Qhub Gets Badges
Remember Qhub? It’s the service that lets you create your very own Q&A website. Q&A is hot right now for some reason. Apparently, people like asking questions. With the plethora of related services that have popped up recently, Qhub has decided to take a page from Foursquare’s playbook and add badges. It’s pretty simple: you earn badges for being a useful community member. Don’t act like you don’t suddenly have an urge to create or join a Qhub so you can earn badges.
Echo Gains High Profile Customers
Echo, realtime reactions engine formerly known as JS-Kit, bagged a few more customers today. The Washington Post, Newsweek, Slate, Time, Forbes, AMC, Morningstar and Sports Illustrated all signed up. Echo says that they are pushing 400 million realtime streams, not even including these new customers. Looks like Echo is making big moves and you can join the party for as little as $99/year, which is probably why your average blogger sticks with Disqus.
Diaspora Raises Over $115,000
In response to the shenanigans going on with Facebook recently, many have called for a completely private alternative. Yes, people are looking for a private social network to replace Facebook. They want an open and transparent closed and private social network. I could make puns on this all day, but money talks and four New York University students have raised $115,000 for their Diaspora project. The concern here is that Diaspora is not an original idea and definitely not the only game in town. As a matter of fact, OneSocialWeb and others are much farther ahead. The real question is, who is going to bother installing and running these networks? Are you looking to run your own Facebook?
Secret Telecom Anti-Net Neutrality Plan a Fake
While many are still unclear as to exactly what this net neutrality thing is all about, others are pushing relentlessly for one side or the other. The Center for American Progress dropped a bombshell on their Think Progress blog which detailed the telco’s secret plans for fighting net neutrality. The problem is that the PowerPoint document and the entire Net Brutality campaign was created by a group of students for a competition, not by the telecom companies. The one American member of the six-person team says they had no contact with and received no assistance from any telecom companies.