Marketing exec Ian Schafer has gotten folks talking (in particular, over at Mashable) about his move to sell his Twitter background on eBay. This is clearly an experiment, as much as I like following Ian on Twitter, I doubt his pageviews support anything other than a super endemic, non…
For me, one answer to the Facebook problem was the launch of the platform. That provided cool applications and services that started to feel like publications – Watercooler, Graffiti, etc. And Twitter has so much potential. Perhaps it should launch a platform as well….
Those of you who read this site regularly know I've talked about how much I love Bonnaroo, and how excited I am that the producers of that event (which, yes, I am going to again next week) are producing Outside Lands here in my backyard. I mean, it's only…
Well, more coolness. My company, FM, has struck a deal with the producers of Outside Lands. We are partnering to create a collective, crowdsourced media campfire of sorts before, during, and after the festival. It’s called CrowdFire, and it’s going to be very, very cool. More when we’re ready to talk more about it, but it’s a merging of the human, physical energy of a music festival with the human, virtual energy of conversational media. I’m really stoked to be working with these guys, they are total princes. When work = fun, life is good.
It happens – the phenomenon of similar ideas all hatching at the same time. The latest seems to be synchronous web experiences. I've heard about three or four of them in the past few weeks, the latest being Microsoft's Search Together. From a page explaining the research project: Search,…
Search, of course, has become ubiquitous for enabling users to find Web content, but existing search engines have been designed for use by an individual. Search interfaces don’t support collaborative search. Collaborating on search generally means one person at a keyboard while another makes suggestions, or two people using instant messaging or a phone while each is viewing a Web browser. It can work, but it’s not optimal.
While using SearchTogether, though, users can collaborate locally or at different locations, working in tandem or at different times.
Read MoreOm reports: YouTube’s head of monetization, Shashi Seth, has now left the company to become the chief revenue officer of Menlo Park, Calif.-based startup Cooliris. Om continues: Despite being the largest video-sharing web site, YouTube is still finding it hard to make money. My sources say that YouTube made…
BB notes: Swedish ethnologist Erik Ottoson of Uppsala University studies how people browse at flea markets, wander through malls, window shop, and even dumpster-dive, to understand the psychology of "searching." Specifically, Ottoson focuses on "serendipitous searching," what he defines as "open browsing for anything that awakens the person's interest."…
Swedish ethnologist Erik Ottoson of Uppsala University studies how people browse at flea markets, wander through malls, window shop, and even dumpster-dive, to understand the psychology of “searching.” Specifically, Ottoson focuses on “serendipitous searching,” what he defines as “open browsing for anything that awakens the person’s interest.”
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As Barry Diller (I think) said at D last week – "Oh Icahn, he's just looking to make himself a few hundred million dollars." From the Journal: "It's no longer a mystery to me why Microsoft's offer isn't around," he said. "How can Yahoo keep saying they're willing to…
“It’s no longer a mystery to me why Microsoft’s offer isn’t around,” he said. “How can Yahoo keep saying they’re willing to negotiate and sell the company on the one hand, while at the same time they’re completely sabotaging the process without telling anyone.”
Mr. Icahn said he is convinced that executives of Microsoft, which withdrew its takeover offer last month for Yahoo, no longer trust Mr. Yang and won’t make a new bid — as Mr. Icahn and many investors are hoping for — unless Mr. Yang and the company’s board are ousted.
Read MoreTwo headlines grabbed my attention this morning, both in the "Dog Bites Man" category, but reassuring for those of us in the digital media space: AP: Digital media growing fast, study says and VNU: Web advertising to 'defy' economic crisis…
Wikia launches features on its poorly reviewed but theoretically interesting search engine that allow folks to hack the results and share them with everyone. More at Cnet. For now, this is pretty much a test, as it's only on about 30 million results….
Microsoft announced this today: Microsoft Corp. today announced that it has won a key distribution deal with HP, the world’s largest PC manufacturer, to install a Live Search-enabled toolbar on all HP consumer PCs planned to ship in the United States and Canada, beginning in January 2009. As part…
Microsoft Corp. today announced that it has won a key distribution deal with HP, the world’s largest PC manufacturer, to install a Live Search-enabled toolbar on all HP consumer PCs planned to ship in the United States and Canada, beginning in January 2009. As part of this deal, the default search engine setting in the browser on all HP consumer PCs will also be set to Microsoft Live Search.
I think this is a very big deal for Live search. It’s the only way to win share. Google has owned Dell and Firefox, this is a way to fight back. I am sure it cost a pretty penny….
As you might recall, I am writing over at the American Express Open Forum Blog as part of a sponsorship. Here's my latest post, on becoming a web conversationalist….
