Ajax Girl

Widgets are being turned into advertising delivery systems. Their nature - rich media applicatons that are easy to build, customize and add to a site - also make them an attractive way to add advertising to small sites. Google is now testing gadget ads, and we’ve written about services like boobox and AuctionAds (a sponsor) that easily ad affiliate advertising to a site via widgets. Last week eBay also launched “to go” widgets that let publishers embed ebay listings into websites, although for now there are no affiliate payments tied to those widgets.

Two more are coming this week. Tonight Silicon Valley-based Tumri is announcing a new product called Tumri Publisher, and Seattle’s Mpire will announce an advertising widget later this week.

Tumri Publisher, which is described here, allows users to create highly customizable widgets that promote specific products on their websites, in exchange for an affiliate or other fee. Tumri has twenty or so direct relationships with ecommerce sites like Overstock, Walmart, Shop.com and others to promote their products. Most advertising pay on a purchase, although at least one partner pays a on each click to their website.

Tumri splits revenue from the advertising 50/50 with advertising, and they say they’ll pay up to 70% of proceeds to larger publishers.

The widgets are javascript powered; the company says Flash versions are coming soon.

Tumri was founded in 2004 and has raised $6.5 million in a Series A round of financing from Shasta Ventures and Accel. They are currently closing a second round. They have 31 employees (16 in India, 15 in Silicon Valley).

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Source: TechCrunch
Original Article: http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/114692854/

Comcast is ditching its antiquidated webmail software and replacing it with Zimbra’s Ajax office suite, the companies will announce this evening. That’s good news for Comcast’s twelve million broadband customers, and even better news for Zimbra - this deal will significantly grow the number of Zimbra users from the current six million or so customers.

The deal also includes new functionality, including giving Comcast triple play customers (VOIP phone, Internet, Cable TV) the ability to listen to voicemails online and forward via email. Users will also be able to manage instant messaging from the Zimbra client, and the companies are adding Plaxo’s address book functionality into the mix.

Zimbra recently released new software that lets customers access their webmail offline. The company offers its basic service for free via an open-source download. They charge for customer service and also distribute their premium version through resellers. They’ve raised just over $30 million in venture capital.

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Source: TechCrunch
Original Article: http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/114686668/

A new study (pdf) published by the Pew Internet & American Life Project has found that there is a growing digital divide across America.

John B. Horrigan’s analysis of America’s use of Web 2.0 and information and communications technology in the broader sense shows that whilst a reasonable number of Americans are embracing new technology and Web 2.0, a disturbing number are either not getting the message, or are choosing not to participate.

31% of Americans are considered to be “Elite Tech Users”, where as 49% have few tech assets, either engaging with the online world only on occasion, or not at all.

8% of people are considered to be “omnivores” which the study describes as being Web 2.0 devotes, highly engaged with video online and digital content; “creative participants in cyberspace”.

Is the switch off factor strictly a question of Age? The study found that the Top 8% are young, ethnically diverse, and mostly male (70%). The median age of the Top 8% is 28 with more than half of them under the age of 30. The bottom 15% was not surprisingly older, with a median age of 64 – and as a group reported the lowest levels of household income. And yet this group isn’t entirely switched off: 82% watch TV everyday and 76% have cable or satellite service, and collectively had the highest levels of watching TV or listening to radio of any group in the study; it’s just that there not using Web 2.0.

It would be easy to conclude that as an industry our message is not getting across as well it should be. Yet from such figures I’m actually drawn to the fact that such a high reported figure for those not engaging is an opportunity waiting to happen. There can be no market saturation until such time the 31% blows out to something closer to 100%.

As famously demonstrated with the Nintendo Wii, targeting a non-hardcore market can and does have its rewards.

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Source: TechCrunch
Original Article: http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/114683932/

Presentation management platform provider SlideAware will be launching new features Monday that build on what is already a useful tool.

SlideAware launched in March with a feature set that included the ability to create a flash version of a PowerPoint presentation, host it on SlideAware and then share a link to the presentation. Whilst far from being alone in offering this functionality, SlideAware offers additional services that make it a better candidate for business use; fine grain access control, including the ability to make presentation private and password controlled, detailed analytics on viewing of the presentation and support for key PowerPoint features including builds.

On Monday SlideAware adds a number of new features:

1. The ability to add notes to specific areas of slides, similar to comments in ConceptShare
2. Rich presence management (picture in picture like preview of slides that other users are viewing and the ability to sync with a single click) & chat
3. The ability to retrieve all notes directly in PowerPoint so that updates can be made

The new feature set will not go astray in strengthening SlideAware’s pitch as a collaborative tool.

The company offers a free version for basic personal use, and paid versions for professional and workgroup use.

Exclusive screen shots of the new features in action as follows:

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Source: TechCrunch
Original Article: http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/114674981/

A new survey from the C.S. Mott Children’s Hospital, The National Poll on Children’s Health, has found that US parents rate Internet Safety as being a more serious health threat to children than school violence, sexually transmitted diseases, abuse and neglect.

Yes, the Internet.

No, I’m not kidding.

The survey found that Internet safety is a relatively new health concern amongst parents. Women were more likely to rate it as a big problem; 32% of women report Internet safety as a big problem compared with only 21% of men. Internet safety had no differences in proportion of concern by education status, income level or marital status.

You may well ask what this has to do with Web 2.0. The report notes: “state and federal legislators appear to have responded to public concerns about Internet safety for children, considering new legislation and issuing consumer alerts“.

The ongoing campaign to whip up hysteria around the risks for children in social networking by some segments of the media is clearly working.

If the obvious hysteria demonstrated in this survey, and indeed over the last 18 months through countless hours of negative press surrounding MySpace and many other social networking destinations translates to the ballot box, big Government is ready and waiting to impose a raft of legislative rules and regulations on a future generation of Silicon Valley social networking start ups. Rules and regulations that will have a cost in terms of compliance and implementation, taking money away from R&D and making the pursuit of success by any affected start up that little bit harder.

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/~3/114535741/

A tip in today pointing to Beyond Teck, a site that claims to have a screen shot of a new layout for Google’s search results page.

I can’t confirm the veracity of the screen shot, if it’s photoshopped then it’s a very good effort.

The screen shot purports to show Google testing a new layout for their search results. Of note is the introduction of a left navigation bar that directly links to related Google search options, with aesthetically pleasing gradient dividers breaking up the search results from the search box and newly listed options.

Google has a track record of testing new features on an unsuspecting public, and this isn’t the first time there have been reports of Google testing a similar layout to this. Ars Technica reported a similar layout in February 2006 and a thread on Webmaster World in September 2006 spotted similar changes, although without the use of gradients.

After a little digging, I found that Dan Baxter has also spotted the new layout and provided a screen shot that would seem to back up the shot from Beyond Teck.

Google has been shy in tweaking a service that has famously worked so well for it, so these tests may never be rolled out permanently, however in the continuing evolution of Google they could do worse.

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Source: TechCrunch
Original Article: http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/114502771/