Mark Zuckerberg promised to bring democracy to Facebook today with the announcement of a proposed statement of Facebook Principles and a document concerning Rights and Responsibilities. Those proposals and all other controversial policy changes to the site will be voted on by users in the future.
It's a big deal. With 180 million registered users, Facebook is more populous than all but 5 countries on the globe. This is like Facebook's new constitution. We wrote about some major problems with the way it was rolled out. Open web thought leader Marc Canter says Facebook is gradually getting to where he'd like to see them be. Stephen Schenck at Obsessable says "It reminds us of the Obama administration's commitment to posting new bills online for comment before the President signs them into law." What do you think?
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Cloud computing has arrived. You can scarcely open a computer magazine or business journal without coming across an article about this transformative new approach to providing web-based services. Cloud computing is undoubtedly shifting the landscape. But what many observers miss is that, while cloud computing has arrived, only through APIs will its full business potential be realized.
Thanks to the new TV.com application from CBS, you can now stream clips and full episodes of popular TV shows like 'CSI:Miami' or the original 'Star Trek' right to your iPhone or iPod Touch. You can even watch full episodes of Beverly Hills 90210, if you are so inclined. Besides shows from CBS, the app (iTunes link) also features shows from CNet, Showtime, and the CW. Currently, the only other app that features full episodes of TV shows is Joost, but we are still waiting for iPhone apps from other TV networks, Hulu, or Sling.
US retailer Sears today announced the beta launch of ServiceLive.com, an online marketplace specifically for home improvements and repairs. The goal of ServiceLive.com is to connect Sears customers online with local service providers. The core of ServiceLive is an auction system, in which users can name their price for doing home improvement or repair work, and service providers bid for that job. It's a great example of how the Web can potentially improve a 'real world' process. For example instead of phoning around to try and find a suitable plumber, you can enter your job details into ServiceLive and (hopefully) local plumbers will then bid on your job.
Facebook made one of the most important announcements in the young company's history today. It has proposed a set of foundational documents, including the first official statement of Facebook Principles. The proposal is made to Facebook's users, who will now have 30 days to read, comment and perhaps vote on the documents.
Looking just below the surface of this big news, though, there are a number of things going on that make absolutely no sense to us. Facebook's management appears to have lost its grip on reality. The population of Facebook dwarfs that of scores of countries in the physical world; these foundational documents are of immense importance and raise big red flags.
Momentile is a new photo sharing service with some very cool twists. There is, of course, no dearth of photo sharing services online, but momentile has come up with an interesting way to combine photo sharing and lifestreaming with the spirit of micro-blogging services like Twitter. The basic idea behind momentile is that you will upload one picture per day, so that after a year, you will have a collection of 365 pictures that represent that year. Momentile is still in private alpha testing, but we do have a few invites to give away. Instructions for how to get them are at the bottom of this post.
At the Accel Symposium, we heard John Donahoe, eBay CEO, admit that there was little synergy between core eBay, PayPal, and Skype. He lauded PayPal, showed some false modesty around Skype, and talked about core eBay in a way that indicated a clear understanding of its limitations and challenges. If that sounds a tad negative, that was not what I took away. What I did take away was that eBay is a great collection of parts, a really great collection of parts, that would be more valuable as independent entities.
Every night we lay down in our beds, our consciousness enters a different state and then we stay that way for the next 8 hours. It's pretty amazing if you think about it! It can be no surprise then that someone has created a way to track and share details about such a big part of our lives. Some people sleep with their friends, now the rest of us can track our sleep - with our friends.
Yawnlog is a wacky new site that lets you track how much sleep you're getting, note how good the sleep was, record your dreams and compare all of that information with your friends. This is no laughing matter! Imagine cross referencing aggregate sleeping hours and moods with a timeline of historically significant events. Silly as this service might sound, we think it sounds pretty cool, too.
Google may be outperforming Yahoo Search in terms of market share, but with programs like Search Monkey and BOSS (Build Your Own Search Service), Yahoo is still trying to innovate in the search space. Today, Yahoo announced a new feature that integrates Yahoo Search with some of Facebook's core functions. Whenever you see a Facebook profile in your search results, you can now directly add somebody as a friend, send messages, see their friends, or poke them.
ReadyPing is a new mobile solution for restaurant owners which lets a host or hostess alert customers when their table is ready via a mobile notification. The system, a vast improvement over the restaurant pagers currently in use today, lets diners wander beyond the restaurant's immediate vicinity - something that would be especially handy for those one hour waits. The only question we have about ReadyPing is this: why didn't someone think of this sooner?
