Dorthy.com, a site we've been hearing about since late last year, has just raised $4 million from angel investors for their "new agey" concept of a search engine for dreams. Currently in private alpha, the site makes fluffy claims about how they're "reversing the traditional search process, continuously filtering and focusing the Universe of online content, to connect you with the best stuff around your interests and aspirations."
If you're not clear on what exactly that means, don't feel bad... but don't write them off either. Instead, think of Dorthy.com as a new take on the old 43Things, the site which encourages users to list goals, share progress, and cheer each other on. Dorthy does the same but gets you there by making interesting use of Web 3.0 technologies like AI and natural language search.
When a service makes its debut by getting accused of stealing code from one of its competitors, you know that it's going to be a tough road ahead. That was the case with the Twitter aggregator application Retweet.com, which went live earlier this week. Allegedly, the company snagged the code for both their JavaScript retweet button and WordPress plugin from their rival and current top aggregator, Tweetmeme.
Now with Retweet's official launch, you may be tempted to give them a second look... especially considering the $10,000 they're giving away. Don't bother. The service is still buggy, still using that stolen code (or so it seems), and that $10K? Well, you had better read the fine print.
New York's Metropolitan Transportation Authority has sent a take down notice to Greenwich man Chris Schoenfeld for using Metropolitan Transportation Authority schedules to power his StationStops iPhone application. The popular blogger created an $2.99 application that gives commuters access to MTA train and bus schedules. He received a DMCA last Friday to remove the application from the app store The MTA claims that its scheduling information is copyrighted intellectual property. You read that right. Public train schedules are being treated as copyrighted material.
Hacker turned security expert Kevin Mitnick has been denied service by both his web host and his cell phone provider. HostedHere.net and AT&T argue that the barrage of hacker attacks on Mitnick's accounts make them too difficult to defend. Said The Register's Dan Goodin, "In asking Mitnick to take his business elsewhere, [the companies] seem to be making the tacit admission that they are unable to secure the accounts of users whose only fault is being a high-profile target." Really? Is the public surprised that hackers can penetrate these systems?
The Wikimedia Foundation just emailed ReadWriteWeb to announce receipt of $500,000 in grant funding from The William and Flora Hewlett Foundation. The grant is a part of a $100 million dollar program to fund open education resources, and given Wikimedia's mission to encourage the growth, development and distribution of free, multilingual content, the Hewlett Foundation couldn't have chosen a better org.
Facebook just announced that administrators of Facebook Pages will be able to publish their updates to their Twitter accounts automatically. Administrators will decide which info to share from a Page including status updates, photos, notes and events. A number of well-known groups and celebrities are already using the feature including Dane Cook, Livestrong and the World Wildlife Fund.
Google Labs just launched Listen - an "audio magazine" that allows Android users to subscribe to programs and search terms to queue up their podcasts for easy listening. While Listen only offers English audio podcasts for now, the company plans on expanding to index video and content in other languages in the coming months. The product allows you to keep a couple hours of audio on your phone for your daily commute, lets you share podcasts with friends, and helps you find the latest updates for breaking news stories.
Yesterday we asked what 3 web apps or services you find the most exciting right now. Not your 3 most used or favorite, but the apps that currently make you tingly with excitement. We got some great responses in the comments, so in this post we pick out our top 10 from your choices.
We've chosen the 10 in two batches. Firstly, the services that got the most number of mentions. As expected, these are well known apps that millions of people are using (or will use when it's launched, in the case of Google Wave). We didn't want this to be purely a popularity contest though, so we've also selected 5 lesser known web apps or services. Those apps all got multiple mentions and in our estimation they're each worthy of being labeled 'exciting.'
Tim O'Reilly is a publisher of technical books, the organizer of a series of conferences on diverse topics, an investor in web startup companies and smart electrical grid technologies. He's credited with shepharding the term Web 2.0 into public consciousness and he regularly uses his extensive influence to call on technologists to "do something worthy," especially in the face of ecological and political crisis. Now he's brokering meetings of Obama administration officials and bleeding-edge geeks.
Google just made its Picasa Web Albums a lot more social. While you could always share albums with others, you can now also invite other users to contribute photos to an album themselves. Currently, as Google rightly points out, if you go to an event and a number of people take pictures, they will end up on various different photo sharing services afterward. Now, you can just set up one album and everybody can contribute their photos to this one album.
