WeSeePeople

Friday, December 26, 2008

Location Based Social Networking With Vodafone And Pocket Life.


Location aware social network, Pocketlife has gone public and I am already loving it! If you are a cheating type, I think you should stay away from this network because the other half, you are playing on will know where you are!
Not entirely true, it is only if you let it slip as privacy features allows to you be visible or not based on your preference. But if you are willing to let your friends and close ones know where you are, it is a pleasent service. What is more is that one could integrate with their Myspace, facebook profiles. Pocket Life is compatible with over 30 phones, you can find a list of compatible phones here but my iPhone has to wait a bit till it is labeled "coming soon". But my partners blackberry bold is doing fine.
Pocketlife has the giant Vodaphone behind it's back. The fact that the vodaphone is the largest telecom company with it's hands in many mobile companies all over the world, might help pocketlife to beat it's mobile social networking competitors.

Thursday, December 25, 2008

RIAA Gets Facebook To Shutsdown Playlist!

Part of what used to be Michael Arrington's Playlist page.
In the face of litigation threat, facebook has cleared away all the traces of playlist from users pages and banned the playlist application from the face of the facebook. According to Techcrunch, they released the following information;
"The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) initially contacted Facebook last summer requesting the removal of the Project Playlist application for copyright violation, and recently reopened those communications. We have forwarded the RIAA’s letters to Project Playlist so it can work directly with that organization and music labels on a resolution. In the meantime, the application must be removed to comply with the Facebook Platform Terms of Service. Our hope and expectation is that the parties can resolve their disagreements in a manner that satisfies the developer and copyright holder, that continues to offer a great experience to music fans, and that doesn’t discourage other developers from using Platform to share their creativity and test new ideas."
Winnie with a 15 Billion valuation is not a hotdog I guess, you solve your problems and I will watch!!. Read more at TC.

Sunday, December 21, 2008

How To Make A WEB 2.0 Hit Without Millions Of Users.

I have been involved and written about Social|Median a few times, from the earliest S|M to the latest acquisition by XING. A more well laid out and conscious article by Lois Gray has done a time line of his articles and the progress of the S|M as well.
It is possible to do a WEB 2.0 revolution. A well laid out plan of where you want to go and stamina and determination to get there. Oh about those millions of users, start with a few hundred and go to the rest with the help of them.

Friday, December 19, 2008

AtomKeep To Ease Your Social Network Pain

I came across Atomkeep which is in beta and they are promising to keep all your accounts strewn all over the internet in one place and synced.
I did register myself and there are multitude of netwokd supported and many more are on the way. I have not tested much yet but the attempt at solving the information and network overload seem to be happening. I think it is time that we could manage all our accounts from a single point. So if you are interested, find out for yourself here.

Social|Median Acquired By Xing

One of my favorite social news networks, Social Median has been acquired by Xing! According to a post by Jason Goldberg, The entire socialmedian team will be joining XING as part of the acquisition and Jason himself be relocating to Hamburg, to lead a major new initiative at XING, the XING Application Platform.
Since I joined the Social|Median, pre beta stage, I had a very high regard for Jason, the team and mostly, the idea. I saw it grow from few net works to more than I could count. Eventhogh the number of networks were large, I could chose what I wanted and I also added what I liked or loved. Some people thought that I was worthy to be concidered a newsmaker and I found a plethora of nice and decent people I could concider as news makers.
I have been a regular daily user of the site, Social|Median and a proud owner of initial S|M tee shirts that Jason and team gave away to good people like me!
I wish all the best to the Social Median team and specially to Jason, from whom I learned how to be nice to people and be available, even when people are not looking for you.
Best of everything Social|Median!

Wednesday, December 17, 2008

New Open, Social Features in Yahoo! Mail, My Yahoo! and Yahoo!

Following up on a promise made earlier this year, Yahoo's commitment to re-wire Yahoo!, Yahoo is adding social functionality across the Yahoo! network. They also inviting and opening up to integrate content and services from third-party developers and publishers.

Yahoo! Open Strategy (Y!OS) into Yahoo!'s market-leading products will help users keep up with the information and people they care about most, creating a more socially relevant Web experience. Today, Yahoo! is announced some consumer product updates that demonstrate the progress, including:

  • Yahoo! Mail - Announced separately today,Yahoo! Mail's smarter inbox focuses on streamlining access to a user's most relevant and useful information. The new Welcome Page surfaces email messages, information and activity from people users care about most, and the integration of relevant third party applications will allow users to be more productive, all from within their inbox. The Yahoo! Mail smarter inbox is the company's largest-scale implementation of the Y!OS initiative to-date.
  • My Yahoo! - Beginning today, My Yahoo! users can enhance their personal start pages by adding applications created by third-party developers. Built using the Yahoo! Application Platform, these interactive "apps" will range from productivity tools to games, and will infuse My Yahoo! with new social relevance. Also being launched today, a new My Yahoo! Theme API lets third-party designers create and share their own look and feel for My Yahoo! pages, giving users access to an even wider range of creative backgrounds and styles.
  • Yahoo! Toolbar - Available for a sneak preview later this week at toolbar.yahoo.com, the new Yahoo! Toolbar will provide constant access to essential online tasks and up-to-the-minute news from the sources that matter most. Features of the new Toolbar that will rollout to users next year include:
    • Apps for checking new emails from Yahoo! and other popular Web-based email providers, monitoring or searching for items on eBay, and finding local movie showtimes.
    • Alerts that notify a user about Updates from their personal connections - including their friends' recent activity across the Yahoo! network and eventually, elsewhere on the Web.
    • Personal search suggestions that surface the sites a user has visited and provide vertical search results directly from the Toolbar.
  • Yahoo! Updates - In addition to surfacing friend updates in the new Yahoo! Toolbar and Mail, Yahoo! will begin sharing relevant updates within Yahoo! Music and Yahoo! TV. Yahoo! Updates enable Yahoo! users to have visibility into the online activities of their connections across the Yahoo! network, such as a recently Buzzed article, a hotel review in Yahoo! Travel, adding a new app to My Yahoo!, or a rating on Yahoo! TV. Earlier this fall, Yahoo! began displaying activity updates in Yahoo! Messenger and Yahoo! Buzz, and will include activity updates from other social sites across the Web in the coming months. The Yahoo! Updates platform is also available as an open API, allowing any site on the Web to submit activities into it.

"Yahoo! reaches one of the largest and most-engaged consumer audiences on the Web. As we enable more choice for our users and infuse social functionality across the Yahoo! network, we are delivering on our promise to create the best place for people to start online - and return to again and again - to get everything that is most relevant to them," said Ash Patel, executive vice president, Yahoo! Audience Product Division. "By opening up to third-party innovation on Yahoo!, we are also providing new opportunities for publishers, developers and ultimately advertisers to reach and connect with more than half of the world's online population."

Y!OS: Year in Review

  • Yahoo! Application Platform (YAP) - Being used by developers to create innovative applications and consumer experiences, YAP is a framework for building web apps that can be distributed across Yahoo! and beyond. In just six weeks, already more than 4,000 developers have begun building apps on this new platform.
  • Yahoo! Social Platform (YSP) - YSP is a set of Web services that leverage the personal connections users have across Yahoo!'s services. This platform helps Yahoo! and third-party developers infuse relevant social experiences into a variety of products and apps on and off Yahoo!.
  • Build Your Own Search Service (BOSS) - Yahoo! Search's open Web services platform, BOSS, enables companies and developers to leverage the Yahoo! Search infrastructure to fuel custom, innovative search experiences. Already, the BOSS API serves over 10 million queries per day.
  • Yahoo! Homepage - The new Yahoo.com, currently in limited user testing, will provide access to the best of the Web from a single online starting point, including apps for people to use to check on Yahoo! and third-party email inboxes, eBay auctions and searches, and much more.
  • SearchMonkey- The SearchMonkey developer tool enables developers to create applications that show enhanced Yahoo! Search results for their listings. In turn, this provides searchers with a more useful experience by including links, images and other sought-after information directly on the search results page.
  • Yahoo! Query Language (YQL) - YQL, a technology innovation underpinning Y!OS, is a new web service API that lets developers access other web services using an SQL-like language rather than typical programmatic access. YQL's goal is to make data from Yahoo!, as well as from across the Internet, universally accessible through a single common interface.
  • Universal Profile- Yahoo!'s recently updated universal profile allows people to centrally manage their identity across Yahoo! and make it easier to connect and share with the people who matter most to them.
OpenSocial API Blog: OpenSocial meets My Yahoo! with the Yahoo! Application Platform

Tuesday, December 16, 2008

A New Tab On My Social!Median Home, TODAY

New Tab On S|M
I visited Social|median today to notice a new tab called "TODAY"(Tabs were too stealthily modified by Jason and Co, which I did not even notice and I liked Jason's comment even more, "Best modifications are which are not noticed by the users!") .
It was an instant hit with me. I have been one of the first users of Social Median and I have seen how it is growing, growing for better everyday.
I am a more of a reclusive type but now I am forced to vote for my favorite newsmakers, clip articles that I find interesting and more and look for best commenters. Best of all, I am interacting with people. I think one of these days I have to thank S|M for making me an open person!
I am looking forward to it! Thanks Jason!

Monday, December 15, 2008

Twitblogs, WordPress For Twitters!

I am hooked on twitblogs, an Alpha stage service for Twitter. I was reluctant to use twitter because of the limitations and the trouble I had to go through to implement links etc.
Now I can even have images attached to my Twitter posts in the twitblogs and a whole lot more.
I think you should explore and post at Twitblogs.

Friday, December 12, 2008

OpenSocial Hackathons All Over The Asia Pacific.

I read on the APAC Developer blog that OpenSocial Hacking Storm is taking place all over the Asia Pacific region. There will be three 3 OpenSocial hackathons taking place, simultaneously in Vietnam, Singapore, and Australia. And the orgnizers think that there could be as many as 100 developers. The Vietnam and Singapore groups will focus on creating applications to be submitted to the OpenSocial contest for Southeast Asia. The Austrailian group will be creating iGoogle applications.
According the same blog, Singapore slots are all full but there might be a chance in getting a place in Hanoi (Vietnam) or Sidney (Austrailia) groups af you act hastly.
eXo Platform, WebPal Networks, and e27 have been great supporters of the event.

Then Next week the OpenSocial Hackathons will go to China and the venues will be Beijing (12/16) and Shanghai (12/18). The people in China could register here.

There will also be an OpenSocial hackathon for developers in Japan on 12/18. If you'd like to register, you can do so here. This event will feature OpenSocial partners MySpace Japan and Recruit.

APAC Developer Blog: OpenSocial hackathons happening throughout APAC

Tuesday, December 09, 2008

Le WEB 2008 Kicks Off In Paris, And You Can Watch it Online.


Le Web 2008 has kicked off in Paris, France for the fifth time since it's inauguration. The conference is said to be off to a grand and you are able to watch it free, online, if you are so inclined. The show is streamed courtesy of Swisscom and Ustream. Ustream has provided a show room and chatting facility as well. In addition to chatting (which is very interesting at the moment) there is the actual show schedule on line in the room as well.
Le WEB is said to have 1600 attendees from 26n countries (why only 26?) and said to be the largest tech conference, in either side of the broken Berlin wall! But I think none should miss the startup competition.

Sunday, December 07, 2008

OpenSocial Is One Year And A Few Days Now!

Oops, I missed the party and I missed posting about it. Just as an example of how time flies, OpenSocial is one year old and they seem to have had a good time celebrating and brain storming the next year.
There is a very nice blog post with photos and such at OpenSocial API blog, Follow the link.
OpenSocial API Blog: OpenSocial's birthday wrap-up: it's good to be one

Friday, December 05, 2008

Losing Your Degree To Social networking.

When I saw that title "Social Network Profile Costs Woman College Degree", I went what? but as I read the article, it was evident that something else was afoot.
I guess she had made mistakes in her professional and academical carrier, before letting a photo and a comment about her supervisor, provide the last stroke, that chopped her off from getting the degree she desired.
If you want to keep social profiles, it is fine, we all do. Just be a bit wary of people who sees what you do and use it for their advantage. Keep you friends circles closer and netizens at arms length. If you really want to show you finishing six packs in one go, think, before drinking as well as posting that drooling picture. If you must post it, perhaps you can post it in another profile with a nick name like "Drunken Pirate". So your college teachers (don't they have better things to do?) will not be able to find their students in lingerie commenting on that mole on teachers face.
Read more at read write web.

Thursday, December 04, 2008

"dash of social" With Google Friend Connect

Google Friend Connect is open to all webmasters in it's beta form, according to the official Google blog.
"We're pleased to share that Google Friend Connect is now available in beta to any webmaster looking to add a "dash of social" to his or her site. This service lets webmasters add social features to their sites by simply copying and pasting a few snippets of code — no advanced coding or technical background required."
So tell about yourself and find out about others and we will learn to see people for what they are and we all can say we see people.
If you did not know already, you do not have to come up with a new username and password to use Google Friend Connect, you can use your existing Google, Yahoo, AOL, or OpenID account. You also can use your existing profiles form social networks like orkut or Plaxo who have joined Google Friend Connect.

Official Google Blog: Google Friend Connect: now available

Wordpress 2.7 Is Ready For You, Tomorrow!

Even thought this is a Blogger based blog, I do have wordpress based blogs and I love the capabilities of the wordpress. I have blogs that are hosted myself as well as one blog on the wordpress.com.
The version 2.7 promises to make everything even better and I am really looking forward to it. Most of the improvements are in the admin are and blog readers will not be subjected to witness these changes.The changes in the admin area are remarkable.
You can read more about the release here at wordpress.com blog.
"WordPress 2.7 is coming to WordPress.com, and will go live on Thursday, December 4, 2008 at 8pm Eastern Time. That’s 5pm Thursday in California, 1am Friday in London (UTC), 8am Friday in Jakarta, noon on Friday in Sydney…find your time here."

Tuesday, December 02, 2008

Britney Beats Obama (People That Search Engines Saw)

It is the year end and search engine aggregates are rolling in. But it is surprising what people search. On this ask page, I could only find three items that "I might have searched".
On the Yahoo page I found more people that "I have searched" for. But as John Battelle says, the whole show if boring. Perhaps that is why I am still here! Looking for People that matter.

Socially Inclined VoIP App, VoxOx

VoxOx 1.0.1 Beta Reviewed | VOIP IP Telephony

http://snapvoip.blogspot.com/

Thursday, November 20, 2008

Google Lively Goes Offline!


If you were a Google Lively player developer or a user, Google has some bad news for you! After considering pluses and minuses, they have decided to take the site off line. You will only be able to see an image of your former site/room.
"After careful consideration, we have decided to shut down Lively.

Since Lively's launch, we have been delighted to see the creative ways you've used the product. We enjoyed hanging out in Jen's coffee house, and checking out the Brasil Party room. We got a kick out of the YouTube videos in a variety of languages telling stories about your avatars. And we've been awed by the elaborate rooms that you've constructed, using mosaic tiles and photo gadgets in novel ways.

We will shut down Lively on December 31, 2008. Embedded rooms in blogs and other web pages will continue to show an image, but users will no longer be able to enter Lively rooms and interact."

Official Google Blog: Lively no more

Wednesday, November 12, 2008

un-"Social Networking" Site Launched.

If you thought the new Social Network Site by Aswath, one of my favorite bloggers in the field of VoIP, is another "me three", I think you need to explore a little bit more.
While it offers all that of a social network site, it differs in very important factors, which allows even hermits like me to have my own Social Network. Those differences are, as told by Enthinai;

  • » You are master of your own domain
  • » Buddies do not have to be part of EnThinnai
  • » Every speck of data is controlled for privacy...
That is very promising! Join EnThinnai (Which is another yes factor, hassle free registration, you only need your OpenID!) and taste for yourself!


Thursday, October 23, 2008

deskNET Invites You For Public Beta Of Social Network Aggregator, Sobees.

deskNET, a Switzerland-based Social media company has debuted a public beta version of Sobees today. Sobees plan to mash up your desktop and the social web. Some of the things that is touting to do is to allow you to update your status messages across Facebook and Twitter. Sobees also enables you to drag and drop files to a variety of online services, like dragging pictures Sobee and uploading them directly to your Flickr account.


The site has been very busy and thus slow, I have not been able to test any of the said tasks yet but I am looking forward to it.
So for now you can follow tecrunch's article that covers most of Sobees, as they are familiar with the startup.

Tuesday, October 21, 2008

WEB 2.0, Got A Question For Mark Zuckerberg?

I just read that John Battelle is going to interview a whole bunch of interesting folks like at Chris DeWolfe, Edgar Bronfman, Larry Brilliant, Lance Armstrong, Paul Otellini, Jack Klues, Michael Pollan, Elon Musk, Shai Agassi, and many more at WEB 2.0 Summit. (I got my invitation already and if you follow the link you might be able to get an invitaion!)
But he has got all his questions ready for everyone but like to know what he should ask from Mark Zuckerberg? (Spare Change?)
Visit the site and leave a comment! You might get your question answered!

Saturday, October 04, 2008

DO not VOTE

You have seen the debates and you yourself debated about the merits of your party and your candidates. You may have seen numerous people working harder than ever before to make this election a better one. You see the rallies, you hear and read about causes but at the end it would not matter if you DO not VOTE. So please vote for your chosen candidate!
Everyone in the United States are gearing up for the elections. and some are starting their own campaigns for elections, like the video below with some of your entertainers like, Leonardo DiCaprio, will.i.am, Tobey Maguire, Forrest Whitaker and a bunch more.

Google is also working hard to bring you the information like Google's Voter Info Map (Voting location information will be available by mid-October.). This map brings together registration, absentee and early voting information in one place. (Mobile version is available at m.google.com/elections.)
Also check out the Voting Information Project and the League of Women Voters for more information. There will be nothing more that bring joy to weseepeople than to see People voting!


Saturday, September 27, 2008

Good Bye Paul Newman!

The blue-eyed star of more than 60 movies spanning 50 years died in his Connecticut home on Friday, surrounded by family and close friends.
His Butch Cassidy co-star Robert Redford paid tribute, saying: "There is a point where feelings go beyond words... I have lost a real friend."
Even though I was not even born when the Butch Cassidy And The Sundance Kid was made, it was one of my favorite movies. May You rest well in Gods Arms.

Friday, September 26, 2008

Google Sees People And Says No Prop 8 In California.

Instead of further ado, here is why Google says no;
"further government encroachment on personal lives, ambiguously written text -- it is the chilling and discriminatory effect of the proposition on many of our employees that brings Google to publicly oppose Proposition 8. While we respect the strongly-held beliefs that people have on both sides of this argument, we see this fundamentally as an issue of equality. We hope that California voters will vote no on Proposition 8 -- we should not eliminate anyone's fundamental rights, whatever their sexuality, to marry the person they love."
We Do.
Official Google Blog: Our position on California's No on 8 campaign

Tuesday, September 16, 2008

The Best Of Election '08 So Far

Thanks SNL; Where are the other players? Obama and McCain?

Thursday, September 11, 2008

Always

In My Heart, From My Heart | VOIP IP Telephony

Tuesday, September 09, 2008

Yahoo Hackday Goes Open! Open Hack 2008.


We all have heard about Yahoo Hackday before but (never cared too much ;) because it was an internal affair, meaning a digg for Yahoo employees!
But the Yahoo crew has given us a reason to care now because for the first time, they are going open with Hackday. So if you are interested in Yahoo technology, like me, would head over to Yahoo Hackday website and register. This year the hackday is held on Sep 12-13. You can sign-up for a Hack Day invitation by visiting http://www.hackday.org.
Let's hack.

Thursday, September 04, 2008

Twittering To SocialMedian!


If you are a socialmedian user,( if not please join us) you might be pleased to know that the SM Team has added another new feature. That is Twitter to socialmedian. It enables anyone to effectively sms socialmedian by sending a text to twitter and including short code #sm to get that text automatically delivered to socialmedian and shared with my followers.
Try it out!

Monday, August 25, 2008

Coomuto Provides Bartering On FaceBook

Toronto, ON (PRWEB) August 25, 2008 -- Commuto announced today that it has released the Commuto Facebook application, allowing Facebook users to access Commuto's database of millions of products and interact with Commuto's functionality by posting, viewing and trading items from within their Facebook accounts.
"Launching Commuto's Facebook application is a very important step for us and our users. By combining Facebook's social networks with Commuto's social communities, we have given our users the most social and interactive bartering application online and have given our users even more choice over how they interact with Commuto", said Stephen Arbib, President and founder of Commuto, "Millions of Facebook users will now be able to show their friends all the items which they own and those they want, and be able to trade with Facebook and non-Facebook users all in real time."

Commuto's Facebook application is the first of a series of widget and applications that Commuto plans to release in the coming year to increase awareness of their online social bartering site,
Commuto.com.

Commuto is still in beta release and will continue through the third quarter of 2008, after which an integrated marketing campaign will begin with Vancouver-based partner, UM Marketing.

Saturday, August 16, 2008

Woopra Web Analytics Plugin For WordPress.


Click to See a larger image
Today at WordCamp San Francisco 2008 was great. I had to leave early but there were few notable demonstrations and presentations. One was the Woopra web analytics for wordpress plugin. We have been using the Woopra for some time now and very happy with its results. iFusion Labs demonstrated a new WordPress Integration Plugin showing how to bring Woopra statistics right into the WordPress dashboard.

This is the first time any service provider has allowed users to embed Web Analytics within their own site, and it offers a number of benefits to Web masters:

  • Immediate access to analytics, traffic statistics and user visits from within the standard WordPress interface.
  • Zero footprint on the local WordPress server speeds up your Web page loads without cluttering your database.
  • Users can customize the statistics interface with simple CSS modifications.
  • Users can modify the WordPress Plugin and contribute back to the community with changes and new ways to display the data.
  • It’s light, Ajax enabled, and sexy!
To experience this powerful new feature, download the new Woopra WordPress Plugin, but please keep in mind that this is a BETA. There will be issues with it. Please report bugs and issues in the Woopra Forums.

WordCamp
iFusion
Wordpress
Woopra

Friday, August 15, 2008

Socialthing Is In AOL's Fold!

You my have heard the rumors, seen or felt the leaks, but it is confirmed that Socialthing has been acquired by AOL. So now the Friendfeed got a competitor with some push behind it!

According to TC, David Liu will be the boss and the Socialthing team will follow him integrating the lifestreaming into AIM and of course BEBO Social Network.

You can read the whole story and more at the Socialthing Blog.


Tuesday, August 12, 2008

Rest In Peace Bernie Mac!

The actor and comedian Bernie Mac passed away on Saturday, aged 50, in a hospital in Chicago, due to pneumonia. Bernie Mac came to fame with the television series The Bernie Mac Show, with which he was nominated for Emmy and Golden Globe awards. It was a very satisfying late night show for us and helped to unwind after a long day.
The Ocean's 11 series of films, as well as Bad Santa and Guess Who, a comedy remake of the 1967 film Guess Who's Coming to Dinner stands for his achievements in the movie world. Bernie Mac was one of four African-American comedians featured in Spike Lee's 2000 documentary the Original Kings of Comedy, had suffered from lung ailments since the 1980s.
Rest in peace Bernie! Thank you for all the laughs.

Thursday, August 07, 2008

'Big Mobile On Campus Challenge' Deadline Extended By AT&T

'Big Mobile On Campus Challenge' to Award $10,000 Scholarship to Winner

Dallas, Texas, August 7, 2008 AT&T Inc. (NYSE:T) today announced an extended deadline for submissions to its Big Mobile On Campus Challenge, a unique contest for full-time college students and staff to develop innovative and creative mobile applications that enhance academic performance, build campus community and help improve campus security operations. AT&T has extended the deadline for submissions, through midnight Pacific time, Monday, Sept. 15, 2008.

Big Mobile On Campus Challenge is open to all full-time students and full- or part-time staff at a four-year public or private accredited, nonprofit college or university in the continental United States. Entrants must be 18 or older and legal residents of the continental U.S.

"We're excited about the Big Mobile On Campus Challenge and in seeing the innovative applications and ideas from the college community," said Bill Archer, chief marketing officer for AT&T Global Business Services. "We've decided to extend the submission deadline to enable more students to take advantage of this opportunity to develop the next great mobile applications to help students be more productive, as well as enhance their lifestyle."

The contest opened April 1, 2008, and will now be accepting submissions until Sept. 15, 2008. After a judging period in mid-September, the winner will be announced in October and receive a $10,000 scholarship — given to an individual or divided among the team members who developed the application — at the EduCause annual conference Oct. 28-31, 2008, in Orlando, Fla.

If a staff member wins the award as an individual or is on the winning team, she or he will receive cash compensation. The winner(s) will also receive a device of choice for each entrant and an all-expense-paid trip to EduCause.

The Big Mobile On Campus Challenge seeks applications in three categories: social networking, academics and safety and security. AT&T will choose three finalists in each category and then pick the top three overall. The two runners-up — either as an individual or team — will receive a $5,000 scholarship and device of choice for each entrant.

For more information on the Big Mobile On Campus Challenge, please visit this site.

Wednesday, August 06, 2008

Virgin Mobile sponsors Bebo’s latest online drama, The Secret World of Sam King.

London, UK . - Virgin Mobile has announced they will sponsor Bebo’s latest online drama, The Secret World of Sam King. Using the new funding model of brand integration developed by Bebo, Virgin Mobile will be cleverly referenced in the show. An additional dimension to the sponsorship will see Virgin Mobile take the show on location to the V Festival.

The Secret World of Sam King, a first between a social network and music company, launches on Wednesday 6th August and revolves around junior ’facilities’ employee, Sam King, who from his base at Universal Music secretly founds his own start-up label in the post room.

Produced by Universal Music UK’s production arm Globe Productions in partnership with Monkey Kingdom, The Secret World Of Sam King will upload 3-5 minute episodes daily on Bebo, a format made successful by stable mates on the social network KateModern and Sofia’s Diary. For a sneak preview, go to http://www.bebo.com/samking.

James Kydd, Managing Director of Marketing at Virgin Mobile commented: "This sponsorship deal is a great tie-in for us as a brand. Virgin Mobile is constantly looking for ways to engage with its customer market, and we are confident that such an innovative sponsorship opportunity will create real impact with Bebo users"

Mark Charkin, VP Sales Bebo added: "We are very excited to have Virgin Mobile on board for Sam King. Their interest in aligning with our newest entertainment property is a fantastic opportunity for us to demonstrate our ongoing success in the arena of social media, and in particular our proven funding models"

Tuesday, August 05, 2008

Is Twitter A Bad Marriage?

First I was just reading this post by Chris Brogan, then I got the idea he was trying to bring up but after reading all the comments and suggestions, I got this feeling it is like bad marriage! Even if you wanted, you can't leave! Long Live Twitter!!
So there is still a chance to beat it. Pull out that note book.

Thursday, July 31, 2008

Where Is The Complete Privacy? We Can't Find It! Google Says To A Pennsylvania Family .

I think this should be an interesting story. Can you stop me from looking at your house or anything visible in your house from a public road? (Oh the house is on a private road but visible from a public road!).
But I think if I was living in that blocked section of the road and if I want people to see me on the Google Street View, I might be able to sue Google for discrimination! Wow I love This Country!
As you can see, the street view stops here! It may be possible that Google removed it due to the law suite. Click on the image to goto Google Maps.

JULY 30--Arguing that technology has ensured that "complete privacy does not exist," Google contends that a Pennsylvania family has no legal grounds to sue the search giant for publishing photos of their home on its popular "Street View" mapping feature. Responding to an invasion of privacy lawsuit filed by Aaron and Christine Boring, Google has countered that the couple "live in a residential community in the twenty-first-century United States, where every step upon private property is not deemed by law to be an actionable trespass."
The Smoking Gun has the complete article.

Scrabulous Returns As Wordscraper

Scrabulous was taken off line a few days ago, at least in some countries but now the game has effectively returned, but with a redesigned board, a few original play options, a different points tabulation system, and a new name, Wordscraper.

"On Wednesday I spoke to Pete Kinsella, a partner at the Faegre & Benson law firm who specializes in intellectual property, and he gave me his take on the gritty details. "Copyrights are not supposed to protect board games," Kinsella explained. "What copyrights protect is the expression of an idea rather than the idea itself."

Returning as Wordscraper is a way for its creators to keep the game running while avoiding legal complaints. In effect, it's just different enough.

"I think there's a very fine line to walk in this one, and the question is whether Scrabulous went over the line or not in mimicking the colors or everything else," Kinsella assessed (keep in mind that we had this conversation before the advent of Wordscraper), "or whether they could've designed a generic version of the game with the same points system and scoring system, and that would've fallen out of Hasbro's copyrights.""

I learned about this here.


socialmedian Goes Public Beta.

socialmedian Opens To The Public


NEW YORK, New York — July 31, 2008 — socialmedian, http://www.socialmedian.com, a new social news network that is working on solving the information overload problem, opened its website to the public today. The public launch follows a fourmonth invite-only alpha period with more than 4300 participants from around the world. The socialmedian site is a public beta and continues to be a work in progress. The company’s model is to ship new features and enhancements every other day in direct response to user feedback. Interested parties are encouraged to check out the company’s about pages at http://www.socialmedian.com/aboutsocialmedian/ about-socialmedian for more detailed background information or to log onto the site at http://www.socialmedian.com and give it a whirl. socialmedian updates can also be followed on Twitter at http://www.twitter.com/socialmedian. socialmedian is founded and led by Jason Goldberg who previously founded and was CEO of Jobster Inc. from 2004 to 2007. Goldberg founded socialmedian in January 2008. The company is backed by Washingtonpost.Newsweek Interactive and personal investments from Goldberg and leading angel investors such as Allen Morgan (Mayfield fund), Reed Hundt (fmr. FCC Chairman), Gordon Crovitz (fmr. WSJ Publisher), Julius Genachowski (LaunchBox Digital), and Johnny Taylor (CEO of IAC’s Rushmore Drive). Morgan, Genachowski, Crovitz, and Don Baer (Burson-Marsteller, fmr. Discover Communications Executive) also serve as active advisors to the company.

Socialmedian has offices in New York, NY and Pune, India. socialmedian is a user-driven website both in the manner in which it has been developed as well as in the functioning of the site.

The company released its first code to an early set of alpha users in March 2008. Users can submit feature requests directly on the website. More than 350 user-submitted features have

been built and launched on the site during the alpha period. socialmedian aims to help anyone anywhere easily discover, share, and discuss news and information that meets their specific topical interest through collaborative filtering by people with common interests. The site was created in response to peoples’ need for better ways to access the rapidly increasing amounts of news content created daily while at the same time enabling them to easily filter it down to just the most personally relevant content. socialmedian helps solve the information overload problem by enabling people with common interests to highlight to each other what to read and discuss on a particular topic from an infinite number of sources, whether it be from a traditional news outlet or a new media website or a blogger with a great analysis.

Socialmedian’s founder, Jason Goldberg, said of the site: “The name socialmedian itself represents what we believe to be the next evolution of media; as information becomes more universally accessible and people socially can create, share, and discuss it online, what we’re witnessing is a massive democratization of information around the globe as people who share common interests can instantly become newsmakers for each other without any regard to political borders or boundaries. Increasingly, when it comes to news and information, it’s no longer about the have’s and have not’s, we are all the social median.”

socialmedian’s thesis is that people who share topical interests can act as effective filters for each other. Here’s how socialmedian works.;

• Users of socialmedian can create “News Networks” on any topic. A News Network enables a group of people to track, share, and discuss aggregated news on a particular topic. Within a News Network, users can share RSS feeds or submit content to socialmedian via a browser bookmarklet, by email, or directly on the site.

• Users “clip” stories of interest to highlight them to people in their Networks.

• Every user gets a personalized news feed on their socialmedian homepage which presents relevant news clippings from people in their networks.

• Users can also specifically follow other users as their “Newsmakers” This enables one user to effectively get their news through another user, following what the other person is clipping, discussing, and sharing. Users can elect to follow all updates from another user or only those updates relevant to that person’s topical interests. For bloggers, journalists and others opinion leaders, becoming a “Newsmaker” provides a new way to engage with their audience.

Here are some facts on the alpha period:

• Socialmedian’s 4300 users have created more than 1125 News Networks

• The most popular News Networks (http://www.socialmedian.com/network?s=popular) on socialmedian include:

o Web 2.0, 1250 users http://www.socialmedian.com/network/web-2-0

o Social Media Watch, 685 users http://www.socialmedian.com/network/socialmedia-watch

o Twitter, 442 users http://www.socialmedian.com/network/twitter

o Campaign 2008, 305 users http://www.socialmedian.com/network/campaign-2008

o iPhone, 116 users http://www.socialmedian.com/network/iphone

• The most popular Newsmakers on socialmedian already have more than 100 followers. http://www.socialmedian.com/users?s=popular

• The U.S. represents just less than 50% of the alpha users.

Top countries represented on socialmedian thus far:

 U.S. 48%

 India 10%

 UK 10%

 Italy 4%

 Canada 3%

 Germany 2%

 Netherlands 2%

 Australia 3%

 China 2%

 Japan 2%

Also notable:

• socialmedian beta also includes several progressive innovations in areas such as use of the Google Social Graph API and Twitter integrations. • With the beta release socialmedian users can now share

news from socialmedian on Twitter from the socialmedian site • The socialmedian site is built upon the Ruby on Rails web framework along with nginx as a web server proxying to Mongrel instances. socialmedian uses multiple MySQL database servers, and memcached;, a distributed memory caching system, to help withstand high traffic. The company has built an engine for crawling and parsing tens of thousands of RSS feeds using solr, an open-source search server based on Lucene search library.

• Socialmedian recently held a global contest for user experience designers to design the socialmedian iphone application, one of the top user requests. The contest concludes on July 28, 2008 and submissions will be displayed on the company’s blog at http://blog.socialmedian.com in the coming days.

For additional assistance, journalists, bloggers, and analysts may contact Scott Wheaton, Scott@socialmedian.com 1-315-751-4372 or Jason Goldberg Jason@socialmedian.com 1-917-455-1020.







Thursday, July 24, 2008

The Open Web Foundation Launched At OSCON

Every one knows that OSCON is going on now, but I could not make it to Oregon even though I wanted to do so. But I have been watching reading and hearing about the happenings at OSCON and I got this gem of an information this morning. David Recordon has announced the creation of the Open Web Foundation. The Open Web Foundation is an attempt to create a home for community-driven specifications. Following the open source model similar to the Apache Software Foundation, the foundation is aimed at building a lightweight framework to help communities deal with the legal requirements necessary to create successful and widely adopted specification, according to a post on the OWF site.

Looking little further, I found at skype journal this is how OWF will assist you and I in the future, bringing out that great ideas that we have been harboring in our heads in fear of big bad wolves.

  • Legal barriers. Great projects have been stalled for many quarters because contributions to their work product (designs, sample code, specification, etc.) were not cleared. OWF will host projects where all contributions are cleared up front. So the final product arrives unencumbered by patents, trademarks, and other claims.

  • Antisocial parents. It's not enough to reveal your great insight to the world. Throwing your newborn specification over the wall usually results in a stillborn flash in the pan. OpenWeb will help innovators foster community around their ideas. So the new product is "owned" by an open community, so it receives diverse and worldly inputs, and learns, adapts, and flourishes independent of its instigators. Ready to survive in the wild.
  • Startup Governance. To incorporate or not? Where? In what form? Who holds our IP? How do we take money? OpenWeb will help with this class of problem by sharing templates for organizing and being a corporate umbrella for select projects.

For those who couldn't be there, here is the presentation:


Tuesday, July 22, 2008

Walking with Google Maps Walking Directions! In San Francisco.

When I saw that Google Maps has enabled walking directions beta, I set out immediately to check driving, taking Public Transport and walking from Moscone Center in San Francisco to an address on Mission Street. A deed I need to do. Even though I have done this numerous times, I wanted to see what Google maps has to offer.
First Driving the worst case, not just because of fuel cost, but parking in San Francisco cost you much more than a gallon of gas!, if you manage to find one. (Just to be clear, both above locations have public parking) But travel wise this is the longest route;


Then the public transit, which involves a little leg work as well was clear and the departure times were shown togethe with directions.

The final, the walking, which is always good in San Francisco, unless it is a extreme hot day, which we seem to be having more and more (global warming?). But we do have trees you know! the walking directions were clear as well but I have taken a different route but today it will be Google Maps Walking Directions!

Google LatLong: Pound the pavement

Monday, July 21, 2008

MEDDESKTOP: Virtual Patients And Student Dentists In Second Life.

This article explains about dental students following their training at Second life with but of course a virtual patient. Now only if I could get virtual
MEDDESKTOP: Virtual Patients And Student Dentists In Second Life.
Tags: , , , ,

Friday, July 18, 2008

We See Oscar Pistorius

After a year of controversy, legal battles with morons who allows drug infused athletes to get gold medals , and frantic effort, Oscar Pistorius will not be at the Olympic Games next month. Pistorius, a double-amputee sprinter from South Africa who runs on a pair of carbon-fiber blades, failed to meet the qualifying time for the 400 meters in his final attempt earlier this week and, Friday morning, was not selected to join the South African 4x400 meter relay squad.
But he will be competing in Paralympics in Bejing. He is known as the "Blade Runner" and "the fastest man on no legs". He took part in the 2004 Summer Paralympics in Athens and came third overall in the T44 (one leg amputated below the knee) 100-metre event. Despite falling in the preliminary round for the 200 metres, he qualified for the final. He went on to win the final with a world record time of 21.97 seconds, beating single amputee American runners Marlon Shirley and Brian Frasure.

New York Times

Friday, July 11, 2008

Virtual Yokoso Japan, Tour Japan In 10 Minutes, But Prepare To Spend More!

Japan is very dear country to me fore more reasons than you want to know. About 10 years ago, I traveled extensively, all over the Japan, From Hokkaido to Okinawa. Having a job that required me to travel helped a lot.
But since then, I was able to spend short holidays with my partners family and we were not able to visit more than a place or two.
Then I found this post on LatLong blog! and I felt I was just next to heaven.
You can find it on the Google Map or the actual layer on Google Earth, as above where I am exploring Akita City, one of my favorite places in Japan. I see many people, via photos here.
Google LatLong: Tour Japan in 10 minutes

Down Under, Going to school with Google Is The Norm Now.

According to a post on Google Australia Blog, Australian and New Zealand schools and Universities going gaga over Google services for education. I have been a real fan of Google Apps and saw the value of them early in the roll out. I was always asking myself why do schools pay millions only to tie them into non standard propritary applications when Products like Google Apps and Open Office did meet most of the needs of students.
To learn more about Google Apps Education Edition (which is free to accredited K-12 or higher educational institutions) check out the overview video at Google AU site or get in touch with Google here.
Official Google Australia Blog: Going to school with Google

Tuesday, July 08, 2008

Famous Army Medic, Joseph Patrick Dwyer, Passes Away

Warren Zinn / Army Times
The soldier in the photograph above, Joseph Patrick Dwyer has passed away due to an apparent overdose according to various news sources. The photo shows him running cradling an Iraqi boy who got injured during the first week of the war. This photo graph appeared in newspapers, magazines and television broadcasts worldwide. It also showed that human love and caring for small ones, could come out even under enemy fire. I salute you Dwyer, for being human. Dwyer in turn attributed the same quality to the whole unit, who also did similar deeds but did not get caught in camera's eye.
I hate the human cost of the war, any war!

Dwyer died late last month at a hospital in Pinehurst, according to the Boles Funeral Home. He was 31. Dwyer served with the 3rd Squadron of the 7th Cavalry Regiment of Fort Stewart, Ga. He earned the Combat Medical Badge and other military awards.

I am sure the boy will remember him, if he manage to live through bombs and snipers.

Firefox 3 Guinness World Record and Don't Forget To Get Your Certificate.

The Firefox 3 downlod did make it to the Guinness World Record, for the most software downloads in 24 hours. We all pitched in to reach 8,002,530 downloads.
So if you downloaded the Firefox 3 on June 17th, now you are a part of a Guinness World Record, and don't forget to download your very own certificate for helping set a Guinness World Record. I got our group Cert shown above!

Friday, July 04, 2008

Barak Obama's Change may have come form Underware, Brand, Change!



Change and underwear goes along very well but I don't think Barak Obama and underwear does. But this post depicting a beautiful model and change, shows that Barak Obama's Change may have come form Underwear, Brand, Change!. Don't shoot the messenger.
"Obama’s change is on top, and the font, as has been widely discussed in the Times among other places, is Gotham (designed by Tobias Frere-Jones - yes, Sasha’s brother). The Danish underwear’s change does not seem to be Gotham, but it’s awfully close - the ends of the “C” are vertical, the inside hook of the “G” is slightly smaller, and the tips of the “E” are of different lengths. That said, you really do have to line the two up side-by-side to be convinced that Obama didn’t just rip off the design of this Scandinavian swimwear and lingerie company (but if you’re going to rip off design, that’s a good part of the world to pick from)."
you can find more information of the account here.