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NEWS: Why I don't like 'crowd sourcing'

Why I don't like 'crowd sourcing'

from Scripting News On Twitter, Jay Rosen asks why I don't like the term crowdsourcing. (He says hate, but that's way way too harsh.) Anyway, he's right -- I don't like it -- because it betrays a not-useful point of view. I am not part of a crowd, I am an individual, I'm a one man band by the quick lunch stand,playing real good for free. When you mash us all together you miss the point.

I don't like it cause it's cheap, it's always used by people who want something for nothing.

Tell me Jay, how does your wife feel when you tell her she's part of the crowd you were thinking of marrying.

If you want people to like you, and who doesn't, try seduction. Don't tell us about your greed, say how much you love and respect our individuality our originality.

Bottom-line: I don't think of myself as part of a crowd when I write on the Internet. When you describe me that way I don't like it.

I don't like it for the same reason I never liked "The Long Tail." The person using the term is never in the long tail, he or she is the head! It's the rest of us that are in the tail. Well excuse me but I'm riding up front with you. Been locked in the trunk many times by Microsoft, Netscape and Apple. It sucks! Labels: brand Links to this post

AdNets Weekend Labels: weekend Links to this post

Social Media Weekend 
Blog Weekend 
Death of Daily, Weekly as Branding Terms

Ed: End of daily, weekly as newspaper branding words.

US: Wisconsin daily goes online, dropping print editions to 2 days/week

from editorsweblog
The 5,500-daily circulation Daily Telegram in Superior, Wisconsin has announced it will be dropping its daily print publication in favor of a web-based product, to be accompanied by print editions two days per week.

The announcement comes just three months after another Wisconsin daily,The Capital Times in Madison, moved online...

UK: Regional Sunday newspaper transforms itself into a 24/7 news operation

The Sunday Mercury, a British regional Sunday newspaper, is undergoing a transformation; it is turning itself into a 24/7 news operation.

The changes will include the Mercury's journalists breaking stories on the new website rather than in a print addition.

The operation's revamped offering will include its own YouTube channel, a 20-strong team of bloggers, and jokes... Labels: newspaper Links to this post



New Facebook iPhone app tells Twitter and SMS what it’s doing: Gunning for them Today, Facebook has launched a new iPhone application, that directly targets messaging service Twitter as well as for-pay mobile text messaging services. The new application is a mobile status service that includes instant messaging functionality. It builds on Facebook friend relationships, but ignores a lot of the traditional social networking features of the site, such as profile info about what your favorite movie is.

See screenshot.

The new app integrates with Facebook’s existing “Chat” IM service...

WordPress and TypePad Spawn Mobile Blogging

Forgive us while we navel-gaze for a minute, but we were particularly pleased to learn that a mobile app for WordPress will debut in the iPhone store soon. The app will work with both Wordpress.com blogs and on-premise installations of version 2.5.1 and newer. Its announcement comes just over a month after competitor TypePad showcased its iPhone app onstage at the WWDC keynote (you can download it here)...

Loopt Brings Yelp Reviews to 3G iPhone The iPhone App Store has just gone live and one of the apps getting early attention is Loopt, a location aware mobile social network startup we profiled in June. Loopt enables users to broadcast their status to a broad set of services and find interesting locations and reviews nearby. Their latest release for the iPhone integrates microblogging and reviews from Yelpinto its interface. According to founder Sam Altman, Loopt is using the iPhone's rich media platform to pilot new features and services before they filter their way into other mobile phones...

Before the App Store “Opens”, it has already made Apple $55,000 Tucked away on the iPhone 2.0 version of Apple’s Application Store is a counter for the number of times that each application has been purchased . When this information is combined with an application’s price, and the uniform 30% that Apple pockets on each download, it is possible to know how much Apple is making from the App Store. As of 4PM (PST), that number hovers around $55,000. This is pretty incredible given that the iPhone 2.0 software is not officially available and App Store does not officially open till tomorrow,that bloggers have only been able to access the Apps Store for less than 18 hours, and that the 3G iPhone, with the App store built in out of the box, is not even on sale yet in the United States. If sales of applications stay at the current pace, which they won’t, because they are going to speed up dramatically, the Application Store would still provide Apple with an additional twenty million dollars of revenue per year... Labels: Apple, Facebook Links to this post

NEWS: Disney Interactive Media Group Integration Begins With Long List Of Exec Changes; Handler Retiring

from paidContent.org by Staci D. Kramer Major executive changes at the Disney (NYSE: DIS) Interactive Media Group, according to an internal email from Steve Wadsworth that just went out and has been obtained by paidContent. DIMG combines the Walt Disney Internet Group, which Wadsworth headed, and video gaming unit Disney Interactive Studios. This memo lays out the new organization with two global lines of business—Disney Interactive Studios (DIS) and Disney Online—as the roles for the various execs. Graham Hopper, the current EVP and GM of DIS, will continue to run Disney Interactive Studios while Paul Yanover, current EVP and GM of Disney Online in the US, will run Disney Online (DOL) globally. Club Penguin co-founderLane Merrifield will run virtual worlds development and operations as part of DOL. Larry Shapirowill be responsible for DIMG global strategy, business development, corp communications and legal. Also, Mark Handler is retiring as head of WDIG International and has agreed to work with the company for the next six months...

Guardian News Media to buy ContentNext, paidcontent.org, for $30m

According to a few sources including Kara Swisher's All Things Digital, the Guardian Media Group is to acquire ContentNext, publisher of the media news site paidContent, for over $30 million.

PaidContent is owned by ContentNext, which was founded by Publisher and Editor Rafat Ali in 2002...

Earnings: GE's NBCU Q2 Revs Up 7 Percent; Income Up 1 Percent

from paidContent.org by Joseph Weisenthal

Another underwhelming quarter for NBCU, unit of GE… network revenue was up 7 percent in Q2, to $3.88 billion from $3.62 billion, while income grew just 1 percent to $909 million $904 million. The company claimed that its cable business offset ongoing weakness at its local operations. It also touted the benefits of the upcoming Olympics, predicting more than $1 billion in advertising. As for the whole company, at least they didn't miss this time (maybe Jack Welch's tongue lashing did the trick on Jeff Immelt). Total revenue was up 11 percent to $46.9 billion, though excluding charges, net income was flat at $5.4 billion or $.54 per share. Meanwhile, the company continues to spin and sell off units, including its consumer, appliance, and consumer finance units… but so far, there's nothing official on the company shopping around NBCU, despite the constant speculation... Labels: Disney Links to this post

Jul 10, 2008

LIST: TOP 50 Web2.0 Software Platforms

Top 50+ platforms for web 2.0 development. Feel free to suggest more.
Connecting any 2 platforms creates 2^50 opportunties - or 1,000,000,000,000,000 (sextillion or 1,000 trillion) combinations. That's a lot of opportunties for software developers. The trick is selecting the right combinations, making it work, and outperforming the competition.
Device Platforms
Browser Platforms
Gadget/Panel Platforms
Cloud Platforms
Server Platforms
Web Services for Mash-Up Labels: list, platform Links to this post

iPhone App Store Has Launched

Ed: Hot conversation for summer 2008.

iPhone App Store Has Launched (Updated)

from TechCrunch by Michael Arrington

Update: The iPhone 2.0 software is now available. Apple’s iPhone App Store is now live, several hours ahead of its rumored 9 am PST launch. To access it, download iTunes 7.7 here. Once iTunes has upgraded, you can access the App Storehere...

Apple’s Latest Opens a Developers’ Playground

from NYT > TechnologyThe App Store for iPhone software is the first step in an attempt to dominate the next generation of computing.

MobileMe now live, ready for you

from Engadget by Thomas Ricker Hello MobileMe, goodbye .Mac (and good riddance). Apple's synchronization and web application solution for your Macs, PCs, iPod touch or iPhone is now live. Push eMail, push contacts, and push calendar and a new suite of web applications are now yours for the taking. You know, after you hand over $99 for the first year or $149 for a one-year family subscription...

Apple Hopes Cheaper IPhone 3G Will Broaden Market

Apple is launching the speedier iPhone 3G at reduced prices with hopes of making it a ubiquitous mobile device...

Apple: Dominating the U.S. Touch Screen Phone Market

from AllThingsDigital -- WSJ by Eric Savitz
So, this isn't a huge revelation, but it does confirm what you probably already suspected: Apple (AAPL) dominates the U.S. market for touch-screen mobile phones. According to research firm Strategy Analytics, Apple will sell 6.3 million iPhones in the U.S. in 2008, or about 35 percent of the touch-screen phone market...

RIM's iPhone-Killer BlackBerry Thunder 'Nowhere Near' Ready, Trouble For Verizon?

from Silicon Alley Insider by Dan Frommer

Verizon Wireless is counting on a touchscreen BlackBerry from Research In Motion -- code-named "Thunder" -- to help it compete against archrival AT&T, which is Apple's exclusive U.S. carrier partner for the new iPhone 3G. Here's hoping things get worked out, fast: Mobile blog Boy Genius Report says Thunder is "nowhere near being able to enter production," citing a source who, the site claims, works for RIM (RIMM)...

IPhone Debuts to Lines in Japan

from Wired Top Stories
They're lining up in Japan for Friday's debut of the iPhone 3G, but whether it will score with anyone beyond a niche crowd remains to be seen. It isn't clear how many phones will be available, fueling the hype. Australia, New Zealand and Hong Kong are the other Asia-Pacific countries getting the new phone... Labels: Apple, mobile Links to this post

NEWS: Yahoo Games shifts to free games in alliance with two game ad start-ups

from VentureBeat by Dean Takahashi Yahoo Games is the giant of online game portals with 18 million unique visitors a month. But the company is shaking things up as it announces today that it is shifting to a new business model based on free ad-supported games for many of its pay-only titles.

Kyle Laughlin, head of games at Yahoo, said in an interview that the new model will help broaden the market for games to price-conscious consumers. It is able to do so because of its alliance with two in-game advertising companies, Double Fusion and NeoEdge Networks.

Double Fusion has pioneered methods for inserting ads into games and has also added capabilities for inserting video ads. NeoEdge Networks, meanwhile, has technology for inserting video ads into downloadable casual games. Both start-ups will insert ads into the games so that players can play for free many of the games they previously had to pay for. The deal will result in the web’s largest collection of free games fully supported by advertising, the companies say.

It takes a little explanation to understand why Yahoo Games is making this move. But Laughlin said that after a year of preparation, the company feels that the changes are essential to its growth in the future as new business models take hold in the game industry.

Yahoo Games has been ranked No. 1 among the game portals for the past 50 months, according to comScore. It has a demographic ranging from 20 years old to 50, with the audience split evenly between males and females. Those demographics appeal to major advertisers, who are looking to the web because people are watching less TV and reading less print.

But in reality, Yahoo’s offerings don’t really fit the habits of many casual gamers. It has a hundred or so simple Flash games and 50 or so simple multiplayer games on its site. It wraps those games with ads that run down the side of the game. But revenues from such games are limited. And Yahoo has about 600 more sophisticated games that require a download. These games are still casual but they’re visually more appealing and deeper in game play than the simpler titles.

Yahoo Games currently lets players play these games free for an hour or so, but then consumers have to plunk down $20 to play the game more. Typically, only 1 percent or so decide to pay in this “try before you buy” business model.

The new alliance gets rid of this. Both NeoEdge and Double Fusion let Yahoo insert ads into the fabric of the games. Or they can run 30-second video ads at natural stopping points in the game.

Since those ads are more effective and are easy to measure, they can generate much better returns than the other ads on Yahoo’s simpler games.

Laughlin said that Yahoo Games will have more than 400 ad-supported downloadable games by the end of the year from major publishers such as Real Networks, BigFish Games, iWin, Oberon, PlayFirst and Sandlot Games.

Jonathan Epstein, chief executive of Double Fusion in San Francisco, said that the move to free games could generate considerable growth for Yahoo and could mark a turning point for the U.S. industry. Other Asian countries have embraced more creative business models for games, but the reception hasn’t been as enthusiastic here. Epstein said that Double Fusion’s technology can essentially serve as a “wrapper.” The company puts the wrapper around an existing game and that enables it to insert ads into the game or show 30-second videos at convenient points.

Alex Terry, CEO of NeoEdge in Mountain View, Calif., said his company has a similar technology. Both NeoEdge and Double Fusion can get a cut of the ad revenues from Yahoo, while Yahoo can presumably gain more users for its games — and therefore more ad revenues — because it is dropping the price to free on many of the titles.

Terry also said Yahoo’s move will be a boon for the game ad industry. Everyone has been waiting for Yahoo Games to make its move. Google bought in-game ad firm Adscape a year ago, while Microsoft paid $200 million to $400 million to buy in-game ad firm Massive. By selecting two firms as partners, Yahoo Games can ensure that it has an open, price-competitive and independent source for its key technology.