ReadWriteWeb

We've written on auto-posting before and there still seems to be a debate as to whether or not it actually affects performance to post via bot. Anecdotally, I've found that manual posting shows significant increases in performance.

When I first started at ReadWriteWeb, the updates to Facebook were automatically posted via a Facebook application. It was an easy way to make sure our fans got to see our posts, but it didn't foster community discussions so after I got my bearings around here, I stopped the app (or at least I thought I did).

Short form, long form, there's a time and a place for reading all kinds of articles but wouldn't it be nice if you could have some very long things made very short, automatically, and still get the gist of them? Such is the promise of Trimit, a London-built iPhone app described as "an automatic text summarizer and editor for iOS."

This 99 cent app can take copied text or URLs (like links I've favorited on Twitter, for example) and apply an algorithm that shortens bodies of text thousands of characters long down to one thousand, five hundred or 140 characters automatically. How well does it work? It works well enough for me to appreciate it. Check out the demo video below.

Virtualization has been around long enough now that practices have been established. What's changing is how virtualization intersects with cloud computing.

The Influences Driving Virtualization is the latest white paper from ReadWriteWeb. In the white paper, writer Philip Morgan looks at the influences that are shaping virtualization with particular emphasis on standardization, simplification and automation. Through that lens the white paper examines the factors that influence companies and how the cloud plays a defining role.

Eight months after we wrote about a keyless test, the Nordic Choice Hotel chain has become the first to implement a 100% automated check in and departure system at a major hotel. The Comfort Xpress Hotel in Oslo now allows guests to reserve, check in and check out without ever having to deal with a pesky human.

Using a system developed by Ariane Systems, guests check in prior to arrival using the "Allegro web/mobile check-in platform." They click a link received via email or text and establish check-in time, manage room preferences, update their profile and pay.

Big data and analytics have found their place in the sales cycle. In particular that part of the business known as maintenance and renewals.

A method to aggregate and analyze multiple data sources is working for ServiceSource, a cloud services provider that offers a combination of managed services and its software to analyze data and help increase customer renewals.

ServiceSource represents a new generation of cloud services providers that are growing fast by offering a combination of managed services and SaaS-based tools that integrate with enterprise technologies, be they SaaS-based or on-premise.

What do you call a 12 inch by 12 inch by 16 inch box that can print 3D objects of your design, continuously for hours at a time, for just over a thousand dollars? That's the new MakerBot Thing-O-Matic, the latest and greatest in automated home 3D object printing. MakerBot has just begun sending the first shipment out its doors.

MakerBot says the Thing-O-Matic prints higher-quality items than its other 3D printers but the real differentiator here is the automation: give this thing enough plastic to chew on and it will print the same or different objects one after the other after the other, clearing itself out each time before beginning anew. Can the Thing-O-Matic self-replicate - be used to make more Thing-O-Matics? That line was crossed by the old school MakerBot last June, so perhaps it's just a matter of time.

The Web is awash in tools designed to help automate online marketing tasks and track their results. But what about offline methods like billboards, print media and telephone calls?

What if you could track inbound calls to your business like you track Website visitors? What if you could merge data from all of your Web marketing accounts into one dashboard and pull a single report? What if that same dashboard could tell you how much ROI you're getting from each method?

Puppet Labs, the commercial sponsor of the open-source server configuration framework Puppet, announces today its acquisition of an open source project called The Marionette Collective. The Marionette Collective, also known as MCollective, is a framework to build server orchestration or parallel job execution systems.

Puppet Labs' open-source software helps system administrators configure and automate server management, rather than relying on manually built scripts with little portability or reusability. The addition of MCollective's real-time network discovery capabilities will improve the way in which users can schedule activities. MCollective enables server orchestration or parallel job execution systems. It enables real-time discovery of network resources and can select which resources to affect based on configuration data.

Portland, Oregon-based Puppet Labs, commercial sponsor of the open-source server configuration framework Puppet, announced today that it has secured a $5 million Series B funding round, led by Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers. Existing investors True Ventures and Radar Partners also contributed, bringing Puppet Labs' total funding to date to over $7 million.

This round of funding will help the company build its engineering team and build on its growth in the enterprise.

While Wufoo may be known for easily building interactive forms for one's website, the service can also be used to streamline a company's internal workflow and even eliminate the use of paper-based forms in some cases.

The popular drag-and-drop, embeddable Web-form builder can, of course, be used for front-end things like collecting customer data through surveys, building up email mailing lists and even simple payment forms, thanks to integrations with PayPal, Authorize.net and Google Checkout.

Here are some examples of how Wufoo can be used behind the scenes to help keep your operation running smoothly.