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Wine 1.1.25 Released
- A ton of translation updates. - Support for various Unicode file encodings in Notepad. - Improved memory management, especially for OpenGL. - Desktop menus now cleaned up automatically. - Beginnings of a windowscodecs DLL implementation
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What’s Right and Wrong with Media Now
Like most things on the Internet, there’s a good side and a dark side to where the media business is headed.
The good side is very good: thousands of layers of mostly needless middlemen and processes are being eliminated as journalists get a direct channel to their readers. And, because it’s a two way medium, readers get that channel right back. And in the cases where the subject of an article has been wronged, the Web gives them powerful megaphones to fight back. In short, the more everyone has a voice, the more reporters are challenged to make sure they are right, because they will be called out.
Look at what happened with the plagiarism scandal around Chris Anderson’s new book. Anderson says it was a mistake around a change in how they were going to use citations, and I take him at his word. But it’s safe to say any author who’d considered borrowing heavily from Wikipedia won’t now. We like to think that we act virtuously because of personal or professional pride, but nothing enforces those ethics like the real possibility of getting caught and hugely embarrassed.
But the bad side is also very bad. The elimination of those layers – typically fact checkers, editors, lawyers and just time to make sure a work is fully baked—also allows mistakes, lazy reporting, a dependence on rumors, and hot-headed, unfair treatment to subjects. Worse: The metrics around the Web make it crystal clear which kinds of stories drive the most traffic. That leads to salacious reporting for the sake of clicks and comments.
It’s easy to point the finger at blogs, especially by certain members of old media losing money quarter-after-quarter. (Cough, cough.) But this is not just a technology change as most corners of media are fighting for survival, it’s become a cultural change. And this week, I’ve been struck by two non-blog examples that reflect the tension.
Right about now most people reading this probably have guessed the example of salacious reporting and unfair treatment I’m driving at is Ben Mezrich’s new book on Facebook. I’ll say upfront I haven’t read it. Galleys have been very closely guarded. Once I do read it, if everything everyone who has read it has told me is wrong, I’ll apologize for what I’m about to say. But, on a professional level, I find the ethics behind this project disgusting.
It’s essentially a book based on talking to one source who had a falling out with the company just as it was moving to California and becoming more than a dorm room project. That’s like someone writing a book about you based solely on what your old college ex-girlfriend or ex-boyfriend said.
Mezrich has been clear to say he’s never met or talked to Mark Zuckerberg in the intro and in interviews, but that doesn’t stop him from drawing potentially damaging conclusions about his character and selling it as a non-fiction book that’s getting made into a movie that people will take as fact.
In contrast, I spent years and hundreds of hours interviewing and following the subjects of my last book, which as most people know, included Zuckerberg amid other Web 2.0 figures. And I’m about one-third of the way through research for my next book, which includes spending 40 weeks in other countries following entrepreneurs. It’d be a lot easier to write a narrative without that whole burden of actual reporting. If I could sit in Silicon Valley and make up what I think entrepreneurs in Africa are like, that’d sure help out on my bank account, my health and my neglected personal relationships.
To be clear, I have no doubt Mezrich’s book will sell better than mine and make a juicier movie. But I wouldn’t swap the karma points. I don’t know how you call yourself a non-fiction writer and publish a book about a living person that’s based on you “imagining” what they are like. And let me tell you, having first interviewed him when he was 19 and spent countless hours with him since, the idea that Zuckerberg is some kind of sexed-up lethario is laughable fiction.
Why didn’t Mezrich write a novel or a different non-fiction book that he actually knew something about? It just seems like a cheap way to get a film deal and sales since the “imagined” subject is also leading the hottest private tech company in the world right now. (Indeed, the film rights were reportedly sold before the book was written.)
Even Mezrich’s publicist admits as much, according to a New York Times Blog post where he said, “The book isn’t reportage. It’s big juicy fun.” I’m guessing it’s not fun for the people trying to build a company who Mezrich essentially calls womanizers, drug addicts and backstabbers. Probably not fun for their families, employees and investors either. If this is where media is going on a book level, magazine level or blog level—I want out.
Contrast that to what’s playing out with another hot non-fiction book that was also optioned for a film: Moneyball. Some people accuse Michael Lewis of taking some liberties with facts here or there, but I’ve never met one of his subjects who felt he was treated unfairly, including the subject of Moneyball, Billy Beane. Like his style or not, Lewis did his job: He invested countless hours reporting and wrote a book that told a dramatic story that also happened to be true.
Recently, that book was also being made into a movie, to star Brad Pitt and be directed by Steven Soderbergh. The plug unexpectedly got pulled. It seemed Soderbergh reworked the script to be less a feature film version of things and more a real-life reenactment with some of the actual people playing themselves. Quippy anecdotes and funny lines were cut because they weren’t actually said in real life.
I’ve not been a huge fan of some of Soderbergh’s more experimental work, and I don’t know if his treatment would have made a better movie. But imagine: The people who are allowed to take the most liberties with a “true story”—the filmmakers—hewing more to the truth than an author who ostensibly gets paid to write the truth.
The media world is upside down these days, and I hope when all the volatility is done we wind up on the Soderbergh side of things.
Crunch Network: CrunchGear drool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware.
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Dotcom Crash-era Startup Reanimates By Trending On Twitter
It's not often that Internet companies last 10 years, but Moonfruit in the UK has proved pretty resilient. It survived the dotcom boom the first time round, launching with VC-backing, growing to 65 staff and cutting back to two staff in the space of a couple of years. It's a wonder why they didn't exit in the most recent boom, but here they are still, plugging away. And their resilience is proving to be an asset as their 10-years old web site building business comes back into fashion, even as more recent competitors like Weebly, Yola, MyDragnDrop and Webnode, and many others, try to capture the market for people who want to build simple web sites.
So what's the best way to re-invigorate an internet brand after 10 long years? Get trending on Twitter, that's how. So Moonfruit has been giving away 10 Macbooks for every year of their operation, beginning this week. The result is that it has become the top trending term on Twitter three days in a row, as all people need to do is add the hashtag #moonfruit to their tweet. An algorithm is randomly choosing a winner. There are five days left. By the second day this week it had reached 2.5% of all twitter traffic. But could the stunt backfire as fast as it worked?
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Display Tweets With PHP/Ajax: Ptwix
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Tweetmeme Retweets Become Elite Next Week
Retweeting, as we’ve mentioned before (see HOW TO: Retweet on Twitter), is an increasingly popular way to share content on the web.
Twitter is such a powerful tool for sharing media, in fact, that the former market leaders are racing to keep up. News sharing site Digg recently added short URLs and attempted to append a toolbar to those short URL clicks (Diggbar was later scaled back), while serendipitous sharing site StumbleUpon also got into the short URL game.
Both are under attack by new services like Tweetmeme, which provides blog buttons to help users retweet stories and provides a hub of the most shared content on Twitter. Earlier today the company announced a number of new features, all of which launch next week. The feature additions include:
- New image-based button: Use the retweet button in your RSS feeds, emails or on blog platforms that don’t support javascript (eg. WordPress.com)
- Retweet chicklets: Want to show off how many retweets you got this week? The new retweet chicklet will help you do just that, and post the numbers to your blog.
- Analytics package: Tweetmeme aims to launch more advanced analytics next week to help content providers understand their metrics better. It’s a development that might one day lead to a business model for Tweetmeme…if Twitter doesn’t get there first.
Tweetmeme has some tough competition: not only does it have multiple rivals, but bit.ly, the default short URL service on Twitter, has long been expected to launch something similar. In the meantime, you can catch up on everything retweet-related using the resources below.
Retweeting Resources from Mashable
1. HOW TO: Retweet on Twitter
2. The Science of ReTweets
3. Repeets Tracks Twitter’s Hottest Retweets
4. DailyRT Ranks Twitter Retweets
5. DMfail Fails, Reborn as Re-Twit’d
6. The Retweeting Movement Adds Some Powerful New Tools
7. Retweet iPhone App for Twitter
8. Facebook Needs Its Own Version of the Twitter Retweet
Reviews: Twitter, WordPress
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Playing Whack-A-Mole With Data: The Pirate Bay Lives On | To
Responses have been overwhelmingly negative to the news that The Pirate Bay will soon be sold to Global Gaming Factory. But what if there is a method to the apparent Pirate Bay madness — one that, as Peter Sunde has hinted, could actually be good for the P2P community?
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Task.fm Adds Smart Reminders via Twitter
A few months ago, we reviewed a unique reminder app: Task.fm. In our assessment, we noted its Twitter-like approach to reminders and its ability to decipher human language – you can tell it Task.fm “I need to call mom at noon tomorrow” and expect a reminder the next day. We did note though that you couldn’t set reminders via email, SMS, or Twitter, which decreased its utility.
Since then, Task.fm has been busy adding new features to its app, culminating in the release of Task.fm 1.0 earlier today. Now not only is the interface much more elegant, but you can set and receive reminders via Twitter, SMS, and email.
The big feature in this release is Twitter integration. You can direct message @taskfm with your task and you can then set the reminder. This is on top of the recent additions of setting reminders via SMS and email.
In addition to Twitter integration, Task.fm sports a sleeker, curved design (look at their previous blocky design to see the difference), offers new pro accounts that replace the old credits system, and adds more natural language support. Task.fm 1.0 also improves its To-Do list functionality.
Three months ago, Task.fm was unique for its language parsing ability, but didn’t have the tools necessary to be truly useful. Today, the story is different – with the ability to set and receive reminders nearly everywhere, it can compete with the likes of RememberTheMilk, although there’s still plenty it can do.
Reviews: Twitter
Tags: task.fm
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Happy Internet Dependence Day!
With the 4th of July weekend just hours away, it’s time to wish our US readers a Happy Independence Day!
Hopefully you’ll be spending at least some of your weekend away from your computer and enjoying the festivities, but for those who have difficulty leaving the laptop at home, here’s a quick list of resources to help you spend less time online while getting more done.
1. A Guide to Better Web-Working From Your iPhone – One way to spend less time in front of a computer screen is to get more efficient at working from your phone. Elliott Kosmicki looks at applications to do more work on your phone, so you can do less when you get home.
2. HOW TO: Live Inside Twitter and Still Stay Productive – Addicted to Twitter? While the service is often thought of as a timewaster, this post explains numerous ways to get more done while you Tweet.
3. HOW TO: Make Firefox Your Productivity Machine – Firefox users have access to a wealth of add-ons that help you get more done during your time online. This article recommends the best picks.
4. 7 Productivity Tips, Plus Tools for Freelancers and Web Workers – So you want to get more work done on the web? You’ve come to the right place! This post provides top tips for freelancers and those who have made the web their workplace.
5. Top 30 iPhone Apps for Organization and Productivity – In this one-stop shop for iPhone productivity, Jennifer Van Grove tests 30 of the top iPhone apps to help you get more done on the go.
6. 9 Must-Try Adobe AIR Apps for Better Productivity – Adobe Air is known for running some of the most visually appealing apps on your desktop, but did you know some of these apps can make you more productive? We look into the unlikely candidates.
Have a great weekend!
[Image from Bitstrips via CenterNetworks]
Reviews: Firefox, Twitter
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25 Brilliant Bookmarklets to Boost Your Browsing
Speed up your productivity with these simple JavaScript applets.
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Jammie Thomas' lawyer says she will appeal against RIAA
Joe Sibley, one of Thomas-Rasset's two attorneys said that will appeal and argue the $1.9 damages she was ordered to pay are unconstitutional.
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Chinese Web Crawlers May Bypass Filters with Mac/Linux
Apple and Linux computers appear to be exempt from China's mandate that a controversial Internet filtering program be shipped with all computers sold in the country. PCs that do not meet the software's technical requirements are excluded, according to one manufacturer. And as of now, there is no version of the web filter software for Mac or Linux.
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CallWave Delists From NASDAQ; Fuze Meeting Rises From The Ashes
It’s not easy to launch a successful WebEx competitor. Most businesses have long since established their “system” for dealing with web meetings, using old standbys like WebEx or GoToMeeting. And those businesses that are willing to venture into the unknown have had plenty of cheaper alternatives to choose from, like DimDim, for quite a while. But that isn’t keeping CallWave from launching one of its own, dubbed Fuze Meeting. And while it’s not going to be an easy space to compete in, Fuze Meeting doesn’t disappoint.
As far as startups go, the history of the company is pretty unique. CallWave was founded in 1998 and went public in 2004, trading on NASDAQ under the ticker symbol CALL. After reaching a peak soon thereafter of over $15 per share, the stock dropped steadily, dipping as low as 50 cents early this year. Deciding to cut its losses, the company delisted itself from NASDAQ on Monday after buying back shares from public shareholders at a 44% premium over the current market value and paying out a total of $10 million. CMO Patrick Moran says that the company did this on its own accord, and that its hand wasn’t pushed by any banks or VCs. CallWave will soon change its name to Fuze Box to reflect its new position as a startup.
While all of this has been going on, CallWave has been building the “fuze platform” that powers Fuze Meeting, which it’s pitting as a sleeker, lighter, and cheaper alternative to services like WebEx. Last fall, the company decided to show off an early version of the product to some press, perhaps prematurely (it was labeled as “incomplete” by CNET). Finally in May, a full eight months after making its public debut, Fuze Meeting finally became commercially available. And only now that the company’s financial wranglings are complete is it ready to really announce it to the public.
I played around with the complete version yesterday, and for the most part I was impressed. The application is slick and intuitive, and unlike some other screen sharing apps, Fuze Meeting requires no plugins — it should work on just about any browser, and also offers support for both the iPhone and BlackBerry. Screen sharing supports high resolution video sharing, allowing presenters to jump to any point in the video as each participant’s screen is updated in real time. Presenters can also annotate video frames, which will likely appeal to marketing organizations.
While the service is currently working on acquiring free users, it is going to operate under a subscription model of $29 a month, or 12 cents per minute for users who would prefer to pay as they go. This is substantially cheaper than WebEx, but other less well known alternatives sport similar price points, so cost won’t be the only thing Fuze can rely on to differentiate itself.
If you’d like to see a video of the service in action, check out the clip below. Warning: it features Moran’s kids, and may be too cute to handle.
Fuze Meeting from Patrick Moran on Vimeo.
Crunch Network: MobileCrunch Mobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily.
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Outsource Your Beta Testing To Prefinery (Invites)
The beta testing stage can be the cornerstone to the successful development of a new site. And many startups have to conduct and implement beta testing of sites, surveys and analytics internally, which can be an daunting task when you are launching a site. Prefinery lets startups outsource the whole beta invite process, from start to finish. Prefinery is offering 100 TechCrunch readers with beta invites to test the site. You can sign up here. Use the invitation code "TECHCRUNCH" when signing up for the service.
Prefinery's ambition is to create a valuable first experience for beta testers and to help startups in collecting and organizing information that will result in a better product. Prefinery will do anything and everything when it comes to the beta testing process. The service will create a splash page for your product, generate an HTML sign-up form with fields and survey questions, create an automatic welcome e-mail/message, take signups into a queue, approve users, and trigger invite e-mail. The service will also generate invite codes and assign quantities.
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HOW TO: Discover and Get Feedback On New Web Apps
This post is part of Mashable’s Spark of Genius series, which highlights a unique feature of startups. If you would like to have your startup considered for inclusion, please see the details here. The series is made possible by Microsoft BizSpark.
Name: Launchly
Quick Pitch: Launchly showcases new websites to an audience to help site owners get the attention and feedback necessary to succeed.
Genius Idea: It’s hard to stand out and get attention for web applications and new websites. You can build a Twitter app over a weekend and get no traction because you don’t know where to promote it. Or maybe you need some feedback and advice on your newly launched website. Launchly does this, but instead of just showcasing a startup and letting it fall by the wayside, Launchly allows apps to resubmit new iterations and build on their ideas.
Essentially, Launchly is a Digg for startups. You submit your site to Launchly and include a short sentence description, a long description, the type of feedback you’re seeking, screenshots, related tags, and you can be up and running on the Launchly homepage. After that, it works a lot like Digg, in that users can rate your website up or down, comment on it, and share the webpage via Facebook, Twitter, and Digg. This can really affect how visible your web app is on the site.
The key to Launchly though is the iterations feature, which allows you to take the feedback you receive and submit a new version of your website to the service. This allows for a new round of feedback once you’ve made upgrades. You also receive some analytics on Launchly user engagement and social media buzz.
The catch, of course, is that this service isn’t free – the lowest-priced plan costs $40, with more expensive and feature-rich plans coming soon. The price is understandable, when you consider that valuable feedback can make or break a website. However, Launchly is very new itself and thus hasn’t hit the critical mass necessary to really get the community needed to justify the cost yet.
Launchly’s value is directly correlated with its community. As it grows, the value of a launch on the website will grow, but this also means that in its early stages, it is tough to shell out $40 for such little visibility. Launchly would do well to focus on building a strong community and offering promotions or discounts to startups to get the ball rolling. If it can gain enough momentum, there could be some real value.
Sponsored by Microsoft BizSpark
BizSpark is a startup program that gives you three-year access to the latest Microsoft development tools, as well as connecting you to a nationwide network of investors and incubators. There are no upfront costs, so if your business is privately owned, less than three years old, and generates less than U.S.$1 million in annual revenue, you can sign up today.
Entrepreneurs can take advantage of the Azure Services platform for their website hosting and storage needs. Microsoft recently announced the “new CloudApp()” contest – use the Azure Services Platform for hosting your .NET or PHP app, and you could be the lucky winner of a USD 5000* (please see website for official rules and guidelines).”
Reviews: Digg, Facebook, PHP, Twitter
Tags: launchly
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Ten ways to smooth the switch to Linux
Without sending users on some sort of boot camp, changing the preconceptions of users may seem a daunting task. But there are ways to ease the pain of learning Linux.
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Microsoft And Linux Hold Peace Tweets
Okay, it’s not exactly the Camp David Summit that took place in 2000 between the Israelis and the Palestinians, but sometimes the littlest gestures can go a long way.
A couple of days ago, upon hearing that Microsoft had officially joined Twitter, the official Linux account sent out a tweet welcoming them. “Welcome to Twitter, @Microsoft!,” they said. The tweet sat unanswered for over a day, and it seemed like Microsoft may never answer. But about a few hours ago, they did. “@Linux thanks, nice to be here,” they replied.
Short, sweet, and to the point. A sign of peace in the operating system ecosystem? Probably not. But it’s something — just look at the shirts that were going around in this war just a few years ago (above).
Twitter is turning into quite the sanctuary for rivals to at least pretend to be nice to each other. Just look at Coke and Pepsi the other day.
[photo: flickr/will hybrid]
[Thanks Russell]
Crunch Network: MobileCrunch Mobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily.
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Video: 50 Cent Confronts Sexman
I don’t recall how the YouTube user Pruane2Forever, aka “Sexman”, came on my radar, but I definitely remember a few of his videos from a couple years ago. (Here’s a old favorite — Not Safe For Work.) Basically, it’s this kid who does movie and new media reviews that are (or at least used to be) unintentionally hilarious. These days, he apparently has quite the following on YouTube, as he has over 150 videos that range in popularity from tens of thousands of views to over a million.
One of his most popular ones was a video from 4 months ago in which he calls out rapper 50 Cent. Sexman wonders how 50 still has “street cred” after doing endorsements for Vitamin Water, makeup and dildos (I’m not kidding). “What else is he gonna do? 50 Cent diapers for your little gangsta?,” Sexman wonders at one point. He concludes that 50 Cent is “just a media whore!”
Well, 50 Cent has responded. Yesterday, the rapper posted a video alongside Sexman, who apparently flew from Canada to New York to meet up at the rapper’s request.
Pure. YouTube. Gold.
Here’s another old classic. Sexman’s review of the latest Rambo review.
[thanks Corentin]
Crunch Network: CrunchGear drool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware.
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A Special Summer of Social Good Thank You
This week we ran a special Summer of Social Good charity promotion and many of you got involved. Mashable and the whole Summer of Social Good team would like to thank everyone who donated, tweeted, retweeted and showed their support. While the promotion might be over now, because of the great response we will be doing this every week rolled into our Monday announcement posts for donors over $20 and $100. Just make sure to read the rules and forward your receipt to SocialGood at Mashable.
On Monday we have a special fun week planned involving video and prizes, so make sure to stay tuned to @Mashable and @SocialGood for details.
Our $100+ Donors:
Shannon Raybold
Twitter: @skraybold
Facebook Causes: United Against Malaria
Facebook Causes: Nothing But Nets
Twitter: @uamalaria
Chris Bennett
Twitter: @chrisbennett
97th Floor: www.97thfloor.com
BlvdStatus: www.blvdstatus.com
Firefox Add-on: Social Media for Firefox
Steve Haweeli
Twitter: @SteveHaweeli
WordHampton: www.WordHampton.com
DishingOnDining: www.DishingOnDining.com
Chris Brogan: Shoutout to Chris Brogan
BuzzEdition
Twitter: @BuzzEdition
Twitter: @BCCF
Facebook Fan Page: BuzzEdition
Facebook Causes: Black Card Circle Foundation
Jeff Elder
Twitter: @JeffElder
About: Biz and Tech columnist at The Charlotte Observer
The Broprah Show: Broprahshow.com
Skafish
Twitter: @Skafish
Blog: Skafish Blog
Facebook: Facebook Profile
CollaborateMD
Twitter: @CollaborateMD
Facebook Fan Page: CollaborateMD
Blog: CollaborateMD Blog
Susan’s Soaps
Twitter: @SusanSoaps
Store: SusanSoaps.com
Blog: Susan’s Soaps Blog
Facebook Fan Page: Susan’s Soaps & More
B. Johansen Newman
Twitter: @JohansenNewman
Barbara Johansen Newman: johansennewman.com
“Thinking Out Loud” Blog: Cats and Jammers Studio
Design Blog: Design Rocket
Frank Barry
Twitter: @franswaa
Blog: NetWits Think Tank
Blog Post: Social Media For Nonprofits
Blog Post: Social Media Strategy: LIVESTRONG and the Summer of Social Good
Our $20+ Donors:
@nonprofitadvice
@globalmanners
@critiques4geeks
@NickMendoza
@kristinwolff
@wetoo
Michelle Farabough (Google Profile)
@LoriMoreno
@momsofamerica
@jupitersunrise
@jaycee419
@TweetFind
@btn
@Tinu
@orkaya
@jackiehonikman
@Lookaly
@robmuch
@moodtouch
@VisionaryAgents
@navi_ganancial
@jamahbags
Thanks to the Summer of Social Good Sponsors
Thanks to Zappos and MailChimp for sponsoring the Summer of Social Good. Their generous sponsorship covers the campaign and event costs, so that 100% of your donations and ticket sales go to the fund.
“Visit Zappos.com and outfit your life with a new head-to-toe wardrobe for men, women, and kids! Step into all the clothes, bags, shoes and more from all your favorite brand names! Plus, enjoy our 365-day return policy, fast & free shipping, free return shipping & 24-hour customer service!”
“MailChimp is a powerful, easy-to-use email marketing service. You design, me deliver.
We make it easy to send email newsletters to your customers, manage your subscriber lists, and track campaign performance. Unlike some of our competitors, we don’t ‘dumb things down.’ We take extremely powerful tools that sophisticated marketers use (like segmentation, a/b testing, and ROI tracking), and we make them accessible to anyone.”
Thanks to our Summer of Social Good Partners
Thanks to the following partners for lending their generous support to the Summer of Social Good.
Reviews: Facebook, Mashable, Twitter
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Apple prepares iPhone SMS patch
Security experts have discovered a flaw in the way Apple's iPhone handles text messages, prompting the company to ready a patch to fix the issue.
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TechCrunch50: You Want Advertising? We’ll Give You Advertising
Despite our best intentions, it looks like the DEMO v. TechCrunch50 war will continue, even with DEMO under new management.
In 2007 we launched the first TechCrunch50 event - a place where companies can launch to rabid fans and tech press. These launching companies are the stars of the show, and they don’t pay a cent to attend. We thought DEMO’s longstanding policy of forcing launching companies to pay a $20,000 fee was ridiculous, and led the conference organizers to make decisions based not on the merits of the startups but simply on who was willing and able to pay. Not only do we let startups launch for free, we give the top one a $50,000 prize.
Our conference has grown rapidly - nearly 2,000 people attended TechCrunch50 last year while DEMO languished in San Diego with a paltry few hundred. To be fair, our events were on the exact same dates, so they were hit doubly hard. This year we moved our dates to give them some breathing room. We thought we were done battling DEMO.
But today DEMO announced that they’re giving away a “massive” prize - $2 million in advertising credits - to the top two startups at the event. The press is eating it up, saying that TechCrunch50 looks paltry in comparison.
Of course, there’s a catch. The “advertising” is remnant stuff on IDG properties (IDG owns DEMO) and will certainly be priced at rate card. They’ll also charge for creative and other expenses. Meaning there is very little actual value. I’m guessing that the amount of advertising actually delivered would be in the tens of thousands of dollars of value, at best. And, of course, every startup launching still needs to pay to launch.
But whatever. You want adverting? We’ll give you advertising.
DEMO says they’ll give away $2 million in advertising (it might be $1 million total, they aren’t very clear). We’ll double whatever they’re giving. We’ll give away $4 million in advertising if they’re giving $2 million. And if DEMO increases their number, we’ll increase ours to stay at 2x whatever they are at. Our ads will be on our various TechCrunch networks sites and via our terrific sponsors, who are going to be adding their own inventory as well. We’ll give half to the top two winners, and half to everyone else who launches.
We’ve always supported the startups that launch at TechCrunch50 in every way we can. Throwing in free advertising is easy.
Let’s just take a look at the two events for comparison purposes.
TechCrunch50: Free to launch, 2,000 attendees, $50,000 cash prize to winner. $4 million in free advertising. Awesomeness in a bottle.
DEMO: $20,000 to launch your startup, maybe 500 attendees, $1 million in remnant unsold advertising on IDG properties to each of top two startups.
The choice seems pretty clear to me.
Crunch Network: CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0
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The Best Web Browser for Secretly Watching Videos at Work
Double Vision is one of the best web browsers for this kind of thing - it lets you view and interact with two applications at the same time, without having to switch windows again and again. So, you could be working on your presentation and watching your favorite video or even better - a related tutorial at the same time.
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Michael Jackson’s Memorial: The Biggest Web Event in History?
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
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NY thieves want iPhones, victims fight back
NEW YORK (Reuters) - Thieves are increasingly going after iPhones and other smartphones but victims now can fight back with technology.One device allows a user to remotely activate a loud siren designed
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Geocaching Down, Too
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
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The Inevitable Anti-U.S. Backlash Has Started On Kiva
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.
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Shooting at Arlington Apple Store [News Video]
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.”
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Blind man sees after having a TOOTH implanted in right eye
A blind man is able to see his wife for the first time - after having a tooth implanted into his eye.
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Want The Obama “Hope” Artwork On Your iPhone? Nope, Says Apple.
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.
Crunch Network: MobileCrunch Mobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily.
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Should Twitter Crack Down on Pornography?
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
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Thanks to Mashable’s Socially Savvy Supporters
Thanks to this week’s advertisers and partners for enabling us to bring you the latest social media news and resources. We’re particularly inspired by those brands that are engaging with our readers as part of our Twitter Brand Sponsors program: Mashable’s sponsors are as social media savvy as our readers!
Advertise with us and get noticed.
Help us to help you. Mashable is seeking out site sponsors for our large, diverse audience — social media users, venture capitalists, early adopters, developers, bloggers, and many more. You’ll receive hundreds of thousands of views a day in addition to weekly recognition to thank you as our premium sponsors. Are you interested? Contact us for more information and to receive our media kit and rate card.
This week, our valued sponsors are Clickatell, Vivvo CMS, Influxis, EdgeCast, Microsoft BizSpark, MailChimp, Sun Startup Essentials, YieldSoftware, Eventbrite, Behance, and Livestream.
Clickatell offers bulk sms and mobile marketing solutions. Over 700 networks and over 200 countries covered.
Vivvo CMS is an intuitive content management system atop a powerful programming framework, empowering numerous industry leading online newspapers, magazines, journals, TV and radio stations. Vivvo will help you run your news or multimedia website seamlessly and with minimum hassle, providing you with premium exposure to search engines, syndicating your content and taking a good care of your visitors and users.
Influxis is an official Adobe hosting partner and resource for the Adobe Flash Media Interactive Server. Influxis provides Flash hosting plans for all levels of use – beginner to enterprise. With a reputation for exceptional customer service, Influxis provides an extremely reliable international network of FMS servers in the U.S., U.K., and Germany.
EdgeCast Networks offers a superior, cost-effective, global content delivery service that gives our customers competitive advantage in the delivery of digital media. Our world-class content delivery platform provides customers the cost benefits and flexibility of controlling their own content delivery network while liberating them from ISP contracts, capital investments and operational hassles.
BizSpark is a program which offers new software businesses and entrepreneurs access to Microsoft design, development, and production tools with no upfront costs for up to three years. Members can also connect with a nationwide community of Network Partners – investors, incubators, service providers, and entrepreneurial organizations – who are keen to help.
For more information, or to connect with a Microsoft BizSpark advisor, please visit MicrosoftStartupZone.com/BizSpark.
MailChimp is a powerful, easy-to-use email marketing service. You design, me deliver.
The Sun Startup Essentials program extends to startups all the benefits of our program; benefits designed to get startups sailing to success with the right IT infrastructure. These include introductions to interested investors; discounted servers, storage and desktops; open source software such as MySQL; discounted web hosting; and free technical support and advice from Sun engineers.
Yield’s Web Marketing Suite is a fully automated, integrated search marketing system that optimizes natural search, paid search, and landing pages. Accessible via any web browser, it is a complete, easy and profitable way for businesses to generate new traffic and get better conversion rates at a lower overall cost.
Eventbrite is an online events marketplace where tens of thousands of individuals, businesses and organizations of all sizes manage, promote and sell tickets to their events. Make your event a success on Eventbrite.
Behance is on a mission to organize the creative world. The Behance Network is the leading online platform for creative professionals to showcase their work and develop their careers. The Action Method (actionmethod.com) is a revolutionary “action management” tool that is replacing traditional project management applications across industries.
Livestream democratizes television on a global scale. The technology provides a highly effective, easy to use TV studio, with the power to create live original programming, controlled by users, and embeddable on any website. Livestream has introduced several new groundbreaking innovations, in addition to paying homage to traditional TV, and has even bigger plans for innovation and interactivity on its roadmap.
Additionally, thanks to the following partners for making Mashable happen:
Thanks to ConVerdge for implementing our My Mashable social network and W3 EDGE for the development and maintenance of Mashable.com
Mashable would also like to thank AttentionPR for their PR support. AttentionPR proves that PR today is measurable, transparent, and yes, social. Learn more about AttentionPR.
Rackspace is the better way to do hosting. No more worrying about web hosting uptime. No more spending your time, energy and resources trying to stay on top of things like patching, updating, monitoring, backing up data and the like. Learn why.
JESS3 is a creative interactive agency led by Jesse Thomas. Jesse is as much a entrepreneur as he is an innovator, designer, visionary and eager learner. When it comes to the worlds of branding, data visualization and social media, Jesse is constantly pushing the limits and exploring new frontiers. JESS3 has the pleasure to design innovative solutions, directly or through other agencies, for: Mashable, National Journal, Microsoft, Marriott Intl, Ace Hardware, C-SPAN, AARP, PepsiCo/Tropicana, Dow Jones/The Wall Street Journal, Nestle, Pfizer, Shopzilla, SnagFilms, IndieWire, Advertising.com, National Press Foundation, Webgiftr, Busboys and Poets, New Media Strategies, Ashcroft Group, Heritage Foundation, Blue State Digital, Widmeyer Communications, DBC PR, Adfero and many more. In addition, JESS3 enjoys participating in the industry through partnerships with organizations such as WOMMA, Social Media Club, Barcamp, Facebook Developer Garage, AIGA, and Art Directors Club.
Mashable values Search Engine Optimization and endorses Stone Temple Consulting as the industry’s leading Search Engine Optimization and Pay Per Click experts. Find out more about Stone Temple Consulting.
ConcentricSky offers web development and strategic consulting services with a focus on emerging technologies such as Social Media and iPhone Apps. From simple websites to integrated web applications, we deliver innovative solutions that exceed your expectations – not your budget.
Vladimir Prelovac is the author of WordPress Development book and popular articles about WordPress SEO, website optimization, customization, security and maintenance. He actively uses WordPress as a base for Internet enterprise strategy for small & mid-sized businesses.
We can get your name out there.
Contact us for more information about supporting Mashable’s growth and development. Alternatively, visit our advertise section for more details about:
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CPM-based advertising is available through our partner, Federated Media, but if you contact us directly, you’ll be entitled to exclusive unpublished discounts.
Tags: advertisers, mashable, Sponsors
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SMP-enabled Sun xVM VirtualBox 3.0 Turns Up the Heat on VMware
Version 3.0 of Sun's xVM VirtualBox desktop virtualization tool adds support for multiple guest processors--a major feature addition which, when considered alongside the product's low cost (free) and broad host platform support, is certain to give VMware Workstation a run for its money.
- Sun Microsystems' xVM VirtualBox, a no-cost virtualization tool that enables virtual machines to run on a variety of standard operating systems, continues to improve its position as a potential challenger to workstation products from VMware and Parallels. Sun release version 3.0 of xVM VirtualBox on...
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Tweetmeme Wants To Be The King Of Retweets
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.
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Apple iPhone 3GS Jailbreaking Tool Hits the Street
The hacker who made the news in 2007 for unlocking Apple's first iPhone has released the a new application for jailbreaking the iPhone 3GS. The tool is currently available for Windows only.
- George Hotz, the 19-year old hacker who made headlines for unlocking Apples original iPhone, has now released the first-known jailbreaking tool for iPhone 3GS.
The tool, called purplea1n, is only available for versions of the Windows operating system - excluding Windows 7 - at the moment, but H...
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China Says Green Dam Still Coming, Mac Version in the Works
Chinas Ministry of Industry and I.T. reportedly said it will definitely carry on the directive on Green Dam. And while Apple has so far been on the sidelines of the Windows-based filtering software mandate, Green Dam maker Jinhui is said to be testing a Mac-compatible version.
- The latest news on China's Green Dam filtering software is that the debates not over yet and Apple may finally be pulled into the fray.
In early June the Chinese government announced to PC makers that, by July 1, all computer sold in China would have shipped with Green Dam Youth Escort, a Web...
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Government Spends $440 Million Per Year on Wasteful Printing, Report Says
A report from printer manufacturer Lexmark claims the federal government wastes $440 million dollars a year (almost $1 million per day) on unnecessary printing.
- While it could probably be said that most businesses, large, medium and small, print more paper than is necessary, a report by printing company Lexmark International revealed the U.S. government wastes a staggering $440 million annually on unnecessary printing--more than $1 million per dayalmost as...
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Spate of iPhone Overheating Reports Roast Apple
Sales of Apple's iPhone 3GS aren't the only thing hot about the device: Reports of overheating issues on the new version of the smartphone caused Apple to release an advisory on how to keep your iPhone cool.
- While the debut of the iPhone 3GS, the latest edition of Apples sleek, popular smartphone, has been a runaway success (sales after three days on the market bested one million models sold) Apple acknowledged the devices may have an issue when it comes to overhearing.
In response to numerous co...
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Apple Fixing Broken iPhone Screens In-Store
Apple's popular smartphone, the iPhone 3GS, is prone to mishandling and subsequent cracks in the screen. Apple is making it easier to fix the screen now by adding an in-store repair service.
-
Whether theyre dropped, squashed, smashed or outright
trashed, many users find Apples sleek, delicate screens are prone to cracking.
While Apple cant do much to help you prevent dropping your iPhone, they have
made it easier to get the screen replaced. Apple blog The Loop confirme...
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DOJ Launches Formal Investigation Into Google Book Search Settlement
The Department of Justice confirms its investigation into whether Google's $125 million Book Search settlement violates U.S. antitrust laws. Opponents fear the agreement gives the search engine giant too much power in the digital book world. The fairness hearing is set for October 7, 2009.
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The U.S. Justice Department July 2 said it is formally investigating the $125 million settlement between Google and authors and
publishers that lets the search engine scan books online and grant access to them for a fee.
Deputy Assistant Attorney General William Cavanaugh...
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Instant iPhone Compatible Websites: iWebKit
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FAA Gets Its New Virtualized Flight-Plan System Off the Ground
EXCLUSIVE: The FAA, which has suffered a series of embarrassing flight-plan system crashes during the last several years, has upgraded its legacy flight-plan filing system to a new open-systems server and storage infrastructure supplied by Stratus Technologies. This architecture is now replacing critical systems that directly affect all air travelers in the United States.
- The people whose job it is to schedule aircraft for takeoff, help guide passengers to their destinations and get them safely back down on the ground finally have some powerful new open-standards computer systems up and running to help them do their work more reliably.
The Federal Aviation Admini...
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iPhone 3GS Tops Consumer Reports Ranking, with Palm Pre Close Behind
The Apple iPhone 3GS asserted itself to the top of Consumer Reports' newest smartphone rankings, though the Palm Pre was close behind. The new capabilities and form factors of smartphones this year forced the advice-giver to reconsider its testing model.
- The Apple iPhone 3GS topped Consumer Reports newest smartphone ratings,
according to the blog of the no-nonsense magazine that Americans have trusted
for its unbiased reviews since 1936.
The iPhone 3GS was not, however, a runaway winner, with the keyboard-boasting
Palm Pre following clo...
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Google Apps Opens Up Contacts to Socialize the Enterprise
Google makes it easier for users to find contacts within an enterprise, a move that mirrors some of the functionality in existing enterprise social software providers such as IBM, Socialtext and Jive. In-box socialization is table stakes for software makers that want to appeal to new enterprise customers by making it easier for workers to find company colleagues.
- For Google Apps users who have been waiting for the software-as-a-service
suite to resemble some of today's social networks for businesses, Google is surfacing Gmail contacts more readily within companies.
When corporate employees search for a contact in Gmail, they'll see relevant
contacts from ...
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Navicat Premium: Cross-Database Admin Tool (License Giveaway & 50% Special Discount)
Navicat, an impressive database admin tool which has versions to manage specific databases is now offering an unique tool named Navicat Premium which can manage:
within a single application with amazing features.
Navicat Premium allows you to control these 3 database types like they are the same & saves you too much time. You can:
- drag’n drop tables from Oracle to MySQL, PostgreSQL to MySQL and vice versa
- schedule operations for different databases such as print report in MySQL, backup data in Oracle and synchronize data in PostgreSQL to run automatically
The application comes with all the nice features of the Navicat family:
- advanced import/ export wizard
- query builder
- report builder
- data synchronization
- backup
- job scheduler
- & more
For anyone who works cross-database, Navicat Premium is a must-have software that removes all the headache of working with multiple applications & compatibility problems between databases.
It is available for two platforms - Microsoft Windows and Mac OS X.
Special 50% Discount to WebResourcesDepot Readers:
Navicat is offering a 50% discount to WRD readers for Navicat Premium. To get the discount, you need to choose the "Shareit" as the payment option and use the coupon code: webpre50.
Note: Discount will be available for 2 weeks starting today (until 17 July 2009)
One Navicat Premium License Giveaway (How To Win It?)
To get a chance to win a free license ($369 value) of this beautiful application, simply comment to this post with your thoughts. The winner will be selected randomly on 10 July 2009 (1 week later) randomly via the query below:
SELECT * FROM wp_comments WHERE comment_post_id=1028 AND comment_approved=1 AND comment_type='' GROUP BY comment_author_email ORDER BY RAND() LIMIT 1
Good luck.
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Tags: Mysql, Oracle, PostgreSQL
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Better HTML5 & CSS3 Usage By Detecting Browsers Capabilities With Modernizr
Similar to the IE6 situation, when using HTML5/CSS3 in our websites, it is a good idea to offer non-problematic outputs to web users with older/non-standard browsers.
Modernizr is a JavaScript library that uses feature detection techniques to determine whether or not the current browser is capable of CSS3 and HTML5 features like rgba(), border-radius, CSS Transitions & more.
It enables you to write pseudo-IF/ELSE statements in your CSS &, if wanted, it is possible to wirite conditional statements in JavaScript with the help of a "Modernizr JavaScript object" created.
Also, Modernizr adds support for styling HTML 5 elements. This allows you to use more semantic, forward-looking elements such as <section>, <header> and <dialog> without having to worry about them not working in Internet Explorer.
Special Downloads:
Free Admin Template For Web Applications
jQuery Dynamic Drag’n Drop
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Dreamhost $50 Discount Code: WRD
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Tags: CSS3, HTML5, Javascript
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