|  |  |  | | | | | ReadWriteWeb | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | |  Private mobile content sharing for groups is something no one has really nailed yet, but feels like it could be a very big deal. Rising from the tragic ashes of the consumer RSS reader market, a new team that includes NetNewsWire creator Brent Simmons, FeedDemon creator Nick Bradbury and Newsgator's VP of Mobile and Data Walker Fenton will announce Wednesday at Apple's WWDC that it is spinning off from parent company Newsgator to create a new app called Glassboard.
Glassboard, which will open to the public next month, will allow iOS and Android users to share text, photos and in some cases location with small groups. It is built with Microsoft Azure as its back-end and will integrate with Microsoft's forthcoming Office 365. The team is being intentionally "agnostic" about its target market, saying it could be used by families, work teams or companies and their clients. These guys have built some incredible things in the past and it will be very interesting to see what they can bring to one of the biggest potential markets of the day. Sponsor
 Past Performance... Success in social software 1.0 does not always mean that subsequent projects will be winners, too. More than a year ago we wrote here about the latest creation of mega-successful social software entrepreneur Mark Fletcher, creator of Yahoo Groups and Newsgator competitor Bloglines. A year ago he launched a service called SnapGroups, which I said was well aimed at one of the key trends of our time: real-time group communication. SnapGroups is now nowhere to be found: offline, no Tweets, no blog posts, nothing. It was a cool little service it just didn't seem to have wings. So it goes sometimes, even for some of the smartest and most innovative people online.
Glassboard will use a freemium model, will be available for consumers and enterprises and isn't talking about its business model yet. Was this group's work on RSS readers a failure? Newsgator's CEO J.B. Holston says the company's RSS apps, most of which have now been sold-off to smaller companies that are enthusiastic about developing them further, may not have turned into Twitter but they did change the web and a lot of peoples' lives. My take on it is this, and I'll try to say this without getting too upset about it: the lack of uptake of RSS reading software by consumers and businesses is among the turns of events in recent technology history that's most disparaging of the state of humanity. That a personalized, centralized repository for updates from dynamic streams of information delivered by free trusted sources of democratic publishing all over the world has had its tech-lunch eaten by mind-rotting casual Flash games on Facebook is as depressing as the way that public education dreams were dashed when the promise of television became its reality. It's like the psychedelic dreams of Harvard's Dr. Timothy Leary becoming the wretched, heartbreaking narcotic drama of the TV show The Wire. It's terrible. It's reason to pack it all up and go home. But that's not what the team of RSS reader forefathers are doing. Instead they are getting the band back together again and tackling the next frontier. It will be exciting to see what they come up with. Discuss 
 | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | |  For users of Apple's iOS mobile operating system, there was much to be excited about in yesterday's keynote unveiling iOS 5, the next version of the OS for iPad, iPhone and iPod Touch. Deeper Twitter integration, wireless syncing across devices, and the ability to untether your iOS devices from the desktop have rightly got users anticipating the next OS upgrade.
One feature that is sure to please productivity geeks is Reminders, a new native task management app for iOS that works across devices. Sponsor
 In terms of features, Reminders doesn't offer a whole lot that we haven't seen before in other products like Remember the Milk and Things. But having a task management app built right into the OS will be pretty handy, especially with the new notifications system coming in iOS 5. 
Like Remember the Milk, Reminders can be set up to be location-aware. Thus, when you're approaching your house, you'll get a notification reminding you to take out the trash. When you get to the office, a whole new list of reminders will come up. Reminders will sync wirelessly across devices using Apple's new iCloud feature. This includes syncing with Outlook and iCal on the desktop.
Discuss 
 | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | |  Today Microsoft announced the Windows Thin PC (WinTPC) thin client operating system will be available on July 1. A release candidate has been available since March.
The company also announced that WinTPC will be supported by Microsoft's Forefront Endpoint Protection. Sponsor
 WinTPC is based on Windows 7 and replaces the Windows XP based Windows Fundamentals for Legacy PCs (WinFLP). The idea is to give enterprises the ability to reuse old desktops and laptops as thin clients to access remote desktops or cloud-based services. WinTPC will run only certain applications such as security, management, terminal emulation, Remote Desktop, Citrix Receiver and Web browsers. Running the thin client OS will enable enterprises to upgrade from legacy operating systems without needing to upgrade or replace hardware. WinTPC and WinFLP are available only to Microsoft Software Assurance (SA) customers. Earlier this year Brian Madden criticized both WinTPC and WinFLP for being locked down, and for offering little of value to SA customers. Another option would be to run any of the various lightweight cloud-oriented operating systems now on the market. Discuss 
 | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | |  Never mind NASA, I'll slurpee myself to the moon.
You had to know it would come to this someday. No longer content to give away free iPads or earth-bound vacations, the social media world is about to shoot one of its own into space. (Presuming the Wuffie flows, that is.) Social network Foursquare has teamed with junkfood distributor 7-11 to offer a trip to suborbital space as a prize in an online contest. Who's going to top that? While the US spaceflight program is getting its budget shut down, there's something rather poetic about this opportunity. As part of a promotional campaign for upcoming Steven Spielberg move Super 8 (which does get good reviews), the two companies are offering a variety of prizes to Foursquare users who check-in at a 7-11. "There are over 21,000 prizes," Foursquare explains on its blog today, "Every 88th check-in wins free Super 8 movie tickets...every 88,888th check-in gets a free Zero-G Experience. And...if there are over 888,888 check-ins in June, one lucky winner goes to Space! Space!!!" Sponsor
 Foursquare's Founding Mythology The story goes like this...one day Dennis Crowley was jogging over a bridge in New York and stepped on a mushroom spray painted on the ground. "I should get a power-up for this," he thought to himself. "And while I'm at it, I'd like to get a million kids to go to 7-11 and then shoot one of them to the moon!" Well, maybe not that second part. Those of us dorks who still admire Foursquare's capacity to incentivize positive actions can go and get ourselves one of the company's dorky looking Farmers Market badges created in conjunction with CNN. But no space flight for us! The last US government space shuttle budgeted for (ever) is scheduled to launch a month from tomorrow. Perhaps novelty space flight in exchange for word-of-mouth online marketing to promote corporate non-nutrition was a better deal for society than taxes to fund exploration for the sake of public good, anyway. Don't worry kids, 7-11 will take care of your dreams of space exploration. If enough of you stop by, stock up on candy and soda, then tell your online friends about it. At least one in a million of you will be able to go to space - and heck, the rest of you can at least go to the movies. It's goofy enough that I feel like I need to go down to the corner store and get something to drink just to deal with it. Discuss 
 | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Today Microsoft announced the Windpws Thin PC (WinTPC) thin client operating system will be available on July 1. A release candidate has been available since March. The company also announced that WinTPC will be supported by Microsoft's Forefront Endpoint Protection. Sponsor
WinTPC is based on Windows 7 and replaces the Windows XP based Windows Fundamentals for Legacy PCs (WinFLP). The idea is to give enterprises the ability to reuse old desktops and laptops as thin clients to access remote desktops or cloud-based services. WinTPC will run only certain applications such as security, management, terminal emulation, Remote Desktop, Citrix Receiver and Web browsers. Running the thin client OS will enable enterprises to upgrade from legacy operating systems without needing to upgrade or replace hardware. WinTPC and WinFLP are available only to Microsoft Software Assurance customers. Another option would be to run any of the various lightweight cloud-oriented operating systems now on the market. Discuss 
| | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Today Microsoft announced the Windpws Thin PC (WinTPC) thin client operating system will be available on July 1. WinTPC is based on Windows 7 and replaces the Windows XP based Windows Fundamentals for Legacy PCs (WinFLP). The company also announced that WinTPC will be supported by Microsoft's Forefront Endpoint Protection. Sponsor
The idea is to give enterprises the ability to reuse old desktops and laptops as thin clients to access remote desktops or cloud-based services. WinTPC will run only certain applications such as security, management, terminal emulation, Remote Desktop, Citrix Receiver and Web browsers. Running the thin client OS will enable enterprises to upgrade from legacy operating systems without needing to upgrade or replace hardware. Discuss 
| | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | You had to know it would come to this someday. No longer content to give away free iPads or earth-bound vacations, the social media world is about to shoot one of its own into space. Social network Foursquare has teamed with junkfood distributor 7-11 to offer a trip to suborbital space as a prize in an online contest. Who's going to top that? While the US spaceflight program is getting its budget shut down, there's something rather poetic about this opportunity. As part of a promotional campaign for upcoming Steven Spielberg move Super 8 (which does get good reviews), the two companies are offering a variety of prizes to Foursquare users who check-in at a 7-11. "There are over 21,000 prizes," Foursquare explains on its blog today, "Every 88th check-in wins free Super 8 movie tickets...every 88,888th check-in gets a free Zero-G Experience. And...if there are over 888,888 check-ins in June, one lucky winner goes to Space! Space!!!" Sponsor
NASA astronaut Douglas H. Wheelock first used Foursquare to check-in and record his presence in space last October. Scientific researchers signed the first contracts with private companies to be taken into space this February. The last US government space shuttle budgeted for (ever) is scheduled to launch a month from tomorrow. Perhaps novelty space flight in exchange for word-of-mouth online marketing to promote corporate non-nutrition was a better deal for society than taxes to fund exploration for the sake of public good, anyway. Don't worry kids, 7-11 will take care of your dreams of space exploration. If enough of you stop by, stock up on candy and soda, then tell your online friends about it. At least one in a million of you will be able to go to space - and heck, the rest of you can at least go to the movies. Discuss 
| | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | |  Of all the new features announced yesterday at WWDC as a part of iOS 5, one of the more interesting options now available to developers is access to iCloud. Much more than just a MobileMe replacement service, the new iCloud will store and sync music, photos, apps, calendars and documents to all your devices, including your iPhone, iPad, iPod Touch and even Mac and PC.
But the service isn't being limited to Apple's own products, as it turns out - developers can use iCloud with their own mobile applications, too. Sponsor
 
What Does iCloud Do? By default, users' "everyday" apps will be automatically enabled for iCloud with iOS 5, including iTunes, Contacts, Calendar, Mail, Photos (now called Photo Stream), iBooks, iWork and iTunes. iCloud will also perform daily backups of personal data, like text messages, MMS messages, device settings, application data and more, all over Wi-Fi. That's great news for consumers, of course. However, the exciting part of the iCloud announcement for developers is the new iCloud API. With this, Apple is allowing third-party application developers to use the service so they can store their apps' documents and other key value data in iCloud. Both Mac and iOS Developer Program members can set up iCloud for use with iOS, OS X Lion and Windows now and can begin making their apps iCloud-enabled. Not only will this new API provide developers with a place to keep data stored "in the cloud," it will also provide them with access to sync and backup services. 2 Ways to Use the API: Documents or Key Value Data As noted above, developers can tap into the iCloud in two ways - either for storing actual documents, or for storing key value data. This latter option lets apps store small amounts of data, like the application state or settings, in iCloud. That means users will have a more seamless experience when moving from one device to the next, or when upgrading from one old device to a new one. For example, iCloud could be used to set up a new device with all your apps, and then also configure those apps the way they were when you last used them on your old device. That's a step ahead of what Google offers now with Android. With the newest version of Android, apps will sync to new devices when you sign in with your Google account. (This seems to be hit-or-miss for me, though - does it not see the apps moved to SD?). Once your apps are synced and installed on your new Android phone, you have still have to sign in with your user account information all over again. The data stored within the apps is gone, too - it's left behind on your older device, unless the developer was using their own backup and restore functionality or syncing service. With iCloud, however, the transition would be seamless. The iCloud service will handle all the details of syncing, backing up and restoration including version control, conflict resolution, change notifications and security. And with less hassle, users will likely install more apps, keep more apps and continue to use more apps. If implemented properly, it sounds like users won't ever be prompted to "sign in" again to the app, after the initial set up is complete. (Full details of how this all works will have to wait - only registered developers have access to API information and documentation at this time). So, what will iCloud mean for other cloud players, including storage and sync services like Box.net or Dropbox? And what about the lesser-known startups who were building out similar services of their own? Well, it looks like Ashton Kutcher thinks he knows. 
Discuss 
 | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | You had to know it would come to this someday. No longer content to give away free iPads or earth-bound vacations, social network Foursquare has teamed with junkfood distributor 7-11 to offer a trip to suborbital space as a prize in an online contest. Who's going to top that? While the US spaceflight program is getting its budget shut down, there's something rather poetic about this opportunity. As part of a promotional campaign for upcoming Steven Spielberg move Super 8 (which does get good reviews), the two companies are offering a variety of prizes to Foursquare users who check-in at a 7-11. "There are over 21,000 prizes," Foursquare explains on its blog today, "Every 88th check-in wins free Super 8 movie tickets...every 88,888th check-in gets a free Zero-G Experience. And...if there are over 888,888 check-ins in June, one lucky winner goes to Space! Space!!!" Sponsor
NASA astronaut Douglas H. Wheelock first used Foursquare to check-in and record his presence in space last October. Scientific researchers signed the first contracts with private companies to be taken into space this February. The last US government space shuttle budgeted for (ever) is scheduled to launch a month from tomorrow. Perhaps novelty space flight in exchange for word-of-mouth online marketing to promote corporate non-nutrition was a better deal for society than taxes to fund exploration for the sake of public good, anyway. Don't worry kids, 7-11 will take care of your dreams of space exploration. If enough of you stop by, stock up on candy and soda, then tell your online friends about it. At least one in a million of you will be able to go to space - and heck, the rest of you can at least go to the movies. Discuss 
| | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | |  The Internet Archive is arguably one of the most important projects on the Web, with its mission to preserve the Internet and make available to the public the rich collection of all the digitized material therein: websites, music, videos, as well as public domain books.
It's the latter - the ongoing efforts to digitize books, something that many libraries, archives, and private companies are currently undertaking, that has prompted the Internet Archive to recognize the importance of not just preserving electronic copies, but physical copies of materials as well. Sponsor
 The Internet Archive has observed that many libraries are moving their physical books to "off site repositories" and some are even opting to throw out books once they've been digitized. "While we understand the need to manage physical holdings," Internet Archive founder Brewster Kahle says, "we believe this should be done thoughtfully and well." And so taking the expertise gained through its digital preservation work - knowledge about how to mark up the metadata for the content, for example, as well as how to preserve the actual storage devices - the Internet Archive has decided to launch a physical archive to go alongside its electronic cultural preservation efforts. 
The Internet Archive will now keep a physical copy of every book, record and movie that it is able to attract or acquire, all with the goal of making sure that there is at least one physical copy of a book or record or film preserved.  Although it has built a large storage facility in Richmond, California, this isn't a physical library per se. As before, the Internet Archive will emphasize the digital access to the content. In other words, this new physical archive isn't about retrieval or "checking out" materials, but is about long-term preservation.
Kahle likens the project to the Svalbard Global Seed Vault, a seed bank that is a way of "storing important objects in safe ways to be used for redundancy, authority, and in case of catastrophe." The preservation of our digital world is already a huge undertaking, and the Internet Archive's expansion certainly compounds this. (Donate here.) While it wants to be be able to make sure there is one copy preserved of every published work, it does realize that not every text will end up in the Internet Archive's care. Nevertheless, it has designed a system that can house and preserve over ten million items. "If we are successful," says Kahle, "then this set of cultural materials will last for centuries and could be beneficial in ways that we cannot predict" - something we already say about the Internet Archive's digital mission. Discuss 
 | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | |  The Arab Spring has seemed to have inspired a death bed confession in favor of free speech on the part of the United Nations. After introducing and passing a resolution condemning blasphemous speech, the U.N. recently reversed that decision.
Now, the United Nations has proclaimed that Internet access itself is a human right. UN seal photo by Julian Rotela Rosow Sponsor
  Last Friday, the United Nations released a report entitled "Report of the Special Rapporteur on the promotion and protection of the right to freedom of opinion and expression."
Its author, Special Rapporteur Frank La Rue, wrote: "Given that the Internet has become an indispensable tool for realizing a range of human rights, combating inequality, and accelerating development and human progress, ensuring universal access to the Internet should be a priority for all states. Each State should thus develop a concrete and effective policy...to make the Internet widely available, accessible and affordable to all segments of population." Beyond simply stating that the Internet is a good idea and access is to be prepared, the statement insists on member states prioritizing it due to it being a human right. "(This report emphasizes) the unique and transformative nature of the Internet not only to enable individuals to exercise their right to freedom of opinion and expression, but also arange of other human rights, and to promote the progress of society as a whole." So it is not, in itself, a human right. Rather, due to its importance in contemporary global society, it enables the realization of those rights - rights such as freedom of expression - and as such, must be maintained. How this will play out with nations lacking in wealth and infrastructure is worth considering, especially in light of the rapporteur's definition of the Internet. "(T)he Internet has two dimensions: access to online content, without any restrictions except in a few limited cases permitted under international human rights law; and the availability of the necessary infrastructure and information communication technologies, such as cables,modems, computers and software, to access the Internet in the first place." My specialty, if I can be said to have one, is not international law. However, although this is not a binding document, so far as I know, the bully pulpit of the United Nations makes it impossible to ignore. Of course, many will ignore it, but it will now do so with a de facto admission of less than full membership in the family of nations. And that is how it should be. U.N. building photo by Steve Cadman | other sources: Los Angeles Times Discuss 
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Storage vendor Scality announced today a new take on storage networking, and it is a bit of déjà vu all over again. The company's Ring Organic Storage software can leverage any disk storage media, including directly-attached disks, SANs, and solid state drives, but combines the storage nodes in a clever way. The result is that the system is parallel, resilient, self-healing, adaptive, location aware and constantly renewing.
The company claims a collection of 100 nodes can deliver hundreds of thousands of objects per second, with latencies below 40ms at a cost of less than a buck a gigabyte. The idea is to leverage cheaper commodity SATA disk drives but attach them to inexpensive computers to handle the parallel processing. Unlike many SANs, the individual disks can be different brands or technologies, making it easier to updgrade the entire collection. The system has been installed for several months at a Belgian cable company (video link here) who has upgraded their storage collection several times since their initial use of Ring.
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 | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | |  Once Anonymous, the hacking collective, got the taste of blood on the world stage, credit card companies seemed to be less tantalizing. Some of these country operations have been more successful than others. Although the success may be more in focusing attention on the issues the citizens themselves are fighting for than any real damage against the repressive infrastructure.
So far we've seen Operation Tunisia, Operation Zimbabwe, Operation Egypt and Operation Iran. Now, Anonymous has turned its attention to the subcontinent in Operation India. Sponsor
  Yesterday, The Hacker News reported Anonymous hacked and defaced India's National Informatics Centre.
It remains offline, with this message posted. "Site under maintenance We apologize for any inconvenience caused due to our maintenance reason. Our site will be back to usual soon. Thank you very much for your support.." The Campaign was initiated after a protest by anti-corruption protestors, led by religious leader Baba Ramdev, ended in violence. It was announced on, among other locations, a Twitter account for Operation India. The press release from Anonymous follows. "Message to Noble Citizen of INDIA (Operation India) "Over fifty years ago, Indian Freedom Fighters laid down their lives for our freedom. In the end, what was it all for? Today our politicians ride slip-shod over our laws, corruption is rampant. If the brutal way Baba Ramdev's hunger strike was crushed is anything to go by, it would seem that India is now on its way to becoming an undemocratic 'democracy'.
"Finally, steps were taken to correct this. The Lokpal Bill was created. And what happens? False tapes turn out to discredit those who support this bill, supporters of Baba Ramdev are mercilessly and brutally attacked. "This needs to stop. The Anons of India and of the world are taking a stand against your lies and against your corruption. We have a agenda: "# The Complete Removal of Corruption in all its forms, starting from the heighest order.
# Ensure Support to Baba Ramdev and Anna Hazare and other Civil minded individuals who have supported the Jan Lokpal Bill.
# Replace all Currency of Rs. 500 & Rs. 1000 with some new Number, so that Black Money will become just piece of papers.
# Aplogise to the people who got affected by the barbaric crackdown.
# Some kind of basic qualification to get elected as MP / MLA or member of any governing body.
# Unique ID no ( Like Citizenship ) for everything . All data must get store under Single ID.
# An investigation into offshore accounts held by Indian Politicians and the Corporates.
# Severe punishment for all the Corrupt officials.
# The clearance of pending court cases in all courts of India swiftly, and fairly. "Until these demand are met and solutions implemented our attacks will not stop.
You, the government, were elected to listen to the voices of your people. To give them what they ask for. Too long have you ignored the voice of the "common man" which you claim to represent. Anonymous and the people of India are speaking now." Taj Mahal photo by Voobie Discuss 
 | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | |  Visitors to WordPress.com blogs will now be able to sign in with their Facebook or Twitter accounts in order to leave comments. This is in addition, of course, to being able to comment anonymously (as a "Guest") or as a WordPress user.
The new feature is intended to give users the flexibility to decide which identity they want to utilize for comments, even if they're logged in to WordPress via multiple accounts. You can, for example, be logged in via Facebook or WordPress but decide to leave your comments under your Twitter profile. Sponsor
 
WordPress describes the process as something that "gives visitors control over which identity they can use." And no doubt questions over identity and anonymity (and online etiquette) continually plague blog comments - for both blog authors and for blog visitors. Will giving your blog visitors the option to link themselves to their "real" identities via Facebook improve the level of conversation? That's probably the hope - next to the desire for more engagement, of course. It's worth pointing out here that what WordPress has implemented today isn't Facebook comments per se. Today's new feature is a matter of letting users choose the social profiles by which they comment, but it isn't a full integration. In other words, your WordPress comments aren't pushed back into your Facebook stream. WordPress's Scott Berkun does say that better Facebook and Twitter integration features are coming soon. Discuss 
 | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | |  Groupon has had a terrific ride. Since pivoting from a community action site, it has dominated the mindshare of Internet commerce. Its IPO filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission lays out a lot of that success, including growing from 3 million to 83 million subscribers in one year and generating nearly as much revenue in the first quarter of 2011 as it did in all of 2010.
But that, as they say, is past performance. The key question for potential investors is "How will Groupon do in the years ahead?" There, the IPO filing, doesn't provide much guidance. Here are five concerns I see. Sponsor
 Rakesh Agrawal is an entrepreneur focused on the intersection of local and mobile. He blogs at http://blog.agrawals.org. Email Open Rates Groupon certainly knows those numbers. It might have left it out of its filling, called an S-1, for competitive reasons, but it might also be because the numbers are declining. National and Local Deals Split In my observation of Groupon, it's beginning to skew more toward national deals. That means lower margins as national merchants have the leverage to negotiate a better deal. Plus, there is a limit to the number of photo cards, mugs and custom T-shirts that someone can buy. High Customer Acquisition Costs Groupon points out that acquisition costs are a concern, but doesn't provide actual numbers. Doing the math based on other numbers provided, I estimate the cost of a list subscriber at $6.40 and the cost of an actual purchaser at $26.50. That's a big number for a business with few barriers to entry. For Netflix, this number is $18.03 - but Netflix has a subscription business with recurring revenue. Groupon's numbers should be lower than Netflix'. I estimate that in order for Groupon to be profitable on a customer, they need to sell three average deals. Decline in Margin From March 2010 to March 2011 While Groupon clearly provides outstanding discounts to consumers at local businesses, the value to the merchant has been hotly debated. Cost of revenue as a percentage of revenue was 54.8% and 58.1% for the three months ended March 31, 2010 and 2011, respectively. I would expect that costs of the deals will go up as Google beefs up competition, the economy recovers and a larger percentage of deals are national retailers who have more negotiating power. This will further reduce Groupon's margins. Reliance on Competitors For Growth Google and Facebook are big channels for subscriber acquisition. If these providers choose to stop competitive advertising, it'll constrain Groupon's subscriber growth. Google just launched its Offers product in Portland. (This post was written at the first Google Offers venue.) Based on the initial set of merchants and offers, I believe that Google is aggressively subsidizing these offers. To the extent that Google continues to do this, it will put a lot of margin pressure on Groupon and other deal providers. Google's product now offers merchants significantly more generous payment terms. If Groupon is forced to match those terms, it will put a constraint on working capital." Question of Value to Merchants While Groupon clearly provides outstanding discounts to consumers at local businesses, the value to the merchant has been hotly debated. An example in the S-1 cites a business that sold Groupons and "more than half of the Groupons were sold to new customers." That means close to half were sold to existing customers - a roughly 75% revenue hit on existing customers is something that merchants need to figure into their calculations. In my conversations with merchants, they really resent seeing existing customers coming in with Groupons. If even 10% of customers using Groupon are existing customers of the merchant, that is a serious blow to the economics. (Anecdotally, I've seen some numbers as high as 90%.) Discuss 
 | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | |  Yesterday, at the Dell Storage Forum in Orlando, storage vendor CommVault announced it was partnering with Dell to create a new architecture that the two call Converged Virtual Infrastructure Building Block. While a mouthful (and not something that you make a snappy acronym out of either), the idea is to create a way to make virtual servers easier to replicate and manage.
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 By abstracting a lot of information into these basic blocks, it is faster to scale up a virtual server infrastructure. The vendors stated that it took 30 minutes to create persistent EqualLogic snapshot-based recovery copies of 500 virtual machines with a total of 15 TB datastore, largely because it was contained in a single building block. In another 30 minutes, you could replicate another 2,000 VMs. The currently supported pieces of the architecture include Dell's PowerEdge Blade servers, EqualLogic Storage networking arrays, VMware vSphere/vCenter and CommVault's Simpana 9 storage management software. The latter is used to take snapshots of the current state of the VMs and used as part of the backup and provisioning efforts. Obviously, for this architecture to be truly useful, other storage management and array vendors need to join with their support, but this is a good starting attempt at trying to make it easier for larger-scale mixed-vendor virtual environments to be more automatically provisioned. "We generally steer away from device-specific recipes that have relatively short lives. And we focus first on keeping the VMs running by eliminating storage-related disruptions altogether, irrespective of the hardware choices they make for storage or servers," says Augie Gonzalez, DataCore Software's product and channel marketing manager. DataCore makes SANSymphony, a competing storage manager to Simpana.
Discuss 
 | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | |  webOS is the heart of how HP will compete against far more established competitors in the mobile marketplace, especially in the enterprise, where it may have its best chance of success against Apple iOS and Google Android.
At the opening keynote yesterday for HP Discover, CEO Leo Apotheker said the TouchPad is designed with the enterprise in mind. It's the first serious device that HP has offered in the tablet space with features that do differentiate it from its competitors. At its core is webOS 3.0. Sponsor
 The HP TouchPad is late to the party. But sometimes being late to the party is really the best way to make an entrance, especially about enterprise. Three reasons why HP's focus on the enterprise makes sense: - Apple will never say iOS is built with the enterprise in mind.
- Google wants Android to be everything for everyone.
- Blackberry is losing its stature. It will take time for the company to rebound.
Microsoft may be its biggest enterprise rival. Its emphasis on the enterprise is evident in Mango, the latest version of Windows Phone. Paul Bryan of Microsoft writes: "Customers tell us they're continually trying to stay on top of their busy schedules. With this in mind, Mango is designed to make you even more productive right out-of-the-box--helping you quickly and easily stay connected with the people and information that are most important to you. For instance, we've heard that you like how the Office Hub helps bring together Office documents like Word, Excel, One Note, and PowerPoint in one place. In Mango, we're adding the ability to save and share Office documents through Office 365 and Windows Live SkyDrive, ensuring you have access to the latest documents when and where you need them." Other factors in play that help tip things in HP's favor: - An open app environment. Enyo is a framework for webOS 3.0. It allows the developer to take code and condense it. The framework still executes and does so more efficiently. It's easier for developers.
- Developers can create cross-platform apps. Enyo is again the magic sauce. It allows for the app to work across different screen resolutions, laptop, smartphone or tablet.
- webOS runs Citrix Receiver, allowing for a secure, virtualized mobile desktop.
- webOS will be added to all HP, PCs, laptops and printers.
- Enyo can be used in WebKit.
- An independent software vendor network that includes SAP and Microsoft.
- webOs has a connected component. You can touch a Palm Pre smartphone to the Touhpad or vice versa. That's a compelling seamless capability.
This all may be irrelevant, considering the strength of the iOS and Android. Apple's app ecosystem is built for developers to benefit with a percentage of what is paid for the app. webOS needs its own app ecosystem but now that is still just emerging. That will be a critical component as the webOs matures and looks for traction with the developer community. Plus, there's another factor in play. And that's the bring your own device (BYOD) movement. People are using their own smartphones and tablets for work and in the home. They will not necessarily need a new device. But we'll see. HP knows how to market computers. HP paid the airfare and hotel for the writer to attend HP Discover.
Discuss 
 | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | |  Ning announced a new feature today that will enable its users to broadcast video directly from their sites. The capabilities are a result of a partnership with Ustream, bringing the live streaming video capabilities to the social networking platform.
The Ustream integration will let Ning users embed both live and recorded video into their sites. In addition to the video content, the new feature will also make available live chats so that people watching the event can also participate. Sponsor
 When the Ustream functionality is activiated, there will be a pull-out tab on the side of the Ning social site. A green indicator dot will indicate that the channel is live; a red dot will indicate that there isn't anything being broadcast. Even so, visitors will be able to click on that tab to bring up the pop-up window and watch recorded video content. 
Ning boasts over 2 million Ning networks, and the video broadcasting integration is well-suited for many of these, particularly ones associated with education. The Ustream feature is only available, however, to Ning Plus and Pro subscribers (not to the Ning Minis, which are free for educators). But with the possibility to broadcast tutorials or workshops or discussions, it does seem as though this video integration will make upgrading to a paid subscription very appealing for many users of the social network. Discuss 
 | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | |  RunKeeper, a mobile application for tracking your exercise and online community for fitness buffs, opened its API to the public today. Dubbed the HealthGraph, it will provide access to the variety of health and fitness data stored in RunKeeper, such as exercise, sleep, weight and blood pressure. Developers will then be able to build new applications that build upon and make sense of this data.
You can find the API documentation here. Sponsor
 
From the blog post announcing the API: We've also been quietly building a powerful correlation engine to make meaning of this robust health information across categories. Simply having a central location to store all of this data wasn't enough-we needed to store it in a way that enabled us to help users quickly and easily make sense of it. How did their health and fitness progress over time? Which of their actions helped drive them to reach their goals? What social motivators inspired them to push themselves further? By organizing this health and fitness data in one place, establishing weighted correlations, and introducing the element of time, the Health Graph emerged. Earlier this year, RunKeeper made its paid app free. At the time our own Marshall Kirkpatrick wrote: "It's not about app sales - it's all about the platform." That does seem to be how things are playing out. RunKeeper is one of many applications in quantified self space, which take many of the techniques we might associate with data mining and business intelligence and apply them to every day life. Discuss 
 | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | |  Google released a new version of its Web browser Google Chrome to its stable channel today, the main channel favored by many, if not most, of Chrome's 160 million users. The updated version offers improvements in security and stability, says Google, most of which will function behind-the-scenes for a better browsing experience.
However, improvements to the browser's graphics capabilities will be more noticeable to users. With added support for hardware-accelerated 3D CSS, Web applications using 3D effects will be "snazzier," Google says. So, what does that mean? Sponsor
 3D CSS With 3D CSS, which is now available in Google Chrome, the browser has access to the computer's hardware to speed up the experience of viewing 3D effects. To see what this looks like in action, Google offers a link to a Chrome experiment called "Shaun of the Sheep." This cute cartoon (which works only in Chrome), demonstrates how 3D CSS lets you rotate a video, scale it up and down, turn the reflection on and off and activate a rotating carousel of videos. 
In addition to 3D CSS Transforms, the experiment also takes advantage of hardware-accelerated HTML5 and the new audio-video format, WebM, open-sourced by Google last year. More Security Tools Also new in this release are enhancements to Google's Safe Browsing technology, which has now been improved to warn you before you download certain malicious files. Chrome has improved this detection process so that it can detected the malicious files without having ever seen what URL you visited. More details on that process are described here. Bye-bye, Flash Cookies! Google's close relationship with Adobe has allowed it to integrate Flash LSO (local shared objects) deletion right into the Web browser, so you can better manage your online privacy. These objects, often referred to as "Flash cookies" are similar to their "browser cookies" counterparts, in that they contain information used to customize your Web browsing experience, or hold data like your login info for a website. Unfortunately, Flash cookies are harder to delete than regular cookies - until now, Chrome users were only able to manage or delete cookies using this online tool. Now, you'll be able to delete the cookies from your browser Settings. Just click on the Wrench, go to Tools, Clear Browsing Data and select "Delete cookies and other site and plug-in data." And More... You can also launch your Chrome Web apps by name within the Omnibox in Chrome 12, the Settings pages have been updated, there's improved screen reader support and finally, you can say farewell to Google Gears. The Gears plugin will no longer be supported in this or any future releases of Google Chrome to provide offline access to Web applications. Those duties will be taken over by HTML5 going forward, starting with Gmail Offline, expected by Q3 2011. Discuss 
 | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | webOS is the heart of what will define how HP competes against far more established competitors in the mobile marketplace - especially in the enterprise, where it may have its best chance of success against Apple iOS and Google Android. At the opening keynote yesterday for HP Discover, CEO Leo Apotheker said the TouchPad is designed with the enterprise in mind. It's the first serious device that HP has offered in the tablet space with features that do differentiate it. At its core is webOS 3.0. Sponsor
The HP TouchPad is late to the party. But sometimes being late to the party is really the best way to make an entrance. Especially if we are talking about making a statement with the enterprise. Three reasons why this focus on the enterprise makes sense: - Apple will never say iOS is built with the enterprise in mind.
- Google wants Android to be everything for everyone.
- Blackberry is losing its stature. It will take time for the company to rebound.
Microsoft may be the biggest rival. It's emphasis on the enterprise is evident in Mango, the latest version of Windows Phone. Paul Bryan of Microsoft writes: "Customers tell us they're continually trying to stay on top of their busy schedules. With this in mind, Mango is designed to make you even more productive right out-of-the-box--helping you quickly and easily stay connected with the people and information that are most important to you. For instance, we've heard that you like how the Office Hub helps bring together Office documents like Word, Excel, One Note, and PowerPoint in one place. In Mango, we're adding the ability to save and share Office documents through Office 365 and Windows Live SkyDrive, ensuring you have access to the latest documents when and where you need them." Other factors in play that help tip things in HP's favor: - An open app environment. Enyo is a framework for webOS 3.0. It allows the developer to take code and condense it. The framework still executes and does it more efficiently. It's easier for developers.
- Developers can create cross-platform apps. Enyo is again the magic sauce. It allows for the app to work across different screen resolutions such as on a laptop, smartphone or tablet.
- webOS runs Citrix Receiver, allowing for a secure, virtualized mobile desktop.
- webOS will be added to all HP, PCs, laptops and printers.
- Enyo can be used in WebKit.
- An independent software vendor network that includes SAP and Microsoft.
- webOs has a connected component. You can touch a Palm Pre smartphone to the Touhpad or vice versa. That's a compelling seamless capability.
This all may be irrelevant, considering the strength of the iOS and Android. Apple's app ecosystem is built for developers to benefit with a percentage of what is paid for the app. webOS needs its own app ecosystem but now that is still just emerging. That will be a critical component as the webOs matures and looks for traction with the developer community. Plus, there's another factor in play. And that's the bring your own device (BYOD) movement. People are using their own smartphones and tablets for work and in the home. They will not necessarily need a new device. But we'll see. HP knows how to market computers. HP paid the airfare and hotel for the writer to attend HP Discover.
Discuss 
| | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | |  Facebook changed the security options of millions of international users today. The photo-tagging facial recognition program that Facebook unveiled to North American in July 2010 has arrived in most of the rest of the world today, according to security company Sophos.
Facebook does not tag people in photos automatically, but prompts users to tag friends that the facial recognition system recognizes. The service is opt-out in Facebook's security settings as opposed to opt-in. That aspect of the facial recognition feature and Facebook's approach to privacy altogether is what bothers privacy and security advocates like Sophos.
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 "Unfortunately, once again, Facebook seems to be sharing personal information by default," Graham Cluley wrote on the Sophos company blog, Naked Security. "Many people feel distinctly uncomfortable about a site like Facebook learning what they look like, and using that information without their permission." Cluley wrote and open letter to Facebook in April this year, calling for the company to go to a "privacy by default" doctrine as opposed to a privacy via opt-out policy, which Facebook currently employs for much of its information. Cluley also does not think that most people are mentally equipped to handle the long and sometimes confusing Facebook privacy settings. "Most Facebook users still don't know how to set their privacy options safely, finding the whole system confusing," Cluley wrote. "It's even harder though to keep control when Facebook changes the settings without your knowledge." When Facebook unveiled facial recognition last year, it was uploading 100 million pictures to the site a day, with a good portion of those including people (who are likely also Facebook users). Companies like Viewdle and ActiveSymbols are bringing facial recognition applications to smartphones. Divvyshot and founder Sam Odio were acquired by Facebook to help institute its facial recognition program. For its part, Google chairman and former CEO, Eric Schmidt has said that Google will never get in to the facial recognition game. That has not stopped developers from building facial recognition into Android, such as the application Recognizr. If you are concerned about facial recognition from Facebook, you can go into your privacy settings and change them. Click privacy settings - customize settings - things others share and disable the "suggest photos of me to friends" feature.
Discuss 
 | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | |  Much of the reading news from yesterday's WWDC keynote focused on the new features in iOS 5: the Instapaper-like Reading List in Safari and the new magazine subscription delivery system via Newsstand. But what about e-books, or iBooks rather?
Apple did tout the number of books that have been downloaded since the iBookstore opened - some 130 million. And iBooks, along with other digital content, will be able to be stored online via Apple's new iCloud service. But while iCloud will let you download your iBooks to any device, you can only read them via the iBooks app. And that app is only available on iOS. When Apple unveiled its new Mac OS onstage yesterday, iBooks were not mentioned. Sponsor
 Apple versus Amazon: The Battle for E-Readership Unlike the Amazon Kindle promise that customers can "read anywhere," those who shop at the iBookstore cannot read their iBooks on their Macs. True, it's the iPad that is pitched as the perfect reading device. But people do still read e-books on their laptops. In fact, a recent Forrester survey found that laptops are still the most device for doing so - even more popular than designated e-readers. As e-reader popularity grows, of course, that might change. But even with the popularity of the iPad, Apple may not be the bookseller that people turn to to fulfill their digital book needs. Indeed, that 130 million download figure seems pretty paltry when compared to the 200 million iOS devices it has sold to date. 
To help boost e-book sales, Apple has rolled out an improvement to the iBookstore now. Instead of only being able to see the company's full selection of digital books via the iBooks app, books now have a more prominent place in the latest version of iTunes. But when competing with the likes of Amazon and Barnes & Noble, who have dedicated e-reader devices, vast bookstores, and apps on multiple devices, it doesn't seem as though Apple looks too strong in the e-book marketplace. Not even strong enough to add an e-book functionality to Mac OS X. Discuss 
 | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | |  Yesterday former Google Wave engineer Dhanji R. Prasanna wrote on his blog about why he is leaving the company. It's an interesting look at Google's company culture, but there's also an interesting technical nugget in there. "Google's vaunted scalable software infrastructure is obsolete," Prasanna wrote. He emphasizes that the hardware infrastructure is still state of the art, "But the software stack on top of it is 10 years old, aging and designed for building search engines and crawlers."
Prasanna says software like BigTable and MapReduce are "ancient, creaking dinosaurs" compared to open source alternatives like Apache Hadoop. Sponsor
 Prasanna blames the state of Google's software stack on it being designed by "engineers in a vacuum, rather than by developers who have need of tools." If true, this speaks to the strength of open source - or at least of well maintained open source projects. Open source software can be improved by a wide variety of stake holders, but proprietary software will always be shielded from outside improvements. The open source alternatives have surpassed the proprietary versions that Google kept under lock and key, and Google isn't in a position to take advantage of the improvements made by the open source community without making some major infrastructural changes. Also, if Prasanna's assessment is correct, it would support RedMonk's Stephen O'Grady's thesis that software infrastructure is no longer a competitive advantage. This is particularly relevant as Google markets its App Engine platform-as-a-service. The Register's Cade Metz recently wrote a long piece on Google App Engine as a means of accessing Google's infrastructure. Although the platform has made improvements in the past year, many developers have been unhappy with its restrictions. Developers have been willing to accept the proprietary nature of the PaaS and its restrictions to access Google's infrastructure. But what if Google's infrastructure really isn't special? Cloud services powered by open services would then be even more desirable. We've written before that "open" has won against proprietary, at least in rhetoric if not in practice. Thus far App Engine has bucked that trend. But for how much longer? Discuss 
 | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | |  Good news, iPhone jailbreakers! Less than 24 hours after iOS5 was announced at WWDC, Apple's developer conference taking place in San Francisco this week, a member of the iPhone hacking collation known as the Dev-Team confirmed that the new operating system (OS) has been jailbroken.
The hackers already have their hands on the developer beta of the OS, which launched yesterday. It appears that this version of iOS is still susceptible to one of the existing exploits they use to provide jailbreaking tools to end users. Sponsor
 According to a tweet from the Dev-Team's @MuscleNerd, he was able to jailbreak iOS5 running on an iPod Touch 4G using the limera1n jailbreaking method. Unfortunately, this jailbreak is tethered, which means you have to have your iPhone/iPod Touch/iPad connected (i.e., "tethered") to your computer whenever you reboot your device, in order to maintain the jailbreak. Most jailbreakers will likely wait for an untethered option to become available before proceeding to upgrade to the new OS. As proof of the jailbreak, @MuscleNerd posted the following screenshots of a jailbroken iOS5, showing the Cydia (jailbreak app store) and iSSH icons on the iPod Touch's homescreen. You can tell that this is iOS5 because other new icons are present, too, including "Newsstand," the new home for your newspaper and magazines subscriptions on iOS5, and "Reminders," a simple to-do list application. 
However, it should be noted that just because the beta version is unpatched, things could change when the commercial release ships later this fall. By that point, this jailbreak may no longer work. Will You Still Jailbreak? In addition, while committed jailbreakers and unlockers (those who run their iPhones on unsupported cellular networks) will probably continue to hack their phones, many more casual jailbreakers may be happy enough with iOS5 to leave it as is this time. After all, several of the most popular tweaks and enhancements are now core to the OS itself. One notable example is that of Mobile Notifier, an alternative notification system for iOS devices. In fact, the application's creator, Peter Hajas, was hired by Apple only days before the reveal of iOS5. The similarities between the jailbreak version and Apple's striking. For now, Hajas only has "intern" status at Apple, but his hire may serve as inspiration for future hackers looking to move from the jailbreaking world to the Apple design team itself. 
Hmm, maybe that's why Apple isn't patching the exploit? Discuss 
 | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Google announced today that it has begun indexing attribution of content to particular authors, not just to the websites they appear on. Links associated with the author of a page can now have the code rel="author" added to them and Google will understand that to mean that the linked name is the linking page's author. For example, if you're on ReadWriteWeb right now you can see my name (Marshall Kirkpatrick) linked-to with rel="author" in the HTML. This will enable Google to show an author's own content independently in search results and the company says it is working to determine what all this means for page authority in search results. Google worked with a handful of big publishers to institute this admittedly small technical change and the markup is now automatically included in all content published on Blogger and Youtube. Sponsor
 Google says this is being used in addition to the XFN rel="me" standard and to the new (and controversial) Schema.org system of microdata. As Google engineer Othar Hansson writes in concluding the announcement, "We know that great content comes from great authors, and we're looking closely at ways this markup could help us highlight authors and rank search results." Widespread adoption of rel="author" in a web of open data could create a wide variety of other possibilities as well. There's no reason to believe that Google will be the only company indexing this structured markup. That which is marked-up in a standardized, publicly and programmatically accessible way can be measured, monitored, optimized and more.
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 | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Hackers are turning on each other in droves. One in four hackers will snitch on their hacker buddies when pressured by the United States Secret Service or Federal Bureau of Investigation, according to an investigation done by The Guardian. Apparently there is no omerta between hackers. The Guardian says that the FBI has so thoroughly infiltrated the hacker community "that it is now riddle with paranoia and mistrust." Arrested hackers often turn into moles for the FBI, acting on behalf of the agency as informants in underground chat rooms and forums to sniff out other hackers susceptible to arrest. Hackers of the world: how likely are you to become a snitch for the U.S. government if you are arrested? Sponsor
 The most prominent of hacker turned snitch is Adrian Lamo, who outed Bradley Manning, the source behind the Wikileaks cables. Our enterprise editor David Strom interviewed Lamo last week (listen to the podcast here). "The good of the many outweighed the good of the one. There were no winners here. I had two options and I took the one that was less wrong," Lamo said of turning in Manning. He said he was sad to see his friend Manning behind bars but viewed him as "any of his friends that has done something reprehensible." According to The Guardian, the moral ambiguity showed by Lamo is probably not shared by the rest of the hacker community. The Guardian interviewed Eric Corley, publisher of hacker publication 2600 who said that "owing to the harsh penalties involved and the relative inexperience with the law that many hackers have, they are rather susceptible to intimidation." So, unlike Lamo, they are not acting out of some altruistic sense of obligation but rather for fear of hard time. It is the same tactic that local law enforcement has been using with petty drug dealers for years in order to climb the ladder to major traffickers. Next On The Hitlist: Hacker Communities Individual hackers are one type of problem, infiltrating and picking apart hacker collectives like Anonymous or the newly arisen Lulz Security (if it is indeed a separate group of hackers) is another. To a certain extent, there is safety and anonymity in numbers. The way that hacker groups function is not like some normal type of organized crime group either. Anonymous is a global network of hackers working together, many of which (rightfully so) do not trust each other. The way to break up an amorphous collective is to break it into its constituent parts, isolate them and work up the chain of command. Given the distrust already within the hacker community, that may not be as hard as it seems.
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 | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | |  Google has just begun a two-day long game wherein it will post links to famous places around the web where you can now find a link to get preview access to the company's Chromebook web-only notebooks. The first "clue" (just a link, really) went up minutes ago and sends visitors to an archive of the memo that Tim Berners-Lee first sent out to the world calling for help in creating the WorldWideWeb. There on the page you'll see a big Chrome logo overlay, which when clicked on takes you to a page where you can purchase one of a limited number of Chromebooks.
The Samsung device has WiFi and 3G and sells for $499 through Amazon. It looks like nicer hardware than the press-preview Chromebook that Google sent out late last year, which had a trackpad so bad it was hard to enjoy the device. Will people purchase these preview Chromebooks for $499? I don't know. Will the "game" Google's playing prove compelling to people? I doubt it; it seems that even other Google departments have fallen prey to the old story of the scarce Gmail invites, which has lead other launches to be rationed and gamelike for years, whether that made sense or not for the particular product. Sponsor
 Richard MacManus wrote about the Chromebook last month and predicted that the price may be too high for the market to bear, relative to other laptops on the market. It's notable also that this isn't the $20 per month per student Chrome OS education rental offering that's launching yet, either. I've used a Chrome OS laptop for a while and it was nice, once I got over the trackpad issue. But when I'm looking for instant-on and a light-weight way to surf the web, I'm pretty happy with my iPad. What about you? Are you interested in playing Google's game and getting a preview Samsung Chromebook for $499? Discuss 
 | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | |  Research in Motion (RIM) announced today it has acquired Scoreloop, a mobile social gaming company and makers of a cross-platform mobile gaming developer toolkit. The terms of the deal or details as to RIM's future plans were not disclosed.RIM simply says that it plans to provide tools to the BlackBerry developer community to "take gaming to a new level of social integration."
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What Does Scoreloop Do? Scoreloop's focus has been to provide a "one-stop shop" for gaming developers by offering billing and social services for Android, iOS, Windows Phone and Samsung's bada. Interestingly enough, RIM's BlackBerry platform was not even supported at the time of acquisition. The company's SDK (software development kit) provides features like leaderboards, achievements, social interaction capabilties (for things like challenges between friends), integration with social networking sites, push notifications, personal news channels, virtual currencies and goods, in-app purchases, support for multiple payment options and more. Scoreloop also helped gamers reach new players by providing cross promotional marketing opportunities within its community, access to a range of industry partners, assistance with pre-installs on carriers and OEM handsets and access to other distribution channels. In many ways, the company is similar to the more widely known cross-platform offering from OpenFeint, which also provides social features via an SDK, virtual goods and virtual currencies and promotional opportunities to developers. What Will Happen to Non-BlackBerry Platforms Using Scoreloop? So what will become of Scoreloop's cross-platform support, now that's it's a part of RIM? In a message posted on the Scoreloop homepage, CEO Dr. Marc Gumpinger assures users that the company will continue its cross-platform approach, despite the acquisition. "As a part of RIM," he says, "we'll be in the unique position to integrate deeply into BlackBerry platforms to take mobile gaming to the next level together." Discuss 
 | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | |  Last week the Web's three leading search companies - Google, Microsoft and Yahoo! - announced a new structured data collaboration called Schema.org. It includes more than 100 new types of website markup for content like movies, music, organizations, TV shows, products, places and more. The stated aim of Schema.org is to "improve the display of search results, making it easier for people to find the right web pages."
However, is this collaboration routing around existing web standards, as promoted by the governing web body the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C)? Since the news was announced, we've discovered that the W3C was not consulted about Schema.org. And given that Google dominates the search market, should we be worried that Google will control a substantial part of the markup used on webpages if - as expected - Schema.org gets significant take-up? Here's why the alarm bell should be rung... Sponsor
 Firstly, for big picture context, this situation is somewhat reminiscent of the Microsoft land grab in the dot com era of the Web. Remember when Microsoft controlled the browser market and was able to dictate how webpages were marked up? Webmasters and developers were forced to use markup that catered to Microsoft's Internet Explorer browser. Schema.org may well be leading down the same path, with webmasters and developers having to use Schema.org markup in order to get their webpages ranked highly in the search engines. Specifically, here are the two main issues about Schema.org which leads us to suspect this is a land grab: 1) The 3 companies - Google, Microsoft and Yahoo! - write the schemas and host them centrally. These schemas sometimes directly compete with existing open standards - such as the e-commerce markup standard GoodRelations, which has been receiving solid take-up from the likes of Best Buy. 2) Whereas open standards like GoodRelations use RDFa (a simpler version of RDF, the main markup of the W3C-sponsored Semantic Web), the Schema.org markup will use Microdata - which is a spec written by Google. RDFa Adoption Will Suffer Schema.org will certainly lead to a decrease in RDFa usage, which ultimately hurts the W3C's long-running push towards the Semantic Web - that is, a Web with added meaning and structure. Over the past year, RDFa received significant take-up from large companies like Facebook and Best Buy. It's particularly notable that Facebook used RDFa in its Open Graph protocol. Facebook is Google's main competitor in the social Web, so Schema.org could also be viewed as a competitive move by Google against Facebook. Simply put, the argument here is that Schema.org is a strong push by Google (and less so Microsoft and Yahoo!) to be in centralized control of key aspects of Web markup - at the expense of W3C open standards. As Web data becomes more and more structured, we have to question any moves by a large, influential company that may put it in a position of control over that data. Indeed, last year we raised the same questions about Facebook's Open Graph. Because although Facebook used RDFa, they used their own custom version of it. Despite this, both Facebook and the W3C argued that the Open Graph would actually help the adoption of RDFa. Why Did Schema.org Choose Microdata Over RDFa? ReadWriteWeb has learned of rumors that Yahoo! wanted RDFa to be a core component of Schema.org, but that Google and Microsoft insisted on Microdata. Why is that? Microdata is the markup specification written by Google on which Schema.org is based. It's similar to RDFa, in that it adds semantics to HTML in order to provide more structure to Web markup. Google explained the Schema.org decision to use Microdata over RDFa on a Google Webmaster Central help page: "Historically, we've supported three different standards for structured data markup: microdata, microformats, and RDFa. Instead of having webmasters decide between competing formats, we've decided to focus on just one format for schema.org. In addition, a single format will improve consistency across search engines relying on the data. There are arguments to be made for preferring any of the existing standards, but we've found that microdata strikes a balance between the extensibility of RDFa and the simplicity of microformats, so this is the format that we've gone with." That explanation makes logical and business sense, but even so we have to ask why Google, Microsoft and Yahoo! chose to route around the W3C supported standard of RDFa. There is some politics happening here, because Microdata is sponsored by a work group called Web Hypertext Application Technology Working Group (WHATWG), which was formed in 2004 in response to the perceived slow development of web standards at W3C. Is This a Land Grab by Google? You Tell Us... Regardless of the politics, there is a real danger that Google in particular will come to control a significant part of Web markup through Schema.org. While it is a positive sign that the major search companies are pushing for more structured data, the big question is about control. Why isn't Schema.org using RDFa, the W3C open standard, as the base for its schemas? Does Google now have too much influence over the future of structured data? We'd love to hear your thoughts about these important issues regarding the future of the Web. Discuss 
 | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | |  Intel has a little-known series of cloud enhancement products as part of its Dynamic Perimeter collection here. The idea that you need better protection to bridge cloud and on-premises data sources, and Intel has created a series of layered security products and services to help.
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 There are almost too many choices on their site. For example, as Intel says in their literature for the Expressway Cloud Access 360 service, "Salesforce access done right is tightly integrated with existing on-premise identity and access management systems, account provisioning workflows, and audit repositories....all protected, as needed, with elevated strong authentication technologies." Their idea is to combine everything that you need into one suite for cloud provisioning, federated security and single sign-on, strong two-factor authentication, and even auditing. I saw some demos at a conference last month and think that Intel is on target here. There are certainly other vendors going after this marketplace, including IBM and Novell. And Intel is leveraging products from its NordicEdge access control products acquisition and integrating them into their offerings. There are a variety of free evaluations of these services available, including a 48-hour test-drive that is completely cloud-based, a download to try out for 30 days their service gateway, and other methods on their site. And plenty of other online resources to examine, including video tutorials on how to set up the various services and documentation of the Expressway Cloud product line too. Intel will be demonstrating these products at a Gartner Security and Risk Assessment conference and at IT Decisions later this month.
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 | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | |  Some of the earliest and most useful search verticals in Google have been discontinued. Google search for Linux, Microsoft and BSD (Chrome license) blogs and forums have been shut down along with those for Mac, "About" Google and Uncle Sam about the state and location information.
In a message to Search Engine Roundtable, Google said that it is shutting down these verticals because "search quality has advanced tremendously, and based on our analysis we've found that in most cases you're better off looking for this kind of specialized information using the regular Google search box." Sponsor
 A lot of Google services are in a state of evolution as old services get refined and folded into new or existing products. For instance, Google is closing some of its old or redundant APIs in May as the Code Search, Diacritize, Feedburner, Finance, Power Meter, Sidewiki and Wave APIs are all scheduled for shutdown or degradation. Google continually tweaks and improves its search algorithm. As Google's primary product, it is important for the company to stay ahead of the game when it comes to search prowess. The specialized search verticals, such as Uncle Sam, were intentioned to be part of the superior search experience in Google. Yet, as search evolves, those functions are now part of the main search box and a redundant product in Google's lineup. For example, Google improved its blog search in August 2010, which may have made the some of the specialized searches unneeded. Google often creates or acquires products that become of part of core products. For instance, Image Swirl and Similar Images were both products of Google Labs that eventually were folded into the experience of Google Image Search.
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 | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | |  As much of our lives are now conducted online, we still all receive a surprising amount of paper in the mail. Even with the advance of online banking and bill pay, much of what we lug in from the mailbox is related somehow to our personal finances. And even if we can pay some of our bills online, they're often separate transactions.
That's what Manilla promises to address: the organization and the simplification of our household bills. Sponsor
 The company launched earlier this year in private beta and today announces that it's opening up to broader availability. Anyone can now sign up and have their household bills, finances, travel rewards programs, and various magazine subscriptions consolidated into one place online. Over 500 different companies now offer their billing statements through Manilla, and the Hearst-owned startup has also struck deals with Citi to make online bill-paying easier for that bank's customers. 
In addition to the one-stop-shop to be able to view your various monthly bills, Manilla offers reminders - via email or text message - that you have bills and renewals due. You'll be able to pay online and the service will keep an archive of your bills for you. Manilla is free and while the service says it isn't ad-supported per se, you will see offers and notifications (um, ads) from the companies and magazines to which you're subscribed. It's all the the service of helping make the process of managing your household finances easier - something that a recent study found to be more stressful than housecleaning. That's hardly surprising because while the enemies of Dirt and Grime are a constant battle, they're never really delivered with the regularity or with the commandments to Pay Now or Destroy Your Credit Score quite the same way that our billing statements are. Manilla frames the savings it offers in terms of environmental costs (postage, paper) and financial costs (you won't miss a bill), but it's the emotional costs here that may be the most compelling reason that people will opt to sign up for the service. Of course, Manilla isn't the only startup in this space. Doxo launched last year with its own promise of being your "digital filing cabinet." Discuss 
 | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | |  With the news this week that Apple is entering the cloud storage arena, how does this offering stack up with what is available from Amazon, Google, and Microsoft? The short answer is it depends on what you are storing in the cloud.
(For Audrey Watters comparison specific to music services, see her article here.) Sponsor
 Apple's iCloud is mostly a work-in-progress. For now, the only access to it is through iTunes v10.3, which adds a series of check-boxes in the Preferences/Store menu (see screenshot below). You can store just music, ebooks and apps there for the time being, and there is no Web client to access these items, unlike the other services. But there is also no storage limit too (or at least, none that I could find mentioned). If you are using earlier versions of iTunes, you need to upgrade. It is also free. 
Before iCloud, you needed to keep track of what you purchased and on which iDevice you placed things. You couldn't easily synchronize purchases made one place with another: I usually ended up trying to make all my purchases on my desktop, and then pushing them out when I attached my iPhone or iPad to the desktop. iCloud will make this process easier, and all of your prior purchase history can be synchronized and accessed by any device, provided you use iTunes 10.3 or iOS v5 when it becomes available later this year. (See the summary table below for a more concise feature comparison.) Amazon's cloud also is short on features: while it offers your choice of Windows, Mac or Web client to upload items to their cloud, you start off with a 5 GB storage quota for free. You can up this to 20 GB if you purchase at least an album a year (and watch for specials such as the new Lady Gaga which for 99 cents will also up your quota) or pay an annual fee of $20. But it is also very simple to use: at the time you purchase any music, you choose whether to store it in the cloud or on your local PC. You can play anything in the cloud from your browser too. Prior purchases to signing up for their cloud have to be manually uploaded. Amazon's cloud is also very expensive when you venture beyond 20 GB of storage. Fill up a terabyte and Amazon will cost $1,000/year. That is probably the most expensive terabyte you can find these days. Compare that to Google Docs, which will only cost $256/year. (Amazon does have a separate cloud-based storage service called S3 that a variety of partners will sell extremely cheap gobs of storage, including ElephantDrive.com and JungleDisk.com.) 
 Microsoft's Skydrive.com will give you 25 GB of storage for free. While that sounds appealing, Skydrive does have a few downsides: first, there is no way to expand it further (other than opening another Hotmail account to get another free 25 gigs) and second, the actual files that you can store on Skydrive are limited to 50 MB in size, which is rather puny - but that is how they can afford to give away so much storage. Amazon's limit is 2 GB per file, which is better than you will get from Google or Microsoft.
Finally, both Amazon and Apple don't have many features when compared to their competitors. Both Google and Microsoft have been adding all sorts of collaboration tools to make it easier to share documents among a project team in their clouds, rather than emailing them around as attachments. Google has incorporated near real-time joint authoring of its documents, so two or more people can be editing on their own computers, and both will be able to see the changes and post comments. If you have ever had to work jointly on a document, you can be a lot more effective using this feature. 
Google Docs also has the ability to create Web-based forms, for example, and store the results in a shared spreadsheet. Google and Microsoft (through its Live Mesh service) and Apple (through iTunes) all have ways to synchronize the files that you have in the cloud with the files that you have on your desktop (or in Apple's case, on other iOS devices such as your phone or iPad). Amazon lacks this feature. Surprisingly, Live Mesh is the best of the services in that it allows you to synchronize both Mac and Windows computers and can synch all files that are stored in the cloud. If you haven't yet heard of it, it is because Microsoft's Live Cloud is not well integrated with Skydrive, and there are different bits and pieces that don't fit all together. Live Mesh can sync up files bigger than 50 MB but then you can't edit or view them in Skydrive. Google Docs only allow Windows PCs to sync with their cloud drives (and Google has a synch-add only for Office 2010 at that, called Cloud Connect). Conclusion None of these services is anywhere near what a cloud storage provider such as Box.net or Dropbox.com can provide in terms of features. Microsoft's Skydrive is attractive for the amount of storage you can get for free, as long as your files are small. Google continues to enhance its cloud and add features. Apple is just getting started with its cloud and still has a long way to go. Cloud Storage Service Comparison | | Amazon Cloud | Apple iCloud | Google Docs | Microsoft Skydrive | | Free storage | 5 GB | Unlimited | 1 GB (1) | 25 GB | | Max file upload size | 2 GB | Unknown | 1 GB (1) | 50 MB | | 20 GB cost | $20/yr (2) | Free | $5/yr | Free | | 1 TB cost | $1,000/yr | Free | $256/yr | Not available | | Collaboration tools | None | None | Yes | Yes (Live Mesh) | | Sync to desktop | No | Yes (iTunes 10.3 only) | Yes (Windows only) | Yes (Windows and Mac) | Notes: (1) Google places storage and size limits on uploaded documents; docs created online in Google's own formats don't count in the storage quotas and can be larger than 1 GB (2) Amazon will waive this fee if you purchase an entire MP3 music CD after you create your account. Discuss 
 | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | |  Atlassian, New Relic, OTRS, Pivotal Labs, Service Now, SugarCRM, and Zendesk have agreed to support a common JSON API specification for customer service applications called NetworkedHelpDesk.org.
The idea is to make it possible for all applications related to a customer's experience to talk to each other, from help desk to bug tracking to project management. "Where things start to fall through the cracks is when customer service has to cross organization boundaries," says Zendesk COO Zack Urlocker. "Either within the organization, like customer service to engineering, or outside of the organization like to a component vendor." Sponsor
 When a customer service representative has to reach outside his own team to get an issue resolved, things can start getting messy. If someone from outside the customer service department takes over an issue, how do they track whether it's resolved or not? Do they record customer interactions in a way that customer service can access later if the customer calls again? These are the sort of issues that can end up driving both customers and reps bonkers, and NetworkedHelpDesk.org is designed to make things easier. The organization was founded by Atlassian, New Relic, OTRS, Pivotal Tracker, Service Now, SugarCRM, and Zendesk. Fifteen other companies have endorsed the standard, including: Coherence Design, Connect2Field, CustomWare, Freshbooks, GroundWork, PagerDuty, Pervasive, Rypple, Twilio, and Wildbit. The first integration based on the new standard will be between Atlassian's bug tracker JIRA and Zendesk. The new API also allows applications to share information between instances of the same application at different companies. To kick things off, Zendesk is enabling its users to share tickets across companies. One of the biggest challenges in this area is procedural, not technological. Getting people from outside the customer service department to add notes to a ticket, mark an issue as resolved or otherwise participate in the customer service department's process is easier said than done. But making it easier for employees in other departments to participate in that process is certainly a step in the right direction. If someone from engineering or sales or management can update a help desk ticket from within the applications they use every day, instead of having to go into some new application, they are more likely to actually do it. Many of these applications, including Zendesk, already had APIs that made it relatively easy to integrate into other software. Some already have integrations baked in - Rypple, for example, already integrates with Pivotal Tracker. But it's good to see a cross-company initiative like this that will make it easier for companies to create new integrations. Photo by Discuss 
 | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | |  Accounting juggernaut Intuit has made some significant enhancements to its online accounting services and will announce today a series of new apps and partner supplying vendors. The Intuit Partner Platform and Intuit Anywhere SaaS solutions will make it easier for small businesses to extend their existing QuickBooks accounting software tools by federating user's identity across participating vendors.
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 Similar to how Facebook Connect works, once a user logs into any online QuickBooks account, they can elect to share their accounting data with a number of third party products, including Bill.com, Freshbooks.com, Salesforce.com, Mavenlink.com and others. "We established the Intuit Partner Platform to give developers easy-to-use tools to access the critical data stored in QuickBooks and QuickBooks Online so they can create innovative offerings for our 5 million customers," said Alex Chriss, director of the Intuit Partner Platform. Currently, the online apps store has more than 100 apps from both Inuit and third-party providers, but until today there was no easy way to share data across the apps. That has changed, and Intuit has crafted a common data structure that its partners can access. Given that there are more than four million desktop QuickBooks users, the opportunity is large. Intuit Anywhere will make this possible by having a set of tools for app developers to incorporate widgets into their app's workflow, so that customers can authenticate themselves to their QuickBooks data using a single sign-on ID.
There are a few barriers, however. First, not all four million desktop users are online users. To take advantage of the new services, a desktop user would have to sign up for an online account and transfer their desktop data to the cloud. However many users, like myself, are running outdated versions of software that can't interact with the online services and need to upgrade to at least 2010 versions of QuickBooks to be able to first transfer their accounting information to the cloud. Second, not all of the apps available online have been set up yet for federation and data sharing: expect this to take some time as the app developers update their versions. Several of them were announced by Intuit that are available today, including Bill.com, Concur, eBay, FreshBooks, Mavenlink and MethodCRM.com. Finally, the federated identity does bring some complexity along with the ease of sharing information, and app developers will have to learn these programming interfaces. To that end, Intuit will host an IPP CloudJam at its Mountain View, Calif. headquarters on Aug. 9 - 10. Developers will be able to learn more about Intuit Anywhere and spend time coding alongside the Intuit Partner Platform team. And the company is in the process of judging entries for its Apps Showcase to be held August 11th, where it will award $100,000 in prizes to the best apps. Discuss 
 | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | |  There was a lot of buzz prior to today's announcements at WWDC about the deals that Apple had reportedly struck with the major record labels. Even before any Apple executives took the stage, many industry observers had crowned Apple the heir apparent to music in the cloud, decreeing that its offerings would surely trump those recently announced by Google and Amazon.
But now that the dust has settled and the glimmer has faded from today's keynote at WWDC, we have to ask, has Apple really triumphed here? Did we see the future of digital music unveiled onstage? Sponsor
 What Apple Announced There are several pieces to the Apple and iTunes music strategy going forward, including the following: - The introduction of iCloud: Free (yay!) as part of iOS 5, iCloud will allow users to give users access to their music (and other files) across devices, including iPhones, iPads, iPod Touches, Macs and PCs.
- iTunes in the Cloud: As part of iCloud, users will be able to buy music through iTunes and have it stored in the cloud.
- WiFi Syncing: Again, as part of iOS 5, devices will be able to sync over wireless and your iDevice will sync and backup to the iCloud without your having to plug in an annoying white cord.
- iTunes Match: This new service, announced as the famous "one more thing" at today's keynote, will allow users to store their music in the cloud, even if they haven't purchased their music from iTunes. If iTunes scans your library and finds a match, it will make that song available through iCloud, for $25 a year. Says Apple "all the music iTunes matches plays back at 256-Kbps iTunes Plus quality - even if your original copy was of lower quality."
"This Changes Everything!" - Except Not Really At first blush, the thought of having your entire music collection available through iCloud sounded like an amazingly awesome deal. And for those of us who have amassed large record collections outside of the iTunes marketplace, it felt as though we were being pardoned for sins against the $.99 download - whether we came across our mp3s through ripping, legal filesharing, or piracy. But it's important to note that Apple's new offer does not involve music streaming. True, you can have your music collection synced across devices (up to 10 of them). But you will still have to download the music you want to play on to your iPhone or iPad or iPod Touch or Mac. You won't be able to access your entire collection and randomly shuffle between all the glorious gigabytes. And so Google and Amazon breathe a sigh of relief, because when it comes to music storage in the cloud, Apple's offering is "nice, but not revolutionary," as Wired's Eliot van Buskirk observes. Google offers streaming (via the Web, for free, for some of your collection) but no marketplace. Amazon offers streaming (via the Web, for a cost per GB) and a marketplace. Apple offers storage (cheaper than Amazon's) and one helluva marketplace - but no streaming. In other words, music in the cloud is still very much up for grabs. The Future's So Bright, I Gotta... There are at least 2 camps when it comes to music. The first has amassed a sizable music collection and, whether it's all digitized or not, wants to be able to to tap into those songs and listen to them anytime, anywhere. The second is less concerned with music ownership and is content to subscribe to some of the latest music services. It's the benefit of "anytime, anywhere" without the burdens of ownership, without worrying about buying new shelves to hold your records or more storage space to hold the mp3s. The problem faced by the first camp - the one that admittedly I find myself in - is that that collection of music is so large and eclectic that it's impossible to put on an iPhone or iPad and if stored locally takes up a goodly portion of a PC hard drive. If you store it externally, there's always the problem of syncing and access and streaming. I think Apple believes that it's targeting that market with its announcement today. Your digital music can now be stored in the cloud and you can choose to download songs and playlists as you deem fit. But as EchoNest's Paul Lamere points out, "This is not the iCloud I'm looking for." Like many, Lamere believes that the future lies in subscription music services, and he sees Apple's decision to build simply a glorified music locker as a failure of imagination. With the record labels willing to make a deal (or so it seemed), why do we not have an iTunes subscription option? After all, more and more, people are turning to subscription services like Rdio or MOG to fulfill their music-listening needs. People without a vast record collection (and some who are sick of having to purchase new copies every time the music format du jour changes) are opting to rent rather than own their songs. (See Sarah Perez's recent article on whether or not these sorts of services are "worth it".) I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For Apple's promise of amnesty for non-iTunes purchases may appear to be a nod towards those of us who've acquired our music (cough) elsewhere, but I have to wonder if the same sorts of complaints about subscription services - they don't have my eclectic, hipster tastes, man! - will also plague iTunes Match. With all the buzz leading up to WWDC, I think many music fans were waiting for Apple to announce something that really changed the game when it came to our music experiences. It doesn't seem as though we heard that on stage today. Discuss 
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