Owner: BigTechnical URL:http://bigtechnical.com Join Date: Sun, 22 Jul 2007 21:04:01 -0500 Rating:0 Site Description: Technology blog covering internet startups. Site statistics:Click here
Could Google Spin Off YouTube and Others? 2007-07-22 11:10:38 When I look at a list like this, I sometimes wonder when Google
will begin spinning off it’s parts into separate publicly traded companies. Although it’s advertising is still the #1 money maker for the company, it could get a lot of interest in it’s other parts. Such as making it’s search team a spin off, or maybe even Blogger or YouTube
. Monopoly is another factor, as was the case when Ma Bell had to break into a bunch of baby bells due to it’s telco monopoly.
Microsoft and Yahoo are already complaining that Google is monopolizing the advertising space online, and they would like nothing better than to see Google broken apart.
Either way I have a feeling that Google will spin off it’s divisions in a few year. That is if it can keep up the pace, dominating every internet company on the web.
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InviteShare Bought by TechCrunch 2007-07-19 12:06:22 InviteShare was recently put up for sale at Sitepoint, and sold to TechCrunch
. I think InviteShare is a great idea, with the amount of beta invitation only sites out there and all. However as a revenue generating website, I have my doubts. I suppose with TechCrunch behind it, it is certainly going to get lots of traffic, and it will enhance TechCrunch’s already fantastic website. As a stand alone site though? I don’t blame the owner for selling it. Seems like a lot of work with little financial reward.
Technorati Tags: beta, techcrunch, inviteshare, invites, web 2.0
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Ruby and Twitter 2007-07-18 11:01:04 I read with interest that Twitter
continues to stand behind Ruby on Rails, even though Twitter has grown into a very popular service, in turn causing quite a load on their servers. I’ve always heard that Ruby shouldn’t be used for enterprise wide projects, since it can’t handle the load, or that it isn’t easily scalable. Yet Alex on the Twitter blog states:
“We hit some scaling stumbling blocks a few months back, but not because Ruby or Rails was working against us. Once Twitter reached a certain amount of traffic we were forced to rethink our architecture; you don’t build a messaging system the same way you build a content management system. We set about developing custom solutions both inside and outside our Rails application. We also made good use of web scaling standbys: caching, database optimization, more hardware, and shared experience. Throughout this scramble to scale, Ruby and Rails were assets for their speed of development and creative,
Pownce Invites to Give Away 2007-07-13 08:36:03 I just received a few invites to giveaway from Pownce. I don’t really need them.
There are six of them, so please leave a comment if you want an invite, and I’ll send it to you. Of course one per person, and the first six responses only.
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Google Mapplets 2007-07-11 13:46:08 Map mashups, everywhere I look, map mashups!
According to Google
there are over 50,000 map mashups on the web today. Well now they are going to do something to bring them altogether. Google Inc. is introducing tools that will stitch together applications from a hodgepodge of Web sites.
Google is encouraging mashup developers to build applications called mapplets, posted under the “My Maps” section of Google.
Now a developer can have multiple mapplets laid over a Google map. So now you can show, say, your downtown, with all apartments for rent, but also the crime patterns, or in relation to starbucks for example.
I’m looking forward to seeing how this works out.
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Sphere Connects Blogs 2007-07-10 16:37:32 Sphere is a startup of individuals working to connect mainstream and conversational media content. They are best known for the Sphere Related Content Widget.
You’ve probably seen the Sphere tag at the bottom of blogs like TechCrunch or, now, my blog. Clicking on it will activate an AJAX script, bringing up a box showing related content to the post you’ve just read.
Maybe it’s the information hound in me, but I do love this plugin. And it’s available now for Wordpress. For me it was a quick install. And it gives blog publishers another way to make their blogs sticky and give their readers extended information. To me it’s a “gotta have it” plugin for Wordpress.
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Digg Shuts Down Site 2007-07-08 11:06:43 Diggdown.net got more publicity than it deserved when Digg lawyers went after them for using Digg in their domain name. Now called iggdown.net, their story made the front page of Digg this morning.
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Pownce Invites for Sale on Ebay 2007-07-07 09:40:37 As a follow up to yesterday’s post(see below), people are putting Pownce invites up for sale on Ebay.
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A Day With Pownce 2007-07-06 10:34:46 I received my invite for Pownce yesterday. I was fairly interested in trying it out since I’ve read some good reviews of it, and honestly I wasn’t blown away by it, but certainly I was impressed. If you don’t already know what Pownce is, it is basically a web app that allows users to hook up with friends to send files and messages, post a link, keep track of events, all on Powne’s servers. It’s free, except there is of course a pro version that costs money.
Pownce will undoubtely improve in the future, including full desktop configuration. You can pimp your theme, although that’s pretty limited at the time. I’m sure in the future it will be much more open, ala MySpace. Still a nice app for you and your buddies to keep in contact with each other. I actually thought it would be nice for WoW guilds to schedule raids. The possiblities are endless.
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Rule Your Web! 2007-07-03 23:23:49 From the founder of boingboing, we get Rule the Web.
Which is incidentally the name of his new book. Mark Frauenfelder’s book and how-to blog is simple. He explains how to do anything and everything on the internet…better, faster, and easier.
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Harvard Goes All Web 2.0 2007-07-24 13:43:04 I just had some fun creating and playing around with Harvard
’s H2O Playlist. H20 Playlist is a social bookmark site, in which users share lists of readings and other content about a topic of “intellectual interest”.
I was able to create a playlist of Web 2.0 information, which I am able to share with others. I can also browse other’s related links and topics.
Pretty cool, but nothing you can’t do with del.icio.us…
Technorati Tags: social networking, web 2.0
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Big Money for Social Networking 2007-07-23 15:23:26 Word on TechCrunch is that Tagged.com has raised its own $15 million round, on a $102 million pre-money valuation.
Tagged is also profitable, and adding more new users per day than MySpace.
With this kind of money being thrown at Social
Networking sites there are bound to be even more and more of them getting developed. As if there weren’t plenty of them already. : )
Technorati Tags: Web 2.0, social networking
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Video Craigslist 2007-07-23 11:05:55 In the tradition of Craigslist, Real People Real Stuff lets people sell their stuff or services online. The twist however, is that RealPeopleRealStuff lets you list via video. An interesting concept but still in it’s very infant stage. A quick check of photos & art for sale brought up a listing for an attorney. So policing the postings is needed. I also don’t know how easy it’s going to be for Ma and Pa to record and upload a video. Instead of just heading to Craigslist and typing a quick description of the vacuum cleaner they want to sell and having it appear in under five minutes.
Technorati Tags: Web 2.0, realpeoplerealstuff
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Could Google Spin Off YouTube and Others? 2007-07-22 11:10:38 When I look at a list like this, I sometimes wonder when Google
will begin spinning off it’s parts into separate publicly traded companies. Although it’s advertising is still the #1 money maker for the company, it could get a lot of interest in it’s other parts. Such as making it’s search team a spin off, or maybe even Blogger or YouTube
. Monopoly is another factor, as was the case when Ma Bell had to break into a bunch of baby bells due to it’s telco monopoly.
Microsoft and Yahoo are already complaining that Google is monopolizing the advertising space online, and they would like nothing better than to see Google broken apart.
Either way I have a feeling that Google will spin off it’s divisions in a few year. That is if it can keep up the pace, dominating every internet company on the web.
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Read more:Others
InviteShare Bought by TechCrunch 2007-07-19 12:06:22 InviteShare was recently put up for sale at Sitepoint, and sold to TechCrunch
. I think InviteShare is a great idea, with the amount of beta invitation only sites out there and all. However as a revenue generating website, I have my doubts. I suppose with TechCrunch behind it, it is certainly going to get lots of traffic, and it will enhance TechCrunch’s already fantastic website. As a stand alone site though? I don’t blame the owner for selling it. Seems like a lot of work with little financial reward.
Technorati Tags: beta, techcrunch, inviteshare, invites, web 2.0
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Ruby and Twitter 2007-07-18 11:01:04 I read with interest that Twitter
continues to stand behind Ruby on Rails, even though Twitter has grown into a very popular service, in turn causing quite a load on their servers. I’ve always heard that Ruby shouldn’t be used for enterprise wide projects, since it can’t handle the load, or that it isn’t easily scalable. Yet Alex on the Twitter blog states:
“We hit some scaling stumbling blocks a few months back, but not because Ruby or Rails was working against us. Once Twitter reached a certain amount of traffic we were forced to rethink our architecture; you don’t build a messaging system the same way you build a content management system. We set about developing custom solutions both inside and outside our Rails application. We also made good use of web scaling standbys: caching, database optimization, more hardware, and shared experience. Throughout this scramble to scale, Ruby and Rails were assets for their speed of development and creative,
Pownce Invites to Give Away 2007-07-13 08:36:03 I just received a few invites to giveaway from Pownce. I don’t really need them.
There are six of them, so please leave a comment if you want an invite, and I’ll send it to you. Of course one per person, and the first six responses only.
Share This
Google Mapplets 2007-07-11 13:46:08 Map mashups, everywhere I look, map mashups!
According to Google
there are over 50,000 map mashups on the web today. Well now they are going to do something to bring them altogether. Google Inc. is introducing tools that will stitch together applications from a hodgepodge of Web sites.
Google is encouraging mashup developers to build applications called mapplets, posted under the “My Maps” section of Google.
Now a developer can have multiple mapplets laid over a Google map. So now you can show, say, your downtown, with all apartments for rent, but also the crime patterns, or in relation to starbucks for example.
I’m looking forward to seeing how this works out.
Share This
Sphere Connects Blogs 2007-07-10 16:37:32 Sphere is a startup of individuals working to connect mainstream and conversational media content. They are best known for the Sphere Related Content Widget.
You’ve probably seen the Sphere tag at the bottom of blogs like TechCrunch or, now, my blog. Clicking on it will activate an AJAX script, bringing up a box showing related content to the post you’ve just read.
Maybe it’s the information hound in me, but I do love this plugin. And it’s available now for Wordpress. For me it was a quick install. And it gives blog publishers another way to make their blogs sticky and give their readers extended information. To me it’s a “gotta have it” plugin for Wordpress.
Share This
Read more:Sphere
, Blogs
Digg Shuts Down Site 2007-07-08 11:06:43 Diggdown.net got more publicity than it deserved when Digg lawyers went after them for using Digg in their domain name. Now called iggdown.net, their story made the front page of Digg this morning.
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Second Life is Deserted 2007-07-25 12:04:01 Wired has written an article about how Madison Avenue Is Wasting Millions on a DesertedSecond
Life. It seems that most people quickly abandon their avatars after creating them, because there simply isn’t anything to do. And that most users who were logging in on a regular basis were from Asia and Europe and that the big American advertising money was being spent on about 100,000 Americans.
Those that do log in are usually attracted to the free virtual sex or linden dollars. And then there are the griefer attacks. Which leads to my favorite part of the article.
Last winter, CNET’s in-world correspondent was conducting a live interview with Anshe Chung, an avatar said to have earned more than $1 million on virtual real estate deals, when Chung was assaulted by flying penises in a griefer attack.
So is the end of Second Life
? Advertising is still there, and Electric Sheep is making out like bandits, but why log in? I would rather play WoW and go on some raids with friends.
T
Songbird Rocks 2007-07-28 19:08:37 I downloaded Songbird
Media Player for my Mac the other day. It was the first time I used it in a few months. Let me tell you, it is awesome, and one of the first web apps I’ve been excited about in a while. For those who don’t know, Songbird which is still in beta, is a desktop Web player, jukebox and Web browser mash-up. From the makers of Winamp, it supports extensions and skins, or feathers as they say. And it’s like Firefox, built from Mozilla, cross-platform and open source.
Not only will it play the music on your computer, but you can surf to online music or mp3 blogs and listen to all of the music on those as well, with their built in browser. That means the engine will browse the site and load all of the mp3’s for you. You can then listen to them without having to click on each one. Very time consuming.
I recommend downloading the beta, which I didn’t have any problems with, so far.
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Google Analytics Blackout 2007-07-31 10:41:47 According to to Yahoo News, GoogleAnalytics
has been in data blackout since Saturday.This is a bit surprising to me since I’ve been able to log in and get my information, and it seems updated. But according to some users, Google Analytics
hasn’t been the same since and upgrade in May.
Technorati Tags: Google, Web 2.0
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Top 10 Top 100 or 90 maybe 74 2007-07-30 14:25:33 Every good blogger knows that a sure fire way to drive traffic to your site is to make a list of some topic and get it into circulation on Digg or Del.ico.us, or any one of myriad social networking sites out there. As a web surfer, it is extremely tempting to click on one of these links. Most of us don’t like, or have time, to have to track things down. We would rather have something given to us in a nice package. Even if we aren’t looking for it, because it’s gonna be a fast read even if not useful.
Because there are so many of these lists though, it is starting to become a little less effective for clicks than it used to be. My eyes usually gloss over when I see one of these links these days. However I’ve really been finding Mashable’s lists to be pretty thought out and thorough. Although a little overwhelming with the amount of information offered, they are worth a read in my opinion. Check out their list of online music services. Pretty damn good job.
Read and Rate Airports at Flagxo 2007-07-30 10:22:16 Flagxo.com is an interesting user generated content site that allows users to read and rate airports. Although in need for more content, the site has potential to give great travel tips and transit advice for new visitors to airports around the world.
The site has a nice word cloud and links to Most Posts, Most Useful and User Find. The site allows users to rate airports on a scale of 1 to 10 in areas such as Power Plugs and Wi-Fi. Averages are then added and each airport gets an overall average.
Flagxo.com is somewhat useless until more users start using it. But like I said, it has a ton of potential.
Technorati Tags: Web 2.0, internet, flag xo
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Could Ajax weaken Web 2.0? 2007-08-03 13:35:14 Yahoo! News article about a company that used Ajax to create a website called HackersVacations.com. They used popular techniques available today that are available from online recourses and books. They demonstrated how insecure Ajax can be, by hacking into the site’s Ajax and manipulating the Ajax to change flight pricing, seat selection, and other features.
Here’s a nice article on securing Ajax on your own site.
Technorati Tags: web 2.0, yahoo, ajax
MeeMix Music Personalization 2007-08-02 10:42:59 Techcrunch has an article on MeeMix, a new music personalization service like Last.fm and Pandora. MeeMix uses Nature and Nurture(see the article) to determine what a user is interested in hearing. Pandora analyzes each song, as does MeeMix, and then it’s recommendation engine makes a custom radio station for the user.
MeeMix has a social networking feature set with reviews, secrets and public posting. It also allows you to print off a t-shirt with your channel name and number of subscribers. Um…yeah.
You can sign up for beta invitation here.
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Great Tool for SEO 2007-08-06 01:07:46 If you run multiple websites, or just your own, do yourself a favor and download SeoQuake. I use it as a plugin for Firefox and it gives me up to date information on every website I go to.
It not only gives you Google PR, but also yahoo backlinks and indexed pages in Yahoo and Google. Seoquake is also Internet Explorer compatible. Seoquake allows to obtain SEO
parameters of the your website on the fly without a lot of research.
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New iMac Photos 2007-08-05 22:47:14 For anyone interested, here are the new iMac Pictures, courtesy of Mac Forums.
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Hacking into Social Networking Sites 2007-08-05 15:08:36 Social Networking sites have been extremely popular in this day and age. Now physorg.com has an interesting article about how Social Networking Sites
Flawed. It seems that some of the more popular sites can be pretty easily hacked into.
From the article:
The attack uses a so-called “cross-site scripting” vulnerability, a common type of flaw found in Web applications that involves injecting code onto someone else’s Web page.
The vulnerability could not be independently verified, but experts said these types of attacks are a particular problem for social networking sites, where it’s difficult to police the content of the millions of posts each day.
Deacon said the flaw he discovered requires that a user click on a link that leads to a Web page where the computer’s “cookie” information is stolen. Deacon said he discovered the problem several months ago along with several other researchers and alerted MySpace, but the company didn’t fix the Read more:Hacking
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