Ajax Girl

I had the opportunity to spend some time with Sarah Meyers of PopSnap this week. Sarah was in town to do the videos for the Crunchies, and I had to drive her up to the award ceremony Friday. On many levels she’s inspiring, particularly given that someone so relatively young can make a decent living out of video blogging, and can afford to live in New York.

We just happened to discuss the topic of life streaming. I mentioned Robert Scoble live Twittering the birth of his son and how I believed that it was a step too far, that ultimately some things should remain private. It’s hard to describe her reaction in words, but the look of horror at the suggestion was something I’ll remember for years. She told me that life streaming should include everything, and that Scoble did the right thing.

On a related note I read Ben Elton’s latest novel Blind Faith on the way to the States, and it’s all about life streaming (note that it’s not available in the US until June). To quote Amazon on the book:

Imagine a world where everyone knows everything about everybody. Where what a person “feels” and “truly believes” is protected under the law, while what is rational, even provable is condemned as heresy. A world where to question ignorance and intolerance is to commit a Crime against Faith.

Imagine it. Or just wait until After The Flood.

On a hot Sagittarian morning in the year 56 ATF, Trafford Sewell struggles to work through the usual crowds of near-naked commuters. He is confronted by the intimidating figure of his Parish Confessor. Why has Trafford not been streaming his every moment of sexual intimacy onto the community website like everybody else? Does he think he’s different or special in some way? Better than his fellow man and woman? Does he have something to hide?

Ben Elton imagines a post-apocalyptic society where religious intolerance combines with a confessional sex-obsessed, self-centric culture to create a world where nakedness is modesty, ignorance is wisdom and privacy is a dangerous perversion. A chilling vision of what’s to come? Or something rather closer to what we call reality?

It’s a challenging book, perhaps in line with Keensian thinking (as in Andrew Keen). But intellectually it raises very good questions about privacy and where we draw the line on what we share online, and in those terms I’d highly recommend reading it.

I still believe that some things should remain private. I’ve embraced Twitter in a big way, and I constantly update it, but most of what goes on in my family life remains private. Blogging even more so, it’s not as immediate as Twitter anyway. A visit to Justin.tv in particular shows people streaming their lives 24/7 and while I can see some appeal in doing a show, the thought that my every move may be watched sickens me.

We can’t do a multi-stage survey using our voting plugin for WordPress, so I’ve split the options into age categories. My hunch is that younger people (Gen Y and the new Gen Z) are more open to complete life streaming than those in Gen X and older. There is a heavier level of cynicism amongst the younger generation, a cynicism that seems to dictate that live and unedited is ultimately the only truth as opposed to the heavily slanted, and edited main stream media.

Leave a comment or vote below, it will be interesting to see what others think. If you disagree with me so be it, Sarah Meyers proved to me that some people believe there isn’t a line.

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

Source: TechCrunch
Original Article: http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/220192938/

Ryan Tomayko has a post titled Full Page Zoom Is For Sissies that delves into the fun of trying to build a website using purely em and relative sizing:

About a year ago, I spent the better part of a day making this site’s layout entirely em based and set on a vertical baseline grid… No, I mean, everything is em based: font-sizes, borders, margins, padding, widths, everything. Each individual value in the stylesheet that specifies a vertical measurement was manually calculated based on the relative value of an em on the specific element.

This has two notable effects:

1. Your site can be scaled to any font-size on the client while retaining exact proportions in every way and while staying on the vertical grid. (Go ahead. Try it if you don’t believe me. Just hammer on Command+- a few times.)

2. Your CSS becomes completely unmaintainable.

Ryan then claims that the effort isn’t needed, as full page zoom has been in some browsers for awhile, and is coming to others soon too.

Of course, you can use tools like the Tripoli CSS baseline reset:

Tripoli is the result of years of coding real-world CSS projects. When dealing with multiple projects, you find yourself repeating CSS rules again and again. Tripoli adds the CSS base you need to skip the typographic basics and get on with design customization while relying on a solid, cross-browser backend.

Dealing with CSS layouts can be a pain. Most of the frustration comes from inheritance and margin issues. To make things easier, Tripoli resets all browser defaults for layout and then re-builds them again for content typography.

Tripoli consists of two main documents; one reset and one generic. The reset file resets all browser styles to prepare your document for the layout process without disturbing CSS rules. The generic file does two things: first it sets some general typographic rules like text decoration and font variants. Then it adds more specific rules inside a content class. The content class contains all margins, paddings, lists, tables, link colors etc. So whenever you have content in your document - simply add the class name content and you’re done.

In addition to the two main files, Tripoli also includes a print css for readable printing and an Internet Explorer specific file to correct IE’s rendering issues.

Source: Ajaxian
Original Article: http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/ajaxian/~3/220190226/full-page-zoom-is-for-sissies

Paid Content is quoting sources that claim that Facebook and Nokia may be close to a deal which sees Facebook offered on Nokia phones as a default and in return Nokia may take a stake in Facebook.

On the content side, offering a Nokia mobile specific version of Facebook will be a positive in driving Facebook use on the mobile web. MySpace has gone down the path of carrier deals, where as a Facebook/ Nokia deal would be carrier agnostic, and given that Nokia is still the largest cell phone provider worldwide the deal would spread Facebook into new markets.

The investment side isn’t that surprising given how many companies have now bought into the Facebook phenomenon. The remarkable part is how many companies are willing to invest in Facebook at a $15 billion valuation. At best Facebook may be worth even more than that, particularly when you consider sites like Baidu have a market cap in excess of $9 billion.

We don’t know when Facebook may move to an IPO; in his 60 Minutes interview a week ago Mark Zuckerberg said that it might be this year, or next year, or even 2010. What we do know is that an IPO in the current market will unlikely provide a strong valuation for Facebook. Since the beginning of year markets worldwide have taken a hammering, with the market in Australia at least recording its worst new year drop in history according to some reports. Google stock is down from its $741 peak to $600 a share. My prediction is that unless the market picks up (and that’s unlikely given all the US recession talk) Facebook wont IPO this year. 2009/ 2010 at the earliest, presuming that the market eventually recovers.

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

Source: TechCrunch
Original Article: http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/220176397/

Miss the Crunchies this year? You can watch a recording of the show provided by Revision3 below. Also see our wrap-up of the event.

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

Source: TechCrunch
Original Article: http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/220149331/

CuePrompter (via DownloadSquad) is an browser-based teleprompt tool. Cut-and-paste some or insert some text and the application will scroll it forward or back, at your desired speed. A variant of the Ajax e-reader concept.

Peeking at the source, it’s been around since 2005. Implementation is small and straightforward. It works using a timer and manipulation of the top CSS property to continuously re-position the top of the entire text. (A negative top value means the top of the passage is “above” the browser window; hence you’ll see text further along in the passage.)

Source: Ajaxian
Original Article: http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/ajaxian/~3/220075984/curprompter-javascript-teleprompter

I’m attending and covering two great conferences this week. First up is the Digital, Life, Design event in Munich (where i have just arrived). There are a few interesting panels and discussions, and I’ll mention any highlights over the next two days.

Then on Tuesday I’ll join three thousand other lucky individuals who are attending the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. It is an honor to be able to attend, and many of the sessions are bloggable (some are off record). I’ll also be one of the “challengers” at the Pioneers and Pitches session on Saturday, and will cover that as well. Any free time during the week will be spent trying to convince Larry, Sergey and Marissa from Google that they should let me on the Google jet back to the bay area (wish me luck).

The Davos Conversation

The deadline for the Davos Conversation is tomorrow, January 21. The program is a way to get a conversation going between Davos participants and the wider community, and you can join the discussion.

To participate, create a video that answers the question “What one thing do you think that countries, companies or individuals must do to make the world a better place in 2008?” and upload it to the Davos Conversation YouTube site.

Submit your video by tomorrow and it will be included (click “view/vote” on the site to view all the videos. I’ll have mine up tomorrow as well. If you do post a video response, please leave a comment below with a direct link to the video.

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

Source: TechCrunch
Original Article: http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/220026932/

Virtual events firm Unisfair has taken $10 million Series C in a round led by Norwest Ventures.

Unisfair powers virtual corporate events such live Expos, Trade Shows, & Conferences “that use rich media to provide a superior user experience.” The virtual spaces allow those off site to attend big events virtually by allowing them to see and hear presentations; participate in live Q&A’s and network. The platform allows advertisers to promote their product online in conjunction with a real world event, including multimedia presentations and lead generation.

Unisfair was founded in Israel in 2002 and is now headquartered in Menlo Park with offices in New York and Ramat-Gan. Shmil Levy, a partner with Sequoia Israel (an earlier investor) chairs the board.

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/~3/220011526/

Startup fund/ incubator TechStars is now accepting applications for its 2008 intake.

TechStars offers up to $15,000 in seed funding ($5,000 per founder, max $15,000) to broke entrepreneurs with a good startup idea. Ten winners will be selected, and winners will need to spend most of their time in Boulder over the Northern summer building out their ideas. In return, TechStars takes 5% of the equity in each startup. Winners have full use of TechStar’s offices, access to legal advice, and are able to tap into a strong list of startup mentors to help them build their idea (list here). Non-US companies can apply, although must be able to legally spend most of summer in Colorado.

Of last year’s winners 8 of the 10 companies are now angel or venture backed, are profitable, and/or have had acquisition offers, and 6 of the 10 winners heard about the opportunity on TechCrunch (according to TechStats).

The Techstar’s program is similar to YCombinator, and both are solid ideas, giving wannabe startups a helping hand in turning their dreams into reality. The associated support is first rate and particularly for those not well connected in the Valley would be difficult to replicate; ultimately the $15,000 may be the headline figure but the related support makes it much more valuable.

Applications close 31 March 2008.

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/~3/219965826/

Silicon Alley Insider is reporting that Yahoo is preparing to lay off up to 20% of its 12,000 strong workforce, a big purge as the Sunnyvale based company attempts to become more profitable.

Talks of staff downsizing at Yahoo have been doing the rounds since former CEO Terry Semel left Yahoo in June.

Despite traffic to Yahoo properties remaining ahead of Google (according to comScore), YHOO stock has performed poorly over the last twelve months months as the company has failed to convert that traffic to strong profit growth, unlike Google.

SAI’s source claims that the move is about improving the outlook for Yahoo and strengthening its position so it can remain a standalone company by increasing the share price. We don’t know directly but this seems to be logical reasoning. There will be a lot of Yahoo employee’s who will not be enjoying their Martin Luther King holiday long weekend now this news has leaked.

If you’re working for Yahoo and know more, drop us a line.

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/~3/219955297/

O’Reilly Radar comments on the dangers of remote scripting:

We at O’Reilly just got bit on perl.com, which redirected to a porn site courtesy a piece of remotely-included Javascript. One of our advertisers was using an ads system that required our pages to load Javascript from their site. It only took three things to turn perl.com into porn.com: (1) the advertiser’s domain lapsed, (2) the porn company bought it, (3) they replaced the Javascript that we were loading with a small chunk that redirected to the porn site (note that nothing on or about perl.com changed). Our first concern was that we’d been hacked and “run this remote Javascript” inserted from our servers without our knowledge, but that hadn’t happened—our change records and RT logs show we’ve had that Javascript and advertiser since May 2006.

There’s nothing especially new about this; the external Javascript model has always been in place, long before Ajax and widgets. Yet, with widgets taking off, more and more users and developers are cutting-and-pasting script tags into their web pages, pulling in code from a wide variety of providers, big and small. How well equipped are publishers to decide which is safe and which is not, and deal with situations like O’Reilly experienced, where someone takes over an expired domain?

Source: Ajaxian
Original Article: http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/ajaxian/~3/219819767/dangers-of-remote-scripting