The fact that 10% of users create 90% of user-generated content on any given social media site has become a standard trope in discussions around social media. Because of this gap between mainstream users and the enthusiasts who contribute frequently and tend to dominate the discussion, many companies have decided that participating in online communities is not worth their time, as these companies assume that it doesn't allow them to reach their average consumer. According to a recent study by Rubicon Consulting, however, they do so at their own peril, as these active users are also the most likely to influence their peers' buying decisions.
Despite the competition and rumors of its demise, email remains a very prevalent part of our daily lives. (That's one reason why Google continues to pour effort into Gmail.) Yet even with its familiarity, we're still discovering new ways we can use email to control other applications and perform simple tasks.
Now WordPress.com has embraced email for exactly that purpose. A new WordPress.com feature - currently in closed beta - adds actual utility to those "You've got a comment" emails: Reply via Email.
The OpenSocial Foundation has announced elections for its Board of Directors, the governing body that helps the non-profit organization "sustain the free and open development of OpenSocial specifications."
Thirteen candidates have been nominated to fill two "Community Director" Board seats. Among the nominees are several familiar names including Chris Messina, Krishna Sankar, and Joseph Smarr. (For more information on each of these candidates and the other 10 nominees, visit the OpenSocial Foundation.)
"The United States is far behind other countries when it comes to health care," Deb Levine (Founder, ISIS), told the audience this week at the Health 2.0 Conference in San Francisco, CA.
"One of the United Nations development mandates is to use Information and Communication Technology (ICT) as much as possible to move countries forward in their development. [But] because of the economic split in the U.S. between the small percentage of ultra wealthy and the large numbers of folks in need, Americans need ICT for health care just like folks in Africa, Asia and Latin America," she said.
Remember the charge of Google co-founder Sergey Brin from a few years back, "Features not products"? Clearly, the Gmail team was listening.
Following closely on the heels of Google Labs releases like Mail Goggles and Canned Responses, the Gmail team has announced another feature, and it's sure to make you smile. Or perhaps more accurately, make your email smile. That's right. Gmail now has graphical emoticons.
Imagine that one day you are playing a game on a social networking site and the next day you discover that this game has been replaced by a video speed dating application. That is exactly what is going to happen to those who have been playing the Oregon Trail game on Facebook. As Webware's Josh Lowensohn first reported, the video dating site SpeedDate.com just bought the rights to this game and is planning to replace it with its own dating application.
It's all about the web apps these days, right? Everything important's in the clouds? Not so fast! Spend some time separated from your physical computer and you'll likely be reminded just how much time and care you've put into setting it up like you want it. Even in this era of web app hype, we still love a good piece of desktop software, don't we?
Here at ReadWriteWeb, we'll be honest with you - we love our computers. Not just the web. In that spirit we thought we'd offer readers some short video tours of the apps we use every day. You may discover some things you want to try out for yourself.
While separate search boxes have long been a standard feature of every major browser (except for Chrome), their functionality and intelligence has not gone much beyond autocompleting searches. Yahoo is trying to change this with its Inqisitor plugin for Safari, Firefox, and Internet Explorer. This plugin not only autocompletes your searches, but can also directly display the results of your search as you type, which can potentially safe you quite a few clicks.
Think you've found the best browser to surf the web with? You may be selling yourself short. Mac users with Leopard should check out the latest entrant into the browser world, Cruz.
Cruz lets you easily set up multiple panes in your browser, with sophisticated controls. That's just one of the many things it does, but it's the feature we like best.
Just one day after Rackspace announced its challenger to Amazon's suite of cloud computing services, Amazon announced that it is taking its EC2 cloud computing service out of beta and that EC2 will now feature support for Windows Server 2003 and Microsoft SQL Server. Until today, EC2 only supported a number of Linux distributions and OpenSolaris. Amazon will now also offer a Service Level Agreement for EC2 and promises an availability of 99.95%.
