Euro rises to new record against yen Sterling trades weaker on gloomy U.K. economic prospects By William L. Watts & Lisa Twaronite, MarketWatch Last Update: 7/21/2008 12:13:00 PM SAN FRANCISCO (MarketWatch) — The euro and yen stole the spotlight from the U.S. dollar Monday, with the European unit rising to a record against Japan’s currency. The euro was buying 169.46 yen, up […] For more visit Source:www.investment-blog.net
Archive for July 21st, 2008
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Last.fm gets a makeover, but can’t stay standingPosted by: admin in Social Media and Tech
A look at the new Last.fm homepage. (Credit: Last.fm) Social music site Last.fm has unveiled a new look: a slick new design, an iPhone app, a partnership with Logitech to stream music to compatible home stereo systems, and a host of new features. With the new features, …  Twitter has indeed acquired Summize, a nifty search engine built specifically to index Twitter posts, TechCrunch reported Tuesday along with a video of Twitter founder Evan Williams speaking about it. The news follows sporadic rumors that were accompanied by both shaky confirmations and shaky denials. An under-the-radar blogger, Josh Chandler, … Only a year ago, there was a massive buzz around Facebook’s new application platform. Large money was made by some, while others simply threw together whatever they could and released it to the masses in the hopes of being the next iLike. Today, the Facebook platform is alive and well, but the hot new platform is the iPhone. People are lining up for hours to get their hands on one, and developers see dollars in those lines: Unlike with Facebook apps, you can charge for iPhone software, and developers keep 70 percent of the money collected through Apple’s app store. 
Facebook's iPhone application is one of the iPhone’s most popular applications. (Credit: CNET Networks) One of the 550-plus new iPhone applications was Facebook’s own, a slightly amped-up version of the Web-based Facebook for iPhone Web site introduced late last year. It’s more useful than than the mobile Web site, but it’s still watered down from its desktop cousin, with just a contact list and a chat app. Notably missing are the other Facebook applications that have helped make the social network such an appealing service for both users and developers. It would make sense if the next step for the Facebook platform was a mobile version–something where whatever you developed would work on both desktop and mobile devices, starting with the iPhone and later Android. In that regard, Facebook’s mobile iPhone application is only the beginning, and just a preview of what’s to come. I think we’ll see at next week’s F8 event a product or service that will help developers shrink down their applications to fit into Facebook’s mobile application framework. It’s a move that goes squarely against Apple’s engrained apps marketplace by having developers spend resources on coding for Facebook instead of themselves; however, the result will be the augmentation of the mobile Facebook experience that’s closer to what people have gotten accustomed to on their personal. Facebook’s UI has already begun to change to match the finger-friendly style. The latest profile refresh has moved the applications from a sidebar to different tabs–the same look can be found in Facebook’s iPhone-optimized Web app. Such a style could easily be shrunk down to fit a smaller screen, whereas the old one could not.
There are still some road bumps. For one, Apple’s SDK and Android are vastly different. But if Facebook is forward-thinking, it’ll want people to develop applications that will work on both. Apple’s iPhone is clearly the weak link here with no Adobe Flash support in sight and a very limited amount of things you can do using the hardware and phone file system. One such solution for interoperability is Google’s OpenSocial initiative, however, Facebook has been at odds with adopting it. The middle-of-the-road solution is to use Web standards that are both interoperable and compatible no matter what modern device you’re using. Another bump is whether or not developers will be willing to dedicate their time to developing something for Facebook mobile or simply create a standalone native iPhone application. These individual applications hold more opportunity for the tiny guys to make a quick buck, but by tying into Facebook’s system they get a tight network of users who might share it with one another and cross-pollinate that activity to the desktop version. Mobile or not, anticipate something massive next week from the Facebook camp.
Update: Made a correction from 30 to 70 percent regarding developer revenue split on the Apps store.  The next update of Twhirl will get support for yet another nanoblogging service, Identi.ca, and on that platform Twhirl will feature a communication method that Twitter users have been asking for: push updates. Read to end of story for the download link and instructions. In other words, the Twhirl client won’t have to ping the Identi.ca servers to get updates; instead, updates will be sent directly to the Twhirl client. This makes nanoblog conversations more live–you can have a back-and-forth without hovering over the “update” button. It also means that your Twhirl client doesn’t have to be hitting the Identi.ca servers each few minutes for updates, which reduces the load profile on the service, theoretically at least. 
The latest version of Twhirl gets push nanoblog entries from Identi.ca. In practice, the push ability of Identi.ca is more complex. Identi.ca doesn’t do the pushing itself. Instead, Identi.ca sends its updates to Google Talk, a Jabber-based IM platform that supports the open XMPP standard for instant messaging; and it’s those XMPP messages that get pushed out to the Twhirl desktop clients installed on users’ computers. The two-step requires users have two logins: One for Identi.ca, and one for Gtalk, and that they enter them into both Identi.ca and Twhirl. It’s unknown when (or even if) Twitter will open up a push interface or unlock its XMPP support, or how Twitter and Twhirl will work together to make setup easier than it is for Identi.ca. Twitter does support the XMPP standard for sending out the “fire hose” of its content, but it’s not open. Only four sites right now get the feed: Summize, which Twitter bought, Twittervision, FriendFeed, and Zappos (yes, the shoe company). Identi.ca, by the way, is cool because it’s open-source. But other than that I find little reason to use the service: it doesn’t have Twitter’s user network nor beginner Plurk’s user interface innovation. Seeing Identi.ca updates pushed to Twhirl just raises the obvious question: When will we get this feature on Twitter? The new version of Twhirl will probably be announced Monday, Seesmic CEO Loic LeMeur told me. 
You need both an Identi.ca and a GTalk ID to get the push feature to work. How to You can follow me on Identi.ca, but I hang out more on Twitter and Friendfeed. Related:  It’s public beta time for Qik, the mobile live-video service that’s captured the hearts of Web 2.0 bigwigs like Jason Calacanis and Kevin Rose. The service has been in private beta since late last year. Along with its debut to the masses, Qik has made some tweaks: …
Back in February we talked about the Suntory Mermaid II — a boat that encapsulates a pretty “duh” idea of powering a boat with waves. Well, creator Ken-ichi Horie and the boat have finished his goal journey of getting from Japan to Hawaii — a distance of 4,350 miles. It took nearly four months, going an average of 1.5 knots, but he made it. And he set an ‘I Did It First’ record in the process. The Suntory Mermaid II uses the most advanced wave-power technology, with extra electricity coming from solar panels to run navigation lights. Since it is the most advanced, by virtue of being the only, it’s a great starting point for future wave-powered boats that go — I should hope — a little faster. Horie states the problem to be solved is how to keep the boat’s speed up when the waves are weak. Maybe one day we’ll see a race between the Suntory Mermaid II and the Earthrace … and maybe an old-fashioned, wind-powered sailboat thrown in for good measure. Via EnvironmentalGraffiti, YachtPals, Physorg
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China’s On the web Advertising Market Growing Fast And FasterPosted by: admin in Investment NewsOnline Advertising Market Developing Fast as Growth Increases to 24.5% in 2007 States the Report ‘China Advertising Industry Forecast Report, 2007-2010′ DUBLIN, Ireland — Research and Markets (http://www.researchandmarkets.com/reports/c56399) has announced the addition of China Advertising Industry Forecast Report, 2007-2010 to their offering China’s advertising industry develops rapidly in current years. In 1H2006, the revenues of China […] For more visit Source:www.investment-blog.net  PodTech, a video podcast network that had taken over $7 million in venture funding, has been sold–and the price may have been a downright embarrassing $500,000. The news was reported this week by Eric Eldon at VentureBeat, but Valleywag’s Jackson West was floating the rumor with less detail … |
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