Ajax Girl

Pownce has announced the launch of an API Group that will work towards the implementation of an public Pownce API.

As Pownce puts it so well on their blog “the lack of an API has been a major criticism levelled against Pownce from day one.” Desktop interaction is Pownce’s Achilles heal; the Pownce Desktop AIR client has been defective from day one. An open API will allow third party developers to create new and improved desktop clients, browser add-ons and any other interface they feel like, as many already have for Twitter.

Apparently though, it’s not as simple as simply providing a public API; the public part of the Pownce API requires consultation, design, development, more consultation, and last but not least a “community review” with a potential release date of September. All good things comes to those who wait, but the longer Pownce waits to release a public API, the bigger the risk that the mostly positive momentum behind the application will wither away.

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/~3/137444345/

Adpinion is a new startup trying to get rid of the antagonism between advertisers and web surfers by letting you vote for the ads you want. How you vote determines what ads you and other visitors see when visiting an Adpinion network site.

The most basic types of online advertising (banner ads) are widely disliked; an example of this is the increasing interest in ad blockers (40 on Firefox alone). In response, Google and others are continuing to evolve their contextual advertising engines. Adpinion’s solution is to empower users to choose their advertisers.

Adpinion collects your preferences through a voting bar that sits along the left hand side of their embeddable ad unit. You can vote an ad up or down using the thumbs up or thumbs down buttons. How you vote on each ad contributes to a profile of your ad preferences and the ad profile for the site overall. Adpinion serves ads based on your own preferences, but also recommends ads based on the ads liked by of users similar to you.

Advertising rates will be based on clicks and related to how close ads match your preferences. Rates vary by how closely the ads relate to your preferences, with ads costing more as they become less relevant.

The ad banner does have the drawback of being wider than standard units, 468 x 60 units, due to the voting bar; with additional units planned.

The user feedback model leaves me wondering if they’ll get enough feedback to do a better job than automated systems or highly targeted sites. The big question is whether people are interested enough to use Adpinion’s voting system or will simply ignore it.

For their launch, they’ve lined up only a few advertisers (37 Signals, CrazyEgg, Mint, …) and have filled the remnant space with auto generated Amazon ads. They plan on building out the network to a self serve model, but haven’t finished the publisher and advertiser management tools. Adpinion is a Y Combinator company based in Boston and started last year by the three founders Luke Iannini, Mike Jacobs, and Kevin Corcoran.

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/~3/137424696/

Second Life competitor Entropia Universe has signed an agreement to use the game engine CryENGINE 2.

According to Entropia Universe, the CryENGINE 2 platform will deliver the “closest-to-reality looking massively multiplayer online game ever seen.”

The move towards realistic 3D rendering in virtual worlds continues to gain pace. Second Life acquired Windward Mark Technology in May, delivering realistic wind and clouds to their platform.

Entropia Universe has been on a role lately, having passed 500,000 users and expanding into China. The new version of Entropia Universe is expected to be available by mid-2008.

Sample pictures below. Previous TechCrunch coverage here.

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

Source: TechCrunch
Original Article: http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/137401844/

A Massachusetts District Court Judge has given ConnectU two weeks to revise their complaint against Facebook, according to a CNet News report.

ConnectU is due to give a conference call at 3pm PST. We’ll be back with more as we get it.

Conference call Live notes

3pm ConnectU Counsel states that they can’t talk about the litigation in the intro aside from what is in the public domain. Not a good start.

3:05pm: one of ConnectU’s founders claims that they are not trying to shut Facebook down.

3:10pm: explanation on background. They don’t like Mark Zuckerberg; the claim is that Zuckerberg worked for ConnectU and stole the idea

3:13pm: ConnectU’s founders claim that the case is not about the money

3:15pm: Q&A, first question isn’t answered due to “legal issues.”

3:16pm: current action was filled in March 2007, although it wasn’t made clear why there was a new legal action. Obvious question: if it’s not about the money why was it refilled in 2007?

3:20pm: Q&A from conference call participants. Simply ConnectU wont discuss anything remotely interesting.

3:25 conference call ends. Yawn.

Conclusion

I’ve had a number of people tell me today that ConnectU doesn’t have a leg to stand on; I’ve tried to keep an open mind to date and whilst there may still be some chance that ConnectU has a case, this conference call will have done them no favors. ConnectU’s founders and Legal Counsel gave nothing interesting in the call and were indeed elusive when it came to the questions the media asked; questions that in a proper presentation of ConnectU’s case should have been answered. It should be remembered that ConnectU called this conference: this was their opportunity to defend their case and instead they wasted the time of a slew of Tech Journalists.

Previous TechCrunch coverage of ConnectU vs Facebook here and here

UPDATE: Facebook responds:”We are pleased with the outcome of the hearing today. We continue to disagree with the allegations that Mark Zuckerberg stole any ideas or code to build Facebook.”

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

Source: TechCrunch
Original Article: http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/137378782/

I’m just going to touch on Wurkpal briefly. It’s a very simple forum site that is designed specifically for people to gossip/complain/etc. about their work environment anonymously. The site takes a guess as to where you are logging in from based on a reverse hostname lookup and tries to direct you to the correct company forum. You can also view the directory and go from there. The site badly needs a search function and the ability to add new companies.

We’ve covered a few companies that are roughly in this space - see BossBitching, Ovehear.us and JobVent. For entrepreneurs who want to rip into venture capitalists that have turned them down, TheFunded is always entertaining. None of these hold a candle to what FuckedCompany was back in the day, but it’ll take a major downturn before that type of site can see the glory days again.

Wurkpal is based in San Jose and says they’ve received angel funding.

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

Source: TechCrunch
Original Article: http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/137386444/

Kevin Rose writes a somewhat cryptic blog post announcing that Digg has done an ad deal with Microsoft. He says it’s a deal similar to the one Facebook signed with Microsoft last year. That probably means that, as with Facebook, Digg is getting a guarantee, and Microsoft will be losing money on the deal.

The status of Digg’s relationship with Federated Media is somewhat up in the air right now. Rose says that they will still working with FM (he calls them an “awesome partner”) but in a slightly different capacity. From what we gather, FM will still be selling as many high-CPM ads into Digg as they can.

Update #1: We received this email from FM. It doesn’t clear things up much.

Dear FM Authors,

Our partners at Digg are announcing some wonderful news. Microsoft has agreed to use its technology and sales force to manage Digg’s advertising. It turns the two-way FM-Digg partnership into a three-way one, with FM primarily responsible for selling the conversational and integrated marketing deals that have been so successful for Digg in recent months. It also opens up new doors that will help FM build opportunities for all of our authors’ sites.

We at FM have always been clear about what’s important to us. That’s why our logo includes the words “Author Driven.” So we’re very happy for the team at Digg, as this affirms their success in building a great idea into a great media business in a very short time. We’re proud to have helped Digg grow to this point and prove the value of a true conversational media site. This is also an endorsement of the value of what all FM authors do, and a sign of the great potential for all of your sites.

So please join us in congratulating Digg. Here’s their blog post about it: http://blog.digg.com/?p=89. A joint release from them and Microsoft will be issued shortly.

Update #2: Microsoft press release is here. Things are still muddy.

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

Source: TechCrunch
Original Article: http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/137328145/

The Facebook/ConnectU litigation is moving ahead steadily - lawyers for both sides are in court today arguing over a preliminary motion to dismiss portions of the case. ConnectU has scheduled a press conference immediately following today’s hearing, roughly scheduled for 3 PM PST. We also expect some sort of statement from Facebook shortly. Stay tuned.

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

Source: TechCrunch
Original Article: http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/137324006/

It’s been a long time coming, but today we’re proud to officially announce the launch of the new Backpack.

Find out what’s new and give it a try. If you already have a Backpack account, just log in and you’re golden. If you don’t have an account, sign up for a free account and give it a shot.

This was a full team effort. Everyone was involved. We tore out the insides and rebuilt it from scratch. The UI is finally a modern 37signals interface. We’re very happy with the final product.

Thanks again for everyone’s patience and support during the development process. It took longer than anyone would have liked, but it was worth it.

Source: Signal vs. Noise
Original Article: http://www.37signals.com/svn/posts/534-launch-the-new-backpack

We posted about using DTrace to profile Firefox in the past, and today Amit Hurvitz published a piece on Ajax, DTrace and Where They Meet.

The article walks you through setting up dtrace on an an Ajax tracing example and then goes into detail on tracing Ajax and Java call flow where they are tracing the call flow of the JavaScript functions and the Java servlet methods, which responds to the Ajax calls using the script:

It then continues to show timings of methods and such. This may not be the simplest solution for debugging, but at least you can get inside the black box when you need too.

Source: Ajaxian
Original Article: http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/ajaxian/~3/137298716/end-to-end-tracing-of-ajaxjava-applications-using-dtrace

Steve Souders, performance architect at Yahoo!, announced today the public release of YSlow.

Stoyan Stefanov reviewed it briefly and gave tips for custom scoring at his blog.

What’s YSlow?

It’s an extension to Firebug (yes, correct, Firebug, not Firefox) that helps with performance optimization efforts. It scores your page on the scale A to F, based on compliance with Yahoo’s performance rules. It’s a tool that has been used internally at Yahoo and is now released to the world.

Steve is going to be speaking about YSlow at the Ajax Experience that just kicked off. I am looking forward to meeting him and check out the tool. We should give it a run on your sites and post how you did (don’t run it on Ajaxian ;).

Source: Ajaxian
Original Article: http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/ajaxian/~3/137294220/yahoo-announces-yslow-firebug-based-performance-tool