Expono: Flickr, Picassa and the Kitchen Sink
You can't swing a stick on the Web these days without hitting a photo or media sharing service. Some of the most popular ones like Flickr and Photobucket have become an indispensable part of our online lives. Among the most recent services to enter the game is Expono, a photo sharing, organizing and protecting service with added features like GPS tagging and the ability to connect with social media services Facebook, Twitter and Friendfeed. Expono has everything you would expect to find on a media sharing site like online backup, easy sharing, albums and tagging, but adds a whole bunch more features that you might not expect all in one place.... Read more...
ReadWriteWeb, Today, 11:00am
Weekly Wrapup: Facebook Privacy, FriendFeed Trolls, iPhone Push, And More...
In this edition of the Weekly Wrapup, our newsletter summarizing the top stories of the week, we analyze the latest changes to Facebook's privacy controls, investigate trolling on FriendFeed, explore the impact of push notifications on the iPhone, review Firefox 3.5, check out Google's update to Blog Search, and more. We also update you with the latest from our new channel ReadWriteStart, dedicated to profiling startups and entrepreneurs. Read more...
ReadWriteWeb, Today, 9:00am
Short Is Sweet: Postcards Begat SMS Begat Twitter
Recently, I've noticed something. If you send me an email, the likelihood that I'm going to respond is pretty small. But if you send me a message on Twitter, the likelihood that I'll respond is much higher. Certainly, part of it is that I get fewer messages on Twitter. But you might be surprised at how close it's getting in volume when you add @replies to direct messages. The bigger factor for me, is the length of the messages.
If I open up an email and see it filled with paragraphs of information, guaranteed my eyes are going to glaze over. Certainly sometimes it's an important message that I do need to read, but most of the time it's just a core message filled with paragraphs of bloat. I don't want or need the bloat, I need the core message. And that's why I love Twitter. You simply cannot go over 140 characters. And more often than you may... Read more...
TechCrunch, Today, 8:30am
What’s Right and Wrong with Media Now
Like most things on the Internet, there’s a good side and a dark side to where the media business is headed.
The good side is very good: thousands of layers of mostly needless middlemen and processes are being eliminated as journalists get a direct channel to their readers. And, because it’s a two way medium, readers get that channel right back. And in the cases where the subject of an article has been wronged, the Web gives them powerful megaphones to fight back. In short, the more everyone has a voice, the more reporters are challenged to make sure they are right, because they will be called out.
Look at what happened with the plagiarism scandal around Chris Anderson’s new book. Anderson says it was a mistake around a change in... Read more...
TechCrunch, Today, 3:02am
Dotcom Crash-era Startup Reanimates By Trending On Twitter
It's not often that Internet companies last 10 years, but Moonfruit in the UK has proved pretty resilient. It survived the dotcom boom the first time round, launching with VC-backing, growing to 65 staff and cutting back to two staff in the space of a couple of years. It's a wonder why they didn't exit in the most recent boom, but here they are still, plugging away. And their resilience is proving to be an asset as their 10-years old web site building business comes back into fashion, even as more recent competitors like Weebly, Yola, MyDragnDrop and Webnode, and many others, try to capture the market for people who want to build simple web sites.
So what's the best way to... Read more...
TechCrunch, Today, 3:01am
Risky Business: Enterprise GRC Platforms Essential, Says Forrester
In a new report issued on the first of the month, Forrester Research has asserted the importance of enterprise platforms for governance, risk management, and compliance (GRC). Pointing to big name corporate failures in the last decade, they argue that the value proposition for GRC software is clear, and they identified leaders in this growing market. Read more...
ReadWriteWeb, Yesterday, 9:45pm
CallWave Delists From NASDAQ; Fuze Meeting Rises From The Ashes
It's not easy to launch a successful WebEx competitor. Most businesses have long since established their "system" for dealing with web meetings, using old standbys like WebEx or GoToMeeting. And those businesses that are willing to venture into the unknown have had plenty of cheaper alternatives to choose from, like DimDim, for quite a while. But that isn't keeping CallWave from launching one of its own, dubbed Fuze Meeting. And while it's not going to be an easy space to compete in, Fuze Meeting doesn't disappoint.
As far as startups go, the history of the company is pretty unique. CallWave was founded in 1998 and went public in 2004, trading on NASDAQ under the ticker symbol CALL. After reaching a peak soon thereafter of over $15 per share, the stock... Read more...
TechCrunch, Yesterday, 9:01pm
Outsource Your Beta Testing To Prefinery (Invites)
The beta testing stage can be the cornerstone to the successful development of a new site. And many startups have to conduct and implement beta testing of sites, surveys and analytics internally, which can be an daunting task when you are launching a site. Prefinery lets startups outsource the whole beta invite process, from start to finish. Prefinery is offering 100 TechCrunch readers with beta invites to test the site. You can sign up here. Use the invitation code "TECHCRUNCH" when signing up for the service.
Prefinery's ambition is to create a valuable first experience for beta testers and to help startups in collecting and organizing information that will result in a better product. Prefinery will do anything and everything when it comes to the beta testing process. The service will... Read more...
TechCrunch, Yesterday, 8:48pm
Ads Spotted on Twitter.com - Did You Notice?
Three months ago we reported that Ads Had Come to Twitter and it was a pretty big deal - until Twitter promptly said the word "sponsored" was only appearing on the site in error. Now the "sponsored definitions" of certain Twitter "concepts" have appeared on the site again - and they sure look legit this time. Read more...
ReadWriteWeb, Yesterday, 7:40pm
Microsoft And Linux Hold Peace Tweets
Okay, it's not exactly the Camp David Summit that took place in 2000 between the Israelis and the Palestinians, but sometimes the littlest gestures can go a long way.
A couple of days ago, upon hearing that Microsoft had officially joined Twitter, the official Linux account sent out a tweet welcoming them. "Welcome to Twitter, @Microsoft!," they said. The tweet sat unanswered for over a day, and it seemed like Microsoft may never answer. But about a few hours ago, they... Read more...
TechCrunch, Yesterday, 7:21pm
Digital Media M&A: Mobile & Analytics Deals Up, Social Media Down
Peachtree Media Advisors has just released their latest report on digital media mergers and acquisitions. We posted their 2008 report back in January, and this is a mid-year 2009 update to that. According to Peachtree, there were 342 digital media transactions in the first half of
2009, which was 12.3% below the number of transactions in the same period for 2008. More notably, the total value of transactions was much less than a year ago. In the first six months of 2009,
there were $4.2 billion in digital media transactions - a whopping 61% decrease from the same period in 2008. And that $4.2B figure includes $2.5B from the Live Nation - Ticketmaster merger this year. Read more...
ReadWriteWeb, Yesterday, 7:17pm
Video: 50 Cent Confronts Sexman
I don't recall how the YouTube user Pruane2Forever, aka "Sexman", came on my radar, but I definitely remember a few of his videos from a couple years ago. (Here's a old favorite — Not Safe For Work.) Basically, it's this kid who does movie and new media reviews that are (or at least used to be) unintentionally hilarious. These days, he apparently has quite the following on YouTube, as he has over 150 videos that range in popularity from tens of thousands of views to over a million.
One of his most popular ones was a video from 4 months ago in which he calls out rapper 50 Cent. Sexman wonders how 50 still has "street cred"... Read more...
TechCrunch, Yesterday, 6:53pm
Expose Yourself on Launchly's Site Review Service
You know that scene in Alice in Wonderland where Alice is tumbling down the rabbit hole past all those miscellaneous chairs and birds? That same feeling of confused dread is often how users feel when they're attempting to navigate a site that has never been tested. We know that developers pour their souls into their projects. But that's also why it's sometimes difficult (and even personal) to point out the flaws. A developer has to ask, "Do I want it built my way without compromise or do I want users?" If you want to run a business, rather than spending months speculating on what you think users might want, it's sometimes best to simply ask them. Read more...
ReadWriteWeb, Yesterday, 6:00pm
TechCrunch50: You Want Advertising? We’ll Give You Advertising
Despite our best intentions, it looks like the DEMO v. TechCrunch50 war will continue, even with DEMO under new management.
In 2007 we launched the first TechCrunch50 event - a place where companies can launch to rabid fans and tech press. These launching companies are the stars of the show, and they don't pay a cent to attend. We thought DEMO's longstanding policy of forcing launching companies to pay a $20,000 fee was ridiculous, and led the conference organizers to make decisions based not on the merits of the startups but simply on who was willing and able to pay. Not only do we let startups launch for free, we give the top one a $50,000 prize.
Our conference has grown rapidly -... Read more...
TechCrunch, Yesterday, 5:08pm
Ten Companies Twitter Should Consider Acquiring Next
If you were a little blue bird, with a good pile of money and a whole lot of hype, what would you buy to spice up your nest? There are so many little services being built on top of Twitter that we wouldn't be surprised to see some more of them acquired by the company soon. That would mean more features for everyday users and more usefulness for features loved by loyal early adopters. Read more...
ReadWriteWeb, Yesterday, 4:20pm
The Inevitable Anti-U.S. Backlash Has Started On Kiva
When we reported on Kiva.org's decision to open up its micro-lending platform to U.S. entrepreneurs, Kiva CEO Premal Shah told us he was concerned about backlash in the community. Shah acknowledged that the decision to open lending to U.S. recipients may draw criticism because it goes against the idea on which Kiva was founded—lending to help development in third world countries where credit options are limited.
It looks like Shah's prediction was correct. There is now a lending team on Kiva's community platform titled "Unhappy Kiva Lenders." The members, which total 375 lenders from around the... Read more...
TechCrunch, Yesterday, 3:31pm
Want The Obama “Hope” Artwork On Your iPhone? Nope, Says Apple.
Start Mobile has managed to get 18 separate iPhone applications approved by Apple. So you'll imagine their surprise when one of them was recently rejected. But you may be even more surprised to find out why.
Apparently, Apple doesn't like the way one piece of art in the app depicts President Obama. Is it out of line or tasteless? Well, you can determine for yourself, because you've undoubtedly seen the art in question before: It's Shepard Fairey's famous "HOPE" image of Obama that was everywhere during his Presidential campaign.
So why on Earth would this be rejected? Well, here's the wording in the rejection:
It contains content that ridicules public figures and is in violation of Section 3.3.12 from the iPhone SDK Agreement... Read more...
TechCrunch, Yesterday, 1:48pm
Tweetmeme Wants To Be The King Of Retweets
One of the most effective ways to amplify your message on Twitter is to get your followers to retweet it to their followers. Retweeting is also becoming a popular way to pass links around Twitter. They are becoming the new currency of the Web because of the power of passed links. One service in particular, Tweetmeme, is cornering the market on retweets by making it easy for blogs and other sites to add a retweet button to every page. You can see... Read more...
TechCrunch, Yesterday, 12:36pm
How To JailBreak the iPhone 3GS
Before I go defile myself with burgers and beer I wanted to jailbreak my iPhone 3GS for you all. The process was amazingly simple. Using a Windows netbook - it doesn't work under Windows 7 - I simply installed iTunes and ran purplera1n. It took a second to reboot then it rolled through recovery mode, rebooted, and an app called Freeze appeared. Freeze then installed Cydia and all was right with the world. Read more...
TechCrunch, Yesterday, 11:52am
How to Install Chrome and Chromium Side-by-Side (So You Can Play with Extensions!)
We're sure by now you've heard about the upcoming extensions that will soon arrive in Google's Chrome browser. Already we've seen a handful of these become available including AdSweep, a PageRank checker, Cleeki, and, as of yesterday, a new bookmarking extension from Delicious. However, if you've been running the standard Chrome install (or even the public beta), new features like this are just out-of-reach. Read more...
ReadWriteWeb, Yesterday, 11:46am
Singing A New Tune: The Imeem Music Store.
Does embattled music streaming site imeem think it can take on iTunes? For the most part, nearly every streaming song on the site has a download button which links to both iTunes and the Amazon MP3 store. But it is quietly testing its own music download store which bypasses iTunes and Amazon and sells MP3s directly. For instance, this is the case with some Sub Pop artists, such as Iron and Wine and The Shins. When you hit the download button on songs for those artists, a window pops up showing the album where that song came from with with the option to download the entire album or any individual song for $0.99. You can then pay imeem directly by credit card or Paypal and download the... Read more...
TechCrunch, Yesterday, 10:56am
Authorize.net Goes Down, E-Commerce Vendors Left Hanging
Talk about a serious outage. Payment gateway service provider Authorize.net has been down and out for several hours, a number of tipsters inform us. That has big implications: since the service is used by tens of thousands of e-commerce vendors to accept credit card and electronic checks payments on their websites (example), it likely means millions are being lost during its downtime. PayPal and Google Checkout are still up and running.
It's unclear when the downtime started exactly, but the consensus is somewhere between 5 and 7 hours at this point (11 AM Eastern), with e-commerce vendors desperately looking for ways to contact the company or get any first-hand information... Read more...
TechCrunch, Yesterday, 10:49am
Coming Soon: Even More TechCrunch in London
It’s been a nice two weeks in San Francisco, but in about 10 hours I’m headed to SFO’s international terminal again. This time, I’m going to London. I’m traveling as part of a group of bloggers, authors and videographers called “The Traveling Geeks,” whose mission is simply to go to various cities around the world [...] Read more...
TechCrunch, Yesterday, 10:34am
Turn Web Content Into A Map With GeoMaker
At the end of last May, Yahoo released an experimental version of Placemaker, a “geo-enrichment” platform. What it does is help developers make applications location-aware by identifying places in unstructured and atomic content (think RSS feeds, web pages, news, status updates etc.) and returning geographic metadata for geographic indexing and markup. In layman's terms: it can detect places by scanning content and is capable of putting the aggregate data on a map.
While Placemaker does not serve as a geocoder and thus does not perform address recognition on street-level, it is perfectly capable of geo-extracting and indexing documents or atomic units of text, giving third-party developers the means to mark-up and index Web content geographically in a globally-aware, locally-relevant, and language-neutral... Read more...
TechCrunch, Yesterday, 10:25am
Twitter Needs a Spam Filter? No, We Need a Marketer Filter
Has Twitter spam gotten a little out of hand? According to today's top story on Techmeme, it has. Apparently, marketers are calling for Twitter to filter out spam and other adult content from the microblogging service. You know, so their all-important tweets about the products and services they're pushing don't have to share the same web space as that other nasty stuff. But fighting actual spammers is still relatively easy for an end-user: it's called the "unfollow" button. Read more...
ReadWriteWeb, Yesterday, 10:16am
It’s Friday. Play some drums…. HTML5 style
Brian Arnold created a fun sample drum machine simulator using HTML5 <audio>.
PLAIN TEXT
JAVASCRIPT:
function playBeat() {
if (isPlaying) {
var nextBeat = 60000 / curTempo / 4;
// Turn off all lights on the tracker's row
[...] Read more...
Ajaxian » Front Page, Yesterday, 9:11am
Machsend: P2P file sharing via Browser Plus
Alex MacCaw has released Machsend, a Yahoo! Browser Plus plugin that enables P2P file transfers from inside the browser.
It showcases what can be done with a BP plugin, leaving you wish cross browser functionality.
I guess it is kinda fun to hack the browser :) Read more...
Ajaxian » Front Page, Yesterday, 6:52am
Brace Yourselves! “Asteroids” Headed For The Big Screen
According to The Hollywood Reporter, movie studio Universal has won a bidding war to pick up the film rights to the classic Atari video game "Asteroids". Initially released as an arcade game back in 1979, Asteroids featured a triangular space ship that needed to be navigated through an asteroid field.
The object was to shoot and destroy masses of rock and the occasional flying saucer while avoiding smashing into both, so we suspect it will not turn out to be romantic comedy.
Matthew Lopez will write the script for the feature adaptation, which... Read more...
TechCrunch, Yesterday, 6:48am
In India, Google Searches For Users With Print Ads
Different markets have different needs for marketing products or services. We all know that much. But that doesn't take away the weirdness of a company like Google advertising its core product (online search) by using ink that was printed on paper.
Guilty of this hideous crime (I kid, I kid) is Google India, who apparently ordered some targeted quarter-page advertisements to appear in a variety of city supplements of The Times Of India, the leading English-language daily newspaper in the country. Read more...
TechCrunch, Yesterday, 6:09am
First iPhone 3GS Jailbreak Hits The Web
George Hotz, the 20-year old hacker who originally unlocked the iPhone, has released a jailbreaking application for the iPhone 3GS codenamed "purplera1n." It's currently Windows-only (Windows 7 not supported), and requires the latest iTunes installed, and an iPhone 3GS with the 3.0 firmware.
Hotz mentions in a blog post that the jailbreak for Mac is "coming soon." The iPhone Dev Team did Read more...
TechCrunch, Yesterday, 4:43am
My Interview With Antitrust Expert Gary Reback: Google’s Looming Antitrust Issues
On Wednesday I spoke with antitrust attorney Gary Reback, the man who spearheaded the push to break up Microsoft in the nineties. The event was hosted by HBSTech at the Computer History Museum in Silicon Valley.
If anyone in the world can make antitrust law interesting, it's Reback.
Much of the hour plus conversation focused on the history of antitrust law and Reback's experience in big antitrust cases from his new book, Free the Market!: Why Only Government Can Keep the Marketplace Competitive (buy it here). But we also spoke about current events and his concerns that lax... Read more...
TechCrunch, Yesterday, 3:27am
Does Anybody Still Use Second Life? And If So, How Much Is It Worth Today?
Analyst firm Next Up Research has published an extensive report on Linden Lab, the San Francisco company behind virtual world Second Life. The research is based on aggregate data and is available on SharesPost, a site set up to trade shares of privately held companies (if you register, you can download the report for free from that page, or you can find other valuation reports on companies like Facebook and LinkedIn). The report goes rather deep into the valuation of the Linden Lab, which it pegs at somewhere between $658 million and 700... Read more...
TechCrunch, Yesterday, 1:48am
How to Be an Effective CEO
This is one post/chapter in a serialized book called Startup 101. For the introduction and table of contents, please click here. Read more...
ReadWriteWeb, Yesterday, 12:23am
As The DOJ Pounces, Google Makes Book Search Even Better
Google received some unfortunate news today, with the U.S. Department of Justice formally announcing the investigation of the $125 million settlement Google made with the Author’s Guild to pay authors a nominal fee for copyrighted works it has scanned and made available on the Web. The settlement has drawn its fair share of critics, including Jeff Bezos. But Google keeps on plugging away, making its book search better and better. Read more...
TechCrunch, Jul 2, 9:43pm
Google Voice Now Lets You Change Your Number. It’ll Cost You $10.
When I first signed up for GrandCentral a few years ago, I lived in a different city. As such, I had a different area code. And that was fine until I moved and Google, which bought GrandCentral in 2007 and subsequently put it on lockdown, prohibited me from changing it. I didn't think much of it until my GrandCentral account magically transformed into a Google Voice account a few months ago, taking a good service and making it excellent. Unfortunately, I was still stuck with my old number. But now, there's an option to change it.
The... Read more...
TechCrunch, Jul 2, 8:49pm
Fitnio: Finally, An iPhone Exercise App That Gives You Control Of Your Music
Since the debut of the App Store last summer, my iPhone has become an indispensable part of my workout routine. The phone makes it easy to track your workout progress both in the gym and outdoors, where applications like RunKeeper allow you to use the phone's integrated GPS to plot your bike or running course on a map. But there's been one annoyance that's aggravated me (and many others) to no end: the limited control you have over your music once you've launched one of these fitness apps. Fortunately the iPhone 3.0 software update finally fixes this, and a RunKeeper-like application called Fitnio(iTunes Link) has managed to beat some of... Read more...
TechCrunch, Jul 2, 8:45pm
Microsoft Wishes You Happy Porn Browsing in New Vomit-Filled Video, Then Retracts Ad
Under waves of ever-increasing competition from Mozilla, Safari, and Google, Microsoft has released a series of edgy, PSA-style online videos to promote Internet Explorer 8. Read more...
ReadWriteWeb, Jul 2, 8:36pm
Iran's Mobile SMS Up & Running; Will Twitter Start to Lose the Green Hues?
According to a report today from the BBC, Iranians are able to text message one another for the first time since the day before the presidential elections. Read more...
ReadWriteWeb, Jul 2, 7:08pm
Dice Reports Murky Waters For Tech Jobs
After months of dismal unemployment numbers, this morning's continued growth in the unemployment rate from 9.4% in May to 9.5% for the month of June reinforces the fact that the U.S. is still very much in the midst of recession. Additionally, the U.S. Department of Labor reported today that employers cut 467,000 jobs in June, compared to 322,000 jobs in May. Unfortunately, the tech industry is still feeling the heat of the recession, with the rate of available jobs not improving much from the past few months, according to technology jobs site Dice.com.
Tom Silver, senior vice president of Dice.com, told us this morning that Dice.com is reporting a 44% year-over-year drop in job listings for the month of... Read more...
TechCrunch, Jul 2, 6:51pm
How FriendFeed Could Become the Ultimate Social Media Tracking Service
FriendFeed, the multi-network activity aggregator co-founded by GMail creator Paul Buchheit, announced today that it has entered the crowded field of real time search. FriendFeed was already the best way to learn what early adopter social media users were saying about any topic across blogs, Twitter, delicious and other diverse social media sites. If FriendFeed wants to step it up to the next level and challenge business-class conversation trackers, we believe there are four steps the company needs to take. Read more...
ReadWriteWeb, Jul 2, 6:25pm
The Infamous 2009 LimeWire Pizza Fiasco
July 1, 2009 - the day the music wars started in earnest. Last night the guys from Dovecote Records, a small music label based in New York, were hanging out at their local bar. Employees from file sharing startup LimeWire showed up to have a party. There was confusion over the ownership of some pizza, and a riot almost ensued.
From the Dovecote Blog:
Woman: “Who the FUCK are you? And why are you eating our pizza?”
Kosuke and Paul look confused.
Kosuke: Are you joking? Is this a joke?
Woman: No this is definitely NOT a joke. I want to know who you are and why you’re eating our pizza. Read more...
TechCrunch, Jul 2, 6:08pm
Twitter Makes Hashtags More #Useful
You may have noticed that Twitter has started hyperlinking hashtags. Those are words preceded by a "#" which denote what the Tweet is about and makes it easier to search for Tweets about specific topics and events. For instance, try searching for #realtimecrunchup. Now that they are hyperlinked, when you click on a hashtag, you are led to the search result page for the specific hashtag. Others have been implementing this; FriendFeed (big surprise) has been doing this for awhile. Some of the Twitter clients, including the desktop versions of Tweetie and Seesmic Desktop also provide hyperlinks to hashtags.
For Twitter, search is a navigation tool, and this functionality is yet one more way to allow people to easily discover new Tweets outside their group of... Read more...
TechCrunch, Jul 2, 5:14pm
eMusic Users Revolt Over Latest Changes
eMusic, one of the world's largest subscription-based music retailers, has for the first time added music from Sony's catalog to its store. Most users on eMusic subscribe to the service because of the eclectic selection of independent music it offers, and very few users were excited to hear that eMusic was going to make major changes to its service, including raising the price per song just in order to give its users access to mainstream music that they were not very likely to be interested in. While eMusic did a fine job at communicating the basic changes to the service, it didn't reveal the full extent of the changes until yesterday, and its users are anything but Read more...
ReadWriteWeb, Jul 2, 5:06pm
One More Thing: The New Facebook iPhone App Will Allow Video Uploads
Yesterday, we wrote about what Facebook was planning for the next major release of its iPhone app, version 3.0. The big update will contain 15 new features, probably none bigger than the addition of event management to the app, finally. But there was one thing Facebook developer Joe Hewitt didn't mention yesterday, and it's a big one: Video uploads from the iPhone 3GS.
Hewitt just started working on the feature yesterday, thinking it would be something that would come in the next release, after this one. But he was surprised at how quickly he was able to get it up and running and so he Read more...
TechCrunch, Jul 2, 4:37pm
Google Updates Blog Search - Where's the Innovation?
Google just announced a number of changes to its blog search engine, Google Blog Search, but none of them will knock your socks off. RSS feeds for search queries were added, something that no self-respecting search engine of dynamic content would be without. Hot search queries and recent posts from popular blogs round out the slight redesign of the Blog Search home page. Read more...
ReadWriteWeb, Jul 2, 4:24pm
Google Blog Search Takes Two Steps Forward, One Step Back
Last fall Google launched a revamped version of its Blog Search, converting the site's frontpage into a automated news portal similar to sites like Techmeme. It has its fair share of issues (for one, it's subject to the same problems of automated grouping as Google News is), but it was a step in the right direction for the site.
That said, it has been missing some key features. For one, there hasn't been a good way to track breaking news stories as they happen — generally stories only pop up as they gain momentum and are written about by multiple sites, which can take quite a... Read more...
TechCrunch, Jul 2, 3:51pm
FriendFeed Makes Its Search Results Real-Time Too
Ever since its redesign a few months ago, FriendFeed has been one of the standard-bearers of the real-time web. That's because while a lot of sites claim to be real-time, FriendFeed is one of the few that actually updates continuously as data comes in. Starting today, any search you do will also get that same real-time treatment.
Enter any query into FriendFeed's search box and you'll see a constantly updating stream of items related to it. It works for advanced searches too. Best of all, it also searches through comments left below items. And these results can even be embedded in other blogs, as you can see right now on the... Read more...
TechCrunch, Jul 2, 3:23pm
Rupert Murdoch: Facebook is Just a Directory
Rupert Murdoch, the 78-year-old CEO and chairman of News Corp., just gave a revealing interview to The Street's Dan Freed. In this interview, Murdoch argues that the latest head-count reduction at MySpace was necessary because the number of employees at the company had grown out of control. In addition, he also told Freed that he wants the site to be very different from Facebook, which, in his eyes, is nothing more than a directory, while MySpace is a place "to find common interests, share music, that sort of thing." Read more...
ReadWriteWeb, Jul 2, 3:19pm
Google App Engine Stalled Out For About 6 Hours Today
A little over two hours ago, a Google employee posted a note in this Google Groups thread indicating that Google App Engine was "seeing elevated Datastore latency and error-rates, as well as elevated serving error-rates." He noted that the problem began around 6:30 AM Pacific time and that the team was looking into it. A few minutes later he updated that Google App Engine was going into "unplanned maintenance mode" — over 4 hours later, it's still not back up.
That's a long time for any service to be broken, but especially one that is the backbone for many startups' web apps. What's worse is that while Google is updating the Google Groups thread, the actual Read more...
TechCrunch, Jul 2, 2:06pm
Study says Patents Hurt Innovation
According to a study published in The Columbia Science and Technology Law Review, patents may be harming our ability to innovate. Patents and the Regress of Useful Arts, written by Bill Tomlinson of UC Irvine and Andrew Torrance of University of Kansas School of Law, tested the hypothesis with a game called PatentSim. The game is an online simulation of a pure patent system, a patent-free commons system, and a mixed system. Within each environment, first year university students were asked to license, assign, infringe, and enforce patents. The study found that while a mixed patent environment and pure patent environment did not offer substantially different results, students in a commons system generated significantly higher rates of innovation, productivity and social utility.... Read more...
ReadWriteWeb, Jul 2, 2:00pm