Ajax Girl

There’s nothing quite like an Apple product launch to bring out every arm-chair profiler to describe exactly what kind of people are lining up to buy.

From the treasure trove of Engadget’s comments sections come these astute piece of analysis on who’s going to buy the new MacBook Air:

It is a laptop for apple fans and people who rely on material goods to demonstrate their worth to other people.

This seems to be an incredibly useless laptop that really only has a market among the yuppies and Mac sycophants with cash to waste on an underpowered, 1-USB port, overpriced toy that in the end just looks pretty and nothing else.

It is primarily going to be purchased by people with too much time / money to do a little independant thinking (read: Starbucks junkies, college students with allowances from the parents, fashionistas, etc.).

I know full well what people i will see with this laptop and they aint the sort of people i get along with. Pricks basicly.

Expected delivery: February 11th. Can’t wait to join the rest of the sycophantic yuppies down at Starbucks where we can flaunt our lack of independent thinking and worth through choice of computer. Awesome.

Source: Signal vs. Noise
Original Article: http://www.37signals.com/svn/posts/817-them-macbook-air-peoples-are-horrible

I wrote last night about an advertising service from Pay-Per-Play Media that sees 5 second audio ads automatically playing when visiting websites. Annoying would be the nicer way of describing screeching audio ads for Tacos playing when you visit a website, a sure way to drive visitors away would be another take on it.

When writing about a service like this, there is always the very real possibility that the old adage of “there’s no such thing as bad publicity” will ring true…indeed I wouldn’t be surprised for example if that everytime we wrote about PayPerPost in the past they ended up with more users. Pay-Per-Play Media got that exact boost, and Pay-Per-Play’s Director of Marketing Charles Heflin sent me this nice email to let me know:

Dude,

You really made yourself and tech crunch look bad with your post about Pay-Per-Play media.

Did you know that $.01 per play is a $10 CPM? Well above industry standard?

Only the geeks with a chip on their shoulder agreed with you. Apparently the rest of the crowd liked the idea… LOL

Do you have any studies or proof that 5 second audio ads actually drive visitors away?

Your “feelings” don’t count… Only facts count.

Oh… thank you for the post BTW … we received over 500 new signups covering 27,000 new websites as a result of the traffic you raised… and counting.

Apparently because no one has studied annoying audio ads on websites, they aren’t annoying.

Having considered Charles’ email, I’ve come to the conclusion that I was wrong. I now encourage EVERYONE to sign up to Pay-Per-Play Media, particularly TechCrunch’s competitors. If you’re running a website, I’d encourage you to get ALL of your competitors to sign up as well….indeed, I really, really hope this takes off in a big way. We wont be running it, so I guess we’ll be the ones who will miss out

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

Source: TechCrunch
Original Article: http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/223238700/

A UK startup called Yabb launched today in closed private beta. It is a VOIP micro-blogging service that lets you publish voicemails on Skype. So instead of blogging you just speak your thoughts and your Skype contacts can subscribe. It is like Seesmic, without the video. TechCrunch UK has the details:

Users import their Skype contacts, then are asked to allow Yabb access to Skype. The idea is to find a conversation topic of interest to you on the Yabb site, pick someone with interesting thoughts who has joined that topic then send them a call request by asking them to Skype you. By integrating with Skype’s API, Yabb allows you to then call people over Skype. While you wait for a call, you can join other topics, add your thoughts and send more call requests. [Update: I hadn’t previously realised this, but Paul Sweeney points out that Yabb is less disruptive than one might think in that you can’t send voice messages to people who aren’t in your Skype contact list. This means nos ‘voice spam but also less ability for this to go viral maybe].

Founder Paul Birch told me Yabb is going to be about re-inventing the ‘art’ of conversation. He is hoping there will be more potential adoption of Yabb than video-blogging systems like Seesmic since most people are happy to talk, but not everyone wants to appear on video. (Yabb is built on Ruby on Rails and is hosted by EngineYard).

Note to self: voicemails are not a mass medium. Does anyone enjoy listening to voicemails? They are something to avoid or get through as quickly as possible, even the funny ones. I should do a VOIPcast on this topic.

seesmic

Loading information about seesmic…

Engine Yard

Loading information about Engine Yard…

cb_widget_report_widget(”cb_widget_1201377119″); cb_widget_report_element(”cb_widget_0_1201377119″,”seesmic”); cb_widget_report_element(”cb_widget_1_1201377119″,”engineyard”);

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

Source: TechCrunch
Original Article: http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/223235111/

Sam and the team have released Prototype 1.6.0.2 (and 1.5.1.2):

Prototype 1.6.0.2 is a backwards-compatible, drop-in replacement recommended for all 1.6.0 users. We’ve fixed 28 bugs and made over a dozen improvements to the code base, including performance improvements for CSS selectors in Safari 3 and for the Element#up/#down/#next/#previous and Event#findElement methods in all browsers. We’re also now officially supporting the Opera browser, version 9.25 and higher. You can get the full scoop on all the changes in the 1.6.0.2 CHANGELOG.

They also fix a security hole (minimal):

Among the numerous bug fixes is a change to the way Ajax.Request handles automatic JavaScript response evaluation. Previous versions of Prototype relied on the browser’s XMLHttpRequest same-origin policy to ensure that response bodies with a content type of text/javascript were safe to evaluate. Alexey Feldgendler from Opera kindly alerted us to the possibility that certain non-browser environments (like Opera’s widget system) do not enforce the same-origin policy and as such may be subject to cross-domain script exploits. To combat this we’ve added an Ajax.Request#isSameOrigin method which returns true when a request is being made to the same domain, port, and protocol as the document. Furthermore, Prototype will no longer automatically evaulate JavaScript response bodies when this method returns false.

Go drop in that puppy.

Source: Ajaxian
Original Article: http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/ajaxian/~3/223213894/prototype-1602-security-and-performance-improvements

We earlier reported that the design collaboration service ConceptShare had landed a distribution deal with another Canadian company, Corel. It turns out the two companies’ integration is a bit tighter than earlier reported. ConceptShare will not only be available through a separate website, but directly from within Corel Draw X4. Integration is handled through a new sidebar that makes it a lot easier to publish files to ConceptShare and import them into Corel Draw.

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

Source: TechCrunch
Original Article: http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/223171856/

While Google dominates the top slot in search both in the U.S. and worldwide, with a global search market share of 62 percent, there is still a lot of elbowing going on below, especially when you look beyond the U.S.

In a comScore ranking of the top-10 global search engines as measured by number of searches during the month of December, 2007, Yahoo comes in at a distant No. 2 with only 13 percent of global share. (Although, in the U.S., Yahoo actually gained a half-point of share in December, whereas Google dipped 0.2 percent). The big surprise, though, is the strength of local search engines in countries that don’t use the Roman alphabet. No. 3 on the list is not Microsoft, but Chinese search engine Baidu (with 5 percent share, versus Microsoft’s 3 percent). No. 5 is Korea’s NHN Corporation, which operates the Naver portal and search engine. Creeping up on Ask’s No. 8 spot, is Russian search engine Yandex. And Alibaba (which may include Yahoo China) brings up the rear at No. 10.

Shouldn’t the best search technology win no matter what the language? These market share figures suggest that culture and marketing play a big role as well—unless, of course, you are Google.

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/~3/223122250/

EveryBlock, the hyperlocal news/data site from Adrian Holovaty and crew, has launched for Chicago, New York, and San Francisco.

What’s it for? Well, for example, you can see the results of all the restaurant inspections, crimes, business licenses, etc. in your zip code, your neighborhood, or your street.

If you don’t want to go hyperlocal, you can zoom out. For example, here are all the recent filmings going on in Chicago right now. EveryBlock even lets you know which streets will be closed for block parties, parades, or athletic events.

For more background on this useful new service, check out the about EveryBlock page. I especially like how they’ve designed their own maps — real nice touch.

Adrian first told me about this idea over lunch about a year ago so it’s a real thrill to finally see it launch. Adrian, a fellow Chicagoan, is wonderfully talented and an especially nice guy. He’s a great guitarist too. The team he’s assembled for EveryBlock is top notch. I wish them all the best success with EveryBlock.

Source: Signal vs. Noise
Original Article: http://www.37signals.com/svn/posts/816-everyblock-launches

Warner Music has filed suit against music search engine Seeqpod for copyright infringement.

Seeqpod offers a music search engine that allows users to play music they find directly on the site. According to comScore the service had over 6 million page views in December 2007.

Warner Music claims in its suit that Seeqpod infringes on their copyrighted works by “making on-demand and unauthorized digital public performances of these works,” making a direct and material contribution to infringing content by presenting content from “pirate sites.”

What’s interesting about this case is that Seeqpod is a search engine; it links to content as Google would, although it does allow users to play the content from their site, but ultimately they never host any of the content.

The EFA notes that there is little case law relating to search engines and copyright claims, and the DMCA should be applicable here; “the defendants are complying with the letter of the law, but copyright owners are now trying to change the rules in court.”

Seeqpod

Loading information about Seeqpod…

cb_widget_report_widget(”cb_widget_1201357521″); cb_widget_report_element(”cb_widget_0_1201357521″,”seeqpod”);

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

Source: TechCrunch
Original Article: http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/223089982/

In the previous post on the future of mobile technology, Michael notes the “bleak prospects for mobile advertising revenue” expressed by some mobile carrier CEOs and Fortune 500 executives at a panel at Davos. This dour assessment stands in stark contrast to all the early-stage money going into mobile-ad startups. This week alone, I’ve received several announcements of new VC money going into mobile ad networks, including the $12 million SoftBank Capital put into Ad Infuse earlier this week. There is another $6 million deal about to be announced next week.

And then there is Amobee, a mobile ad network headquartered in San Francisco with R&D in Israel. According to an Israeli press report (in Hebrew), Yahoo tried to purchase the company outright a few months ago for $150 to $200 million. The company turned down the offer, hoping to fetch a higher price later.

Amobee has developed an ad-serving platform allowing mobile operators to inject ads into different types of mobile content, such as video, music, and games. The company claims it provides “precise contextual and behavioral targeting across all users on all handsets for all non-voice related applications and services.” Investors include Accel Partners, Sequoia Capital and Globespan, who have put in $20 million-$25 million , plus Vodafone who put in another undisclosed sum in November.

The Fortune 500 crowd on that Davos panel seem to agree with Forrester projections that mobile advertising will have trouble hitting $1 billion in the U.S. by 2012, whereas Amobee cites delirious projections of $11 billion for worldwide mobile advertising by 2011 in its press releases.

So who is right? The pessimists at Davos, or the optimists at these startups and those throwing money at them?

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

Source: TechCrunch
Original Article: http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/223083378/

Only in the perverted world of the web can something as simple and fundamental as making money be in need of a fancy word like “monetize”. The most basic principle of business doesn’t need an exotic dress and an academic hat. Just a pair of working gloves.

It’s no longer either: “How can we make money?” vs “How can we monetize this?”. And the former even benefits from not having “I’m such an ass” sound to it.

Source: Signal vs. Noise
Original Article: http://www.37signals.com/svn/posts/815-monetize-a-word-we-didnt-need