Category: Tech

Klout, the gold standard as far as measuring influence on Twitter, will begin branching out from Twitter by launching the Facebird experiment later today. Facebird will be available the Klout Labs segment of the site. Klout has come a long way since we first covered it back in 2008. The site is much more polished and they’ve added better visual cues and badges to make it easier to understand what your Klout score means. Facebird will add another dimension to the service by letting you find influential Twitter users to connect to based on your Facebook interests.

Facebird works by using Facebook Connect to access your Likes. Using the information about all the stuff you’ve expressed an interest in, Klout pulls up relevant influential Twitter users for you to browse through. It’s not just that simple, though. Klout defines 16 separate classes of users that describe their style of influence based on how they use Twitter. This goes a step further in helping you find the right people to follow. For example, you may not be looking for an expert on your favorite band or someone who talks about your favorite show, but you want to follow someone who just shares a lot of content related to something you like. In essence, you can find people who share your interests and also use Twitter the way you would like them to.

This is definitely a step in a new direction for Klout that could make the service much more useful across the board. Klout could put themselves in a position to build your social graph for you across all of your social media services based on all the things your actually interested in. This could make our lives much simpler and help cut out a lot of the noise we’re used to seeing. Most new services that you join offer the ability to connect with your friends from other services, but this isn’t always the best strategy. Your interests will mostly stay the same across the board, but that doesn’t mean you always want to connect with the same people.

Producteev is a task management solution born from the frustrations the team had with other available products and services. Many users trying to get their productivity game on point have run into the same issues. Some interfaces are entirely too complicated. You are limited in how you can access or add tasks. The application doesn’t connect with any of your existing tools. The list of grievances goes on and Producteev aims to address most of them out of the gate.

We wanted a fully-featured, social networking aware task management application with a user interface that made sense, something we didn’t have to devote a couple of hours to learning to use. We wanted to be able to get a clear overview of the status of any project, anytime and from any place. We needed to be able to collaborate effortlessly. We wanted to be able to update project information in many different ways : via email, online, mobile, IM… and we needed to be able to share information in real time with all our team members, no matter how computer-savvy they are … or aren’t.

We couldn’t find that perfect application, so we decided to build it.

You can add tasks on the Productive site, via Instant Messaging, or by email. Given the goals for Producteev to be ubiquitous solution for talk management, it’s interesting that they have not included any ability to add tasks via SMS as that would be the least common denominator. Android, iPhone, and Mac desktop applications are in the works, but some users may still be left out in the cold.

To set up the proper connections, you need to go to Workspace Settings on the bottom left and navigate to the Communication Preferences tab. Don’t bother with the Settings link on the top right near your name as that only leads you to your account settings.

To add tasks via IM, be sure to connect your instant messenger service of choice and then follow the directions that show up for adding Producteev as a contact. For GTalk, you have to add ‘improducteev@gmail.com,’ for example.

Adding tasks via email is as simple as composing or forwarding an email to task@producteev.com. No matter which method you choose, you can also tag tasks by adding a hashtag to include a date or direct the task to a specific workspace.

While Producteev doesn’t yet meet it’s goal of being a complete solution for task management that is available everywhere you are, it does pack a bunch of project and team management features that make it worth a look.

• Shared Workspaces – Workspaces allow you to separate tasks into groups or lists. You can use them to manage multiple projects and share them with family, clients, or colleagues. Useful for just about any use case.
• Automatic Prioritization – Producteev watches how you work and figures out what you need to do next based on your activity. Just check your Hot! filter.
• Google Integration – Sync your tasks up with your Google Calendar. Add a gadget to Gmail or iGoogle.
• Producteev Academy – Kick your team into high gear by adding an element of competition and fun. The Academy adds a social gaming aspect to your task management so that team members can earn badges and compete to be the most productive.

Producteev is still a young application with a lot of potential. In such a crowded space as the productivity game, their ultimate goal is what will help them stand out. What do you think of Producteev?

via ReadWriteWeb

Smokescreen Brings Flash to the iPhone/iPad…Kinda

Smokescreen is a new open-source project that makes it possible to do Flash without the Flash plug-in. It works by converting the Flash SWF file into Javascript/HTML5 on-the-fly. This means that you can view Flash content on devices that otherwise don’t support it, like the iPhone and iPad. Because all the work is being done by the browser, the process is very resource intensive and can be a bit choppy on some content. This is still a new project, though. I think we can expect to see improvements. Especially given the current climate around Flash support and HTML5. Check out the demo for yourself. (via Engadget)

Google Ditches Windows to Improve Security

Google has decided that Windows will no longer be allowed. For most of it’s 10,000 employees, Mac and Linux are now the only options. For those who really love the Windows OS, they will need permission from a CIO or other executive to use it. This comes after the China hacking attacks back in January of this year. Some have said that this move is bogus and won’t actually protect the company from attacks like the one in January, but sources say that the China hack simply stirred up an existing movement for Google to run it’s business using it’s own products. We must also remember that Google Chrome OS will be coming later this year and competes directly with Windows.

Jobs Spills the Beans at D8

Apple CEO Steve Jobs took the stage at D8 and revealed some pretty interesting tidbits. The overall idea that he repeatedly returned to was that Apple is just trying to make a good product. This was part of his answer to a good number of questions, including whether Apple would remove Google from the iPhone/iPad (No), whether Jobs felt that Apple was in a platform war (Nope), and even in relation to the exclusion of Flash. He said Flash simply doesn’t make a good product and that’s why it was left out. He also mentioned that he never had beef with Adobe, but they kept talking and he couldn’t let it slide.

We didn’t set out to have a war over Flash. We made a technical decision. And it wasn’t until the iPad that Adobe raised a stink. They came after us….That’s why I wrote “Thoughts on Flash.”…We were getting tired of being trashed by Adobe in the press.

WWDC Begins Next Week

Apple’s Worldwide Developer Conference begins next week. With everything that been going on in the tech sphere recently, it will definitely be interesting to see what Apple will announce. TNW offers up 5 Solid Bets for what we should expect. Arstechnica will be live blogging the event. All Things D suggests that we may see nothing much at all since the new iPhone was already leaked. Stay tuned here as we will be sharing highlights from the event.

Twitter Forces Password Updates

For some odd reason, Twitter has pushed out a bunch of password update emails. This was surprising to me since I rarely ever go to the site itself to login. I stick to one client and don’t give out my login/pw to third party services (they should be using OAuth anyway). This indicates to me that something more sinister than simple phishing could be going on, but it could also just be Twitter being extremely over protective. In any case, be careful out there.

“Password resets are a standard operating procedure if we see anything even close to fishy related to an account in an effort to keep people safe”.

Google Moderator is a feature that has allowed some pretty big names to have discussions with their audience without chaos ensuing. It provides a controlled environment where viewers on YouTube can ask questions and, if their question is popular among other Youtubers, get it voted up and answered. It’s like your own personal version of Digg…with video. Now, it’s available to all users.

Moderator is a versatile, social platform that allows you to solicit ideas or questions on any topic, and have the community vote the best ones up to the top in real-time.

Moderator was used in discussions on YouTube with Barack Obama and Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper. It’s also been used to facilitate discussion about the future of the African continent and who is the best slam dunker not in the NBA. While YouTube has made updates to the commenting system to make it more manageable and inviting, it’s still difficult to have any type of meaningful discussion within the comments. The noise easily drowns out the signal. Google moderator turns the tables in your favor.

Your first step is to add the Moderator module to your YouTube Channel. Just open the Modules drop down from your channel page and check the Moderator box (don’t forget to Save Changes).

The next step is to create your first series. This refers to the entire discussion thread. Your Title is where you ask your community for questions, ideas, or suggestions on some topic. The Description allows you to got a little more in-depth as to what you want from your audience. You can optionally include a link to a YouTube video here if you are more comfortable expressing yourself on camera or need to attach related video content. One thing to note is that you can actually specify whether users will submit mostly questions, ideas, or suggestions. You can also specify start and end times for the series if it coincides with an actual event or you just want to limit responses.

Each user response can also have a video link attached. There is no way to comment on individual post, which helps to keep things clean and focused. The only way a viewer can give feedback is by giving an item a thumbs up/down. Those items that get the most positive attention float to the top so that you can provide a video response.

Besides being a great way to get user feedback on serious issues, this is a great feature for YouTube personalities that thrive by entertaining or helping their audience. It will be easier to crowdsource your audience. Whether it’s a certain song they want to see performed, some problem that needs a solution, or some type of challenge they want to see completed. A great way to keep the good content flowing.

How will you use Google Moderator?

Microsoft Tag is an interesting way to add a new dimension to your current business. By creating a tag, you can connect your audience in the real world to a virtual experience via their mobile phone. Creating tags is free and scanning tags is possible from just about any phone with a camera.

We’ve previously discussed what place mobile barcode technology has in the future. It’s obvious that it’s useful, but we haven’t seen many popular services or brands take advantage of it. Microsoft may change that by putting a familiar name and some free tools behind tagging technology.

With Tag, you can connect your brick-and-mortar business with the infinite possibilities of the digital world. Rather than hoping potential customers remember your website or relying on the telephone game that word-of-mouth sometimes becomes, you can provide a direct conduit to your product or service. Tags turn inanimate objects into interactive experiences that let your products sell themselves.

Creating Your Tag

Your first step is to actually create a tag. This is simply the bit of information that you want to give people access to once they scan the tag.

• Tag Title – This is the name of the tag
• Tag Type – You can choose URL, Free Text, vCard, or Dialer
• Tag Notes – A few details about your tag (I don’t believe these are shared with the user)
• Start Date – When your tag should go live
• End Date – When you tag expires

Depending on which tag type you choose, you will be able to add additional data to your tag. For instance, the vCard type lets you upload a vCard to distribute and the Dialer type lets you specify a phone number that the user will be connected to.

The most popular option here might be the URL because it can possibly provide the richest digital experience, but having option to specify Text or connect the user to a phone number expand opportunities without relying on a data plan.

Once you’ve created your tag, the next step is to actually render it. This simply means printing it out for display at your location. All tags should follow the implementation guidelines before rendering so that you can maximize your efforts.

Scanning Tags and Usage Scenarios

The end user simply needs to grab a tag reader and start scanning. Then, the magic happens. Microsoft provides a set of tools that lets you track daily scans, so you have a way to track your results. Here are a few scenarios where Tags might be useful:

An automobile company might want to place a Tag on a billboard as a way to advertise their latest models to potential customers. Passengers and pedestrians could scan the tag as they pass by.

A film production company might put Tags pointing to a movie trailer on a poster at a movie theater, guiding the customer to more extensive information and interviews with the movie stars.

A video game company makes special custom Tags to be used at its trade show booth, allowing gamers to scan the Tag for custom in-game gear or clothing.

A sports drink company might choose to display a series of Tags for a product on the jumbotron in a stadium during a game, providing the fans with a collection of “secret phrases” throughout the game that enable free products or discount coupons.

What do you think about Microsoft Tag? What scenarios would you use it in.

Zynga has inked a five-year deal with Facebook in attempts to patch up their strained relationship. The details of the deal are not available yet, but the negotiations to get there show two companies definitely at odds with each other. While both companies have benefited from their close relationship up to this point, it seems that the Zynga gaming platform has grown beyond simply being a part of the Facebook experience.

Games are an easy way to make any site sticky and keep users coming back. Services like Foursquare, 12seconds, robux generator and Glue have shown how integrating some level of gaming, achievements, and competition, can help your user base grow. Facebook games are a huge part of the site’s attraction as many users are mostly there to play Cafe World, Sorority Life, and Farmville.

Sources say that Facebook was pushing for a long-term deal with Zynga, but the terms were in Facebook’s favor. One major sticking point was Facebook forcing Zynga and other apps to use Facebook Credits as their only virtual currency. Not only that, but Facebook takes 30% cut off the top for Facebook Credits transactions. This is bordering on robbery for Zynga, who already showed they can make huge sums of money in virtual goods on their own when they raised over $1 million for Haiti.

Even after both parties threatened to part ways, they eventually came to an agreement. The question is whether they have patched things up, or are following the old saying of keeping friends close and enemies closer. At this point, it doesn’t seem that Zynga really needs Facebook’s cooperation to be successful. It actually seems that Facebook might be more dependent on Zynga’s games than Zynga is on Facebook’s social network. In either case, both parties still gain some benefit by being connected. Facebook gets the benefit of return visitors and a slight influence over Zynga’s direction while Zynga remains entrenched in the hottest social networking site out.

Zynga has already been making moves to exist outside of the Facebook ecosystem. They definitely plan to have their cake and eat it too. They have Farmville.com up and running with plans to launch a social game network called Zynga Live. They have also recently entered into a partnership with Yahoo, which could connect their social gaming platform with 600 million Yahoo users. It’s clear that Zynga’s games won’t be buried somewhere on the site, but will be tightly integrated into most of Yahoo’s current services and probably end up on it’s front page.

The once modest gaming platform is doing big things these days and one thing here is clear: Zynga is playing no games.

Soundation is an application that lets you create music on the web. There is no software to download or hardware to install. All you need a browser with Flash support and you can start making music immediately. The Soundation online sequencer provides 11 real-time effects, 3 synthesizers, and a drum machine. There is an introductory library of over 400 sounds, samples, and loops to create your projects with. If this isn’t enough to satisfy your creativity, Soundation provides an integrated Sound Shop where you can buy more sounds.

Adding Sounds

Getting started with Soundation is simple. You don’t even need an account. Simply fire up The Studio and you’re good to go. The interface is similar to other audio programs you may have come across, with a list of audio channels on the left, menu at the top, and transport controls at the bottom. To add audio to your project, browse through the library to find what you need and drag it to an audio channel. Samples are organized by tempo and genre.

The waveform for the selected loop is now displayed on the track. You can extend the loop by dragging the top-right corner to fill out your track. This doesn’t stretch the loop, but duplicates it to fill the space. This makes sure your project stays on beat. If you want to actually stretch the loop and change it’s tempo, drag from the bottom-right corner.

You can drag clips around between channels and within the same channel. There is a snap-to-grid feature that helps make sure everything lines up. Delete a clip by selecting at and pressing Del or Backspace on your keyboard. There is also an Undo feature accessible from the Edit menu or by pressing Ctrl-Z.

Adding Effects

Each audio channel can have multiple effects added to it. This makes it easy to add compression to your drums for more punch or reverb to a melody to give it some depth. Just click the FX button (next to Solo and Mute), click the ‘+’ symbol, and choose the effect your wish to add. This will pop up another window which lets you optionally tweak the effect to your liking. Click the FX button again to hide the list of existing effects, tweak your existing effects, or add more effects.

Adding Channels and Instruments

Add additional audio channels by clicking the ‘+’ symbol at the bottom left of the studio. The button just to the right here adds an instrument channel. This allows you to add a few instruments, including a drum machine, to your project. While you can add instruments to your project and play them using the virtual keyboard, it doesn’t seem that you can record yet. Keep in mind that you can only play the drums by clicking on the first set of keys on the virtual keyboard, the corresponding keys on your keyboard don’t work. Other instruments work fine in this respect.

Saving Your Work

Once you’ve got a hot beat going, you have a few ways to keep it. The down-arrow symbol on the bottom right of the studio will let you mixdown and download your project as a WAV file. More interesting is the ability to publish your project to the web. This gives you a link that you can share so that others can hear what you have done. Publishing to the web also provides you with an embed code to share on other websites. The last option is to save the project on your local hard drive in Soundation’s native format. This is best if you plan to change things later.

Soundation is obviously a work in progress, but you can still use it in it’s current form to create some advanced music. It’s easy to use even for amateurs. As long as you understand the basics of music and know how to drag and drop, you will be fine. You could use Soundation to easily create original music for all types of projects. Once you get tired of the 400 available sounds, go ahead and buy more.

Here is a sample project I threw together real quick. What do you think about Soundation?

As far as fonts go, the web is a pretty boring place. Choices are limited by many factors and most web designers rely on a few standard rules when picking typefaces. Google aims to change all that with it’s Fonts API and Font Directory. The Google Font Directory allows you to browse a directory of attractive fonts for use on your site and the Google Fonts API makes it simple to include those fonts on your page.

One of the primary problems with using nice fonts on a web page is that those fonts are probably not free for your use. A font is just like a photo or piece of music in that you need permission to use and/or distribute it. With the Google Fonts directory, you now have access to fonts which are free to use and also pleasing to the eye.

The other side of this is that designers often have to guess at what fonts a specific visitor has available. Unlike photos and other embedded media, fonts are usually stored locally on a visitor’s computer. Rather than making assumptions about what a visitor has available, the Google Fonts API makes the fonts from the Fonts directory available to your page with a few simple lines of code. This means that you can reliably predict what your site will look like for most users.

If you are interested in seeing these fancy new fonts, you don’t actually have to do anything. If you’re a web designer looking to implement these fonts in your projects, the process is quite simple.

• Request the relevant stylesheet from Google for the font you would like to include:

  <link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="http://fonts.googleapis.com/css?family=Font+Name">

• Reference the included font as you would any other with in your CSS like this:

  CSS selector { font-family: 'Font Name', serif;
  }

  or like this:

  <div style="font-family: 'Font Name', serif;">Your text</div>

Font Name is the name of the font you’ve chosen from the Google Font Directory. CSS Selector would be the name of a particular HTML element, a class, or unique id you’re trying to style. The Google Font API will have a downside as some “web designers” get carried away and use as many fonts as possible on the same page. On the bright side, this should make the web a slightly better place by making it easier to include clean and professional fonts on any site. This is only a basic example. For full details and other options available in including fonts, check the quick start guide.

WWDC 2010

The Apple Worldwide Developers Conference kicks off on the 7th of June. Rumors already circulated that Steve Ballmer would be speaking about Visual Studio and Silverlight, but these were found to be false. All signs point to the new iPhone being officially released after getting leaked all over the blogosphere. The question is, what new features will the new iPhone bring? Android has been making big moves, so Apple is going to have to come hard. I’m sure they have a few tricks up their sleeves.

Quit Facebook Day

Fed up with the way that Facebook has man-handled their privacy, a few brave individuals have committed themselves to quitting Facebook entirely. Currently, there are about 23,107 angry Facebook users who have committed to quitting the popular social networking site on Monday, May 31st. For this group, quitting Facebook isn’t just about privacy:

For a lot of people, quitting Facebook revolves around privacy. This is a legitimate concern, but we also think the privacy issue is just the symptom of a larger set of issues. The cumulative effects of what Facebook does now will not play out well in the future, and we care deeply about the future of the web as an open, safe and human place. We just can’t see Facebook’s current direction being aligned with any positive future for the web, so we’re leaving.

There are a few things to consider here:

• Facebook has millions of users and, while they may act apologetic, losing a few thousand won’t hurt them.
• If you are hesitant to delete your Facebook, you’re already hooked. It’s crack. Quitting will not be easy.
• There are no alternatives, despite what some may say. They are either too obscure or too much of a pain for the average Facebook user to set up.
• I would bet half of the users signed up to quit won’t actually pull the trigger on Monday.

Google Reader Goes Public and Ping.fm Gets Buzz

Not only is Buzz deeply connected to your Gmail, but it also has ties to Google Reader. Up until now, comments on Reader shares were restricted, requiring you to manually choose who could comment. This restriction killed discussion and turned many potential users off. Now, anyone can leave comments on your Reader shares if you so choose. This feature is opt-out, but I doubt we’ll see any user backlash.

Another boost for Buzz is Ping.fm support. This opens up the door for much more activity and discussion on Buzz as more users will opt to participate there. Now, if only Google would give Buzz it’s own domain and get it out of my Gmail.

WeReward (say that 5x fast) launched today at TechCrunch Disrupt and wants to pay you cash to check-in at local businesses and venues. WeRewards comes from IZEA, the company behind Sponsored Tweets and PayPerPost. Not a shocker that they are moving to monetize the location game as well. I know, you’re looking back and thinking about all the money you missed out on by checking into Foursquare for free.

One smart move by WeReward is that they are not reinventing the wheel when it comes to being a location-based mobile network. Instead, they are simply piggy-backing off of Foursquare’s successful model. When you check-in to WeReward, you can automatically check-in to Foursquare as well.

WeReward works just like any other location-based app. You search for somewhere you would like to check-in and can optionally add a comment along with your check-in. The only difference is that you are also claiming points that ultimately translate into cash.

With all the spoofing and shenanigans that have gone on with Foursquare check-ins in the past, WeRewards has put in some safeguards to avoid being ripped off. Verification doesn’t even depend on your phone’s GPS abilities. In order to collect your points, you have to attach an actual photo from the venue. This can be a photo of you at the place or a photo of your receipt. The details are decided on by the advertiser or business. Once the advertiser has verified your check-in, you can receive your payout via PayPal.

In addition to deciding how you prove you’re actually at a location, the advertiser/business also decides how much you get paid. Each point equates to 1 cent, which offers businesses a lot of room for experimenting. Domino’s is currently offering 25 points (25 cents) for each check-in.

Could this be the future of location-based services? Possibly. While visiting business and earning badges is fun, who doesn’t want their social life to become self-sufficient? What if you could pay for a night out by sharing photos of how much fun you had? Of course, 1 cent payouts are nowhere near enough to take us there, but it’s a start.

Looking at the landscape of paid posts and tweets, It doesn’t seem far-fetched that high-profile people could earn a nice chunk of change this way. Some venues already pay celebs just to show up, why not web celebrities as well?

The Justice Department has become suspicious of Apple’s sales techniques for selling music online. More specifically, they are investigating Apple’s dealings with major music labels and Internet music companies. This comes according to several people with knowledge of discussions around the investigation. The investigation is just getting started, but those aware of what’s going on say it revolves around the broad dynamics of selling digital music.

One specific instance that keeps coming up according to sources is Apple’s behavior regarding Amazon digital music sales. Some allege that Apple used its dominant position in the online music market to influence music labels and dissuade them from giving Amazon exclusive access to unreleased music. Most who have said anything about the matter only did so in exchange for anonymity. This is a delicate situation that could cause a major stir in the online music market. Apple, Amazon, and a deputy director at the Justice Department Gina Talamona all declined to comment.

Back in March, Amazon ran a promotion called the “MP3 Daily Deal.” It offered consumers the chance to buy select music a day before its actual release. In order to make this promotion work, Amazon needed labels to give it exclusive rights to these songs for one day. According to the report by Billboard magazine, Apple urged labels to avoid this promotion. They even went as far as withdrawing marketing support from iTunes for those who did participate with Amazon.

“Certainly if the Justice Department is getting involved, it raises the possibility of potential serious problems down the road for Apple,” said Daniel L. Brown, an antitrust lawyer at Sheppard Mullin Richter & Hampton. “Without knowing what acts or practices they are targeting, it’s difficult to say exactly how big a problem this is,” Mr. Brown added. “But it’s probably something Apple is already concerned about.”

Apple has grown from a digital music underdog in 2001, to an Internet media juggernaut in 2010. They are also being investigated in a few other areas, including hiring practices and iPhone development rules. While some may say that this exclusive world of media created by Apple via iTunes is necessary to provide a certain level of quality, it’s also obvious that it gives Apple a lot of power. They control pricing, presentation, and the relationship with music consumers. If these antitrust investigations turn up anything significant, it could bring major changes to the online music and media world.

Audiobox.fm is an end-to-end solution for making sure you have access to your digital music collection wherever you are. Upload your music to the cloud and play it from just about any computer via the browser. There is nothing to download or install. This comes in handy for a variety of situations.

Once you’ve created your account, your first step will probably be to upload some music. A free account will give you access to 1GB of storage. This is probably more than enough for most people, but it depends on what you’re using AudioBox.fm for. One of the primary applications for the service is probably to give you a simple way to play your music on systems you don’t own and can’t install stuff on. This applies for many cubicle workers and people who just don’t have their own computer.

Upload music to your library from wherever you are. Play that music wherever you are. Everything happens inside the browser, which is the beauty of the entire system. There are no streaming limits, so you can listen to your tracks all day and all night with no interruptions. Another important point about the streaming setup is that your music is streamed at the rate you uploaded it. Many other services convert the stream to a lower bit rate at the expense of sound quality in order to save bandwidth.

AudioBox.fm attempts to take advantage of the latest browser technologies. Primarily, this means HTML5 and AudioBox.fm says they’ve built the best player around. In the event that your browser is old or just doesn’t support HTML5, Audiobox.fm will fall back on its Flash origins. Your plays can easily be scrobbled via Last.fm and you can share whatever you’re playing on Twitter.

Once you’ve got your feet wet with the free plan, you can always upgrade to get additional storage and features. Plans start at $3.99/month, which gets you 11GB of storage and access to your AudioBox.fm via a mobile device. You also gain access to the Library Manager so that you can actually edit the metadata on your songs. The other two plans are 7.99 and 9.99. These get you more storage, but you may be interested in other features like Downloading your music and the ability to upload formats other than mp3.

While we are seeing the cloud explode, it seems that playing your music there is not an easy application. One service, Lala, that did do this is gone and it was still not really your music that was playing, but a possibly lower quality copy. AudioBox.fm is offering the real deal at pretty affordable prices. I doubt even a true iTunes in the cloud will provide this much flexibility.

What do you think about AudioBox.fm?

Amar’e Stoudemire is pushing the boundaries as a social media entrepreneur, becoming the first celebrity to reward his fans by using group buying. Since the 20th of May, Stoudemire has offered group buys on playoff tickets for Game 3 and Game 4 in Phoenix, AZ on his Facebook page. This is a very creative way to not only reward fans, but to create a viral effect within the social media community and beyond. “

“As an agency that specializes in talent management and online direct marketing, we needed a unique solution to offer the products and experiences Amar’e believes in to his fans. This initiative puts Amar’e at the forefront of celebrity direct marketing,” said Anthony Rodriguez, CEO, Lineage Interactive.

Stoudemire has created a partnership with Atcost.com and Razorgator Tickets in order to sell tickets to fans at a discount. Using Atcost.com, fans can buy the tickets without ever leaving Stoudemire’s page. In addition, fans who share the deal with friends and family get an instant discount. The more you promote the deal, the more money you save on the actual purchase. Atcost is the only group buying platform that offers this ability.

“Group buying is about bringing people together for a collective benefit. Celebrities like Amar’e have vast fan bases that they can directly engage through social media. AtCost’s new partnership with Razorgator Tickets and Amar’e represents a new paradigm in group buying. This is the perfect way to leverage online fan bases to provide value to everyone,” said Michael Reinstein, CEO, AtCost.com

Social media and social networking have almost become standard for any marketing campaign. This is true for major brands and corporations as well as individuals and artists. The focus is to connect directly with your fans and potential customers in hopes of leveraging that community for profit. Most campaigns seem to forget that customers need incentives in order to be active within the community and/or move forward in the sales funnel.

This group buying technique fits perfectly, providing fans with an incentive to spread the word about what they’re purchasing. “Viral” as it relates to social media is a tired buzz word, but it’s still a major component in achieving success. Giving back to your community is also extremely important and Amar’e seems to understand this completely when he says, “I chose to partner with AtCost.com and Razorgator Tickets because they can offer my fans the best experience possible. I thought this would be a great way to give back to the fans that have supported the team all season and get them out for Games 3 and 4. I also look forward to using this new technology to offer my fans additional group buying opportunities.”

Mayor Bloomberg showed up at TechCrunch Disrupt unannounced to share an important contest for NYC and Silicon Alley. Bloomberg will be giving My City Way $300,000 in funding to support development MCW’s travel discovery platform. My City Way provides a simple way to access different categories of venues throughout the city. This includes dining, nightlife, safety, transit, hotels, and more. Their flagship product is the NYC Way application for iPhone/iPod and Android. It won three awards at Mayor Bloomberg’s NYC BigApps Competition and has been downloaded over 300,000 times on iTunes.

My City Way was named a Top 5 travel application by Fox News. It serves as a “location-aware guidebook” that will soon be available not only in NYC, but in over 40 cities around the world. Each city-specific guide is like “50 hyper-local apps rolled into one.” Rather than simply touring a city and checking in at the places you visit, My City Way will help you figure out where you want to go in the first place. It has been tailored for use by tourists and locals, turning your mobile device into a city discovery gateway.

DataRockit, a sponsor of the TechCrunch event, is the leader in data services technologies and powers some of the largest online information applications in the world. Their database holds about 3.1 billion current records related to consumer, criminal, sex-offender, and real estate data. DataRockit opened up their database to developers, posing the challenge to to come up with ways to create safety for communities. My City Way took on the challenge and attempted to incorporate the data sets into their application during the hack a day overnight event this past weekend.

When it came down to the wire, they were not able to integrate everything, but the founder plans to continue the work they began. This data will be included in both their iPhone and iPad apps to provide features related to consumer issues, crime within the city, real estate and sex offenders within the city.

The contest terms are as follows:

• Contestants can be individuals or teams
• No cost to enter and no purchase required
• Proposals must include:

1. Full description of application, its uses, capabilities and function
2. Wireframes or mock-ups
3. At least 2 potential user scenarios
4. Proposals must be sent to disrupt@datarockit.net by June 7, 2010

The winning proposal will be announced on June 14, 2010, the final day of New York’s Internet Week. At that time, the selected individual or team will have until September 1, 2010 to fully build out a prototype model of their application. The partnership between DataRockit and the winning application will include:

• Data necessary to run the application
• Data infrastructure and hosting servers
• Developer support and access to DataRockit’s development team

In an update about the state of the Twitter platform on their blog today, Twitter has slipped in a section devoted to the demise of paid tweet services. These include the likes of Ad.ly, Magpie, Sponsored Tweets, and others. Many Twitter users are probably rejoicing at this announcement as paid tweets have been a point of contention for quite some time. Other users, including myself, are anticipating the end of an income stream. Who is most concerned with this announcement? The companies that have built themselves on this concept of paid tweets. What will they do to survive?

As our primary concern is the long-term health and value of the network, we have and will continue to forgo near-term revenue opportunities in the service of carefully metering the impact of Promoted Tweets on the user experience. It is critical that the core experience of real-time introductions and information is protected for the user and with an eye toward long-term success for all advertisers, users and the Twitter ecosystem. For this reason, aside from Promoted Tweets, we will not allow any third party to inject paid tweets into a timeline on any service that leverages the Twitter API. We are updating our Terms of Service to articulate clearly what we mean by this statement, and we encourage you to read the updated API Terms of Service to be released shortly.

Why are we prohibiting these kinds of ads? First, third party ad networks are not necessarily looking to preserve the unique user experience Twitter has created. They may optimize for either market share or short-term revenue at the expense of the long-term health of the Twitter platform. For example, a third party ad network may seek to maximize ad impressions and click through rates even if it leads to a net decrease in Twitter use due to user dissatisfaction.

Secondly, the basis for building a lasting advertising network that benefits users should be innovation, not near-term monetization. Twitter is uniquely dependent on and responsible for the long-term health and value of the platform. Accordingly, a necessary focus of Promoted Tweets is to explore ways to create value for our users. Third party ad networks may be optimized for near-term monetization at the expense of innovating or creating the best user experience. We believe it is our responsibility to encourage creative product development and to curb practices that compromise innovation.

To summarize, Twitter believes that the current crop of paid tweet services are short-sighted. They are not innovative and don’t really offer value to Twitter users. It’s easy to see why they may think so as most of these services are working off of the most obvious monetization strategy, charging advertisers to rent a user’s Twitter followers. Twitter also points out that these services are not necessarily concerned with the success of Twitter itself. They are simply focused on making a quick buck off of the popular microblogging service.

To be clear, Twitter is not simply placing a ban on any third-party making money from it, but are specifically concerned with the paid tweets model. They are not targeting applications or services that simply place ads around Twitter content. It will be interesting to see which services will be able to shift gears and innovate their way out of this. While it seems like all is lost, there is still room for success. For example, MyLikes already allows you to share sponsored likes via an embed code that you can place on any website.

Were you making money from paid tweets? How does this announcement effect you?

Editor’s Note: We consulted our staff writer/IP lawyer Latoicha Givens for a more in depth analysis of the situation and her conclusion was as follows:

“Basically Twitter can change any term or condition of the API rules/terms of service agreement as they see fit.

The https://www.1800lawguys.com/accidents/slip-and-fall-lawyer/ does not require that the injuries be strictly physical, as it is possible that someone also incur financial injuries, such as lost wages or loss of future earnings that stem from their physical injuries. There are many benefits to hiring a personal injury attorney when you’ve been injured in a car accident, especially if your injuries are serious. If you or a loved one has been injured in an auto accident, get help from Car Accident Lawyers Florence, SC.

When the developer becomes a Twitter API developer/user and they acknowledge they have read the Terms of Service Agreement, they are subject to the agreement.

The short and skinny. Twitter is going to roll out their Promoted Tweets Ad program very soon and they do not want to compete with third party ads. They need to gain some control over the advertising because they have to start making money. I am sure they want all the advertising to go through their program so they can become profitable.”

If you want to check out Twitter API Terms of Service Agreement check out the following link: http://dev.twitter.com/pages/api_terms