Emma Brady , a 35 year old conference organiser from the UK said she had no idea her husband was looking for a divorce. She found out soon enough though, when a friend who had read the wall post her husband left for her called to console her. 

Brady spoke to the Daily Mail about her embarrassment and pain, ’The first I knew about it was when I received a phone call at work from my best friend, who lives in Denmark,’ she said.  

‘She asked me if I was okay because of what Neil had put on Facebook: “Neil Brady has ended his marriage to Emma Brady”. I was shell-shocked. ’I have had people who I haven’t spoken to for years contacting me asking what is going on.

What upset me the most was not the fact that Neil had written he had ended his marriage, but the comment from a girl in Canada who said: “You are better off out of it”. It hurt me that he had been speaking to someone else about it.’

Neil Brady, who is now living with his mother, insists he had talked to his wife about separation. ‘I’d had enough of her’.

This bizarre story adds to the other we recently covered when a wife’s “relationship status” change on Facebook triggered her husband to murder.

Zemanta is a tool which makes writing blog posts easier and more media rich.

If you were writing a blog post about Bill Gates for example and were now ready to have a search for other related material from across the web as well as any worthwhile images or video – well Zemanta is there to help. The tool comes in the form of a Firefox extension and it’s latest release sees integration with GMail and Yahoo Mail, with the aim to make your emails equally as interesting.

Simply write your email as normal and once you’re done, click “add Zemanta” which will then reveal a sidebar full of relevant links, images and content. Zemanta is no slouch either, this whole process takes a matter of seconds for a reasonably long email.

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Tsavo, a company founded by userplane creator Michael Jones, has made another acquisition today acquiring Open Source Food, a recipe sharing site which was recently named in Time Magazine’s 50 Best Websites of 2008.

Open Source Food is a creation of Tokyo-based web entrepreneur and developer Jon Anthony ‘Yongfook’ Cockle, who launched the site on a meager $10k in 2007. It marks a great 2008 for Yongfook who also saw the launch of open source lifestream service Sweetcron to much fanfare.

Open Source Food will immediately be renamed NibbleDish (which it already redirects to) and will add to Tsavo’s other content oriented sites. Tsavo has previously acquired SEO and PPC firm Better Inc.

No figure has officially been announced for the acquisition.

Whatever you might think or feel about leading tech blog Techcrunch or it’s public persona and founder Michael Arrington, the site is an inspiration to new and established blogs across the web. Behind the controversy, breaking stories, rivalry and heated debates (which have taken their toll) is hard work and determination which Arrington and his team over the years deserve all the credit for.

Congratulations Techcrunch, we salute you!

It’s Christmas all over again for Google fans this week with offline Gmail access, the introduction of Latitude and now with offline Calendar access (albeit only for Google Apps users). 

Google Apps users will notice an “Offline (beta)” link in the top right corner of their Google Calendar. Clicking the link will request that you confirm you would like offline access to your Google Calendar and if you’ve got Google Gears installed this set up and sync should be a breeze.

Unfortunately this is the point at which you may realise why this is very much in “beta”, Offline Google Calendar is “read only” which means no editing or adding events when offline which is  both a tease and highly frustrating to say the least. 

Let’s hope Google steps up a few ‘gears’ with development of this as soon as possible. 

Read More:

Google Calendar FAQ’s, LifeHacker,

As we announced yesterday, Google has released Latitude, its extension to Google Maps which allows you to share your location with your friends.

Here are ten reasons why I think it will succeed…

1. It’s Google.
They are big, they are a verb, they are well known and well trusted. Although the mobile apps space seems crowded, the fact that an 800lb Gorilla just entered the room will make it change – and it’ll probably squash a few people, push a few out, sit on a few, and maybe eat some.

It has already ’scaled’. And ladies and gentlemen, it has just entered your building…

2. It’s Viral.
As I walked to where a local fishmonger parks his van each week, yesterday morning, I was able to invite several friends to join my network just using one hand on my phone. Some had responded by the time I was walking back home with my fish. By the time it was being cooked, I’d invited over 50 people to share – and some messaged me to say thanks.

By the evening, several friends had done the same, and invited me to connect with them on Latitude.

3. Everything is local.
Yesterday, I could see where Boris was in Amsterdam, Sheryl in Washington, Anton near Galway, Bryan in New York, Will 2 miles across town in Edinburgh. But what is important to me is always local – wherever I am – and especially if I am in a new place. I want to know how to reach that meeting, where to get wifi or coffee, what’s a nice spot for a 2-hour lunch meeting, and when I’m on the road, the mobile phone is my lifeline.

Over 90% of people keep their mobile phone within a few metres of them 24 hours a day.

4. It’s Desktop and Mobile.
In my browser’s iGoogle page, Latitude automatically appeared top left yesterday after I’d downloaded latitude to my phone. Nice touch. And so I can respond to friends wanting to share their location with me, see their status, and update my status (which updates in Gtalk, and also, optionally, Twitter and Friendfeed). The desktop is where I can comfortably access information that is more verbose, more structured.

The mobile is where my search needs and attention span are different – Latitude serves both, and as a user, I can get valuable input from sharing both types of data.

5: I am the most important person in the world. You come second.
Everyone has an ego. We like to have attention from others. So it’s natural to want to say “here I am”. Latitude panders to that simple human need perfectly. When there’s a big conference like The Next Web, it’d be great for finding new friends and pinpointing old ones. And for switching it off sometimes, too, or appearing to be at a meeting when I’m actually playing in the park with my child. When I am thinking about sharing ‘locations’, I feel it’s nice to add things to maps like a good restaurant I know in Barcelona, or the cheapest place to park near our office in Edinburgh.

This is information I already share with friends, but now, I can put that information into play once, and leave it there for my friends – and they might update me if that restaurant closes, or they find a great bookshop – and share that with their friends.

6. Everyone understands Maps.
And if not, everyone understands satellite images. And so everyone can relate to the information on a map. Columbus went on instinct, but he started with maps. I love to be able to see other cities and countries, whether I have been there, am going there, happen to meet someone from there, or if it’s just in the news or comes up in conversation. Maps satisfy my curiosity easily, and they are a starting point for asking for other types of information. Who what when where why how how much? Wow, if live updates and location status was around when I was 19, I’d probably still be recovering from all the great parties and great stories I covered for the student newspaper, and still be amazed at how small the world was, because I had discovered so many mutual friends.

I can now see how Jim Haynes‘ legendary Paris Sunday Night Dinners can scale. Jim, we’ll see you soon – really, or virtually!

7. Uncomplicated sharing.
Hre’s the message you get when someone wants to share Latitude with you.

Subject: John Brown wants to share their location with you on Google Latitude
Message: John Brown (mail@gmail.com) wants to share their location with you on Google Latitude. You can use Latitude on your mobile phone, PC, or both. To accept or reject the request, or to learn more about Latitude, click the link below.

http://m.google.com/latitude

(And a map showing where John is)

Simple, brief, to the point. No hype, no lengthy explanation, no hard sell about how useful this is. Brevity and clarity. I don’t mind sending or receiving that sort of message.

8. That’s not Latitude. That’s just an upgrade…
I used my non-GPS enabled phone (better for texting), and then a GPS enabled one (nice camera and great for doing interviews) – both simply upgraded existing software. It’s not Google Latitude I installed, it’s just the latest version of Google Maps. 3.0.0. I remember when Windows reached version 3.0 was when that product really started to get useful. And part of the reason it will succeed is that Google doesn’t complicate or burden this by calling it mobile social networking, or ‘location-aware interactive group software’.

Nah. It calls it “Latitude”. Like Docs, Maps, Earth, Mail, Images, News, Shopping, Checkout, Friend Connect, Maps. Simple. Functional. Google.

9. They still don’t get it. But they will.
In the Financial Times this morning (and you may have to register to read that ;-), the focus in their story about Latitude is privacy. The headline? ‘Google to track mobile users‘. Big brother anxiety is what has stopped ‘mobile social networking’ success. Well sorry, privacy is dead, in the same way that newspapers are dying – and for similar reasons. For those who fail to understand why Stephen Fry should have gained a following of over 100,000 on Twitter, here is the news. Personal publicity and personal engagement lets you talk, lets you share ideas, makes you friends, and lets you influence people. Always been that way, just now the tools are different – radically so – it’s people power – always scary for the status quo.

And when things that one, younger generation ‘gets‘ and embraces readily as a vehicle for change and liberation, but another can’t understand, resist, and insist is dangerous, there’s only ever one endgame – because the old folks die, and the cycle is endless.

So Latitude is part of an Attitude. Dude.

10. And What’s next?
It’s a stable release, and it works. iPhone application is yet to come, but it works in any web browser. But what might be next is obviously including messaging. And I can imagine the APIs might allow dating applications, being alerted to free wifi as you pass a cafe or pub, checking what films are on nearby – all of which the advertisers might be persuaded to pay for – Mobile AdSense, in effect. Overlaying your own data onto maps, sharing that with others, and being able to choose what to filter in or out, or subscribe to a network’s data or recommendations or reviews all have revenue possibilities. Not to mention that the data carriers will love this extra data traffic as their revenue from call charges declines. Android-based phones like the T-Mobile G1 may become suddenly much more desirable.

It’s a building block in a semantic web – it’s part of The Next Web.

Google, you did it again. What would we do without you?

As you may know I took part of an experiment last December. An experiment to see wether or not you can live without the internet in modern society. And of course, you can. We’re not talking about living without food or water, however it seems that more and more people feel that a wireless internet connection is as important as running water.

But to function at work and in my personal life without the use of Internet, was quite a challenge. In fact, it was a big challenge for the people around me too.

In this article I would like to share my experience with you. These are just simple observations that I wrote down in an old fashion diary. Keywords for this article would be: attention, addiction, inspiration and relief.

The first week
This was the most exciting period. I got a lot of calls and warm (hand written) letters from people who heard about the experiment. To go “cold turkey” by cutting my digital lifeline over night was a funny feeling. Have you ever heard of phantom limb pain? There was something missing and all I could think about was just that.

Everytime I was writing a story or article my left hand seemed to have a mind on it’s own and tried to push ALT TAB after every paragraph. That was my common behaviour when I was online, to see if there were any new emails. In many occasions I would wander off and open my RSS-reader or check out the most recent comments on blogs that I was following. But being offline made those actions completely irrelevant, so I had to go through with writing. Then I found myself walking to get a cup of coffee instead. It seemed that I was constantly looking for excuses to interrupt my work. Only later this month I could concentrate better and finish the document before I sought the interruption.

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Greener Gadgets is an annual competition which aims to promote outstanding design innovations for greener electronics.

The competition’s design brief invited designers to

 ”explore the concept of ‘Greener Gadgets.’ Designs sought to minimize the environmental impact of consumer electronic devices at any stage in the product lifecycle. Areas of sustainability to consider included energy, materials/lifecycle/recycling, social impact, and educational development.”

This year Ladyada, an MIT graduate, created a particularly interesting gadget which is bound to create get Twitter buzzing. The gadget is called Tweet-a-watt and it monitors and tweets your home’s daily energy usage to your Twitter account! For just $50 you can monitor your domestic power usage without having to dig into your mains, which as inhabitat highlights is particularly useful if you’re  renter! Otherwise of course, you could just use it to brag about your internet usage..if you’re into that kind of thing!?

Not up to paying $50 dollars for the gadget? Well Ladyada has also provided instructions as to how to make your own, complete with instructions!

If this doesn’t shock/impress you, how about a look at Kickbee – The Twitter Fetal Kick Monitor?

Dutch Internet entrepreneur Mathijs van Abbe (also founder of mobypicture.com) started a new service today; Spot2.be. This is a very easy service that combines a short and easy url with a google map. This way you can easily share the location (on a goog map) with others. So instead of communicating a very long Google map link, or for the more savvy ones a tinyurl of that long goog map link, you can share a link that is configured like this spot2.be/thenextweb

How does it work?
Step 1:
fill out an address
Step 2:
Claim your spot and create your own url. You can add additional information, like a telephone number, a url to your website, pictures etc.
Step 3:
Share your spot with your friends on facebook, your followers on twitter or just via email.

The Business model
A spot2be url is free, but you can spice it up with some extra paid features. If you want your spot to be shown when others visit a nearby spot, you can buy yourself into a category. For instance, if I’m going to a party and the organizer send me to a spot2be link I can see restaurants nearby on the map.
There are plenty ways to monetize this once a critical mass has been reached. All the usual suspects associated with location based marketing can be implemented here.

If you want to know where I’ll be having dinner tonight… check http://spot2.be/dinner

Check out the 1 minute screencast I made earlier today:

Claim your spots, for your parties, events, your favorite coffee bar or restaurant and let me know in the comments which ones you have claimed.

Update: Mathys was kind enough to give away 500 vouchers for a free premium spot to Next Web readers. Use ” thenextweb” when you get to the redeeming of the vouchers.

Wonga is a UK based startup which provides loan amounts of between £50-£750 which are to be repaid within 1 month.

The company, launched officially mid last year, allows new members to borrow up to £200 at first (subject to a credit check) with the amounts increasing as the individual repays smaller amounts – building up trust. Interest rates for the loans are 1% per month, equal to13.8% APR. 

Wonga is funded to the tune of £3m by Balderton Capital who have also invested in growing P2P lender Zopa. 

There’s undoubtedly a place for this type of service and although I haven’t personally been through the process myself (maybe I should?), comments from people who have seem to all be positive…assuming you pay back within the time given. 

Wonga’s CEO and founder Errol Damelin by Intruders.tv, the video is emdedded for you below. I also highly recommend you read The Guardians interview with the founder.

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via the great Springwise.