RSS feeds for Google News search results have been broken for about three weeks, according to complaints in the company's help forum. Three weeks ago a Google engineer said they expected the problem to be fixed in about a week. Now the company has simply removed the links in the results page sidebar to both RSS and Google Alerts. Oops.
Inbal Drukker, a senior associate at Google News, said on the first and sixth of July that there are "engineering changes" underway to "improve Google News." So what seems like a loss today could end up for the better in the long run, but for now there seems to be a problem.
A new study released by enterprise wiki provider Wetpaint and the Altimeter Group shows that the brands most engaged in social media are also experiencing higher financial success rates than those of their non-engaged peers. To determine this relationship, the study focused on 100 companies from the 2008 BusinessWeek/Interbrand Best Global Brands survey and the various social media platforms they used like Facebook, Twitter, blogs, wikis, and forums. Although it's difficult to prove for certain that the companies' involvement in social media has led to their increased revenues, the implication behind the new data is that it has.
What if Twitter understood what you were saying and could then take action on your messages? What if Twitter wasn't just a place to post your random thoughts, but an A.I. bot that actually helped you get your work done? That's the concept behind Akibot, a new enterprise microblogging service. At first glance, Akibot may look very much like your typical Twitter clone, but it does something very different: it combines the collective intelligence provided by microblogging with an artificial intelligence engine that lets the service take action on the messages posted.
A friend recently held a garage sale to purge all of his worldly possessions. At 8:58am before the final tables were out, men and women circled the block like buzzards over a fresh kill. The first group included punky-looking eBay dealers, antique collectors and audiophiles looking for rare dance hall vinyls. The second wave consisted of board game enthusiasts, recycled clothing designers, preschool teachers and espresso-touting Shabby Chic home decorators. And finally, at about 2pm, the geeks and bike-enthusiasts came to claim the last Playstation games, computer parts, brake levers and tubes.
Garage sales are no longer just for blue-haired grandmothers with teacup fetishes. While eBay and Etsy are great for selling rare or specialty items, setting up an auction or store for your mismatched cutlery might not get you the results you need. One blessing in this down economy is that we're learning to reclaim and recycle in a way that our grandmothers have been doing for years. Whether you like haggling over weird items on a Sunday or you'd simply like to list your own sale, here are some great resources.
There are moments in life when the universe decides to play a cruel joke on you and just as your company's files are being transfered to a new data center, a truck driver rams into a power transformer and cuts power to the server rack that is meant to be receiving your precious files. And after that, your other back up gets wiped off its server by an over-zealous system administrator. And then after that, you're helping your CEO write an apologetic message to members. That "hypothetical" story is meant to illustrate the point that backup in multiple locations (via cloud or otherwise) is important.
US audiences are in for a listening treat. It turns out that Swedish on-demand streaming music service Spotify is set to officially launch to US audiences in the late Summer. Up until now, Spotify's American fans have either had to use foreign proxy servers to access the service or they've simply gone without. The service is currently available in the UK, Sweden, Norway, Spain, France and Finland. Despite only being available in a select few countries, Spotify already has more than 5 million users and is often mentioned as a competitor to Grooveshark and Imeem.
Just in time to commemorate the 40th anniversary of the first moon landing, Google has just enabled a model of the moon in Google Earth. Moon in Google Earth features a 3D model of the moon with both current and historic images, panoramic, street view-like photos, and models of numerous lunar landers, as well as guided tours with videos (one narrated by Apollo 11 astronaut Buzz Aldrin). Google unveiled this new layer at the Newseum in Washington, D.C. today. Any user of Google Earth 5.0 can now roam around the moon without the need to update the program. Just click on the planet button in the top toolbar and select 'Moon.'
Skype released a new version of its client for Mac this morning and the changes are not as small as the company implies in its announcement. The new version enables full or partial screen sharing through video chat, allows you to receive a chat notification when a contact changes their mood status, lets you purchase wifi connectivity at public hotspots with your Skype account, allows you to write notes on your contacts' profiles and more. It's a pretty impressive upgrade.
Release notes are here, download is here. To be honest, we had some trouble in testing a few of the new features, though they'd been present in the beta version. If you haven't been using the beta, you'll want to upgrade now.
Not too long ago, after the demise of Napster, Kazaa became synonymous with P2P file sharing. After a number of costly lawsuits and failed attempts to appease the music industry, however, Kazaa shut down its P2P network. Tomorrow, however, according to the Sydney Morning Herald, Kazaa will rise from the ashes and begin its second life as a legal subscription download service. For $20 a month, users will be able to download an unlimited number of songs. These songs, however, will be DRMed and in the WMA format, which will probably spell doom for the service in the long run.
To most people, the term "open source" immediately conjures an image of two geeks sitting in a dark room (probably a basement) -- curtains drawn, McDonald's remains strewn across the desk, and 42 oz sodas within arms' reach -- coding away at their computers, listening to Linkin Park or a game soundtrack. People automatically associate it with endless lines of code, back-end technology, server rooms, computer science labs, and experimental (read: unsafe and buggy) technology.
In reality, open-source software provides stable solutions, created by people and for people and used by companies of all sizes. Use Firefox? That's open-source software. Google Chrome? It too is based on an open-source code. Ever look up a term on Wikipedia? The site is completely built on user-generated code and content. "In fact," says Allison Randal, Program Chair of OSCON, "chances are you're using a lot more open-source software than you know: on your computer or powering you favorite websites."
