Ajax Girl

Figures released by eMarketer show that growth in online advertising will slow, but there’s no need to panic.

According to the report, online advertising growth will slow in 2008 to…wait for it…only 29% and worse still by 2012 online advertising will only grow by 12% compared to 2010.

Now I’ve got the sarcasm out of the way the figures are quite remarkable, particularly at a time where many economists are predicting the United States may well slip into recession, unprecedented Government intervention aside.

The numbers look great for Google, with paid search advertising expected to hover at around 40% of the total online ad spend through to 2012, increasing as a whole from $8.6 billion in 2007 to $16.59 billion in 2012, a 92.9% increase over 5 years.

The are some lower figures, for example the two expected white knights in new media advertising won’t grow to levels many were hoping for, with advertising on social networking sites only expected to be 6% of the overall online ad spend in 2012, and rich media/ video rising to 13.1%; all in all it sounds like an internet in 5 years time that isn’t that much different to now, only with more money in the pot to go around.

According to the NY Times, online advertising will rise from 9.3% of the total ad spend in the United States now to 13.3 percent in 2011.

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/~3/199570872/

Flash (via Flex or AIR) allows developers to open connections to servers (binary sockets), much like XHR in Web applications. And, just as frameworks like DWR and JSON RPC allow for remoting objects via XHR, a number of frameworks allow for remoting objects in Flex. One of the most popular has been Flex LiveCycle Data Services, but it’s also a commercial product with a big enough price tag to cause many developers to steer clear.

Not anymore.

Adobe just announced that they are open-sourcing the remoting and HTTP messaging features of Flex LiveCycle Data Sources in a new product called Blaze DS, which will be LGPL licensed. In addition, they are taking a page from Comet and making it easy to create a persistent connection for “server push” functionality for the HTTP messaging. The “data management” features (i.e., keeping a client and server model in sync) remain payware.

In addition, they are publishing the spec to their object remoting protocol (AMF), making it easy for others in the community to create remoting servers (previously, folks had to reverse-engineer the protocol). This opens the door for other non-Java platforms to provide middle tiers in the Flex stack (i.e., Flex doesn’t include any public database drivers, so you have to write a middle-tier to transfer data to Flex apps, and right now Java is the only first-class option).

Many folks wonder why Ajax developers don’t just use Flash; as Adobe open-sources more and more of their stack, it’s going to be very interesting to see the reaction of the community. We at Ajaxian aren’t in the “Open Web or Else” crowd, but a fully open Flash stack would sure make the world a touch more interesting.

Source: Ajaxian
Original Article: http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/ajaxian/~3/199561542/ajax-in-flash-flex-livecycle-data-services-goes-open-source

One of the difficulties facing developers who want to create rich internet applications is HTML’s static nature, which requires that pages (unassisted by other scripting languages) must refresh in their entirety for any new information to load and appear. Technologies such as Ajax and Flash have been developed, at least in part, to overcome this limitation of HTML and facilitate the loading of new data onto a page without the requirement of a refresh. Many Web 2.0 companies have taken advantage of such technology in making their applications operate more seamlessly like desktop apps, but the technology still has quite a way to go.

Ajax, for example, isn’t designed to load new information onto a page unless that page has makes the initiative to request more data in the first place (i.e. the user interacts in a particular way with the page that causes it to ping the server for extra stuff). If you want to design an application that pushes information out to a page (say, up-to-the-second stock prices) whether or not the page has made a request, you can pull off the functionality with Ajax but your code won’t be “elegant” and it probably won’t be very efficient either.

Adobe is making a set of announcements tonight, the largest of which is meant to solve this issue of sending data back and forth with a visitor’s browser more elegantly, thereby helping developers create richer internet applications. The company has offered a product called LiveCycle Data Services (previously Flex Data Services) that works with Flex, a technology for building Flash applications. It provides advanced capabilities for Flash applets that allow them to connect up with server-side, back-end systems (in other words, to communicate “back home” with the server that originally loaded a page).

Tonight, Adobe is releasing an open sourced, beta version of LiveCycle Data Services called BlazeDS. The open source nature of BlazeDS will make it a welcome addition to the developer’s arsenal. But on top of opening it up, Adobe is adding extra functionality called HTTP streaming that enables clients (i.e. applets in end-user browsers) to initiate persistent connections with servers that allow those servers to push data back to the client whenever the server deems a transfer necessary (e.g. to send the latest stock price). The hope is that this technology will make it possible for data to flow both ways (from server and back) much more efficiently. The most notable difference for website visitors should be faster performance, and hopefully better functionality as well.

Adobe will also be making available something called LiveCycle Data Services Community Edition, basically BlazeDS but with Adobe quality control (i.e. certification) and support. This enterprise version of the technology, which the company compares to Red Hat’s enterprise offerings, will not be ready until early 2008 and pricing has yet to be disclosed.

In addition to the introduction of BlazeDS and its Community Edition, Adobe is releasing beta 3 versions of both Flex and AIR tonight. A commercial, non-open source version of BlazeDS (simply retaining the old name, LiveCycle Data Services) will also be maintained by Adobe and continue to offer some additional functionality not found in the open source version.

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/~3/199559097/

A Federal Court judge has found that MercExchange LLC is due $30 million from eBay in compensation for a patent breach of MercExchange’s “Buy It Now” patent, a long standing feature available on eBay auctions.

The case started back in 2001, and in 2003 a jury found in favor of MercExchange. According to the Wall Street Journal, the case triggered a review by the U.S. Supreme Court over whether injunctions or damage awards are sufficient remedies in patent cases, with a ruling in 2006 that “all but required injunctions in patent cases.” eBay convinced the court in September that damages alone would suffice in this case given the ruling, leading to the $30 million today.

MercExchange has said they will appeal the denial of its request for an injunction, but welcomed the $30 million in damages. eBay also plans to appeal the ruling.

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

Source: TechCrunch
Original Article: http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/199551872/

It’s not an easy time in the dead tree media business at the moment. Competition is fierce, not just from online alternatives but from other publishers as well. Iconic magazine BusinessWeek has laid off a dozen editorial and business staff members as it attempts to remain competitive. Talking Biz News has the full memo of the “restructure” here.

Other dead tree publications losing staff this year include the NY Times, who recently undertook some end of year staff downsizing, PC World Australia who shut their print editionand Business 2.0, the magazine that spawned an army of Web 2.0 related blog editors joined the deadpool in October.

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

Source: TechCrunch
Original Article: http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/199521699/

Two new product releases from Google today. The first (see video above) is an update to the Google Toolbar for Internet Explorer that sees new functionality added.

Users are now able to sync their button choices across computers via the toolbar, as well as add Google gadgets. The toolbar now includes an autocomplete function as well as having support for Google Notebook built in.

On the photo front Google has released an iPhone version of Picasa Web Albums. The pictures below are pretty self explanatory. Full details on the Google blog here.

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

Source: TechCrunch
Original Article: http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/199507079/

Since we started taking nominations for the 2007 Crunchies Awards on December 3, there have been nearly 72,000 submissions so far, across 20 categories. The companies with the most submissions will have a greater chance of making it as a finalist (but that is not the only factor). The deadline for putting in your nominations is midnight tonight, December 12, pst. So if you haven’t already voted, here is your last chance. You have a little less than nine hours left.

After we sort through all the nominations with our co-hosts GigaOm, Read/WriteWeb and VentureBeat, five finalists will be announced for each category. The categories include Best Bootstrapped Start-Up, Best Consumer Start-Up, Best Enterprise Start-Up, Best Mobile Start-Up, Best User-Generated Content Site, Best Clean-Tech Start-Up, Best Video Site, Best Time Sink, Best Start-Up CEO, and Best New Start-Up of 2007. Once the finalists are up, you will be able to vote on them as well at the Crunchies site. The winners will be announced on January 18 at the Herbst Theater in San Francisco.

Tickets will be made available soon. The theater holds about 1,000 people.

Thanks to Sun Microsystems Business Analytics, Microsoft and Charles River Ventures for sponsoring the Crunchies. Contact us if you’re interested to sponsor an award or other part of the evening festivities.

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

Source: TechCrunch
Original Article: http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/199448073/

Crush or Flush, a mobile social network that draws comparisons to Hot or Not for its users’ focus on identifying the attractiveness of strangers, has shared some statistics that suggest it is doing quite well. This, despite the fact that I’ve never heard anyone mention Crush or Flush before, and the service is strikingly simple (perhaps very intentionally given the current state of mobile in the US).

Members of Crush or Flush use their cell phones to cycle through photos of other members and indicate whether to “crush” or “flush” them. If two members mutually crush each other, they are able to text message each other. Profiles provide not only photos but basic information and descriptive tags. You can refer people to friends and view a list of people who have crushed you.

The service launched in January 2007 and over the past 11 months has signed up 500,000 members and achieved a rate of 40M monthly mobile page views. The company is comparing its success to that of MySpace, which claims 150M monthly mobile page views but with a much larger user base.

Crush or Flush is trying to entrench itself by signing with carriers and going international. It has partnered with six North American carriers - AT&T, Suncom, Alltel, Cricket, Virgin, and Boost - and one international carrier, Jiangsu Unicom. It has also launched a Chinese version called Lagou, which translates to “pinky promise”.

While Crush or Flush started off as more of a “dating” site, the company has been working to build a more traditional social network around the brand. Members can now add more photos, view their messaging history, create a homepage, and search for members according to interests.

Check out our coverage of competitors Mocospace and Zyb.

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

Source: TechCrunch
Original Article: http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/199453762/

Sequoia
Sequoia, the guys who funded Apple, Google, and YouTube, have a no-frills site. It stands out from the typical flashy, fancy, or salesy VC firm site.

1-800-GOT-JUNK
Vincent Hubert writes:

Have a look at the bottom of the page here: 1-800-GOT-JUNK

You want to have a clue on how much clutter you have? Just click on the truck ratio, and you will see the amount of junk it represents.

Blockbuster
It’s always a challenge to deliver bad news to customers. Don Wilson spotted this Blockbuster account change email and sent it in. The compay is downgrading customers on this plan from unlimited in-store exchanges to 3 free exchanges per month. The note is a little long winded — the main point: You no longer get unlimited in-store exchanges — but at least it clearly explains what’s going on and shows all the options available to customers.

Click for larger version

Have an interesting link, story, or screenshot for Signal vs. Noise? Contact svn [at] 37signals [dot] com.

Source: Signal vs. Noise
Original Article: http://www.37signals.com/svn/posts/737-screens-around-town-sequoia-1-800-got-junk-and-blockbuster

Let’s call a spade a spade here. When the third largest social network in the U.S. announces a platform for social applications that mirrors Facebook’s and appeals to Facebook developers, it is a snub to Google. For all the promise of Google’s competing OpenSocial platform (which Bebo is also supporting), it is just not ready yet. Bebo’s embrace of Facebook says a lot about the true state of competition between Google and Facebook. The fact that Bebo will have Facebook apps running on Bebo before OpenSocial apps indicates where its priorities lie.

When OpenSocial launched, we suggested that Facebook might have no choice but to join it as well, given all the initial support from other Websites and application developers that Google was able to muster. But this move suggests otherwise. Facebook is not going to join OpenSocial unless it has to. In fact, Facebook actually helped Bebo with this effort, and for good reason.

How does Facebook crush OpenSocial? By helping to make Facebook applications easily portable to other social networks. It would rather open up its own application platform to other social networks and compete head-to-head with OpenSocial. That’s the game plan. Facebook already has all the developers anyway. This is Facebook’s game to lose. Round Two goes to Facebook. But can it get LinkedIn, Hi5, Friendster, and others—some of whom have opened up their own platforms to outside developers—to also play ball?

(Read our on-the-scene coverage with full details about Bebo’s platform here).

Update: In fact, what I suggested above is exactly what Facebook is doing. (See this post on the Facebook developers blog). And this was just added to its wiki for developers:

In the next step of opening up Facebook Platform, Facebook is now making its platform architecture available as a model for other social sites. Facebook will even license the Facebook Platform methods and tags for use by other platforms, which means that the 100,000 developers currently building Facebook applications can make their applications available on other social sites with no extra work.

It is mano-a-mano, folks.

Bebo

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Facebook

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

Source: TechCrunch
Original Article: http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/199338887/