Online retailer Amazon will begin highlighting Kindle's paid e-books following a small but significant change to its bestseller list due out in "a few weeks": it will split its top-sellers into two lists, one paid, one free. Currently, the Amazon Kindle Bestseller list is a mix of free and paid books and, not surprisingly, the free books dominate the list. Even today, as this article goes to press (so to speak - is that still valid terminology for the Web?), only two of the top 10 books lists are paid. In the top 20, only three more paid books can be found.
Have app stores officially jumped the shark? uTorrent, one of the most popular BitTorrent client programs available today with over 50 million monthly users, has launched a new version of their software (codename: Griffin) which now includes extensions, aka "apps."
Yes, that's right, even uTorrent has an app store now.
Remember when you had to have an @edu email address to gain entry into Facebook's once-closed social network? Those days are no more, but a new social network pitching itself as a "Facebook alternative" wants to bring that level of privacy back to today's students. Collegiate Nation, a site that has been in development since 2007, is now poised to take advantage of the recent Facebook privacy debacle with the launch of a new network for college students only.
Besides the network's exclusivity, there are three other factors that could make it an easy sell for those looking for a way out of the Facebook rat race. According to mom-turned-entrepreneur Evelyn Castillo-Bach, the woman behind the network's creation, Collegiate Nation's three main pillars are: Privacy, No Advertisements and Total User Control.
What's this? The oddball, quirky and occasionally X-rated site that connects random strangers for video chat is a marketer's dream? That doesn't sound right. But that's exactly what Travelocity, the popular travel brand known best for their mascot, the travelling gnome, is saying. In a recent interview with ClickZ, a news and advice site for digital marketers, Travelocity company spokesperson Joel Frey, discussed the Chatroulette marketing campaign and its successes: 350,000 impressions and 400 conversations between potential customers and its "chat specialists." (Yes, Travelocity pays staffers to surf Chatroulette!)
Thirty-two percent of online teens have experienced some form of harassment via the Internet, a problem also known as "cyberbullying." According to recent data, 15% of online teens have had private material forwarded without permission, 13% have received threatening messages and 6% have had embarrassing photos posted without permission.
In light of the recent discussions surrounding Facebook and privacy issues, it's important to note that Facebook's new push towards becoming a more open, public network won't just have an effect on an adult population concerned with worries of "friending" bosses and colleagues or adjusting the privacy settings on their children's photos - it will affect the children themselves, as well as teens and young adults, all of which combined make up over a quarter of the social network's user base.
During his keynote presentation at the ReadWriteWeb Mobile Summit today, our founder and editor Richard MacManus examined the trends and issues around mobile that we have been tracking here on RWW. Among the topics covered in today's keynote were geo-location, mobile commerce, cloud computing, privacy, and the Internet of Things. MacManus' discussion also touched upon the advantages and disadvantages of mobile websites and native apps.
Tagwhat, an augmented reality creation and distribution system, publicly launched this week bringing the world of augmented reality into the realm of Web 2.0.
While other augmented realtiy browsers, such as Wikitude and Layar, provide the user with information overlays over live video, Tagwhat allows users to create these overlays.
There's been a lot of anxiety provoked (and money made) predicting a "parade of terribles" in the workplace as a result of social networking sites and employee blogs. While there is no doubt that these sites provide additional opportunities for employees to be distracted from getting their work done, I contend that not all that much has changed.
Employees that are wasting their time on social networking sites today were gossiping at the water cooler in yesteryear, and the solution is the same: thoughtful policy implementation and vigilant managerial oversight.
An interesting chart released from Morgan Stanley Research this morning shows that during the month of April - the month the iPad launched - netbook sales stalled. Did the iPad really have that much impact on an industry that was once the fastest-growing segment of the PC market? Or was the netbook's fall from grace bound to happen at some point, with or without the Apple tablet's help, as consumers discovered how hard it is to type on those tiny keyboards?
Consumer Reports, a longtime trusted name in product ratings and reviews, has today released its annual "State of the Net" report, which finds that over half (52%) of social network users post risky information online. Among the transgressions: using weak passwords, listing full birth dates, ignoring privacy settings and making mention of when you're away from home, to name a few.
The report looked closely at Facebook and Twitter, two of the top social networks used today, and found that on Facebook, the percentage of those engaged in this type of risky behavior was even higher, at 56%. However, what's more interesting is how the survey inadvertently reveals that Facebook users clearly have no idea about how much they're publicly sharing on the network.
