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- iKat: Your New Augmented Reality Pet10 March 2010, 2:26 pm
There’s something about the idea of an augmented reality pet – and a markerless one, too – that will make the heart of every true geek skip a beat. The idea is not entirely new, but it’s still amazing to see a virtual creature hopping around on a real-life surface, seen through your mobile phone’s camera.iKat was created by a company called Zenitum, using their D-Track engine. The virtual pet is markerless, which means you don’t need a marker or an image targe... 
- An Onslaught of Tablets Coming This Year10 March 2010, 11:22 am
You think the iPad will be the only tablet we’ll talk about in 2010? Not even close. According to Arm’s worldwide mobile computing ODM manager Roy Chen, we can expect as many as 50 tablets before the year’s end.“The first tablet devices will launch in the second quarter by [mobile network] carriers. You’ll see a lot more in the third quarter,” said Chen. He declined to name specific companies that will launch the tablets, but he did say some of the top 10 tele...
- Tweet Defense – Fight Zombies With the Power of Twitter10 March 2010, 9:39 am
We’ve seen many, many iterations of the popular tower defense games over the years, but this one has a special meaning for all you Twitter fans out there.Based on a tried and true concept, Tweet Defense is an iPhone game that lets you fight zombies with various tower defense units, but with a social twist: it grabs your various Twitter stats – number of followers, friends and tweets – and calculates bonuses to your defense based on them. It’s like an infinite time sink wh...
- MySpace Co-Presidents Reveal Company’s Plan for the Future [INTERVIEW]10 March 2010, 5:44 am
We had a chance to step into MySpace HQ for a chat with new Co-Presidents Jason Hirschhorn and Mike Jones, who preside over the News Corp.-owned social network from a shared desk in Beverly Hills. The joint office speaks to how closely Hirschhorn and Jones are working together to create a unified vision of the future for the lately struggling MySpace, whose former CEO Owen Van Natta exited the company after only 9 months in the hot seat.Hirschhorn describes MySpace as a site that “lacked f...
- Phonebooth Free: An Alternative to Google Voice for Small Businesses10 March 2010, 5:15 am
In November, Phonebooth.com released the beta version of Phonebooth OnDemand, which is a full-featured phone service that lives in the cloud, but can communicate with both cellular phones and IP desk and conference phones. Today, that service — which costs $20 a month per user — is becoming generally available. Phonebooth.com is also leveraging its own private VoIP network to launch Phonebooth Free, a free version of its hosted phone system, which is very similar to Google Voice but ...
- How SMEs Might Have To Embrace Social Cust Mgmt10 March 2010, 10:22 am
“If you have a screwed-up customer process and you deploy Salesforce, all you do is screw your customers faster,” he said.
Brett Queener is, admittedly, not the “guru” of social customer relation......
- Content and Passion...Finding The Right Social Media Content And Engagement Strategy10 March 2010, 8:41 am
This question of content and engagement strategy gets at the heart of how a company succeeds in bringing an audience to their website, keeping them engaged and even converting them to an action. ......
- The Social Contract: From Rousseau to Kevin Smith9 March 2010, 10:07 pm
In 1762 Jean-Jacque Rousseau wrote a little book called The Social Contract. As stated on the Wikipedia page for the book, Rousseau theorized about the best way in which to set up a political......
- 15 reasons to love social media9 March 2010, 10:06 pm
My last few posts have been about the darker side of social media and thus I wanted to clear something up. I am the biggest champion of social media that you will find and here’s why. I may get a......
- Are You Taking Social Media Shortcuts?9 March 2010, 3:08 pm
Are you treating social media like a checklist?
A recent study by Econsultancy called “The Value of Social Media” shows that companies are overwhelmingly using the “Big 4″ of Facebook, Twitter, Y......
- US Trade Rep unsure if legal options exist to negotiate China Internet restriction10 March 2010, 2:15 pm
At the National Press Club luncheon, guest speaker US Trade Representative Ron Kirk was asked about China, and spoke of current Internet service provider challenges facing U.S. owned companies such as Google which has strained relations with the Chinese government. We are still dialoguing not just with Google, but with other Internet providers, to make sure we fully understand what is happening in China. Ron Kirk suggested that it would preferable for an agreement to be reached directly between ...
- Cable and satellite providers want revised FCC rules and fees10 March 2010, 2:11 pm
Several cable and satellite broadcast providers want the FCC to overhaul the fee schedules and rewrite the dispute regulations....
- Open source first, ask questions later10 March 2010, 1:41 pm
Just as the Internet takes friction out of the distribution and development process, open source for Google removes friction from the business process....
- The disk error mystery10 March 2010, 1:28 pm
You'd think that after 50 years and many billions sold, disk drives would be well understood. And you'd be wrong. Take the case of latent sector errors....
- Wal-Mart most searched for business by TeleNav users10 March 2010, 1:18 pm
TeleNav collects loads of GPS data from its 13 million subscribers and posted a report on what people are searching for and how often they are using TeleNav to help them through traffic....
- Radian6 Launches Powerful Social Media Engagement and Monitoring Console For Brands And Agencies10 March 2010, 2:07 pm
Brands are engaging in the conversations that are taking place on social media sites now more than ever. But in order to tap into the social conversations that are taking place on the web, brands and agencies need to have a powerful tool to track, measure and engage sites such as Twitter, YouTube, Facebook and others. One of the leaders in the social media tracking space, Radian6, is launching a new Engagement Console to streamline this process.
A desktop client built on Adobe AIR, the engage...
- Brazil: Copy Cats? What Copy Cats?10 March 2010, 1:18 pm
I’ll say this about Brazilian startups—they’re certainly not dominated by Web copycats. Perhaps it’s because there aren’t a huge number of Brazilians who’ve made it big in the Valley transmuting the local way of doing things back home or because there’s not a lot of US venture capital flooding into the country. Perhaps it’s the country’s noted isolationist streak, or perhaps it was just the startups I lucked into meeting.
But whatever the reason I saw fewer “We’re-the-fill...
- Kyte Now Offering Broadcast-Quality Live Video Streaming Backpack10 March 2010, 1:00 pm
Live video streaming on the web is becoming more and more popular, and for news organizations and brands who don't want to shell out thousands of dollars a day for a satellite truck there is another option. At SXSW, Kyte is going to release a new product called Kyte LivePro Unwired with Spin magazine.
LivePro is a computer in a backpack connected to six data cards all uploading live video at the same time, balancing the load across three different carriers (Sprint, AT&T, and Verizon)....
- The Yahoo Cycling Team Is Going To Love This New Google Maps Feature10 March 2010, 8:44 am
Yahoo is backing a cycling team. I don't know why — but they're doing it. And today their passion got a little boost: from Google.
Google is announcing tomorrow at the National Bike Summit in Washington, DC that Google Maps will now include biking directions in the U.S. Apparently, this was the most-requested feature for the service, as some 57 million Americans ride bikes....
- Quote Of The Day: MySpace Co-President? “Hell, Yeah”10 March 2010, 8:18 am
Jon [Miller] came to us and said, `Would you like to be co-presidents?' We said, `Hell yeah.' We didn't have to move our desks,"
-- Former MySpace Chief Product Officer Jason Hirschhorn's reaction to the abrupt firing of his boss and his promotion to co-president of MySpace....
- Internal Verizon Doc Shows They See WiFi iPad As An Opportunity10 March 2010, 5:47 am
An internal Verizon Communications Inc. (NYSE:VZ) document shows that they see the Wi-Fi Apple iPad as an opportunity. The internal document reveals that Verizon will focus on calling the 3G iPad as being “overloaded.” During this past holiday season, Verizon launched a marketing campaign that ambushed AT&T by calling out their coverage map. This idea [...]...
- Retweet Sold On Flippa For $250,00010 March 2010, 5:39 am
Retweet.com has been sold on Flippa for $250,000. Retweet.com received about 45 bids total before someone clicked “buy it now.” Retweet.com aggregates popular links on Twitter. The service is very similar to Tweetmeme. Currently Retweet.com does not have any revenue sources. [Mashable]...
- Street Fighter IV Now Available On The Apple App Store10 March 2010, 4:53 am
Street Fighter IV [iTunes Link] is now available on the Apple App Store. The download size is about 201MB and it costs $9.99. You can fight using 8 characters in seven different environments. HADOUKEN! [Joystiq]...
- Google Unravels Google Apps Marketplace10 March 2010, 4:44 am
Google Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOG) had an event at the company’s headquarters in Mountain View, California today called Campfire One. At the event, Google launched a service called Google Apps Marketplace.
The Google Apps Marketplace is an app store that is integrated with Google Apps. Developers would be allowed to sell software directly to Google’s business consumers.
- [...]...
- Facebook Page Promises To Name A Baby, ‘Megatron’10 March 2010, 4:20 am
A mysterious person created a Facebook Page that is called MY SISTER SAID IF I GET ONE MILLION FANS SHE WILL NAME HER BABY MEGATRON. The crazy thing is that he already hit about 764,850 fans so far. Facebook blocked him from publishing further content because of a terms of use violation. The due date [...]...
- Blog :: Consolidation Strategy References9 March 2010, 12:00 am
I have a presentation that I give on SQL Server Consolidation Strategies, and in that presentation I talk about a few links that are useful. Here are some that I’ve found – feel free to comment on more, or if these links go stale: ...
- Blog :: It?s OK to take a Shortcut Sometimes8 March 2010, 12:00 am
I was working this weekend with a fairly simple Excel spreadsheet, and I had to decompose one cell in it out to three columns in a SQL Server table. There are tools within SQL Server Integration Services (SSIS) that should be able to do that, but I just couldn’t find my way around them properly....
- Blog :: Ask Big Nerd Ranch: Detecting That QuickTime Has Exhausted Its Stream5 March 2010, 12:00 am
Jeremy W. Sherman answers a question about QuickTime.
Q. If a QTMovie is loading audio from the web and the stream stops, how can I detect whether the QTMovie stopped?
A. Suppose you have a QTMovieView playing a QTMovie. The QTMovie is loading media from the Web. Now, suppose your network connection drops.
What happens next depends on the structure of the movie file itself. The movie file might contain the data itself, or it might reference a broadcast stream....
- Blog :: ROI and the DBA4 March 2010, 12:00 am
I love them three-letter acronyms!
An “ROI” is a Return On Investment – it’s a basic financial calculation that places investments in a standard number so that they can be compared. If the number is positive, then it has a “good” return on investment, and if it’s negative, you probably shouldn’t make the investment. The basic form of the calculation looks like this:
ROI = [(Payback - Investment)/Investment)]*100
There are, of course, variations. ...
- Blog :: Who can it be now?3 March 2010, 12:00 am
The Google attack teaches many lessons....
bMighty
- Bing’s New UK Advert is Out [Video]10 March 2010, 12:31 pm
Bing, Microsoft’s new search engine, has just launched its first UK TV advert aimed at dethroning the mighty Google. The three-month, multi-million pound campaign kicks off today with three TV ads. More details here.Focusing on its ability to bring you relevant answers to what you’re looking for, the advert doesvia youtube.com...
- Google, Facebook and ISPs Take Copyright Fight To UK Government10 March 2010, 11:25 am
Online giants Google, Facebook, eBay and Yahoo and a number of UK internet service providers (ISPs) have signed an open letter to the Financial Times objecting to an amendment to the Digital Economy Bill, a measure currently being put before parliament. Originally, parliamentary ministers had sought to extend powers allowing them to amend existing copyright law and penalise [...]...
- The Startup Bus Gets Rolling10 March 2010, 4:45 am
After days spent preparing their website, their vehicle and their tools, The Startup Bus is rolling, taking the startup weekend format on the road from San Francisco to Austin, in time for the SXSW festival. The plan is simple – get 25 entrepreneurs on a bus for 2 days and get them to create 5 startups [...]...
- Mozilla Completely Rips Off Design Agency’s Website10 March 2010, 2:22 am
They say imitation is the highest form of flattery, for design agency Metalab it must be difficult to see it that way. Quite simply, Mozilla’s new design for Jetpack, a platform that lets developers build new and improved add-ons for Firefox, is a complete rip off of Metalab’s own website.In a post, Metalab outlines how the [...]...
- All You Need To Know About Google’s New Apps Store.10 March 2010, 2:19 am
Google today is announcing the Google Apps Marketplace, and app store for the 25 million people currently using Google Apps. The store comes out of the desire for increased functionality among Google Apps users, and the wish of developers to reach the millions of businesses that depend on Google Apps every day. There have been companies developing [...]...
- RockYou’s Deal of the Day is new way to monetize social games with ads10 March 2010, 2:30 pm
As Facebook has moved away from letting app developers spam users in their apps, RockYou has had to adjust its business away from purely viral apps such as hugs or gifts. And one of its great new schemes to keep Facebook users engaged in its apps is the Deal of the Day.
This promotion is a special offer embedded inside a social game that lets users engage with a brand advertisement in exchange for moving forward in the game. Users can opt to watch a video of an upcoming movie trailer or maybe pl...
- Startup Visa: It’s time to wake up, America…10 March 2010, 2:00 pm
(Editor’s note: Will Herman is an entrepreneur who has founded or held senior roles in several tech companies. This story originally appeared on his blog.)
Don’t even get me started about the sorry state of American technological and economic competitiveness and our complete ignorance of what really made the US a great and growing country since it’s inception. We are so caught up with balancing what is politically correct, what is politically achievable and not disrupting paths to reelecti...
- Boomerang’s Offerwall crowdsources the best offers for social games10 March 2010, 9:14 am
Offers have been a scandalous thing in the social game business. Critics have accused offer providers — which let you pay for a virtual good in a social game by filling out a special offer in lieu of a credit card payment — of running scams on consumers.
So the idea from Boomerang Networks is clever and simple: let the consumers decide which offers are best. Honor Gunday, chief executive of Boomerang, told me today that his company filters out the best offers from the best advertiser...
- Watching its football game metrics, EA is learning from social game creators10 March 2010, 8:47 am
Electronic Arts said today that it has learned some revealing information by closely studying the habits of its video game customers. In fact, the company is mining so much data in its hardcore football games, it reminds me of the playbook of social game startups like Zynga, which constantly revise based on customer preferences.
At its party after the Game Developers Conference today, EA Sports executives said that user research is helping to refine the way the company makes its games. The big a...
- Storage SaaS vendor RainStor lands $7.5. million in new funding10 March 2010, 8:01 am
RainStor, a SaaS provider of software for storing structured data in an enterprise or in the cloud, today said it raised $7.5 million in second round funding.
The company’s latest product, RainStor 3.5, was introduced in December 2009 and coincided with the six year old UK-based company’s entrance into the U.S. market, a name change from Clearpace and the opening of an office in San Francisco.
RainStor earned kudos from William Fellows, an analyst with The 451 Group, who said it...
- Web Trends - Chris Pirillo (@chrispirillo), Lockergnome.com2 March 2010, 1:59 am
Chris Pirillo talks about social media in the classroom, Yahoo and Twitter, Gnomedex, SxSW, and Help Desk on Microsoft's Channel 9.
Length: 29:40
Views: 62 ...
- Web Trends - Cali Lewis (@calilewis), GeekBrief.tv23 February 2010, 1:56 am
Cali Lewis takls about MacWorld, Wireless Charging, Mobile Devices, and Branding.
Length: 36:05
Views: 30 ...
- Web Trends - Sarah Evans (@prsarahevans), Sevans Strategy18 February 2010, 1:59 am
Sarah Evans talks about social media strategy, FTC regulations, communication technology, and media monitoring.
Length: 34:41
Views: 116 ...
- Web Trends - Shira Lazar (@shiralazar), TV and Web Personality16 February 2010, 2:01 am
Shira Lazar talks about social networking, personal branding, YouTube, CBSNews.com and everything she's been up to lately.
Length: 35:23
Views: 45 ...
- Web Trends - Charlene Li (@charleneli), Founder of Altimeter Group, Co-Author of Groundswell2 February 2010, 2:00 am
Charlene Li talks about social media strategy, open leadership, and SXSW
Length: 27:45
Views: 55 ...
