s1LX

BigMapple, other NYC apps load up on location data online

// December 18th, 2009 // No Comments » // Tech News

One of the big trends of 2009 has been the mass proliferation of location-based services. They can be for functional reasons (see Everyblock ), or for fun and meeting people (see Loopt ). Thanks to the addition of geotagged content from major services like Flickr and Twitter, however, developers have been able to take their offerings to a new level by integrating what people are doing around town without forcing them to switch to yet another new service. Thanks to the NYC BigApps competition, a number of new offerings have popped up in New York. The goal of the competition was to challenge developers to put together services using publicly available information that would be useful to citizens, with prizes that total up to $20,000. Public voting for the contest is now open (NYC BigApps opened to developers two months ago), and there are plenty of apps to check out , ranging from local library finders to maps of bike racks and parking facilities.

EU pushes Canada to drop first-sale principle for art

// December 18th, 2009 // No Comments » // Tech News

Here’s a strange story: the European Union is leaning hard on Canada to adopt a new “resale right” under which creators would receive compensation—even when the item is resold. Currently, in both the US and Canada, the basic principle of “first sale” applies, which says that a creator or manufacturer gives up the right to control further uses of that work after it has been sold, or to keep taking a cut of the profits. Creative industries have long hated this; when we took a lengthy look at first sale one year ago, we noted that the music and book businesses have long wanted a cut of resale profits. How can it be right, they argue, that they make only one sale of a book or CD which can then be resold repeatedly to many other people? (One never hears home builders make the same argument, though it would seem even more applicable.)

Apple working on automated 3D point-of-view displays, more

// December 17th, 2009 // No Comments » // Tech News

Apple has a healthy R&D budget for a company of its size and spends quite a bit of time patenting interesting technology. Sometimes the technology ends up in future products and sometimes it doesn’t, but the patents always give us a glimpse into what directions Apple is heading. A recently published patent application for a 3D display that automatically adjusts its view based on the position of the viewer’s head is one such patent. In “Systems and Methods for Adjusting a Display Based on the User’s Position,” Apple proposes a display that can automatically adjust the point of view and angle of 3D objects, or even 2D objects arranged in 3D space, based on the changing position of the viewer in relation to the display. Example: imagine you are viewing some 3D object on your monitor. A sensor could let the computer know when you move your head to the left, and the object would subtly change position and/or rotation so you could see the left side of the object. Alternatively, you could move your head up so you could see the top better.

Brief: iPhone outgrows WinMo’s US installed base in latest study

// December 17th, 2009 // No Comments » // Tech News

After months of beating Windows Mobile in quarterly market share by units sold, the number of active iPhone users has surpassed the number using Windows Mobile-based devices, according to the latest survey by research firm comScore. While WinMo has held steady of the last year, the iPhone has grown significantly since the launch of the iPhone 3GS this past summer. comScore conducts monthly surveys about mobile phone usage; the data used in the chart above represents three-month averages of that data through the month of October. You can see that the number of active WinMo, Palm (including Palm OS and webOS devices), and Symbian users is holding steady, while users of RIM, iPhone, and Android-based devices grew. The boost in iPhone installed base was enough to push iPhone into the number two position in the US, while WinMo fell to number three. comScore data also confirms trends that mobile ad firm AdMob has long been been reporting : both the iPhone and Android devices are responsible for the bulk of mobile data use. “Users of the Apple iPhone were most likely to consume mobile media, with 94 percent of users doing so in September 2009, while 92 percent of Android device users, predominantly T-Mobile G1 users, engaged in mobile media activities, 12 percentage points higher than an average smartphone user,” according to comScore. Android still sits at the bottom of the installed base, though more recently released devices like the MyTouch 3G and the Droid will probably help boost numbers in the coming months; comScore said that 17 percent of survey respondents looking to by a smartphone soon would choose an Android-based device. A solid 20 percent were planning an iPhone purchase, though Apple will have its work cut out for it to catch up to market leader RIM—51 percent of smartphone shoppers planned to buy a BlackBerry of some sort in the coming months. What is a “Brief” post?”

Twitter.com about to get stickier!

// November 5th, 2009 // No Comments » // Tech News

I was reading this post on mashable earlier, from one of my favourite tech bloggers, Jennifer Van Grove.  It’s about a new ‘tweet notification’ feature that Twitter are planning to add, for people who use the Twitter website to tweet.

Twitter business model to include advertising?

This got me thinking.  In recent weeks, Twitter has made a number of significant improvements to the functionality of the main Twitter website.  Most recently we saw the addition of the superb Twitter Lists feature, but Twitter are ALSO working on a new retweet feature too.  These improvements have one thing in common; they render web-based apps like Tweetdeck and (my favourite) Seesmic Desktop less and less essential.

Both Tweetdeck & Seesmic Desktop are superb apps, but they are also a lot more resource hungry, than simply using a browser to access the Twitter website. Now that users are able to get all the core functionality direct from Twitter.com, using their favourite lightweight browser – There’s less motivation for NEW Twitter users to bother installing the aforementioned Twitter apps.

The Twitter team are actively, suddenly doing everything they can to make Twitter.com stickier.  Obviously, this keeps MORE new users on Twitter.com.

Here’s why I think these recent moves by Twitter are so interesting, from a business model point of view.

Twitter’s business model puzzle

One of the biggest challenges Twitter has had to deal with, is how to turn the popularity of the service into an effective business model.  A big reason that this has been such a challenge, is that only a small percentage of tweets are sent via Twitter.com.  As a result, Twitter gets just a small percentage of the ‘eyeballs’ it could have; rendering Twitter.com far less attractive for potential advertisers.

I believe the recent introduction of Twitter Lists, project retweet and now the new ‘updates’ feature,  show that Twitter is focusing hard on developing a key part of their business model around advertising on Twitter.com.  As I mentioned some time ago, Twitter users in some Asian countries already see small banner ads on Twitter.com.

Conclusion

Whilst many longer term users will want to stick with their favourite Twitter desktop apps, there’s less and less reason for new desk-based users to want to use them.  This should see a significant increase in the number of people using Twitter.com and as a result, transform the site into a more attractive platform for future advertisers.

Very few users of Twitter are likely to object to ads, particularly if they are somehow targeted around the user’s tweets, so they are relevant.  Maybe Twitter users with an objection, could opt to pay a fee to have these ads removed; like wordpress.com do for their users.

What do you think?

BTW: You can follow me on Twitter here @s1LX.com

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First look: inside Mozilla’s Raindrop messaging platform

// October 26th, 2009 // No Comments » // Tech News

Mozilla Messaging, the organization behind the Thunderbird e-mail program, has introduced a new open source messaging aggregation platform: Raindrop. The project is at an extremely early stage of development but the code has been made available through Mozilla Labs with the hope of encouraging third-party developers to participate in the effort. Ars put an early build through its paces and looked at aspects of the project that are relevant to developers. What’s in a raindrop? Raindrop is a Web service designed to collate, filter, and present content from disparate messaging services. It currently comes with support for Twitter, GMail, IMAP e-mail, and Skype. One of the key goals is to use smarter filtering methodology to increase the visibility of important messages and reduce the amount of noise that tends to bog down Internet communication. Raindrop is built with a strong emphasis on extensibility, making it trivially easy to customize and enhance with new capabilities.

Tweeting from the field: Sports meet social media

// October 26th, 2009 // No Comments » // Tech News

Social media, for all its downfalls, has proven to be a powerful tool for organizations to interact directly with customers and fans. This is especially true for athletes, musicians, and other celebrities—people love communicating directly with their favorite icons via Twitter and Facebook. The celebrities seem to enjoy it, too. Just look at the camaraderie that THE_REAL_SHAQ (Shaquille O’Neal) has built on Twitter. Even I follow him, and I don’t care about basketball anymore. Unfortunately for professional athletes, their respective sports leagues haven’t always been receptive to this whole social media “thing.” Like many corporate overlords, some sports leagues have run screaming from the idea of allowing their assets—that is, the players—to tell the world what’s going on right this minute , especially if this minute is happening during a game or at a team’s facility.  Other leagues, however, have embraced the world of social media as a way to generate more interest and ultimately a larger fanbase. Which American sports leagues get it, and which need to be hit with a social networking clue-by-four?

FCC proposes network neutrality rules (and big exemptions)

// October 22nd, 2009 // No Comments » // Tech News

As expected , the FCC laid out its draft network neutrality rules at an open meeting today. Despite the partial dissent of the two Republican commissioners, the pro-neutrality faction has won a major rhetorical battle; even its toughest opponents sing the praises of a “free and open Internet.” The draft rules are short, taking up less than two pages of text. At their heart are the four existing “Internet freedoms” that the FCC approved back in 2005:

Hands on with Bing’s real-time Twitter search

// October 22nd, 2009 // No Comments » // Tech News

Bing has gained access to the entire public Twitter feed, which has enabled Microsoft to launch Twitter real-time search results in beta over at Bing.com/Twitter . Microsoft isn’t the only one, as Google announced its own Twitter search deal within hours. Microsoft has also announced a global partnership with Facebook that will bring the social site’s status updates to Bing search results, but that experience will be available at a later date that Microsoft refused to reveal. Both the Twitter and Facebook deals are nonexclusive, but Google doesn’t yet have an actual implementation, so the company is currently playing catch-up with the underdog of search. Given what Bing is offering right now though, we wouldn’t be surprised if Google did more than just catch up.

Hands on: Xbox 1080p streaming, social networking impress

// October 21st, 2009 // No Comments » // Tech News

At this year’s Electronic Entertainment Expo, Microsoft laid out its plan for Xbox Live. By adding Twitter, Facebook, Last.fm, and streaming high definition video, it was going to create a home entertainment product that would fulfill most of the needs of those buying home theater PCs, or at least add value to the Xbox Live Gold subscription. Does the company succeed? We have a sneak peek at these features, and we have to say, the implementation is pretty impressive. Read on to see what you have to look forward to with the next big Xbox Live update.