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Blog 3481
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Regator Pro iPhone App To Launch “Any Day”
Regator, the super popular blog directory and feed reader, is launching a pro version of their iPhone app.
Australian co-founders, Scott Lockhart and Kimberley Turner, say the app is currently in the Apple approval process but ” is expected to be approved any day”.
The new Regator Pro will be priced at $2.99 (USD) with a five-day launch sale price of $1.99.
It includes all the features of the free version (see below) but also gives users the ability to personalize their experience by saving their favourite blogs, topics, and posts for fast, easy access. In addition, this premium version supports in-app video viewing and adds popular Regator.com features such as Blog Monitor and Related Posts.
Both the light and premium versions allow users to:- Browse posts from more than 500 topics as diverse as beekeeping, geology, indie music, pop culture, job hunting, or basketball.
- Search Regator’s archive of over four million high-quality posts.
- See real-time trends to get an up-to-the-minute, spam-free look at exactly what bloggers in any niche are writing about right now.
- View the most popular blog posts on your favourite topic.
- Keep up with the newest blog posts, updated every few seconds.
- Read the full text of posts on the original source blog.
- Share posts via email, Facebook, or Twitter
It’s great to see a blog aggregating startup trying to monetise through adding value rather than plonking advertising between content. It’s also great to see them so heavily focused on ensuring the original content providers get as much traffic returned to them as possible
No doubt these are just two reasons why Regator has been, and will continue to be, so successful. -
Finally an important part of today’s rich Web applications
Almost all of today’s so called Rich Internet Applications (RIAs) heavily make use of a technology named Ajax (Asynchronous JavaScript plus XML.)
Essentially Ajax provides a mechanism to exchange data with remote servers and place incoming bits into a page without the need to refresh the page.
This helped making web pages look and feel much more like desktop applications.
It dramatically expanded the web as an application platform and is a cornerstone of many service we’ve gotten so used to. (Imagine for a minute how Facebook would feel if it would reload the entire page on each click you make!)
Technically Ajax leverages a programing interface of modern web browsers exposed through an internal object named XMLHttpRequest.
Taking into account how much we take Ajax-enabled web sites for granted these days, and how much we value the importance of standards for its evolution, it’s quite intriguing that the XMLHttpRequest details have never been an official W3C standard, yet.
This might change soon: On November 19th, the W3C officially changed the status for the XMLHttpRequest specification to “Last Call”.
According to the W3C guidelines final comments will now be accepted up to December 16th, 2009 before the document will likely become an official W3C Recommendation.
We’ll keep you posted! -
Be the Twitter-Santa!
With only 33 days left till Christmas, don’t you wish you could send a greeting card or maybe a gift to your favourite twitterer
s? Well now you can, thanks to SendSocial.com that launched today!
SendSocial allows you to send parcels to your friends on Twitter, without ever knowing their address. You can also use the service to send gifts even if the only info you’ve got is their e-mail address. The service notifies the intended recipient that someone wants to send them something via a tweet or email. The recipient chooses whether they want to accept the parcel, and in case they do they fill in their delivery address. This piece of information is stored encrypted on SendSocial. All the sender gets is a barcode addres, which he prints and attaches to the parcel. Afterwards the sender notifies the couriers that are working with SendSocial (right now their only courier partner is myHermes) and they collect and deliver the package.
So do you have a “naughty” and a “good” list on your Twitter? It’s time to make use of them!
Click here to view the embedded video. -
How to tell a story via Social Media
While most of us use Twitter and other social media for sharing what we’re doing (or indeed “What’s happening“) some use it to tell stories.
Let’s take a look at some of the ways social media can be used to tell a tale, from serialised novels to a multimedia approach.
The “Twitter Novel”
One method of story-telling via social media is the straightforward novel. Meet Mr Keihl is a novel that launches today and will take an astounding two years to complete at a rate of seven tweets per day. The story is a spy epic set in the year 2130 that recounts the exploits of a legendary agent.
The people behind the project are claiming that it is the first novel ever to be played out entirely via Twitter. This isn’t exactly true. Candyfloss and Pickles is one example of a ‘Twitter novel’ that has been running for well over a year already.
Is Twitter the wrong format for story telling? The author of Meet Mr Keihl seems to be in two minds about that one.
“The concept of the publication of a novel through this medium may be received as counter intuitive, too slow a process for the distribution of such a long format.
Reading a novel 140 characters at a time, however, may be just the right pace for many readers. People often complain that they don’t have the time to sit down and read a book. Subscribing to Meet Mr. Keihl will allow anyone to read a novel without taking time out of their day for it.”
The Fake Account
Fictional characters playing out their lives via social media are nothing new – just look at the success of Lonelygirl15 a few years ago. That used video though, making it little more than an online TV show. The brief text bursts of Twitter can make for a much more intimate experience.
At first glance this week, ‘dinner_guest’ appeared to be a possible serial killer sharing their gruesome pastime with the world.
While some thought it was a publicity stunt for a movie, we later uncovered that it was an artist exploring the use of Twitter to let fictional characters tell their stories in a new way.
Some might think that using a murderer as your chosen character is a step too far but it’s certainly an idea that has potential. It’s a twist on the joke celebrity accounts that are a popular part of the Twittersphere.
As the artist behind the project told us, “Some people have said they want to add their own characters now, which is great, maybe dinner_guest will get some creepy friends to play with”.
Which brings us to…
The multimedia crowdsourced approach
There’s more to Social Media than just Twitter of course. What if you gave your fictional characters a variety of accounts on different services?
November in Manchester is one project trying just that. Billed as a ‘Social Media Love Story’, its eight characters have their own Twitter feeds and blogs. By following the characters involved you can see the story unfold in a much more ‘personal’ way that you would if you were just being told a story in a traditional way.
With so many accounts to keep up on you could easily fall behind so the project’s website gives you a daily overview of the plot and a news feed of all the characters’ accounts.
There’s an interactive side to the project too. The author, Tom Mason, wants the city of Manchester to be a key part of the plot. Photos and videos submitted by readers have become an important part of the story. The characters have even ‘attended’ real events in the city as suggested by readers.
Unlike a many social media stories, November in Manchester is designed to play out over one month – much shorter than the traditional . When it comes to online attention spans, shorter is better.
November in Manchester will probably have a better chance of holding onto an audience over thirty days than Meet Mr Keihl will over two years. Will we even still be using Twitter then? -
Why Music Is Broken – The Artist To Consumer Connection
There is a fascinating story on TorrentFreak regarding the revenues for an artist from a streaming service such as Spotify. Or, more correctly, the lack thereof. The popular Lady Gaga makes quasi-nil from Spotify, despite being a top artist on the service.
This is an excellent example of the inherent problem in the musical industry. If we cannot fix this, piracy will never be abated.
The problem is the lack of a connection between the dollar of the consumer, and collection of that money by the artist. Right now, the lengthy and convoluted transfer process sucks the dollar dry, depositing a few spry cents in the hands of he artist.
Of course, this is supposed to be “the way it works,” due to high costs involved with music production and the like, but it seems to be nearly endless. Once an artist has paid back the recording costs in royalties, the rates that artist receives are still pathetic.
If I put my music on Amie Street, and I sell a song, I get the majority of the money. If I am a major label artist, and I sell a song on iTunes, I get a far, far smaller cut.
The connection from the fan to the band, financially, has been broken. The fan knows that their purchase will hardly help the band, or more precisely that the marginal benefit from their purchase to the band is near zero, so why do it? The cost to the fan is much higher than the marginal benefit to the band, so the fan just torrents the damn song.
There was a lot of noise when Brogan and Gary V wrote their books. Pundits said that internet people do not actually buy things, so both books were straight going to fail. Bullshit, it turned out. Crush It and Trust Agents both did well. People will still pay for quality, and they will pay if the know where the money is going.
How many people do you think bought Crush It because it was a good book, versus it being the Gary V book. Something to think about.
The vision from the consumer of the music industry is a dark room with cigar smoking lawyers. A far cry from the mixing board or the stage.
The point is, until there is a much more direct line from my purchase, to the coffers of my favorite band, I will (euphemistically) be inclined to take the lowest cost route, and fire up The Pirate Bay.
What to do? Well, artists need to stand up and attempt to take control of the situation, especially with emerging market openings such as Spotify. There is no industry without artists.
It has long been like this, out of proportion. But there was never an alternative solution to acquiring music. Now there is. I would make a healthy wager that if there was a way for people to buy music, where a full 50% of the total cost went to the band, sales would double. Overnight.
Food for thought. What do you think about the artist pay model with Spotify, and in general? -
Wave Overload – Does Anyone Still Use This Thing?
Wave is not doing anything for me, and I wonder if it does much for anyone.
I logged into Wave today, for the first time in a week, to head to a wave that actually mattered. A friend is working on a secret project, and wanted to get my input. He dropped everything into a wave, and told me to take a look.
I still have yet to find that wave, but I did waste a lot of time looking.
Wave has a single innovation, that I can use, that I love: instant team typing. That alone is amazing. But, I came to the realization that if Google would take that and drop it into Google Docs, I would never open Wave again.
That said, who the hell is still using Wave? Looking at my “inbox” (or Tide, as a I call it, if you get it: incoming waves. Anyway.), let’s see.
Here are a few select sample waves that I am supposed to check out.
Eliminate Tournament – I have no idea what this is, who anyone in the Wave is, or what to do with this. I did read the whole wave. Didn’t help much.
hey everyone, this is just a wave to chat -What the hell? If you want to “chat” with me, either text, email, GChat, or Twitter me. God knows that the last thing that I need is to have another place to have to go to check. Just to chat.
Hmm wave – This explains itself.
I do have some useful Waves. Maybe three or so. They are of course buried under around 50 other waves that I did not create, ask to be invited to, or want to have a part in. But it gets even better: my friends, that I actually want to hear from, wave me as well. From what I can tell, they have nothing to do but say this:
“So this is Wave. Hey man, what are you using this for?”
You know it, and have 17 waves that just say that. Horrible and content-free as that is, it’s about as far as people seem to get with Wave. So much the revolution. Wasn’t this supposed to be a game changer? What happened to that?
If I recall correctly, people claimed that Wave was sub-useful at launch, but that developers were going to be building on top of Wave to make it “killer useful.” When will that be happening? I would love to know.
Until then, I will use Wave when someone else insists on it, but I refuse to check my Wave inbox. Doing so is an excercise in futility.
It’s Saturday, tell me why I’m wrong. -
Tweet Wave – Lets 1 Million People See Your Tweet
Tweet Wave is a Twitter app allowing your message to be exposed to a potential 1 million users
in a ‘wave’ like effect through members of the site re-tweeting your messages, guaranteeing your Tweet substantial exposure.
Based in the UK, Tweet Wave is the work of Need Creative CEO Danny Whitehouse who has created other Twitter oriented apps including Twitter Me and TwitMoan.
Tweet Wave is his latest venture and by looking at the average amount of followers its users have, means at it’s current state, it can offer a reach of 987,823 users.
From the conclusions drawn from research, he believes that 0.01% click on a tweet and 0.0001% of users go on to make a purchase. This could inject a more direct revenue offering and value from Twitter, especially with the rumored Twitter ad platform approaching.
How it works?
Simply sign up and send a tweet through the service with paid for credits, with 3 thrown in for free upon joining the service. It’s worth noting you must have at least 1000 followers to be a member.
This restriction on users follower numbers is a spam prevention policy, though the threat of this service being used to send out shedloads of spam is still there in my opinion.
That message will then be sent in the form of a RT to everyone registered within Tweet Wave to be approved, before being sent on by those users. The key aspect of this that allows for the potential for your tweet to be exposed to so many Twitter users is the fact that the message will automatically be sent after 24 hours if it hasn’t been vetted.
As a tool for affiliates, it will clearly be useful, though it could induce a barrage of unwanted messages in your timeline. With more features on the way and hopefully a cleaner UI, it’ll certainly add continued value to the range of Twitter apps available.
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Twitter ads are coming soon – will you love them?
So it looks like Twitter is finally ready to get serious about making some money – ads are on their way.
At TechCrunch’s Realtime CrunchUp today Twitter’s COO Dick Costolo told attendees that Twitter ads are coming soon but they’re going to be a bit different from traditional ads.
“It will be fascinating. Non-traditional. And people will love it… It’s going to be really cool.” Costolo said. Aside from that the only extra detail he would give were that they weren’t tied to the new Retweet feature.
Non-traditional advertising is increasingly being tried by internet companies well aware that users expect to be able to use their services for free but have grown ‘blind’ to traditional banner ads. Most notably, Digg has ads that appear in the stream of articles on the site. The twist here is that users can ‘Digg’ and ‘Bury’ the ads, giving advertisers valuable data about what’s working with their audience.
Twitter is nearing the launch of ads at a time when it’s also about to introduce Pro accounts.
So, how might these ads work? Robert Scoble suggests that ‘Super Tweets‘ will intelligently link Twitter users with ads they’ll be interested. Sounds like something dangerously close to spam to me.
How else could Twitter advertise to you without annoying you? If you have any ideas let us know. -
The Next Web’s Weekly Recap
Welcome to The Next Web’s Weekly Recap.
*** If you have a story we should include in our Weekly Recap please tweet it and include the hashtag #tnwrecap.
This week saw the first unveiling of Google’s Chrome OS, some big Microsoft announcements from their developer conference in Los Angeles as well as a bunch of geolocation news as Twitter and Foursquare publicly released their APIs and Google added features to Google Latitude.
A closer look at Chrome OS
The press coverage Google’s Chrome OS has received since it was announced back in June likely rivals the speculation to actual knowledge ratio that Apple products receive. However, this week’s Google Chrome OS event revealed a bunch of new information on what the OS will look like and how it will work (watch demo here or “Chrome for Dummies” video here). Headlining the announcements was it’s release date (which is still a year away) as well as its 7 second boot time and no local storage (100% cloud). As a result, all Chrome OS apps will be web-based (no native apps).
Big announcements from Microsoft
Steve Ballmer called Windows 7 a “fantastic” success so far. Windows 7 has sold 40 million units since it was launched on October 22nd. This week also saw some big announcements coming out of their Professional Developers Conference (PDC) in Los Angeles. Among the big announcements included a variety of new information on Microsoft’s cloud platform Azure as well as the introduction of Pinpoint and Dallas, two new and important components of the Azure Platform. Out of the conference also came the announcement that the beta of Silverlight 4 was available (Adobe also announced the release of AIR 2.0, their competing technology). Microsoft also revealed that they are still serious about building a world-class browser and promise that Internet Explorer 9 will be a “modern browser” and include support for HTML 5 as well as other emerging modern web browser standards.
Geolocation Heats up
This week saw two major releases of geolocation APIs. The biggest news came from Twitter as they officially released their geotagging API. As Twitter noted in their announcement, this will dramatically enhance users’ ability to have local conversations. Since geotagging is an opt in feature, make sure to visit your settings page to enable it. The other major announcement came from the red hot location-based social network Foursquare. They publicly released their API in the hopes that third-party developers will be quick to build applications for their platform and continue the momentum of the service. You can check out some of the apps already using Foursquare’s API. Foursquare was also in the news this week for expanding its service to 50 more cities. Not to be outdone, Google also updated their social location service latitude by adding two new features including the ability to store a history of your location as well as receiving proximity alerts if your friends are nearby.
What’s happening on Twitter?
In addition to the big Twitter geotagging API news, Twitter also made a small but noteworthy change to their site by replacing the question “What are you doing?” to “What’s happening?”. Twitter also added the ability for users to add descriptions to their lists and made some UI changes to their site. In addition, Biz Stone revealed that Twitter will be rolling out Premium accounts before the end of the year. While the feature set of premium accounts is unknown, it’s sure to include analytics which many companies as well as regular users have been asking for for a while. In legal news, Twitter was once again sued for patent infringement by Cooper Industries. The company is calling for Twitter to pay a license fee for it’s mass notification technology.
Quick Hits- We were really excited this week to announce that The Next Web is coming to the Middle East, UK, Australia, Poland, Italy, and Bulgaria. Check out the Twitter and Facebook Fan Pages to follow.
- Salesforce launched a corporate collaboration tool called Salesforce Chatter which goes head to head with companies like Yammer as well as SocialCast (which we use here at The Next We
. - Two major sites got facelifts this week including the human-powered search engine Mahalo as well as the gadget blog Engadget.
- Camino, the open source Mac browser that I’m a big fan of, released version 2.
- Seesmic released of a native Windows Twitter client to compliment their browser and AIR clients. Hopefully there will be a Mac version soon.
- Brizzly is now open to the public. It’s a great web app that provides an interface for interacting with Twitter and Facebook.
- If you’re a fan of music videos make sure to check out TubeRadio.fm which we reviewed this week.
- TypePad introduced TypePad Micro, a micro-blogging service to compete with the likes of Posterous and Tumblr.
- The popular Android bar code scanning app ShopSavvy made its way to the iPhone this week.
- The dominate URL shortening service bit.ly added a Click Summary dashboard which gives users the ability easily view overview stats on their links.
- US President Barack Obama revealed while speaking in Shanghai that despite his millions of followers on Twitter, he has never used the service.
- Oxford University Press announced on their blog that “unfriend” was the word of the year.
- With the Internet becoming more important and vital in our everyday lives, countries are starting to categorize it as a legal right. The latest country to do this was Spain.
- Techmeme is now 6 people. They also released a version of their site optimized for mobile.
- Apple’s long battle with clone maker Psystar finally ended as a court ruling prohibits them from selling computers running OS X.
- Interested in Twitter’s new digs? Check out some images of their new headquarters or head over to Officeal which aggregates workspace images from various companies.
- If you want to punk your friends on Twitter check out FakeWhale. It’s an extremely juvenile but fun way to craft fake tweets from any user. Check out Alex’s nifty creations here.
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Sony to Offer Online Download Service
Sony have announced plans to launch an online download service next year. It will see the ability for Sony product users to download media content such as music and videos to their televisions and other Sony devices. The move is part of Sony’s Chief Executive, Howard Stringer’s aim of converging their strengths in electronics such as Bravia televisions and the Playstation console with its music label and movie studio productions.
The company aims to have the service up and running at somepoint in 2010, “and earlier in the year would obviously be a lot more preferable in my mind”, adds Kazuo Hirai, Sony’s Executive Vice President.
The service will build off of the current Playstation Network system, which currently boasts over 33 million registered members who can play games online along with purchasing and downloading content such as game demo’s, HD trailers along with themes and other media.
“There are already a lot of services out there but we want to try to bring something that is uniquely Sony to the experience. One of the things we really need to get into is the whole concept of user-driven content”, Hirai said in an interview.
Sony also stated that while some of the features on the service would be free, others would be paid-for, although there was no mention of a monthly subscription fee so whether it’ll be pay-per-use/view or a fixed fee is still to be confirmed.
I’m looking forward to seeing what Sony can do with this, Playstation Network is built with a solid infrastructure and it’s a great service all in all. I hope they can follow on from that with a content-rich download service.
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