19 new stories on The Next Web today |  |
- More Arabic News from Mujaz.me [TNW Middle East]
- HTC estimates it will ship 60 million handsets in 2011 [TNW Mobile]
- Nuji launches as “Instagram meets Instapaper” for social shopping [TNW Apps]
- Welsh mountains get high speed rural broadband in LTE trial [TNW Mobile]
- Angry Birds for PC to launch today? [Update: Confirmed!] [TNW Europe]
- Renren, China’s Largest Social Network, Preps IPO [TNW Asia]
- Ah so this might be the future of the desktop computer. [TNW Shareables]
- Sign of the times: Netflix on, New York Times & Kodak off of S&P 500 next week [TNW United States]
- Google Docs Advanced Editing Comes to the iPad [TNW Google]
- Google’s Zeitgeist 2010 in Asia [TNW Asia]
- SalesForce.com Chatter Coming to HootSuite [TNW Canada]
- Operation LeakSpin to Spread WikiLeaks Far and Wide? [TNW Media]
- Facebook Announces their 2011 Hacker Cup [TNW Social Media]
- Alibaba now tops Google in online advertising share in China [TNW Asia]
- Kobo Makes eBooks Social with New Facebook Connection [TNW Media]
- WikiLeaks defectors launching OpenLeaks in protest of methods used by Julian Assange [TNW Media]
- Your parents are on Facebook, Friend ‘em or not? [TNW Shareables]
- Microsoft tries to woo Gmail users to Hotmail on Reddit, politely eats crow [TNW Microsoft]
- Why the Nexus S has NFC – Google Places window stickers are NFC enabled [TNW Google]
- Google destroys 25 Chrome notebooks to highlight the advantages of the cloud [TNW Google]
| More Arabic News from Mujaz.me [TNW Middle East] Posted: 10 Dec 2010 03:48 AM PST
I remember back in the mid 2000′s when Arabic news websites took off around the region with the most successful still being among us like Elaph and Syrianews. It appears Sarmday, the mobile advertisement and development arm of Vodaphone Egypt have just now realized it pays to get into the Arabic news aggregating industry.
The launch which follows in close footsteps that of regional giant Yahoo! Maktoob’s news homepage revamp does show one interesting feature other portals will hopefully learn from. A fully functional Mobile version. The portal acts as an Arabic only news aggregator, but don’t know how the news is gathered nor whether or not Sarmday pays a fee for displaying the information in a Digg looking interface that pulls the information out the original publisher’s website then into Mujaz.me for a consumption technique similar to that of Digg, but without the user digging functionality. What Mujaz.me’s people take pride in the most is the fact the user interface is optimized for any mobile phone. After testing it on an HTC Desire, Nokia and a couple of other devices where it displayed the best functionality and display on the Nokia. The creators of Mujaz have opted to offer a short version of the news stories upon clicking on headlines from the homepage providing a ‘click here for more details’ link, which didn’t work for us. I’d say Mujaz isn’t revolutionary in terms of the mechanism content is consumed. They certainly have an advantage over other portals like Yahoo! Maktoob & CnnArabic.com, which Arabic portals don’t even offer a mobile version, unlike their international counterparts. So if you’re looking for a way consume Arabic news on the mobile, you might want to give Mujaz.me a try.Image [Notice: this is the RSS feed for ALL stories from across The Next Web - that means a lot of stories every day - for just our top stories, subscribe to our Top Stories RSS feed here.] | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| HTC estimates it will ship 60 million handsets in 2011 [TNW Mobile] Posted: 10 Dec 2010 02:44 AM PST
According to sources, the Taiwanese smartphone giant recently revealed its roadmap for the upcoming year at a summit with more than 200 executives representing over 100 suppliers of handset parts and components. HTC, which forecast it would sell 20 million handsets in 2010, has increased its forecasts three-fold for 2011. With Microsoft forecasting 30 million Windows Phone 7 sales in 2011, HTC is hoping to be able to meet demand for devices powered by Microsoft’s new mobile operating system and well as Google’s Android operating system. HTC has appointed new executives in its pursuit of higher growth, appointing Matthew Costello as its new COO. Its a tough job, especially with other manufacturers finding success utilising Google’s Android platform. HTC has posted record revenues this year and as Windows Phone 7 becomes more established, it could find it has another very profitable revenue stream over the coming year.Image Credit [Notice: this is the RSS feed for ALL stories from across The Next Web - that means a lot of stories every day - for just our top stories, subscribe to our Top Stories RSS feed here.] | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Nuji launches as “Instagram meets Instapaper” for social shopping [TNW Apps] Posted: 10 Dec 2010 02:35 AM PST
Nuji is a way for users to create and share a list of items they’re interested in buying and get social shopping recommendations by following users with similar tastes. Amazon-goes-social, if you like, but for all retailers. The team is betting on social recommendations being far more appealing to users than the automated suggestions provided by services like Amazon.
As you tag items you like, your profile fills up with pictures of things you like, defining you by your taste. You followers get to see what you’re interested in and can ‘reshare’ your selections with others, helping to mark you out as a influential Nuji user. Nuji plans to monetize by offering relevant shopping deals to users based on their interests, although this feature hasn’t been rolled out yet. Photo tagging will soon be added to the iPhone app, allowing you to keep a record of real-world items you like even if they don’t have a barcode. Based in London, Nuji was founded in February this year and the startup was a Seedcamp 2010 winner. You can sign up to Nuji here and download the iPhone app at this iTunes link.
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| Welsh mountains get high speed rural broadband in LTE trial [TNW Mobile] Posted: 10 Dec 2010 02:03 AM PST
Wales was one of the first areas to complete the digital switchover whereby analogue TV transmitters would be switched off to make way for digital TV channels. The process started in Auguest 2009 and finished in early 2010. That’s left a large chunk of spectrum available (800MHz) which happens to have extremely good propogation characteristics; the radio waves can travel large distances and can penetrate buildings. Though no decision has been made with with respect to the 800MHz radio band in the UK nationally, Ofcom will likely begin to assess the spectrum in 2012. Ofcom will then auction the band, prompting mobile network operators and broadband providers to bid for exclusive rights to 800MHz band. Arqiva (who are best known for running transmitter sites in the UK), with the help of Alcatel-Lucent, are now planning to run a trial in West Wales. Not only are they using 800MHz, they will also trial LTE (Long Term Evolution) which is seen to be the next generation of mobile network technology, what many call the fourth generation network (4G). With long distances between transmitters common in Wales, initial reports have shown that moderate speeds are being received as far as 23 miles away, providing connectivity to towns and villages that would not normally have been able to receive mobile signals. Wales is also poorly covered by existing broadband services (DSL technology) as many of the homes are too far away from the telephone exchanges. It’s Only A TrialAs Ofcom has not officially auctioned the spectrum yet (and cant do until the whole of the UK goes digital), Arqiva are running this as a technology trial to show that LTE can be used to fill in the so called “not-spots” by utilising the 800MHz spectrum. They are proposing that in future, should they roll-out a network based on LTE at 800MHz, they would operate in a neutral manner and offer connectivity services to tradtional ISPs who would then be able sell it to customers. Alcatel-Lucent has a vested interest too, operating as a equipment vendor that has invested heavily in LTE/4G technology. The company hopes to see both UK broadband providers and mobile network operators rolling out the technology in the near future and is already involved in around 40 trials worldwide.FierceWireless, Image Credit [Notice: this is the RSS feed for ALL stories from across The Next Web - that means a lot of stories every day - for just our top stories, subscribe to our Top Stories RSS feed here.] | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Angry Birds for PC to launch today? [Update: Confirmed!] [TNW Europe] Posted: 09 Dec 2010 11:39 PM PST
According to ArticStartup, Finnish game developers Rovio are set to launch a PC version of its popular smartphone game Angry Birds, partnering with one of the country’s leading mobile operators Elisa. Sources close to the project have suggested the launch will be an invite-only press event with only a limited number of invites sent to attendees. Whilst the event is small, it is thought that the launch will also be webcasted internationally to Rovio’s global partners and press. There is no word on whether there will be a public webcast but it could mean this is an international launch. The announcement, if true, would surprise many in regards to its timing. On Tuesday, Rovio CEO Mikael Hed was in Paris, speaking at the LeWeb Conference 2010. With attendees from all over the globe and many tuning into the live webcast, Rovio could have used the opportunity to launch its new PC game. During his interview, Hed also announced that Angry Birds had surpassed 42 million smartphone downloads, with 12 million of them paid. Rovio has many different options when it comes to distributing an Angry Birds PC game; it could choose to have customers download the game from its website for a small fee, or look to use a distributed gaming marketplace like Steam, it could even sell physical media like a DVD or USB stick. We don’t think Rovio would have a problem distributing the game, it could face problems trying to combat pirate copies if Angry Bird for PC is indeed a paid game. We have contacted both Rovio and Elisa for further clarification, as usual we will update as soon as we know more. Update: Finnish operator Elisa has confirmed that there will be a live webcast today where we will see the launch of the Angry Birds PC game:
Set your watches people! [Notice: this is the RSS feed for ALL stories from across The Next Web - that means a lot of stories every day - for just our top stories, subscribe to our Top Stories RSS feed here.] | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Renren, China’s Largest Social Network, Preps IPO [TNW Asia] Posted: 09 Dec 2010 10:37 PM PST
Founded in 2005, Renren, which currently has 150 million registered users, is the biggest social network service, in China. The company also owns Nuomi, a website featuring daily deals, and online community Mop. The report says that Oak Pacific Interactive, has hired investment banks Credit Suisse Group AG and Deutsche Bank AG to underwrite the initial public offering in the United States in the first half of next year. This news follows the successful IPOs earlier this week of the Youku video site and the Dangdang e-commerce site. According to the New York Stock Exchange, Youku’s triple-digit first-day pop was the biggest since 2005, when Baidu Inc rose 354 percent. In 2008, Oak Pacific announced that it had received $430 million in private funding. With this new move Oak Pacific Interactive joins two other Chinese technology companies that are also planning IPOs soon. Tudou, another video site and TaoMee, a social networking site for children. Social networking sites such as Renren and Kaixin001, which operate like Facebook, have grown in popularity in China in recent years, earning most of their revenue from online advertising. These sites also benefit from a market closed to major foreign competition.image, image [Notice: this is the RSS feed for ALL stories from across The Next Web - that means a lot of stories every day - for just our top stories, subscribe to our Top Stories RSS feed here.] | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Ah so this might be the future of the desktop computer. [TNW Shareables] Posted: 09 Dec 2010 10:20 PM PST
With Smart TV’s, Google TV’s, Apple TV’s and whatever else round the corner, it’s no surprise that its left many questioning whether the era of the desktop computer has finally come to an end. Personally, I’ve fully backed the idea that Smart TV’s are the desktop replacement, that is until I spotted The Bend Desk over on Design Boom. The Bend Desk is a “prototype interactive display that takes the digital workspace from the screen to the desktop by the media computing group at RWTH aachen university. while a typical work setup combines a flat desktop with a vertical computer screen, bend desk combines the two into one single unit. bend desk is a vision for a future workspace that allows continuous interaction between both areas. using multi-touch technology, the display curves from a horizontal plane to a vertical plane. this workspace can be used to display digital content and interact with it directly using multi-touch gestures and manipulation.” Really has to be seen to be believed. What are your thoughts? Has this got potential? [Notice: this is the RSS feed for ALL stories from across The Next Web - that means a lot of stories every day - for just our top stories, subscribe to our Top Stories RSS feed here.] | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Sign of the times: Netflix on, New York Times & Kodak off of S&P 500 next week [TNW United States] Posted: 09 Dec 2010 09:23 PM PST
Of course, the S&P 500 is just one stock index, but there is certainly a pretty stark parallel here. Two companies that helped shape US culture in the 20th century are now being seemingly replaced by a company – Netflix – that many people (us included) feel is not only on a tremendous roll at the beginning of the 21st century, but could help shape video consumption for the next decade or longer. Certainly not the end of the world for the companies taken off the list (they’re being moved to the S&P Midcap 400), and we doubt much will change at Netflix headquarters tomorrow, but it is certainly an interesting commentary (financial and otherwise) on the year 2010. h/t Richard NevinsPress release [Notice: this is the RSS feed for ALL stories from across The Next Web - that means a lot of stories every day - for just our top stories, subscribe to our Top Stories RSS feed here.] | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Google Docs Advanced Editing Comes to the iPad [TNW Google] Posted: 09 Dec 2010 09:00 PM PST Hot from the GooglePlex is that iPad users can now not only view docs in Google Docs, edit them in Google Docs, but now we can also switch to the Desktop view to get the full power of Google Docs editing:
This update comes on the heels of Google turning on editing on for the mobile version of Docs. We’re going to take this update for a test drive and check back in here with a update shortly. Update…. I tried this out on my iPad and recorded the fun on my FlipCam, but while it’s processing I have some first thoughts:
Recommendations: Better than a sharp stick in the eye and will do in a pinch, but I think using Pages or another iPad-centric application for editing will be a lot easier and less frustrating. Here’s the video of me using Google Docs on my iPad in Desktop Mode…yeah it wasn’t easy and I’d opt for SimpleNote or Pages over this any day: Google, MacStories, photo credit [Notice: this is the RSS feed for ALL stories from across The Next Web - that means a lot of stories every day - for just our top stories, subscribe to our Top Stories RSS feed here.] | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Google’s Zeitgeist 2010 in Asia [TNW Asia] Posted: 09 Dec 2010 08:51 PM PST
So, were there any surprises? Not many. Any patterns, yes, a few. Can we learn much about the region from this data. Yes, a little. Surprises? The biggest surprise to The Next Web is the exclusion of Indonesia from the figures. The world’s fourth most populous country which has one of the largest online populations in the region doesn’t appear in the results. We’ve tried the selection menu, we’ve tried manually setting the URL, nothing. Strange. If anyone can point us to the “Zeitgeist 2010″ page for Indonesia, please let us know in the comments and we’ll update the post. Patterns? Yep, there are some definite patterns. Apple’s iPad makes the top ten in six out of the eight countries chosen, no surprise there except that it doesn’t feature in gadget hungry Japan. The most popular Hollywood movie is Inception, appearing in Hong Kong’s and Singapore’s lists, though it should be said that both those territories have large English speaking populations. Justin Beiber features in three of the eight lists and the Soccer World Cup was clearly a favourite, especially in Hong Kong. What can we learn? In this most unscientific of surveys we can reach the following conclusions.
The tables for the eight chosen countries are below. If the wording in some items seems strange, it is because they were machine translated.
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| SalesForce.com Chatter Coming to HootSuite [TNW Canada] Posted: 09 Dec 2010 08:43 PM PST
Both application are intended to work within HootSuite to give sales teams a centralized view of what is going on with all the salespeople, clients, and other facets of the sales process. These apps are still only previews and won’t be available until next year (so don’t try to go looking for them now), but there is an interesting twist to this that might get more teams trying this new collaboration and communications tools. Remember, Chatter is going freemium soon.
Imagine having a team chat built into your regular information tool? At TNW we, of course, have lots of tools to help us keep up with the news. Twitter is just one of them, but we have a backchannel as well. We’re always looking for new solutions to explore. Maybe SalesHootChatterSuite might be just the ticket. Disclosure: I was upgraded to a HootSuite Pro plan by HootSuite to allow me to test new features.HootSuite [Notice: this is the RSS feed for ALL stories from across The Next Web - that means a lot of stories every day - for just our top stories, subscribe to our Top Stories RSS feed here.] | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Operation LeakSpin to Spread WikiLeaks Far and Wide? [TNW Media] Posted: 09 Dec 2010 08:01 PM PST After a several days of the group Anonymous taking down sites tied to businesses thought to oppose WikiLeaks, a new tactic may be in the offing and one that assures that the information available from WikiLeaks can’t be stopped or silenced—have everyone publish some of it. From Boing Boing comes this graphic:
We can’t confirm that this is going on, though the idea behind it seems like a good one. It’s certainly plausible that Anonymous could get hundreds of people to do something like this, however, we haven’t seen any of these posts so can’t confirm that Operation LeakSpin is for real. And a twitter search for “operation leakspin” isn’t lending insight or credence to this potential tactic. That said… Like Boing Boing, I’m on side with this tactic to spread the information supplied by WikiLeaks. If nothing else I expect we’ll see some interesting and dramatic readings of leaks on YouTube. Whether you quote V for Vendetta “A people should not fear their government, their government should fear the people” or 1984 “In a time of universal deceit, telling the truth becomes a revolutionary act.”, the ethos is the same. Taking down websites doesn’t accomplish the goal of keeping information free, spreading it around as far and wide as possible does. You can’t keep a secret that everyone knows. This potential, new tactic, and the new OpenLeaks started by former WikiLeaks employees, are just two more ways for truth and information to get out in the open. Which is what this should have always been about anyway. Social activism and social media can go hand in hand and this wise move by Anonymous is their best option for making real change. Stop breaking stuff, and start building stuff. Now that we know to start looking for leaks to appear everywhere, we’ll keep our eyes peeled and post some of the best here.Boing Boing, photo credit [Notice: this is the RSS feed for ALL stories from across The Next Web - that means a lot of stories every day - for just our top stories, subscribe to our Top Stories RSS feed here.] | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Facebook Announces their 2011 Hacker Cup [TNW Social Media] Posted: 09 Dec 2010 07:54 PM PST  Flex you coding muscles kids, Facebook has announced their 2011 Hacker Cup. That beautiful profile page you look at everyday wasn’t built with paint and dreams. Facebook was built by a bunch of computer geeks hacking and coding furiously. From Facebook:
About the event:
Keep an eye on the Hacker Cup page at www.facebook.com/hackercup for more announcements as the January 7th qualification round approaches. [Notice: this is the RSS feed for ALL stories from across The Next Web - that means a lot of stories every day - for just our top stories, subscribe to our Top Stories RSS feed here.] | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Alibaba now tops Google in online advertising share in China [TNW Asia] Posted: 09 Dec 2010 07:11 PM PST
The final irony being Google’s own Zeitgeist 2010 figures released yesterday that show the top search term in China in 2010 was Baidu. Now, new figures have been released for the third quarter of 2010 that show Google has given up the second place slot in online advertising in China to e-commerce giant Alibaba.
The figures, released by Beijing based research firm Analysys International show that Baidu still has the largest share of the online advertising market, but, that Alibaba has now passed Google to take second place. Alibaba is the owner of taobao.com, China’s largest online marketplace. It is TaoBao that probably accounts for Alibaba’s strength in the online advertising market. Also interesting is Sina, and even Tencent who are very close to pushing Google even further down the table into fourth or fifth place when the figures for the fourth quarter are released.image, Wall Street Journal [Notice: this is the RSS feed for ALL stories from across The Next Web - that means a lot of stories every day - for just our top stories, subscribe to our Top Stories RSS feed here.] | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Kobo Makes eBooks Social with New Facebook Connection [TNW Media] Posted: 09 Dec 2010 06:54 PM PST
I guess because all the eReader makers forgot the social aspect of reading. That is until now… This morning Kobo updated their iPad app to add some pretty nifty new sharing features. I read about all the coolness on Macgasm this morning, but it wasn’t until this evening that I could actually play with it. It’s actually cooler than it appears at first blush. Maybe not because of the features that it has now but the features that it could have in the future. For the time being, the new features are just in the iPad version, Kobo is plans to roll out the features to the other platforms later. Before I get into the meaning of these changes, here are the highlighted new features from the Kobo press release:
Awards! Just like in school when you got stickers for reading books! Hey don’t laugh I think the idea is great. The one feature that I haven’t played with much yet is the “check-ins” that connect with characters and places within your books. I saw one in Dracula … and okay I found Budapest … not much there in the information. For now. There is a lot of potential here for being able to pull in a lot of additional information about the books your are reading. Instead of going whole hog at first, I think Kobo has done the smart thing and started with incremental changes that might tantalize readers.
As for starting to use Reading Life on the iPad, the first time you launch Kobo on your iPad your settings and such will be updated and then there is a nice, slick introduction to the new features. Oh for people who like to jump ahead, you can swipe up and down with two fingers to get to the end or beginning of a chapter and left-right to skip between chapters. I know that Google eBooks are garnering a lot of our attention, and Amazon certainly rules the eReader roost, but looking at Kindle, iBooks, and Kobo (sorry I can’t get a Nook up here) I think Kobo are the only folks who are truly innovating in eReaders. I think they see that the physical eReader is just one facet of the whole ebooks picture, the desktop, mobile apps, and (maybe) a web app…this is where you can do really cool and interesting things. Kobo put together a short video on the features of this new version … take a gander. Then maybe give Kobo a shot. It is free and it can read all the book formats out there (yes, except Kindle and iBooks)…I think you’ll like it: [Notice: this is the RSS feed for ALL stories from across The Next Web - that means a lot of stories every day - for just our top stories, subscribe to our Top Stories RSS feed here.] | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| WikiLeaks defectors launching OpenLeaks in protest of methods used by Julian Assange [TNW Media] Posted: 09 Dec 2010 06:35 PM PST
Swedish newspaper Dagens Nyheter reports that several individuals who defected from the site following conflicts with Assange, will launch a new site, OpenLeaks, as soon as Monday. According to the story, those launching the site, including former WikiLeaks staffer Daniel Domscheit-Berg, while supporting the purpose and goals of WikiLeaks, never the less plan on launching OpenLeaks with the following goals in mind:
From what can be gleaned about OpenLeaks, the site does not intend to publish information solely for the public, opting instead to allow other organizations access to OpenLeaks and do with it what they will. The information on the site will be produced and published by partnering organizations. Further, OpenLeaks aims to carve a niche for their site as a neutral party,
Continuing,
According to Forbes, the project will initially partnered with five newspapers worldwide, but soon expand to anyone who wants to participate. As for Assange’s opinion of OpenLeaks, Forbes reports he downplayed the notion that OpenLeaks would compete with WikiLeaks, stating. "The supply of leaks is very large. It's helpful for us to have more people in this industry. It's protective to us." What do you think of OpenLeaks? Is their method of disseminating information more likely to absolve them from some of the criticism received by WikiLeaks? Do you feel OpenLeaks is only the beginning of other organizations launching sites similar to that of WikiLeaks?Dagens Nyheter, Forbes [Notice: this is the RSS feed for ALL stories from across The Next Web - that means a lot of stories every day - for just our top stories, subscribe to our Top Stories RSS feed here.] | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Your parents are on Facebook, Friend ‘em or not? [TNW Shareables] Posted: 09 Dec 2010 05:11 PM PST It can be a tough decision to make when you notice a friend request from your parents. The web will luckily always offer solutions to difficult choices like this and most of the time those solutions come in the form of a flowchart like this one: [Notice: this is the RSS feed for ALL stories from across The Next Web - that means a lot of stories every day - for just our top stories, subscribe to our Top Stories RSS feed here.] | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Microsoft tries to woo Gmail users to Hotmail on Reddit, politely eats crow [TNW Microsoft] Posted: 09 Dec 2010 04:44 PM PST
The Hotmail team took to Reddit today asking for input from current, old, ex, long-time, and new Hotmail users about what they like about Hotmail, and what they would change. If you don’t know, and we have been covering it over the last few months, Hotmail has been rapidly updating itself to catch up with Gmail in terms of capabilities and ease of use. That said, the AMA was decidedly unpleasant, with rather sharp comments coming in by the hundred; Hotmail is not popular on Reddit. To be plain, Hotmail seems to have near zero mind share among Reddit users, a group that is generally young, male, and technologically capable. What it does have in quantity is negative nostalgia, something that the AMA stirred up by the bucket. Before we jump into this, don’t forget that Hotmail is still much larger than Gmail. I am going to break down the big discussions, saving you the time of finding them for yourself. We did not edit the text of anything from Reddit, so there are some (sics) to go around. Let’s go: Everyone Wants IMAP – The Answer Is NoPerhaps the most contentious discussion was around IMAP, and Hotmail’s lack of support for it. It all started like this:
The lack of IMAP support flew like a lead balloon, with user NNY76 summarizing the unhappy theme: ”Absolutely. Unacceptable. Why is there no IMAP for all Hotmail users? Why only push EAS which is a Microsoft protocol?” The Hotmail team took the time to address all the IMPA complaints by editing their original post (OP) to better explain their position on the matter:
Is that enough? Why not just implement IMAP and be done with the controversy? Whatever the argument, the Hotmail team seems to feel certain in their path forward. SpamThe Hotmail team was raked over the coals about spam numerous time in the discussion, but stuck up for themselves saying that they had worked very hard to improve the spam filtering capabilities of Hotmail. In fact, they claim to have reached parity with market averages:
In other words: back when you used Hotmail our spam filtering was terrible, now we are on par with the best in the market, and we want credit for it. FeaturesTo quickly bring you the important points that were raised we are going to have to do some more extensive quoting. We want to bring you the most important elements of what Hotmail is doing, but in their own words to prevent us from unfairly filtering their voice. User neozz1 asked a very important question: “I switched to GMail, why should I ever switch back?” That was the real point of the AMA for many Redditors, why should I come back to the Hotmail fold? According to Team Redmond:
But that was only part of the feature discussion. Later on that thread develdevil listed out his favorite points of Gmail: “speed, interface, gchat/aim, docs/calendar integration, labs, threading, iphone works well with mail and calendar, no spam, [and] unintrusive ads.” The Hotmail crew took that in stride, and pointed out that the new Hotmail could do much of that:
My TakeI took the time to head back to Hotmail where I thought that I had started to import my Gmail account. I was going to play around in the inbox for a an hour or so to get my feet wet. My import had disappeared, so I set it up again. It didn’t work. So I did it a third time, and it seemed to catch. I confirmed my Gmail address as my own, and waited for my email to transfer. Several hours later it has loaded 30 emails that are from October 2009. Not sure what to make of that. If Gmail in Hotmail is supposed to be their weapon to get me back, it is not sharp enough to wound, at least yet. It was very good of the Hotmail team to show up on Reddit today and get real feedback from real people to help them improve their product. More companies should do the same thing. What comes next? Expect Hotmail to take the community response to heart and improve their email system. Will it catch Gmail? That is up to them.
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| Why the Nexus S has NFC – Google Places window stickers are NFC enabled [TNW Google] Posted: 09 Dec 2010 03:39 PM PST
Google says that it has already started to reach out to businesses in Portland (which it calls a “tech savvy, forward-thinking city) with special Google Places Business Kits (here’s the sign up page for Portland businesses). These kits are super interesting, but not for the assortment of Google Maps pins swag – but because the window stickers that come with them feature near field communications (NFC) built right in that includes information about the business on its Places pages (and we’re guessing will allow users to do things such as rate the venue as well). Well, now we know exactly why the Nexus S (and Android 2.3 Gingerbread) have NFC capabilities, especially in the short term. Google is also giving doing another Hotpot Jackpot along with this campaign:
Hotpot + the Nexus S just made Portland, Oregon one of the most interesting places on Earth right now for location based services, advertising and ratings. We’re very excited to follow this campaign going forward. If you are a Portland business owner and have been reached out to by Google, please send us an email at tips@thenextweb.com – we’d love to interview you.Google LatLong blog [Notice: this is the RSS feed for ALL stories from across The Next Web - that means a lot of stories every day - for just our top stories, subscribe to our Top Stories RSS feed here.] | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Google destroys 25 Chrome notebooks to highlight the advantages of the cloud [TNW Google] Posted: 09 Dec 2010 03:39 PM PST Today, Google’s prototype notebook dubbed the Cr-48, began showing up on the doorsteps of a lucky few. Fortunately, a few of us here were fortunate enough to be a part of that group and we just recently gave you our first impressions. Now that the device is out in the open, Google has posted a pretty entertaining video of the Chrome notebook through their googlechrome YouTube account. In the video, our host Glen Murphy uses his Chrome notebook to type a note to a friend. His device is then repeatedly destroyed in several dramatic ways, however, because his information isn’t store on the device itself, he is able to pick up right where he left off. It’s done really well, just like the notebook. [Notice: this is the RSS feed for ALL stories from across The Next Web - that means a lot of stories every day - for just our top stories, subscribe to our Top Stories RSS feed here.] |
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