and somethings maintaining compatibility is impossible. So we provide warning – at least 30 days, for major changes, more. And we want to offer a clear path to help developers.
Q: In Open Graph API
EB: There are no specific changes to announce, but the on and off-Facebook should be the same or similar.
Q: What about location? With Twitter doing it?
EB: We have nothing specific to announce at this point.
Q: What about profiles? Anything new coming up?
EB: We are making some changes to the profile. We think it should be a great place for users to accurately represent their identity, but we have some changes. We can’t share them right now. Some will affect developers. Boxes tab will be going away. Profile pages will be getting narrowed – 710px to 550px.
Q: So you don’t want apps to grow quickly?
EB: Not at all. We just don’t want developers to do it by violating policy. We will continue to shut down apps that grossly violate our policies, but that’s not our goal.
That’s a wrap.
Google’s New Mobile App Cuts GPS Nav Companies At The Knees
Google released a new mobile navigation app today and GPS navigation companies such as Garmin And TomTom saw their shares take a plunge
. The announcement shaved $1.2 billion off of Garmin’s market cap alone. Its shares are down more than 16 percent so far today to $31.60. TomTom’s shares are down 21 percent to $8.11.
And this is just for an Android app. But Google could very well make it available to other phones as well, and that is what has investors worried. GPS navigation apps are among themost expensive, and most lucrative, of all mobile apps. TomTom sells its iPhone apps for $50 to $100, with a different app per country.
Google just cut the traditional GPS navigation companies at the knees by releasing what may be a far superior product for free. It is not a standalone navigation app. Rather it taps into a lot of the resources Google makes available on the Web, including Google Maps, Streetview, voice recognition, and sophisticated search. You can use voice search just as you would look for something on Google’s search engine. “Where is the Pizza Hut in downtown Palo Alto”? If Google’s search engine can find it, then so can Google’s navigation app. Garmin and TomTom can’t compete with that kind of Web-scale computing power.
And Google is happy to give its navigation app away for free because it leverages many existing technologies it has already built for the Web, and it encourages more people to use Web-capable phones and do local searches on them. Its strategy is to give the software away for free, and make money on the search ads.
Live From Google’s Music Roundtable In Hollywood
Google has just launched into a surprise roundtable at its music event in Hollywood, where a number of top music executives and artists are discussing the news and the music industry. I’m live blogging my notes below (everything paraphrased).
Guests:
Mos Def
Wendy Nussbaum (UMG)
Steve Savoca (Domino Recording)
Syd Schwartz (EMI)
Mike Shinoda (Linkin Park)
Ryan Tedder (OneRepublic)
Mike Shinoda: We used to be called Hybrid Theory. We settled on Lincoln Park, we went online to see if we could get our URL. We were online early on, changed the name of the band to get URL that would give the fans the most direct link to our fans.
Q: Did you ever think international? Do you think about the French version of the Linkin Park website?
MS: We’re in the process of doing that right now to create an easier experience for fans in Asia and Europe..
Q:What do you think of what we’re launching today, what do you see happening from record label perspective?
WN:I think this is an amazing new product launch. Consumers want something easy, Google gives it to them. The key thing for us is that you’re leading people to legitimate sources of music. Whereas Googlesearch is dynamic, don’t control what rises to the top. This is guaranteed to be our partners.
Q: We’ve been talking about music discovery.
Syd Schwartz: I remember back in the day part of my things to do was build out my jazz library. I remember going to Tower Records, saw Donald Fagan of Steeley Dan, was trying to follow him to see what he got. Took a while, I discovered some great stuff but was sort of stalking the guy. Now I look at what has been presented here today… There’s never been anything like this to help discover music.
Q:What gets you excited in the world of Technology?
Mos Def: I think Google and technology and events like this have been incredibly important to artists. We’re still absorbing it, I think it will take half a generation to fully understand these. It’s a huge presence in artists around the world. Me, I walk around every day feeling I’m in Battlestar Galatica. I’m still really getting over the cell phone to be honest.
Q: Are you thinking of these as a megaphone?
MD: It’s a way to share new content. I think what we’re in now is similar to the early 20th century which had lots of technological advances. It’s a wide open field. What you see here with having an artist recording a song Tuesday, having it out Wednesday or Thursday is really exciting, helps connect more organically.
Q; You represent lots of up and coming artists, what does this launching mean to you?
Steve Savoca: It’s absolutely outstanding to have an independent having a seat of the table today, this means a lot to us. What we do is niche, we’re tlaking about artists that are primarily word of mouth. People come to our artist through hearing about them and wanting to listen about them immediately. What we’re talking about here is instant gratification — hear about it, search for it, listen to it. This is a huge opportunity for us. What Lala has invented and what iLike brings these are fantastic, what’s been missing has been a conduit to bring music fans to these services.
The challenge remains, we have to change consumption behavior. We have to make it turn key to access these amazing music services, and I think that’s been lacking.
Q: I was watching the video for your music video to Apologize, started counting up the numbers for number of people who had watched the video. And setting aside all the fun and crazy covers, just looking at yours, over 120 million views. Can you speak to how this has an influence on ou going forward?
Ryan Tedder: When the Apologize remix came out, the question was do you feel Timbaland was what made you guys break. I always tell people we broke through MySpace. I’m not going to say which record label was dropped, by the same label who dropped Katy Perry and Jonas Brothers. We joined MySpace forever ago, when it had 2 million people. I thought if I have to shower posters around town, that sucks. The Internet.. MySpace was perfect, free, we used that like crazy. If I knew that I had a show or something coming up I would find every high school in that city, and Email everyone from age 16-22. We became top unsigned artist on MySpace, labels came after us. Apologize was on MySpace for three years before it came out. By the time it came out, no discredit to Timabland, had quarter billion listens before it hit radio. OneRepublic wouldn’t be here without Myspace. On Google when you typed in a song, the first 6-7 things were bittorrent illegal download sites, this fixes that. Someone once said we had 75 million illegal downloads. When I hear about this Google thing, that’s what gets me most excited because now those will be top.
We’ve partnered up with MySpace to help launch the album. This was perfect timing for us, this made total sense.
Google Should Make Apple Beg For Maps Navigation
When Google announced what is clearly thebest car navigation application on any mobile today, it didn’t just take a swipe at GPS navigation companies such as Garmin and TomTom. It took a swipe at Apple.
Beyond the advanced features of the Google Maps Navigation app (voice search, crowdsourced traffic data, Street View navigation), what makes the app noteworthy is that it launched on Google’s own Android phones first rather than on the iPhone. By doing so, Google is putting Apple on notice that it is no longer reserving its best apps for the iPhone.
Navigation apps are a key category for mobile phones, and the iPhone is for once at a disadvantage here. Even the paid navigation apps in the iTunes store can’t compete because Google’s new navigation app is an extension (albeit a customized one) of its search engine. When a navigation app becomes an interface to Google’s massive search engine, it begins to deliver things that GPS app developers like Garmin and TomTom will never be able to build (search along a route, natural language search). Oh yeah, and did I mention it is free?
This is but the latest sign of a growing rift between Apple and Google. A couple years ago, when the iPhone first launched, Google and Apple had a strong partnership. At the time, Google CEO Eric Schmidt described the relationship as so close that it was akin to merging “without merging. Each company should do the absolutely best thing they can do every time.” Google supposedly didn’t need to creat its own phone, because it could simply create software for the iPhone. And, in fact, some of the best apps on the iPhone—Mail, Maps, YouTube, Search—were developed by Google.
Only two years later, Apple and Google no longer have such a cozy relationship. A new Android phone is now launching every other week, it seems. Feeling the competitive threat, Apple started blocking Google apps such as Google Voice and Latitude from getting on the iPhone, and Schmidt stepped down from Apple’s board (although there were also other reasons for that having to do with antitrust scrutiny).
The tensions really came to a boil around the whole Google Voice saga. As we wrote at the time:
Multiple sources at Google tell us that in informal discussions with Apple over the last few months Apple expressed dismay at the number of core iPhone apps that are powered by Google. Search, maps, YouTube, and other key popular apps are powered by Google. Other than the browser, Apple has little else to call its own other than the core phone, contacts and calendar features.
So Apple starts to back away from letting Google take over the iPhone with all the best apps by rejecting them. And now we have Google’s response: a big middle finger. If Apple is going to make it hard to get on the iPhone, then Google will stop giving Apple its best apps first and use them to make its own Android platform more appealing.
Apple is in a terrible position here because the future of mobile apps are Web apps, and Google excels at making those. Apple needs Google, it’s most dangerous competitor in the mobile Web market, to keep building apps for the iPhone. Google would be foolish not to since the iPhone still has the largest reach of any modern Web phone. But it will no longer be a priority.
The sad thing is that Apple has been here before—with Microsoft. In the late 1990s, Apple had to beg Microsoft to keep building Office for Macs. Now it may be in the same position with Google. There may be more than 85,000 apps in the App Store, but it is only a handful which actually drive purchases. If Google Maps Navigation becomes one of those types of killer apps, Apple might need to do some begging first before Google goes through effort to make it for the iPhone.
Netvibes Delivers A Potent Stream Reader With Wasabi (Beta Invites)
Netvibes Delivers A Potent Stream Reader With Wasabi (Beta Invites)
by Erick Schonfeld on October 28, 2009
Netvibes, original widget homepage, is morphing into something much more interesting. The next version of the service, dubbed Wasabi, is a potent stream reader which consolidates news feeds, blogs, Twitter and Facebook streams, email, and much more in an extremely manageable interface. Wasabi will become available early next week in a private beta, but you can start signing up for it now.
CEO Freddy Mini demonstrated parts of Wasabi at our first Realtime CrunchUp in July. In addition to the traditional widget view, which breaks up your feeds and applications into a grid of boxes on your Netvibes homepage, Wasabi now also has a “smart reader” view. The smart reader borrows from traditional RSS readers in that all the feeds and widgets you subscribe to are presented together in one column, updated in reverse chronological order.
You can see just a list of headlines, or an expanded view with the full feed. It looks similar to Google Reader, except that Netvibes supports more than just RSS feeds. You can import your Twitter and Facebook streams (read-only right now), as well as Gmail, Yahoo Mail, Flickr photos, weather widgets, stock widgets, and more. “Any service that has a stream we can display it,” says Mini.
Rather than scan across 20 boxes, Netvibes users will now have the option to mash everything together and filter simply by what’s been posted most recently. Wasabi has infinite scroll, so you can keep going down until you’ve had enough. There is also a new mosaic view, which shows each item as a visual tile. When you click on a tile, you get an expanded view that allows you to read the item, while keeping a strip of navigational tiles up top (see screenshots below).
On the backend, Netvibes is speeding things up to make the stream as realtime as possible. It is caching content from the most popular feeds and pushing that down to users as soon as there are any updates, and it will also be supporting both the Pubsubhubbub (PuSH), which also launched at the Realtime CrunchUp, and RSSCloud standards aimed at eliminating the lag time inherent in RSS and Atom feeds.
So Wasabi is not only a potent stream reader, it is faster too. I won’t miss the widget view one bit.
by Erick Schonfeld on October 28, 2009
Netvibes, original widget homepage, is morphing into something much more interesting. The next version of the service, dubbed Wasabi, is a potent stream reader which consolidates news feeds, blogs, Twitter and Facebook streams, email, and much more in an extremely manageable interface. Wasabi will become available early next week in a private beta, but you can start signing up for it now.
CEO Freddy Mini demonstrated parts of Wasabi at our first Realtime CrunchUp in July. In addition to the traditional widget view, which breaks up your feeds and applications into a grid of boxes on your Netvibes homepage, Wasabi now also has a “smart reader” view. The smart reader borrows from traditional RSS readers in that all the feeds and widgets you subscribe to are presented together in one column, updated in reverse chronological order.
You can see just a list of headlines, or an expanded view with the full feed. It looks similar to Google Reader, except that Netvibes supports more than just RSS feeds. You can import your Twitter and Facebook streams (read-only right now), as well as Gmail, Yahoo Mail, Flickr photos, weather widgets, stock widgets, and more. “Any service that has a stream we can display it,” says Mini.
Rather than scan across 20 boxes, Netvibes users will now have the option to mash everything together and filter simply by what’s been posted most recently. Wasabi has infinite scroll, so you can keep going down until you’ve had enough. There is also a new mosaic view, which shows each item as a visual tile. When you click on a tile, you get an expanded view that allows you to read the item, while keeping a strip of navigational tiles up top (see screenshots below).
On the backend, Netvibes is speeding things up to make the stream as realtime as possible. It is caching content from the most popular feeds and pushing that down to users as soon as there are any updates, and it will also be supporting both the Pubsubhubbub (PuSH), which also launched at the Realtime CrunchUp, and RSSCloud standards aimed at eliminating the lag time inherent in RSS and Atom feeds.
So Wasabi is not only a potent stream reader, it is faster too. I won’t miss the widget view one bit.
Brizzly introduction
An introduction to Brizzly, the new social media reader from Thing Labs, recorded Sept. 16, 2009. Features highlighted include expanded links & media, groups, muting, direct messaging and photo upload. Visit http://brizzly.com to request an invitation code.
Struggling lobstermen turning to the Internet to sell catch
http://newsclipper.org/#100059
Feeling the Pinch: Struggling lobstermen turning to the Internet to sell catch
Feeling the Pinch: Struggling lobstermen turning to the Internet to sell catch
How Catch a Piece of Maine Works:
Your lobster trap will be set the day after purchasing and fished for one year. During each fishing trip, your lobsterman will record everything caught from your trap. This data is retrieved when your lobsterman sells his daily catch back at our dock and will be recorded into an online database.
You have a personal lobster account (accessible 24-7) where you can view your trap’s performance (updated every Friday afternoon), manage your catch and schedule shipments with the click of a mouse (shipments may also be scheduled over the phone or by email). Your account will grow as lobsters are caught from your trap and decrease as you request lobsters to be shipped.
You may request your lobsters as soon as they are caught, or you may allow your account to grow and use your lobster at a future date. All shipping is included. Shipments are sent via FedEx overnight delivery throughout the continental U.S.
Simply provide us with the shipping information and we’ll take care of the rest. Live lobsters may be substituted with fresh-frozen lobster tails and fresh picked claw meat. You are guaranteed a minimum of 52 1.5 lb lobsters (totaling over 78bs. worth and also 13 lbs. steamer clams, 13 lbs. mussels, and 52 servings of Maine made desserts).
Your partnership with Catch a Piece of Maine is a complete experience giving you access to a lifestyle shared by only a handful of men and women along the Maine coast. Go to the Store
Become a Catch a Piece of Maine partner—let us share our passion, excitement and way of life with you.
Why Are We Fat?
http://newsclipper.org/#100070
Ask Dr. Manny Show: Muffin tops, back fat and beer bellies are all real results of America's food portion distortion. Find out how to get our over-the-top portions under control
Ask Dr. Manny Show: Muffin tops, back fat and beer bellies are all real results of America's food portion distortion. Find out how to get our over-the-top portions under control
Jazz Legends Live in Photo Exhibit
http://newsclipper.org/#100063
A look at the work of jazz photographer Herman Leonard.
A look at the work of jazz photographer Herman Leonard.
Tuesday, October 27, 2009
Ben Lilienthal on HiDef Audio, Skype, and conferencing
Ben Lilienthal on HiDef Audio, Skype, and conferencing
I talked with Ben Lilienthal last week about his HiDefConferencing.combusiness at Citrix. HiDef is the only conference bridge that lets Skype directly into a call with Skype's high quality audio, established in 2003 alongside Skype.
SJ: What are users' biggest problems with audio conferencing at it is today?
Ben Lilienthal: Cost. Clarity around pricing and expected cost.
How does audio conferencing fit into the world of social software and social media?
I'm not sure it does. We offer asynchronous components that let you upload meeting recordings to blogs and other web sites. Could that fit in? Over half of users use the recording feature.
What does high definitions audio mean to you today? Is that changing?
It means 16x16 or 16x22 [bit rate x sample rate]. It's becoming more prevalent. It's not anything more ubiquitous. When we launched HiDef two years' ago nobody had heard of high definition.
What companies or institutions need to support HD audio for it to be more than a niche offering?
We're seeing it in Skype, Cisco, Polycom (Siren codec). Lots of siloed approaches. I don't know how you make it a ubiquitous standard when they each have their own.
When will we see your iPhone app?
I'm not convinced that you will for the audio.
What do you make of Skype's SILK wideband audio codec release?
It requires a significant engineering effort and we're a little reluctant to make the investment because Skype seems to be eating their young. Nobody else seems to be using SILK. Besides, do I want a relationship with a partner who may throw me out the door?
What capabilities do you want Skype's gateway to offer you that don't exist now? What would you like to improve or change?
We're pretty happy with it. We only use Skype as a means of access to our service. We probably do more than five million minutes a month in Skype traffic.
Citrix has a growing family of services, including GoToMeeting. Will the audio parts of your sister business units be adopting your audio infrastructure? Will HiDef Audio continue under its own name?
We are using the HiDef bridge with our GoToWebinar customers. Starting in the fourth quarter, you'll have the option for HiDef when you buy the toll free option in GoToMeeting.
What are some of the big trends you're following in the conferencing space?
It's a race to the bottom, like what happened to long distance a decade ago. So we're differentiating on quality, ease of use, pricing, packaging. We're selling on features, ease of use.
Integration with web conferencing is a big one. Being able to go to GoToMeeting with high definition, for example.
Multiple points of ingress to a call: phones, Skype, and browser.
See also in Skype Journal:
- SILK: Skype's New Audio Codec Sets New Performance Standards for Voice Conversations
- SILK performs better
- Codec Wars: Yahoo! Messenger 10 + GIPS Video
- Fidelity Wars: Microsoft strains video call resolution
- Managing the Google/On2 merger at Skype
- Could Plantronics launch the first SILK Bluetooth headset? [no]
- Skype Red: The Hardware Story [fiction]
- Skype will license its superwideband codec for free
- Skype to announce… something? at eComm09
- High Definition Voice: Bringing Skype's High Bandwidth Audio to Conference Calls
- It's Now Official: HiDefConferencing Rebranding Has Happened
- VAPPS leaves freemium for HiDef Conferencing
- Another Skype Partner Acquired: VAPPS Goes to Citrix
- VAPPS Rebrands Its Service: High Definition Conferencing
- Alternatives to Skypecasts
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