We just came across UpNext NYC (iTunes link), a new mapping application for the iPhone that takes mobile maps to a new level. For now, UpNext NYC is, as the name implies, only available for New York City, but even if you don't live around New York or plan to visit anytime soon, this app is worth the $2.99, simply because it can give you a good idea what mobile maps could look like in the future. UpNext displays a 3D map of the city and allows you to click on any building to see what's in there. In addition, you can search for businesses and restaurants, and get data about public transport as well.
The long awaited catalog of public data from the US government launched this morning at Data.gov. Developers, watchdogs and data nerds around the world rejoiced - but the initial offering is a bit of a let down.
New federal CIO Vivek Kundra is in charge of the site, which will act as a central repository for government data, including XML, CSV, KML files and more. At launch a mere 47 data sets are included and they appear to lean towards the least controversial matters. None the less, it's exciting to see the effort happening. Hopefully some awesome mashups are on the way!
Alex Chitu from the Google Operating System blog found an interesting reference to a "magic inbox" in Gmail's code this morning. In addition, there are also references to an "icebox-inbox" and the ability to sort mail by priority. Google has been relatively tepid with regards to adding features that exploit a user's social graph, but these references seem to point towards a system where Google could organize a user's mail based on the strength of this user's connection with the sender and not just based on the time a message arrived.
A prototype for an iPhone app that provides an integrated hardware-software solution for diabetes patients, has won a $10,000 prize in a competition run by DiabetesMine. The competition aimed to find an iPod-like device or web app for diabetes management. The winning concept was designed to solve a problem that all diabetes patients (including this author) are familiar with: carrying around a number of disparate diabetes devices. It's often awkward and inconvenient, for example when you go out for dinner. So the application developers asked: why can't they all be housed in your mobile phone?
With advance apologies to the hard-working PR folks and startup companies who have pitched us their social search engines this week, there is a rising menace in new media: A cluster of sites that call themselves user-powered search engines.
Much in the vein of the failed Wikia Search (the abandoned brain child of Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales), these engines purport to "crowdsource" intelligence about URLs and search terms by allowing users to create profiles and submit, submit, submit content. Stumpedia and Gurutoy are two products in this category. Each offers the excitement of multimedia, semantic, "neue search" capabilities; and each delivers astonishingly dysfunctional results.
Recently, the Wikimedia Foundation proposed that the copyright licensing terms on its wikis be changed to include a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike license in addition to its longstanding GNU Free Documentation License (GFDL). The proposal was approved by a 75 percent majority of community voters as announced this week.
The change will apply to all text and multimedia content, including video, images, and audio now licensed under GFDL 1.2 or later versions and will increase "the compatibility and availability of free content," according to the WMF site.
With the fragmentation of Twitter mobile and desktop apps resulting in a great volume of tweets no longer coming through the Twitter web interface, sussing out @replies can be tricky. For example, if @MarshallK sends three tweets with links within an hour and receives 20 @replies congratulating him on his content curation skills, how does he know which of the three links generated the best responses?
As with any other question involving Twitter use and measurement, there's an app for that. Not only does that app, one Twitoaster, conveniently thread Twitter conversations; it also generates charts and statistics, sorts hashtags and link details, and delivers tweets in excess of 140 characters.
One of the web trends we're noticing this year is more location-based mobile phone applications - i.e. apps that know where you and/or your friends are and utilize that data in some way. Some of this activity was fueled by Google's entrance into the market as a serious player, in February when Google Latitude launched. Latitude allows you to share location-based information with friends. We've also covered a number of innovative location-based startups, including Bliin, Toai, Parallel Kingdom, Radar, Visible Past (our coverage) and Wikitude (our coverage).
Real-time social search outfit OneRiot today announced their API and partnership program for adding real-time search capabilities to browser add-ons, desktop applications, social websites and other services.
The mind reels at the possible use cases for such an API: Blogs and news sites could track and serve real-time, hot-topic links. Businesses could turn out impressive buzz-monitoring applications. Social action networks could use it to spread the word on civic engagement. Almost any site or organization could imaginatively and profitably employ OneRiot's instant link-indexing algorithm (which we think actually works better than many similar products). It just happens that TwitterBar was the first.
One of the main themes of discussion here at the Web 3.0 Conference in New York City is how Web content is being digested. With the shift from destination sites to syndication through multiple channels, the publishers that create all this content face a real challenge. They have typically relied on page views: the more page views, the more advertising revenue.
But relying on page views is no longer an option. The lion's share of revenue that publishers generate comes from advertisers, and advertisers are now demanding to see more actionable ROI on their advertising dollars. Publishers are feeling the crunch.
