July 03, 2009
The web’s response to the passing of music legend Michael Jackson has been staggering. Social media was pounded with tributes last Thursday after the news broke, but next Tuesday could be a huge test for the entire infrastructure of the web, when the memorial for Michael Jackson will take place.
The tribute and remembrance of the late King of Pop occurs next Tuesday (July 7th) at 10:00 AM PT at the Staples Center in Los Angeles. Beyond the 17,500 tickets that will be given away to fans and the millions more that will converge on downtown L.A., the memorial will be live streamed free via the web and media outlets across the world.
This event will almost certainly shatter records for the biggest single live stream ever, and could be one of the biggest worldwide media events in history. Will the web be able to handle it?
The details
The splash page of the Staples Center
Although details are sparse, CBS News does a good job of breaking down the information currently available. Here are the key points:
- The memorial will occur at the Staples Center in downtown Los Angeles. 17,500 tickets will be randomly drawn in an online lottery available until 6 PM PT July 4th. Only U.S. residents qualify
- 8750 names will be selected Sunday, each of which will receive 2 tickets to the memorial
- There will be a simulcast in the Nokia Theater
- There will be a free live stream on the Internet available to all. Details on how the stream will be distributed are currently unavailable
- However, we suspect that thousands of stream will be available from media companies and live stream services around the world
The demand was so high for these tickets that the Staples Center website has had trouble staying up, and in fact took down almost every non-essential image and menu to keep the website up. This could be a prelude to the worldwide response we’ll see next Tuesday.
What will Jackson’s memorial mean for the web?
If you remember back in January, there was another historic event that blew us away: the Obama inauguration. Here are some of the staggering numbers from CNN and Facebook.
- 200,000+ status updates through the Facebook integration on CNN.com
- 3,000 people commented on the Facebook CNN feed per minute
- CNN served 13.9 million live video streams globally in about 6 hours
- Don’t forget about the millions of other live streams and TV viewers that watched worldwide.
Now, throw all those numbers out the window, because Michael Jackson’s memorial is almost certain to utterly overshadow Obama. Not even Obama consumed 30% of Twitter and set traffic records at Yahoo.
With the world mourning and a specific time and place set for the memorial, we may very well see the entire web converge on this one event. There will likely be thousands of streams worldwide via platforms such as Justin.tv and Ustream (the latter of which has a deal with CBS to stream events like this one). It’s also certain that Twitter, Facebook, and the social web will be booming with commentary on the event.
How many people will watch Jackson’s memorial? Can the web’s biggest players handle the massive traffic that will ensue? Will there be enough bandwidth? Could this event be the single media event in history? The answers to these questions will not only be a testament to Jackson’s impact on the world, but may very well set records that will last in history.
Perhaps most of all, the web will allow people to come together to celebrate Jackson’s life, no matter who they are or where they live.
Reviews:
Facebook,
Twitter,
ustream
Tags: jackson memorial, justin.tv, michael jackson, ustream
July 03, 2009 08:17 PM
If you were a little blue bird, with a good pile of money and a whole lot of hype, what would you buy to spice up your nest? There are so many little services being built on top of Twitter that we wouldn't be surprised to see some more of them acquired by the company soon. That would mean more features for everyday users and more usefulness for features loved by loyal early adopters.
Twitter has acquired two other companies so far, that we know of. Search engine and sentiment analysis service Summize became Twitter's own search engine and Values of N sold its assets so engineer Rael Dornfest could be brought into the company. Here are ten other startups we think that Twitter should consider acquiring next. Which kind of company would you most like to see become part of Twitter itself? We've got a poll below.
Sponsor
Is Twitter in a position to make more acquisitions? We suspect so. It has cash but more importantly it has stock. Think of it this way: Google is afraid of Facebook and Facebook is afraid of Twitter. Would startups bend over backwards to become a part of Twitter? We suspect most would.
Some of these we think are likely acquisitions, some less so. In making this list we considered both functionality that would be helpful to have added to Twitter's own site and technology that would be worth buying instead of just building in-house. Whenever a platform company builds technology that a number of other startups offer, there is a risk of scaring other people away from investing in development that the platform could just reproduce. Acquisitions of startups on a platform probably increase the appeal of development though, as it's a chance to get in on the game.
Quite Likely, if It Hasn't Happened Already
Bit.ly is the most full-featured and popular URL shortener on the market right now and was recently selected as Twitter's own shortener of choice, dethroning TinyURL. Bit.ly offers all kinds of smart analytics, from real time click tracking to semantic analysis for topic keywords from the links that people tweet.
One trusted industry source speaking on the condition of anonymity told us that Bit.ly servers "were moved into Twitter's racks months ago in preparation for this change." [Becoming the default shortener.] Bit.ly is becoming too important to Twitter to keep that functionality outside the company's own shop and the two companies share some investors. We will not be surprised at all if a Bit.ly acquisition by Twitter is announced sometime in the near future.
Could Happen...
Tweetmeme is another fast growing Twitter analytics services that tracks sharing on the service. With another chunk of new features just added today, the service is looking a whole lot like "Feedburner for Twitter" but with even more viral distribution possibilities. The Tweetmeme API is quite interesting and could compliment Bit.ly quite well.
Twitpic is a popular way to share images on Twitter. The site faces a strong challenge from ImageShack's YFrog, but independent Twitpic would be a cheaper acquisition and is already well known among Twitter users. (Twitter should probably look at Enjoysthin.gs, it's got the best user experience.) An increase in imagery on Twitter would probably offer the company a lot more advertising real-estate.
Tweepz is a fascinating Twitter search engine that acts like a directory that lets you parse your results using various metrics gleaned from Twitter. Check out this search, for example. Twitter could benefit from making this kind of search available to users, advertisers and researchers - and Tweepz has already built it. See also Twazzup, another company doing interesting things with Twitter data.
Longer Shots
An iPhone app company could be a good buy for Twitter, there's certainly plenty of options. M.Twitter.com is a good mobile service already but someone specializing in super high-quality Twitter apps for the iPhone, Android and Pre could be good to bring in house. It could be AteBits, makers of Tweetie. There may not be enough reason for Twitter to buy one of these companies, though.
A desktop Twitter app company could help Twitter increase user engagement. Many of the most serious Twitter users (though not all) swear by desktop access. Twitter could acquire the most popular and arguably most innovative desktop app, Tweetdeck, or it could bring Seesmic in house. Tweetdeck would be cheap and shares investors with Twitter. Seesmic is probably getting cheaper by the day (sorry!) and has some really talented people working there. Desktop apps may be too limited in appeal to be a compelling acquisition target.
Geo-location could be a good feature to add to Twitter. Search by user location could be made much more meaningful and the list of things that could be done with it is very long. Brightkite is popular and well developed, Shizzow is pretty and wouldn't be expensive. On the other hand, browsers themselves will likely all become more location aware in the near future and Twitter may be satisfied with its current location data.
Which of these kinds of companies would you like to see Twitter acquire next?(polls)
A semantics company could bring structure to the Tweets, making them more useful and easier to advertise against. Right now links Tweeted are semantically analyzed by Reuters' Calais and sent to Bit.ly, but we wouldn't be surprised if Twitter was interested in scooping up a small semantics shop and helping it scale so that analysis was being done in house. Twitter may feel like semantics don't need to get that close to consumer users, though. (Disclosure, Calais is a ReadWriteWeb sponsor.)
Topify is a widely loved service that intercepts your new Twitter follower notification emails and sends you much more useful ones. It's great but probably too easy for Twitter to just reproduce itself.
FriendFeed plus Twitter would be a match made in heaven. It would be an engineering powerhouse. It would be a step towards mainstream user adoption of FriendFeed, a service that can't make up its mind which end of the sophistication spectrum it's targeting. It's also quite unlikely to happen. If there's one related startup we can imagine turning down a Twitter acquisition offer, it's probably FriendFeed. (Though the investment laden and highly ambitious OneRiot is a close second.) None the less, it would be awesome if FriendFeed's cross-network aggregation, threaded conversations, groups, media support, search and more joined forces with Twitter.
Ultimately, it may be most likely that Twitter's next acquisition will be something vapid. A service that aggregates shopping Tweets, or celebrity Tweets, or something else that will fall short of taking advantage of the Twitter platform's huge potential to change the world. Twitter staff makes relatively simple use of its own service, so hoping that it will acquire companies that make it all the more powerfully sophisticated may be an early adopter's pipe dream.
Maybe not, though. We wouldn't be shocked to see Twitter pick up at least a few of the companies above. What do you think? Are there other services you'd like to see become part of the Twitter team even more than the above? It's a wild and woolly micro-content ecosystem out there - anything could happen.
You can find ReadWriteWeb on Twitter, as well as the entire RWW Team: Marshall Kirkpatrick, Bernard Lunn, Alex Iskold, Sarah Perez, Frederic Lardinois, Jolie O'Dell, Dana Oshiro , Lidija Davis and Steven Walling.
Discuss
July 03, 2009 08:08 PM
Today a fire hit a major datacenter in Seattle, taking money processor Authorize.Net down. This has caused many web-based financial transactions to grind to a halt, but Authorize.Net isn’t the only website that’s gone offline today.
Another popular website has fallen, Geocaching.com, a worldwide GPS-based treasure hunting game, leaving thousands of people trying to figure out just what’s going on and why it went down. Wikipedia explains the game’s worldwide reach:
Geocaching is an outdoor treasure-hunting game in which the participants use a Global Positioning System (GPS) receiver or other navigational techniques to hide and seek containers (called “geocaches” or “caches”) anywhere in the world. A typical cache is a small waterproof container (usually a tupperware or ammo box) containing a logbook and “treasure,” usually toys or trinkets of little value.
Geocaches are currently placed in over 100 countries around the world and on all seven continents, including Antarctica. There are over 820,000 active geocaches in the world right now.
While the fire may or may not be responsible for this specific outage (we cannot confirm), it’s clearly had an effect on the entire web. Even Microsoft’s search engine Bing was affected, specifically Bing Travel.
We will provide updates on Geocaching and Authorize.Net as we receive the information.
Reviews:
Wikipedia,
bing
Tags: geocaching
July 03, 2009 07:45 PM
When we reported on Kiva.org’s decision to open up its micro-lending platform to U.S. entrepreneurs, Kiva CEO Premal Shah told us he was concerned about backlash in the community. Shah acknowledged that the decision to open lending to U.S. recipients may draw criticism because it goes against the idea on which Kiva was founded—lending to help development in third world countries where credit options are limited.
It looks like Shah’s prediction was correct. There is now a lending team on Kiva’s community platform titled “Unhappy Kiva Lenders.” The members, which total 375 lenders from around the world, are angry that Kiva is extending loans to U.S. entrepreneurs. The team’s page states that “including borrowers from the USA has undermined the very core of what made [Kiva] so unique and special; small, impactful contributions to entrepreneurs in impoverished situations in developing countries.”
The tirade on the page is harsh, calling the decision “shameful and disgraceful” and a deviation from Kiva’s core mission. The group cites an example of a recent Kiva loan request from a U.S. entrepreneur who had a college degree and a career in architecture who wanted to start a business in website design. The loan he requested was for $7000 to start the business, an amount the lenders suggest could help 7 to 10 different borrowers in other parts of the world.
Kiva’s stated mission is “to connect people through lending for the sake of alleviating poverty.” The anti-U.S. lenders claim that lending to U.S. entrepreneurs doesn’t alleviate poverty because Americans aren’t living in true poverty, compared to people in underdeveloped countries.
**US borrowers do not have to pay to send their kids to elementary school. **They don’t have to build their own house. **They don’t have to walk miles to get the bare minimum of medical care….if needed they can access FREE, generally high quality medical care. **They have a system of laws and courts in place that work. **They enjoy police and fire protection. **They generally have access to inexpensive and dependable public transportation. **They take for granted electricity, clean water, inspected food and indoor toilets. **
Some of that may be true. On the other hand, Shah makes a compelling case for the need for a micro-lending platform in the U.S. He says more than 10 million U.S. business owners face difficulty obtaining capital—even before the credit crisis and economic slowdown which made lending tight. And there’s no doubt that with the credit crunch creating a drought of lending, small businesses in the U.S. are finding it tough to find funds, especially if their financial history isn’t stellar. Finally, there is nothing wrong with giving U.S. lenders the opportunity to boost entrepreneurship at home, especially at a time where jobs created by small businesses can help lift the economy out of a recession.
It seems to me like the angry protests are misdirected. Kiva’s lending program has long been hailed as one of the more innovative platforms on the web and its ambitions have always been towards helping foster entrepreneurship (as well as alleviating poverty) in various areas of the world. Kiva’s decision to offer microlending to U.S. entrepreneurs reflects a genuine need for additional lending in the U.S. economy. And who knows? Kiva’s policy may attract a new crop of lenders who want to help at home first, and once they get hooked, spread capital overseas as well. The more capital that goes into the Kiva system, the more chance borrowers everywhere will have to eventually tap into it because many Kiva lenders simply recycle their loans as they are paid back.
We’ve contacted Kiva.org for a formal response.
Crunch Network: CrunchGear drool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware.
July 03, 2009 07:31 PM
A somewhat distressing tech story today: a female employee at the Arlington Apple Store was shot in the shoulder this morning by a man who rang the doorbell at the back of the store. Fortunately the employee is said to be recovering in hospital. It’s thought the motive was attempted robbery.
According to ABC7 news, the shooting happened shortly after 10 a.m. at the Apple Store located at 2700 Clarendon Blvd. A search for the suspect is underway.
The Washington Post adds that the suspect is “a black male, between the ages of 35 and 45, with a medium build and facial hair. He was last seen fleeing the area on foot, wearing a light-colored, short sleeve shirt, light-colored long pants and a dark baseball cap. He was carrying a handgun.”
July 03, 2009 06:44 PM
Start Mobile has managed to get 18 separate iPhone applications approved by Apple. So you’ll imagine their surprise when one of them was recently rejected. But you may be even more surprised to find out why.
Apparently, Apple doesn’t like the way one piece of art in the app depicts President Obama. Is it out of line or tasteless? Well, you can determine for yourself, because you’ve undoubtedly seen the art in question before: It’s Shepard Fairey’s famous “HOPE” image of Obama that was everywhere during his Presidential campaign.
So why on Earth would this be rejected? Well, here’s the wording in the rejection:
It contains content that ridicules public figures and is in violation of Section 3.3.12 from the iPhone SDK Agreement which states: “Applications must not contain any obscene, pornographic, offensive or defamatory content or materials of any kind (text, graphics, images, photographs, etc.), or other content or materials that in Apple’s reasonable judgement may be found objectionable by iPhone or iPod touch users.”
“Ridicules public figures”? This image is hanging in the National Portrait Gallery at the Smithsonian — yet, Apple apparently finds it inappropriate.
To be clear, the app in question is a free demo app of Start Mobile’s galleries and contains a dozen images, but Apple is clearly just unnerved by the Obama one as you can see in the correspondence below which the developer has shared.
Here’s Apple’s initial rejection letter:
Subject: Start Mobile Wallpaper Gallery 1.0: Application Submission Feedback
Date: Tue, 19 May 2009 12:27:02 -0700 (PDT)
From: iPhone Developer Program
To: XXXXX@XXXXXXX.com, XXXXX@XXXXXXX.net
Please include the line below in follow-up emails for this request.
Follow-up: 74455381
Dear START MOBILE, INC.,
Thank you for submitting Start Mobile Wallpaper Gallery to the App Store. We’ve reviewed Start Mobile Wallpaper Gallery and determined that we cannot post this version of your iPhone application to the App Store because it contains content that ridicules public figures and is in violation of Section 3.3.12 from the iPhone SDK Agreement which states:
“Applications must not contain any obscene, pornographic, offensive or defamatory content or materials of any kind (text, graphics, images, photographs, etc.), or other content or materials that in Apple’s reasonable judgement may be found objectionable by iPhone or iPod touch users.”
An example of a public figure is attached.
If you believe that you can make the necessary changes so that Start Mobile Wallpaper Gallery does not violate the iPhone SDK Agreement we encourage you to do so and resubmit it for review.
Regards,
iPhone Developer Program
****************************
Here’s Start Mobile’s follow-up trying to explain why the image is not ridiculing a public figure:
Subject: [Fwd: Start Mobile Wallpaper Gallery 1.0: Application Submission Feedback]
Date: Tue, 19 May 2009 21:56:29 -0700
From: John Doffing
To: iPhone Developer Program
Follow-up: 74455381
Apple Developer Program:
The attached image is most certainly NOT content that ridicules a public figure, nor is it in any way “obscene, pornographic, offensive or defamatory”.
The attached image is an iconic portrait by globally acclaimed artist SHEPARD FAIREY, and is actually included in the National Portrait Gallery!
* http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/arts_and_culture/7817466.stm
According to the BBC:
“When people think of a portrait of Obama, they think of this image.”
Fairey’s works are also in the collections of the Museum of Modern Art in New York, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art and the Victoria and Albert Museum in London.
Thank you in advance for your time and consideration.
–
THANK YOU!
Best,
John
Now, lest you think Apple is possibly rejecting the app because Start Mobile doesn’t have permission to use the artist’s work, Start Mobile has three other apps featuring the work of Shepherd Fairey that are already in the App Store.
Okay, so maybe Apple’s isn’t comfortable with the bit of legal wrangling that is taking place over the artwork? That’s possible, but that’s not what it says in the rejection. And there are other applications like this one that use the image in question. And, you’ll notice, that’s not even the real version of the image, and it’s being used in the app’s icon. Why Apple would let that slip by and not this app? I have no idea.
And further, Start Mobile actually has another app that also features an Obama image that has been sitting around waiting to be approved for 2 months now, presumably for the same reason. That app features artwork from urban artist Justin Bua, and contains the image of Obama shown on the right.
So why doesn’t the developer just remove the offending images and get these apps approved? Well, because he doesn’t think he should have to, and believes this is just another case of the App Store approval process gone off the tracks.
“You notice that my original email to you didn’t scream CENSORSHIP or anything like that. I am quite sure that this is simply what amounts to a clerical error. A billion apps sold. 50k apps. etc etc. So this is just growing pains on their part. But unfortunately, it effected us directly, and had we not done SOMETHING, the end result would have been what amounts to accidental censorship,” Start Mobile’s John Doffing told us over email.
He goes on to note that he spoke with someone in developer relations a few weeks ago about the rejection, and they indicated that any apps that contain images of Obama may simply be getting rejected outright because there was a lot of “incendiary political content” that was coming through the App Store approval process around the time of the election. Sometimes “‘the baby is thrown out with the bathwater,” is what Doffing was told.
Doffing said that openness about what was going on made him hopeful that the app would find its way to the App Store, but that apparently didn’t change anything.
Sadly, this looks like yet another ridiculous App Store rejection. While Apple has no shortage of developers wanting to make apps for the platform, at some point, all of these ridiculous rejections run the risk of turning developers away.
Apple badly needs to straighten out its policies and get a team in place that doesn’t make dozens of silly mistakes with regards to app approvals and denials. The system continues to be broken.
Sure, Apple can do what it wants, but it’s asking developers to make apps for its store, which move iPhone and iPod touch units and make Apple all that money. Increasingly, the promise is that developers can earn a living off of the platform, or at least supplement their income. But they can’t do that if Apple keeps rejecting their apps for no apparent reason.
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July 03, 2009 05:48 PM
For marketers, Twitter has been a dream come true. It’s an open platform growing at a phenomenal rate. This combination can allow a single tweet to be seen by thousands of potential customers. But as Twitter continues its mainstream ascent, it has been targeted by spammers and scammers, something that doesn’t help legitimate marketers or users at all.
Yet despite its spam woes, Twitter has somehow avoided an overflow of content from one of the Internet’s biggest industries: porn. Well, until recently that is. An interesting article in MediaPost describes both marketers and Twitter users noticing an increase in pr0n-related spam, and they are not liking it. The issue makes us wonder: should Twitter stamp out pornography; and how should they go about it?
Twitter Users’ Feedback on Pornography
The MediaPost piece essentially quotes some of Twitter’s active marketers on the issue of Twitter and porn. What they have to say, though, is not pretty at all. While you can guess how users react in the piece, Ben Smith of MerchantCircle sums up the problem best:
MerchantCircle has begun to offer a portfolio of local city-specific coupons via Twitter feeds. “As we have found with any new communication form, pornography and other types of issues creep in,” says Ben Smith, MerchantCircle CEO. “The problem with this type of activity is that it undermines the trust in the communication channel, which will have a disastrous effect on the channel.”
Has pornography taken over Twitter? No, not by a longshot. Is it a growing problem? Absolutely. Things like Twitter porn trojans make it clear that Twitter is not impervious to porn-related spam and malware.
What Do Twitter’s Terms of Service Say?
We took a look at the Twitter Terms of Service, which governs user interactions with the Twitter platform. While it mentions that they can “remove Content and accounts containing Content that we determine … are obscene or otherwise objectionable,” it makes no specific reference to pornography.
Compare this to the terms of service of other social media companies, such as the Facebook Statement of Rights and Responsibilities, which specifically states the following:
6. You will not post content that is hateful, threatening, pornographic, or that contains nudity or graphic or gratuitous violence.
Does this mean that Twitter doesn’t care about porn? Absolutely not – Twitter has addressed pornography spam in the past and we doubt that it would let the Internet’s underground industry tarnish its strong reputation.
And yet Twitter needs to monitor the situation. Porn should not be acceptable on Twitter, especially an open platform that millions of companies and users use for business and marketing every single day. It may be a relatively small issue now, but it will grow more prevalent unless they put a stop to the problem early. It’s easy to forget just how much of the Internet is entirely porn.
First though, Twitter needs to build a search spam solution ASAP. It’s all part of the same core problem that Twitter will need to address.
Reviews:
Twitter
Tags: porn, pornography, twitter
July 03, 2009 05:41 PM
For a complete collection of Twitter resources, check out The Twitter Guide Book, Mashable’s hub for all things Twitter.
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Most Twitter users probably follow under a thousand other people, but that’s enough to make it hard to keep track of the real-time stream. I actually started having trouble keeping up when I hit about 50 follows — and depending on how prolific the people you’re following are, you could be dealing with a hard-to-parse Twitter stream even following just a handful of people. But while people like social media fanatic Robert Scoble, who follows over 100,000 people, appear to have the superhuman ability to stay on top of things, the rest of us need help filtering the Twitter stream.
Fortunately, there are a good number of methods and applications we can put to work to filter tweets from the people we’re following. Which work best for you? Let us know in the comments.
(Please note that a few of the apps in this post actually do multiple types of filtering, and so could have theoretically been added to more than one category.)
By Keyword
One way to filter Twitter is by keyword. Filttr is a full-featured, web-based Twitter app that includes keyword-based filtering. You can both blacklist and whitelist key phrases and Filtter will block or allow those tweets. Flittr, though, has a pretty steep learning curve, and before I even added any keywords it started filtering tweets — and took a particular dislike to a few of my Twitter friends. I’m not sure what criteria it was using for those initial filters.
Another full web-based client that includes keyword filtering is Mixero, which is in private beta.
Philtro, which is also in private beta, learns what types of tweets you like based on your ratings. Give thumbs up and thumbs down ratings to tweets, and Philtro slowly figures out what you like and attempts only to bother you with tweets you’d be likely to want to read.
By Links
About 19% of all tweets contain links, but if your Twitter stream moves quickly, you may miss many of the best unless you use a filter. MicroPlaza organizes the links tweeted by out by your followers by recency or popularity. MicroPlaza personalizes the concept employed sites like Tweetmeme, Twitt(url)y, and dailyRT, which assume that the more a link is tweeted, the more worthwhile it is of your attention.
MicroPlaza not only looks at which links are being tweeted and retweeted the most, but also which are being tweeted specifically by the people you’re following. The idea is that you’re most interested in things your followers are saying (otherwise, you wouldn’t be following them), so if they tweet about popular links, they’re more likely to be of interest to you.
One of the coolest features of MicroPlaza, though, is that you can assume the identity of any other Twitter user — so if you follow someone very connected to a specific industry, you can see the links that their friends are sharing.
By Grouping
Another way to filter Twitter, is by organizing your friends into groups. By putting the people you’re following into groups, you can break up and effectively slow down your Twitter stream, making it easier to follow tweets from your friends, colleagues, and family members.
There are a ton of different ways to organize you friends into groups, but one of the easiest is to use a Twitter client that supports grouping, such as desktop heavyweights Seesmic Desktop, Destroy Twitter, and TweetDeck (which has a complimentary iPhone app that also supports groups), or a web-based app like PeopleBrowsr.
Another option is to use a service that helps you create channels or groups of Twitter users and monitor their tweets. Floxee is one of the most full-featured such sites. It not only lets users monitor the tweetstream of a predefined group, but also displays stats about the activity of that group (or “flock”). Other sites you could use include TwitHive, Tweetizen, Twhanel, Crowdstatus, TwittGroups.com, and TweetChannel.
Disclosure: TweetDeck partnered with Mashable to create MashDeck, a branded version of the software.
By Favorites
Favorites aren’t the best way to filter tweets, because the reasons you favorite tweets might not be the same as other people. However, by the same token, tweets that have been favorited by multiple users are generally worth reading for some reason: they’re interesting, funny, clever, extraordinary, etc.
Favrd keeps track of the most favorited tweets, but is limited to those users who have signed up with the service to have their favorites watched. (Careful: Favrd is often NSFW.) Favotter is another favorite tracking site, but again, watches a limited number of users (due to API limitations, according to the site’s about page).
BONUS: TwitterForBusyPeople doesn’t really filter Twitter, but it does organize your recently active follows in a way that you can get an “at a glance” view of the activity of people you’re following. Once you get used to it, it is potentially a good way to make your Twitter stream more manageable.
BONUS 2: Twalala does keyword filtering, but where it really shines is the ability to mute certain users to remove their tweets from your twitter stream temporarily.
Bird illustration via Flickr user matthamm.
Reviews:
Flickr,
Mashable,
Mixero,
Seesmic Desktop,
TweetDeck,
Tweetizen,
Twitter
Tags: filter, twitter
July 03, 2009 05:02 PM
As a lot of e-commerce businesses and Twitter users are noticing, the entire Authorize.Net infrastructure crashed a few hours ago. For anyone who makes a purchase online, this is huge; Authorize.Net is the largest service for accepting credit cards and e-checks through the web. This means that millions of web-based transactions and purchases have come to a halt.
Luckily, Authorize.Net understands the usefulness of social media in situations like these. They set up a new Twitter account, @AuthorizeNet, earlier today to keep users informed about the recovery of one of the web’s most important payment systems. So what took Authorize.Net down anyway? And when will it be 100% back?
Twitter and the status of Authorize.Net
According to AuthorizeNet, the cause of the outage was a fire at their datacenter in Seattle. This impacted not only their website and transaction platforms, but even their backup center. Couple this with the fact that today starts the 4th of July holiday weekend, and you have a recipe for disaster.
Luckily, it seems that transaction processing has returned, although global processing is still down:
This is the most important aspect of the outage – without the payment system, merchants couldn’t accept credit card payments, which could result in millions of dollars lost among all of its vendors. The website is still down, meaning that accounts can’t be accessed. Luckily, the company had the foresight to use Twitter to keep merchants and users informed. We will update this post with any new developments on the situation.
Update: From the Authorize.Net Twitter account:
#authorizenet Full transaction processing has now been restored with Concord EFS.
The website seems to be loading now too, albeit very slowly.
Reviews:
Twitter
Tags: authorize.net, payment
July 03, 2009 04:40 PM
One of the most effective ways to amplify your message on Twitter is to get your followers to retweet it to their followers. Retweeting is also becoming a popular way to pass links around Twitter. They are becoming the new currency of the Web because of the power of passed links. One service in particular, Tweetmeme, is cornering the market on retweets by making it easy for blogs and other sites to add a retweet button to every page. You can see one at the bottom of this post, or the one at right. Just click on it, and it will take you to your Twitter account and populate a message with a “RT,” the headline, and a short link. Go ahead, do it now. Do it again. Okay, thanks.
Lots of sites use Tweetmeme’s retweet button, and it drives a lot of its overall traffic. Nick Halstead, the CEO of Fav.or.it (Tweetmeme’s parent company) says that the buttons are so widespread right now that they are generating 196 million impressions a week month. In other words, that is how many pages load with the buttons every month week, and some portion of those result in actual retweets. Halstead is making some improvements to the retweet buttons. Before each retweet generated by the button would include a promotional “via @tweetmeme.” That has now removed to make more room for the actual headline and link. Next week he is going to introduce an image button which can be included in RSS feeds and emails to spread the retweet love even further. And sites will be able to embed a retweet counter to show how many overall retweets they get every week.
More importantly, the retweet buttons will begin supporting URL shortening service other than bit.ly, and will include an option for sites to choose their own custom short URL. (For instance, we use http://tcrn.ch). Tweetmeme will also offer analytics for site owners to see how their retweets are spreading. Basic data will be free, and Tweetmeme will likely charge for more detailed analyticss. All of this, of course, also turns into valuable data for Tweetmeme to determine the most popular links and stories on Twitter, and makes Tweetmeme itself a better news aggregation site.
Crunch Network: MobileCrunch Mobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily.
July 03, 2009 04:36 PM
Before I go defile myself with burgers and beer I wanted to jailbreak my iPhone 3GS for you all. The process was amazingly simple. Using a Windows netbook - it doesn't work under Windows 7 - I simply installed iTunes and ran purplera1n. It took a second to reboot then it rolled through recovery mode, rebooted, and an app called Freeze appeared. Freeze then installed Cydia and all was right with the world.
July 03, 2009 03:52 PM
We're sure by now you've heard about the upcoming extensions that will soon arrive in Google's Chrome browser. Already we've seen a handful of these become available including AdSweep, a PageRank checker, Cleeki, and, as of yesterday, a new bookmarking extension from Delicious. However, if you've been running the standard Chrome install (or even the public beta), new features like this are just out-of-reach.
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If you're a developer, you're probably already running the version of Chrome released to the Dev channel, but many "regular folks" are hesitant to make this switch because moving from the stable release to the beta or from the beta to the dev release is a one-way conversion. You can't go back to an earlier build without re-installing Chrome. So how's another ordinary techie supposed to play around with all the cool new stuff coming to Chrome? The easiest way is to install a build of the Chromium browser side-by-side with your (stable) version of Google Chrome.
How to Install Chromium and Chrome on Your PC
First thing's first, if you haven't already installed a copy of Google Chrome on your PC, you should do so now. This new browser built on WebKit is winning converts right-and-left among the early adopter set these days, mainly for its blazing speed. From google.com/chrome you can grab the latest release or, if you're a little more daring, you can click the link to download the public beta version instead.
That was the easy part - the trickier part is installing Chromium, the open-source project that powers Google Chrome. You may have already visited the Chromium site over on Google Code in search of the download only to be confused when no obvious download link jumped out at you. Home, Docs, FAQ, Blog, Group, Terms - but no "Download." In fact, the only download link on the main page points you back to the stable version of Google Chrome. What gives?
They're probably not trying to hide the download from you, it's just a matter of knowing where to look. Developers get this but us "ordinary" tech enthusiasts may need a little assistance. You see, all the Chromium builds are all stored online at build.chromium.org/buildbot/snapshots. If you're a Mac or Linux user, this is where you can grab your copy, by the way.
Windows users need to head directly to the link at build.chromium.org/buildbot/snapshots/chromium-rel-xp. Once there, you'll notice a list of build numbers accompanied by a "last modified" date.
To get the most recent one, scroll to the bottom of the page and click through to the files listed. The easiest way to install Chromium is to download the "mini_installer.exe" file. This is a simple executable that installs Chromium on your PC.
Make Chromium Extension-Ready
Once installed, there's one more step before you can begin playing around with extensions in Chromium - you need to enable them. To do so, you're either going to need to modify the Chromium shortcut or create your own new shortcut.
Windows XP
On a Windows XP computer, you can just modify the "Target" field in the file properties. To do so:
- Go to C:\Documents and Settings\[User Name]\Local Settings\Application Data\Chromium\Application\ and locate the file called "chrome.exe."
- Right-click on the file and choose "Properties." Click the "Shortcut" tab.
- In the field labeled "Target" change the text to read (and yes, you need the quotes): "C:\Documents and Settings\[User Name]\Local Settings\Application Data\Chromium\Application\chrome.exe" -enable-extensions
- Click "OK" when you're done.
- Make sure this modified shortcut is the one you use to launch Chromium from now on. You may want to copy it to your desktop to be sure.
Windows Vista/Windows 7
On Windows Vista or Windows 7, you can't simply modify the "Target," you have to create a new shortcut instead. To do so:
- Go to C:\Users\[User Name]\AppData\Local\Chromium\Application
- Right-click in the white space of that folder somewhere and click "New" on the menu that appears.
- Choose "Shortcut" from the menu to launch the Create Shortcut wizard.
- In the window that appears, enter in the following where it asks you for the location of the item: C:\Users\[User Name]\AppData\Local\Chromium\Application\chrome.exe -enable-extensions
- Click "Next" then "Finish"
- A new shortcut will appear in the folder. Make sure this shortcut is the one you use to launch Chromium from now on. You may want to copy it to your desktop to be sure.
Launch Chromium and Install Extensions
Now that you have Chromium installed and modified, you can play with extensions. To install an extension, you simply click on the hyperlink for the extension which is usually labeled "extension_name.crx." A box will pop-up asking you to confirm, just click "OK."
Here are some extensions you can try now:
- AdSweep: an add-on that hides advertising on web page you visit similar to how AdBlock works. It uses JavaScript to adjust the CSS of a page and is also available as a user script.
- PageRank checker: a simple extension that shows the Google PageRank for the current web site.
- Cleeki: an extension that delivers the functionality of IE8's Accelerators to other browsers
- Gmail Checker: One of the Chromium sample extensions that displays a toolstrip that shows how many messages are in your Gmail inbox.
- Subscribe in Google Reader: Another sample extension which adds a button to the URL bar when a page has a feed that can be subscribed to. Clicking the button takes you to Google Reader.
- BuildBot Monitor: A third sample extension which shows the current status of the Chromium Build Bot.
- Chritter: a Chrome Twitter notifier that shows recent tweets in the tooltip
- Delicious: the official alpha version of the social bookmarking extension. (Note: you may have to save the file on disk and then drag on Chrome window to trigger the install instead of just clicking on the link).
Final Note
Keep in mind that Chromium isn't going to give you the same everyday experience of using the stable version of Chrome. While playing around with it, the browser actually crashed on me a couple of times - two times too many to make it worth switching over to permanently. This may just be an issue with the particular build I installed and will be corrected in a future version, but that's what you get when you're playing with cutting-edge tech.
At least I was finally able to get my hands on the extensions and really see what they were all about. And for that, it was well worth the headaches. Extensions are incredible!
Discuss
July 03, 2009 03:46 PM
Readers may have noticed that Google changed the way it displays search results this week: the Google logo is smaller, results are indented and spacing has been added above the search box. Google also removed the page size indicator, which gives you a hint of how long the page might take to load.
Reader Marek Foss sent us screenshots comparing the old and the new layout (below), which he feels looks more like Google AdSense than a page of Google search results.
And yet we know that such changes can have a significant effect of Google’s revenue and page load times – removal of features (eg. page size indicator) gains a fractional boost in load times, for instance. We also know that Google is meticulous in optimizing pages, and that asking the user what they want (as we do here) might not result in the correct answer, as a CNET article last year explained:
For example, Mayer said, the company wanted to find out how many search results to show users–the customary 10, or 20, 25, or 30? When asked directly, users said they’d like more results on a page, but testing showed otherwise.
Specifically, Google found that when the results increased to 30 per page, people searched 20 percent less overall, Mayer said. After much analysis of server logs, the company found it was because it took about twice as long to display the longer results list for the user, and speed matters.
Google’s latest layout change, then, isn’t likely to be for aesthetic purposes: it’s for speed and revenue. The question is: do you, like Mark, find it less aesthetically appealing?
Are you a fan of the new Google layout?(trends)
Reviews:
Google
July 03, 2009 03:29 PM
Does embattled music streaming site imeem think it can take on iTunes? For the most part, nearly every streaming song on the site has a download button which links to both iTunes and the Amazon MP3 store. But it is quietly testing its own music download store which bypasses iTunes and Amazon and sells MP3s directly. For instance, this is the case with some Sub Pop artists, such as Iron and Wine and The Shins. When you hit the download button on songs for those artists, a window pops up showing the album where that song came from with with the option to download the entire album or any individual song for $0.99 (see screenshot above). You can then pay imeem directly by credit card or Paypal and download the song to your computer.
This imeem music store is obviously an experiment. The vast majority of songs still direct users to iTunes or Amazon for downloads, and you’d expect imeem to provide its own lightweight desktop client to manage and store the downloads, or at least place them directly into iTunes instead of a download folder on your computer. But it is also likely a sign of things to come. After nearly running out of cash because it was paying out too much money to the music labels for streaming rights, imeem went through a sever recapitalization. Warner Music ended up taking a $20 million hit to write down its investment and bad debt from imeem. Instead of walking away, however, Warner renegotiated its deal with imeem to get new shares without putting in any new money.
Imeem is doing everything it can right now to cut costs and find new sources of revenue. Last week, it announced it will soon stop storing user’s photos and videos, an expensive remnant from its earlier strategy to compete with Facebook and MySpace as a larger social network. Now, imeem is focusing on being a music site. It was one of the first sites to strike streaming deals with all the major labels and for the most part has renegotiated those on more favorable terms. Its iPhone and Android apps, which also offer streaming music, are taking off and driving even more downloads.
And that’s where the imeem music store comes in. Currently, imeem gets a dinky 5 percent affiliate fee for every song its users buy from iTunes or Amazon. As part of its renegotiations with the music labels, it is getting download rights along with its streaming rights I’ve been able to confirm. Instead of getting a few pennies for each song from iTunes and Amazon, imeem can capture the roughly $0.30 per song that doesn’t go to the labels. What is more likely, however, is that it is giving the labels more than the 70 percent cut they get from Apple. Even if it splits its share with the labels and takes only $0.15 per song, imeem still stands to triple its download revenue. Add in ringtone sales and its existing advertising revenues (imeem attracted 25 million unique visitors worldwide in May, according to comScore), and imeem might just have a chance to survive. But if it does survive, it probably won’t be because of its advertising model alone. It will be because the free music is driving enough sales of actual music downloads.
Update: Imeem has confirmed that it is planning to roll out this store more broadly, but says that when it does it will continue to offer iTunes and Amazon downloads as an option.
Below are screenshots of the new post-payment window for songs imeem sells itself and the regular affiliate link window which still pops up for most downlods:
Crunch Network: MobileCrunch Mobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily.
July 03, 2009 02:56 PM
Talk about a serious outage. Payment gateway service provider Authorize.net has been down and out for several hours, a number of tipsters inform us. That has big implications: since the service is used by tens of thousands of e-commerce vendors to accept credit card and electronic checks payments on their websites (example), it likely means millions are being lost during its downtime. PayPal and Google Checkout are still up and running.
It’s unclear when the downtime started exactly, but the consensus is somewhere between 5 and 7 hours at this point (11 AM Eastern), with e-commerce vendors desperately looking for ways to contact the company or get any first-hand information about what’s going on and when the problems will be resolved. Twitter, meanwhile, is buzzing with the news as the United States wakes up (hashtag #authorizenet).
According to some threads in hosting forums, which remain unverified for the moment, there was a fire at a Seattle datacenter during this U.S. holiday weekend which caused a massive technical failure.
We’re trying to get more information about the situation.
Update: nobody is picking up the phone at the U.S. offices of CyberSource, the holding company of Authorize.net. Someone I talked to at their UK offices couldn’t help me and told me I should keep trying the U.S. office.
Update 2: Nathan Cheeley writes:
A fire in Fisher Plaza, Seattle has cause a massive power outage causing leading IP-based payment gateway solution Authorize.Net to go down around approximately 11:15pm PST (last night).
A traffic reporter for KOMO News that operates out of Fisher Plaza tweeted that a fire set off the sprinkler system which fried the generators.
Update 3: Authorize.net has set up a brand new Twitter account to keep everyone updated, confirming the cause of the failure was a fire but also stating an ETA for resolution is not available at this time.
Update 4: a new tweet says backup was in place but that datacenter was impacted as well.
Update 5: tweet number 4 says “transaction processing is back up, with the exception of Global processing.” (12 AM Eastern)
Update 6: Or not. (12:30 AM Eastern)
Update 7: Authorize.net reports that full transaction processing has now been restored with Concord EFS.
(Thanks to everyone who sent this in)
Crunch Network: MobileCrunch Mobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily.
July 03, 2009 02:49 PM
It’s been a nice two weeks in San Francisco, but in about 10 hours I’m headed to SFO’s international terminal again. This time, I’m going to London. I’m traveling as part of a group of bloggers, authors and videographers called “The Traveling Geeks,” whose mission is simply to go to various cities around the world and try to learn as much about its tech scene as we can. Our first trip was to Israel last year; now we’re headed to London.
It’s a rag-tag group that includes Craig Newmark of Craigslist, Meghan Asha of Nonsociety, Robert Scoble of everywhere, videographer JD Lasica and many other fine geeks you can read all about at the link above.
As a Sarah-Lacy-bonus-feature I’m sticking around London an extra week, mostly to do some interviews for my book. But I’ll also be meeting with companies, handing out an award at the TechCrunch Europas Awardsfor European startups, hosted by our network site TechCrunch Europe, and—yes, Arrington—writing some posts as well on what I find.
We’re kicking the whole trip off with a Tweet-Up this Sunday night. I think we’ve got about 50 slots left if you act quickly! Yes, there’s a fee to get in, but it comes with free drinks, food and all the Scobleizer you can handle. And, if that’s not enough for you Euro-techies, Intel is giving away a few laptops. (Intel is a sponsor for the trip. For more on sponsors and our ethics statement go here.) Discount code and other details are here.
Hope to see you all there or at the Europas!
Crunch Network: CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0
July 03, 2009 02:34 PM
At the end of last May, Yahoo released an experimental version of Placemaker, a “geo-enrichment” platform. What it does is help developers make applications location-aware by identifying places in unstructured and atomic content (think RSS feeds, web pages, news, status updates etc.) and returning geographic metadata for geographic indexing and markup. In layman’s terms: it can detect places by scanning content and is capable of putting the aggregate data on a map.
While Placemaker does not serve as a geocoder and thus does not perform address recognition on street-level, it is perfectly capable of geo-extracting and indexing documents or atomic units of text, giving third-party developers the means to mark-up and index Web content geographically in a globally-aware, locally-relevant, and language-neutral manner (and Geo Microformats-compatible, too). But the process of parsing the data could sure have been made a lot easier, and if you weren’t a developer there wasn’t really any use for the tool at all.
Enter GeoMaker, a fresh project by the hands of Yahoo developer Chris Heilmann that aims to make the whole process more user-friendly. Now it just takes three easy steps to copy-paste content either by directly entering data or by fetching it from a Web address and create a map based on the places the underlying software can identify. It even comes with its proper API.
To see it in action, jump to this non-embeddable Flickr video that shows you how it works.
To test it, I entered the URL for a post I wrote yesterday about the apparent geographical differences in terms of level of engagement with social networking services. I don’t have access to a free map developer key, or I would have been able to replace the YMAPPID in the embed code with the key and embed the map, but here’s a screenshot of how it came out:
I can see a couple of uses for this, but it’s worth noting Christian is asking for feedback at this stage, which he intends to use to refine and improve GeoMaker prior to making it available as an open-source project on GitHub.
(Hat tip to Programmable Web)
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July 03, 2009 02:25 PM
Has Twitter spam gotten a little out of hand? According to today's top story on Techmeme, it has. Apparently, marketers are calling for Twitter to filter out spam and other adult content from the microblogging service. You know, so their all-important tweets about the products and services they're pushing don't have to share the same web space as that other nasty stuff. But fighting actual spammers is still relatively easy for an end-user: it's called the "unfollow" button.
Ironically, if anyone's to blame for spamming our Twitter timelines, it's the marketers themselves. They've managed to trick our friends into spamming us with their messages instead.
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If You're Getting Real Spam, Blame Yourself
We're not sure where anyone, marketers or otherwise, get off telling Twitter that it's their responsibility to filter the content that flows through their service mainly because Twitter is already doing so. The company itself currently addresses the spam issue by providing an @spam account where you can report spammers and other abusers in the Twittersphere. If the account in question is indeed a spammer, Twitter boots them from the service. That sounds good to us. Simple and effective...at least for the end user. (It's probably a nightmare to deal with at Twitter HQ).
Of course, Twitter doesn't want their service overrun by spammers - no one would. However, they're probably more concerned with wasting their resources to support these fake accounts than they are with the annoyance it causes for their users. But do they have it under control? Perhaps not - fighting spam is sort of like fighting computer viruses. You block one and someone makes a new one. The same goes for spammers - kill one spammer and another appears to take his place. It's an ongoing fight, not a plague that can be wiped out overnight through some magic filter.
Besides, what you consider spam, I may consider "valuable information about a product." Probably not, but there is a grey area there that has to be taken into consideration. Some spam is out-and-out spam, but others may just be "hot deals" from a legitimate company. However, if you didn't want to see said hot deals, you might consider them spam. Still, how would you see them unless you actually followed that account to begin with? Or maybe you turned on auto-follow using a service like SocialToo? If that's the case, it's a little ridiculous for you to get annoyed when half your timeline turns into a slew of "buy this" messages - you only have yourself to blame for that.
Where Actual Spam Hurts Us
The only place that honest-to-goodness spam can really affect you on an everyday basis is not in your own personal timeline of friends' tweets, but when viewing a trending topic's stream or when doing a keyword search. In these cases, spammers hijacking a currently popular hashtag may show up in the timeline, potentially diluting the results with irrelevant information. For this reason alone, we support Twitter's spam-fighting efforts.
Even More Dangerous? "Tweet to Win"
What's actually more concerning than spam, however, is the new trend we'll call "tweet to win." Legitimate companies have begun using Twitter to promote a message - essentially an advertisement about their business's offerings. To cajole twitizens into "spamming" their followers in this way, they're offering prizes or the chance to win prizes in return. (Full disclosure: this author did this once and still regrets it).
This situation hasn't gotten out-of-hand just yet, but it seems like it's only a matter of time before it does. Because really, how many of you could resist yourselves if all of a sudden a company started giving away free Macbook Pros? Oh, apparently not too many of you because you've already spammed up trending topics today with #moonfruit. What's Moonfruit? Why, it's a company that's giving away a free Macbook Pro every day for 10 days. Is this a brilliant social media promotion (as Adam Ostrow of Mashable claims) or just a new, inventive way to junk up the twitterstream with advertisements? We think it's closer to the latter.
The only consolation in this particular case is that Moonfruit doesn't care what your tweet says, so it can just be appended to any ordinary tweet. That's not usually the case - most companies provide a message for you to re-tweet.
What's frightening about this "it's not spam, it's a message from your friend" is that it's really not. My friend isn't actually telling me that Moonfruit is this great new company they just heard about and I really have to go check them out. This isn't a word-of-mouth recommendation - my friend just wants to win a new laptop. They know this, I know this, and the company knows this. And that makes the message just as spammy to me as any other in-stream tweet from an actual spammer.
So, what can be done? Well sure, I could unfollow that so-called friend, but why would I? It's not like they do this regularly and 99% of the time, I like what they have to say. But while one day that friend is tweeting to win a Macbook, another may be tweeting to win something else. Even if only a small percentage of an ever-shifting group of my friends tweeted a promotional message every day, it would be enough to junk up my timeline.
Sadly, that's one kind of spam that Twitter can't really block. And neither can I.
Discuss
July 03, 2009 02:16 PM
We’ve noted before that China’s Green Dam, web filtering program supposedly designed to block pornography, but in reality a serious threat to privacy and security, was obviously created in a haste, with many of its shortcomings being revealed as the story unwinds.
Now, besides the fact that it doesn’t work on 64-bit operating systems, we have another one: it doesn’t support Macs. Thus, Apple’s computers seem to be – at least for the time being – exempt from the order that all PC makers must include Green Dam with new PCs sold in China.
This is probably just another temporary setback to the controversial Green Dam initiative, as the program will undoubtedly get updated to include support for currently unsupported operating systems. IDG writes:
“A service representative at a sister company to Green Dam’s main developer, Jinhui Computer System Engineering, said the company is testing the software on non-Windows platforms and will release an updated version if compatibility is added for other OSes.“
Yes, the program is a possible security threat, and yes, the entire initiative was launched before it was actually possible to implement. But judging by the fact that most PC makers have already started to comply with the demands of Chinese authorities – even with the actual initiative being postponed – proves that all those shortcomings probably won’t be enough to stop it.
Tags: censorship, china, Green Dam
July 03, 2009 01:13 PM
Brian Arnold created a fun sample drum machine simulator using HTML5 <audio>.
JAVASCRIPT:
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function playBeat() {
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if (isPlaying) {
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var nextBeat = 60000 / curTempo / 4;
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// Turn off all lights on the tracker's row
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$("#tracker li.pip").removeClass("active");
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// Stop all audio
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stopAllAudio();
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// Light up the tracker on the current pip
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$("#tracker li.pip.col_" + curBeat).addClass("active");
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// Find each active beat, play it
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$(".soundrow[id^=control] li.pip.active.col_" + curBeat).each(function(i){
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document.getElementById($(this).data('sound_id')).play();
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});
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// Move the pip forward
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curBeat = (curBeat + 1) % 16;
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// Schedule the next one
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setTimeout(playBeat, nextBeat);
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}
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}
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That's not all Brian is working on:
I'm also working on something like the ToneMatrix or Tenori-on (Flash and actual devices, respectively) in pure HTML/JS. It works too, but the sounds aren't exactly designed to be great together (it's currently working on a C scale) and so if you're careful, you can get some decent sound but otherwise, it'll hurt your ears.
July 03, 2009 01:11 PM
Alex MacCaw has released Machsend, a Yahoo! Browser Plus plugin that enables P2P file transfers from inside the browser.
It showcases what can be done with a BP plugin, leaving you wish cross browser functionality.
I guess it is kinda fun to hack the browser :)
July 03, 2009 10:52 AM
According to The Hollywood Reporter, movie studio Universal has won a bidding war to pick up the film rights to the classic Atari video game “Asteroids”. Initially released as an arcade game back in 1979, Asteroids featured a triangular space ship that needed to be navigated through an asteroid field.
The object was to shoot and destroy masses of rock and the occasional flying saucer while avoiding smashing into both, so we suspect it will not turn out to be romantic comedy.
Matthew Lopez will write the script for the feature adaptation, which will be produced by Lorenzo di Bonaventura, the producer of both Transformers movies as well as the 2005 adaptation of the Doom game.
Also wondering how you could possibly build a script around the simple game? Universal is just going to try and see if it sticks:
“As opposed to today’s games, there is no story line or fancy world-building mythology, so the studio would be creating a plot from scratch.”
(Hat tip to The Register, which offers some advice for a story line and potential cast)
Asteroids made by Neave Games
Crunch Network: CrunchBase the free database of technology companies, people, and investors
July 03, 2009 10:48 AM
Different markets have different needs for marketing products or services. We all know that much. But that doesn’t take away the weirdness of a company like Google advertising its core product (online search) by using ink that was printed on paper.
Guilty of this hideous crime (I kid, I kid) is Google India, who apparently ordered some targeted quarter-page advertisements to appear in a variety of city supplements of The Times Of India, the leading English-language daily newspaper in the country.
According to PluGGd.in - who we can also credit for taking the picture of the ad - this isn’t exactly the first time Google India has advertised services in dead tree form. They apparently also ran a print campaign to promote the company’s SMS search service back in November 2008.
But this could well be the first time the Internet behemoth feels the need to pimp its search service in print. Or is it?
Have you ever heard about other countries where Google advertises its search engine in printed publications? Let us know in comments.
Crunch Network: MobileCrunch Mobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily.
July 03, 2009 10:09 AM
I don’t play World of Warcraft anymore. The doctor ordered me not to. Suffice to say that I actually started reading about TweetCraft 10 hours ago, and then ended up watching the entire BlizzCon ‘08 PVP tournament replay.
However, if I did play today, I’d definitely appreciate the ability to tweet in-game. Waiting for 25 people to come together for a raid, or standing in front of the battlegrounds gives you a lot of time to kill, and what better way to do it than to tweet your heart away?
Now you can. TweetCraft, a Twitter plugin for World of Warcraft been in the works for a while, and although it’s still not the easiest thing to install (read the full instructions and some background here), it’s fully functional.
Basic features, beside in-game tweeting, are the ability to queue tweets for later, upload in-game screenshots through TwitPic, autotweet certain events such as entering an instance (for the love of God, please don’t use this option), and the ability to connect with other AddOns which can also register events and set them to autotweet.
If you’re worried about breaking Blizzard’s terms of service, it’s a bit of a gray area, but you’re probably safe. From the FAQ:
“Is this a violation of World of Warcraft’s Terms of Use or the new AddOn policies?
As far as we know, no. We do not do any internal memory reading or other hacks to the Warcraft client. You could argue that it’s possible to follow a Twitter user that would add advertising in-game which would violate the addon policy for in-game advertising, but the onus is on the user of TweetCraft to ensure the people they friend don’t write messages (Tweets) that violate Warcraft’s AddOn policy. In short, it’s up to each person to ensure they’re following Warcraft’s terms of use. “
However, since it is, in part, a third-party app, it’s always wise to wait for official word from Blizzard before you install it.
There are some bad news, too: it doesn’t work on Macs, as it requires an external, Windows-based application to run while you play.
Download TweetCraft here, check out an introductory video below, and remember; if you need a shaman, PVP-specced, has a job but will probably get fired after reactivating his account, I’m back at Burning Legion (EU) (;.
Reviews:
Twitpic,
Twitter
Tags: twitter, world of warcraft
July 03, 2009 09:03 AM
George Hotz, the 20-year old hacker who originally unlocked the iPhone, has released a jailbreaking application for the iPhone 3GS codenamed “purplera1n.” It’s currently Windows-only (Windows 7 not supported), and requires the latest iTunes installed, and an iPhone 3GS with the 3.0 firmware.
Hotz mentions in a blog post that the jailbreak for Mac is “coming soon.” The iPhone Dev Team did release a unlock for 3.0 which did not work on the iPhone 3GS, but Hotz’s version does (although it doesn’t free you from your current carrier).
Hotz goes over the process of the jailbreaking on his blog:
Connect your iPhone normally. Click “make it ra1n”. Wait. On bootup, run Freeze, the purplera1n installer app.
Hotz does warn users that you’ll need to backup your data just in case, and emphasizes that the tool is still in beta. Hotz also mentions that normally he does not make tools for the public, and rather have the iPhone Dev Team figure out the unlock process. Hotz continues by explaining that Apple will probably find a fix for the loophole, release an update, and he will go back to work on finding the next loophole.
Update: John Biggs over at CrunchGear goes through the process of jailbreaking his iPhone 3GS using Hotz’s program.
Crunch Network: CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0
July 03, 2009 08:43 AM
On Wednesday I spoke with antitrust attorney Gary Reback, the man who spearheaded the push to break up Microsoft in the nineties. The event was hosted by HBSTech at the Computer History Museum in Silicon Valley.
If anyone in the world can make antitrust law interesting, it’s Reback.
Much of the hour plus conversation focused on the history of antitrust law and Reback’s experience in big antitrust cases from his new book, Free the Market!: Why Only Government Can Keep the Marketplace Competitive (buy it here). But we also spoke about current events and his concerns that lax antitrust enforcement has led to less competition today in tech than is optimal.
We spent a lot of time on Google. His chief concern is Google Books (jump to the 30 minute mark), and he argues that a DOJ investigation is appropriate. I’m more concerned with competition in search and search marketing, and we spoke about this as well.
One interesting insight from the conversation: I ask Reback if he thinks we’d be in a better world if Microsoft had in fact been broken up into two or more companies as was originally ordered. His response - “no.” The investigation and lawsuits themselves, he said, did enough to force Microsoft’s hand and allow browsers like Firefox, Chrome and others to blossom.
We’re giving away 15 autographed copies of Reback’s book. We’ll determine the winners in the same way we did with Sarah Lacy’s book - retweet this post using the green button below. We’ll select the winners randomly from retweets that occur by midnight California time on July 3rd.
Crunch Network: CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0
July 03, 2009 07:27 AM
A new kind of technology site -- a social gadget platform that enables you to connect with the community through your gadgets, and connect with your gadgets through the community. It's a place for you to engage with your devices and hang out with people who are as passionate about their gear as you are. (Disclosure: Emily Chang's company, Ideacodes, did the design for gdgt) URL: gdgt.
July 03, 2009 07:08 AM
You may remember our earlier post on Yahoo Placemaker, a new “geo-enrichment” platform that includes an API (our Placemaker API Profile) that can be used to make applications and data sets location-aware by determining the “whereness” of unstructured content. Now, Yahoo developer evangelist Christian Heilmann has released GeoMaker, a new app that makes it dead simple to use the Placemaker API with any web site.
Christian developed GeoMaker as a side project using PHP and several Yahoo developer libraries (including YQL and YUI). Although in its initial stages, GeoMaker currently allows users to input text or a URL (e.g., http://icant.co.uk/geomaker/index.php?url=http://news.yahoo.com) to be ge-enriched. Subsequently, a Yahoo Map is output, including code for copying pasting the map on to your favorite site or blog. As a bonus, GeoMaker also outputs the geo-enriched location data in Geo Microformats. Christian has also put together a short video (below) that provides a good overview of GeoMaker on the Yahoo Developer Network Blog.
GeoMaker serves as a great example of how a viable and functional web app can be rapidly and easily developed by leveraging existing developer libraries and APIs. Christian is currently asking for feedback, which he intends to use to refine and improve GeoMaker, prior to making it available as an open-source project on GitHub (our GitHub API Profile). Nicely done, Christian!
July 03, 2009 06:05 AM
Analyst firm Next Up Research has published an extensive report on Linden Lab, the San Francisco company behind virtual world Second Life. The research is based on aggregate data and is available on SharesPost, a site set up to trade shares of privately held companies (if you register, you can download the report for free from that page, or you can find other valuation reports on companies like Facebook and LinkedIn). The report goes rather deep into the valuation of the Linden Lab, which it pegs at somewhere between $658 million and 700 million.
More on that later.
Now that Linden Lab has been around for nearly 10 years, and with its product Second Life celebrating its sixth birthday since launching publicly in June 2003, we thought it would be a good idea to take a close look at the report and see how the company’s doing according to the analysts.
First of all, you may be wondering if anyone is still using Second Life at all. The answer is yes, and users are very active on there. During the past 30 days, one million users logged in, according to Second Life’s own statistics. In average time spent per user per week, Second Life in fact trounces all other MMORPGs, including World of Warcraft and Civilization IV. In another testament to the service’s apparent stickiness, the number of hours users spend on Second Life has been increasing steadily and is currently at historic highs, totaling approximately 124 million hours in the first quarter of this year.
More importantly, Next Up says in-world transactions have recovered after a significant drop in September 2007 - when gambling was banned in the virtual world - and has been steadily increasing ever since December 2007.
Which brings us to the valuation, or at least the estimated value Next Up claims Linden Lab is worth after running a couple of calculations. Using publicly-traded online gaming companies as a proxy, Next Up pegs the median enterprise value (EV)/ Revenue multiple for that group at 7.2x off of 2009 revenues. Subsequently applying this self-proclaimed “conservative” multiple of 7x to the estimated revenue of Linden Lab ($100 million for this year), the current target valuation amounts up to $700 million.
That seems like a stretch. In November 2007, the last time we asked ourselves how much Second Life is worth, we came out somewhere between $500 million and $1 billion. The current estimated enterprise value calculated by Next Up falls pretty much right into the middle of that range.
Next Up defends the 7x multiple variable by referring to a two-year-old M&A deal. When Disney acquired Club Penguin for $350 million in cash back in August 2007, it paid out at least a comparable multiple based on Vlub PEnguin’s projected revenue for the year (between $50 and $65 million), despite the fact that it reaches a narrower demographic profile. But things have changed since then: stocks have tanked, valuations have dropped, the IPO market has pretty much dried up and VC-backed liquidity is at a record low. So that implies a major discount, with a valuation between $300 million to $500 million, which is decent but not spectacular, assuming Next Up’s revenue projection is accurate.
Here’s what else Next Up says could have a negative impact on Second Life’s valuation:
- the aging population of its main target markets (U.S. and Europe) and less of a presence in developing nations where its main target audience (people from 13 to 45) is quickly gaining in size.
- limited amount of premium subscriptions (about 1% or 170,000 users)
- possible taxation on virtual monetary transactions in a variety of countries
- cost and complexity of running the technical infrastructure behind the virtual world
If you’re interested in the virtual worlds or Linden Lab in particular, there’s a ton of information and speculation about the market to be found in the report, even if we focus mostly on the financial side of things. To conclude, here are two charts from the report, one on the estimated valuations based off of different calendar years and one on the post-money valuations after the various funding rounds raised by the company.
Crunch Network: MobileCrunch Mobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily.
July 03, 2009 05:48 AM
This is one post/chapter in a serialized book called Startup 101. For the introduction and table of contents, please click here.
First-time entrepreneurs are usually also first-time CEOs. When you look at your first business card that says CEO, don't forget that it is not necessarily telling the truth. You earn the title of CEO through your actions and your results. You still have your training wheels on.
Fortunately, there is probably more advice available on how to be an effective CEO than on almost any other subject. This chapter gives you a quick guide, but do invest the time to read the classics, particularly:
Sponsor
- "The Effective Executive," by Peter Drucker,
- "The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People," by Stephen Covey.
These are timeless classics. Their authors do not attempt to create any modern theory or expound on any particular business or market trend. The books work because they are based on observation. The authors observed effective people to find out what they did right.
The Effective Executive
Peter Drucker's "Effective Executive" was written in 1966. It is a slim tome and easy to read, even if the language is a bit dated. Drucker focuses on how to allocate time, because you can get more of almost any resource except time. His advice to find time for uninterrupted work is particularly relevant to today's multi-tasking world. He is also very clear about the need to allocate enough time for people. If you need an hour with someone, don't think you are being efficient by rushing through the meeting in 15 minutes.
CEOs allocate resources. The first resource they need to allocate is their own time.
One popular book today is "Now, Discover Your Strengths," by Marcus Buckingham. Drucker was a big proponent of accentuating a person's strengths rather than managing their weaknesses.
The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People
"The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People," first published in 1989, is a self-help book written by Stephen R. Covey. It has sold over 15 million copies. Drucker observes the following habits in effective people:
Habit 1: Be proactive.
Change starts from within. Most people react to external forces. To lead effectively, you have to overcome that natural tendency.
Habit 2: Begin with the end in mind.
You cannot lead unless you know where you want to get to.
Habit 3: Put first things first.
This is similar to what Drucker recommends. You need to have a very clear view of what is important, so that you know what to spend time on. Note that this often means leaving your comfort zone by acting on tasks that you don't naturally like or feel competent in performing.
Habit 4: Think win/win.
Seek agreement and relationships that are mutually beneficial. In cases in which a win/win deal cannot be achieved, accept that agreeing on "no deal" may be the best alternative. In developing an organizational culture, be sure to reward win/win behavior among employees, and avoid inadvertently rewarding win/lose behavior.
Habit 5: Seek first to understand, then to be understood.
First seek to understand the other person, and only then try to be understood. Stephen Covey presents this habit as the most important principle of inter-personal relations. Effective listening is not simply echoing what the other person has said through the lens of your own experience. Rather, it is putting yourself in the mindset of the other person, listening empathetically for both feeling and meaning.
Habit 6: Synergize.
Through trustful communication, find ways to leverage individual differences to create a whole that is greater than the sum of its parts. Through mutual trust and understanding, people can often solve conflicts and find better solutions than would have been obtained through either person's own solution.
Habit 7: Sharpen the saw.
Take time out from production to build production capacity through personal renewal of the physical, mental, social/emotional, and spiritual dimensions. Maintain a balance among these dimensions.
Three Things a CEO Has to Do Well
This is all you need to do as a CEO:
- Set direction and milestones (resisting the tempting distraction of juicy diversification). The ability to clearly say, "No, we are not doing that," is very important.
- Allocate resources (both financial and human, starting with your time).
- Hire and fire the top team (we have devoted a separate chapter to hiring an A-Team because this is much harder to say than do).
Making the Transition from Entrepreneur to CEO
Your average entrepreneur would probably say, "Yeah, right!" if told that they have to do only three things. The reality of a startup is that you usually have to do a bit of everything. You have to be product manager, if not the actual coder and designer. You become the chief marketing officer, chief financial officer, chief of just about anything that needs to get done.
This, of course, is unsustainable. You have to work out a transition plan that allows you to hire people to take over all the jobs that you currently do except the three CEO jobs.
Here are five tips for managing that transition:
- Record how much time you spend on these tasks. Understand the process. You cannot hire for, outsource, or automate a task unless you understand it yourself. Look at this "chief of everything" phase as your chance to learn.
- Recognize the reality that you are not an expert in these tasks. So K.I.S.S.
- Understand the difference between "core" and "context" in your business. Core is what you have to do really well and do in-house. Everything else you can and should outsource.
- Hire, outsource, and automate in proportion to the growth of your business. If you can manage five clients with everything else you are doing, and your two-year plan calls for 20 clients, hire someone who knows how to win and manage 20 clients (not someone who managed 1,000 clients at their last job). When you finally get the resources, there is a huge temptation to over-engineer.
- Pay particular attention to hiring someone to do the one job that you love and could continue doing very competently (whether that is coding, design, marketing, sales, or finance). Holding on to this one job, your comfort zone, is hugely tempting. But it is a huge mistake that will prevent you from becoming an effective CEO.
Discuss
July 03, 2009 04:25 AM
