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| Is Facebook Your "Permanent Record?" |
 When Dawn and Bart Beye's 15-year-old daughter began showing signs of an eating disorder, they immediately took action. The Beyes enrolled the girl in a treatment program they thought was covered by insurance. Three weeks later, their insurance provider, Horizon Blue Cross Blue Shield of New Jersey, informed the couple they would no longer pay for the child's treatment. Horizon claimed the disorder is not biologically-based, but emotionally-based, and therefore, not their responsibility to cover. The Beyes sued. And in what could have been a dangerous precedent-setting lawsuit, Horizon subpoenaed the daughter's online writings from MySpace and Facebook to prove it.
If It's on Super Wall, It May As Well Be Public RecordIn December of 2007, a judge, U.S. Magistrate Judge Patty Shwartz, ordered the plaintiffs in two cases (Beye v. Horizon, 06-Civ.-5337 & Foley v. Horizon, 06-Civ.-6219 were consolidated for discovery) to turn over their children's online emails, diaries, and other writings to the court. They had until January 15th to comply. The plaintiffs fought the order, saying the online writings were therapy tools and not meant to be shown to others. However, Shwartz was not swayed. Horizon believed that the children's writings on their social networking sites and emails could show that their eating disorders are wrapped up in emotional causes, and therefore not the insurer's responsibility (since N.J. law says only biological mental illness must be covered). On Jan. 24th, Horizon claimed that the Jan. 15th set by Shwartz come and gone with no disclosure on the plaintiffs' parts, even though Beye's parents had turned over the child's Yahoo emails. But the Foleys had yet to disclose their daughter's emails. Horizon insisted the plaintiffs turn over not only the children's emails, but also the corresponding emails and the email accounts of the girls' families. They also requested a mirror-image copy of the hard drive for each computer in the plaintiffs' family. When it came to disclosing the writings on both Facebook and MySpace, David Mazie, the Beye's lawyer, stated that they have produced what documents they can and they have no Facebook or MySpace pages to turn over. The Foley's lawyer, Bruce Nagel, says "he believes his clients have no Facebook or MySpace pages." However, anyone who knows a 15-year-old girl, knows that that these statements were likely false, and the lawyers were just trying to buy some time. As it turned out, Horizon moved to dismiss Beye and Foley cases on the ground that the court should abstain from ruling due to pending state legislation would resolve the issue for good. While the new legislation may provide respite in these particular cases, those who are interested in internet privacy laws and protection are now feeling a knot in their stomach over what may have been.
What You Say Online is Not PrivateThe internet is not like a diary, although many people use online journals, blogs, and social networking sites to share their innermost thoughts, feelings, and secrets with the world. With a hardbound diary, you only had to be afraid of your little brother finding it under your mattress; but with the web, the words you write are etched in stone for the entire world to read. And even when you remove your accounts and disable your profiles, you may not really be gone. With Google's caching, the Way Back Machine, and even the websites themselves, your data is retained for a lot longer than you may have realized. Take for example, the U.K. user who realized that he was unable to fully delete his Facebook profile. It seems users wishing to remove their Facebook profiles are only given the option to deactivate their accounts. These accounts become inaccessible, but still remain in Facebook's database. To really wipe out all information, Facebook advises users log in and manually remove all data from their profile before deactivating their account. This greatly concerned Dave Evans, the senior data protection practice manager at the U.K.'s Information Commissioner's Office: "One of the things that we're concerned about is that if the onus is entirely on the individual to delete their own data," he told BBC Radio 4."An individual who has deactivated their account might not find themselves motivated enough to delete information that's about them, maybe on their wall or other people's site." Only months earlier, the ICO had been warning social networker of possibly jeopardizing future careers by posting explicit photos or pictures of them "partying." So What's a Social Networker To Do?Reputation management companies have stepped in to fill the void in defending users' online reputations. A site like ReputationDefender, for example, will search all information about you (or your child) on the internet, provide you with a report, and then destroy whatever information you deem inappropriate or slanderous. Through non-legal means, the company works with the site owners where your data resides to get it removed. Claiming a thorough process that can remove data from almost anywhere online, ReputationDefender, and those like it, are poised to be the next major companies of the Internet Age. As the GenY and the YouTube Generation enters the workforce, a place still dominated by many Baby Boomers and others who grew up sans internet, the potential damage those MySpace photos could cause will then become much greater. In the end, the best you can do is think carefully before you post photos, before you blog, and even before you send an email because the internet is more of a permanent record than anything your teachers ever threatened you with back in school. In the digital age we must all be aware that the illusion of privacy is just that: an illusion. And you may never know went it could come back to haunt you. (Sources: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/connected/main.jhtml?xml=/connected/2008/01/21/dlface121.xml and http://www.law.com/jsp/article.jsp?id=1201779829458) |
| The Industry Standard Returns - Will It Stick? |
The Industry Standard will relaunch today in public beta as a strictly online publication coupled with a futures market. We got a chance to check it out early and speak with Derek Butcher, the magazine's General Manager. According to Butcher, the magazine's brand still had so much equity left in it, that publisher IDG (who was an investor in the original magazine and bought out the publication's assets) couldn't resist trying it again. Now that Silicon Valley is hot once more, and ad dollars are flowing on the web, it seemed like a good time to try relaunching the business mag. There's just one problem: blogs have this space covered to death. So rather than focus on breaking news, the Standard is opting to focus instead of analysis of the business and technology news. Content will be short editorials (300-400 words) that break down business news written by outside contributors (that is, bloggers, analysts, and industry pundits will submit content to the Standard for publication). It's an editorial approach that Butcher seemed to describe as one part ReadWriteWeb and one part Huffington Post -- though unlike HuffPo, the Standard will pay its contributors, and unlike RWW, the focus will be on business over tech analysis. "No single voice will dominate the discussion, which is why we decided to forgo the somewhat print-centric idea of an editor in chief, despite talking to some great people for the position," said managing editor Ian Lamont in a press release. "We want readers to get viewpoints from the widest range of contributors possible, with the common theme being that these contributors are all people who believe that the Web is a major paradigm shift in business."
However, the editorial isn't the most intriguing part of the relaunch. What really sticks out about the new Industry Standard is the prediction market. A prediction market is something like a stock exchange where the cash value of assets is tied to predictions. People invest in predictions they think will come true with the idea being that the more people who predict something, the more likely it should be to actually happen in real life. Most prediction markets in the US use play money because of gambling restrictions, and the Industry Standard's is no different. Users start out with $100,000 in play funds and invest in time sensitive predictions like, "Apple will ship 10 million iPhones in 2008," or "Yahoo! will accept Microsoft's takeover bid by February 8." Users can also suggest predictions, which are in turn voted up or down by other users. Prediction markets have shown a remarkable tendency to accurately predict the future, and the Industry Standard's market can theoretically be used to keep writers honest. Any writer who is constantly throwing out wild predictions can have his ideas tested on the open market. Butcher hopes that the prediction market will have a reciprocative effect on the editorial, with writers playing off the things people are betting on in the market, and the market reacting to the things people are writing about. The market is very well designed and rather easy to use, but will it, coupled with the out sourced editorial content, be enough to recapture the late-90s magic that made the Industry Standard a household name? The other quintessential Silicon Valley magazine of the dot-com boom was RedHerring, which relaunched in August as a web-based publication (including a video site and social network) to little fanfare. RedHerring's traffic has actually declined since then, according to Compete, and even articles on big stories like the Microsoft bid for Yahoo! only attract a handful of comments -- compared to, say over 800 on Digg -- and thousands if you count how many times the story made the main page. It's possible that the media market has shifted so much since the late-90s that magazines will never be able to reinvent themselves on the web in the face of competition from a now established and well-connected blogosphere and user-powered aggregation of sources (like Digg and Reddit). But the Standard is probably smart to eschew the traditional editorial structure and follow the example set by successful blogs communities like the Huffington Post and Seeking Alpha, by bringing together a group of outside contributors who may already have a readership elsewhere. Try out the Standard web site and prediction market and tell us what you think. Can the Industry Standard return to glory or will they flame out again? Let us know in the comments below. |
In 2000, the Industry Standard was one of the hottest magazines on the planet. It was flush with VC dollars and sold 
| Weekly Wrapup, 28 Jan - 1 Feb 2008 |
Here is a summary of the week in Web technology on ReadWriteWeb. Reminder to PR people and startups: If you would like ReadWriteWeb to consider covering your product, you should email us at tips@readwriteweb.com. This address is monitored daily by all our main bloggers. Pitch emails sent to my personal email address almost always get forwarded to the tips address, so skip the middleman by emailing tips! Due to volume, we cannot respond to every email - but be assured that they are being read and considered by our writing team. Web NewsThe top story this week came right at the end: Microsoft's $44.6 billion offer to buy Yahoo!. It's a huge story and Marshall Kirkpatrick had RWW's analysis:
DEMO CoverageThis week the venerable DEMO conference was held and Marshall Kirkpatrick was at the show for ReadWriteWeb. Here is his coverage during the week:
Web TrendsWhy the Music Industry is Lying to You
MTV Election Coverage is a Coup for Citizen Journalism
How YOU Can Make the Web More Structured
SEE MORE WEB TRENDS COVERAGE IN OUR TRENDS CATEGORY Web ProductsThe Rise of Twitter as a Platform for Serious Discourse
Have Facebook Apps Peaked in Popularity?
The New Browser War: Mobile Firefox vs. Opera Mini
SEE MORE WEB PRODUCTS COVERAGE IN OUR PRODUCTS CATEGORY That's a wrap for another week! Enjoy your weekend everyone. |
In other news, this week Google 
The International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI) last week released their latest report, summing up the digital music landscape at the start of 2008. The IFPI claims in the report that for every legal music download, there are 20 illegal downloads taking place. Or in other words, illegal downloading is happening at a rate that is 20 times that of legal downloading. This, says the IFPI, lead to US$3.7 billion in industry losses. But there are some big holes in that claim.
As part of MTV's coverage of the 2008 presidential elections in the US, the media network assembled a "street team" of 51 amateur journalists -- one in each state and the District of Columbia -- to file blog reports, photos, videos, and audio podcasts about election issues during the course of the campaign season. The videos are being syndicated to MTV's mobile web site, social network, and to the Associate Press Online Video Network. Members of the street team have been outfitted with laptops, video phones, and other popular tools of the citizen journalist via funding from a $700,000 grant from the John L. and James S. Knight Foundation's Knight News Challenge.
We have written a lot here about the the vision of building a 
For 2007, our 
There appears to be evidence that Facebook users are beginning to suffer from app fatigue, and there is growing discontent about how applications are being distributed and about the amount of noise that the application platform has introduced into the Facebook ecosystem. As 
Last October, Mozilla | Microhoo! What Does it Mean for Users? |
If its business analysis you're looking for, go read Paul Kedrosky. Here at ReadWriteWeb we focus more on the cultural impact of innovation in technology. On that front, I think this acquisition could be very good news. It's going to validate a lot of innovation at Yahoo! Many people, including Microsoft on the conference call early this morning about the news, are focusing on what this means for advertising and for search. Since when is Yahoo! particularly good at either of those things, though? Yahoo! has created a web presence with more traffic than almost anyone else on earth. That's what they are good at and the issue is that they haven't been able to make money off of it. Yahoo! is great at content and online innovation, though. That's what Microsoft needs right now. Google is posing a threat to Microsoft not just because it is winning in advertising, where Microsoft is a relative beginner, but because Google is shifting the software world to online. Microsoft is serious about innovation, they just haven't been doing much of it in house for awhile. The Live.com work and the Microsoft acquisitions in the health space indicate to me the company really is trying to do more than just catch up in search and advertising. I think that this acquisition is going to mean a whole lot more energy put behind services like Flickr and Del.icio.us and innovative content sites like Yahoo! Sports and Finance. All of that will be good for Microsoft and it will be good for those of us who find those sites and services inspiring. It's hard to know what the impact of layoffs will be, or if the Death Star culture of Microsoft will quash a lot of the Yahoo! spirit, but it's going to be a huge company and I'm hoping we will see some very cool things come out of it. |
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| Andrey Golub :: Tips for Pursuing a New Career Outside IT |
Seven Tips for Pursuing a New Career Outside ITFebruary 13, 2008 — CIO — Let's face it: Life in IT can be thankless. Your work often goes unnoticed, unless you do something wrong. You put in long hours, working evenings and weekends. Expectations are high. Users are seldom happy with results. Believe me, I understand. I spent more than 25 years in IT, having started as a systems developer and ending as director of career development in a high-tech consulting company. As my career in IT evolved, I realized I enjoyed management and staff development more than technical work. After the IT downturn of 2001, I decided to begin a new career as a professional coach. It's easy to tire of a career in IT. I've talked with dozens of technical professionals who say they are burned out or who no longer feel challenged by their jobs. Many more senior professionals are forced to consider a job outside the field after being laid off and finding it difficult to land a new job, either because their skills aren't in demand or employers don't want to pay for their experience. You don't have to suffer in IT. If you've ever considered a career outside the profession, the following seven steps will help you make your move. They worked for me and many others, as you'll see. 1. Identify your interests: What do you like to do? Tom Prince knew he wanted to do something besides sell CRM software when he was Siebel's vice president of sales, but he had no idea what. After he left Siebel in 2002, he and his wife Mary decided to investigate the possibility of opening a restaurant. They loved good food, dined out often and understood their local, Boston-area market well. They partnered with Lorenzo Savona, a former general manager of two chic restaurants in Boston, who had been planning to build a restaurant similar to the one Tom and Mary Prince envisioned. In 2004, they opened Tomasso Trattoria in Southborough, Mass. Today, they also run Panzano Provviste e Vino, a market and wine shop next door to the restaurant. "There's so much disillusionment in high-tech. You rarely get the feeling that you're selling people something they really want," says Tom Prince. "Here, we're providing something that people actually know and care about—something that people really want. Food affects their sight, their smell, their taste, their touch, all of their senses." If you don't have a clear idea of what you want to do, start by evaluating your existing position. Make a list of everything you love and hate about your current job. Use those likes and dislikes to form criteria for a new career. Look for opportunities that feature the things you love but not the things you hate. For instance, if you love your job because of your relationship with your clients, look for jobs that focus on customer service. Or, if you love being the expert and sharing your knowledge, teaching is a possibility. Also think about what you do in your spare time. What do you enjoy doing most? What is it about these activities that makes them enjoyable? If you love dogs, consider starting a boarding, grooming or training business. If you practice yoga, find out what it would take to become an instructor. Brainstorm ways you can make a career out of your passions the way that the Princes did with food. 2. Leverage your strengths: What do you do well? For 24 years, Norman Daoust worked in corporate IT roles, except during a sabbatical when he focused on his music. Daoust plays fretted instruments—the guitar, electric bass, banjo and mandolin. After three years of trying to make a living as a musician he decided to return to corporate IT, only to remember exactly why he left before: the inability of large, bureaucratic organizations to embrace and manage change. He had to get out, but instead of going back to music, he opted for consulting in his area of expertise, information modeling and systems integration. He prepared for that transition by participating in several consulting workshops. When he was laid off from his corporate job in 2001, he took the leap. Seven years later he has built a successful consulting practice with many clients and the freedom to make his own schedule, including time for his music. A great tool you can use to identify your strengths is the book StrengthsFinder 2.0. When you buy it, you get a code to take the StrengthsFinder assessment online at no additional cost. 3. Assess your options: What could you do that reflects your interests and leverages your strengths? Tom McGoldrick performed many roles during his 30 years in IT: systems programmer, project manager, department manager and senior vice president. He left IT in 2002 during a downsizing. When he stepped back to look at his life, he realized how much his career had taken him away from his family. He and his wife Sue Ann decided to look into running their own business. They considered more than 1,200 different businesses and eventually narrowed the list down to six. One option was inspired by their beloved pet Labrador retriever, Apollo, who had a champion bloodline. They considered breeding dogs, but further research showed they couldn't make a living at it. When Apollo unexpectedly died, they looked for a burial/cremation facility that would provide Apollo with the honor and respect the McGoldricks felt he deserved. They discovered Paws in Heaven and were very pleased with the care and attention Apollo received there. In 2003, the owners of Paws in Heaven decided to retire, and the McGoldricks bought the business. Tom McGoldrick recognized that the business savvy, technical knowledge and relationship-building skills he had honed over the course of his career in IT would lend themselves well to running and growing their new business. Paws in Heaven perfectly combines McGoldrick's love for animals with his business and technical acumen. Focusing on your interests and strengths the way McGoldrick did will help you more easily recognize opportunities as they come along and determine whether they're a good fit for you.4. Try your possibilities on for size: What would this new career really be like? Technical graphic designer Marissa Rosenfield Smajlaj was shopping at a bookstore in downtown Boston when she came upon a copy of the book Colette's Birthday Cakes by world-renowned specialty cake artist Collette Peters. As she flipped through the pages and admired each cake, she had an epiphany: "I could do this!" she thought. Smajlaj got a part-time job in a bakery to see if she'd enjoy the work. She loved it, decided to go to culinary school and was accepted at the prestigious Le Cordon Bleu in London. She completed the Le Cordon Bleu Diplome de Patisserie. The following year, she became a pastry chef at a New York City restaurant. She hasn't looked back since. 5. Be open to opportunities: What's out there? Bill Sobbing didn't start out as an IT professional. In college, he majored in English. When he graduated, he didn't know what he wanted to do with his life. He looked at many different possibilities, but none of them excited him. Eventually, a relative got him a job where the relative was working. When the IT department at Sobbing's company posted an entry-level position, he applied for it and was accepted. Sobbing found a career that interested him and spent the next 20 years working in various IT roles. He enjoyed the work but, like many IT managers, he tired of corporate politics. He decided to become an independent consultant and began working primarily from his home. One morning, he picked up a newspaper and read about a local school, The San Diego Golf Academy, which offers a program in golf course management. He had played golf casually since high school but never considered making it his career. Yet something in the story about the Golf Academy compelled him to check it out. Three years later, Sobbing is general manager of a nine-hole golf course in Phoenix, Ariz. He could never have done it if he hadn't indulged his curiosity. 6. Select the right opportunities: Which are viable? In 2002, Alan Klug was a senior consultant with KPMG. He enjoyed working with clients, but the consulting industry was suffering from the post-9/11 economic recession at that time. Klug knew future consulting opportunities would be limited and decided to pursue something entrepreneurial. He considered opening a custom closets business, a car wash, and franchising a quick-service restaurant. He developed business plans for each idea, but none of them really grabbed him. Then he came across a small ad in Fortune for 1-800-GOT-JUNK? Intrigued by a company that got paid for taking people's junk off their hands, he says he "researched the heck out of it." He learned that it was a lucrative and fast-growing business with a solid strategy and good management team heading it up.In 2003, he became a 1-800-GOT-JUNK? franchisee with four territories. He has since expanded to eight territories. He is on track to become a $2 million business in 2008 and is already thinking about what he might do next. "If an opportunity comes along, don't count it out immediately because it seems too good to be true. Just research it and find all the downsides," he says. "There are plenty of opportunities out there to be exploited." If you have a couple of options and can't decide between them, take out a sheet of paper and divide it into columns—one for each possibility in question. Write the title of each option at the top of each column. List the pros and cons of each possibility side by side. If neither choice stands out, answer the following questions: What will happen if I pursue this career? What won't happen if I pursue this career? What will happen if I don't pursue this career? What won't happen if I don't pursue this career? Those four questions sound similar, but they're all slightly different and designed to help you explore the nuances of each possibility. Use your answers to those questions to decide which option is the best for you. 7. Create a career action plan. Once you have decided on a career, you can put together a career action plan. This is a simple project plan with tasks, deliverables and target dates. It includes a long-term career objective (from six months to three years) with short-term tasks and deliverables for the next three months. If your career objective is, for example, to launch your own consulting business next year, one short-term task to perform might be to talk with several consultants to learn more about what it's like. Other tasks might include investigating what areas of specialization are in greatest demand and what it would take for you to build your expertise in those areas. A deliverable might be to draft a preliminary business plan with a list of potential clients and the financial resources you have available to launch your business. At the end of three months, add new tasks and deliverables for the following three months. This simple approach works well for planning and tracking your progress. As you begin building your career action plan, answer the following questions:
Remember, no one succeeds alone. There's nothing wrong with asking for help. There is something wrong with not asking for help when you need it. In most cases, people are more than willing to lend a hand. These seven tips come from my own experience as well as the experiences of others. I leveraged my own interests and strengths in training and professional development to move from IT into my coaching business. In my corporate role as director of career development, I coached many IT professionals, from systems developers to executives. In that role, I had the opportunity to try out what would become my new career as a professional coach. Since I wasn't ready to leave my corporate job at the time, I worked with a mentor/coach to develop and implement a business plan that enabled me to remain with my company while I earned my credentials and began to build my coaching and consulting practice. I have been on my own since 2006. I have found great joy and success in my new career, and I wish you the same in your "Life Beyond IT," wherever it may take you. Joanne Dustin is a certified professional coach and the author of Life Beyond IT: Open the Door...Your Future is Waiting. |
Life in IT can be thankless, but you don't have to suffer. A 25-year IT veteran turned professional coach offers advice on how she and many other technical professionals found fulfillment and fortune outside IT.| Andrey Golub :: Voice Mobility Introduces Google Apps: the same change that Salesforce.com once brought to the CRM market |
Voice Mobility Introduces Google Apps™UCN Vmerge is the first UC solution for Google Apps in the Workplace and Campus MarketsVancouver, BC, CANADA – February 14, 2008 – Voice Mobility International, Inc. (TSX: VMY, OTCBB: VMII and FWB: VMY), a Vancouver-based developer and provider of carrier and enterprise enhanced messaging solutions, today announced its new Google Apps™ functionality, a first in the enterprise market. Voice Mobility’s UCN Vmerge is now integrated with the Google Apps solution suite to provide workplace and campus customers full collaboration functionality. The Google Apps suite includes Gmail, Google Talk, Google Calendar, Google Docs, Contacts, Mobile apps and other collaboration tools all using the workplace or campus domain. UCN Vmerge adds unified communications to complete messaging, collaboration, calendaring and presence functionality. Enterprise clients want the ability to enable their enterprise voice and fax communications to work seamlessly with Gmail. UCN Vmerge allows full on-premise or hosted enterprise PBX integration with a hosted personalized Gmail service. Industry analysts have calculated that the average IT manager spends 75% of their budget on infrastructure maintenance, leaving a small amount for new technology. With Google Apps, free or premium service combined with the cost-effective UCN Vmerge solutions, IT managers can roll out new technology to keep pace with consumer technology. “By integrating UCN Vmerge with Google Apps, workplace and campus customers have price-effective options for collaboration functionality,” said Mike Seeley, Voice Mobility’s VP of Global Sales. “This is like deploying a full Microsoft® Exchange® server, Active Directory® and Office Communication Server® at a fraction of the cost. No longer are customers forced to utilize expensive on-premise solutions from providers like Microsoft for collaboration functionality." "The market has asked for this type of solution and Voice Mobility is proud to be the first to bring it to the market. This new functionality will bring the same change to the workplace and campus markets that Salesforce.com® brought to the CRM market. Combine this functionality with our mobile applications and we can deliver unified communications on all Symbian™, Windows Mobile® or Blackberry® devices.” UCN Vmerge enables users to access voice, fax and email messages directly from their Gmail account and synchronize all messages across all their devices — in essence, gluing the Google Apps to the enterprise telephony infrastructure. For example, if an email is heard via the user’s mobile device, it will be show as ‘read’ in their Gmail account. Other functionality enables users to:
As is standard with all Voice Mobility’s UCN solutions, included are message waiting indication and message notifications, mobile workforce integration and offline access to the user’s inbox. Our next UCN Vmerge release will offer PBX presence integration with Google Talk and other exciting features. The combined collaboration suite is easy to set up and manage: Google Apps is installed in six easy steps, and UCN Vmerge is compatible with the majority of PBX and Centrex solutions in the market. n most cases, one day is all it takes for a certified Voice Mobility technician to install the UCN Vmerge product with flexible training and support options available. Workplace or campus customers also have the choice between purchasing the UCN Vmerge solution outright or selecting managed or hosted solutions from Voice Mobility and its certified partners. For more information about Voice Mobility’s product line or how to purchase Voice Mobility solutions, please contact one of our sales representatives. For Immediate Release |
| Microsoft Buys Sidekick-Maker, Danger Inc. |
| Microsoft today announced will acquire Danger Inc., the makers of the popular Sidekick phones, for an undisclosed sum. The Palo Alto-based company provides services keep people in touch, stay organized and informed while on the go through real-time mobile messaging, social networking services and other applications. Applications on Danger-powered handsets include HTML Web browsing, instant messaging, games, multimedia, social networking, Web email and personal information management applications... |
Microsoft today announced will acquire Danger Inc., the makers of the popular Sidekick phones, for an undisclosed sum. The Palo Alto-based company provides services keep people in touch, stay organized and informed while on the go through real-time mobile messaging, social networking services and other applications. Applications on Danger-powered handsets include HTML Web browsing, instant messaging, games, multimedia, social networking, Web email and personal information management applications. Combining these services with Microsoft technologies, including MSN, Xbox, Zune, Windows Live and Windows Mobile, will provide the software giant with tools to accelerate work against Google's Android mobile platform. Danger was co-founded by Andy Rubin, who is now running Google's mobile phone project, Android. Google has assembled a community of carriers, cellphone makers, software developers and chipmakers to develop a mobile software platform. Related News Articles
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| Iraq agrees $5 bln Boeing, Bombardier plane deal |
| BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Iraq said it had agreed to buy aircraft from planemaker Boeing and Canada's Bombardier in a deal worth up to $5 billion.
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| Palm Centro now official on AT&T |
Filed under: Cellphones, Handhelds 
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| RIM and Motorola suing each other for patent infringement |
Filed under: Cellphones  Disclaimer: Nilay's a lawyer, but he's not your lawyer, and this post isn't meant to be legal advice or analysis.
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| JPMorgan to buy Bear as Fed opens lending to Wall St |
| NEW YORK (Reuters) - JPMorgan Chase & Co set a deal to buy stricken rival Bear Stearns for a rock-bottom price, while the U.S. Federal Reserve expanded lending to securities firms for the first time since the Great Depression to prop up the financial system.
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| JPMorgan to buy Bear Stearns for $2 a share |
| NEW YORK (Reuters) - JPMorgan Chase & Co said on Sunday it would buy stricken rival Bear Stearns for just $2 a share in an all-stock deal that values the U.S. investment bank at the centre of the credit crisis at about $236 million.
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| INSTANT VIEW: JP Morgan to buy Bear as Fed cuts discount rate |
| NEW YORK (Reuters) - JPMorgan Chase & Co said on Sunday it would buy stricken rival Bear Stearns for just $2 a share in an all-stock deal valuing the fifth largest investment bank at about $236 million.
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| Hold Off on Big Bets |
| Until the market comes down and spurs some panic, the buy side is likely to remain uncomfortable. |
| Now I GOTTA blog - dammit - there are too many stupid things going on! |
| Look - I’m trying to get work done. Could all the idiotic, stupid deals - just stop for a while so I can stay head down? Why don’t these people get on the Clueship! Well - in addition to AOL creating one of its greatest blunders ever (I can see Ted Leonsis rolling his eyes [...] |
Look - I’m trying to get work done. Could all the idiotic, stupid deals - just stop for a while so I can stay head down? Why don’t these people get on the Clueship! Well - in addition to AOL creating one of its greatest blunders ever (I can see Ted Leonsis rolling his eyes now) lets see what else is going on in the blundersphere today. Young whippersnappers are being given more money - after not making any money before. This time its the MyBlogLog guy. What was/is MyBlogLog’s business model? Ads? Then there’s FriendFeed - the current darling du jour. Now what’s it’s business model? Duncan Riley gets it right - the functionality is sexy, but REAL aggregation is yet to come. Susan Mernit has a great name for FriendFeed pill poppers - Stalkerati. I don’t agree with Loic that International startups have to MOVE to Silicon Valley or take money from worldclass VCs (or insiders like Loic did.) But many of his other advice is correct. What everyone needs to do is NOT spend money on overpriced execs who are lazy and don’t work hard (which there seems to be plenty of in Silicon Valley) or listen to these stupid Angel Investors (who Loic seems to have collected a bunch of.) Common sense rules. But oh yah - having a business model - helps. danah boyd has to study and come up with a name for this. It seems that once Spitzer’s ‘girl’ dumped her MySpace page - there’s been all this fighting over who can pick it up! Doesn’t she know how to monetize page hits? Its the new form of prostitution! iPhone apps only run “one app at a time”. Its as if the Finder went back to 1985! I can just see Steve Jobs saying “fuck them - who cares about running more than one app at a time! They should be HAPPY we even let them run anything!” When in doubt - go rdf and semantic web - NOT There’s a battle brewing around open source ad servers. Coolio! Congrats to MySpace on going live with their Apps gallery. Now lets see how well their ‘open social graph’ stuff works out. We haven’t had the time to kick those tires - but we’ll get there - soon. One day I will bring my sons to SXSW - as well. Then I’ll bring my daughters - 10 years later. SXSW is where Mimi learned the term SWAG. Is Mozilla the platform? Is Flock the web? I was wondering when someone would mention Zimbra Speaking of platforms - need another one? Try Xcerion and their iCloud. Oh yah - and the Adobe exec who engineered the Macromedia ‘merging of the dying dinosaurs‘ is leaving Adobe. Wow - that’s a surprise. Once you’ve kicked out Ed Anuff - where else do you go - but to the VCs. Final note - if Jim Bankoff’s AIMpages had been done right - maybe AOL wouldn’t have needed to buy Bebo? Just think about - that. |
| What’s more stupid than buying Bebo for $850M? Buying KickApps! |
| Randy Falco has got to go down in history as one of the stupidest execs around. he should have stayed in TV. Not only did he just blow $850M on Bebo - but he’s about to buy KickApps. Mamma Mia. I guess Broadband Mechanics is worth more now - right? I wonder when someone is gonna wake up [...] |
Randy Falco has got to go down in history as one of the stupidest execs around. he should have stayed in TV. Not only did he just blow $850M on Bebo - but he’s about to buy KickApps. I guess Broadband Mechanics is worth more now - right? I wonder when someone is gonna wake up and realize that these new bubble scams are gonna burst - faster than a sub-prime mortage holder defaults on his loan. Didn’t they notice Rupert Murdoch trying to dump MySpace at a high price? Didn’t they notice KickApps failure with a model that demanded revenue sharing? I mean - what media company would want KickApps hands in their pockets - forever? And hasn’t anybody told Randy Falco of Google’s disappointing ad revs from MySpace? |
| 03/20/08, 22:45:15 Gibson Guitar sues six major retailers for selling Guitar Hero |
 We've seen a volley of lawsuits and countersuits, statements and counter-statements in the current patent argument between Gibson Guitar and Guitar Hero publisher, Activision. Now, the guitar makers have taken the fight to the retail level, filing suit against six major retailers including Wal-Mart, Amazon, Kmart, GameStop, Target, and Toys "R" Us for selling the video games.In case you missed our previous reports, it all started when Gibson filed suit against Activision, claiming that the Guitar Hero franchise infringed its 1999 patent for "System and Method for Generating and Controlling a Simulated Musical Concert Experience." The receiving end of the flak, Activision, answered with a countersuit and a statement. This time, Gibson has filed a suit against the retailers for selling Guitar Hero. According to reports, Gibson's lawsuit says that the company "has been damaged and will continue to be damaged by the aforesaid infringement unless defendants are enjoined, preliminarily and permanently, from selling and offering for sale infringing products ..." We'll keep you posted on more news regarding this legal battle, stay tuned. Buy: [ Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock (Xbox 360), (Wii) ] Buy: [ Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock (PS3), (PC) ] |
| 03/20/08, 13:22:46 Activision: Gibson's claims are 'disingenuous and lack any justification' |
 Activision has recently received heavy flak from musical instrument manufacturer Gibson Guitar Corporation due to the patent violation lawsuit filed by the latter against the video game company.If you've read our previous coverage on the issue, you'll know that the nature of the complaint was tied to Activision's supposed infringement of Gibson's patent for a guitar shaped controller used to play in time with notes on a TV screen. Sounds rather familiar doesn't it? Activision was rather cool about the situation and gave its own statement regarding the matter: Gibson s lawsuit is a transparent end run around an impartial court that Activision asked on March 11 to rule on patent assertions that Gibson knows have no merit. Our Guitar Hero retailing partners have done nothing wrong. We will confront this and any other efforts by Gibson to wrongfully interfere with Activision's relationship with its customers and its consumers. A licensing agreement was filed prior to the lawsuit regarding the replication of Gibson's guitar designs for Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock (Xbox 360, Wii, PlayStation 3, PC, and PS2). However, Gibson retaliated by alleging that Activision violated one of its patents which governs "technology used to simulate a musical performance". Due to this, Activision filed its own lawsuit to counter Gibson's claims for damages. Activision concluded its statement by saying that Gibson's claims are "disingenuous and lack any justification". It was also mentioned that Activision is no longer interested in pursuing any future marketing and support agreements with Gibson. Buy: [Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock (Xbox 360), (Wii) ] Buy: [Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock (PS3), (PC) ] |
| 03/20/08, 12:54:55 BBFC in danger due to Manhunt 2 controversy? |
 It looks like the whole Manhunt 2 fiasco has put the British Board of Film Classification (BBFC) in a spot of bother. After being forced to give Rockstar Games' Manhunt 2 (Sony PSP and Nintendo Wii) the green light, doubts have risen about the viability of the BBFC as a games classification body.According to MCVUK, BBC News' technology index editor Darren Waters has said that the "grudging nature of the BBFC s statement [regarding Manhunt 2] ... coupled with the fact the body went to the High Court, twice rejected the game itself and tried to overturn the original judgment of the VAC leaves the organisation with its credibility bruised." Waters also added that Dr. Tanya Byron, who is set to give a report on video game classification later this month, is expected to favour handing the games classification job over to the Pan European Game Information (PEGI). There has been confusion among consumers as to why there are often two certificates on UK games, from the BBFC and European body PEGI," said Waters. The BBFC s dogged fight to ban Manhunt 2, even though industry figures lined up to defend the title, might come back to haunt it. Buy: [Manhunt 2 (PSP)] Buy: [Manhunt 2 (Wii)] |
| Separating Web Spam from Quality Content - What are the Metrics? |
Posted by randfish Let's try a little excercise... Common features of spam domains include:
For high quality content domains, the opposite is true (at least, for a good percentage of these). Now think about the sites you're building - which features apply to them? What could you do differently to be more like the "high quality" category and less like the "spam"? BTW - Love to hear your take on features you think are common to spam, or to high quality sites. |
| So Many Ways to Pursue Links and So Little Time |
Posted by Eric Enge One great way to get lots of links is to launch a massive media campaign. This works particularly well if you are a large brand. What if you aren't? Well then, you are at a disadvantage. Massive media campaigns are great ways to get lots of links, and major brands launch these things without even blinking an eye. Assuming that this is not an option for you, let's explore the kinds of things that you can do instead and win, anyway. It's one of the great things about the web today. While having a massive marketing budget is a significant advantage, if you are smart and fast, success can still be yours. In fact, you can create a brand in all types of novel new ways on the Internet. This post will focus on deciding what methods you should consider for developing high value, authoritative links. Successful execution of high value link strategies almost always requires compelling content or tools, so know that going in. If you are not willing to make that kind of investment, move onto the next post, because this one is not for you. You can't afford to waste a lot of time on strategies that are not going to pan out for you. In fact, if you sta |