Ajax Girl

Certainly one of the most creative concepts I’ve seen in a long time. What a kick ass idea. Here’s more pictures and information about the artist if you’re interested.

[Thanks for sharing the link, Jeff]

Source: Signal vs. Noise
Original Article: http://www.37signals.com/svn/posts/921-brian-dettmers-insanely-creative-book-autopsies

There is nothing worse than waiting for a mobile browser to fire up on your mobile phone (especially if it’s AT&T). That is why mobile apps customized for your phone still tend to deliver a better experience than going through the browser. Anyone building mobile apps knows this. Cut out any unnecessary steps and lag time, and the usage of your mobile app will go up. The folks on the Google Mobile team live by this rule and have been working hard to make their mobile apps faster (for search, Gmail, Maps). (More at MobileCrunch)

Below is a chart from Google showing how usage of Gmail on the iPhone took off once latency issues were resolved.

What is true for the Web is doubly true for a mobile phone. Slow me down, and I’ll bail on your app. Building custom apps lets developers tweak their performance to each device. The downside is that consumers have to open up a new app for anything they want to do on their phone. There are only so many apps most people are able to juggle between (even on a full-sized computer, I use no more than five or six applications on a daily basis). What we need is a general-purpose app to access the Web from mobile devices that is also fast. What we need is a better mobile browser. Or faster mobile networks. Or both.

As fast as the mobile version of Gmail is, it is still not fast enough. I have it on my Blackberry. Google nailed the mobile interface, the search, and the address auto-completion. It is a much nicer interface and more fully-featured than my Blackberry mail. But I hardly ever use it because my Blackberry mail is much faster. The native Blackberry feature already fetches all of my Gmail messages for me and I don’t have to launch it as a separate application. It is just always on, always updated.

That is how all mobile apps should work. Of course, Blackberry has the advantage of being able to build its device around this particular app. If you are going to have to launch an app to access the Web, you should have to do it only once.

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Source: TechCrunch
Original Article: http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/254555033/

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Despite CNET’s unexpected legal setback last week in their fight against what is now their largest stockholder (a consortium of investors led by Jana Partners), the board and management team continues to fight on. Previous meetings between Jana and the CNET board were already “tense and uncomfortable.” I can only imagine they’re getting more so.

So far, the Jana consortium has not demanded an ouster of CNET CEO Neil Ashe as part of their proposed reforms of the ailing company. But that may be changing, says a source close to the drama. “Jana’s patience with Neil has run out, they’re now looking to get rid of him,” said the source. When a company’s biggest stockholder (holding nearly 25% of the outstanding stock) wants you to resign as CEO, it becomes difficult to both fight for your job and simultaneously “maximize shareholder value.”

If Ashe is forced out, who might step in as CNET’s CEO?

There are no shortages of rumors here, either. One insider says former CEO Shelby Bonnie may be right for the job. Bonnie resigned as CEO in October 2006 following an options backdating scandal. Later, though, the SEC completely exonerated Bonnie and CNET and dismissed the charges. He is still a major shareholder in CNET and owns about 7% of the outstanding stock. And so far Bonnie hasn’t taken a side in the fight - most other major shareholders are backing current management.

Bonnie, however, has moved on to his new venture, PoliticalBase, and hasn’t shown any outward desire to return to CNET.

Another name that has come up as a possible CEO candidate is Dan Rosensweig, the former COO of Yahoo and who’s currently a partner at private equity firm Quadrangle Group. Rosensweig was formerly the President of CNET, a position he took on following the merger of ZDNet and CNET in 2000. Rosensweig would likely be interested in the job, said someone who’s familiar with the situation, but only if the board of directors invited him to come on board. From what we hear, the Jana consortium might also be interested in pushing him as an alternative to Ashe.

Rosensweig would find himself in a familiar situation. Not only did he previous work at CNET, his right hand Editor-In-Chief at ZDNet, Dan Farber, recently took the top spot at CNET News as well. They remain friends - when Rosensweig left Yahoo, he only gave one personal interview - to Farber. Perhaps they’ll get the old band back together for an encore.

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

Source: TechCrunch
Original Article: http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/254542383/

Last May we wrote about a virtual world called MyMiniLife where you can construct and furnish virtual homes that look like those you’d find in The Sims, except smaller and more pixelated.

If this is your cup of tea, then perhaps you’ll be interested in a new MyMiniLife tool for importing real life objects into cyberspace. These items can be added to your own homes or shared with (i.e. sold to) other users. I’ve used it to import the Crunchies Award, shrinking it and yet making it life-size at the same time.

All that’s needed to import an object is a camera for taking four isometric shots, and a moderately functional photo editing application. A green screen is recommended, but who has one of those lying around? I found that you can do just fine without one if you have decent Photoshop skills. See the video demonstration at the bottom of this post to get an idea of the process.

MyMiniLife has been testing this feature for two months with beta users who have already uploaded 9,000 items. The company, which operates on angel funding, claims 750,000 users total and 9M page views per month.

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/~3/254513951/

One of the key ingredients to success on the Web is rapid iteration, and to do so, eliciting user feedback is a must. As we know, TechCrunch is a breeding ground for avid beta testers keen to provide input and suggestions. Yet, more often than not, when we do offer feedback to a site all we receive in return is an auto-reply, thank-you email. When was the last time you submitted feedback to a site that was then followed up with an actual acknowledgment that the bug was fixed or the feature integrated? My guess, not very often.

Kampyle—yet another Yossi Vardi startup from Israel—has developed a feedback management platform aimed at assisting site owners better manage this feedback loop and, along the way, increase customer loyalty and satisfaction. The underlying premise here being that users expect not only to be heard, but also responded to. This is especially true when providing feedback on services, products or customer experiences. Sites that manage their feedback right end up with deeper customer engagement, lower shopping cart abandonment, and better usability.

There are four moving parts in Kampyle’s feedback analysis platform:

1. Collection: A feedback collection form (see screenshot on right) is launched through buttons scattered across a site. Kampyle will roll out advanced customization options throughout the coming weeks.

2. Analysis: Kampyle provides user feedback along with contextual data such as screen resolution, browser type, operating system, etc. Slicing and grouping functionality delivers a greater understanding of why an issue occurred, which ultimately translates into what to do about it.

3. Management: Data and suggested corrective actions are arranged in intuitive dashboards. Data is exportable to XML & Excel. Nothing much to write home about here.

4. Action: CRM-like functionality completes the feedback loop by allowing site owners to inform groups and individual users of the corrective action they have taken. The notification even includes a link to where the fix was made and offers a thumbs-up/down rating to further express satisfaction.

All-in-all a wide variety of companies can benefit from a service such as Kampyle’s, which is bridging the gap between CRM and site-side analytics. Extending the CRM functionality to piggyback on full-blown CRM platforms such as SalesForce, SugarCRM, and even Zoho would go a long way in popularizing the service.

Kamplye is still in closed beta so pricing is yet to be established, but once the service is commercially available 250 TechCrunch readers will get their first month free. Sign-up here to get on the list.

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Source: TechCrunch
Original Article: http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/254465266/

Viddyou, a video sharing site that launched almost a year ago as a platform for video bloggers, today rolls out support for high definition video and adds a $35/yr premium membership option for power users.

On the surface, Viddyou looks like many of the other video sites out there. But it has so far managed to foster a community that seeks refuge from the masses over at YouTube. Co-founder Aaron Wadler says that Viddyou’s contributers enjoy the site’s extensive privacy controls and lack of both advertisements and trolls. It’s a place where they feel comfortable sharing videos of their children and grandparents, or posting more personal video blogs for and about their friends.

Today’s additions are meant to continue that focus on quantity over quality. The high definition video comes in both 720p and 1080i, a first for video sharing sites we’re told (Vimeo provides only 720p). Both look great to the untrained eye, and 1080i might be too processor intensive for most computers anyway. We’ve embedded a 720p video from Viddyou below since 1080i would probably chug and skip for many readers.

ViddYou users who want to upload in HD will need to pay for the premium membership, which will also let them download copies of their videos and upload videos of unlimited length (the free version only allows 5 minutes each).

Competitors include Motionbox and Mydeo, two other services that focus on video sharing for friends and family.

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/~3/254440104/

Does everything need to be a social network? Apparently it does. Magnify.net, a video-hosting and sharing platform that raised $1 million in February, is adding social networking features to its video channels.

Magnify lets Web publishers assemble videos from across the Web—YouTube, AOL, Veoh—and show it in the embeddable Magnify player. Websites use Magnify to create video channels associated with their content or the interests of their audience members. Now those viewers can create profiles within each channel and “friend” others with similar interests. They can also track and subscribe to the activity streams of other members, so they will know when their new “friends” rate, tag, share, or comment on a video. With this release, Magnify is also integrating with Twitter, Mogulus, and Flickr. Magnify splits ad revenues 50/50 with the sites. It is offering Pro and Enterprise versions as well.

Creating social networks around videos is going to be tough. For one thing, Magnify is requiring people to create a different profile for each video channel instead of letting them create one profile that works on any Magnify channel. Making people create multiple profiles is a bad idea and might make this whole effort a non-starter. It would be better to leverage its existing network of video channels across different sites.

But there is a bigger issue here. Are people who watch the same videos really part of a community? In most cases, I would argue that they are not. Think about the videos you watch on the Web. They tend to be a random assortment—something you see here on TechCrunch or that a friend put on your SuperWall on Facebook. Socializing around video is better done in existing social networks with your real friends. It is also a more natural way to discover videos.

Magnify wants to change this by letting Websites create dedicated video channels around a theme or set of interests. That’s fine. We need better video programming on the Web. And letting viewers rate, tag, and leave comments on those videos is important. But for most people that is as much interaction as they are going to want. They already belong to one or more social networks that incorporate video just fine. They don’t need to join a new one that is limited to people who watch just one channel. That would be like joining the NBC or TNT social network. Am I wrong?

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

Source: TechCrunch
Original Article: http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/254436360/

Yoah Bar-David & Itai Raz of Google have introduces the latest Ajax API: Google Visualization API, a new API designed for visualizing structured data.

There is a large visualization gallery that can show you some of the visualizations that you can use.

You tie into the API as you do with other Google Ajax APIs:

Take a look at this very cool example that the Gapminder team came up with (click on play)

This complements the Google Chart API, which just lifted its limits on the number of calls for charts.

Source: Ajaxian
Original Article: http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/ajaxian/~3/254389695/google-visualization-joins-the-ajax-apis

Have you noticed the sweeping side line/crease cutting through the door handles (or just under the handles) on new cars lately? Cars from Honda, Mercedes, BMW, and now even Smart are sporting the ubiquitous crease.

Source: Signal vs. Noise
Original Article: http://www.37signals.com/svn/posts/920-car-design-the-side-crease-is-in

After spending years in the wilderness fighting obstruction of justice charges stemming from the investment banking excesses of the late 1990s, Silicon Valley investment banker Frank Quattrone is back. Yesterday, he launched Qatalyst Group, a boutique investment bank that will focus on technology M&A and advisory services.

As the head technology banker for Credit Suisse, and Morgan Stanley before that, Quattrone had a hand in practically every major Internet IPO during the 1990s, from Amazon to Netscape. He has one of the deepest Rolodexes the Valley. In the press release announcing his return, he squeezes a couple of supportive quotes out of Google CEO Eric Schmidt, venture capitalist Jim Breyer, and Facebook CFO Gideon Yu.

I suppose a general economic downturn is as good a time as any to start a boutique M&A investment bank. Perhaps he can hire some folks from Bear Stearns.

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Source: TechCrunch
Original Article: http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/254382222/