Ajax Girl

When blog search engine Sphere launched in May 2006, it included a unique feature that discovered, on the fly, stories related to what you were reading regardless of whether or not the two stories were hyperlinked.

The feature, called “Sphere It,” has grown in popularity and has helped Sphere get itself embedded in top blogs and news sites. We include a Sphere It link at the bottom of each post, which pulls up a window where other blog stories that talk about related issues are shown. Time.com and other major news sites have done the same. Today, a substantial portion of Sphere’s total traffic comes from these partner sites using the feature to generate more content (and page views) for readers.

Tonight Sphere relaunched their home page to reflect the usefulness of this feature. The main area of the site is broken down into four columns. On the left are major topics, like Top News, U.S. News, Entertainment, Sports, Technology, etc. Click on any topic and the second column populates with recent news items from Sphere partners (sites like ours, Time.com and others that include the Sphere It functionality) that has generated a lot of buzz, which is calculated based on page views for the item (against an average for the site) and other factors the company isn’t disclosing (but which probably include an anlysis of the extent to which other sites are writing about similar things).

Click on any news item and it is pulled up in column three. In column four, related news items are shown.

You can keep clicking on a topic infinitely. Click on a column four story - it moves left, and column four shows news items related to that story.

Like TechMeme, the new Sphere site can become a place that people check frequently to see what news is breaking in the blogosphere and mainstream media, and see other content about that topic. It’s different than TechMeme in that Sphere doesn’t require links between articles.

News sites that want to be included in Sphere It must add the feature to their sites. The Sphere home page has a link to do that.

Sphere has raised just $4 million to date from True Ventures, Trident Capital and a number of angel investors. The company has eight employees.

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

Source: TechCrunch
Original Article: http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/113516519/

The announcements around Microsoft’s new Silverlight platform yesterday were important to anyone who is thinking about where the web will evolve. For those of us watching the demos at the Mix conference the immediate importance of it was apparent - Silverlight will be the platform of choice for developers who build rich Internet applications. It makes Flash/Flex look like an absolute toy. After the keynote, the main topic of conversation in the hallways centered on just how effectively Microsoft carried out its execution of Adobe.

We didn’t cover the news as it broke - I was on stage at Mix and Nik Cubrilovic was denied a press pass due to a mixup and got in very late. There was a lot of early coverage but mostly from journalists who hadn’t been properly briefed on it or who rushed to post quickly.

In preparation for the Mix Q&A, Nik and I had well over 10 hours of briefing on Silverlight, with very senior Microsoft employees (Ray Ozzie, Scott Guthrie, Charles Fitzgerlad) as well as members of the product team that actually build Silverlight (Keith Smith and Brian Goldfarb).

Nik wrote a very long post yesterday afternoon on Silverlight, long after the initial news broke. From a pageview standpoint, the post was a loser for us. We would have been far better off doing a one-paragraph post at 10 am announcing the news, and by the time we wrote in the late afternoon the buzz had worn off somewhat.

I’m glad we waited to write. Nik (a long-time developer) was most impressed by how small Silverlight is (4 MB) and how fast it is (it blows away native Javascript routines - without exaggeration, Ajax looks like a bicycle next to a Ferrari when compared to Silverlight).

The news today about Silverlight is significantly more thoughtful. Microsoft-hater Steve Gillmor gives it a thumbs up and says “the engineering behind this is stunning.” Robert Scoble, who’s angry at Microsoft for not giving him a free pass to the Mix event, says “Microsoft “rebooted the Web” yesterday.” The list goes on.

If you are a developer or an entrepreneur, take a look at Silverlight, download some of the sample applications, and take the time to understand how it can affect your product. Our overview post is here, and our podcast interview with the product manager who built it is here.

Some of the most interesting new web applications will be built on this platform.

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/~3/113475263/

Two big announcements from new Internet TV startup Joost today: they’ve signed a deal to include content from CNN, and they’ve opened up the beta to allow any current user to invite an unlimited number of other users. Rumor is they will launch publicly in the next few days.

Joost, which was founded by Skype founders Niklas Zennstrom and Janus Friis, has benefited from massive hype and the fact that only a very few people have so far been let into the beta. They’ve also benefitted greatly from the Google/YouTube-Viacom dispute - Viacom signed a deal to include their content on the Joost platform earlier this year. Joost has also previously announced deals with Warner Music Group and CBS.

The deals announced today include content arrangements with CNN, Sony (old episodes of Charlie’s Angels and Starsky & Hutch will be included), Sports Illustrated (swimsuit issue), the National Hockey League and Hasbro (Transformers & G.I. Joe.

Joost also announced other content deals Tuesday: Sony will run episodes of several old TV series including “Charlie’s Angels” and “Starsky & Hutch” on Joost; Sports Illustrated will run photo shoots and programs about its swimsuit issue; the National Hockey League will broadcast vintage games and game highlights; and Hasbro will run old episodes of “Transformers” and “G.I. Joe.”

See all of our previous Joost coverage at techcruch.com/tag/joost.

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/~3/113462760/

Demand Media rolled out me.tv today, a new social network around person video sites. You have to have a .tv domain name to create a site on the network, which costs $25/year.

Once you’ve registered a .tv domain name, me.tv provides you with a number of templates to choose from. You can also create an introductory video (via a partnership with VideoEgg), add blog posts, videos from other sites and information about yourself. Me.tv will also be adding advertising optionally to the sites and sharing revenue with the domain owner.

There are a number of example sites up already. See Demand Media CEO Richard Rosenblatt’s me.tv page at Richard.tv (Rosenblatt was the CEO of MySpace just prior to its acquisition by Fox). Carson Daly (MTV, NBC) also has a me.tv site up at CarsonDaly.tv (also pictured below).

Demand’s business goal is to sell more .tv domain names through their domain registrar subsidiary, eNom (and eNom’s many resellers), and to generate revenue from these domains once they are live. From that standpoint this is a good move. It’s less clear that this will become a compelling social network, though, because there is a massive amount of competition. For example, Ning’s new tools for creating social networks on the fly, including video networks, are very good, don’t require users to pay $25/year and they also have advertising with a revenue share. And there are countless other services that let users create their own video channels.

Rosenblatt is a saavy guy, though, and he’s courting the hollywood crowd, not the tech elite. Rumor is that a number of celebrities will be creating me.tv sites in the coming weeks. If A-list celebrities flock to the platform based on Rosenblatt’s connections, perhaps it will get traction.

My guess is that me.tv will eventually launch a free version of the service to get more users on the platform.

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

Source: TechCrunch
Original Article: http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/113453721/

Former Yahoo Music GM Dave Goldberg made waves in early 2006 when he urged major music labels to kill DRM to give music fans the flexibility to listen to music on any device that they own. It sounded crazy at the time, but later on Bill Gates made similar statements and eventually Apple convinced EMI to begin to sell DRM-free music. The industry is now simply waiting for the other big labels to fall into line as well. April 2, 2007 may be the day DRM died, but people like Dave Goldberg planted the seeds far earlier. You can hear more about Goldberg’s views on DRM and the online music business in general in our podcast interview with him earlier this year.

Goldberg left Yahoo in February. He’s now joined Benchmark Capital as an entrepreneur-in-residence. That means he’s likely going to begin working on a new startup. No word on whether it’s in the music space or not, but whatever it is, given Goldberg’s willingness to shake up established business models, it’s likely to be interesting. I’ll be talking to him later today and will hopefully have more details to share.

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/~3/113434563/

Alexander Sotirov has gone deep into JavaScript internals in IE. Really deep. His focus was on exploits, but there is knowledge that help us understand why Array.join is better than string += “foo” for large amounts of data.

Introduction

The exploitation of heap corruption vulnerabilities on the Windows platform has become increasingly more difficult since the introduction of XP SP2. Heap protection features such as safe unlinking and heap cookies have been successful in stopping most generic heap exploitation techniques. Methods for bypassing the heap protection exist, but they require a great degree of control over the allocation patterns of the vulnerable application.

This paper introduces a new technique for precise manipulation of the browser heap layout using specific sequences of JavaScript allocations. We present a JavaScript library with functions for setting up the heap in a controlled state before triggering a heap corruption bug. This allows us to exploit very difficult heap corruption vulnerabilities with great reliability and precision.

We will focus on Internet Explorer exploitation, but the general techniques presented here are potentially applicable to any other browser or scripting environment.

HeapLib, a JavaScript heap manipulation library, came out of this work:

Source: Ajaxian
Original Article: http://ajaxian.com/archives/heap-feng-shui-in-javascript-and-heaplib

While record labels bemoan their sad plight, artists like Nine Inch Nails are coming up with creative ways to inject mystery and playfulness into the music promotion game.

The elaborate campaign for NIN’s new “Year Zero” album — 42 Entertainment is the agency behind it — is a great example of blurring the line between marketing and entertainment.

Trail of clues
It all started with a concert t-shirt:

The bolded letters on the shirt spelled out a domain name that describes Parepin, “a revolutionary drug.” This kickstarted “a long, elaborate, cookie trail of clues and cryptically hidden website URLs hidden in the most unlikely of places.”

Another version of the truth is also one of the campaign’s sites. It features an idyllic photo and message, but clicking and dragging on the photo reveals hidden, darker imagery.

That dystopian vision is reflected in the album’s songs too. Fans discovered USB Flash drives left in bathrooms at the band’s shows. On them were unprotected versions of the new tracks. These leaked songs soon showed up online as another part of the puzzle.

The power of mystery
Rolling Stone said the “Year Zero” project is “the most innovative promotion scheme since the leaked sex tape.”

NIN have treated their fans to a sort of Where’s Waldo game that includes tour merchandising, a dizzying network of websites and, umm, bathrooms in European concert halls.

Adrants praised the campaign and said, “Mythology adds fuel to fan fire.”

This is the way a viral campaign should be run – with a brand using multiple forms of media to play with its users and leave them things to find and chase after.

The Google perspective
Matt Cutts, a Google software engineer, points out why the campaign is a winner from an SEO perspective.

- Check out the text from iamtryingtobelieve.com/purpose.htm. It’s so jittery that it’s hard to read, but if you view the source, you’ll notice that it’s mostly text content, which lets search engines index it.

- The buzz built pretty organically. USB drives were left in bathrooms at conferences and messages were hidden in conference T-shirts. It’s much better to let people find you than to push too hard to get noticed. The links from the “people-find-you” approach are more organic than if someone spammed to get links to viral sites.

- I appreciate that the campaign picked a lot of terms (e.g. “parepin”) that were unique nonsense words. That keeps the marketing campaign from crufting up search results for actual topics or real peoples’ names, which is a pretty rude thing to do.

CD design
The CD design comes with a twist too.

Before you play it the disk is black. When you take it out of the CD player it’s white, and then slowly fades to grey. As it turns out the people that have done the marketing are the same ones that marketed the ill fated microsoft zune, which has been one of the biggest failures in history. This goes to show it wasn’t the marketing, it was an inferior product.

Trent Reznor on DRM and technology
In “Stars compose new ways to use music,” NIN’s Trent Reznor discusses why he dislikes DRM.

The USB drive was simply a mechanism of leaking the music and data we wanted out there. The medium of the CD is outdated and irrelevant. It’s really painfully obvious what people want – DRM-free music they can do what they want with. If the greedy record industry would embrace that concept I truly think people would pay for music and consume more of it.

Reznor is also making individual tracks from the album available in files that anyone can edit and remix in programs like GarageBand. Reznor talks about the democratizing influence of technology:

Any time a new technology becomes available to the masses it’s a good thing. Recording studios used to be the domain of only the privileged or professional – now many have access to these tools allowing anyone to try their hand at it. As to what I’m looking to gain from doing this, I’m not really sure…it just seemed like something I’d want as a fan.

When marketing becomes art
While the major labels continue to try and hold onto the past, Reznor’s attitude and approach is a glimpse of the future. Instead of looking at his album as the finish line, he’s using it as part of a bigger, all-encompassing experience for fans.

What you are now starting to experience IS ‘year zero’. It’s not some kind of gimmick to get you to buy a record – it IS the art form…and we’re just getting started.

Source: Signal vs. Noise
Original Article: http://www.37signals.com/svn/posts/403-year-zero-project-the-way-a-viral-campaign-should-be-run

Christian Effenberger is having great fun with canvas. His latest incarnation is Loupe.js, which allows you to add a magnifier to an object on your page.

All you have to do is tell Loupe where to put it:

Source: Ajaxian
Original Article: http://ajaxian.com/archives/loupejs-magnifier-component

Laurent Haan has taken the time to write a detailed article on Creating an Ajax Rating Widget.

Not only does Laurent take the time to walk through the implementation of a rating widget, but he ports it across Dojo, Prototype, Mootools, and jQuery.

It is interesting to go through the examples in each library and see both the differences, and the similarities. The biggest merging has been around using Selectors to bypass having to use heavy DOM code. We can all be thankful to that.

Frequent visitors of ajax enabled websites, like ajaxian, have all witnessed them already: ajax rating widgets. They are flashy, animated, you can use them to rate the content (usually without refreshing the page) and if you could, you’d present them to your parents and marry them. Compared to the classic rating system, as on IMDb, they incite people to click them, reducing the effective rating process to only one click.

In this tutorial, I want to show you how to create the JavaScript framework to display the animated rating widget and how to connect it to your server backend by using some of the most common Ajax frameworks out there. I clearly separate the page creation from the JavaScript functions and the rating backend, to allow the script to be as flexible as possible and to be easy integrable into your existing website.

This tutorial is not meant to present you with a finished script (even though you could simply copy&paste the end result into your website and make it work without any problems), but rather to explain the design and implementation process that would enable you to create your own widgets if you’d need to.

Source: Ajaxian
Original Article: http://ajaxian.com/archives/creating-an-ajax-rating-widget

Google responded to Viacom’s $1 billion lawsuit over alleged YouTube copyright infringement today. Their answer: Let’s fight this out, in front of a jury.

We earlier predicted that there was no way Google would agree to a settlement with Viacom that involved any damages, and assumed that they would work to sign a licensing deal instead and convince Viacom to simply settle the lawsuit. Viacom later signaled that they weren’t much interested in a deal when they agreed to provide content to Joost and then did a search advertising deal with Yahoo instead of Google.

I have visions of bloggers fighting to get a good seat at the trial, and live blogging the entire thing. The fate of YouTube’s buisness model, as well as many other web startups, will likely be linked to the outcome of this litigation.

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/~3/113317303/