Ajax Girl

Warning: this post is not for my readers without a sense of humor. If you have no sense of humor, skip to the next story post haste. If you have a sense of humor, please treat yourself to some nightcap entertainment by way of JibJab’s latest release, “Nuckin’ Futs.”

JibJab, a digital comedy network, is known for its parody cartoons, such as “This Land,” the Bush/Kerry cartoon that circulated the Web during the 2004 presidential elections. “Nuckin’ Futs” is a tongue-in-cheek look at world culture from 2006. In case you missed it, Lance Bass is gay, Britney Spears is divorcing and flashing her private parts, Mel Gibson is a drunk bastard, and Fidel Castro is barely alive. All of these points and more are covered in the melody, set to the tune of Jingle Bells. It’s not PC. Not even a little.

“The Web gives us the creative freedom to make videos we think are funny without having to worry about what a studio executive is going to think,” said Gregg and Evan Spiridellis, co-founders of JibJab, in a statement sent to TechCrunch on Monday. “We are in the midst of a media revolution where mega-media conglomerates are losing their grip on the audience and new brands like JibJab are being born. It’s a very exciting time to be creative entrepreneurs.”

TechCrunch reviewed some JibJab videos in October. Not only did we LOL, we maintained that JibJab has some serious market potential in the online content channel space.

“Nuckin’ Futs” will premiere tonight on the “Tonight Show with Jay Leno,” making it the eighth JibJab video to appear on the show. It is now available for free on JibJab’s site, or MSNVideo.

“Nuckin’ Futs” is nuckin’ funny! Our only complaint is that TechCrunch was left out of the parody. I mean, what says pop culture more than a tech blog/news site!?

“Funny that you say that but I mentioned to Gregg that we need to figure out how to do that in a future release,” said Dave Schappell, vice president of marketing for JibJab. “We actually worked in Google/YouTube. Thought everyone in the Bay Area would get a chuckle out of that.”

Crunch Network: CrunchGear drool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware.

Source: TechCrunch
Original Article: http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/60544049/

The November Comscore numbers show the inevitable: Fox Interactive (mostly MySpace) now has more page views than the combined Yahoo sites, taking the no. 1 spot for the first time. This was less to do with MySpace growth than with a 9% dip in overall Yahoo traffic (total Internet traffic for all sites in November dipped just 3%; Google was up 5%).

Yahoo still dominates in total unique vistors, though, with over twice as many people visiting Yahoo sites as MySpace. The end game isn’t page views, its user attention and, ultimately, revenue. Still, MySpace has every reason to pop the champagne today and celebrate their 200% growth in page views over the last twelve months.

One or two quick acquisitions, of course, would put Yahoo right back in the no. 1 spot.

Crunch Network: CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0

Source: TechCrunch
Original Article: http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/60532430/

There’s this little storefront on Ashland avenue in the Bucktown neighborhood in Chicago called Marrakech Cuisine. If you’re not looking for it you’d ignore it. And if you were looking for it you might even think it was the wrong place.

In the front you’ll find authentic Moroccan lamps, hand-made jewelry, wood carvings, boxes, and other imported curiosities. But the real treasure is in the sunken, dimly lit room in the back.

The first treasure is the owner. He’s a gentle, soft spoken man with a smile baked into his face. He sells you the lamps, he takes your order, he cooks your food, he serves your food, and he rings you up. He’s not quick, but there’s no reason to rush.

The second treasure is the food. The menu is simple and fairly priced. Everything I’ve tried is good — especially the Harrira, the Lentil Salad, and the Atlas Tajine. This is food made by someone who cares about what he cooks and what you eat. The ingredients are fresh, and the flavors are just right, and the portions are proper (read: not too big).

Finishing off the meal with some tea made from fresh mint leaves, rosewater, and the slightest touch of honey is highly recommended. It goes well with his homemade sticky Baklawa.

This place is such a great escape from the busy street and the fussy cuisine that’s popping up all over. You’ll never need a reservation. Don’t be alarmed if you’re the only one there. It’s guaranteed good food with a truly personal touch that seems rare these days.

I would have never walked in this place had someone not recommended it to me. That’s why I’m passing on my recommendation to you. Good eats.

Source: Signal vs. Noise
Original Article: http://www.37signals.com/svn/posts/157-marrakech-cuisine-a-moroccan-restaurant-recommendation

A beta version of The Venice Project launched today. It is the Internet TV start-up from Kazaa and Skype founders Niklas Zennstrom and Janus Friis.

TechCrunch first got wind of the project in October.

“We set out to try to merge the best of TV and the best of the Internet and I think we have just taken a big step on a long journey,” said Friis today on his blog. “For a few months we have been quietly testing with a small circle of people. Now, we’re going to expand that circle – with more and more people getting invited. If you want to take it for a spin, get an invitation from an existing beta tester. The next months will bring many additional product features both on the end user and content provider side of things. And, importantly, more and more content. What you’ll see now is a preview of some of the categories of content you will find.”

GigaOm is reporting that early beta testers were not impressed, saying the site has a “bad interface, no text description of what the buttons mean, [and the] quality of video goes up and down very much.”

Crunch Network: MobileCrunch Mobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily.

Source: TechCrunch
Original Article: http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/60471393/

Salesforce has figured out a way to monetize the AppExchange marketplace. Today at a lunch event in San Francisco, CEO and chairman Marc Benioff announced AppStore, an online store for enterprise software as a service (SaaS).

AppStore will be the one-stop shopping place for on-demand software, starting in Q1 of 2007. Developers and partners will be able to sell their programs directly through the AppStore and Salesforce will make a referral fee, based on the performance of the product.

“AppExchange has been a big hit but we’ve consistently had people ask us, ‘But what is your strategy to monetize AppExchange?’” Benioff said. “So we thought, ‘What if we took the iTunes concept to complete the transaction?’ This has been our vision for a long time. In fact, we bought the AppStore domain before we ever launched AppExchange.

Currently, AppExchange has over 430 applications from over 230 Salesforce partners, built on the Apex on-demand platform. AppStore was designed to allow partners and customers find each other and complete their transactions easier.

Software in AppStore is listed by type such as Human Resources or Mapping software. Users will see sponsored results before general listings. The sponsored results will be the ones paying higher commission to Salesforce. Once a program is selected, an administrator can complete the purchase with a Salesforce login, which knows how many users the administrator typically purchases for.

AppStore was modeled after Amazon, eBay, and iTunes.

“It’s a lot like iTunes but instead of Mariah Carey, you may have Composition Management,” said George Hu, chief marketing officer for Salesforce.

Crunch Network: CrunchGear drool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware.

Source: TechCrunch
Original Article: http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/60460171/

The show Jackass used to have “do not try this at home” disclaimers before every episode because too many idiots would in fact “try this at home.” A new Web site that launches today called Darejunkies is a full supporter of “try this at home.”

Darejunkies is a social networking site that allows users to create and compete in dares with a prize incentive. The site went live today and I was given the first login. It is stoooopid, which means it will probably be a hit.

Go to Darejunkies and you’ll find challenges listed by categories such as dating, embarrassment, food, etc. There are challenges like wrap yourself in peanut butter and go to a dog park, or get your grandma to tell you something embarrassing. Once you find a challenge that you think you can complete in the most amusing way, you accept.

Once you’ve filmed your challenge, you can upload it onto the site and compete with all other versions of that challenge. Users vote on the best video. Contestants are eligible for prize money every month. This month, ten winners will split a pot of $5,000. Next month, the company ups the ante to $7,500, and every month after that, it will award $10,000.

“The idea here is that it’s videos with a purpose,” said Ben Bacal, CEO of Darejunkies. “So people can grab their camera and go, ‘What do I shoot?’ Then they go to the site, find something they think they can shoot, and have some direction. We all know that every good TV pilot has a blue print.”

Darejunkies was smart enough to think ahead in terms of legally covering their behinds. You can’t just go to the site and post a challenge to get everyone to cover themselves in butter and slide down a roof. You can submit a challenge for review by the Darejunkies legal board, who will then decide which ones make it to the site.

Darejunkies has all the social networking elements: user profiles, relationships, etc. I’m not sure it’s the smartest thing in the world to let people who are prone to taking dares to socially network. I can hear my mom lecturing me about bad association right now.

So how do you make money on idiotic skits? Sponsored challenges, of course.

“Product-placement challenges is a way of bringing in advertisers into our challenges,” said Daron Niemerow, president of Darejunkies. “So we can have say, a Pepsi challenge like drink a can of Pepsi and give us your biggest burp. We’re also thinking about the Best-Of DVDs like Jackass or Girls Gone Wild for stuff that can’t make it on the Web site.”

I’m afraid. But I’ll watch.

Crunch Network: CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0

Source: TechCrunch
Original Article: http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/60435618/

As anticipated, Google Finance launched a fairly extensive redesign and feature changes today. There is much more information included on the home page v. the old layout. Comparison charts can now be created for multiple stocks. Top stocks can be sorted by market cap, price, search popularity, etc. Google has also added in 40 years of stock market data, and created new import tools for those millions of Yahoo Finance and other sites that might like to switch.

Plus, they have a funny video.

Crunch Network: MobileCrunch Mobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily.

Source: TechCrunch
Original Article: http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/60435012/

The value of shutting off the analytical part of your brain

“The parts of our brain that learn from experience are far more capable than the parts that learn from talking through it. We think we need to tell ourselves things like, ‘keep your weight over your front don’t press so hard on the violin bow…’ when we’re trying to learn something new or improve our performance, when that’s exactly the thing that inhibits learning and improvement.”

Elegant solutions combine simplicity and power

“The most challenging games have the fewest rules, as do the most dynamic organizations. The most memorable films have a simple message with complex meaning, touching a universal chord while allowing multiple interpretations. An elegant solution is quite often a single tiny aha! idea that changes everything. Finally, elegant solutions aren’t obvious, except, of course, in retrospect.” [tx SU]

Best Buy moves to "results-only work environment"

“The nation’s leading electronics retailer has embarked on a radical — if risky — experiment to transform a culture once known for killer hours and herd-riding bosses. The endeavor, called ROWE, for “results-only work environment,” seeks to demolish decades-old business dogma that equates physical presence with productivity. The goal at Best Buy is to judge performance on output instead of hours.” [tx Jake]

Letterpress making a comeback

“Art experts say this new interest in the specialized craft is a reaction to the slick design and flat graphics common in computer publishing…’It looks different. It feels old. It’s tactile. People love that. It is the romance of the impression of the letter pressed into paper that people feel good about.’”

Neat fonts inspired by 1940s movies include context-sensitive characters (i.e. letters at the ends of words appear differently)

“Kinescope will include context-sensitive characters. For example, when a letter falls at the end of a word, the connecting stroke is clipped off. This gives settings a more natural hand-lettered look.” [via DC]

Peter Drucker inspires changes at P&G

“Peter Drucker, the late management guru who argued that companies tend to overcomplicate their businesses, creating too many products, hiring too many employees, and generally distracting themselves from what made them successful in the first place: pleasing their customers.”

When companies build intimacy

“Gone are the days of spending millions of dollars to build brand awareness. It turns out that a small company can score much higher on trust and reliability if they build intimacy. What’s the catch? Well, it means that as a small company, you have [to be] ready to accept that responsibility. You have to be prepared to be called out when you get it wrong. It requires a lot of humility. It also requires a LOT of effort.”

More digital tracks than CD’s will be sold in the United States for the first time this year

“Lately, the major labels have in effect tried to move into the talent management business by demanding that new artists seeking record contracts give their label a cut of concert earnings or T-shirt and merchandise revenue — areas that had once been outside the labels’ bailiwick. One music exec says, ‘I find myself, when I’m signing a record deal now, asking, “Can this sell as a ring tone?”’”

Animation: "My Favorite Character is a Wizard"

“In the summer of 2000 I visited Gencon, the largest gaming convention in the world, with a video crew. We interviewed thirty ‘gamers’ about role-playing, and their favorite characters. This animation brings those idealized alter egos to life, but also reveals the mannerisms, speech patterns and idiosyncrasies of their creators.”

Source: Signal vs. Noise
Original Article: http://www.37signals.com/svn/posts/155-sunspots-the-wizard-edition

Google has open sourced the Google Web Toolkit (GWT).

Version 1.3 RC is an open source version of 1.2.

Not all open source is equal. What does this mean to us?

Google Web
Toolkit 1.3 RC is open through and through, including the debugging
browser and the powerful Java-to-JavaScript compiler. Now everyone
from enterprise developers to weekend programmers can study the
toolkit, tweak it and build on top of it.

What’s more, we’re making the Google Web Toolkit development process
completely transparent. Design discussions, feature prioritization,
bug fixing and roadmap planning will take place in an open Google
Group. We’ll even post the notes from Google’s internal Google Web
Toolkit meetings. (Yes, you heard that right.) And if you want to,
say, include the documentation in a course reader or publish it in a
podcast, go right ahead: it’s covered by a Creative Commons license.

• Community guidelines
• Source code
• Compiled binaries
• Main product page

Source: Ajaxian
Original Article: http://ajaxian.com/archives/google-web-toolkit-13-open-source

Brad Neuberg and his team has announced Hyperscope 1.1.

What is HyperScope?

The HyperScope is a high-performance thought processor that enables you to navigate, view, and link to documents in sophisticated ways. It’s the brainchild of Doug Engelbart, the inventor of hypertext and the mouse, and is the first step towards his larger vision for an Open Hyperdocument System.

The HyperScope is written in JavaScript using the Dojo toolkit and works in Firefox (recommended) and Internet Explorer. It uses OPML as its base file format. It is open source and available under the GPL.

What’s new in 1.1

The 1.1 release had three primary goals:

• Get a high-quality HTML transformer up on the network, especially for working with the W3C’s documents
• Bring HyperScope architectural document up to date
• Fix some small bugs

And for a bit of fun, check out the Paper Airplane research paper/project. Get a feel for a two way web.

Source: Ajaxian
Original Article: http://ajaxian.com/archives/hyperscope-11-released