Archive for January, 2008
‘Completely open social networks do not work’
January 24th, 2008 • Internet, Social
Tags: Social, web
Human beings collaborate. They also deviate, plan and plot. On a good day, they’ll create intricate towers. On average days, they’ll saw half way through your chair leg while you’re out at lunch. This seems to be the basis of a piece over at Publishing 2.0, which argues that Digg - the original open social voting system - has all but forgotten its open origins as it attempts to prevent ‘gaming’ of its voting system. Read more »
Media 2.0 = Snowballs
January 19th, 2008 • Internet, Media, Video
Tags: Music, Video
According to Yahoo’s VP of Video and Media Applications, the revolution has already happened. Ian Rodgers reckons the only option left for the music and video business is in ‘leveraging the scale of the web’. Read more »
MacBook Air: the thin edge of the wedge?
January 17th, 2008 • 1 comment Internet
A day of tears, of laughter, of debates over the merits of USB ports. Yep, Jobs whips out the world’s thinnest laptop, and I spend a morning with three web developers and designers chewing over the consequences. Our lives are really that empty. Read more »
CoverItLive: blogging goes real time
January 14th, 2008 • Best sites, Media
God knows how many people will use it, but huge credit to the Einsteins behind CoverItLive.
Sign up for an account (which is free, by the way), and you have instant access to a turbo-charged blogging tool that blurs the line between blog and instant messaging.
All you do is add a line of code to your site that embeds the CoverItLive console into your page. Read more »
Like Google, only hand-crafted
January 13th, 2008 • Search, Social
Tags: Google, Search, Social, Untitled
Just stumbled upon a Firefox extension from the people at Mahalo.
Not Earth-shaking, I know, but quietly cool. Mahalo, in case you’ve been holidaying on Mars for the last six months, in the new search engine from Jason Calacanis, the entrepreneur who brought you such legendary web properties as WeblogsInc (the power behind Engadget and Autoblog).
Baby Boomers Storm Internet
January 13th, 2008 • Internet, Social
Tags: Life, Social, trends, Web
Everyone knows the UK has an aging population - by 2012, the average Briton will be 132 years old, and all of them will rely on the handful of under-20s to help them cross the road.
Doubt this as fact? Try a new report from Neilsen, which points to a fundamental shift in the age profile of the UK net population. Says the company:
“When looking at how a particular audience is composed by age, a change in share - even by just a few percentage points - actually represents quite a fundamental shift. Age compositions tend to evolve subtly over a number of years so to see such large changes in the course of just a year shows that the Internet population is undergoing a significant ageing process.”
Checkout Trends: the new retail price index
January 13th, 2008 • Google, Search
Tags: Google, Search
Just about everyone working on the web uses Google Trends at one time or another, if only to give that quick gauge on which term would prove more popular (Hilary or Barack?).
But now there’s Google Checkout Trends, the search equivalent of every retailer opening their ledgers to the world’s prying eyes. Well, almost. Read more »
The Little PC That Could
January 12th, 2008 • Life, Technology
Tags: blogging, Life, Technology
I must be going lo-fi. For some reason I can’t nail, I want the £250 Asus Eee PC.
God knows why. The hard drive is tiny. The thing runs Linux, and to my knowledge I can’t add new apps if it runs out of steam. I’ve played with one for 10 mins, and the casework wears its plastic as a badge of honour.
Perhaps the source of the urge comes from my weariness with expensive flagships that are bloated with features that I will simply never, ever use.
Goodbye Sky, Hello 360-Vision?
January 8th, 2008 • Life, Technology, Video
Tags: Life, Technology, Video
Now this could be good news. I’m quietly resenting my growing monthly Sky bill, and have been chewing on alternatives. But given the fact that Virgin doesn’t rock my boat, alternatives seem thin on the ground.
Then, my XBox 360 became something else. Yesterday, Microsoft announced that it was partnering with BT (of all people) to turn every 360 into a full-on cable box. As one of my colleagues over at Stuff.tv explains:
The announcement means that BT Broadband customers can get on-demand TV programmes and movies streamed (for a fee) to their TV without the need for a set-top box. They can also watch any of BT’s 242 ‘near-live’ Premiership football matches using the Xbox 360.
This is seriously joyous. Call Of Duty 4 and West Ham all from one box… does life get any better?
The largest threat to Google yet?
January 7th, 2008 • Google, Search, Social
Tags: Google, Search, Social, web3.0, wiki
Wikia Search went live today.
So what? So it’s the brainchild of one Jimmy Whales, the clever chap who brought you Wikipedia. So there’s just a remote chance that it may fly.
The search results are, so far, pretty damn poor, and many of the preferences do not work. But as the world gets stuck in and begins to rate those returns, so they’ll improve (tricky right now, as the star ratings that accompany each entry in a return are disabled), and doubtless the various features will get switched on in the coming weeks. Read more »
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