Rabu, 08 Desember 2010

Mashable: Latest 29 News Updates - including “WikiLeaks Defended, Chrome OS Announced & Verizon Down: This Morning’s Top Stories”

Mashable: Latest 29 News Updates - including “WikiLeaks Defended, Chrome OS Announced & Verizon Down: This Morning’s Top Stories”

WikiLeaks Defended, Chrome OS Announced & Verizon Down: This Morning’s Top Stories

Posted: 08 Dec 2010 05:26 AM PST

Social Media News

Welcome to this morning's edition of "First To Know," a series in which we keep you in the know on what's happening in the digital world. We're keeping our eyes on four particular stories of interest today.

Hackers Defend WikiLeaks by Attacking PayPal, Mastercard

A group of hackers connected to the online imageboard 4chan, often referred to as Anonymous, have retaliated against several sites — including PayPal, PostFinance and MasterCard — which have denied service to WikiLeaks shortly after the site started leaking secret embassy cables.

Google Launches Chrome OS

Google announced the long-awaited arrival of its operating system, Chrome OS, as well as the Chrome Web (a.k.a App) Store. Many companies have already released apps for the store, including The New York Times and MOG. Devices running the new OS are scheduled to debut in mid-2011.

Verizon 3G Network Is Down

Verizon's 3G network is down nationwide, claim numerous reports that are pouring in on Twitter this morning.

#NewTwitter Adds Blip.tv, Instagram, Slideshare & More

Twitter users can now access multimedia content from blip.tv, Instagram, Rdio, Slideshare and Dipdive without leaving twitter.com, the microblogging service has announced, bringing the total number of supported multimedia services to 20.

Further News

  • Jason Goldman, Twitter's VP of product, has announced at the LeWeb Conference that he is stepping down from his role and instead is taking on an advisory role at the company.
  • Salesforce has announced that it has acquired Heroku, a popular cloud platform for Ruby web apps, for $212 million in cash.
  • EA's Pet Society sells 90 million virtual goods per day, the company revealed.
  • Google Maps for Android has been updated with 3D graphics, more accurate orientation and offline support.
  • Google has confirmed that Cloud Print has been built into the latest version of the Chrome browser.
  • Following Google’s launch of an e-bookstore and web-based reading app yesterday, Amazon has released its web-based reading app for Kindle.
  • Waze, a startup with a great product for real-time traffic monitoring and GPS navigation, has announced a $25 million Series B round of financing.

Image courtesy of iStockphoto, DNY59

More About: #newtwitter, Chrome OS, twitter, verizon, wikileaks

For more Tech coverage:

PayPal Responds to WikiLeaks Controversy

Posted: 08 Dec 2010 05:12 AM PST


On December 4, PayPal announced that it had permanently restricted the account of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange. At the time, the reason the company gave was that Assange had violated the PayPal Acceptable Use Policy, which prohibits using a PayPal account to promote or facilitate illegal activity.

PayPal Vice President of Platform, Mobile and New Ventures Osama Bedier elaborated on the company’s actions when pressed on stage at the LeWeb conference in Paris. He started by explaining the process the company takes for these decisions. “We have an acceptable use policy group,” Bedier explained, “to make sure that our customers are protected.” PayPal evaluates different situations and complaints to figure out whether someone is violating its acceptable use policy.

The acceptable use policy group had to address Julian Assange and WikiLeaks when the U.S. State Department issued a letter on November 27 stating that the activity of the WikiLeaks organization was deemed illegal in the U.S. “It was straightforward,” Bedier said, once the State Department made that declaration.

Bedier was also asked by The Telegraph’s Milo Yiannopoulos whether he was worried about hackers retaliating against PayPal for closing down Assange’s account, referring to recent attacks against it and Mastercard. The PayPal VP’s response was that hackers have always targeted the company, since it is one of the most successful payments companies in the world, and that this was no different.

More About: 4chan, LeWeb, LeWeb 2010, Osama bedier, paypal, wikileaks

For more Social Media coverage:

Involver Releases Programming Language for Rapid Facebook App Development

Posted: 08 Dec 2010 05:08 AM PST


Social marketing platform Involver has released its own programming language for Facebook called Social Markup Language (SML). The language is designed to allow brands and agencies to build, customize and release Facebook and social web apps in an accelerated fashion.

SML puts the power of Facebook and social web application creation in the hands of front-end HTML, CSS and Javascript developers at brands and agencies. The language is meant to speed up the application development process, allow content managers to make updates to apps without developer assistance and help brands and agencies do more, faster.

SML is a server side rendered language, similar to templating languages, that brings content pulled from third-party APIs into the forefront, says Engineering Director Eran Cedar. SML, as a hosted language, also serves as an insulation mechanism for brands and agencies against changes made to the Facebook platform, he says.

The language — already used internally to build apps like Facebook’s polling place locator — was initially created after Involver noticed that brands wanted increasingly more control over the design and function of their Facebook applications.

Today’s client-facing release of SML has been more than a year in the making for the growing startup and represents a fundamental change to its business, according to CEO and co-founder Rahim Fazal. It’s a feature the company believes helps to further differentiate itself from companies like Buddy Media also in the Facebook marketing space. Plus, while more than 125,000 public Facebook Pages already use Involver applications, the release of SML will likely help that number increase exponentially.

Involver will update its pricing and packaging model with the release of SML. Clients who pay for an annual license will receive access to the language.

More About: facebook apps, involver, SML, social media management

For more Startups coverage:

Nokia Wants to Revolutionize The Mobile UI in 2011

Posted: 08 Dec 2010 04:30 AM PST


Nokia plans to embrace a completely new approach to the mobile UI, and it plans to launch first devices based on the new approach with Meego in 2011, said Director of Design Strategy at Nokia Marko Ahtisaari at LeWeb conference in Paris today.

Interestingly enough, Ahtisaari didn’t shy from praising Nokia’s competitors, namely Apple, calling the iPhone interface with one button “beautifully elegant” and “simple to learn.” However, other approaches are possible, he said, and it’s “too early” for the old idea of a smartphone – the one with a physical keyboard – to die out.

He didn’t give any details about the upcoming Meego-based smartphones, saying (quite cryptically) that he wants to give phone users a ‘head up’ experience again.

Speaking about the success of Nokia’s app store, Ahtisaari said that there are currently 3.5 million app downloads a day in the Ovi store. He also mentioned that 1.3 billion people use Nokia handsets every day.

During the Q&A session, Ahtisaari also weighed in on Android. Asked whether we’ll ever see an Android-based Nokia, Ahtisaari didn’t completely rule out the possibility, but the answer was still no. “We’re interested in platforms where we can create value, and from the point of view of the device manufacturer, Android doesn’t do that right now,” he said.

More About: LeWeb, Marko Ahtisaari, Mobile 2.0, Nokia, smartphone

For more Mobile coverage:

“Pet Society” Sells 90 Million Virtual Goods Per Day

Posted: 08 Dec 2010 03:50 AM PST


If you weren’t convinced that social gaming and virtual goods are big business, here’s a stat for you: EA’s Pet Society sells 90 million virtual goods per day.

Sebastien de Galleux, co-founder of Playfish and now the VP of business development and strategic partnerships for EA Interactive, shared several stats about EA’s social games at the LeWeb Conference in Paris. In his interview with Tekzilla’s Veronica Belmont, Galleux, the social gaming pioneer revealed that its most popular game, Pet Society, has 20 million users, nearly double that of World of Warcraft.

Late last year, EA acquired Playfish for up to $400 million in order to gain ground in the rapidly-growing social gaming space.

The crowd was stunned though to hear that Pet Society sells 90 million virtual goods per day, though. While many are items that cost cents rather than dollars, it still adds up to 32.85 billion virtual goods sold per year. Galleux noted that it sells more goods in its marketplace than even eBay and that its users are demanding moer ways, not less, ways to pay for virtual goods in bulk.

Pet Society isn’t EA/Playfish’s hot social game, either: Galleux revealed that FIFA Superstars is now the top sports game on Facebook.

More About: EA, electronic arts, facebook, Pet Society, playfish, veronica belmont

For more Entertainment coverage:

Salesforce Acquires Ruby Cloud Platform Heroku for $212 Million

Posted: 08 Dec 2010 03:37 AM PST


Salesforce has announced that it has acquired Heroku, a popular cloud platform for Ruby web apps, for $212 million in cash.

“The next era of cloud computing is social, mobile and real-time. I call it Cloud 2,” CEO Marc Benioff said in the company’s announcement. “Ruby is the language of Cloud 2, and Heroku is the leading Ruby application platform-as-a-service for Cloud 2 that is fueling this growing community. We think this acquisition will uniquely position salesforce.com as the cornerstone for the next generation of app developers.”

The acquisition is about extending Salesforce’s leadership of the cloud, the company says. It’s not satisfied with just its cloud-based business software, but wants to also become the platform for cloud-based development. The company also operate VMForce, an enterprise cloud platform for Java developers, in partnership with VMware.

Ruby (specifically Ruby on Rails) has quickly become one of the preferred development languages for web applications. Twitter, 37Signals Hulu and Scribd are just a few of the companies based off Ruby. By acquiring Heroku, which now boasts 100,000+ apps on its platform, Salesforce becomes a central hub for cloud-based development. This sets it up to be a leader of what it likes to call “Cloud 2.”

More About: acquisition, heroku, RoR, ruby, Ruby on Rails, Salesforce

For more Business coverage:

Verizon 3G Network Is Down

Posted: 08 Dec 2010 03:25 AM PST


Verizon’s 3G network is down nationwide, claim numerous reports that are pouring in on Twitter this morning.

Verizon’s Twitter accounts are currently silent about the issue. However, the problems seem to be very real for Verizon customers.

“Apparently Verizon’s 3G service died network-wide last night, at least here,” claims AtariOtter, a Utah resident, on Twitter.

“No 3g service for the past 6 hours, visual VM no working, and unable to download the new update for the droid X says update fail,” says another Twitter user, chisox05matt from Chicago.

We will update you as soon as we know more or the problem is fixed.

More About: 3g, network, outage, verizon

For more Mobile coverage:

Twitter’s VP of Product Stepping Down

Posted: 08 Dec 2010 02:02 AM PST


Jason Goldman, Twitter’s VP of product, has announced at the LeWeb Conference that he is stepping down from his role and instead is taking on an advisory role at the company.

Goldman says that he announced his departure to his team on Friday. He is not leaving for any specific company or project, but didn’t explain exactly why he is leaving the company. He did mention that the discussions about his departure began after Evan Williams stepped down as CEO of the company.

Goldman has been Twitter’s VP of product since he joined the company over three years ago. Previously he worked with Twitter co-founders Biz Stone and Evan Williams on Blogger before it was acquired by Google. He stayed on for several years before rejoining Williams and Stone at the microblogging startup.

Twitter has not yet chosen a replacement; Goldman will be helping the company choose his successor.

More About: blogger, breaking, Jason Goldman, LeWeb, LeWeb 2010, twitter

For more Business coverage:

Microsoft Must Really Be Embarrassed By Windows Phone 7 Sales

Posted: 08 Dec 2010 01:53 AM PST


Microsoft, despite all of its evangelism over its new mobile platform, is still not opening up about how many phones the company has sold.

At the LeWeb Conference in Paris, Charlie Kindel, the general manager of the Windows Phone 7 developer ecosystem, did a great job evangelizing WP7, even calling it the “Xbox Phone” at one point due to its integration with Xbox Live and its expanding library of games. Kindel stated that WP7 developer tools have been downloaded over 750,000 times and that 50,000 developers have signed up to build apps so far.

Microsoft is still dodging the big question though: how many WP7 devices has the company sold? LeWeb founder Loic Le Meur asked multiple times for sales numbers, but Kindel consistently dodged the question. All he would say is that the company plans to sell a lot of phones in 2011, but refused to even hint at the numbers.

It was very reminiscent of the interview Microsoft Corporate VP for Windows Phone Joe Belfiore had with Wall Street Journal’s Walt Mossbert at the D Dive Conference in San Francisco. Belfiore too refused to disclosed WP7 sales numbers, saying that, “it's just too soon to talk about numbers.”

Kindel did reveal though that they’ll be launching WP7 application and developer analytics in the next few months. This will tell developers how many times their apps have been downloaded, which will act as an indicator of the health of WP7 sales overall.

Still, it hasn’t even been two months, and the company has made it clear that it’s in this for the long haul. It seems clear though that sales of Microsoft’s mobile platform aren’t too hot, otherwise the company would be bragging about its numbers.

More About: facebook, LeWeb, LeWeb 2010, microsoft, windows phone 7, wp7

For more Mobile coverage:

Hackers Defend WikiLeaks by Attacking PayPal and PostFinance [UPDATE: Mastercard, Too]

Posted: 08 Dec 2010 01:45 AM PST


A group of hackers connected to the online imageboard 4chan, often referred to as Anonymous, have retaliated against several sites that denied service to WikiLeaks shortly after the site started releasing secret embassy cables.

The site of Swiss bank PostFinance, which has closed the account of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, has been taken down and is still unavailable at the time of this writing. Hackers have also attacked PayPal but have only managed to take down the site’s blog, while the service remained operational.

A spokesman for the group behind the attacks on PayPal and PostFinance said they will target any website that’s “bowing down to government pressure.” The same group is allegedly behind the series of attacks collectively called “Operation: Payback,” which targeted anti-piracy organizations such as RIAA and MPAA.

Among other companies that have denied service to WikiLeaks are DNS service provider EveryDNS.net and Amazon. Most of these sites claim they haven’t shut down WikiLeaks’ account due to political pressure, instead naming technical or procedural reasons for denying the service to the WikiLeaks.

Update: Mastercard, which has also denied service to WikiLeaks, has had its site taken down by hackers, too.

[via ArsTechnica]

More About: 4chan, anonymous, hackers, operation payback, paypal, PostFinance, trending, wikileaks

For more Tech coverage:

Nissan Wants to Make the Car Modern Again

Posted: 08 Dec 2010 01:13 AM PST


Carlos Ghosn, the CEO of automobile giants Renault and Nissan, says that the automobile industry has failed for decades to innovate, but that the electric car is the breakthrough that will bring the motor vehicle into the modern age.

During his keynote at the LeWeb conference in Paris, Ghosn explained that, “cars have stopped being perceived as symbols of modernity.” He stated that automobiles rank 17th in interest in Japan, easily beaten by cell phones, computers and video games.

The reason for this, he says, is due to the auto industry’s choice to focus on optimization over innovation. Optimization is all about reducing risk, while innovation is about increasing it in order to achieve the breakthrough that will push a business to the next level. Ghosn claims that there have been no real breakthroughs in the auto industry in the last few decades. He also says that hybrids are not a breakthrough, but an optimization.

And while the automobile has stagnated, the world has dramatically changed. Nissan and Renault’s CEO says that severe action has to be taken to stop an environmental catastrophe, and that cars have clearly contributed to our environmental problems. The rising price of energy, especially oil and gasoline, is also making it necessary to rethink the machines that one billion people drive every single day around the world.

That’s why he’s placing a big bet on the electric car. Ghosn believes that the world needs a mass-produceable, affordable and zero-emission pure electric car that can help relieve us of the environmental and energy issues that plague our world. He was quick to promote the Nissan Leaf, the company’s compact battery electric car that he says is already sold out in Japan for 2011.

He noted that there is a lot of skepticism of electric cars in general, especially surrounding their range and that the battery is not safe. He responded by saying that innovation is what will reconstruct the future, and that the electric car is the innovation that the industry needs to reclaim its modernity.

More About: Carlos Ghosn, LeWeb, LeWeb 2010, Nissan, Nissan Leaf, Renault

For more Tech coverage:

Forget the JumboTron — Startup YinzCam Gives Fans Control Over Replays

Posted: 08 Dec 2010 12:09 AM PST


The Spark of Genius Series highlights a unique feature of startups and is made possible by Microsoft BizSpark. If you would like to have your startup considered for inclusion, please see the details here.

Name: YinzCAM

Quick Pitch: Use YinzCAM apps to select camera angles and replays when you watch professional sporting events in-arena.

Genius Idea: When founder Priya Narasimhan moved to Pittsburgh in 2001, she quickly became an avid football and hockey fan. There was just one problem:

“There would always be a tall guy who would stand up in front of me who would cut off my view of the goal or the touchdown, and then the JumboTron guy decided how I should see the replay,” she says. “And I thought both things were unfair.”

Being associate professor of electrical and computer engineering at Carnegie Mellon University, however, she was qualified to fix the problem. YinzCam, the academic project that Narasimhan launched as a business last year, allows fans at sporting events to control personal video feeds through their mobile devices. After they download the app, fans can select which camera view they would like to see (Narasimhan’s 4-year-old son, for instance, wants to keep track of the mascot at all times). They can also watch a replay of every play from any of the angles.

YinzCam debuted at the first home game of the Pittsburgh Penguins 2009 season. At the first game, about 10 fans tuned in. But by the last game, more than 55% of the pilot audience was using the app. The success has persuaded five other NFL and NHL teams to join in — including the Pittsburgh Steelers, the San Francisco 49ers, and the Washington Capitals.

It’s a manner of minimal investment for sports teams to install the system. There’s a flat fee for licensing the YinzCam software, but most stadiums already have multiple cameras and Wi-Fi that can be used to create the experience. Unlike some other in-stadium video experiences, fans carry in their own viewing devices — there’s no need for the stadium to purchase them.

In addition to the flat licensing fee, YinzCam also plans to collect a share of any of the advertising teams decide to sell on the app. Since the app is able to collect valuable information about the user, like which plays they tend to watch and even their favorite players, it’s likely that this will also develop into a formidable revenue source. Verizon, for instance, has decided to sponsor the Pittsburgh Penguins app this season.

The company hasn’t sought funding yet, but Narasimhan says that it might consider doing so when it’s ready to grow. Possibilities for expansion include improving the out-of-stadium viewing experience or applying technology to other aspects of the game.

Image courtesy of iStockphoto, flyparade.

Series Supported by Microsoft BizSpark

Microsoft BizSpark

The Spark of Genius Series highlights a unique feature of startups and is made possible by Microsoft BizSpark, 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.

More About: bizspark, Carnegie Mellon, fans, JumboTron, Narasimhan, sports, video, YinzCam

For more Startups coverage:

Hands-On with CNBC’s Real-Time Stocks Dashboard for iPad [SCREENSHOTS]

Posted: 07 Dec 2010 11:38 PM PST


CNBC released a brand new iPad app late Monday, delivering the first truly useful, real-time market updates dashboard for the device.

The free app is cleverly organized for quick access to the latest information on the markets, including real-time stock quotes and charts from the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) and NASDAQ, as well as articles and videos from CNBC.com. Users can customize the dashboard to keep track of their individual portfolios and save articles (although not videos) for later offline viewing. A news ticker (which can be customized to track certain industries or personal portfolios) runs along the bottom of the app, making it easy to catch relevant breaking news as users navigate through the different sections.

Users can also watch highlights from CNBC’s more popular shows, including Mad Money and Fast Money.

It makes Fox Business’s [iTunes link] and Bloomberg’s [iTunes link] iPad apps, which have a 15-minute reporting delay on stock quotes, look primitive by comparison.

Only two things are lacking: streaming access to CNBC’s live TV content and better social integration. Admittedly, finance is not a popular topic of discussion on social networks currently; however, the growth of online social communities like Stocktwits may very well reverse this trend. We’d love to see sharing options for Facebook and Twitter, live commenting functionality on videos and articles, as well as live, stock-related tweets from Stocktwits’s API.

Check out CNBC’s app for yourself in the screenshot gallery below, as well as in the App Store [iTunes link].

CNBC Real-Time for iPad





























































Reviews: App Store, Facebook, Twitter

More About: cnbc, finance, ipad, ipad app, media, stocks

For more Tech coverage:

ViddyJam Is a Pandora for All YouTube’s Music Videos

Posted: 07 Dec 2010 10:27 PM PST


ViddyJam is a cool new web app we’ve been playing with tonight; we liked it so much, we thought we’d share it with you.

This app gets a starting point from you — an artist and a song — and extrapolates (using data from Last.fm) to serve a continuous stream of music videos from YouTube. It’s a lot like Pandora, which lets you create artist-inspired Internet radio channels and stream music based on those settings.

Just like Pandora, ViddyJam will occasionally serve you a video that’s less than fitting; but also like Pandora, you can skip the songs you don’t like — and you can keep skipping until you hit a song that fits your mood perfectly.

Better yet, ViddyJam can stream only music videos from your favorite artist. It can even stream a single song of your choosing, pulling from the many versions that may be available on YouTube. Finally, you can also choose to upload a playlist of your own. Just go into iTunes, export the playlist of your choosing and click to upload it to ViddyJam.

The app has a pretty interface that recedes gracefully as videos play and emerges when you need navigational or other controls. When videos are playing, all controls — even the YouTube player — disappear completely. You only see the various links and buttons when you mouse over the screen.

From within the app, you can create favorites for later “jamming,” and you can review your history of jams. You can also buy songs on Amazon or iTunes.

One of the things we like best about the app is that it’s beautifully ad-free. In that sense, it seems less like a startup product and more like a hacker’s side project (the hacker in question being serial entrepreneur Ben Bryant, who decided to show ViddyJam to the Hacker News community tonight); given the fact that it’s streaming copyrighted content from other sources, it’s unlikely the creators will try to capitalize on it any time soon.

ViddyJam is simple and good-looking; it’s fun to run in the background or on a spare monitor; and it would probably be a hit at parties. Give it a spin and let us know what you think in the comments.

Reviews: Hacker News, Internet, Last.fm, Pandora, YouTube

More About: music videos, viddlyjam

For more Entertainment coverage:

Startup Uses Photos to Enable the Discovery of Things, People [INVITES]

Posted: 07 Dec 2010 09:31 PM PST


The Spark of Genius Series highlights a unique feature of startups and is made possible by Microsoft BizSpark. If you would like to have your startup considered for inclusion, please see the details here.

Name: thefancy

Quick Pitch: Thefancy connects users to things, people and brands on the web and in real life.

Genius Idea: Objects factor into nearly every facet of our lives. You may have an affinity for a sweetly scented candle or an emotional attachment to a hand-crafted purse. In many ways, the things we love or want define who we are. Invite-only site (we have invites) thefancy seeks to allow users to express themselves through objects and help them discover new things nearby or on the web.

The early-stage product itself is deceivingly rudimentary and primarily allows users to save objects on the web in a personal collection. So, you can grab an “Add to Fancy” bookmarklet to clip or tag objects of interest as you browse. The collection you build becomes a photo collage of things that other users can follow to save items that interest them.

You can also paste image URLs and tag products contained in images. This process allows you to then embed the object-tagged photo elsewhere so that viewers can mouse over tagged items to learn more about them.

Tagging is where things — literally — get interesting on thefancy. A photographer, for instance, can add context to photos by tagging objects, or a business owner can tag merchandise in photos. The notion of adding tags, and context by association, to photos is one that’s becoming quite popular, and important. Media companies are said to be excited by the prospect of using thefancy as an e-commerce tool. Just recently, Stipple raised $2 million in seed funding for a similar purpose.

The product may also have celebrity appeal. In doing a little digging, we found Ashton Kutcher’s profile flying under the radar.

We should also note that thefancy has an iPhone application that is expected to be released soon, but is pending approval from Apple. The application will better drive home the utility of the service and allow users to more easily snap, tag and share objects in the real world with appended geo data. The location aspect of photos taken via the app will be used to help users better discover nearby things of interest.

A New Paradigm for Product Discovery

The idea behind thefancy is greater than the product in its current form. The site is one of the consumer-facing products from ambitious New York-based startup thingd. Thingd aims to create a database of things — digital versions of real-world objects — and the startup currently has a collection of more than 100 million indexed objects. The startup has also developed an API for mobile developers of barcode scanning applications that they can use to run a product barcode against thingd’s database to return more information about the product.

“The next wave of commerce is going to be less about the current Google keyword paradigm and more about social and presence,” says founder Joseph Einhorn, where “social means discovering things that are of interest to other people and presence means discovering things that are physically near me.”

Einhorn is making a case for a digital world in which traditional search is replaced by localized, social discovery. It’s a big vision and one that has allowed thingd to raise an undisclosed sum from a slew of notable firms and angel investors including Andreessen Horowiz, Allen & Co., General Catalyst Partners, Jack Dorsey, Chris Hughes and James Pallotta.

Invites

Thefancy is currently in invite-only stage, but 500 Mashable readers can sign up here.

Series Supported by Microsoft BizSpark

Microsoft BizSpark

The Spark of Genius Series highlights a unique feature of startups and is made possible by Microsoft BizSpark, 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.

Reviews: Google, Mashable

More About: bizspark, photo tagging, spark-of-genius, startup, tags, thefancy, thingd

For more Startups coverage:

10 Chrome Web Apps to Check Out

Posted: 07 Dec 2010 08:16 PM PST


The Google Chrome Web Store has only been open for a few hours, and already hundreds of apps are available to use.

To be fair, not every app offers a new experience; some are merely bookmarks to existing web apps. There are already a number of apps, however, that really push the boundaries of what we expect from a web app, offering new, optimized experiences and tight browser integration.

The great thing about web apps is that you don’t necessarily have to use Google Chrome to get to benefit from these great interfaces. Some of the apps do use Chrome-specific optimizations, but most will work identically in Safari or Firefox 4 beta.

Here are ten Chrome web apps that we think are worth exploring:


SlideRocket




Why It's Awesome: SlideRocket is a fantastic web app that lets you create robust, media-rich presentations in your web browser. SlideRocket even has a new HTML5 slide viewer optimized for the iPad.

What makes the Chrome app extra cool is that SlideRocket lets you sign-n with your Google or Google Apps account instantly. Plus, the Google connection means that the app can now easily integrate with your Google address book (perfect for sharing a presentation or adding collaborators) and you can access real-time Google feeds to integrate into your slide deck.


Sports Illustrated Snapshot




Why It's Awesome: The Sports Illustrated Snapshot app really showcases just how jaw-dropping high-speed sports photography can be. Every day, new photos are hand-picked and captioned and added to the various channels in the app. Plus, users can purchase access to curated images from the archives or from big events like the Super Bowl.

We love the way the app flows; it would look at home on a tablet.


Crackle




Why It's Awesome: Sony's Crackle.com web video service offers a great blend of original series, movies, TV shows and shorts. The Crackle Google Chrome app is keyboard friendly and easy to browse, and it offers a really robust lean-back experience. We could easily see this app on a Chrome-enabled set-top box.


Springpad




Why It's Awesome: Springpad is kind of like a mashup between Evernote and Zootool. You can capture information from various sources for your own personal notebooks, set reminders that can then be tweeted to you and create information or organize data around your Facebook contacts.

The Springpad Chrome app really becomes cool when you use it with the Springpad Chrome extension. Capturing, collating and referencing your information is a snap.


HuffingtonPost NewsGlide




Why It's Awesome: If we were the Huffington Post, we would make the NewsGlide Chrome app our iPad app. It flows well, pulls up content in an attractive way and is easy to navigate.


Clicker.TV




Why It's Awesome: Clicker's Chrome app is actually optimized for remote controls or keyboards. That makes it a really hot addition to a home media PC. You can easily navigate without using a mouse, search for content and play back your favorite shows from the available sources without missing a beat.

A netbook running Clicker hooked up to an HDTV would kind of be like what Google TV was supposed to be.


TweetDeck




Why It's Awesome: TweetDeck has been promising to take an HTML5 approach to its web and mobile apps for quite some time. The Chrome app brings that plan to fruition. Not only can you login with your existing TweetDeck account, you can also import information from the TweetDeck Air app.

The Chrome app might not replace TweetDeck for diehard users, but think about this: This is portable. Now, if you're on someone else's computer, you can access your TweetDeck columns from within Chrome. Snazzy.


Graphic.ly




Why It's Awesome: Graphic.ly has apps for Adobe Air, Windows 7, iOS and Windows Phone 7 already, but the Chrome web app brings the comic viewing, purchasing and sharing experience to the browser.

Graphic.ly has lots of deals with some of the top comic book publishers to deliver comics that can be read and synced across your devices. You can also download free comics and comic previews. The Chrome app integrates with the other apps and lets you take advantage of the special Graphic.ly Flow view.


MOG




Why It's Awesome: We already discussed the MOG app, but we wanted to give it another shout-out for creating an entirely new interface for Chrome or Safari users.


New York Times




Why It's Awesome: Frankly, we wish all newspaper websites looked this good. With keyboard shortcuts, layout choices and suport for multi-touch, the New York Times app really manages to create a fantastic web app experience that helps you forget you're in a web browser.

Reviews: Chrome, Firefox, Google Chrome, Safari

More About: chrome, chrome web store, google chrome, HTML5, trending, web apps

For more Tech coverage:

Why the 5 “Best Internet Meme” Finalists Went Viral [Mashable Awards]

Posted: 07 Dec 2010 06:37 PM PST

dynadot

This post is brought to you by Dynadot, sponsor of the Mashable Awards' "Best Internet Meme" Category. Dynadot is an ICANN accredited domain name registrar and web host. Join Dynadot on Facebook to learn how to enter its I Can Haz iPad Giveaway!

The “Best Internet Meme” Mashable Award is a new category for 2010, so we’re particularly excited to see who takes home the trophy.

In order to help you best decide who to vote for, we caught up with some of the finalists to get their perspective on their recent viral successes. We also spoke with experts to find out why certain memes become so popular.

Have a read of the interviews below, share your thoughts in the comments, and most importantly of all, vote to have a say in what is judged to be the Mashable Awards’ “Best Internet Meme” of the year.

1. Bed Intruder

Whether you see Antoine Dodson as a figure of fun or an urban poet, there’s no doubting his popularity across the net. An unlikely start for a meme, his Channel 48 interview after the attempted rape of his sister has propelled him to online fame, something Dodson describes as beyond his control.

“You’ll have to thank the rest of the world and The Gregory Brothers for tuning in… I simply expressed my anger to the camera,” says Dodson, who sees a parallel between his situation and Double Rainbow’s Bear Vasquez. “We both were expressing true emotion in a moment caught on film although the emotions are at the opposite ends of the spectrum. Both videos have spawned many parodies and covers.”

So why did the “Bed Intruder” meme take off so fast? “It moves people with laughter, anger, compassion, etc., in ways that inspire them to respond with their own creativity,” suggests Dodson. He believes the meme has helped bring the serious issues behind the original interview to light.

“The cause behind the Bed Intruder event — attempted sexual assault — is a topic that is generally very hard for people to discuss openly. Bed Intruder has aired out a difficult experience and brought light and laughter to many people. Many of my fans write that I have helped them so much by talking openly about sexual abuse and assault. If being the best Internet meme can help more people who have experienced or know someone who has experienced abuse, that is worthwhile.”

One thing’s for sure, whether or not “Bed Intruder” wins the Mashable Award, this won’t be the last we see of Dodson. He has revealed to Mashable that he’s currently in talks with “a couple of movie producers.”

2. FFFFffffuuuuu Guy

Brad Kim, the web editor at Know Your Meme, describes the FFFFffffuuuuu Guy, or Rageguy, meme series as “exceptional” thanks to its volume of circulation and the sheer variety of spin-off memes that followed.

The main reason that the Rageguy meme has seen such success is thought to be the often true nature of the often ordinary reasons for the rage.

“Rageguy comics (and its spin-offs) tend to illustrate real life anecdotes that others can easily empathize with,” says Kim. “Whether it’s about spilling grape juice on a white t-shirt or stepping on power plugs, people seem inclined to share stories about things that irritate them.”

Tanner Ringerud, associate editor at BuzzFeed agrees: “Rageguy is so popular because of the classic maxim, ‘it’s funny because it’s true.’ ”

“We are all familiar with the scenarios, but we don’t realize how ludicrous they are until we’re made aware that everyone else is experiencing the same irrational response to relatively mundane events. They’re the Internet version of an early-90s observational stand-up comedian.”

With regards to the various spin-offs, Kim suggests the Rageguy “reaction faces” found on comment threads and forums work so well because they are “delivered through facial expressions and not words, which makes it easier to understand the jokes.”

And as far as Rageguy’s carelessly drawn looks go — that’s all part of the appeal.

“Most instances of Rageguy types are drawn carelessly, as if the creator had nothing else but MS Paint to illustrate with. Maybe it’s a nostalgia thing, perhaps it’s for expediency, but people seem to appreciate the ‘I-made-this-in-a-minute’ aesthetics,” says Kim.

3. Double Rainbow

Bear Vasquez became the most famous rainbow fan on the Internet earlier this year when his emotional reaction to seeing a “double rainbow” went viral. As is often the case with memes, Vasquez had no idea the clip would prove so popular.

“I never meant to be a meme,” Vasquez told Mashable. “It was shot in one take and was not an intentional video; it’s something I caught and reacted to. I am only a vessel of the Spirit of the Universe and a servant for mankind. Being a meme is just a by-product of this.”

Despite not meaning to make a meme, Vasquez can see why the Double Rainbow phenomenon began: “A good meme is something that sparks something deep in everybody who watches it. My video is so powerful because I was witnessing God and I give a pure reaction.”

Vasquez hopes that by winning the Best Internet Meme award it will allow him to spread his message for humanity, and he is more than ready for the challenge.

“I am brave enough to not care if people think I am crazy, talented enough to capture this and humble enough to let the universe flow through me. I am strong enough to carry out this mission and obedient enough to make it happen,” Vasquez concludes.

4. #FridayReads

#FridayReads stands apart in this category as a meme that offers more than just entertainment. In the words of the meme’s creator, Bethanne Patrick, it’s an organic, meaningful, and useful meme that touches on a real contemporary issue — literacy.

Patrick tells us she began #FridayReads as “a simple extension of my entire reason for being in new media: Love of books and reading. I created #fridayreads one day when I was stuck on what to read next. I thought that if I asked my ‘tweeps’ about their own current reads, I’d get a few ideas.”

This simple idea has become a Twitter success story. We asked Patrick what she thought were the reasons for the success.

“Because of its authenticity and simplicity. Authenticity: There’s no corporate power behind it, just a bunch of people who volunteer each week to get the word out about the meme and to share great books. Simplicity: No one has to think hard or long about a response; a single book title and the hash tag and you’re done.”

5. Sad Keanu

So what’s the big secret behind Sad Keanu’s popularity? Brad Kim says its success can be attributed to its “high exploitability.”

“Its degree in ‘exploitability’ has to do with the nature of image: a Hollywood celebrity eating a sandwich on a park bench, wearing an ambivalent expression,” explains Kim. “As to why it’s so popular, it’s difficult to pinpoint. My guess is that people took interest in Sad Keanu for different reasons, perhaps for its sheer randomness in the beginning and later boosted by fans who became aware of it.”

Meanwhile, Nick Douglas, senior editor of Urlesque, takes a more technical view of the reasons behind the photo-based meme’s success.

“Sad Keanu went huge because Reddit and Tumblr were on the cusp of replacing 4chan as the birthplace of memes. Those two sites have built a culture of memes and remixes that have just gotten large enough to tip into the media. Reddit users had many stories that this was a nice guy with a surprisingly tough life, so they had a narrative to work with. Tumblr users had a recognizable meme in image form — the best form for going viral on Tumblr, since it takes under 10 seconds to see a picture, laugh at it, and reblog it,” says Douglas.

“The meme was kept alive when new pictures kept coming out, and when Michael Cera, Leonardo DiCaprio and Jon Hamm’s Don Draper got similar Photoshop treatment. Each time, Sad Keanu was constantly mashed up with the new guy.”

Platform, shareability and exploitability are certainly strong theories. But we’ll leave you with another thought from Tanner Ringerud:

“Sad Keanu is funny because it’s so incongruous. Nobody expects Keanu Reeves to be sad or thoughtful — he was Ted from Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure.”

What are your thoughts on the five finalists for Mashable Awards’ “Best Internet Meme” category? Let us know in the comments below.

The Mashable Awards Gala at Cirque du Soleil Zumanity (Vegas)

In partnership with Cirque du Soleil, The Mashable Awards Gala event will bring together the winners and nominees, the Mashable community, partners, media, the marketing community, consumer electronics and technology brands and attendees from the 2011 International CES Convention to Las Vegas on Thursday, January 6, 2011. Together, we will celebrate the winners and the community of the Mashable Awards at the Cirque du Soleil Zumanity stage in the beautiful New York New York Hotel. The event will include acts and performances from our partner Cirque du Soleil Zumanity. In addition, there will be special guest presenters and appearances.

Date: Thursday, January 6th, 2011 (during International CES Convention week)
Time: 7:00 – 10:00 pm PT
Location: Cirque du Soleil Zumanity, New York New York Hotel, Las Vegas
Agenda: Networking, Open Bars, Acts, Surprises and the Mashable Awards Gala presentations
Socialize: Facebook, Foursquare, Meetup, Plancast, Twitter (Hashtag: #MashableAwards)

Register for Mashable Awards Gala at Cirque du Soleil Zumanity stage (Las Vegas - 2011 International CES convention) [Ticketed Event] in Las Vegas, NV on Eventbrite

Mashable Awards Category Sponsor:

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More Internet Meme Resources from Mashable:

- 5 Crafty Tricks for Creating Killer Photo Memes
- Sad Keanu Reeves in a Helmet Meme Hits the Web [GALLERY]
- Cats: They're On the Internet [COMIC]
- 9 Universal Principles of Viral Media Sites

Reviews: Facebook, Foursquare, Internet, Mashable, Tumblr, Twitter, love, reddit.com

More About: best internet meme, Dynadot, mashable awards, mashable awards 2010, Meme, memes, viral

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Salesforce Seeks to Lure Enterprise into Social Collaboration with Chatter Free

Posted: 07 Dec 2010 05:29 PM PST


Five months ago, Salesforce released Chatter as a “Facebook for Enterprise.” With more than 60,000 companies already using the cloud-based app, Salesforce is today releasing a complimentary version called Chatter Free to enable a more viral mechanism around enterprise adoption.

Chatter Free is an extension of the Chatter product line and operates around an invitation model, so a licensed Salesforce user can invite non-licensed colleagues to use Chatter without incurring additional costs. The model is designed to help accelerate the user acquisition process for the social collaboration platform.

Those who get invited into the Chatter Free experience can create profiles, post status updates, consume feeds, share files, participate in groups and use the Chatter Mobile and Desktop apps just like their Salesforce-licensed coworkers. Chatter Free users are not gifted with the more premium features of the app, however. This means they can’t do things like follow accounts, get reports, have access to calendars or employ custom objects. These features can, of course, be enabled by upgrading to a Chatter Plus license costing $15 per user, per month.

Chatter Free is really a crafty marketing maneuver dressed up as a product launch. There are certainly company benefits associated with the release of the free version — ensuring all project stake holders can use the app is a biggie, for instance. But Salesforce, which competes with Yammer in this space, will likely be the real winner as long as they can successfully convert Chatter Free users into paying customers.

Chatter Free was announced at the Salesforce Dreamforce conference in San Francisco. Earlier today, the company also announced the launch of its enterprise cloud database offering, Database.com, and will be unveiling additional updates to its Force.com platform over the course of the event.

Reviews: Yammer

More About: chatter, enterprise, Salesforce, salesforce.com, salesforce.com chatter, social collaboration, social media

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Real-Time Traffic App Waze Raises $25M in New Funding

Posted: 07 Dec 2010 05:00 PM PST


Waze, a startup with a great product for real-time traffic monitoring and GPS navigation, has just announced a $25 million Series B.

This most recent round was led by Blue Run Ventures, with previous investors Magma Venture Partners and Vertex Venture Capital and new investor Qualcomm Ventures participating.

The company’s last funding was a $12 million Series A in March, 2008. The new funding brings the total raised to $37 million.

The startup will be using at least some of this money to relocate to Palo Alto from Tel Aviv. The relocation will include new Silicon Valley recruitment efforts.

In a statement, a company rep said that Waze’s financials are looking good so far.

“First, we’re already generating revenue on licensing crowd-sourced, real-time data. Second, now that our community is large and growing, we have been rolling out our first tests in advertising. Location-based advertising has gone through several iterations and we’re taking it in an entirely new direction.”

The rep said the company is also getting brands involved with its geo-gaming platform.

The app itself is a social driving application that wants to make users’ daily drives more efficient and fun. It features GPS navigation, real-time traffic updates and a few social and gaming elements. For example, users can send updates about traffic, speed traps, road construction, right-light cameras and similar obstacles.

The Waze rep said the company will be releasing more information soon about how the app is changing daily driver behavior.

Reviews: waze

More About: blue run, funding, Magma, qualcomm, series b, startup, vertex, waze

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Google Chrome Gets Cloud Print

Posted: 07 Dec 2010 04:37 PM PST


Google today confirmed that Cloud Print would be built into the latest version of the Chrome browser.

The feature was first revealed in the spring, and it’s aimed at substantially improving the simplicity of printing.

Cloud Print works by hosting printer drivers on your Google Account in the cloud. By keeping printer drivers decentralized with Cloud Print, users can avoid the hassle of repeatedly setting up a printer. Documents are then sent to Google, where they’re interpreted and directed back to your printer to be converted to hard copy.

The feature bears some similarities to Apple’s much touted AirPrint feature. A better parallel, though, is the ePrint functionality built into HP’s latest printers. With ePrint, printers are assigned an email address to which a user can send documents to be added to the print queue.

Since no Cloud Print-enabled printers yet exist, Google has built the functionality into the latest beta of the Chrome browser. For the time being, it only works with Windows, but support for other platforms is expected soon.

Given the other announcements coming out of Google today, it’s likely that Cloud Print will be featured prominently in Chroms OS. The new operating system is very much about decentralization, and that’s precisely what Cloud Print was designed for: the decentralization of printing mechanics. It also sheds some light on how Google might handle other peripherals that aren’t crucial to system operations.

Reviews: Chrome, Google, Windows Vista

More About: chrome, Chrome OS, cloud, cloud print, decentralization, Google, Google Cloud Print, HP, printing

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Google Maps for Android to Add 3D and Offline Support

Posted: 07 Dec 2010 04:34 PM PST


Get ready, folks with no sense of direction; Google Maps 5.0 app for Android is looking to make your life a lot easier with 3D graphics, more accurate orientation and the ability to function offline.

According to Gizmodo, the app — which was demoed at D: Dive Into Mobile conference in San Francisco — is much faster than the previous iteration and renders in real time.

3D buildings are visible at street-level view, which lets you tilt the image and check out your virtual surroundings. The map will also adjust as you move, dictated by the compass, or you can rotate the map yourself if you want to check out various views.

Perhaps the coolest addition to the app is its ability to work in offline mode — a boon to those in shoddy service areas or underground on the subway.

Said mode caches areas that users visit frequently. According to Gizmodo, this process is pretty comprehensive: “A quick demo we saw impressed us with how the vast majority of New York City stayed in memory…. Google says that this should compensate for 90% of the times the app currently fails when the connection is bad — in Navigation, it’ll even re-route you if you miss a turn in an area where the signal drops,” Gizmodo says.

The app is not yet available, but will require Android 1.6 (Donut) or higher when it is (although more advanced features won’t work on older devices running early versions of the Android OS).

Image courtesy of Gizmodo

Reviews: Android, Google

More About: android, Google Maps, Mobile 2.0

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Paper.li Brings Its Daily News Aggregator to Facebook

Posted: 07 Dec 2010 03:39 PM PST


Today, Paper.li has expanded the breadth of its feed aggregation service to include publicly searchable content from Facebook.

Paper.li may have been creeping into your life with its “custom newspapers” for Twitter. The service works by aggregating content based on a set of parameters determined by you. It can cull content based on keywords, usernames and hashtags to create a daily hub of the content that most interests you.

It doesn’t matter if you’re friends with an individual; if that person’s content is open to the web, Paper.li can scrape it. If the content is sealed behind Facebook privacy settings, it will be unavailable to your daily aggregation.

It could be due to the “in testing” label on the feature, but users are currently unable to combine content from Twitter and Facebook searches into one unified stream of content. Papers from each service exist independent of one another, so users of the service will have to run two separate searches to create two independent newspapers.

Regardless, the addition of Facebook to the Paper.li repertoire does mark a shred of promise. It already stands as a compelling addition to the content aggregation capabilities of the service. If the other oddities are worked out, it’s feasible to believe that this could be a boon to those looking to easily monitor the scope of the social graph.


Reviews: Facebook, Twitter, paper.li

More About: aggregation, content aggregator, newspaper, paper.li, paperli, personalized news, social graph

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The Google Cr-48 Chrome OS Notebook Is All About the Web

Posted: 07 Dec 2010 03:06 PM PST


Google just launched artillery deep into territories held by Microsoft and Apple by making one of the biggest announcements in its history: The reveal of Chrome OS. And in doing so, it has declared war on the traditional desktop model.

The Cr-48 Chrome Notebook will be the first official device featuring Chrome OS. Although it’s only being released in a pilot program to beta testers, it’s very much an emissary to consumers (Google’s hopeful allies in the fight). Those of you interested in enlisting can sign up to test the device, but we’re guessing selection will be — well — selective.

Not much is known about the hardware driving Google’s new machine, but here is what we do know:

  • 12-inch LCD display
  • Built-in Wi-Fi and 3G (service provided by Verizon Wireless)
  • Full-sized keyboard with no caps-lock or function keys
  • Oversized clickable touchpad
  • Weighs in at 3.8 pounds
  • Solid state hard drive — capacity unknown
  • Eight hours of active usage with a week of standby power

The Cr-48 Chrome Notebook might not be the most powerful computing device, but that’s not the point. The device is intended for consumption, not raw processing power. Whether it performs as a consumption device remains to be seen, but if Google gets this right, Chrome OS notebooks could put a serious hurt on devices like the MacBook Air.

Reviews: Google

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AT&T Exec: We’re Not Concerned About a Verizon iPhone

Posted: 07 Dec 2010 02:52 PM PST


A day after being named the worst wireless carrier in the U.S. by Consumer Reports, AT&T’s head of emerging devices, Glenn Lurie, took the stage at All Things Digital's D: Dive Into Mobile conference to answer questions about the company's service as well as the impending threat of the iPhone coming to Verizon.

Lurie points to the "5,000% growth in data usage over the last 3 years" as the primary driver of the difficulties that the company has faced in network reliability — especially in areas like New York and San Francisco.

That growth, says Lurie, is faster than that experienced by any other carrier in the world. Interestingly, he also thinks it has given the company a competitive advantage as other carriers bring more smartphones online, in spite of the hit the brand has taken.

Specifically, interviewer Walt Mossberg of The Wall Street Journal asked about how Verizon's network might hold up if and when it gets the iPhone, as WSJ has reported it will. While Lurie said he can't "speak for Verizon," he added that "We've managed a massive amount of data on our network for several years. Many of our competitors have not."

Moreover, Lurie says says that reliability issues are "not about money," noting that AT&T has spent more than $18 billion both this year and last to improve its network. Summarizing the competitive threat posed by a Verizon iPhone, Lurie echoed statements of other AT&T execs, saying, "We're not concerned about it at all."

He added that given the diversity of device choices and high switching costs for those on family and business plans, he feels confident in AT&T's position and sees it as similar to when the company lost exclusivity on the RAZR, the hottest phone back in the middle of last decade.

More About: att, smartphones, verizon

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“The New York Times” Chrome Web App Remodels the Online Newspaper

Posted: 07 Dec 2010 02:24 PM PST


Google just unveiled the Chrome Web Store, making tons of highly optimized web apps available to users of Google Chrome (or the latest versions of Safari or Firefox 4 beta).

One of the apps that was showcased at the Google event earlier this afternoon was The New York Times for Chrome. The app, which was built using HTML5, manages to deliver a really fantastic reading experience.

Chrome users can “install” the app from the Chrome Web Store and those who use other modern browsers can access the same interface and featureset from http://nytimes.com/chrome.

Boasting support for 10 different layouts, keyboard shortcuts, offline reading and easy access to share tools, the app is a strong example of just what can be accomplished in a modern web app.

The layout and features of the app are very similar to the Times Skimmer web prototype that was released last year. The big difference is that keyboard navigation has been tightened, and text from individual articles is now formatted to fit the AJAX windows.

The reading experience and user interface are consistent with both the Times Reader 2.0 Adobe Air app and the New York Times app for the iPad.

The app also features a number of subtle design cues that appear to be inspired by the iPad and its app and web paradigms. Not only are the layout and settings structure remarkably similar to the Times iPad app, the article display properties are also well aligned.

This is further accentuated by the support for multi-touch devices like trackpads and other accessories. Using the Magic Trackpad, flipping through article is a very similar experience to using the iPad.

Suffice to say, we expect that future Android tablets (and iPads for that matter) will be compatible with these types of web apps. In designing the app, it doesn’t look like the Times was just targeting the desktop browser.

At the end of the day, that’s really what makes this experience so compelling. It’s very clear how this same codebase could be slightly re-factored for a tablet device or put in an Android, BlackBerry or iOS wrapper and other keyboard-less devices.

What do you think of the New York Times for Chrome app?


Chrome Web Store





New York Times App Screen





App Icon





Main Screen





Story Page





Story Navigation





App Keyboard Shortcuts





Alternative Style





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iPad App Main Page





iPad App Story Page





Times Reader 2.0




Reviews: Android, Chrome, Google, adobe AIR

More About: chrome apps, chrome web store, Google, google chrome, HTML5, ipad, new york times, web apps, web design, Web Development

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#NewTwitter Adds Blip.tv, Instagram, Slideshare & More

Posted: 07 Dec 2010 01:55 PM PST


Twitter users can now access multimedia content from blip.tv, Instagram, Rdio, Slideshare and Dipdive without leaving twitter.com, the microblogging service has announced.

This brings the total number of multimedia services to 20, including earlier partners YouTube, Flickr, Ustream and iTunes.

In a blog post, Twitter outlined the functions of the five new services:

  • blip.tv: Watch more than 50,000 independently-produced Web TV shows.
  • Instagram: View mobile photos, personalized with Instagram's colorful filters.
  • Rdio: When a subscriber Tweets out a song, you can listen to full-length songs right inside the details pane, for the first time ever.
  • SlideShare: Read and share entire presentations, directly on Twitter.
  • Dipdive: See photos, videos and new works from Dipdive’s community of artists.

Twitter promises that more multimedia content partnerships will emerge in the next few months.

Reviews: Flickr, Twitter, YouTube, instagram, ustream

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MOG Hits the Chrome Web Store

Posted: 07 Dec 2010 01:52 PM PST


Let the deluge of apps begin! Google officially unveiled the long-anticipated Chrome Web Store at its big Chrome event today, and the first app I checked out, naturally, was MOG.

First impressions on MOG’s app: It’s very slick. Much prettier than the web app, less cluttered and lacking the (admittedly annoying) pop-out player.

As you can see from the screenshots below, the new app is stripped-down, sleek and much easier to navigate than its browser-based cousin. According to MOG, subscribers to the app (which costs $5 per month, but is accessible if you’re already a subscriber) will have access to more than 10 million songs on-demand on any computer using Chrome or Safari browsers or on your TV (Roku and GoogleTV).

What subscribers will not have access to is the playlist-making ability they have come to love on MOG’s web and mobile apps. Yes, you can add albums and songs to your “Queue” and listen to artist radio stations (which can be adjusted to deliver a range of music — from all songs by that artist to a hearty mix of similar bands), but still — playlists are really a must. Also, if you are already a subscriber, you won’t see any of your existing playlists of cached music in the Chrome version.

So, basically, the app lives as a separate entity from your other devices and your in-browser app, which is a pain. Still, we’re sure that the app will sync with the Google Chrome OS devices, set to ship mid-2011. Also, this is the beta version, so we imagine tweaks will be made.

As a current subscriber to MOG, I’m not sure I would actually use this iteration, being that I already have a lot of music and playlists invested on both my Android device and my browser app. However, if you’re not yet a MOG user, $5 per month is a pretty good deal for all-you-can-eat music.

To get the app, download the developer channel of Google Chrome, go to the web store and install.

MOG For Chrome

Reviews: Android, Chrome, Google Chrome, Safari

More About: google chrome, MOG, music

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5 Lessons Big Corporations Can Learn From Startups

Posted: 07 Dec 2010 01:48 PM PST

handshake entrepreneur image

Shawn Parr is the CEO of Bulldog Drummond, a design and innovation consultancy headquartered in San Diego whose clients include Starbucks, Adidas, MTV, Nestle, Pinkberry, Virgin, Disney, Nike and American Eagle Outfitters.

There's a stark contrast between the slow pontification of a multi-national company and the focused energy of a small startup poised to change its corner of the world. Business practices obviously change when there's more to lose, but there is definitely something to gain from adopting the startup mentality of “everything to gain” rather than focusing on keeping the status quo or minimizing potential loss.

Here are five valuable lessons that corporations can learn from their entrepreneurial counterparts in the startup world.

1. Ditch Democracy

Your average, super-charged entrepreneur usually starts his or her journey because of a passion or epiphany. Personal experience, downright frustration, or a simple observation can light the fuse. And, once lit, entrepreneurs are unrelenting in thinking about how to change the world and bring a new product solution to market.

Product development teams in larger companies can benefit from modeling or mimicking the individual obsession and observations of the single entrepreneur. Instead of running projects in a democratic fashion, consider remaking some of your teams into smaller, highly motivated units in order to tap into the passion and drive of your would-be entrepreneur employees.

3M is a global company that has allowed product innovations to come from any corner of the business. The Post-It Note was invented by an employee, not as a product, but as an adhesive spray that would allow you to tack papers to bulletin boards. Though this concept never proved marketable, his subsequent “reusable bookmarks” that colleagues began passing around the office became one of the most successful workplace products of all time.

2. Get Scrappy

freshguide image

When you’re operating on a shoestring budget, there’s motivation to be highly resourceful. Starting a company from nothing, investing life savings and using credit cards to fund product development and payroll makes the clock tick faster and the mind sharper.

Well-resourced corporations with larger teams and bigger operating budgets are typically less courageous, less resourceful and generally take longer to get products to market. Consider setting up an experiment where you find a project that can be run independently from all of the other things going on in your company. Give the project a limited budget, a limited set of resources and an audacious goal. Set the team running and see how masterfully (or un-masterfully) it tackles the challenge and what comes back out as a result.

The team at freshguide.com, an early-stage business in San Francisco's Bay Area, started its business using the rapid prototyping model of learning what their consumers wanted, learning what moved every aspect of its business and, as a result, evolved its business purpose mid-plan to a more focused and relevant concept.

3. Get Back to Your Roots

Shultz from Starbucks, Clif from Clif Bar and Branson from Virgin were all scrappy, “work out of a garage” entrepreneurs once upon a time. As their companies grew and their stories were told externally, they became inspiring and relevant to consumers and garnered serious fans on the outside.

One thing large companies often lack is the connection to their original story. If there was a passionate founder at one point, his or her purpose has often been overtaken by years of changing teams and Wall Street expectations. Take time to look into the passion that started the company and explore how to bring it back into the organization in a meaningful and current way. Being directed by a purpose creates real connections and opportunities for new thinking. It also gives your employees a reason to come to work and customers a reason to believe in what you’re selling.

Clif has his name on the bar, on the building, and on every product the company makes. The story behind the brand is inspiring and one that everyone working for the company and buying the product can relate to. Clif was a cycling nut and a weekend warrior who wanted a bar made from real food that would give him energy on his rides. His family were bakers, and he had an idea that he tested out with his mom in the kitchen. The rest is history. It's a story of simplicity and determination that has driven the success of the company from day one.

The Honest Kitchen, a passionate pet food company in San Diego run by a husband-and-wife team, developed their original recipe in their home kitchen to feed their sick dog. Today they allow everyone in the company to bring their dogs to work. Every meeting, whether it’s with the board, a product development team, or investors, is full of pooches — reminding everyone who they're in business to serve.

4. Go Fast

77 kids image

Startups often move at a breakneck pace because they don’t have the luxury of time. Decisions need to be made rapidly. Using a unique blend of intuition and trust, entrepreneurs make fast decisions that don’t rely on thousands of dollars worth of research, extensive approval processes or vetting from all the higher-ups (most times because there aren't any).

Larger companies are often weighed down by complex layers and processes, especially when it comes to new thinking or innovation. This often results in months of back and forth where very little of tangible value is accomplished. Good ideas lay dormant and often lose steam.

Set tight deadlines that create pressure for teams involved in product development or innovation scenarios. Teach them how to rapidly ideate, building on both good and bad ideas, relying less on judging ideas right then and there, but developing the largest range possible. Set them free from the typical process and let them create ideas based on their own intuition. Even if the outcomes have to run through your corporate process eventually, hold that step to the side as long as you can and see what happens as a result.

In working with American Eagle Outfitters to create 77Kids, my company dedicated a standalone team that immersed itself in the project and the business space. Working with a dedicated team unencumbered by the larger business, but still able to tap into their expertise and resources enabled us to build a business from the blank page to launch in 18 months.

5. Mix It Up

It’s counterintuitive to look at potential competitors and reach out to collaborate, but brands with shared values and complimentary missions may very well be excellent strategic partners. We're seeing a growing trend in competitive cooperation. It’s most often entrepreneurs who are willing to do this, either out of necessity, desire or shared interest.

Large companies often shy away from working with competitors in an effort to keep their information confidential, ensure market share isn’t lost, and assets are protected. Give the people on your team some freedom to explore potential partnerships with your competition and chart the places you think rich collaboration might happen. You don’t have to act on the synergies if they don’t align with your goals, but even the exploration could yield interesting and new ideas to feed back into your organization.

As a founding member of the CleanWell team, we worked with our friends at IDEO to develop products for a more natural way to clean. CleanWell has been highly collaborative and has been able to take its ingredient technology platform and partner with other disruptive and progressive cleaning companies like Seventh Generation and Method by licensing the ingredient technology and the “Powered by CleanWell” brand to increase their product efficacy. This collaboration benefits all parties involved, most importantly the consumer.

What tips did you find most useful? How else can large corporations benefit from the entrepreneurial spirit? Let us know in the comments below.

More Startup Resources from Mashable:

- HOW TO: Get the Most Out of a Coworking Space
- 5 Signs That Coworking Might Be for You
- 37 Productivity Tips for Working From Anywhere
- Why Co-Working Makes Sense for Small Businesses
- HOW TO: Choose the Best Workspace for Your Business

Image courtesy of iStockphoto, lisegagne

Reviews: iStockphoto

More About: business, corporations, entrepreneur, List, Lists, small business, social media, start up, startup

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Celebrities’ Internet “Deaths” Raise $1M for Charity

Posted: 07 Dec 2010 01:14 PM PST


Facebook and the Twitterverse have been a little quieter for the past several days, as some of the networks’ most famous users — including Lady Gaga, Justin Timberlake, Usher and Alicia Keys — signed off in the name of charity beginning on Worlds AIDS Day, December 1.

The group of celebrities had asked fans to donate to Keys’s Keep a Child Alive organization to revive their Internet presences. But by Monday — six days later — they were only halfway to $1 million and itching to get back on Twitter and Facebook. In fact, Usher, “revived” his Twitter presence before the campaign had technically ended. Apparently, the celebrities were more than a little let down by their followers.

So the celebs convinced Stewart Rahr, a Brooklyn-based billionaire pharmaceutical exec, to donate the remaining $500,000. The donation brought the celebs back from their “digital deaths,” and they wasted no time getting back to their millions of fans and followers.

[via New York Post]

Reviews: Facebook, Internet, Twitter

More About: alicia keys, facebook, Lady Gaga, twitter, world aids day

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Microsoft’s Still Not Talking About Windows Phone 7 Sales Numbers

Posted: 07 Dec 2010 12:36 PM PST


Windows Phone 7 has been on the market for a little more than a month, but the company still isn't disclosing how many devices featuring its revamped mobile OS have been sold.

Pressed on the issue by The Wall Street Journal's Walt Mossberg at All Things Digital's D: Dive Into Mobile conference on Tuesday, Microsoft Corporate VP for Windows Phone Joe Belfiore would say only that "It's just too soon to talk about numbers," though he admitted it will likely take years before Microsoft is near the top of the mobile market share discussion.

The issue with that response, of course, is that a variety of reports have pegged Windows Phone 7 sales as lackluster thus far, while competitors Apple and Google continue to trot out big numbers about the growth of iOS and Android, respectively. The silence, as they say, could certainly be perceived as deafening in this case.

Moving on, Belfiore looked to differentiate Windows Phone 7 from its competitors and offer his view on the unique value it offers to consumers. Notably, he said the OS focuses on making "common tasks … with high volume," like social networking, web browsing and e-mail, more elegant. He also pointed to a photo button that lets users take pictures even when their phone is locked and Windows Phone 7's "Live Tiles" feature as compelling differentiators.

As for current shortcomings – like the lack of multitasking and copy/paste – Belfiore indicated that the latter is coming in the first quarter of 2011, and that for the former, users can already run features like e-mail, web browsing and music in the background (with support for third-party apps on the way).

In short, it's clear that Microsoft is still very much playing catchup in the smartphone space, though the company does have a strategy — that's apparent in its current ad campaign — for luring customers in the short-term. Without disclosing numbers, however, it's going to be challenging for the company to convince both investors and consumers that Windows Phone 7 is truly catching on and is a viable alternative to other platforms.

Reviews: Android, Google

More About: microsoft, smartphones, windows phone 7

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