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Archive for November, 2010

Yahoo Search Clues

17 Nov
Yahoo launched a new service that shows information about the volume of searches, popular queries and demographic information about users. It's called Yahoo Clues and it's similar to Google Trends and Google Insights for Search. Unlike Google's services, Yahoo Clues is limited to the US and it only shows information for the past 30 days.

"With Yahoo Clues, you can discover and compare trending information for search terms of interest to you, or explore popular trending search terms on Yahoo. You can see search volume charts, demographic graphs, maps, or even related searches specific to a demographic group. We're also experimenting with an interesting feature called Search Flow, which offers a unique look at people's search patterns and the next most probable search term people try after searching for a query," informs Yahoo.


For example, if you compare the queries [Google Buzz] and [Google Reader], you'll notice that Google Reader is much more popular than Google Buzz, it's not very popular with teens, but it's very popular with women, which is rather peculiar.

 
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Why you need to jump back into Facebook

17 Nov

I’ve been saying that I don’t really use Facebook, for several years now. I find it noisy and hectic. But I’ve decided to dive back in and I thought I’d talk you through why I’m making the jump back in.As we all know, Facebook is growing more quickly that anyone possibly imagined. When I interviewed Mark Zuckerberg at FOWA London 2008, they had 150 million users. He said they wanted to be the platform that the entire world uses to connect to one another. Now, just two years later, they have over 500 million, and I’d say he’s on his way to doing just that.

The active community on Facebook is just to vibrant and exciting to watch from the sidelines now. I’m going to jump back in and I’d strongly urge you to do the same. The opportunity to connect, encourage and be encouraged by your comrades in the web industry is just too much to ignore.

With that in mind, here are a couple things I’m going to start doing …

1. Update Your Page

I was impressed with how quickly Doctype have grown their Facebook page. They’ve basically been kicking our ass ;) so I asked Nick Pettit (one of the newest Carsonified Teamies) what their secret sauce was. Here’s what he suggested:

  1. Add a profile pic that is 200 pixels wide and 600 pixels high. This is the maximum size allowed and it really adds the wow factor to your page. Also, when people search in Facebook and your page comes up, you get a lot of screen space as your pic is bigger.
  2. Don’t auto update your Facebook status with Twitter or any other tool. I was doing this until recently and I’ve disconnected Twitter from Facebook now. When people see that it’s just a copy of a Twitter status update, it feels impersonal and not nice. Make the effort to update your status on the Page every day.
  3. Ask questions as a Status Update on the page and then tweet and invite to people to answer the question. Here’s an example.

2. Check In with Facebook Places

I’m going to start using Facebook’s Places Checkin as often as I can. It’s a great service and it’ll be a nice way to connect better with my Friends on Facebook.

The Facebook iPhone app is a great way to do this.

3. Get Active

The most important thing to do is log in every day and start clicking around. The more you update your status, interact with your friends on Facebook, ‘Like’ things and ask questions, the more you’ll be drawn into the community, and other people will take notice of what you’re doing.

The Takeaway

The community on Facebook is getting too big to ignore. If you want to succeed in the web industry, you need to jump in and get involved.

 
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Swinglet CAM: DIY Drone Aerial Photography

17 Nov
If anyone is sorting out a Digital Urban Christmas List, then please add the Swinglet CAM and mark it with a little star for high priority.


With a 30 minute flying time, 12 mile range, 12Mp camera and ability to follow preprogrammed GPS tracks this is one of the best local air photography tools we have seen.





The Swinglet omes with all necessary components for operation: rechargeable battery, charger, radio modem, remote control (for experts of remote flying only), and software for flight planning and monitoring.
Head over to http://www.sensefly.com/products/swinglet-cam/ for full details.
Thanks go to Marek for sending us the link.
 
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Google Voice on iPhone. At Last

17 Nov

If it seems like a lot more than a year that Google Voice has been languishing in the limbo between Google’s labs and the iTunes App Store, that’s because it is. Google’s one-phone-number-everywhere service served as the best example of Apple’s byzantine and opaque app “approval” process.

Now, Google Voice is back, and available as a free download for U.S iPhone owners. With it, you can all but replace the iPhone’s phone app, receiving push notifications for incoming texts and voicemails, read (often hilariously inaccurate) transcripts of those voicemails and make calls to contacts in the iPhone’s built-in address book. Your caller Google Voice caller ID is even shown to people you call.

This is really the last step in Google-fying your iPhone – Gmail has long been a first-class iPhone citizen, and the maps app is powered by Google.

Why use Google Voice? The service lets you assign all your phones to one number, be they mobile, home or office. Callers call this number but you choose where you answer, and you have fine-grained control over how incoming calls and texts are handled.

Calls are still routed over the regular cell network. As our own Brian Chen pointed out back in January, Google Voice isn’t VoIP: it uses the iPhone’s telephone app to place calls. Tell this to the metric-ton of commenters on the App Store who are complaining that the app won’t work on the iPod Touch.

So there we have it. Apple is finally “open”. Or at least those who like to complain that Apple is “closed” (by not supporting proprietary, inefficient and badly-coded browser plugins, say) have now lost their best weapon.

For more coverage, and a history of the Google Voice app, see this great post from our sister blog, Epicenter.

Google Voice [App Store]

See Also:

 
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Man Drops 27 lbs on a Twinkie Diet

16 Nov
For 60 days straight, Haub ate a snack cake for every meal, with Doritos, Oreos and sugar-soaked cereals for snacks between meals. The crazy part? He lost 27 pounds, and his cholesterol dropped.
 
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Man Drops 27 lbs on a Twinkie Diet

16 Nov
For 60 days straight, Haub ate a snack cake for every meal, with Doritos, Oreos and sugar-soaked cereals for snacks between meals. The crazy part? He lost 27 pounds, and his cholesterol dropped.
 
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Who Owns The Debt?

16 Nov

The Big Lie from the FNC/RNC propaganda machine is that our entire debt has been suddenly created by president Obama who took office in the midst of the steepest downturn since the 1930s, a downturn that began under Bush. Now its true that he hasn't slashed spending in such a crisis - and borrowed to keep the economy from going straight into the abyss; and it's true that the recession so depressed revenues that the short-term debt is unfathomable and the long term debt even less sustainable (which is why the Dish supports Bowles-Simpson). But anyone not blinded by Ailes propaganda knows that these problems are long-standing. Here's a chart, via Fallows, from Chuck Spinney, that shows the direction of the debt under each consecutive president since the Second World War. Including Truman is a little unfair since he presided over demobilization. But the rest is telling:

SpinneyGraf

What this doesn't convey, of course, is the impact of recessions, which would mitigate Reagan and Bush I a little. But what you see, I think, is the impact of supply side madness. Eisenhower managed to reduce the debt burden by almost 2 percent a year. George W "deficits don't matter" Bush managed to add 1.6 percent a year without a significant downturn. And yet for some reason, the public still associated the GOP with fiscal conservatism. This is quite simply the biggest mass delusion I've witnessed in the quarter of a century I've lived in America.



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Could Facebook Become the Basis for Artificial Intelligence?

16 Nov


The CEO of Digital Sky Technologies, the Russian venture capital firm that invested hundreds of millions of dollars in Facebook, Zynga and Groupon, says that he is a supporter and investor in Facebook partly because he believes the social network could become the basis for artificial intelligence.

During a conversation between DST CEO Yuri Milner and Federated Media CEO John Battelle, the venture capitalist stated that Facebook is the type of company that will fundamentally change the way information is processed. In fact, he said that it could change information to such an extent that it could be the basis for artificial intelligence over time.

Milner says that this process could happen quickly; Facebook could be one of the platforms for artificial intelligence technology in the next 10 years.

We can see why Milner says Facebook and AI are destined to be linked. Facebook is the central nexus of social data and the social graph; it is the online personification of personalities, interests, friendships and more. Eventually we can see companies tapping into Facebook’s API to augment their AI efforts and use that data to link AIs to the rest of the world.

Ten years seems awfully close, though. Then again, as a major investor in Facebook, Milner’s in a unique position to judge the potential of the company.

Reviews: Facebook

More About: digital sky technologies, DST, facebook, venture capital, Zynga

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Globe Chandelier

16 Nov
Globe Chandelier

I cannot stop thinking about this Globe Chandelier that Bonnie shared. Isn't it spectacular?! This along with other amazing light pieces are created by Benoit Vieubled. My, my this is stunning.

(via Bonnie Tsang > Recyclart)
 
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The Unprecedented Rise of Apple iOS and Other Internet Trends [STATS]

16 Nov


Legendary Internet analyst Mary Meeker has some statistics she thinks every Internet executive should know, including that iOS is growing faster than almost any other Internet technology in history.

At the Web 2.0 Summit in San Francisco, the Morgan Stanley analyst led a rapid-pace presentation on the state of the Internet industry, revealing the state of mobile (Apple and Google are winning), the most under-monetized asset in online advertising (Facebook) and even the secret sauce of Steve Jobs (he has the mind of an engineer and the heart of an artist).

Some of Meeker’s eye-popping stats:

  • 46% of Internet users live in five countries: the USA, Russia, Brazil, China and India.
  • There are 670 million 3G subscribers worldwide, 136.6 million in the U.S. and 106.3 million in Japan.
  • iOS devices reached 120 million subscribers in 13 quarters, far faster than Netscape, AOL or NTT docomo’s growth rates.
  • Nokia and Symbian used to own 62% of the smartphone market (units shipped). Now it’s only 37%, mostly due to Android and iOS.
  • The average CPM for social networking sites is at only $0.55. Meeker thinks this will increase and normalize in the next few years. She also believes that inventory on Facebook is one of the most under-monetized assets on the web.
  • It took e-commerce 15 years to get to 5% of retail. Morgan Stanley predicts mobile should get to that same level in five years.
  • Streaming video is up to 37% of of Internet traffic during traditional “TV hours.” Netflix is the biggest contributor to this, followed by YouTube.
  • Seven of the companies that were in the top 15 publicly traded Internet companies in 2004 are not in that list in 2010.
  • Interest payments and entitlement spending is projected to exceed government revenue by 2025. In other words, the U.S. government is facing a real financial crisis soon.

We’ve included Mary Meeker’s full presentation below. Let us know what you think of her statistics and trends in the comments.

Reviews: Android, Facebook, Google, Internet, YouTube

More About: apple, internet, Internet trends, iOS, Mary Meeker, Morgan Stanley, statistics, stats, steve jobs, W2S2010, Web 2.0 Summit

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