Oh the heels of some of Facebook's missteps (ahem, Beacon) and the proliferation of a myriad of useless, silly, and time-wasting apps, some former Facebook users decided to quit the site for good this year. However, a handful of early adopter angst doesn't have Facebook worried. Why is that? Because Facebook has a whole generation of users who grew up using their site for everything social back when it was just a way to network with their high school or college friends. So what are the everyday Facebook users doing that keeps them engaged in the service? It's not throwing sheep, apparently. For many Facebook users, there are still useful apps to be found and ways to use the service that the rest of us could learn from.
With Apple set to roll out the next major software update for the iPhone, and with it official support for third-party applications, it will come as no surprise that Google is busy prepping some new wares. “We expect to have applications at Day One”, Google’s vice president of engineering, Vic Gundotra, told Macworld.
Syndicated from last100, our digital lifestyle blog
Grid-computing startup Aster Data Systems will officially launch today, three years after it was founded. Aster, which began in the Ph.D program at Standford, is a provider of "massively parallel processing databases" for organizations that have mammoth quantities of data that need to be stored and analyzed quickly. The Redwood City, California-based company is backed by Sequoia Capital, Cambrian Ventures, and First-Round Capital.
Only a handful of years ago, it was common to hear people laugh at Wikipedia. Anyone can edit it! How could you take it seriously? These days, just as blogs are, wikis are on their way to winning a reputation as serious publishing platforms.
Free hosted wiki provider Wetpaint announced last night that it's now raised a total of $40 million in venture capital. To celebrate this major financial validation of the wiki world, we thought we'd offer a brief survey of some of the most interesting ways that wikis are being put to serious use today.
Today Google announced the public availability of Google Health, after initially launching as a closed beta back in February. It is described as "a safe and secure way to collect, store, and manage [your] medical records and health information online" and is being positioned as a way for users to control their own medical records.
Google Health is a decent entry into the game-changing (and potentially hugely profitable) world of health 2.0. But in comparison with other health startups, Google Health has a limited scope and is not as innovative a service as we've come to expect from Google...
Earlier today we mentioned a plugin for AIM that would translate what you type on the fly into another language. That's an exceptionally useful tool, but the far more fluid and accurate way to speak to people in another language, is to actually learn the language. Thankfully, there are a wide variety of ways to learn languages online, many of them available for free. Below is a list of more than 20 ways you can go from knowing how to say "Hello" to fluency.
Cell phones, PDAs, and other mobile devices are generally on the "do not use" list when it comes to the classroom. Teachers ban them. Students put them on silent and tap away. But instead of fighting the students' addiction to their phones, could the devices instead be used for learning purposes? Eric Klopfer, MIT professor and director of MIT's Scheller Teacher Education Program, thinks so and has recently authored a new book about mobile learning to argue for their use in education.
Microsoft Live Search on Facebook is "a no-brainer [...] the technical investment is minuscule and the potential return is mammoth." That was ReadWriteWeb last October in the wake of a $240 million investment by Microsoft in the world's second biggest social network. At the time, we noted that Facebook was already serving over 600 million searches per month. If Microsoft could convert half of those to web searches, it would take a significant chunk of the search market (where Live does just under a billion searches and Google does just over 4 billion each month). So why hasn't it happened yet?
AOL's Open AIM is an often over-looked social networking platform, mainly because instant messaging isn't thought of these days as a form of social networking. Perhaps, on its own, IM isn't social networking, but clearly it is an important feature -- both Facebook and MySpace have it, and AOL is planning to integrate its 80 million-strong AIM network into bebo as soon as possible. This week AOL announced the winners of its Open AIM developer competition. Below are the 9 winning applications that can improve your AIM experience.
Earlier this year, we reported on the new OPML sharing and matching service called Toluu, giving you "10 Reasons Why You're Going to Love Toluu." For anyone who remembers the now defunct site, ShareYourOPML, Toluu is a big improvement, providing you with a much easier way to discover new feeds. Since we last covered Toluu there have been several improvements to the service, and more have just launched today.
