New UK Video-on-demand (VoD) service SeeSaw is to go into private beta testing from today.
The service will include content from a host of networks, including the BBC, Channel 4 and Channel 5 after a deal was agreed last month.
SeeSaw will offer ‘best of British’ content free to users, supported by pre- and mid-roll advertising, as well as international programming, which will form part of a paid-for service to launch later this year.
The VoD service is backed by Arqiva, the transmission infrastructure outfit, which acquired the technology from the now-defunct Project Kangaroo. (more…)
I recently covered an interview with GoSquared and said 10 of you would receive beta codes to the LiveStats service.
We’ve generated random numbers and corrosponded them with the follower number on Twitter. So, here’s a list of the lucky winners. You’ll all receive a DM shortly with your invite code, we hope you enjoy it as much as we have.
You can read the interview with the GoSquared Team (link at the top) and you can visit them at www.gosquared.com. Good luck to them in the future, I’m sure this won’t be the last we, nor you, will hear of them! (more…)
Recently, I did a brief writeup of GoSquared’s flagship service, LiveStats. It was received well by readers and I decided to delve further in my quest to find out more about the company and their ethos.
After dropping them an email to check on the feasability of an interview, I was pleased when they replied saying they would be more than happy to oblige. So without further ado, here’s the wonderful answers James Gill gave on behalf of the team – unless it says Geoff or JT in which case the statement is from them!
If you’re looking to get your hands on one of ten beta invites to LiveStats, scroll to the bottom of the interview where you can find information on how to enter!
Please note: The below is an edited version of the interview, click the link to see the full, unedited copy – GoSquared Interview – TNW UK. (more…)
I’ve had the pleasure of using Firefox 3.6 alpha for the last month or so and can without hesitation call it the fastest most reliable version of the browser yet – on a Mac at least. Today, Firefox releases the official beta of the browser, available for download here.
According to Download Squad, a couple of features included in the release are: control-tab previews and taskbar thumbnail previews.
Mozilla said on Monday that Firefox 3.6 would carry support for web pages to read machine orientation details, if available on the device. Although not included in this version, this will mean Firefox will be able to detect the orientation of laptops and mobile devices that come loaded with accelerometers.
It created the device API to allow users to work out if a mobile computer or phone is moving and what direction it’s facing.
Patrick Finch from Mozilla has left a comment stating:
“A beta is indeed available, but I would like to clarify that the Beta programme for Firefox 3.6 has not yet launched, this is a test build, not necessarily Firefox 3.6 Beta 1.
Well, you can rest easy now, Google has indeed finally announced the removal of the beta label from its core family of applications. It’s been a focus of great discussion as to when Google would actually decided to make the move, and today is the big day.
Today will see Gmail, Calendar, Docs and Gtalk all shed their beta label.
The Google Apps suite launched two years ago and has grown from strength to strength with both consumer usage and enterprise. According to Google, more than 1.75 million companies around the world run the business on Google Apps.
While many of you may wonder what took so long, Google’s official response is likely to keep you unsatisfied. Matt Glotzbach, a director of product management at Google told the NYTimes:
“Obviously we haven’t had a consistent set of policies or definitions around beta, it was time to address the issue and bring the products out of beta. For business customers, it is an important sign in terms of the maturity of our product offering and commitment to this business,” Mr. Glotzbach said. “I’ve had C.I.O.s tell me that they would not consider a product labeled ‘beta.”
From the sounds of it, it appears the move is primarily to drive enterprise business into using Google Apps. For those of you concerned this will be the end of beta features, Google assures us that it has “much more in store…”
We receive floods of press releases in our line of work, and they are infuriating dull with very little to capture the imagination. I’m not sure exactly how press releases ended up this way, but sadly they have and if there’s ever been time for a change – today is that time.
Launched in beta in July of last year, PitchEngine pushed the term of their flagship product, the Social Media Release (SMR). Having spent the last six months promoting and developing the next version of their site, they are now proud to unveil it to the world.
The concept behind PitchEngine is to enable PR folk to efficiently, effectively and neatly package press releases to share with journalists, bloggers and influencers. Rather than simply sending a plain text document or email with little interaction aside from maybe a few URL’s dotted across the text, PitchEngine’s Social Media Releases pack a much heavier punch with rich media and floods of interactivity. (more…)
If you develop iPhone Apps and want to demo them onstage you could simply use the Xcode Preview app (or whatever it is called). But here is an app that will give you that real Steve Jobs magic feeling of showing REAL products in REAL time.
Now all you need is jaibroken iPhone, your finished iPhone App and DemoGod. Using a Wi-Fi connection you will be able to demo your iPhone app on the iPhone while its screen will be duplicated on a larger screen behind you. All you need to do is install ScreenSplitr and Demogod.
This is a Mac only solution and in beta but it will rotate with the iPhone’s accelerometer and works good enough to use in a demo.
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.
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.
This beta is now available in 54 languages – get your local version.
Added a new Private Browsing Mode.
Added functions to make it easy to clear recent history by time as well as remove all traces of a website.
New support for web worker threads.
The new TraceMonkey JavaScript engine is on by default for web content.
Improvements to the Gecko layout engine, including speculative parsing for faster content rendering.
Removed the new tab-switching behavior based on feedback from users
Support for new web technologies such as the <video> and <audio> elements, the W3C Geolocation API, JavaScript query selectors, CSS 2.1 and 3 properties, SVG transforms and offline applications. More information.
Slideshare is a rather popular 2.0 service which somehow manages to not attract a lot of attention. It’s a sort of under the radar service that everybody uses, but nobody hypes it. Maybe it’s because of the somewhat dull design or the fact that the founders don’t trash parties in the Valley (Oh wait, they do! See pic).
SlideShare CEO Rashmi Sinha and undersigned at Web 2.0 Expo SF party
Anyhow, the service does have a large following – for instance, 1113 people have subscribed to their corporate blog. Moreover, everybody who wants to share a presentation online seems to embed it on Slideshare. That’s probably the reason why they raised $3 million in May this year.
So let’s give these folks some well-deserved attention. They’ve just released a new “more professional, clean, clutter-free” design. Part of the change is a focus on navigating the site. There’s a more visible search option, the categories are right in your face and the menu at the top is larger.
But most importantly, Slideshare has dropped the “beta”. Yes, the service has matured and isn’t in some informal test phase anymore. Under the radar, but oh so successful.
New UK Video-on-demand (VoD) service SeeSaw is to go into private beta testing from today.
I’ve had the pleasure of using Firefox 3.6 alpha for the last month or so and can without hesitation call it the fastest most reliable version of the browser yet – on a Mac at least. Today, Firefox releases the official beta of the browser, available for download 
Well, you can rest easy now, Google has indeed finally announced the removal of the beta label from its core family of applications. It’s been a focus of great discussion as to when Google would actually decided to make the move, and today is the big day.
We receive floods of press releases in our line of work, and they are infuriating dull with very little to capture the imagination. I’m not sure exactly how press releases ended up this way, but sadly they have and if there’s ever been time for a change – today is that time.
