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If you still need to do your US tax returns, you had better get a move on. The April 15th deadline is fast approaching. If you don't already have a favorite tax return package, and you don't pay somebody else to prepare your returns, check out TaxACT. There is a free version that handles simple and complex returns, and you can do it all online or via a downloadable package.
From CircleUp, a group messaging service for membership websites, comes a new service called SmartPay which lets small groups and teams collect money via email. This can easily replace the old method of payment collection used by most groups today: passing around an envelope and stuffing it full of cash and checks. The new SmartPay service uses Amazon Payments on the backend, providing members with a familiar experience that will hopefully ease their security concerns about paying online.
AOL, one of the largest national internet service providers and a global web services company, announced today that market research firm Forrester has rated it highest in "overall customer experience" in an independent study. Forrester conducted interviews with almost 4,600 people nationwide and found that AOL rated very high if not highest in categories such as usefulness and ease-of-use. When all the categories are combined, AOL was at the top with a 71% approval rating.
Flat World Knowledge started out with a revolutionary idea, which was to start creating and publishing college textbooks that were absolutely free online. Its business model is to offer the option for students and teachers to print textbooks in whole or part at a fraction of the cost of a standard hardbound college textbook. In addition it offers audio book versions, study guides, web quizzes and digital flash cards for a fee. And that business model seems promising enough that it has passed the VC funding test to the tune of 8 million dollars by the venture funding firms Greenhill SAVP, High Peaks Venture Partners and Valhalla Partners.
Flickr now holds the world's largest repository of Creative Commons-licensed images, but according to a new study, most Flickr users opt to license their images under the most restrictive CC license. Also, only a relatively small number of users (24%) allow commercial use of their images, and only about 12% of users choose the BY license, which allows for free sharing and remixing, as long as the author is attributed.
U.S. government agencies can now officially use YouTube, Flickr, Vimeo, and blip.tv, using special service agreements that comply with federal terms and conditions. Today, the General Services Administration (GSA) announced that, after nine months of negotiations, the government has signed agreements with these companies that will allow federal agencies to officially post content to these sites. The GSA is also negotiating special terms and conditions with MySpace and Facebook, and it has already determined that Twitter's service agreement is in line with federal requirements.
Google has announced that the company now offers a secure way for third party websites to access any user's list of friends, with their permission, and based on a proposed new industry standard. No more giving away your GMail password and then having random services you want to try go into your account and scrape the information there.
Called Portable Contacts, the technical spec offers a standard, interoperable way for social networks to serve up your friends lists to anyone you give permission to access them. This should allow application developers to innovate on top of your social connections much more efficiently.
YouTube launched a handy new page last night that aggregates all the videos from more than 100 institutions of higher education around the US. YouTube.com/edu now serves up campus tours, free lectures, research and other college news all in one place. Search queries can be limited to the Edu part of the site as well.
This is a great idea and we expect that young people who discover it will appreciate it. At first glance it looks better to us than iTunes University. This could genuinely help young people make more informed decisions about what schools to apply to. There's also a lot of great content on the site for anyone to learn from.
There's a new landing page on Facebook that's designed to get families involved in sharing updates, photos, and videos on the social network. The extended family group invite page, available here, lets you create a private group for your family by inviting current Facebook members and entering in the email addresses of those who have yet to join.
Is Facebook after Grandma and Grandpa now that they have mom and dad? You bet.
Facebook, the social network juggernaut that once started out as a closed social network for college students, not only has become a mainstream phenomenon, but it is also attracting more and more older users. Over the last 60 days, according to data from Inside Facebook, the number of users over 35 doubled, and the fastest growing demographic on Facebook is women over 55. The majority of Facebook users are now over 25.
