Ajax Girl

Tellme Networks has announced that it will be launching a new service that enables users to quickly find information while on the go. The service functions similar to to 411, but users can request information through voice, SMS, or Mobile Web. By requesting “Business Search” at the voice prompt, the service will allow you to find businesses in a particular category and return local results based on location. The announcement comes just a week after Google announced its free 411 service, Goog-411.

To use the service through voice, simply call 1.800.555.TELL.

Read more at MobileCrunch…

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/~3/109654657/

The official TechCrunch20 Conference website is now live, and we’ve announced that we are taking company submissions and attendee registrations. The dedicated blog is published at techcrunch20.com/blog. GigaOm was the first to write about this, followed by Jessica Gwynn at the San Francisco Chronicle.

Jason Calacanis and I first announced the conference in late January.

We’ve now finalized the dates (September 17-18, 2007) and a location (the Palace Hotel in San Francisco).

The format of TechCrunch20 is simple: Twenty of the hottest new startups will announce and demo their products over a two day period. And they don’t pay a cent to do this. They will be selected to participate based on merit alone.

We are also assembling an amazing group of twenty experts to assist us with the conference. These experts will help recommend the final startups to present at TechCrunch20. And they will also participate at the conference - they’ll watch company presentations and discuss the merits of each with robust audience participation.

Confirmed industry experts include Marc Andreessen (Co-founder, Ning), Chris Anderson (Editor-In-Chief, Wired Magazine), Roelof Botha (Partner, Sequoia Capital), Mark Cuban (Founder, HDNet), Om Malik (Founder, GigaOm), Robert Scoble (Scobleizer), and Dave Winer (Scripting News).

See you there!

Update: Additional coverage of the event:

Dave Winer
John Furrier
Nik Cubrilovic
Vecosys
Frank Gruber

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

Source: TechCrunch
Original Article: http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/109607436/

Reunion.com, a social network for reconnecting with old friends and family, just grabbed a huge $25 million round of funding from Oak Investment Partners to join their original $1.4 million in angel financing (Richard Rosenblatt was one angel). The service is kind of like Classmates.com, but for branded as a way to reconnect with anyone you haven’t seen in a while.

Reunion makes it easy to register your data into the system through a registration process that just requires a full name, birth date, and email address. Once you register you can continue on to a free profile or get a premium account ($3.34/one month, $60/year). The free account gives you the standard social networking profile features (photos, blog, …), while the premium account throws in some extra snooping features. Premium accounts allow you to see who’s searching for you, viewed your profile, Send email to other members, get 5 public-records reports, and set up a class reunion.

One can wonder how a service like this could charge in the face of network behemoths Facebook, LinkedIn, and Myspace, but Reunion makes it easy to collect basic data that can be used to lure other users into the network, and searches through a lot of personal data points.

Their strategy seems to be around getting as many people as possible to add their basic info into the database and then luring other users into the network by telling them how many people might be searching for them (15 for Nick Gonzalez). It’s kind of like a huge internet Rolodex, the more people that buy in, the more useful it gets. They’ve also got an Outlook plugin and can search your email account for possible connections.

According to the company, the site has attracted 28 million users and is adding nearly one million new members each month. They draw almost 8 million unique visitors conducting 60 million searches for people monthly.

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

Source: TechCrunch
Original Article: http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/109627931/

At the Web 2.0 Expo, online auction giant eBay seems to finally be rethinking their user experience with the announcement of a new Apollo application currently called “Project San Dimas” released into a limited beta. The new application is meant to make buying and selling items on eBay more efficient, competing with third party “Power User” auction service giants Vendio and Marketworks, and the Y Combinator upstart Auctomatic. No word on whether it was named after the patron saint of reformed thieves (fraud detection?) or referencing the quiet suburb that served as the backdrop to “Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure”.

The project was started last year by Alan Lewis of the eBay Developers Program, and eventually became an internal initiative for eBay after being demoed last year at Adobe MAX in Las Vegas. Ryan Stewart blogged the demo and Rob Abbott, a member of the San Dimas team, also has some coverage. San Dimas features a UI created by EffectiveUI and uses eBay’s API’s to make creating, and managing auctions easier and faster. Because it’s written in Apollo, the program can improve performance by cutting down on repetitive requests for data, caching it locally instead. The application will also feature real-time auction monitoring and allow sellers to add in pictures directly uploaded from webcams and cameras.

Today’s release is made on the backdrop of a continuing controversy between Microsoft’s new Silverlight and Adobe’s Apollo, outlined by the WSJ today. Microsoft has already effectively lost as an online video standard to Adobe’s Flash. Silverlight marks the being of a new battle over web standards as the two companies fight over the tools that will shape the future of web applications.

There is a video demoing the application here.

image courtesy Rob Abbott

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

Source: TechCrunch
Original Article: http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/109601051/

Jason will be speaking at the following events:

• 4/17/07: Northwestern/Kellogg talk
• 4/26/07: Keynote: University of Illinois, Webmasters Forum
• 5/15/07: AIGA Small Talk 8, NYC
• 6/12/07: Keynote: Wisconsin Entrepreneurship Conference
• 6/19/07: Web Content Conference, Chicago
• 9/22/07: IIT Design Research Conference
• 10/3/06: Keynote: Minnesota Interactive Marketing Association

If you’ll be at any one of these events please come up and say hi.

David will be speaking at the following events:

• 4/21/07: Minnebar
• 5/17/07: Keynote: RailsConf, Portland Oregon
• 9/17/07: Keynote: RailsConf Europe, Berlin

Ryan will be speaking at:

• 4/17/07: Future of Web Design, London

Sam will be speaking at:

• 6/11/07: Apple WWDC (a talk on Prototype)

Other talks are pending.

If you’d like someone from 37signals to speak at your event please get in touch by emailing jason at 37signals.com. Thanks.

Source: Signal vs. Noise
Original Article: http://www.37signals.com/svn/posts/375-upcoming-37signals-speaking-engagements

This afternoon Netvibes will announce the launch of Netvibes Universe, allowing users to create highly customized versions of Netvibes and publish them for public access. Netvibes has created 100 or so branded versions for the launch - users will be able to create these in about six weeks.

In addition to making the page public, publishers can also highly customize their Universe page by adding their own CSS and HTML.

The TechCrunch Universe page, featuring many of my favorite news feeds and a few widgets, is at Netvibes.com/TechCrunch. Additional Universe pages have been created for a number of artists (50 Cent, Ben Harper, Deftones, G-Unit, Mandy Moore, Moby, Pretty Ricky, and Snoop Dogg) and major news sites (CBS, CNN Money, Forbes.com, LATimes.com, Newsweek, Sports Illustrated, TIME, Inc., USAToday and washingtonpost.com). A full list will be published here later today.

Netvibes users can click and add any public page, or portion of a public page, to their own account and receive updates.

Pageflakes also has public pages you can share with everyone or a select group of friends, but doesn’t support your own CSS.

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

Source: TechCrunch
Original Article: http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/109566451/

Silicon Valley based Coghead is making a bit of a splash today at the Web 2.0 Expo. They’re officially launching, although it’s largely ceremonial: they’ve been open to the public since October 2006.

I wrote in detail about Coghead last year. The company competes in the “online access” space (a reference to Microsoft Access). We’ve written about Coghead competitors in the past, including Dabble DB, Zoho Creator and WyaWorks. he primary use of these products is to create business applications that deal with everything from task tracking through to purchase orders.

What is special about CogHead is that users building applications with the product require less technical skills because the process is (mostly) all drag-and-drop and visual. CogHead is unique because of just how easy it is to create forms, views and apps - the design view allows users to create fields by dragging and dropping them onto a form. The user can lay the fields out and place them on the page, making the application they build more user friendly and easier on the eyes. Building the logic behind the forms is also a graphical process, the user takes objects and actions and drags them into a flow chart that is similar to a data-flow or logic diagram. There are a number of starter applications to help users get comfortable with the platform.

Coghead is also announcing today that 17,000 developers are now working on the platform.

The company has raised $11.2 million in two rounds of venture capital from American Capital Strategies Ltd., SAP Ventures and El Dorado Ventures. They have 21 employees in their Silicon Valley headquarters and another 15 in China.

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

Source: TechCrunch
Original Article: http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/109509110/

[Fireside Chats are round table discussions conducted using Campfire.]

The Chatters
Dave Brasgalla (Icon Factory)
Brian Brasher (Firewheel Design)
Jon Hicks (Hicks Design)
Corey Marion (Icon Factory)
Michael Schmidt (Cuban Council)
Josh Williams (Firewheel Design)
(Moderated by Matt and Jason from 37signals)

Matt	paste an icon or icon set that you’re proud of making and explain why.
Corey
Brian
Jon
Jon	I guess I had too!
Corey	Didn’t know Hicks did the Firefox and Thunderbird icons, nice work
Jon	It’s kind of my one-hit wonder!
Josh	I did these icons for a Pawn Shop POS system years ago. The thought of Pawn Shop icons has always made me laugh a bit:
Josh
Corey
Corey	One of our original three sets when stockicons.com launched
Dave
Dave	Cave Troll.
Dave	Those LOTR icons, I love the CCave Troll, but the book… I’ve been after texture for so long, and that time I hit exactly what I had in mind

Jon	I love the Cave Troll icons – candidates for the first animated icons me thinks
Dave	Actually, I’ve always wanted to animate the cave troll to "Soul of a Man"
Josh	Did you do that all in PS Dave?
Dave	vector base shapes and millions of PS layers, Josh
Josh	These are still my faves, created during my Dave Brasgalla phase…
Josh
Dave	Always liked the orange-y glow about those, Josh
Josh	thx Dave, I’m a sucker for orange
Michael
Brian	I’ve been posting cursors on my blog. Not icons exactly, but sorta:
Brian
Corey	Classic Brian…
Michael	nice & pixelly
Josh	The texture is amazing
Dave	Love the cook pot!
Josh	we keep brian in a cook pot at the office
Brian	But we try not to smoke it.
Matt	What do you think about the new Adobe CS3 icons?
Matt
Josh	I like the CS3 box art much more than the icons.
Matt
Dave	The new CS3 icons are sort of bizarre to me
Brian	CS3 icons: yawn
Jon	Agreed
Jon	BUT
Jon	I’ve got used to them
Jon	I despised them at first, but I’ve lived with 4 of them for a few months now, and I like them!
Josh	With so many Adobe apps, they’re gonna run outta letters
Brian	Are we on the cusp of a periodic table design phase?
Josh	Fireworks, Flash, Flex… too many icons with Fs
Corey	They are very…square
Dave	It has so many problems
Dave	Same silhouette – yes
Brian	The boxes are lovely.
Josh	the boxes are gorgeous
Jon	Agreed
Dave	Very nice boxes
Josh	Wish the icons had the same level of character, and I’m really starting to miss Venus from the old Adobe icons.
Brian	Lovely, yet across the room I don’t which app is in which box.
Michael	Once you get used them to, the cs3 icons are easier to use in the dock, though.
Michael	Compared to the CS2 ones – I mean, I still can’t remember which one is indesign CS2 and illustrator CS2
Josh	you’re right about that Mike, the current CS2 icons aren’t terrific either
Corey	The icons do stand out in the dock
Dave	Just putting letters in a square seems a design cop-out to me
Jon	It does, but I have to say, I think it works
Jon	after I got over the shock

Corey	I agree, they are easier to "learn" than the CS1 and CS2 icons
Brian	Abstract expressionists enter the icon design field.
Dave	Well, as long as i don’t have to use more than two Adobe apps, it’ll be fine!
Josh
Josh	I liked these days
Jon	memories…
Brian	CS2: Adobe Feathershop
Jason	Is something a design cop-out if it works?
Jason	Don’t people prefer things that work over things that just look good? Unless we’re talking about art or something.
Jason	FWIW: I like the new icons. I think they are functional in a way most icons are not. In that they are designed to live along side other icons that may or may not match. I think that’s pretty unique in icon world. A lot of icons seem to be designed to live in a controlled set, not along side a set you can’t control.
Jason	They also seem to deal with context well.
Dave	Well, I am talking about iconography
Dave	Be interesting to see the Arabic localisation
Josh	Jason: no, if it works, it’s not a cop out
Josh	he he
Matt	Related: What makes an icon a success or a failure?
Josh	Ask Hicks…the Firefox icon has certainly been a success
Jon	Failure: People don’t talk about it?
Jon	At least the CS3 icons are noticed
Jon	and discussed
Michael	Do people talk about icons?
Dave	Hmmm.. people talk about terrible icons, too.
Josh	good point
Brian	Noticed does not equal good. Think MySpace. Yuck!
Dave	I suppose it depends on the purpose of the icon. I know that sounds a bit banal, but I think it’s true.
Michael	Failure: you have no idea what it is you’re clicking on in the dock.
Jon	my personal fave:
Brian	It’s all a matter of whether or not you want to divorce it from aesthetics.
Josh	Honestly, I do think icon design can be a bit overrated / overemphasized

Matt	Meaning what, icons don’t really matter that much?
Dave	Things have definitely become… shall we say… rococco?
Jon
Jason	Josh: It’s good to hear you say that.
Jason	I sort of feel the same way about logos.
Jason	Lots and lots of time and money are spent — or wasted — on them.
Josh	There’s only so much icons are going to do for your product. If your product is good (i.e., Firefox), then a good icon will be remembered with it.
Brian	Very true.
Josh	If your product is crap, than a pretty fox on a globe ain’t gonna help it
Josh	Same with general UI, especially on the web
Josh	Jason: we had the same discussion about logos here yesterday
Josh	Logos are totally overrated.
Jon	Conversely – with resolution independence, icons take longer to make, but I find the budgets don’t increase
Dave	That’s a very salient point.
Jon	so maybe we should do away with icons and logos!
Josh	(It pains me to say this)
Josh	I think we should.
Brian	Well, somebody has to clothe the emperor.
Jason	Re: logos and icons… I feel like good ones mean the company is paying attention at least. That’s what they mean to me.
Dave	I agree, Jason
Matt	logos and icons seem like the icing. def matter but if the cake sucks they ain’t gonna help much.
Josh	Sometimes a good logo or icon is an indicator that they’re taking care of business in other places.
Michael	True, but sometimes it also seems like the only people who care about these things are designers like us
Michael	Which is a bit sad
Jason	But spending tens of thousands or more on a logo and "identity package"… I just don’t get it. But anyway, that’s just me. Maybe it makes sense for some of the world’s largest companies, but I see startups blowing wads of cash on stuff like that and I just don’t get it.
Jason	They have business cards before they have products. Wrong priorities.
Jon	I think we should separate icons and logos here
Dave	Take OS X: if I see an app with a very nicely executed icon, and the screenshots of the interface seem attractive, I am likely to try it out.
Jason	Dave: I agree.
Brian	Dave said what I wanted to say (and better than I would have).
Jason	Just like I’m more likely to walk into a clean store than one with shit scattered everywhere.
Jon	Icons are ‘the icing’, but logos mean far more to a company
Dave	As Josh put it, it shows they are taking care in each step
Josh	It’s very true. I don’t want a crappy icon messing up my Dock.
Jason	It’s just a matter of presenting yourself well
Corey	Corporate ID is definitely out of control
Corey	and this filters down to icon and UI design
Dave	People can "overthink" the icons (and logo)… reach a point where they are chasing thier own tails.
Dave	Frank Herbert once wrote:
Dave	One of the most difficult things to find is someone who is actually willing to make a decision

Coming soon: Parts 2 and 3.

Source: Signal vs. Noise
Original Article: http://www.37signals.com/svn/posts/368-fireside-chat-icon-designers-part-1-of-3

Kevin Miller has released LightWindow 1.1, another in the trend of light boxes.

Another one?

After researching every single modal window, lightbox, slimbox, etc out there nothing fit the bill. Granted some of them were very nice but only fit a specific purpose, others were a nightmare on the code end, and others were just hacks of another. None of them truly supported all of the features we needed and those that were close could not be easily adapted without a bottle of Prozac near by.

This puppy works nicely, and supports various media such as PDF, movies, Flash, and more. It also supports every way that you probably want to use a lightbox.

And, they do have a sense of humour:

This library is 52k uncompressed & requires both prototype 1.5+ and scriptaculous 1.7+, if you just screamed, then it’s probably time to learn how to publish your files like a grown-up. Compressed, this library is 9k.

Source: Ajaxian
Original Article: http://ajaxian.com/archives/lightwindow-11-a-window-to-various-media

Andrew Mattie has released a new JavaScript history manager that allows one to bind functions to history events either with or without changing the window hash (depending on the developer’s preference).

Andrew details his travels on getting this library out by discussing those who came before him:

• Really Simple History (RSH), Brad Neuberg
• AJAX-Nav, Mike Stenhouse
• dojo.io.bind, Alex Russell, et al
• YUI Browser History Manager, Julien Lecomte

A nice look at the trials and tribulations of managing history cross-browser. For dsHistory, you can check out the example page to play with it.

Source: Ajaxian
Original Article: http://ajaxian.com/archives/dshistory-another-history-back-button-manager