by ethan on July 3, 2009
It was a busy week in cyberspace, and because I am just one person I cannot possibly talk about everything that happened on here. Luckily, the blog and news-o-sphere are filled with informative and opinionated people focused on imparting the news and their views onto you, the reader. In case you had your head in the sand or were too tangled in twitter and completely missed the boat on some technological commentary, I am here to get you all caught up. Check ‘em.
Microsoft Discovers, Belatedly, that Vomiting may Offend Customers. An excellent piece of commentary on the most recent commercials for the tech giant’s release of IE8. A fitting follow-up to their theory that the commercial may be one of he wors in tech history.
Bumper Stickers Recruit Twitter Followers in Traffic. Taking your twitter brand a bit further. Just drive kindly and safely.
10 Ways to Find Followers on Twitter. Another excellent bit from Mashable on growing your network.
FeedBurner Adds Customizable Subject Lines to Email Subscriptions. This one, from ProBlogger, is rather self explanitory.
CoolIris 1.11. I like to look at pictures sometimes. You do too. This, from GadgetMETER, is a review of the latest CoolIris offering.
Enjoy - and have a good holiday weekend.
by ethan on July 2, 2009
For as long as “the news” has been around many have been claiming that it is too grim, dark, bad, and controversial. I contest that we pattern the news after what matters most to us and that which we are afraid of, but I digress. Occasionally a few bits of positive news will come from a seemingly bad event. Or something truly remarkable and inspiring may unfold at the most spontaneous of times. The iPhone’s latest “happy app”, SmileNews, is setting out to break through your dreary and negative news feeds and bringten your day with all the news that is good and great.
If you think that SmileNews is just another one of those “Hmm, I think I can make money with an iPhone app” applications, think again. The SmileNews app seems to have been designed from a more scientific and psychological perspective. SmileNews cites a University of Toronto study which claims that [click to continue...]
by ethan on July 1, 2009
Ask a question on twitter, and you may have a pretty good chance of getting an @reply from the friendly VybeTrybe account.
VybeTrybe describes itself as a place to ask questions and get answers from friends, experts, and people just like you. But wait, isn’t that what Yahoo!Answers, JustAnswer.com, and WikiAnswers.com do too? Yes, and no.
Traditional answer sites, like the ones already mentioned, are their own communities. The Yahoo! people shoot the breeze at Yahoo!, the experts at JustAnswer advise the novices at JustAnswer, and the WikiAnswers members chew the fat with WikiAnswers members. VybeTrybe appears to be looking to make a mashup of all of these communties - plus facebook.
Rather than going through the process of signing up for a VybeTrybe (VT) account, VT makes it signing in simple with facebook connect integration. It is nice to see that some startups, like VT, are realizing that facebook actually does have between 200M - 300M members that [click to continue...]
by ethan on June 30, 2009
Niche social network baron Matt Heaton (creator of ActiveRain) is back with a niche social network for amateur athletes and sports teams. Born from a Heaton’s own personal experience as an amateur athlete looking for more interaction with others, Timu.com seeks to solve the problems and inadequacies of the other larger social networks in relation to how they deal with amateur athletes and sports teams.
In Thier Own Words.
Timu is a social networking platform specifically built to solve the communications problems encountered by athletes, sports teams and their fans.
Timu seems to take the notion that simplicity is excellence. Thier social network offering is easily navigable and not in the least bit overwhelming to the newcomer. For the interested bystander, a public news stream is available broadcasting the latest [click to continue...]
by ethan on June 30, 2009
TechSplode Your Summer! is a series of posts about how to maximize your summer activities through the usage of technology.
Getting away from the daily grind is always a blast, but when the daily grind includes a healthy dose of twitter it maybe a bit easier said than done.
Pre-Tweet. If you would prefer to spend your vacation twitter-free, but still keep up appearances there to let your followers know that you haven’t dropped off of the face of the earth, then a couple of twitter apps named FutureTweets, TweetLater, and [click to continue...]
by ethan on June 29, 2009
TechSplode Your Summer! is a series of posts about how to maximize your summer activities through the usage of technology.
There are few things more refreshing than leaving the old day-jog and taking a much needed vacation. However, it seems that work always finds a way to invade vacation and really hinder
Google Voice. Google’s Grand Central program, now called Google Voice, provides an excellent way for telephone users to accomplish more by doing less. Google Voice provides all members with one telephone number. Calls can be forwarded to land lines or mobile phones based on your schedule or personal preferences. Beyond that Google Voice enables contains a voicemail feature which [click to continue...]
by ethan on June 28, 2009
…Consumer Packaged Goods (CPG) that is. What were you expecting anyway?
Alice.com officially launched to the public in it’s beta stage earlier this week on June 22nd. Since then the CPG retailer has managed to grab the attention of KillerStartups and startup superblog TechCrunch. The main idea behind alice.com is to allow people to conveniently shop for their household goods (kitchen, bathroom, office, cleaning, hygiene, etc.) on the internet.
While alice.com is perhaps one of the most innovative and new concepts to grace the internet this year, it is perhaps also one of the riskiest. While most of the world shows no aversion to [click to continue...]
by ethan on June 27, 2009
Aplia is an excellent online education platform developed by Stanford professor and economist Paul Romer. Professor Romer’s intentions were simple in the year 2000. He desired to build an educational technology company that would educate and engage college students at a deeper level. Aplia currently business courses which are used and accessed by over 950 institutions. If I were to take a guess, I would say that many professors turn to Aplia to host their online offering of the course rather than a classroom style course.
First the Good. Aplia does in fact increase engagement and education for the student who is driven by self-discipline and personal success. When a student buys their aplia course [click to continue...]
by ethan on June 26, 2009
It was a busy week in cyberspace, and because I am just one person I cannot possibly talk about everything that happened on here. Luckily, the blog and news-o-sphere are filled with informative and opinionated people focused on imparting the news and their views onto you, the reader. In case you had your head in the sand or were to engrossed in the TV tribute specials to MJ and Ms. Farrah and completely missed to boat on some technological commentary, I am here to get you all caught up. Check ‘em.
I am Willing to Try Bing, But so far it Sucks! - Daniel Scocco over at DailyBlogTips.com details (with screenshots) his rather unfruitful bing experience.
Youtube Mobie Uploads up 400%, Thanks to iPhone 3GS. Xavier Lur of TechXav.com takes a peek into some stats and metrics and draws a few conclusions based on recent iPhone technology and iPhone app activity.
Twitter: The Fastest Way to Get Informed. Or Misinformed. This one is from the popular Technologizer and explores how the recent celebrity news spread, and how some fake and rather distasteful news about other celebrities was spread during the twitter and news frenzy.
Facebook Vanity URLs are Cool, but they can also Ruin the Fun. If something cool and new comes along at it is meant for good, chances are people will abuse it. Check out the story via Mashable.com.
Register .MX Domain Names of Mexico. This, from QuickOnlineTips.com, relates the most recent news pertaining to top-level-domains in Mexico. Some restrictions apply for pre-registration. Check it.
by ethan on June 25, 2009
In a move the surprised almost no one and wowed few more Mashable announced the release of MashDeck - a branded version of TweetDeck allowing users access top new custom MashDeck skins and an easier way to find, read, and share Mashable tweets and content. Many commentators, twitter enthusiasts, and internet users-at-large have voiced their support or have rolled their eyes at the recent news. Many were quick to download out of loyalty and love for Mashable, or because they have yet to be introduced to tweeting from a desktop application. The other side was eager to point out that such customizations (with the exception of the skins) are completely possible to accomplish with [click to continue...]
