Ajax Girl

Google Blogscoped got their hands on an internal video created by the Google Reader team where they discuss future plans for their popular service.

There’s a pile of interesting information; highlights include Google developing a new way for publishers to notify Google of updates, plans to integrate more social features into Reader including recommendations based on existing subscriptions, a new service called “Activity Streams” that will be a Facebook style feed of activity including integration with Gmail, and new ways to monetize feeds by tapping into Reader.

On the stats side, the video provided some interesting insights: two thirds of all feeds only have one subscriber, and are only polled for updates every 3 hours. Feeds with multiple subscriptions are polled every hour (so Reader is intentionally slow at picking things up). The Google Reader backend stores 10 terebytes of data from 8 million feeds, and according to Feedburner stats Google Reader is the most popular feed reader, followed by My Yahoo.

Its great stuff from the Reader team, and kudos for their ongoing innovation of a great service; but there was one negative: Google is interested in allowing users to comment on items they share, but this currently isn’t a priority.

Please Google, drop the idea altogether.

We all know about the constant battles Google has had with newspapers over Google News, and what seems by some reports so far to be a failed strategy of allowing comments on News Feeds. With the exception of the licensed wire stories which are now reproduced in full, those news stories are always presented only with a small fraction of the story itself, the equivalent to a part RSS feed; ultimately readers must visit those news sites to get the full story and the use of data in this way is usually argued to be fair use.

Google Reader’s share tools on the other hand republish full blogs post for all to read without obtaining permission from blog publishers. So-called link blogs in Reader already break copyright and in a small way undermine blogs and content creators. If Google offers a comment service on “shared” items they are in effect creating copyright infringing blogs; after all they’ll have chronological entries and comments so they’ll look like blogs, even if they don’t provide a fully customizable CMS.

There will always be those who argue that any syndicated content is fair game for republication; it’s the favorite defense of spam bloggers. RSS feeds are in the most provided for personal use/ viewing and are not provided (unless otherwise specified) for someone to use that information to republish on their own site in full, be that powered by Google Reader, Blogger or WordPress.

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/~3/155311119/

AOL has announced that Propeller.com will be the new home for the Netscape social media experiment. What was once considered a possible Digg-killer is now relegated to the backwaters of AOL.

In a statement, Tom Drapeau said that AOL was “working hard behind the scenes to ensure a smooth transition before we officially launch at this new destination,” which given the site isn’t live yet is code for we eventually found a spare domain to rid ourselves of our Digg clone.

It might be too early to Deadpool the Netscape Social news experiment yet, but without the type-in traffic and brand recognition of the Netscape name, the whole idea will struggle to survive; after all the Netscape name, and previously Jason Calacanis’ evangelism was really all the site had going for it. I’ve heard some unconfirmed reports that since the initial announcement the site has been bleeding staff and contributors as well; I give it 12 months max, or AOL flogging Propeller off during this time for a fairly low sum.

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Source: TechCrunch
Original Article: http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/155294438/

I love Wikia - CEO Gil Penchina, a former eBay executive, says he works harder than anyone in Silicon Valley at building his startup. I routinely point out to him that his startup doesn’t actually do anything - their wiki software is based on the open source MediaWiki project, Google, Looksmart and FM Publishing handle all the revenue via ad sales, and their users create every drop of content on the site. All he has to do is make sure the lights stay on (to be fair, Wikia has made substantial contributions to MediaWiki).

Anyway, back to the news: Tonight Wikia is launching Wikia Gaming tonight, a collection of video game focused wikis. The sites contain over 250,000 articles on games already, on all major platforms. The World of Warcraft site is the largest single wiki, with 43,000 articles.

Wikia, which has raised $14 million from Bessemer and Amazon, claims a quarter billion monthly page views. 800,000 articles on 3,000 topics have been created and edited by over 200,000 registered users in 70 languages.

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

Source: TechCrunch
Original Article: http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/155366466/

Los Angeles based startup Listphile is aiming to bring list making into the Wiki and Mahalo space.

Listphile is a free collaborative list building tool that offers the openness of a wiki with the structure of a database. The company aims to create a vast and easy to use online platform that people will utilize for learning, working together, and socializing.

Lists can include Google Map Mashups, video and images, and users are able to create database pages for specific topics as well.

Examples include the The Open Surf Atlas: an open atlas of surf spots on the planet, with video, images, maps and data specific to each spot, Earth Friendly Tips for the Home, Yoda Quotes (with video) and Oyster Varieties - a list of oyster types commonly eaten and cultivated, with photos.

To be honest, when I first saw the word “lists” I was initially skeptical as to what ListPhile might offer, but having spent some time on the site I was pleasantly surprised. It looks and feels like a Maholo style consumer play; the information available isn’t as thorough as Wikipedia but it’s feels more friendly. I’d think it would be an appealing offering to the non-geek set, although having said there is nothing stopping the site from appealing to everyone.

ListPhile has some experienced people behind it; Caterina Fake (Flickr) is on the advisory board and founder Steve de Brun has worked with a variety of startups and also worked with News Corp. A startup to watch.

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

Source: TechCrunch
Original Article: http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/155332625/

PikiWiki, which opened to the public yesterday, is no ordinary wiki. Instead of collaborating with others to edit text-dominated pages, people can use PikiWiki to easily share media with one another in a scrapbook-like environment.

The coolest thing about PikiWiki is how well the company has pulled off its drag and drop interface. After you sign up for a free account and create a blank page, you can drag any file from your desktop environment straight into the browser (on Windows and soon on Mac OSX). The file will be loaded and formatted appropriately by PikiWiki automatically. For example, photos will be displayed in a reduced size and placed where you dropped them. Generic files will be represented by links. All loaded files will be uploaded to PikiWiki’s servers once the page is saved.

In addition to loading files onto a PikiWiki page, you can embellish the page with various color themes and text blurbs. You can also record audio and video right into the page. The company plans to increase PikiWiki’s feature set, so expect to see a greater range of themes and widgets available in the future.

Once you have created a page, you can share it with a group of other PikiWiki users (such as friends or family members). You can opt to allow other group members to edit your pages, or you can simply share the pages as read-only. Pages can also be organized into “scrapbooks” within particular groups. This structure lends itself well to creating a group for each family that wants to create separate scrapbooks for its reunions.

Currently, PikiWiki is entirely free and without any storage constraints. However, the company has plans to monetize the service by charging for storage beyond a certain limit. They also anticipate providing a service in which users can order their scrapbooks as physical objects. Other potential sources of revenue include providing branded accessories for decorating one’s pages.

PikiWiki is a Santa Clara-based company with five employees. They have been working on this product for about a year and a half without any outside funding. It’s great to see them designing a service that appeals to techies and non-techies alike.

Click on the screenshot to visit a sample PikiWiki page (with editing disabled).

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

Source: TechCrunch
Original Article: http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/155268078/

We’ve been tracking emerging mobile-only social networks such as ZYB and Mocospace and Mig33. All have unique selling points (Mocospace is dead simple to use, ZYB has a rich set of potential users from their address book backup service, and Mig33 has a VOIP tool that has attracted over seven million users), but there’s one solid gold feature that none yet have: physical presence detection and information exchange with other users.

This is the Holy Grail of mobile social networking, and one of the main reasons for taking the networks off the desktop/laptop environment in the first place. Imagine walking into a meeting, classroom, party, bar, subway station, airplane, etc. and seeing profile information about other people in the area, depending on privacy settings. Picture, name, dating status, resume information, etc. The information that is available would be relevant to the setting - quick LinkedIn type information for a business meeting v. Facebook dating status for a bar.

Knowing when your friends are around, and having the ability to meet new people who share your interests (even if it’s just that you are both single), will drive massive usage of networks. But, as with many new services, a chicken and egg problem looms. Until everyone is using this, there is no real reason for anyone to use it. Meetro, an instant messaging service that finds friends based on location, has struggled to gain users over the last couple of years for this reason.

Technical barriers aren’t an issue - cell phone tower triangulation and bluetooth solve a lot of the problems of locating users and transmitting information between phones. What’s harder is just plain getting a critical mass of users.

The Failures

There is a trail of failed attempts at getting this right. Nokia released Nokia Sensor nearly three years ago. It broadcasts information about yourself to others via bluetooth. Never heard of it? Neither has anyone else, although it is still available for download. Google’s Dodgeball is another example that’s fallen flat - it tells friends (and friends of friends) who are within 10 blocks of you where you are and what you are doing.

The New Experiments

A bunch of new startups are giving this a shot, too. In a post yesterday TechCrunch UK mentions Germany’s Aka-Aki, Paris-based Mobiluck and MeetMoi (the lone U.S. startup). Another startup is Copenhagen-based Imity. It’s not surprising that most of the innovation is occurring in Europe. The current approach is to get java-based software on the phone - very few U.S. carriers and handsets allow user-based installs of java apps.

Aka-Aki

Aka-Aki, based in Germany, is just a couple of weeks old. Create a profile and download the java app to your phone. You can also create and join groups that say things about your life, job, etc. When you are near other people who are members, data about you is transmitted to them via bluetooth, and vice versa. Users have control over data flow with privacy settings. And the groups supply another layer of privacy. You may transmit that you are single only to other singles, for example. Or share your sexual orientation only with others with the same orientation.

After a silent launch, word is getting out. Thousands of people in Berlin are using the software, and there is a chance for them to get critical mass there with proper marketing. The company has raised a small seed round from FoundersLink and is currently looking for a larger round.

Imity

Copenhagen based Imity, which launched in April, has also been flying under the radar. Like Aka-Aki it detects other members via bluetooth and send basic profile information to your phone. It also keeps track of people on its website, so you can check that out periodically from your normal computer. It’s bridges mobile and traditional social networks, which may help it gain critical mass. Co-founder Nikolaj Nyholm is also behind Polar Rose, a facial recognition and image tagging service.

Imity went open source in February 2007.

MeetMoi

MeetMoi, the only U.S. based service, is most like Dodgeball - it uses text messaging to help connect people. It’s dating focused - text your location to the service and it notifies other users in your area that you are there. If they are interested, they can contact you. The company has raised $1.5 million from Acadia Woods Partners and is based in New York.

MobiLuck

MobiLuck, based in Paris, is another bluetooth solution similar to Aka-Aki and Imity. Download the software to your phone and it vibrates when other users are nearby. You can then chat with them, send photos, etc.

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

Source: TechCrunch
Original Article: http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/155263547/

My brother-in-law Brian Lyons died in a motorcycle accident last week. He was 42 years old. 

I’ll spare you the personal side of this tragedy and focus instead on some workplace perspective I gained from the reaction of colleagues to his death.

Leading by teaching
Brian and I didn’t really talk much about work. Kinda odd perhaps since we worked in the same industry (he was the co-founder, CEO, and CTO of Number Six Software). But during family gatherings, it seemed more appropriate to discuss food and fireworks (he was a big fan) than “The Mythical Man Month.”

I knew he was what you’d consider an “expert.” He grew his company from a small startup to a 150+ employee operation. He wrote books, papers, and articles. He spoke at conferences. He was considered an expert in the Rational Unified Process, Eclipse Process Framework, Service Oriented Architecture and Agile.  

But you don’t really know what someone is like at work if you don’t work with them. So the emotional reaction of his colleagues surprised me a bit. They showed up in droves at the funeral services and tearfully recalled the impact he had on their lives.

They didn’t talk about him as a boss or an expert. They talked about him as a mentor and a friend. How he always had time to answer the questions of even the newest employee. The calls of support he’d make before and after someone took a certification exam. The way he reached out to compliment someone on a thoughtful blog post. And they chuckled at his everpresent sense of humor, like the time he showed up at a team-building cooking class in a chef’s outfit. Several people told me the same thing: “He led by caring.”Tributes at his company blog
His coworkers have been posting tributes to him at the company blog. Here’s a typical entry:

I was surprised that a CEO would come right over to answer the questions of a new employee whom he had never met. I was also amazed that, despite my simplistic inquiries, he answered with detail and zest. Ensuing weeks witnessed similar gestures – notices about webinars; critiques of the webinars; advantages and disadvantages of use cases and activity diagrams; the pace of development cycles; and the integration of testing with development. Here clearly is a CEO who wants to develop his employees.

The morning of my RUP exam he somehow knew I was taking it and found the time to wish me luck and to answer any questions I may still have had. After the exam he offered his congratulations…Here is a leader who cares about his people.

Here’s another one…

What will last longer is remembering his complete lack of ego and his passion for helping others grow.  About 18 months ago I was brainstorming with Brian on use-case modeling and the requiremements management process.  Brian was firing question after question at me.  One part of me was thinking “I give up Brian just tell me the answer” but the other part was relishing that he wasn’t going to give up.  Brian knew that it is not enough to impart knowledge, you also have to give others the capability and confidence to do that themselves. 

Other posts offer similar thoughts: “I guess I never really thought of him as the CEO as much as a mentor and friend.”…”Many people can usually recall a teacher that had some kind of significant impact on them. Brian was one such person to me.” Etc.

The way you treat people is the legacy you leave
There are different ways to lead. Some people get results by yelling and bullying. But it’s even more impressive when someone can motivate people by teaching and caring. When you do that, you’re a successful leader and a successful human being.

So maybe someone out there will read this and decide to take a little extra time to help a colleague, answer a question, or reach out to someone in need of help. I think Brian would like that a lot.

Source: Signal vs. Noise
Original Article: http://www.37signals.com/svn/posts/596-he-led-by-caring

Israel-based BlogTV will be releasing a Facebook application for sharing amateur video today.

The application, which you can get here, lets users stream shows through a widget on their profile pages. You can also browse your friends’ live streams, posted videos, and upcoming shows. Broadcasts can be viewed on a fuller canvas page with chatting capabilities built right in.

The company also says that users will also have the ability to promote their shows in their friends’ news feeds.

With this integration, BlogTV joins the ranks of uStream and Stickam, who have also created Facebook applications. We recently covered the handful of companies making it easier for people to stream video online.

Some statistics provided about BlogTV by the company itself:

• Average time spent on the BlogTV site is 20 minutes
• 350 live shows are broadcasted every day
• The most popular tag for recorded shows is “music”

Check out some screenshots below for a preview of BlogTV’s new application:

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/~3/155064177/

Scouta releases today a Windows client for generating video and audio recommendations based on the podcasts and videocasts in a user’s iTunes collection. This release comes just over a month after the company released a Mac version to do pretty much the same thing.

To use the client, all you have to do is install and configure it with your Scouta user account and set the frequency at which you want it to sync with your iTunes collection. Be sure to have some podcasts in iTunes before trying this out; otherwise it’s pretty pointless (it won’t recommend content based on your music collection alone).

The client will also only create recommendations using the podcasts and videocasts you’ve actually listened to or watched. Once recommendations are generated, users can tweak them by manually rating content in the Scouta web interface.

If you only casually consume podcasts, Scouta may be overkill and not worth the time to set up (even though the process is pretty dead simple). Personally, I discover enough online content through emails from friends and by simply browsing sites like YouTube and the iTunes catalog. But, if you love discovering new content online, this client could come in very handy.

MOG, iLike, and Last.fm also provide content recommendation systems that integrate with iTunes, except they focus on music and not general media.

The screenshot below provides a view of the Scouta recommendation interface.

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/~3/155121097/

Hot on the heels of the jQuery v1.1.4 release, John Resig and the jQuery team put the pedal to the metal and announced their newest release, jQuery v1.2.

This is a massive new release of jQuery that’s been a long time in the making - and it’s ready for your consumption!

This release is feature packed adding such new features as:

• Cross-domain script access
• Support for JSONP
• Numerous new traversal methods
• em/% Animations
• Color Animations
• Purple-include style .load()
• Queue control for animations

Following the tradition of “playing nice with other libraries”, jQuery v1.2 now provides the ability to define a custom namespace for the events expando, thus adding one more method of ensuring that jQuery developers can successfully work in a multi-library environment. John Resig had this to say:

It’s incredibly important for us, and our users, that the jQuery library work in any JavaScript environment. In jQuery 1.2 you can now depend on the fact that jQuery will protect itself from outside code influences, and libraries, even going so far as to protect itself from other versions of jQuery that might be running on the same page. Knowing that your copy of jQuery will always behave the way you expect it, no matter what the platform, is the cornerstone of the project.

Along those same lines of working for the community, the team has provided jQuery developers with an easy way to migrate into jQuery v1.2 by providing a compatibility plugin. With some functionality being removed in jQuery v1.2 release, including this plugin allows developers to have all of the features that were removed in the newest release.

The full release notes provide details about all of these new features.

You can get the latest release of JQuery below:

jQuery 1.2: (How To Upgrade)

• jQuery Minified (14kb with Gzipping)
• jQuery Packed (26kb)
• jQuery Regular (77kb)

Plugins:

• jQuery 1.1 Compatibility Plugin
• XPath Compatibility Plugin
• Color Animation Plugin

As if a new major release wasn’t enough to whet your appetite, on Sunday, September 16th, the new jQuery UI effects library will be released to the public. The library will include:

• Draggables
• Droppables
• Resizables
• Shadows
• Sliders
• Sortables
• Tabs
• Accordions
• Selectables
• Trees
• Modals

All completely documented, demoed, themed, and 100% Free Open Source Software.

Here’s a sneak peak at what to expect:

Lead developer of jQuery UI, Paul Bakaus, had this to say:

We worked hard over the last three months to make UI a seamless, rock-solid solution for many interface situations. It’s nearly there - featuring many core level modules, ready-to-go widgets and custom, unique themes. To make the experience even nicer, the team created a smart downloader, a playground with demo apps and tests and of course documentation. We are pretty excited about our release on Sunday - be sure not to miss it!

Source: Ajaxian
Original Article: http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/ajaxian/~3/155059517/jquery-v12-major-new-release-sneak-peak-at-jquery-ui