Los Angeles, California based PicBrk dropped us a note today to let us know that it just launched its new Website devoted to breaking news pictures and real-time image searches. The company had planned to launch on July 1st but given the recent events in Tehran, it has decided to launch early. In a recent RWW post, Marshall Kirkpatrick notes, "real-time information delivery is fast emerging as one of the most important elements of our online experience" and it seems as though companies are competing to get their real-time services online as soon as possible.
It's the length and width of a credit card. It's the thickness of a couple nickels. It'll let you and a few friends get an Internet connection just about anywhere with no wires whatsoever.
It's a MiFi, Sprint's new wireless broadband device, and it's geek gadget magic that'll realistically fit in your wallet. Disclosure! Sprint gave us a MiFi device to test. We tested it for a couple weeks and sent it back. We were sad to see it go.
In the tech blogs this weekend, there have been several confident statements and posts surrounding the comments of a supposed Twitter board member.
Todd Chaffee, actually a board member of a company that has invested in Twitter, was quoted on the New York Times Bits site and Silicon Alley Insider as having said that Twitter would be offering advice on purchase decisions as part of its monetization strategy. However, Twitter CEO Evan Williams roundly countered these remarks yesterday in blog comments.
48 hours after the release of the much-anticipated iPhone 3GS and its new 3.0 software, people are just beginning to put it through its paces and report on their reactions. Norwegian consumer generated media (CGM) analysis firm Integrasco has been monitoring several social media outlets including Twitter, Facebook, Myspace and YouTube and has produced a product launch report. Early adopters have started sharing first-hand quality and performance feedback for the 3GS at twice the volume normally observed on a monthly basis for this product category. Reviews are mixed, but mostly positive.
Earlier this year RWW reported that Google had made plans for the telephony service it acquired in July, 2007 called GrandCentral. GrandCentral was reborn as Google Voice, which includes all of GrandCentral's features and much more. Google Voice's free service will allow users to unify all of their phone numbers and transfer calls to all of their devices, convert voice calls to text messages, call multiple parties at once and make discounted international calls.
This week, John Fontana of Network World reported that Google has reserved 1 million phone numbers with communications and information services company Level 3. The company has not announced anything yet, but on the GrandCentral website it says "if you are a GrandCentral user, over the next few days you will be prompted to upgrade to Google Voice". These look like clear signs that it is getting ready to go live any time now, so check those emails and get ready to claim your number, they could go fast.
A new SMS and email notification service is helping local government agencies reach citizens when and where it will do the most good: As soon as possible, and wherever that citizen happens to be.
Depending on whether agencies in a selected location are participating (currently, nearly 1,000 agencies have signed on since the company's launch in March), users can sign up at the Nixle website to subscribe to emails, web alerts, and text messages about community issues from tornado watches and traffic accidents to local robberies and fugitives on the loose. Nixle moreover provides a painless way for local agencies to transition into modern times and notify community members of critical details in ways that will have an immediate impact.
When the open source convention OSCON decided to move from Portland, Oregon to San Jose last year, the open source citizens of Portland set about developing their very own "conference for developers working with open source technologies and for people interested in learning the open source way". And since Portland is a hub of the open source community, an army of volunteers and organizers were able to put together a three day conference called Open Source Bridge. With its focus on open source citizenship, its innovative track structure for sessions, an all-night hacker lounge and peer-produced conference software, Open Source Bridge was not only a success, but plans are already underway for next year's conference.
A few years ago, we spoke of the "AdSense Economy." It was so simple. Create a website, slap on an AdSense widget, and voila: "Insta-biz." Wow! Who knew business could be so simple? AdSense was proof of Google's genius, having grown into a multi-billion dollar business in only a few years after its launch in 2003. Google's search business continues to grow in dominance, and the company's apps business is putting a serious dent in Microsoft's franchise.
But cracks are appearing in AdSense. AdSense is 30% of Google's revenue, so this matters. Any weakness in AdSense is important for Google's investors as well as advertisers, publishers, users, and entrepreneurs.
On the Lat Long Blog, Google has announced a new Maps feature in the right-click menu for any point on a map.
Now, when a user clicks on "What's here?" Google will return as specific a result as possible, be that an address, a "natural entity," or a place name. When combined with the "At this address" feature, "What's here?" can even be used to return a full list of businesses located at a given address. Hypothetically, that is. The list of conditions for this feature functioning as laid out in the announcement seems to be a bit long and convoluted.
Doyle Brunson is seventy six years old and he says he was up late last night in Vegas. He's in a $10k game on the 24th day of the World Series of Poker and he just sent out a Tweet. "Still in 10k split," he said. "Didn't sleep much but feel OK...." Is that an intimate look inside the minute by minute, high-stakes life of a poker veteran - or is that a head-trip of a bluff intended to make his opponents think he could be slow on his game today?
The World Series of Poker is a 39 year old annual event where thousands of professional and amateur poker players fight through 40 tournaments for tens of millions of dollars in prize money. The event is different this year, because Twitter has come to the world of poker and it's changing the way the whole industry relates to the game.
