Ajax Girl

After a few weeks, Elevator Pitch Friday is back with a vengeance. This week’s featured video comes to us from a self-funded, young male-oriented, yet-to-launch startup called BeTheBetterMan.com, with the pitch delivered by founder Eric Mayville.

The video’s a bit dark, but it’s enthusiastically delivered and straight-forward. Here’s the pitch:

As Eric describes further in the comments of the pitch:

…the options for challenges are endless as they can be user created or supplied by someone like the staff at Be The Better Man, some examples would include who can do the best Christopher Walken impression? Do you have the most bad ass beerpong table? What is the best song for the summer?

Now a Christopher Walken impersonator contest — that’s something I’d like the internet to do right. When they launch this fall, BeTheBetterMan.com faces some tough competition in their space, including the star-backed iBeatYou and video-focused Strutta.

Let us know what you think of this pitch in the comments.

Crunch Network: CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0

Source: TechCrunch
Original Article: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/YDSOEsOKMzs/

Six weeks ago we launched an API for our technology database, CrunchBase. The idea was to give away lots of clean, structured data about the companies we cover, data that could be used to build new services and improve upon existing ones.

Since then we’ve seen a number of impressive things built on top of the API. And the traffic has started to add up: between July 15th and August 15th we fulfilled nearly 800,000 API requests, compared to ~1.3m page views for the website itself.

We now have over 15 projects hooked up to CrunchBase with many others on the way. Developers interested in using CrunchBase data for their own projects should check out the API documentation.

Today we wanted to highlight a few of the more sophisticated product integrations to date.

Apture

Apture is a startup trying to bring “depth to the web” with contextual popups that require no browser plugin. The product’s blog integration provides a very visual and intuitive way of navigating CrunchBase entries. Here are some examples (click on the little book icons to the left of the links): YouTube, FriendFeed and Evan Williams. Also, check out this video they compiled:

Zemanta

Zemanta, a blogging enhancement tool that launched back in March, recently integrated CrunchBase so that publishers can easily slurp in extra information like company logos into their posts.

Zemanta’s product integrates closely into blogging platforms such as WordPress, and it helps to semantically link up parts of your post with sites from around the web (CrunchBase now included). These guys have been on our case (and rightly so) to release an API for a couple of months now, so it’s great to see their implementation go live.

You can check out a demo of their product here.

Flash CrunchBase

Nicolás Parziale has created a very cool flash app inspired by They Rule that visualizes the graph of connections throughout CrunchBase. You can start with a company (such as Digg, shown below) and then flesh out different parts of the graph with your mouse. You can even input any two companies, causing the app to crawl the web and visually display all of the connections between the two.

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

Source: TechCrunch
Original Article: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/qrCCahriY2I/

Apple’s App Store is quickly becoming a hotbed for elite developers looking to capitalize on the store’s easy distribution model and huge exposure opportunities. Since the store’s launch less than two months ago, we’ve seen reports of apps reaching massive user bases and and collecting millions of dollars. But while the store has seen its share of its successes, it also has its flaws - most notably in the way it exposes users to apps in the first place.

The most glaring exception on the store is the lack of an all-time most popular applications list. While there are a pair of lists for current “Top Apps” (one for paid apps, the other for free), the list changes on a daily or even hourly basis. In turn, the most recently released applications dominate the list, with over half of the current list constituted by apps that have been released in the last ten days. This is great for Apple - most people turn to the Top Apps first when they open iTunes, and it’s in Apple’s best interest to always give them something new to play with.

But what about the apps that everyone should have? The ones that have seen hundreds of thousands (if not millions) of downloads, but no longer reach the top app lists because most people already have them? Shazam, the app that lets you hold up your iPhone to a speaker to figure out what song is playing, is currently ranked 16th, so it won’t appear on the home page. Tap Tap Revenge, one of the platform’s most popular games, has fallen to 20th. And Twitterific - a Twitter client that seemed cemented in the top 10 soon after the store’s launch, seems to have dropped off the list entirely.

If the current situation persists, even the very best apps will always lose out to the up-and-comers - a situation that only encourages developers to pump out applications as quickly as possible, rather than creating something really useful. Apple devotees are known for valuing polish and functionality - it would be a shame for the store to fall prey to the spammyness seen on other platforms.

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

Source: TechCrunch
Original Article: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/LGjDwYZoZTg/

A rumor is circulating that the iPhone may be finally making its way to China. The original source of the rumor is China Communications, which has cited a China Mobile insider as its source. According to the source, China Mobile will be offering the iPhone at a heavily subsidized discount in order to court the massive Chinese population, many of whom would have trouble affording an unsubsidized phone.

An article from It.hexun.com (translated here), says that the source is a member of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT), and offers further details:

China Mobile will procure the handsets for their full price, and then on-sell subsidized handsets to consumers. The source explained that China Mobile could buy a 3G iPhone from Apple for USD 299 – an example price – and then sell the handset to users for USD 199, treating the additional USD 100 as compensation to Apple.

Past talks between China Mobile and Apple have failed, largely because of Apple’s past insistence on taking a portion (believed to be between 20-30 percent) of the carrier’s monthly fees from iPhone customers.

With the release of the iPhone 3G, Apple stopped insisting on a rev-share agreement with carriers. An earlier report on a possible deal explained that the largest hurdle had been removed, but there were still “practical issues” that had to be taken care of.

Thanks to The China Perspective for the tip.

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

Source: TechCrunch
Original Article: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/9dfxYXO2WQ0/

A couple of days ago I posted an email that I received from Google letting me know that I wouldn’t be able to attend a Google/Vanity Fair party at the Democratic National Convention that I never knew about and didn’t ask to go to. Other people who also didn’t know about the party received the same email.

Today I get another email, also from Google, inviting me to attend the mirror party at the Republican Convention in Minneapolis next Thursday. is this for real or are they just going to cancel on me again? Get out of my head, Google. I will not be fooled into RSVPing only to have you kick me out later. Email is below:

Google and Vanity Fair invite you to celebrate the closing night of the Republican Convention!

Thursday, September 4th
9:00 pm > onward
Walker Art Center
1750 Hennepin Avenue
Minneapolis, Minnesota

RSVP: www.google.com/[removed]. Please do not respond to this email.

By Invitation Only and non-transferable - please do not forward this message.

An admission card is required for entrance. You will receive a confirmation email before the convention with instructions on where to pick up your admission card in Minneapolis.

You are receiving this email based upon a personal recommendation by someone at Google or affiliated with Google. If you are not interested in attending, we apologize for sending you this email.

Crunch Network: CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0

Source: TechCrunch
Original Article: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/t77xV2fd1jE/

Blogger has announced a new “following” feature that enables members to list themselves as fans of other members’ blogs.

By following a set of blogs, your username and avatar will not only show up among other followers in a MyBlogLog-like gadget that can be placed in the sidebars of these blogs. You can also view the latest posts from the blogs you follow in a special feed reader on the Blogger dashboard.

Since Blogger is owned and run by Google, the posts from the blogs you follow on Blogger can also be accessed with Google Reader in a special “Blogs I’m Following” section.

While the new following feature will be useful for staying on top of your favorite content, the main benefit to Blogger will come from introducing a better sense of community, one that can be built out gradually into a more functional social network. The Blogger team has already announced its intention to implement Google Friend Connect throughout the blog network, so it’s definitely heading further in this direction.

On the one hand, this new feature roll out can be seen as just an attempt to stay competitive with Moveable Type and WordPress, both of which have already developed social features of their own (and the former of which has run into the arms of Google’s social networking nemesis, Facebook).

But Google also conspicuously lacks a social network with any significant amount of popularity in the United States (Orkut hasn’t made much headway here). So perhaps it has decided to pin much of its social networking hopes on Blogger, which could be leveraged to bolster the usage of Google Friend Connect and eventually OpenSocial as well.

If you’re a Blogger user and don’t see the new following feature yet, you may have to wait a few weeks - they are rolling it out gradually.

[News via The Social]

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

Source: TechCrunch
Original Article: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/5xpJR5ZoSMk/

When I was doing an interview with John Resig for the Open Web Podcast, he mentioned that the redesign of jQuery.com had a lot of people talking, and it seems like people have strong feelings about the Rock Star for whatever reason.

Ignoring the style, the redesign is more than just that:

The entirety of the site has a new layout. With drastically improved multi-layer navigation and a standardized sidebar it should become much easier to navigate the individual portions of the site.
You should probably wear a hard hat while exploring the interior pages - font sizes, spacing, and colors are all in need of tweaking, which will be handled over the upcoming week (it’s fun working against Trac, Wordpress, Drupal, and Mediawiki simultaneously).

Source: Ajaxian » Front Page
Original Article: http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/ajaxian/~3/378339130/jquerycom-redesigned-with-a-rock-star

Microsoft has agreed to acquire a Connecticut-based research company called Greenfield Online, which runs both a website called Ciao for European comparison shoppers and an online survey system that helps businesses conduct market research.

The cash tender offer to buy out all of Greenfield’s outstanding shares amounts to roughly $486 million, about $60 million more than public equity firm Quadrangle recently offered to pay for Greenfield. Microsoft has already found an unnamed party to buy Greenfield’s surveys division from it, leaving the Redmond, WA-based company with the remaining Ciao subsidiary.

Ciao is a consumer-oriented website for (mainly European) shoppers who want to find reviews, ratings, and price comparisons for goods they can buy elsewhere online. To get an idea of the service, check out this listing for a Canon Powershot camera where you’ll see prices aggregated from several online retailers and reviews posted directly to Ciao itself. According to ComScore, Ciao receives over 26.4 million unique visitors per month from seven countries.

Microsoft’s decision to acquire Ciao is reminiscent of Yahoo’s decision to purchase Paris-based Kelkoo in 2004 for about $670 million - one that Yahoo has since reconsidered.

As with its purchase of discount shopping site Jellyfish last Fall, Microsoft plans to integrate Ciao into its Live Search offering, this time as a means to beef up its offering for European users.

Ciao was founded in Munich in 1999 and purchased by Greenfield Online in 2005.

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

Source: TechCrunch
Original Article: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/tHqBO98h2VQ/

I have seen the GWT team working very hard indeed on GWT 1.5, and they must be very happy to see the final release shipped and complete:

GWT 1.5 delivers what we think are an impressive number of improvements, about four hundred issues if you’re counting. We’re also happy that one of those is issue 168, our most-requested feature, Support for Java 5.

The high level new feature sets are:

• Java 5 language support and enhanced JRE emulation
• Performance optimizations and easier JavaScript interop
• Prettier widgets, better DOM, accessibility, and bi-di

You can see a lot of this at work in the showcase area. There you will see all of the widgets and examples that come out of the box, and the community has developed even more for you. In particular, Ray Cromwell has some great real world examples that he shares in his book and talk.

Download GWT and take a look.

Source: Ajaxian » Front Page
Original Article: http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/ajaxian/~3/378180904/gwt-15-final-release-is-shipped-and-out-the-door

qooxdoo 0.8 has been released and it appears to have a lot of big changes. Andreas Ecker told us a little about it:

While at first qooxdoo 0.8 looks like a minor jump in version number
over the previous 0.7.3, the actual changes are huge. In particular the
UI capabilities as well as the developer tool chain were improved
substantially.

qooxdoo 0.8 features a complete rewrite of the GUI toolkit. It is state-of-the-art and supports all major browsers (IE, Firefox, Safari, Opera). The GUI toolkit has a layered architecture: on-top of a low-level DOM-oriented layer (that might be used as a separate library), it includes a large set of widgets and layout managers (perfect for building RIAs). Online demos are available.

Users can very easily implement additional custom widgets or layouts to fit their individual needs. Theming of widgets continues to be independent from the widget code itself, and now allows for virtually
unlimited styling possibilities, e.g. rounded borders, gradients, shadows. While qooxdoo comes with two new attractive themes, it is also easy to create custom themes, without any CSS knowledge required.

Besides the exciting changes in the GUI toolkit, the developer tool chain has also been improved to a large extend. It frees the developer from such tedious and complex tasks as compressing and optimizing the JS code, resolving dependencies between classes, using a JS linker to produce a custom build of the app ready for deployment. Some further highlights of the comprehensive, built-in tooling include: searchable API reference, internationalization, source code validation, unit testing, combined images, and much more. The entire tool chain is platform-independent: all that is needed is a working Python installation, which is trivial to setup on any operating system, including MS Windows.

While API documentation is quite complete already, wiki documentation is still being updated to account for all the changes and improvements. Download the qooxdoo 0.8 package, and see the
included index.html to get started quickly.

Source: Ajaxian » Front Page
Original Article: http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/ajaxian/~3/378172890/qooxdoo-08-new-gui-toolkit-and-tool-chain