WeSeePeople: 07/01/2007

Monday, July 30, 2007

Blog Business Summit Chicago: September 17-19, 2007

If you need to Blog for your company or even thinking of starting a blog for your company (Aren't you late already?) this is a good opportunity to gain some insight in to Business Blogging. I will be attending just to know about the blogging world, even though I have no immediate plans for business Blogging. But Blogs are a part of Social networks that I live day in and day out. I might even get to know some famous Bloggers!
But if you are like me, I will go through See you at the Blog Business Summit? on MyBloglog! and I am certain you will get a discount! as Mybloglog is one of the sponsors. So make sure you go through the sponsor page mentioned on MyBloglog blog and the discount code listed on the article above.
The Blog Business Summit is a conference and seminar series on business blogging that has been touring the country since 2004. Since then, our experiences have only confirmed what we’ve known all along: blogs are incredibly powerful. We’ve used our own blog to bring people to our events by creating a buzz via online word-of-mouth, search engine traffic and cross-linking. And we can teach you to do it too!
You can get details about the Summit here.

Sunday, July 29, 2007

BlogHer07 (going to) make one my fevorite Blog authors, Suzanne of CUSS rich!

CUSS,(?) you have to visit her and find out. But I can assure you that if you like beavers and pussy cats with their natural coat of hair, you will like what she writes. On the other hand if you are a boldie, she might laugh at you. She always has some thing nice write or as being hairy person finds what she writes pleasing, rebellious freedom I guess.
I read a bit about BlogHer 'o7 is seems to have been a successful event. Suzanne, the author of the CUSS, has got information that might make her a rich blogger. I wish I could follow the advice she got. But there is a limit to what I could write about Jewish cats.
Last time I wrote about a bare cat in an experiment, I got 60,000 hits on this site!, where usually a few lost souls land. May be it is another good experiment to write about Jewish Cats.
Here the link to CUSS,
Campaign for Unshaved Snatch (CUSS) & Other Rants: I'm Gonna Be Rich!
Well now you know what CUSS is!

Saturday, July 28, 2007

Jimmy Wales and Wikia on to a new venture, Open Source Distributed Web Crawler Tool

LookSmart provides search technology assets to enable distributed web crawling (formally know as GRUB), others join growing list of organizations looking to make open source search a reality.
I still have the original grub code before looksmart decide to hide it! as I was working on a search engine idea. Those days we crawl the web and send the data back to the Server!
Here is the news release about the new life for Grub;
Portland, Oregon, July 27, 2007 - Wikia, Inc. (www.wikia.com) the leading provider of community resources for building and organizing free content on every topic, today unveiled major next steps in its work to build a new search platform founded on open-source search protocols and human collaboration at the O’Reilly Open Source Convention (OSCON). In a morning keynote address, Wikia co-founder Jimmy Wales discussed business models and his vision for building the LAMP stack for search, which can be done by assembling open-source technologies.

Wales announced that Wikia has acquired Grub, the original visionary distributed search project, from LookSmart (NASDAQ: LOOK) and released it under an open source license for the first time in four years. Grub operates under a model of users donating their personal computing resources towards a common goal, and is available today for download and testing at: http://www.grub.org.

“We’ve had a tremendous response from very interesting commercial players in the search space,” said Jimmy Wales, co-founder and chairman, Wikia, Inc. “The desire to collaborate and support a transparent and open platform for search is clearly deeply exciting to both open source and businesses. Look for other exciting announcements in the coming months as we collectively work to free the judgment of information from invisible rules inside an algorithmic black box.”

Grub, now open source, is designed with modularity so that developers can quickly and easily extend and add functionality, improving the quality and performance of the entire system. By combining Grub, which is building a massive, distributed user-contributed processing network, with the power of a wiki to form social consensus, the open source Search Wikia project has taken the next major step towards a future where search is open and transparent.

“In looking at the overarching industry, it has become clear that open is the business model of the future,” said Michael Grubb, Senior Vice President, Technology, and Chief Technology Officer, LookSmart. “We are pleased to collaborate with Wikia and believe that Grub will thrive under an open source license. We are happy to be able to assist in the movement to make search a more open proposition and look forward to seeing things progress from here.”

To keep up with the latest developments around open source search or to volunteer, please visit the community wiki at: http://search.wikia.com.

About Wikia, Inc.
Since Wikia’s launch in November 2004, more than 750,000 articles on 2,700 topics have been created and edited by over 200,000 registered users in 70 languages. In addition to working on open-source search, Wikia is currently home to several computer programming-related wikis such as, WikiaPerl at http://perl.wikia.com , the Visual Basic Wiki at http://vb.wikia.com , and the PHP Wiki at http://php.wikia.com .

Wikia enables groups to share information, news, stories, media and opinions that fall outside the scope of an encyclopedia. Jimmy Wales and Angela Beesley launched Wikia in 2004 to provide community-based wikis inspired by the model of Wikipedia -- the free, open source encyclopedia founded by Jimmy Wales.

Wikia is committed to openness, inviting anyone to contribute web content. Authors retain their own copyrights and allow others to freely reuse their content under a variety of GNU and Creative Commons Licenses, allowing widespread distribution of knowledge and ideas.

Blogshares blogsaresians get new equipment!

The fantasy Blog share Market site (this site is listed) has gone through fund raising among the users and have managed to collect enough money to replace this old server!
Now we all will be able to buy/sell more shares faster and become billionaires in this fantasy world.
I am a millionaire.

The new server is ordered at a cost of $5750.00 and consists of;
• Processors: 2 x Dual-core AMD Opteron 2.2GHz 2MB Cache
• Memory: 4 x 2GB PC5300 667MHz DDR2 ECC Registered
• Hard Drives: 5 x 73.4GB SAS 15000 RPM - Seagate Cheetah 15K.4 (RAID 5)
See pictures of new and old servers here!

Friday, July 27, 2007

Twitter gains a big boost from recent funding!

Twitter, the place that I leave some blurbs some time, has got undisclosed sum of funding from multiple financiers, Union Square Ventures, Charles River Ventures, and angel investors that includes Marc Andreessen, Dick Costolo, Ron Conway and Naval Ravikant.
San Francisco-based Twitter was launched in March 2006 by Obvious Corp., a new startup from a well known Evan Williams who started such ventures such as Blogger (Now a part of Google and where you are reading this) and Odeo.
According to a post on the twitter Blog the Twitting team will put all the best efforts to make Twitter a best experience to all of us.
Go Twitter!

Socially Mobile

How can users be persuaded to access their social networks twenty-four hours a day, without ever stopping, using a mobile device? That was the question at the Mobile Social Networking Conference in San Francisco Thursday. The Mobile Social Networking Conference runs through Friday at the Courtyard Marriott Downtown San Francisco.

PC Mag article

Wednesday, July 25, 2007

Are you The Ultimate Star Wars Fanboy (or Girl!)

* Star Wars Fans across the country gearing up for competition of a lifetime

* Fan-uploaded videos to be reviewed by film producers

* Winning entrant receives walk-on role in FANBOYS movie and more

iWantmyGTV: The Ultimate Star Wars Fanboy (or Girl!)

Technorati recovers from power outage!

Although all my blogs have not been updated yet, a post on technorati blog states that the services are back on after disastrous power outage in San Francisco.
A bunch other websites like Netflix, Craigslist, Typepad, Vox and LiveJournal had the same trouble. You can find web reactions at . TechCrunch, ValleyWag, Mashable.
I hope all the sites get spidered soon!

Xinu is Open! Usefull tool for your Blog

Xinu is Open! Useful tool for your Blog. I was using this tool just to check the status of mu blogs. (they are very unpopular! ;( ) anyway a little while ago the developer dropped the tool and made the source code available. Since then many people have implemented the tool and you can find a list of them at the site link below.
XINU

Tuesday, July 24, 2007

FaceBook may have to face the music!

A judge Boston will decide tomorrow if upcoming(?) very popular Facebook has a copyright case to answer. The founders of ConnectU.com, Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss and Divya Narenda filed a copyright infringement case against the social networking site, facebook in 2004.

Although Facebook is has been relatively new, (it opened it's door to public last september), the site has 31 million users worldwide, with membership now growing faster rate than its main rival's, MySpace, which has 60 million users.

Feacebook has turned down offers from giants such as Yahoo, which supposedly offered 1Billion. But the lawsuit is not helping it's ambitions of going IPO etc.

Zuckerberg, the founder has rejected the claims and will appear in the Boston US District Court on Wednesday, where Facebook will present its argument for the case to be dismissed.

Facebook has already filed a counter-suit alleging defamation.

Monday, July 23, 2007

Who hates their 30's

I don't but I love the series "I hate my 30's". I watch it when even I get a chance or when I am at home when VH1 airs it. But how many times are you home and remember to watch a show. Although I have a Tivo, I do not have used it in a long time. My partner does.
So I was very happy when Joost announced that it will be broadcasting "I hate my 30's" over the Joost. So far they have;

So if you are a "I hate my 30's" fan, head over to Joost to get 30's boost.
Joost post about "I hate my 30's"

Social Diva Goes Global!

NEW YORK, July 18 /PRNewswire/ -- Residents of NYC, Atlanta and Miami
already have lifestyle website Social Diva to help them be the "it" girl
who always has the newest bags hot off the runway, always scores prime real
estate at the hottest restaurants and nightclubs and effortlessly breezes
from one fabulous event to the next with not a hair out of place.
   Now British and European women can join the growing ranks of Divadom.
   The Original Social Diva, Peg Samuel, and protégé Lexi Tabback open the
velvet ropes in their new book "How to Be a Social Diva" (The Friday
Project, UK July 19, 2007) and share secrets about what you must always
wear even when wearing nothing, why the disco nap is a girl's best friend
and why dining alone is great for your social life.
   "Being a Social Diva transcends continents," said author Peg Samuel.
"Our 10 Commandments of Diva lifestyle empower women of all cities to live
up to their full and fabulous potential," she added.
   "How to Be a Social Diva" is being published in conjunction with the
newly launched UK website, http://socialdiva.co.uk., filled with the same
tips and advice that has made the US website so popular with women.
   The book is anticipated to be published in the U.S. later this year, in
time to coincide with the scheduled expansion of Social Diva into the San
Francisco and Los Angeles markets.
   To arrange an interview with Peg Samuel, please contact Jackie Saril at
jackie@squeakywheelpromotions.com or at 914.393.7043.
   Social Diva(TM) is an event and lifestyle website. Social Diva has been
featured on MSNBC, Fox Live News, ABC World News, Good Day New York,
Entrepreneur, Redbook, Star, WWD, Lucky Magazine, AM New York, and TBS' Sex
and the City as a NYC and Atlanta Trendsetter. How to Be a Social Diva (the
Friday Project UK) will be published this month. Social Diva monthly events
occur at diva-approved locations throughout Manhattan, Atlanta and Miami.

Sunday, July 22, 2007

The best of bikini's Three videos and Photos

The best Photos are here

Custom YouTube Player; iWantmyGTV: New YouTube Custom Player
Technorati plug experiment

Obama I still want you or Why I love all the people!

Chicago Sun times has said it best about this video running around in the YouTube.
""Obama, I still want you," the YouTube vixen whines in her latest romp titled "Debate '08," that ends with her taking on the "Giuliani Girls" in a pillow fight. That video has been watched more than 500,000 times.

You can imagine what will come next, because it's not the lyrics or even the novel nature of political parody that is driving so many to watch these videos. It's the boobs and booties."

Boobs and Booties still get what brains does not! 2.5 million hits on an Internet site.

Sasha, the couple's 6-year-old daughter, asked Obama: "Daddy, you have Mommy, right?" Michelle Obama told reporters.

"People should understand there are little kids involved. . . . We have to understand what we do can have an additional effect on children," she said. Very true for all the children in this world!

Still, the authentic "Obama Girl" knows that 2.5 million hits on an Internet site can't be all bad for the campaign, even if the traffic is being driven by a buxom wannabe.

"I think my husband is cute," Michelle Obama said. "So more power to the people who think he is cute as well."

Video is on iWantmyGTV: Obama I still want you!

Saturday, July 21, 2007

Your face, next search item!

J-MAGIC SEES MARKET FOR PICTURE-BASED SEARCH
Usually tools of security, face and image recognition technologies are making their way into other, more entertaining, fields. One of these services, kaocheki, (Trnaslated via Google beta)lets people send a digital photo of themselves or their friends from cell phone to find out which celebrity they like. Of course the picture is no problem with todays high res camera phones.
Using a face recognition engine developed by Oki Electric Industry Co., kaocheki is free of charge and simple to use. Within a few seconds, a photo sent to male@kaocheki.jp (for men) or female@kaocheki.jp (for women) will result in a list of your top three celebrity matches — complete with percentage.
Two-year-old mobile content provider J-Magic Inc. launched the service on a trial basis in late April. By early June, more than 22 million users had tried the service.

Although Google bought California-based photo recognition firm Neven Vision Inc. last year, it has yet to offer image recognition search services, although development is under way. Yahoo does not offer the services either, but says it is looking at a number of ways to improve its search functions.

Rather than text-based search engines, image and moving picture search engines will be the key to the Internet search industry in the near future, analysts say.

Some companies believe the kaocheki site has strong media potential, noting it has attracted not only tech-savvy teens and people in their early 20s, but also older people who don't usually take full advantage of cell phone functions.

"We aim to offer content that people enjoy and spend cash on, so that the content market will expand," said Miyata, who once worked as an engineer developing cell phone cameras. "People (regardless of age or sex) are naturally interested in their face."

Wounded Knee leads Emmy Nominations

The other social network, television, that groups millions of us, based on what we watch! is nearing its next award season, Emmy Nominations 2007 is getting ready for it's September 16th Award ceremony.
Shot in Calgary and southern Alberta, Buried My Heart at Wounded Knee featured many First Nations people from the area as extras, and has 17 nominations.
With all these, comes the nominations! Here are the nominees!

Selected Emmy nominees
Outstanding drama series	• The Sopranos • Boston Legal • Grey's Anatomy • Heroes • House
Lead actress in a drama	• Patricia Arquette, Medium • Falco, The Sopranos • Sally Field, Brothers & Sisters • Kyra Sedgwick, The Closer • Mariska Hargitay, Law & Order: Special Victims Unit
Lead actor in a drama series	• Gandolfini, The Sopranos • Hugh Laurie, House • Denis Leary, Rescue Me • James Spader, Boston Legal • Kiefer Sutherland, 24
Supporting actor in a drama series	• William Shatner, Boston Legal • T.R. Knight, Grey's Anatomy • Masi Oka, Heroes • Michael Emerson, Lost • Terry O'Quinn, Lost • Michael Imperioli, The Sopranos
Outstanding comedy series	• Entourage • The Office • 30 Rock • Two and A Half Men • Ugly Betty
Lead actor in a comedy series	• Alec Baldwin, 30 Rock • Steve Carell, The Office • Ricky Gervais, Extras • Tony Shalhoub, Monk • Charlie Sheen, Two and A Half Men
Lead actress in a comedy series	• America Ferrera, Ugly Betty • Tina Fey, 30 Rock • Felicity Huffman, Desperate Housewives • Julia Louis-Dreyfus, The New Adventures of Old Christine • Mary-Louise Parker, Weeds
Supporting actress in a comedy series	• Jaime Pressly, My Name is Earl • Jenna Fischer, The Office • Holland Taylor, Two And A Half Men • Conchata Ferrell, Two And A Half Men • Elizabeth Perkins, Weeds
Supporting actor in a comedy series	• Jon Cryer, Two And A Half Men • Kevin Dillon, Entourage • Jeremy Piven, Entourage • Neil Patrick Harris, How I Met Your Mother • Rainn Wilson, The Office

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows and summer reading time

As one of the best known social network with no physical or virtual connection other than a name of a young wizard, Harry Potter, connecting them together is ready to drive 12 million of US fans to a good well expected summer reading.

I remember the days long ago, how I spent summer reading books, a lot of books! Go kids, read, read anything. Not only Harry Potter are the books, there are bunch of them, a big bunch at your neighborhood library. Speaking of Libraries, it is time I wrote about Open Library Project!

From VA press;

Legions of Harry Potter fans around the world swarmed bookstores in the early hours of the morning Saturday, seizing the first opportunity to grab the seventh and last book of the series - Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows.

Despite leaked copies of the book appearing on the Internet in the lead-up to its release, Harry Potter fans showed they are still eager to know the fate of the boy wizard who is at the center of the series.

The Deathly Hallows is expected to be another triumph for British author J.K. Rowling and her publisher. Twelve million copies are being printed for the United States alone.

Friday, July 20, 2007

FaceBook and Parakey give adobe a itch! at least to a evengelist!

I was at Techcrunch and found out that FaceBook has purchased Parakey, WebOS that was soon to be released. If you are unfamiliar with WebOS or wondering what it is, Richard Macmanus' article (a bit old) should shed some light!
What is Parkey? I think you know by now that it an venture started by Co-Creator of Firefox, Blake Ross and Joe Hewitt to make life easier for average Joe! There is little to be known about the Company and the project! I just got this IEEE publication link from CrunchBase.
As I was writing this blurb, (That is all I do!) I came across another article wondering if Parakey+Facebook is a challenge to Adobe Air. I thought the article was a good one until I came up to the point "That makes it sound like a fairly limited application that you could build on top of Adobe AIR." That put a sour taste in my mouth!. And I am sure the author has not seen Parakey! other than a simple description of it. evangelize Adobe in another way!
Anyway the rest of the article is a fairly good sum up of the recent events surrounding FaceBook acquisition of Parakey and FaceBook's interest in Rich Internet Applications.

Wednesday, July 18, 2007

On line sing or jam along, Karaoke night tomorrow

On line sing or jam along, Karaoke night tomorrow yes July 18th! Beginning 8pm United States EDT / 5pm US PDT / 1am Thursday the 19th GMT. Come along, ya hear!

The song list includes:

Hey Jude (Beatles)

Your Song (Elton John)

I believe I Can Fly (R Kelly)

My Girl (Temptations)

American Pie (Don McLean)

Ring of Fire (Johnny Cash)

I'll Be (Edwin McCain)

Summer in the City (Lovin Spoonfu)l

Let's Give em Something (Bonnie Raitt)

eJamming's will be hosting a night for SINGERS and players over eJamming AUDiiO. John will provide a list of songs and you can Sing or Jam along. We will even provide charts with Chords and Lyrics for you all to follow.

Not a registered user yet?

Jing is ringing out to you! Jing 1.2.4 for Windows is out!

After going through and fixing all the (most of the) bugs that users reported, Jing has released a new version of their application for windows!. Jing 1.2.4.

Here are the goodies that you get with this release according to a post on their blog:

Correctly run on non-US formatted date systems
Ability to install and run on 64-bit systems (we still run in 32-bit mode)
Limit to a single copy of Jing running on a machine.

Don't know what Jing is? well I did not either until a friend of mine guided me there. For me it has resolved the issues of screen casting! I do screen cast for people whom I do Oracle consultation for.
It is much easier to describe how Data guard is setup and and verify that a RAC cluster is getting replicated properly with a good screen cast.
Here is Jing's description of Jing;

Tuesday, July 17, 2007

myNBC, NBCspace in the virtual world!

Just like everyone NBC is jumping in the social network band wagon. Looks like it is going to find you friends, virtual ones, to watch TV shows with!

According to a post By Louise Story, on Bits, The television network, which airs “Heroes,” “The Office” and “The Biggest Loser,” announced the creation of what it is calling “myNBC.” On that site, television fans can create profiles about themselves, upload user-generated content, join groups, create photo and video galleries and chat with people who love (or hate) the same shows.

Sounds a bit like MySpace or Facebook.

But Charlene Li, an analyst at Forrester Research, said she thinks it will be successful: “It allows people to be able to talk with like-minded people.”

Ms. Li pointed out that there are already more than 90,000 post on an online forum for “Heroes.” “There is already a very, very, very vibrant community there,” she said, adding that she is an avid fan herself.

Others think that NBC should be focusing on getting its programs onto established social networks rather than creating its own. “It’s a difficult strategy for NBC to pull new users into a social networking environment,” said Andy Plesser, publisher of Beet.TV, a blog about online video. “They need to look to be part of social networks outside of their own proprietary real estate.”

Social network aggregators the first 21st

Are you getting lost among all these social networking sites? Did you have to ask for your password over and over vial email? (did you remember which email account you used?).
Anyway if those hundreds of Social networking sites making your life easier by making it harder, you got one more things coming!
Social network aggregators! This group is a relatively new breed services which try to consolidate all your various social networking profiles into one, with varying success. Mashable's Stan takes you through 20 of those which he thinks has a right to be mentioned. He even gives you free 21st of these aggregators! as a bonus.
Profilactic, Minggl, iStalkr, Correlate.us, and Explode.us are the first five! so take a ride to Mashable land and read, follow and chose the best!

20 Ways To Aggregate Your Social Networking Profiles

Sunday, July 15, 2007

With Kijiji, ebay competes with 25% of itself, Craigslist

Kijiji.com (US version) is a competitor to Craigslist that has a pretty front end may be ebay wanted to call it craigslist 2.0! The Kijiji started in Canada and went around the world before coming to battle against well established CL.
I still visit craigslist for various things weekly or monthly! sometimes to buy things and some times to see trends in new gear! (Like what GPS's are people dumping faster) or a screen for my iPaq that I broke! (It is cheaper to by an old iPaq from Craigslist than a part from manufacturer, HP!)
Anyway why ebay is pitting kijiji (village in Swahili)? Kijiji has operated since its 2005 founding in Canada, France, Germany, Italy, China, Japan, Taiwan, Austria, Switzerland, and India.
For years Craigslist's free listings have been carving into the bread-and-butter classified revenues of the newspaper industry.
It's simple interface and ease of posting and managing a post has made it a popular portal. I have not seen a single news paper classified ads for years. But will I kijiji myself? don't know yet and depends entirely on what it will carry! Old medium format cameras and lenses? Concert tickets?
will see!

Web 2.0 to improve Student Graduation!

"All the other Web 2.0 tools we have evaluated are either much more complex or suitable only for very small applications," said Eljakim Schrijvers, CEO of Eljakim IT, as he confirmed that his company had used ActiveGrid – an Enterprise Web 2.0 solution for application developers – to build an attendance tracking system called Carel, a web-based, e-government application that manages student attendance in the Netherlands to improve the graduation rates.
So says an article on Social Computing.

Saturday, July 14, 2007

I have an ID, OpenID

After putting off for a long while, I got my OpenID today. I am using it on sites that promote OpenID and might use myself on an upcoming project.
But that is a different task from just end user OpenID. Getting your OpenID is a simple task, lasting less than a minute.
If you're an end-user and want to learn more and acquire an OpenID, check out the iwantmyopenid.org website on ways you can helps spread the good word about this fantastic new technology.
But as a developer, you might want to go here, OpenID website. WeSeePeople will be integrating OpenID for the project WeSeePeople and I am heading to above site to immerse myself in an identity crisis! Because, I have tried many ID systems and have failed to create a meaningful solution. There is also a bounty for any new startups that use OpenID and the identity solution.
Once you have gained your OpenID, you can test out the PIBB site, OpenID's communication platform. You can login with your OpenID account and view some of the channels that have been created. I went directly to the Pibb Discussion channel. Pibb has a newly updated interface but I do not know the old one so, this is the only one I know. But the usage was easy and did not run in to any problems.
Get identified, globaly

Internet Radio is still playing!

Another social gathering medium, Internet Radio, which was slated to be announced dead due to unreasonable rate hike, has got a stay!
Geemodo: Internet Radio gets a stay!

Friday, July 13, 2007

SMS your calendar, Google Calendar , and keep everyone happy!

If you value your work, your families and friends, keeping in touch is very important. What is more important is that that you do all these in an orderly manner.
Being late to a meeting will not make a good impression unless you are the boss. (It is hard to be a boss, if you are always late!) Making your appointee wait for ever for you is will make that appointment a bit sour one. You will be known as a reliable person or discarded as an unreliable on in many peoples lives!
So you get a call and after clearing up formalities, you make an appointment, say bye and make a mental note to remember it and jot down on something as soon as you get off the pavement. But before you could even get to your desk multiple tasks pour in direction faster than breached dam! and you forget the appointment. Another unhappy customer, mad family member or a person less friendly some where thinking about you!
So what do you do? if you have a Gmail account and if you are using the Google Calender, those missed appointment might be a thing of past!

Shirin Oskooi, Google Calendar Associate Product Manager. has posted on Gmail Blog that you can send text messages to add events to their calendar or find out what events they have coming up.

Here's how it works: send a text message to "GVENT" (48368) with information about an event, like "3pm cappuccino at Borrone's," and this event will be added to your calendar. Just like the "Quick Add" feature in Google Calendar, GVENT will pop the event into your calendar in the right place. You'll get a text message back confirming the details of your event. Or, send the word "day" to "GVENT" to get a text message response containing all of your scheduled events for today, "next" for your next scheduled event, or "nday" for all your events scheduled for tomorrow. You can learn more about GVENT in the help center.

Gmail Blog article!
Official Gmail Blog: SMS to update your Google Calendar

Waitress gets collage money as a tip from a customer

No it was not from a sugar daddy, but a family of regular customers that got to know the waitress, Jessica. For her friendliness and positive attitude, even though she was struggling to go to college. Most people would have been sour and frustrated and those thing will begin to show, in ones life.
It is always better to be nice to people around you, you may not get $10000.00 but I am sure a plenty of smiles and praises. What better social networking! One of the people I respect, have told me and also have written,
"Unless you are happy, you cannot make others around you happy", so Becky and Jessica both decided to be happy and do the right thing, treat people right!, even though they both were on hard times.
"It was just a typical day on the job at the Pizza Hut in Angola, Ind., for 20-year-old Jessica Osborne when out of the blue, she received a gift that would change her life: a $10,000 tip from one of her customers.

"When I opened it up, I just — I thought maybe I read too many zeros and I lost my breath," Osborne said on "Good Morning America." "It was amazing.""

Read more about both at ABC News article.

Wednesday, July 11, 2007

Discovery Channel and Animal Planet on the prowl to acquire social networking Web sites

Discovery Channel and Animal Planet on the prowl to acquire social networking Web sites
Discovery Communications Inc., owner of cable TV's Discovery Channel and Animal Planet, plans to buy social networking Web sites to complement its Internet business, Chief Executive David Zaslav said.

``We need to grow in new media,'' Zaslav told reporters last night at the annual Allen & Co. media conference in Sun Valley, Idaho. ``There are a lot of great companies here,'' he said. ``This gives us a chance to get a little more acquainted.''

Zaslav didn't name any potential acquisition targets. Facebook, Sling Media Inc. and LinkedIn Corp. are among social networking and other new media companies at the conference. Silver Spring, Maryland-based Discovery said in May it would close 103 stores and cut its workforce by about 25 percent to focus on selling toys, books and games on the Internet and through retailers.

Continued at Bloomberg..

Tuesday, July 10, 2007

Email etiquette keep it close @ hand

I received this via an email from a list that I subscribe at HP! So first of all it is not my ideas but as Good! as my own ideas! I think it is something that we really need to think a little bit about!

Email etiquette keep it close @ hand

1. Always think twice

Okay, you’re angry or upset. Write your e-mail. Save it. Read it. Go have a coffee. Read it again. Then ask yourself the big question – is it really worth sending? Chances are it isn’t.

2. Keep it clean

Remember that everyone will interpret things differently. Jokes, pictures and lewd comments can truly offend.

3. Empathize with the reader

Think of the things you don’t like to receive in an e-mail. For example, are people always shouting IMPORTANT things in upper case, using hundreds of abbreviations and emoticons, sending large attachments? If you don’t like receiving certain things, why send them to others?

(I sometimes get attachments that are word documents containing uncompressed screen captures, from people who work with computers! I always make sure the attachments are as small as they could be!!)

4. Check the 'send to' list before you send

Believe it or not, everyone doesn’t want to read your e-mail and you just might be sending your scathing thoughts about someone to everyone.

Tip: Draft your e-mail first – leaving who it is intended for in the To: line blank. If you accidentally hit “send” before you actually intended to, a prompt will remind you to input the recipient’s e-mail address. It’s a direct way to make sure your messages don’t go out before you want them to and gives you time to consider who really needs to be on the receiving end of the message.

5. Be polite

Whether at your desk or texting a message from your phone, saying ‘hello’ and ‘thanks’ in the introduction, anywhere throughout, or even waiting until the end of the message can make a huge difference.

6. Resist temptation

Yes, something was said. Yes, maybe you were criticized. Perhaps you were CC’d on an exchange between a colleague and your boss. How you respond next will say everything about you. Remember, once something is said, it can never be taken back.

7. See Point 1.

Baseball and our Nation!

From At&T Park in San Francisco! Boy don't we have a national past time! Due to some generous people in San Francisco, I am able to watch the All star game today. I am happy to see all these happy excited people. Now it is National Anthem Time! with Jets soaring overhead!
WIllie Mays, The Say Hey Kid, is on the field now! on a Pink Cadillac!
I am going to enjoy the Game!
From my Nokia N800! L8R!

38°49'4.40"N, 121°29'39.82"E. or Google Earth as a intelligence tool

Strategic Security blog reports about a large Chinese submarine docked in China. May be countries without big intelligence budgets also using Google Earth to do their Spy work! But the article is very informative and so is the following commentaries;
A commercial satellite image appears to have captured China's new nuclear ballistic missile submarine. The new class, known as the Jin-class or Type 094, is expected to replace the unsuccessful Xia-class (Type 092) of a single boat built in the early 1980s.

The new submarine was photographed by the commercial Quickbird satellite in late 2006 and the image is freely available on the Google Earth web site.

Monday, July 09, 2007

Skinkers to take on Joost

According to a post on ARSTechnica, Microsoft may be challenging Joost, They even go far as saying Joost Killer, Skinkers! Might have worked, if it was named snickers! Well we got to wait and see!
Using LiveStation, PC users can watch live, uninterrupted television from the comfort of their computer chairs. Developed by a London-based company known as Skinkers using technology from Microsoft Research, LiveStation is a way to stream live television content over a peer-to-peer network and use Silverlight to display that content content on the client's system. "This product allows you to steam live television on a computer over a peer-to-peer network, which means you don't need to use all the traditional server infrastructure and bandwidth associated with streaming," said Matteo Berlucchi, co-founder of Skinkers.

Digication reaches 1,000th School Milestone in First Academic Year

PROVIDENCE, R.I.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--The students and teachers of the Boston Community Leadership Academy (BCLA) in Brighton, MA, are pioneering an educational trend to publish projects to the Internet with e-Portfolios. BCLA last month became the milestone 1,000th school working with Digication, an entirely new concept in educational software and web publishing that is Simple by Design. With no training required, and no budget approval necessary (Digication is free for up to 1,000 students at any U.S. school), four senior history classes at BCLA began using Digication’s web-based e-Portfolio solution immediately—highlighting an impressive Senior Capstone project where more than 60 students published and archived this culmination of their high school work to the Internet (http://bcla.digication.com/BCLAcapstoneclass).

“When we launched Digication at the start of the school year, our handful of pilot project schools had shown the simple yet powerful approach to integrating technology in the classroom was effective, but closing the academic year with widespread adoption by users at more than 1,000 schools exceeded even our loftiest expectations,” said Jeffrey Yan, CEO of Digication and an educator at several New England universities. “Students and teachers are starved for effective technology that can motivate students and drive a more collaborative learning process. By filling that need, Digication is now creating online learning communities at schools in nearly every state across the nation.”

Digication is centered around the creation, publication, discussion and archiving of educational content to the web with dynamic e-Portfolios. Simple by Design, users can skip the typical roadblocks of learning a new technology, and jump right into benefiting from the significant impact that customized technology can have upon today’s learning experience.

Friday, July 06, 2007

Accelerate your Social networking!

If you looking to make your online work easier and more productive, and you are using the Social networking tools, then these toolbars and plug-ins for the Firefox web browser will accelerate your interaction with leading social networks.
Most Useful Social Toolbars for Firefox by Lifehacker Blog

Thursday, July 05, 2007

Ron Paul leads with number of groups at Meetup.com

The Social network organization, Meetup.com where members meet on a weekly or bi-weekly basis volunteering on the ground for their political candidate (in the case of this subject) or any other reason that matters.(Whatever your interest, where ever you are!)
It has become a major grass roots hub for people who wants to support their chosen candidate for 2008 Presidential Elections. Candidate Ron Paul leads the entire group of Presidential hopefuls with 416 groups and 14,649 members. Obama is 2nd with 70 groups and 3,836 members. Following is a chart with a full breakdown by candidate

Popular Topics in Candidates according to Meetup com;

Ron Paul 2008
416 Meetup Groups

Draft Al Gore
108 Meetup Groups

Barack Obama
70 Meetup Groups

John Edwards / One America
45 Meetup Groups

Dennis Kucinich
43 Meetup Groups

Hillary Rodham Clinton
29 Meetup Groups

and many more...

Alloy Media Releases Findings from Social Networking and Advertising Study

Via businesswire.com;
Report Offers Important Guidance To Advertising Effectively Within Expanding Social Networking Arena

Key Findings Reveal 71% of Online Teens and Tweens visit SN sites weekly while marketers gain impact and influence. More than half of all teens—and nearly half of all online 9-17 year olds reported participation in advertiser-branded interactive activities in past month.

NEW YORK--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Alloy Media + Marketing (Nasdaq:ALOY) today released findings from a white paper, commissioned from a recent national study conducted by Grunwald Associates, that delves into tween and teen behaviors and attitudes about advertising within the social networking environment. The white paper examines youth as well as parental perceptions about advertising across social media and presents advertisers with solutions to facilitate effective campaigns.

The study validates that social networking is now an embedded component in the lifestyles of online teens and tweens. 81% of online 9-17 year olds say that they have visited a social networking website within the past 3 months. 71% of online 9-17 year olds visit these sites at least weekly. In a broader context, 96% of online teens/tweens report ever having used any type of social networking technology including IM/chat, text messaging and email. With social networking’s increasing status, the white paper provides advertisers crucial insights to successfully navigate a world in which youth command increasing control and provides guidance to help brands enhance youth perception, avoid being alienated by their young “friends” and benefit from this revolutionary opportunity to redefine their relationship with these consumers and to make a positive impact on their online social experience.

Samantha Skey, EVP, Strategic Marketing, Alloy Media + Marketing states, “As the social networking population has grown, so has the sophistication and intensity of users’ engagement and activities across the space. The swift pace at which new applications infiltrate and enhance user experience are challenging brands, and offering them an opportunity to regain relevance. Kids want more freebies, more connection and more production utilities, and brands have the opportunity to jump in and facilitate.”

The report reveals that teens and tweens are using the SN forum for a wide range of activities from music and video sharing, blogging and member surfing to more sophisticated authoring activities such as site building and content creation with increasingly high frequency. Further, with the significant growth of online activity, findings prove social networking use is approaching near parity with TV time among online 9-17 year olds that use SN. In fact, the majority of teens are spending more time with new media than traditional media and when asked where their mindshare goes while they multitask between TV and online, the proportion who say they focus mainly online exceeds those who say they focus mainly on television by more than 4:1.

User experience with advertising offers additional insights into the role marketers play in the online space. Nearly half (47%) of 9-17 year olds, including more than half (55%) of teens, report participation in one or more advertiser branded activity types in the last month. While consumers tend to say they prefer most of their online experiences be void of too many commercial messages, the study found that kids, as well as their parents, will welcome brands that provide them with a distinct value proposition that enhances their identity and overall online experience. Both kids and their parents agree that social networking offers a platform ripe with opportunity to be educated, entertained and engaged and that marketers can effectively co-exist, and be fully embraced, if they’re helping youth to achieve their online goals.

I’M NOT JUST A KID - I’M A PRODUCER, PUBLISHER AND PROMOTER

One of the unique attributes of social networking sites is that users not only help to edit and contribute to content, but users, through their personal profiles, have also become content. As tools become more developed and accessible, there’s been an explosion in more advanced forms of engagement in both popularity and intensity of use. With such increased utility and sophistication of tools available, it’s no surprise that kids today have emerged as an influential media platform, with a powerful voice.

Impressively, teens are vigorously creating and maintaining their online personal spaces with a significant 60% having created profiles or personal sites and almost 20% updating their sites or profiles at least once a day. Online tweens and teens are voraciously leveraging social networking tools to become copious and sophisticated online publishers. 64% of teens are uploading photos and 42% of teens are creating characters, avatars, such as Meez, or anime to express themselves across their personal profiles.

YOUR BRAND HERE

The report offers advertisers significant data on the types of information young people say they’d like to receive within the social networking environment and further reinforces that this group welcomes the interaction from brands so long as they are incorporating their message appropriately.

More than 90% of tweens and teens say they’d like to hear about one or more types of entertainment products in SN sites and close to half (45%) state they’d like to hear about enthusiast or special interest products, such as technology, sports, and automotive. Four in ten, including more than two-thirds of girls (68%), say they’d like to hear about apparel and personal care products on SN sites and one-quarter want to hear about food and beverage products. 31% also report that they want to hear about more serious offerings such as college information or products that can help them with school.

Overall, 20% of teens report adding branded content to their own websites in the last month - encouraging news for marketers aiming to secure a spot across users personal spaces.

“Social networking sites not only offer an amenable forum for brands to share information with their “friends”, it offers them tremendous opportunity for that message to be shared with the users’ wide network of like minded peers,” said Skey. “Communicating with friends holds top priority with the youth audience across the social media space and marketers who can attract them with the right content and services will be rewarded with favorable and valuable peer propagation of their brand’s message.”

TELLING MOM & DAD

The study highlights the significance of the role of parents in their children’s online behaviors and the findings advocate that advertisers seeking to connect with tween and teen audiences should acknowledge parents’ unique influence over their children’s online behavior. The data reveals the considerable weight mom and dad carry across the online environment.

50% of online tweens and teens reports finding out about new websites (not confined to social networking sites) from their parents vs. 44% that use web searches to find new sites. Offering more insight into the depth of the parent/kid dynamic, the study shows that a significant 66% of tweens and teens (including 60% of teens) have “been on the internet together” with their parents in the past month, with 71% reporting they’ve discussed the internet with their parents as well. 96% of online 9-17 year olds (including 94% of teens) report one or more rules or restrictions over their internet use in the home.

Similar to the views of their offspring, parents too are eager to see advertisers improve the social networking experience and will recognize and reward sponsors who they feel offer their children improvements and enhancements online. Overall, parents generally have a positive view of advertisers who sponsor services clearly designed to help their children become successful adults.

Advertisers who want to win the favor of both parents and 9-17 year olds appear to have a clear set of choices. Sponsorship of educational services and activities and points and reward programs appear to warrant the stamp of approval from both parties and receive the strongest net positive response from all respondents. Sponsoring tools that help kids achieve their online communication and production goals also score well. When asked about advertising placements, parents appear more positive about content that creatively engages their children and asks for their feedback, such as offers and information included in quizzes and polls.

RAISING YOUR BRAND’S CAPITAL –REALIZING YOUR FULL SOCIAL NET WORTH

Study conclusions provide marketers with key recommendations to driving a positive and mutually beneficial relationship with the youth market. Social networking environments clearly provide fertile ground for the use of innovative, new media tactics, offering advertisers tremendous opportunity to reach consumers while integrating their brands and messages into their audience’s daily lives.

“The social media landscape appears to offer nearly limitless opportunity for brands to deepen and broaden their relationship with customers, yet out research shows that today’s young media producers will put a limit on messages that don’t treat them as partners.”, states Peter Grunwald, President, Grunwald Associates. “For advertisers vying for the right to participate in their world, the white paper uncovered key insights and guidance for making a proper entry.”

For marketers to achieve their full social net worth, following the rules set by their consumers and their parents offer the most reward:

Be Sensitive: Marketers must respect social network user’s feelings of ownership and emotional attachment to their profile pages. Marketers and site owners who maintain a clear separation between their content and kids’ personal content as well as involve kids in the advertising process, have the best chance to gain acceptance from kids who don’t want brands infiltrating their spaces without their approval.

Be Useful: Marketers will be welcomed if they help kids reach their online goals. Through creative site building tools and special content offerings that enhance their spaces, such as games, video, and virtual characters, users will recognize your brands value to their personal pages. Many tweens and teens will gladly place advertising on their sites in exchange for useful content and tools. Parents will support brands that are helping their children with what they feel to be important skill set building and educational activities.

Be Fun: Marketers must appeal to young social network users need to be entertained. Kids were most positive about sponsors associated with free access to digital entertainment such as music, games, and video. Such offerings enhance their experience and their personal spaces and can also be invested with educational value, further garnering the approval of parents.

Be Interested: Marketers should treat young people as their partners. Social networking offers abundant opportunity for brands to capture important information from this audience and brand that are engaging them in the creation of their products and in the process of achieving their advertising goals will be most successful over time.

Be Innovative: Marketers must raise the bar. Kids are seeking new tools and the latest technology to enhance their personal spaces and social interactions online. Brands have significant opportunity to capitalize on tweens and teens creative and social desires by supplying them with the tools that will make them stand out amongst their peers and in return, brands will gain their valuable support.

Skey concluded, “Marketers have tremendous opportunity to solidify authentic connections to these modern content drivers if they heed to the demands of young consumers and provide them with the value and the utility they’ve come to expect. Send the right message and you can attract the right group of loyal “friends” and brand advocates.”

Study Methodology

This white paper draws heavily on findings from Kids’ Social Networking a new study from Grunwald Associates underwritten by Microsoft, News Corporation, and Verizon. The study is comprised of three parallel national surveys of children ages 9-17, parents and school district decision-makers. Carefully constructed nationally representative samples of 1,277 teens/children, 1,039 parents and 250 school districts were used.

More detailed results and analysis using demographic and psychographic profiles are available directly from Grunwald Associates. For information on obtaining this analysis along with the underlying data from these surveys, please contact Grunwald Associates (301) 263-9192 or info@grunwald.com

For more information regarding the white paper, please contact:

Jodi Smith
jsmith@alloymarketing.com
Alloy Media + Marketing
212-329-8359

Businesswire.com Publication

It's Summer. It's Harry Potter time again!

The little people, children, whom I love and respect most, have a busy summer on their hands. Pixar Movie Ratatouille was a treat! I enjoyed it with a cinema full of little people. I would suggest any one to go and see it, when you guys and girls are done with Transformers!

But what's more? Harry Potter book and Harry Potter Movie!
The seventh and final book of Potter series, "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows", by JKRowling has become Amazon's most popular pre-ordered product.
Potter the wizard's fate will be known July 21 with the release of the Book 7 of Rowling's fantasy epic. Worldwide sales of the first six books already top 325 million copies and the first printing for seventh is 12 million in the United States alone.

"Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix," the fifth Potter film, is a guaranteed blockbuster. The first four Potter movies have grossed more than $3 billion worldwide, and sales for the soundtracks top 1 million copies, according to Nielsen SoundScan, which tracks the retail market. Potter is the rare literary series to inspire a video game and is expected to have a theme park, in Orlando, Fla., by 2010.

Women are more domineering!

A study of 72 married couples from Iowa found that wives, on average, exhibit greater situational power -- in the form of domineering and dominant behaviors -- than their husbands during problem-solving discussions, regardless of who raised the topic.
An ISU research team - led by David Vogel, associate professor of psychology, and Megan Murphy, assistant professor of human development and family studies - interviewed 72 married couples. The participants were either staff, faculty or students at ISU, so the results don't necessarily apply to people across all economic or social backgrounds, Vogel acknowledged.

The examples of wives' influence over husbands played out in videotaped conversations between the couples about issues in their lives.

"Someone would say, 'I think our house is too messy, it's always too messy,' and the partner would say, 'I agree,' " Murphy said.
Follow up the study at ISU News

Adam Hertz and Tantek Celik leaves Technorati!

Adam Hertz and Tantek Celik has left Technorati to pursue other interests according to a post by Dave Sifry.
I am not much familiar with Adam other than that he was the VP of Engineering. But Tantek, I have known (not on personal level) for a while. According to Dave they will not venture very far from Technorati. Adam will be the first Fellow and Tantek will be on the Board of Advisors.
As per Dave;
"So, as both leave Technorati to pursue other interests, I simply want to say: thank you. I also want to say that it makes me very happy they both will remain as part of our extended family. On the fourth anniversary of Technorati, it seemed the right time to create a Technorati Fellows program and I've asked Adam to be our very first Technorati fellow. In this role, Adam will continue to offer strategic advice and support to me and to others here at Technorati moving forward. Tantek will join the Technorati Board of Advisors so we'll continue to benefit from his guidance and wisdom as he moves on to ever-greater heights."

Wednesday, July 04, 2007

TouchGraph now touches Facebook!

Touchgraph that touched Google and Amazon has now announced the release of the TouchGraph Facebook Browser.

TouchGraph is leveraging the power of the booming Facebook Platform, allowing users to explore their Friends and Photos.

I have so far explored the Google and Amazon. I still hang around TouchGraph's open source project at Sourceforge.

For the Love of Books! with help from Google!

I'm very happy about efforts by Google to make books available to EVERYONE, which ultimately have the potential to make the experience of accessing information for visually impaired users just as easy as it is for those with sight.
Blind Technologist at Google, T.V. Raman explains it better, "My reading used to be determined by what was available in a form I could read. But today it's a question of using Google effectively so that I can find the right thing to read. Today's Book Search launch is an excellent example of how technology is truly democratizing access to the world's information."
You can get more information about these and projects that Ramen works on, visit Google Accessible Search, Google Book Search. The latter is opening up thousands of books to people who use adaptive technologies such as speech output, screen readers, and Braille displays.
I know the thirst I had/have for books! There were times when I read 4 books a week! I love Books but never stopped to think how others read! Yes I encourage youngsters to read, yet never paid a lot of attention to people who use adaptive technologies to have the pleasures I take for granted. Thanks!
Official Google Blog: Ever more books to read

Monday, July 02, 2007

Vote for New 7 Wonders of the world

There has been a large movement to select Seven New wonders of the world. Of the old seven wonders, only the Pyramids of Giza remains and has received a honorary place on the list.
At the end of 2005, the N7W panel chose 21 candidates from the top 77 nominees that had earned the most votes, and these 21 are now in the final stage of the competition. The official N7W 21 finalist candidates were announced by the panel's President, Prof. Federico Mayor, on January 1, 2006 in Zurich.

The final round of voting for the New 7 Wonders will continue through the first half of 2007. Then, on July 7, 2007 -07.07.07, the dream of the N7W initiators will become a reality as the globe joins together to celebrate the New 7 Wonders of the World, as chosen by the world's population using modern communications technology.

You can join the N7W Society now. Become an official part of this dynamic community and support this historic project.

... be a part of the making of history ! The New 7 Wonders of the World will be announced during the Official Declaration ceremony in Lisbon, Portugal on Saturday, July 7, 2007 - 07.07.07.

How I expect world leaders to be!

President Bush and Russian President Vladimir Putin projected a united front Monday against Iran's suspected nuclear weapons program.

"When Russia and the United States speak along the same lines, it tends to have an effect and therefore I appreciate the Russians' attitude in the United Nations," Bush said. "We're close on recognizing that we got to work together to send a common message."

Putin predicted that "we will continue to be successful" as they work through the U.N. Security Council.

Information courtesy of MSNBC.

Padma Lakshmi, Salman Rushdie to Split?

"Top Chef" host Padma Lakshmi's marriage to Nobel Prize-winning author Salman Rushdie is over, according to a rep for the author.

"Salman Rushdie has agreed to divorce his wife, Padma Lakshmi, because of her desire to end their marriage," spokeswoman Jin Auh said in a statement issued to Reuters. "He asks that the media respect his privacy at this difficult time," the statement also said.

While Rushdie was busy being knighted by Queen Elizabeth II last week, his much younger wife was spotted partying till the wee hours at the Rose Bar at the Gramercy Park Hotel with a well-known chef, who also happens to be married.

A source revealed that the two looked ‘very interested’ in each other and were oblivious to the world around them.

"They seemed to be quite interested in what each other had to say. They were oblivious to the people around them," the New York Post quoted the source, as saying.

A friend of the model however said that the two are ‘just friends’.

When the Indian-born Rushdie started his romance with the model more than 20 years his junior, the British tabloids made much of their differences in age and intellectual stature.

But Rushdie always defended his wife.

“Anyone who’s met Padma knows she’s as intelligent as they come,” he told The Times of London in a 2005 interview.

Transformers Channel on Joost!

If you are a fan of Transformers or just curious how they came to be, Joost is the place/the thing, one to see some aspects of how it all began.
(You need Joost to watch these movies/TV Shows. If you don't have Joost, leave a comment for an invite!) Joost Transformers channel currently has;
Transformers they are "Robots in Disguise" and more, much more than meets the eye!

Transformers, the age old conflict between heroic Autobots and the evil Decepticons rage anew, but this time, with Earth set in the crosshairs of their intergalactic struggle. The valiant Optimus Prime, noble leader of the peace loving Autobots rallies his forces of good against Megatron, the tyrannical leader of the Decepticons as these warring factions battle across time and space.
You need Joost to watch these movies/TV Shows. If you don't have Joost, leave a comment for an invite!

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