At first glance FriendBinder, the UK based start up from the midlands, looks just like another ‘me too’ lifestream site.
Plug in your social networks including Twitter, Facebook, Flickr, Last FM and RSS feeds and watch a live stream of all your friends information. Use the update function like a Twitter client to update your Twitter and or Facebook account. So far, so familiar.
However, play a little longer and you will find some nifty features.
Using the search function at the top of the page, I can search for any word (not just hashtag) that interests me, in this example, The Next Web.
The search facility allows me to search for all mentions of the topic (like a Twitter search) or just my friends across the networks I have connected. This is a smart option to help me find relevant content against my trusted sources.
(more…)
It looks like Facebook is moving further away from its roots and losing its emphasis on friend requests.
At Le Web this morning, Facebook’s Director of Network Development Ethan Beard noted that they want to move their focus off friending during a panel discussion chaired by Michael Arrington.
While the ability to add friends will always be available, Facebook will also start to look at people’s moves and interactions and show who friends ARE instead of who said they are friends.
Although there was no detail given as to how this will work, this move appears to be an extension of Facebook’s current friend recommendation system which looks at your behaviour and active social links and suggests other people you may know based on those links. (more…)
By Boris on December 9, 2009
Ryan Sarver, Director of Platform at Twitter today at Le Web talked about Twitter and a few important changes on how they are going to talk to and work with developers and applications.
He startes out pointing out that there was only one twitter application in 2007, now there are 50,000 registered ones. A majority of users at Twitter experience Twitter on partner sites.
Ryan talked a bit about three applications that are doing well as businesses: CoTweet, OneRiot and Tweetmeme. No details on how well they are doing though. They are examples however of serious and mature companies that are built around Twitter.
So today Twitter has 4 announcements:
1: Firehose will become available for everyone
More details will follow but expect to pay for it.
2: New Twitter Developers platform
A new spiffy site with documentation, tutorials, status dashboard, forum, FAQ’s and everything else you need to develop Twitter applications. Will launch in a few weeks.
3: Move to OAuth
OAuth applications get 10 times more access calls then before. An API for Browser-less apps. Basic OAUth deprecation in june 2010
4: Chirp; first (official) Twitter Developers Conference
San Francisco 2010. http://chirp.twitter.com
It is clear that Twitter is going to focus highly applications and wants to become more clear in their communication to developers. A new program called Previews will give developers early access to new features. They also want to become more helpful in applications making money. According to Ryan they want to help developers make more money so that Twitter can make more money.
Maybe I’m just paranoid but that sounds a bit like taxes. The money I make the more money the government wants from me. Will Twitter start taxing developers for successful companies that make money via Twitter? How it will play out exactly will be announced in early 2010 but looking forward to your interpretations in the comments here.
By Boris on December 9, 2009
Patrick and Boris are visitig Le Web this week in France. Here are some first impressions for those of you who are not here:
- The room is HOT!
Last year there was no heating. To compensate this year it is in ‘Sauna’ mode.
- It’s a full house
It looks like it is even busier than ever. Long lines for registration and a lot of people standing. I haven’t counted chairs yet but I’d guess there is one chair for every 2 people.
- The Internet works!
It works and it is SUPER fast too. I’m sitting at a blogger table near the front with a power socket and an ethernet cable.
- Everybody has an iPhone
. As you can see in the photo here at least 30% of the audience owns an iPhone. Robert Scoble asked people to hold them up and made this photo:
We won’t be live blogging everything (there are 200 bloggers here from 30 countries doing that) but we will report on the big and interesting announcements.
We would also love to meet you here. Come up to us if you see us and introduce yourself. Patrick and me (Boris) are in our suits (not white) so we should be easy to spot. If you don’t know what we look like you can also wait for the party: we will be the guys in suits doing weird moves on the dance floor.
![[UPDATE LAUNCHED] YouTube Is Launching Its Music Video Portal VEVO Tonight](http://thenextweb.com/appetite/files/2009/12/vevo.PNG "vevo")
VEVO has now launched, with YouTube and Universal pushing the glowing green button.
You can visit the website here. The website is lagging quite badly at the moment, so be patient.
—
Youtube’s upcoming music video website is going to be a damned impressive creation. VEVO, the service’s name, is a partnership with Universal that will be launched tonight.
At a party in NYC details are being released. It turns out that some 85% of the music videos that are on YouTube will be hosted via VEVO. Sadly, for all the cinematography fans, VEVO will not be launching with HD video, that will be coming next year.
The service, to build buzz will be launching with exclusives from 50 Cent, and Mariah Carey. VEVO will be fully built into YouTube, so that when you search for an artist on YouTube, VEVO content will appear.
Ben Parr has found out that: “You won’t have to watch a preroll every time you watch a VEVO video. It will serve ads based on aggregate usage.” Color me happy. (more…)
We found this image to be so compelling, that we wanted to make sure that you saw it.
From OnlineEducation, you can visit them from that link. Also, click on the image, it will take you to a higher resolution version of the same thing on their website. Enjoy.
The image is just after the break.
(more…)
With Christmas approaching you might be looking for the perfect gift for the web geek in your life. Maybe you are that web geek and just want inspiration for your list of requests?
Here’s a list of some of the top gifts you can buy no matter your price range. From virtual gifts to the complete human genome, there’s something for everyone.
Bargain basement prices
In addition to their famous business cards, Moo.com can also offer personalised gifts. Business card holders and photoframes can be personalised with photos and other images uploaded to the site or imported from Facebook, Flickr, Etsy or Bebo. That’s the kind of customisation that makes a web geek drool. Price: varies
(more…)
Well, turns out AT&T is not total arse: it is fast in some areas. According to a study by Root Wireless, AT&T has the fastest 3G in Chicago, Dallas, Los Angeles, New York, Seattle, San Francisco and Washington, D.C.
Of course, to make it plain: Verizon does have more total 3G coverage. How much? Well, you remember the map that started it all. If not, 3G coverage in the US looks like this:
(more…)
By Zee on December 8, 2009
Google today announced the beta version of Google Chrome for Mac and Linux along with the launch of Google Chrome Extensions gallery.
However, unlike Linux and Windows version of Chrome, the Mac version does not have support for Chrome extensions yet.
Thankfully DotSpots founder Matt Mastracci and a blogger over at Grack.com have come to the rescue. Although not officially supported, the duo have come up with a quick and easy way to get Chrome extensions working on a mac.
Their instructions:
Frag this button to your toolbar: Enable Extension Install (more…)
Google has just released Chrome extensions into beta, at last. Extensions, the main last stumbling block for Chrome to take on Firefox as a major browser, has been removed.
You can play with, and find extensions here. Matt Cutts, of Google said it best:
Get them here! [update] These extensions are not available for the Mac version of Chrome. We assume that this goes for Linux as well.
(more…)
