19 new stories on The Next Web today |  |
- Bit.ly Now Lets You Add QR Codes To Links In Seconds [TNW Social Media]
- Official: “UK Netflix” LoveFilm is coming to Playstation 3 [TNW UK]
- My Friend Is… [TNW Shareables]
- Tweetdeck details its Android users, highlights “extreme fragmentation” of the OS [TNW Mobile]
- Rumor: Android Gingerbread SDK Coming Next Week? [TNW Mobile]
- OS X Sync Support For Windows Phone 7 Coming Soon [TNW Microsoft]
- A panic in the US as Texas considers new hosted website sales taxes. [TNW United States]
- Microsoft and Alibaba launch search engine “Etao” in China [TNW Asia]
- Amazon, Skype, eBay and Kindle iOS apps all rolled out nice changes today [TNW Apps]
- Think it all happens in Silicon Valley? You’re wrong! – Kaggle [TNW Australia]
- BuzzVoice goes freemium, adds new features. Listen to your favorite blogs on the cheap. [TNW Apps]
- Nearly Two Months In, Foursquare Appears to be Holding Its Own against Facebook Places [TNW Location]
- Facebook is launching one-time passwords and remote sign out for everyone [TNW Social Media]
- Checking in: Marissa Mayer to take over location, local at Google [TNW Google]
- Digg Really Is Listening, They Did Everything We Asked For [TNW Social Media]
- Clone wars: Groupon talking to five Chinese group buying sites [TNW Asia]
- Digg CEO Matt Williams: 23 million uniques, and a few old features return [TNW Social Media]
- Bad Video Game Reviews Sink EA’s Stock Price [TNW United States]
- Kindle Singles is a play for the college market [TNW United States]
- Posterous Releases Killer New iPhone App [TNW Apps]
| Bit.ly Now Lets You Add QR Codes To Links In Seconds [TNW Social Media] Posted: 13 Oct 2010 03:52 AM PDT
How Does It Work And What Is The Future?You’ll have to download an app to your phone but there are plenty available in app stores and once you snap this QR code it will take you to the link of your choice which in the case above is here http://bit.ly/ai8t4Q.qr. QR codes are a great way for marketers and brands around the world to interact in an engaging way with customers and they can be added to tons of real world locations that encourage users to visit websites. They could appear on packaging, front doors, restaurants or vans and what bit.ly have done here is make it even easier for users to generate their own QR code by simply adding two letters to URLs and with billions of those already being shortened every month this could really be a huge push forward for the QR code industry. [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.]     |
| Official: “UK Netflix” LoveFilm is coming to Playstation 3 [TNW UK] Posted: 13 Oct 2010 03:44 AM PDT
The streaming movie and TV service is already available on some of Sony’s Bravia TV range which shares the same XMB (cross-media bar) interface as the PS3, so the move is little surprise. LoveFilm says:
More details (and the previously leaked video) can be found on LoveFilm’s site here, although there’s no detail as to when the service goes live, or whether LoveFilm users outside the UK will get the service too – we’ll clarify those points and update this post. UPDATE: LoveFilm tells use that the service will arrive in November and will be rolling out “In as many territories as we can, as soon as we can.” LoveFilme currently operates in the UK, Sweden, Norway, Denmark and Germany [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.]    |
| My Friend Is… [TNW Shareables] Posted: 13 Oct 2010 03:07 AM PDT [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.]    |
| Tweetdeck details its Android users, highlights “extreme fragmentation” of the OS [TNW Mobile] Posted: 13 Oct 2010 02:34 AM PDT
As you might have known, Tweetdeck (the popular Twitter application available on the desktop and mobile devices) recently released the Beta version of its Android client (check out our thoughts on it here), finally giving Android users a taste of what iPhone owners had access to for months previous. During the beta testing period (which is closing soon), Tweetdeck analysed the handsets and the different firmwares on the 36,427 active beta testers Android smartphones, collating a very interesting set of statistics in the process. Tweetdeck’s detailed its findings in a blog post, highlighting the extreme fragmentation of the Android OS, the massive number of custom ROM’s and weird phone names that cropped up in its reports. Tweetdeck doesn’t mind, anyone using its app is considered a bonus for them, just take a look at the following graphs and see with your own eyes the sheer number of customisations present in the Android ecosystem. Users By Phone(Click for bigger). Users By OS Version[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.]    |
| Rumor: Android Gingerbread SDK Coming Next Week? [TNW Mobile] Posted: 13 Oct 2010 01:22 AM PDT
Android Police were tipped to the release news but couldn’t clarify whether the firmware revision would be 2.5 or 3.0. The release of the SDK will provide developers and Android enthusiasts with an emulator, showing exactly what the Gingerbread release will look like and how it will perform. Google released the SDK for Android 1.0 in the fall of 2008, Android 2.0 in the fall of 2009 and Android 3.0? It’s about that time. Make no mistake, this is a rumor, Google has a strict policy on not “commenting on rumor or speculation”. Sit tight, this rumor might just have legs. [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.]    |
| OS X Sync Support For Windows Phone 7 Coming Soon [TNW Microsoft] Posted: 12 Oct 2010 11:01 PM PDT Doesn't look like Microsoft plans to bring Zune to the Mac but like the KIN, Windows Phone 7 will sync with the Macs. The confirmation came via a tweet and it is safe assume users will be able to sync photographs and probably their music. Microsoft UK's head of consumer marketing for Windows Phone made the tweet which has now been deleted. Neowin was quick enough to grab a screenshot: [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.]    |
| A panic in the US as Texas considers new hosted website sales taxes. [TNW United States] Posted: 12 Oct 2010 06:11 PM PDT  A few days ago, a post started circulating the Internet that struck fear into the hearts of many. According to the article, many goods and services sold via a website hosted in Texas would now be subject to sales tax. It’s understandable that this can cause a fair amount of confusion, given the various definitions of goods versus services. Traditionally speaking, there has never been a sales tax placed on services, but state and local governments have done their best to blur the lines that define a service in order to add more taxation. The issue at hand, however, throws caution to the wind of definitions and aims straight for businesses that host their websites within the Texas borders.
Now you might be asking yourself why it matters. The answer to that question is that many of the major hosting companies have homes within Texas. Rackspace, in fact, hosts a large percentage of the websites for the Fortune 500 companies from its Texas datacenters. Here’s the problem – apparently the author of the post has a flair for the dramatic, and not for research. This was, immediately, one of those situations where we knew that something wasn’t quite right, so we dug in to find any information that we could. First, the post hit HackerNews. On HN, the comments began to fly that broke down the issues at hand. There are simply too many holes in the rules, as they are presently written, for them to ever be implemented. As one commenter questions:
La Gesse, in a candid email and phone conversation, explained to me the inner workings of what is happening in Texas. Though Rackspace has not formulated an official response to the matter (they are planning to do just that, tomorrow, and we will let you know what is said), La Gesse did state this emphatically:
La Gesse went on to tell me that Rackspace has been in close contact with the Texas Comptroller’s office after initially hearing of the proposed rules through some of Rackspace’s own customers. Understandably concerned, Rackspace went to work figuring out exactly what the intent of the rules was and how it would affect those who fell underneath them. On the outside, the rules are indeed very strict and offer little protection for businesses who are using Texas-based servers to host their content. However, La Gesse tells me that even Texas wasn’t necessarily certain of the wide-reaching problems that the rules could cause. Once the Comptroller’s office was made aware of the potential issues, the tone changed almost immediately. La Gesse believes that Texas has “no intent to charge taxes for 3rd-party services [such as web hosting]“, and is likely to change or clarify the rules to reflect this long before they’re ever enforced. In fact, the Rackspace Blog states the same:
So my question to Diane Kennedy ultimately comes down to one of due diligence. Instead of inciting panic among the masses (as can happen easily when a post gets the attention of an audience such as HackerNews or The Next Web), why not spend some time doing homework? Do people need to be aware of and concerned with these rules? Absolutely. But there is no use in claiming that the sky is falling long before the first rumble hits. As I stated previously, we’re in close contact with Rackspace (though still awaiting a reply from Hostgator and Linode) and we will let you know what we find out as soon as we find it. In the mean time, carry on, there is apparently nothing to see here. [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 and Alibaba launch search engine “Etao” in China [TNW Asia] Posted: 12 Oct 2010 05:18 PM PDT
According the Wall Street Journal, the new search engine launched on Saturday in a public beta, but with all of the buzz/censorship news about Liu Xiaobo winning the Nobel Peace Prize over the weekend, however, we’re not too surprised this missed most people’s radar. While Microsoft already has already been been testing a Chinese version of Bing (and “bing” by the way is directly translatable into Chinese – one translation is “round bread”), it doesn’t have much traction at this point in a market that is still in convultions over Google’s quasi-exit earlier this year, with already at the time market leader Baidu left standing all alone at the top of the hill. The new search engine is reportedly going to be mainly focused on Alibaba’s Taobao site (the eBay of China) at least at first, and it is unclear right now exactly what search technology is behind the site, as it could be Bing, Yahoo Search and/or Sohu’s Sogu search tech, which Alibaba has agreed to purchase a stake in. Confused? Well, you should be – we’ll keep digging to see what else we can find on it. Though search has really never taken off for Microsoft in China, the Redmond company has a very strong presence in the country overall, with probably its best web property being Windows Live Messenger, which is widely used in business. However, this, as David Wolf of Wolf Group Asia (and who told you predicted the iPad back in 2007) tells the WSJ that this deal is, “a coup for Microsoft” and we whole-heartedly agree.The 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.]    |
| Amazon, Skype, eBay and Kindle iOS apps all rolled out nice changes today [TNW Apps] Posted: 12 Oct 2010 04:49 PM PDT In addition to the LinkedIn update that we covered this morning, today saw updates to four other major iOS apps: Amazon, Skype, eBay and the Kindle iPad app. With so many widely used apps updating on the same day, we thought we’d put them all into one post instead of bombarding you with four separate articles. So here they are, one at a time: Amazon (iPhone)Of all of these four apps, the Amazon update is probably the most significant, because the app now supports barcode scanning on the iPhone 4 and 3GS for price comparison shopping when you’re at the store. With the ease and security of shopping on Amazon.com, it’s often easier (and cheaper) just to shop with on Amazon. That said, getting out to touch and feel the things you want to buy is still something most of us do, so when you’re out and about now with your iPhone, you can simply scan a barcode on an item to see if it makes more sense to buy it on Amazon. Skype (iPhone)Next up is Skype, which, in addition to a number of bug fixes, improved notifications and more detailed descriptions of each feature, added a “Go Offline” option to the app while the app is running in the background in iOS 4.1, saying that “You can now choose how Skype behaves when it runs in the background.” This is a nice addition for those that would like to have Skype readily available in the multitasking bar but would prefer to not always show up to their Skype contacts as online. eBay (iPad)eBay (which coincidentally used to own Skype of course) released an update today for its iPad app (eBay has separate iPad and iPhone apps) that includes a full screen picture viewer with zoom, multiple photo viewing from the View item screen, and probably most importantly, added “new advanced search options including item condition, time left, number of bids and free shipping, as well as improved search results on the whole. Kindle (iPad)Kindle (which of course is an Amazon product, funny grouping right?) also released one nice improvement to its iPad app today: the ability to view either one or two columns when reading in landscape mode. According to the update, to change the column display, you “tap the screen to activate reading controls and tap the 'Aa' button to open View Options.” This is a nice subtle option that should enhance the reading experience. [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.]    |
| Think it all happens in Silicon Valley? You’re wrong! – Kaggle [TNW Australia] Posted: 12 Oct 2010 04:39 PM PDT
Sponsored by Kodak, Silicon Beach Australia and The Next Web, Techfluff.tvdecided to delve a little deeper into Melbourne's startup scene and video interviewed ten of these companies. This week we caught up with Anthony Goldbloom from Kaggle - a new startup that is bringing crowd sourcing to data analytics and predictions. It’s an interesting application of the crowd sourcing model and well worth hearing Anthony talk about it. Stay tuned for next week as we will bring you an interview from QMCodes. CLICK HERE to check out all our past Melbourne Silicon Beach Series interviews [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.]    |
| BuzzVoice goes freemium, adds new features. Listen to your favorite blogs on the cheap. [TNW Apps] Posted: 12 Oct 2010 02:50 PM PDT
So what’s new? The list looks like this, according to the BuzzVoice blog:
The freemium thing works like this – BuzzVoice works, in full, for free. However, it’s now ad-supported. If you want to get rid of the ads, you’ll need to upgrade to BuzzVoice PRO. BuzzVoice works worldwide, so you should be able to grab it for your Android or iOS device no matter where you are. Now, as far as that PRO account goes, it will run you $3.99 per month to ditch the ads. However, given that BuzzVoice seems to really like us here at The Next Web, they’ve been kind enough to offer us 5 free PRO subscriptions, good for one year of PRO service. Want one? You’ll need to retweet this article from the Tweet button up top. 24 hours from now, we’ll contact you via Twitter to let you know if you’ve won. In the mean time, watch the video, then Grab the iPhone or Android version and let us know what you think. [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.]    |
| Posted: 12 Oct 2010 02:22 PM PDT Array
Or would Facebook's network prove too general purpose for optimal location sharing, allowing Foursquare room to grow. While Facebook Places hasn't shared any hard data yet about usage or check-in volume, there are some other tools out there that allow us to gauge how the services are doing in terms of capturing the imagination of the public. Let's take a look at Google Trends. Here is a comparison of "Foursquare" vs. "Facebook Places." After an initial spike of launch interest for Facebook Places, people are searching for Foursquare at about 3X the volume that they are searching for Facebook Places. And Foursquare's friends in the press continue to do their part in promoting the startup, though it would appear that there might be a slight drop off in the Foursquare press love recently. Data from my own networks would seem to corroborate the point that Foursquare is hanging in there. Despite some recent Foursquare downtime, I see 22 checkins from my 141 friends since Monday, versus 12 checkins from my 500+ friends on Facebook. Let's be clear on this and point out a couple of disclaimers. Searches for "Foursquare" aren't check-ins. And many people using Facebook Places probably don't think of themselves as Facebook Places users, but as Facebook users. And my social graphs are likely not representative of those of a mainstream user. Furthermore, there is little doubt Facebook's overall check-in volume far exceeds that of Foursquare, based on Facebook's 150M+ mobile users. But when I look at Foursquare on these Google Trends graphs, I don't see a service that is getting stomped into irrelevancy. I see a service that continues to be used by early adopters, and continues to capture the imagination of consumers, brands, and the press. Two months after the launch of Facebook Places, it would appear from the outside as if Foursquare has weathered the initial Facebook Places storm. If they are able to keep their servers up and continue to innovate, they have a fighting chance to be the preferred means of sharing location among friends. [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 is launching one-time passwords and remote sign out for everyone [TNW Social Media] Posted: 12 Oct 2010 01:56 PM PDT  Facebook is working hard to make sure that its users are as safe as possible, and in that vein has released a handful of new security features today that will be going live in the next month. Chief among Facebook’s announcements are one-time passwords, logins that you can receive from Facebook via mobile phone that only work for 20 minutes. Want to nab some Facebook time on a public machine? Text ‘otp’ to 32665 and, assuming that you have a mobile number set on your Facebook account, Facebook will send you a temporary password that will work just once, and will expire in a third of an hour. This will be rolling out over the next several weeks. Facebook is also releasing remote log out to all users, giving them the ability to leave sessions remotely, thus keeping snoops and other annoyances out of their logged in sessions. If you head the ‘Account Security’ area of your Account Settings controls, you can shut down any logged in computer. Finally, Facebook is going to be prompting users to update their security information on a more regular basis, ensuring that if something does happen, verifying and getting someone back onto the system is seamless and safe. All in all, Facebook is taking care of its users in innovative ways that will be appreciated by users young and old. [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.]    |
| Checking in: Marissa Mayer to take over location, local at Google [TNW Google] Posted: 12 Oct 2010 01:49 PM PDT Marissa Mayer, who has run Google Search for years, has now been put in charge of location and local services, according to an email sent by Google to Bloomberg. So that’s why Mayer has been checking in on Foursquare lately. Mayer, who we pointed out a few weeks ago has more or less been face of Google lately (especially while Vic Gundotra is locked down on Google Me we’re guessing) has also reportedly been promoted to Google’s operating committee, which is the highest echelon of Google’s management (we’re kind of surprised she wasn’t already there actually). So, what will Mayer do with location and local now that its under her control. First of all, as we’ve said a number of times, beyond search and advertising, we think location is one of the things that Google does best, so Mayer will be starting out from a position of considerable strength. We’re not talking about the always there but not really Latitude either – when we say location, we mean Google Maps. Google Maps is far and away the most used online mapping service in the world, and for good reason. Add to that Google Places, all of the location features of Android (which are of course centered around Google Maps) and Mayer will have an arsenal to take on not only Yelp and Foursquare and the such, but also much bigger threats in Apple, Microsoft (Bing Maps is more impressive every day) and of course Facebook Places. Right, Facebook. It would seem that Google is not taking any chances, taking two of its most visable execs and placing them on projects that will most likely compete directly with Facebook for some time. Then there is Twitter, which Mayer (and Google in general it would seem) have great admiration for – could Mayer do something with Twitter’s geo team to really bring a synergy to both companies on location? Finally, yes, there is Foursquare, which as we said above, Mayer has been very publicly engaging with over the last few weeks. Foursquare’s CEO Dennis Crowley has already had one go around as a Google employee after Google acquired his Dodgeball, but could Mayer – and a subsequent re-focusing of Google around location as well as a common enemy in Facebook – bring the possibility that Crowley (and Foursquare’s investors) might entertain a Google acquisition? If not, could Google perhaps snap up a Foursquare competitor for a lot less than Foursquare would probably cost? As close followers of Google and location services, this is really an exciting announcement and one that could have far reaching implications across a number of web and mobile services.Bloomberg [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.]    |
| Digg Really Is Listening, They Did Everything We Asked For [TNW Social Media] Posted: 12 Oct 2010 12:59 PM PDT
Right after the launch of Digg V4 I wrote up a post that outlined the largest complaints from Digg users (I shared their views), putting them in a single place out in the open for all to see. With the new changes that Digg’s CEO promised today, every single one of my listed concerns will have been addressed. Let’s go down the list:
The other important feature that was removed – user profiles that include comment and submission history – is on its way back as well. To put it bluntly: Digg took a bold, risky move, it didn’t go well, and now the company is righting the wagon and getting the oxen lined back up to drive its community forward. If you take a risk and you win, you are a genius. If you take that same risk and it turns out poorly, you are a chump. If you don’t take the risk you are dead in the water, becoming irrelevant. Digg did what it had to do, and by taking that risk it is fighting for a real future, not a slow decline. The new design’s negative publicity has been everywhere, so much so, that even I, a Digg fan, bought into it, saying that Digg has jumped the shark. Then again, with their new CEO, and their new direction, perhaps we have all misjudged Digg. Let’s wait and see, but there is hope at the end of this tunnel Digg has dug itself into.Digg, TNW, 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.]    |
| Clone wars: Groupon talking to five Chinese group buying sites [TNW Asia] Posted: 12 Oct 2010 12:45 PM PDT
The companies mentioned were Meituan, FTuan, Lashou, Aibang and QQTuan. According to Mobinode, the CEO of one of FTuan said that though the companies are under an NDA, he could confirm that Groupon has not as yet “signed any deal” with any of the companies. Mobinode also quotes “an insider” that reportedly said that:
Our guess? We bet that Groupon would have to pay a pretty hefty premium to buy any of these services, and frankly, the cost of doing this kind of business isn’t all that high, and, as Groupon has clearly shown, the upside is enormous, especially in such a large market like China (where getting a discount/bargain is almost an art form). Just how big of a market could this turn out to be in China? Well, a few weeks ago, the news circulated about one particular deal that Alibaba’s Taobao did (Taobao is basically the eBay of China). The deal resulted in 200 Smart cars sold (buyer saved over US$6,000) – in 3.5 hours. Yes, hours, not the 3 weeks that the Mercedes Benz (which makes the Smart car) hoped to sell out the 200 cars when it launched the promotion on September 6th. In comparison, Mercedes Benz says that on average it sells one Smart car per day in China. Like we said, if Groupon plans to buy one or more of these clones, it should expect to pay a strong premium – and it should get a move on before it is completely knocked out of the market altogether.DoNews (Chinese), Mobinode, China Internet Watch [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.]    |
| Digg CEO Matt Williams: 23 million uniques, and a few old features return [TNW Social Media] Posted: 12 Oct 2010 11:14 AM PDT Array
How clear, you might ask? Clear enough, it seems, to clear up some problems that have been bugging the site’s users since the v4 launch. First, he speaks of the return of the “Upcoming” section, which we talked about being quite important. Also there are some tweaks that have been done to the pagination to make the site run better than it had. The important changes, however, are glimpses of the past:
Oh, and for those singing the death of Digg? Williams would like to let you know that there were 23 million unique visitors in August. Perhaps we’ve all underestimated the power of Williams and Digg combined? [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.]    |
| Bad Video Game Reviews Sink EA’s Stock Price [TNW United States] Posted: 12 Oct 2010 11:12 AM PDT What happens when the most recent addition to a blockbuster series of games launches to lackluster reviews? Do investors even notice, or is a game just a game? That exact scenario played out today as reviews of Electronic Art’s Medal of Honor were not up to expected levels of praise, leading many analysts to cast a negative eye at the title, leaving the company open to perhaps weaker expected profit and revenue over the next several quarters. Traders listened, and the company’s stock fell 6%. Get a bad review, get a bad reaction from the markets is the rule, it seems. The game was released today in North America, and will be placed up for sale around the world this week. That said, Electronic Arts had previously reported that pre-orders for the game were the highest in the history of the franchise, but those were largely placed sight unseen, leaving them open to develop into returns if the title fails to capture hearts and minds when it reaches consumer hands. Unless reviews perk up, Medal of Honor could take some of the sheen off of the future of the gaming line, which is sure to take Electronic Art’s stock price down a peg and then some.Reuters, 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.]    |
| Kindle Singles is a play for the college market [TNW United States] Posted: 12 Oct 2010 10:50 AM PDT
Which is exactly who Amazon is targeting with Kindle Singles. While buying (paper) books on Amazon has been a staple of the college scene for a decade, we’re pretty sure that Amazon still hasn’t hit the stride that it would like to have with college eBook and/or Kindle sales. The bookseller tried to push the Kindle DX onto the education market, but it was too big and too expensive. Sorry Amazon, but that’s the truth. Beyond that, teachers/professors are often locked into paper book deals, and it’s pretty hard to make a class full of students drop $300+ on a ereader just so they can participate in class. However, things are rapidly changing. Not only is the Kindle 3 WiFi model a very reasonable $139 (and we wouldn’t be surprised at all if it drops to $99 for the holidays), but Amazon now has Kindle apps for nearly every smartphone, as well as for the iPad, so the hardware barrier has been greatly reduced. That said, there is still those pesky paper books to deal with – and Amazon’s answer to bridge to gap between now and when all reading is done electronically (which of course will happen some day) would seem to Kindle Singles. How could Kindle Singles help to bridge that gap? Well, back to the press release Amazon put out today:
“Serious writers, thinkers, scientists” and “historians” sure sounds like college professors to us, and the length of the Singles is about exactly what a serious academic journal article or research paper comes out to, isn’t it? Those articles certainly are “crafted to their natural length” more or less, and academic book publishers – unless the book is an edited selection of essays – don’t touch those kinds of article with a ten foot pole: they simply can’t sell them. In academic circles, however, journal articles are the meat in the college sandwich, and right now on the Kindle, these are mainly read as PDFs. However, give academics the opportunity to not only get their writings out to “readers around the world”, but also make some money (especially without having to give their cut to the publishers) in the process…they are going to line up to write Singles, and Amazon knows it. That said, for right now, Amazon is playing nice with publishers by saying “we’re reaching out to publishers and accomplished writers” but that is just a nicety that Amazon has to do at this point. In the not-too-distant-future, we fully expect Amazon to open this up to many more people – especially hungry-to-get-published-academics. When those young, hip, professors and teaching assistants can point their students to their latest journal article/Kindle Single on Amazon.com, then we’ll start to see the real tipping point in academics towards ereading. Kindle Singles are nothing short of brilliant on Amazon’s part. Related articles
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| Posterous Releases Killer New iPhone App [TNW Apps] Posted: 12 Oct 2010 10:49 AM PDT
The mobile app also allows for geotagging, tagging by category, and the marking of posts as private from inside the application. In short it has all the bells and whistles that the Posterous faithful will want on the go. Happily for hardcore users, the application also supports multiple sites at once, so you can keep your different Posterous blogs up to date. Of course, the application also supports sharing, allowing you to post to 26 different websites when you publish your post; your Facebook and Twitter friends will not be left in the dark. Do note that Posterous has had an app called PicPosterous available for some time, but that application was weak and uni-featured. This new release fills a large gap in the Posterous line up. The app is free and is in the app store right now. Get downloading! [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.]    |
The popular link shortening service 
Considering that the HackerNews post specifically called out Rackspace, Hostgator and Linode, I decided to reach out to all three hosting providers to get their aspect on things. Of the three, I received an immediate reply via Twitter from 
When we 
In a rather transparent 
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