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- What If Your Postage Stamp Was The Letter - Or An Entire Book?
Who says print is dead? Rotterdam designer Richard Hutten produces a stamp-sized book for the Dutch postal service. 
"Hey, did you read the stamp I sent you?" There's no need for a letter when the stamp you use is a book. Rotterdam designer Richard Hutten has designed a new stamp for Royal TNT Post, in honor of this year's Dutch Book Week, that doubles as a tiny tome. The 3x4 centimeter stamp opens up into an 8-page, 500-word story by Joost Zwagerman. 
We have Charles and Ray Eames and Calvin and Hobbes, fine, but we also have Dolphins. Meanwhile, TNT Post has always pushed great design. They've had an official design department since they were founded in 1911, and have commissioned designers like Martijn Sandberg and staat, who immortalized Dutch icons like, no joke, the Heineken bottle on their stamp set from 2007. Hutten's stamp went on sale Tuesday for ?2.20, enough to mail about a pound -- or, according to TNT Post, a life-size book. 
[via moco loco]
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- Verizon's Bringing 4G Speeds in Mid-2011, But Wave Buh-Bye to Unlimited Data
Verizon's just revealed its going to have Long Term Evolution (LTE) handsets ready for mid-2011, which is six months earlier than it had previously said it would be available. It looks like the big carriers are making the first moves to snatch the next-gen mobile market. The company will have infrastructure installed in some locations by the end of 2010, but it'll take up to six months for suitably equipped 4G (also known as 3GPP) mobile devices to arrive. At first these will most likely be dual-chipped devices, that can hop on to super-fast LTE networks when they're in range and fall back on 3G tech for the moments when 4G signals are patchy. Which they will be at first. While cellphone handsets will be the things that consumers will be keen to get their hands on, many of the first 4G applications will probably be 4G data dongles for laptops, since using a laptop in a static location will result in less 4G drop-outs, and thus a better consumer experience (which networks like Verizon will be keen to promote.) But Verizon's CTO, Anthony Melone, also had things to say about how 4G is going to cost us, when interviewed on the subject by the Wall Street Journal, and his words are a good indicator of how the whole mobile industry is going to work in the future. The main point that concerns users is that all you can eat plans, delivering unlimited 4G data for a fixed monthly fee, aren't going to happen. This is "the big issue that has to change" according to Malone. It won't be a restrictive move, and consumers shouldn't worry, Malone also noted--Verizon doesn't want users to sit there concerned with questions like "'Can I stream this radio?'" Looking at the disastrous PR that's hit AT&T thanks to the explosion in mobile data traffic caused by Apple's invention of the iPhone, as well as the trend toward ever-smarter mobile cellphone tech and large-screen mobile Net devices like the iPad and its upcoming host of competitors, this is inevitable. And it's even been echoed by other industry players. The key reason is obvious: It's going to cost Verizon, AT&T and all the other network providers around the world a huge pile of cash to get 4G up and running, and the companies have to recoup that cost somehow. What this does make clear, though, is that we're all going to have to think differently about how we pay for our mobile calls and data payment plans in the future--and we'll have to get our minds around the matter sooner than we may have anticipated. [via Wall St Journal] Follow me, Kit Eaton, on Twitter to read more news like this.
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- Pink Floyd to EMI: We Don't Need No Digital Singles
Although it's been clinically proven that sympathy for major record labels is a medical impossibility, some people may be feeling a slight twinge of compassion towards EMI*. Yesterday, OK Go dispensed with their services following a row about over video embedding, and today, the big boys joined in. A judge in London has ruled in favor of Pink Floyd, after they went to court to stop EMI from chopping up its albums and selling the tracks individually.
The band went to court asking for clarification of their recording contract, which was signed over a decade ago--when sales of digital music wasn't even a ball of fluff on the end of the stylus that is the music business. Rather embarrassingly for EMI, its Queen's Counsel (Britishism for "Lawyer"), Elizabeth Jones, claimed that the word "record" in the band's contract applied only to CDs and vinyl. The judge, however, saw it differently. "There is nothing in the terms "album" or "record" to suggest they apply to the physical product only."
With digital sales accounting for over a quarter of major labels' revenue, this will come as a big shock to them. iTunes was still offering Pink Floyd tracks individually this morning, a bone of contention for many bands, who feel aggrieved for two reasons--firstly, that their albums are to be listened to as a whole, and secondly, that they lose revenue when consumers are allowed to cherry-pick individual songs.
The judge has ruled that the label hand over $60,000 as an interim payment for costs, but has yet to pass judgment on the size of EMI's fine, although EMI was granted a request to have the part of the judgment relating to royalties given behind closed doors. The result is not great for EMI, which posted a $2.25 billion loss last month, and may well have a mammoth struggle on its hands to keep its existing acts, such as Queen (also said to be unhappy) and Lily Allen, within its stable.
*No? Congratulations, you've got a clean bill of health.
[Via BBC News and Image Via Flickr]
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- Karl Lagerfeld Becomes Fashion's Sarah Palin With Climate-Skeptic Runway Show
Chanel's legendary designer flips the bird to climate science, with a 240-ton "iceberg" created for his latest ready-to-wear collection. 
Fashion makes a mint using calculated provocations and wanton displays of luxury. You expect it. But Karl Lagerfeld's latest runway show for Chanel, showing off his Autumn/Winter 2010 collection, was stomach-turning in its grandeur. For the stage, Lagerfeld commissioned 30 ice sculptors to chip away at 240 tons of ice over 6 days, creating an artificial iceberg 28 feet tall. The entire building--some 57,000 square feet--was cooled to freezing temperatures. The theme? Global Cooling.
Lagerfeld topped that all off by telling Reuters, "Have you felt any warming this winter? Maybe that's all nonsense, who knows." Actually, scientists do know, and every argument lobbed by climate skeptics happens to be tissue-thin. (See this infographic for all the gory details.) According to NASA data, 2000-2009 was the warmest decade in the last 130 years.
What's really rich is that the collection features dozens of synthetic fur coats--all meant to stay on the good side of animal-rights activists.
I'm pretty sure that when Africa is riven by wars over drinking water and Bangladesh is half underwater, mankind will look back on events like the Chanel show with profound shame.
For a video of the show--including the stage and clothes, check out The Telegraph.
(Climate-skeptic wingnuts, leave your comments below--we know you will!)
[Via Wallpaper and Reuters]
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- 3-D Printing Whole Buildings in Stone...in Space: This Printer Rocks
Enrico Dini's brilliant-or-crazy (or both) prototype machine prints entire buildings in solid rock... On the MOON! 
In Pisa, Italy, mad genius Enrico Dini is building sandcastles on the moon. His giant 3-D printer is the first of its kind with the potential to print whole buildings, and it makes them out of solid rock, cutting down a thousand-year-long process into a few minutes. It uses sand, but someday it'll use moon dust.
The machine, called D-Shape, sprays a thin layer of sand with a magnesium-based glue from hundreds of nozzles--its resolution is about 25 dpi, not bad for printing on this scale. The glue binds the sand into solid rock, which builds up, layer after layer, into a sculpture, or a piece of furniture or, someday, into a cathedral. "What I really want to do is to use the machine to complete the Sagrada Familia," Dini says. Okay, it seems a little crazy, but not much.
Dini claims the d-shape process is four times faster than conventional building, costs a third to a half as much as using Portland cement, creates little waste and is better for the environment. But its chief selling point may simply be that it makes creating Gaudiesque, curvy structures simple.
It's not enough for D-Shape to be the missing link between the tiny 3-D printers of today, which never really caught on beyond gimmicky jewelry and model-making, and bigger printers capable of making full-size structures. No, Dini wants the moon. As part of the European Space Agency's Aurora program, he's talking with La Scuola Normale Superiore, Alta Space, and Norman Foster to modify D-Shape to build with moon dust. Voila: instant moonbase.
[More pics at Blueprint]
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- Infographic of the Day: The Best Jobs in America
What jobs earn the most, and will be most plentiful, in the coming decade? Recently, CNN.com produced a Top 100 list of the best jobs in America. And it wasn't particularly compelling until Focus.com put it in this infographic, which summarizes the results (click the link for full-size):
The most interesting data is in the parentheticals--in particular, the number of people actually employed in that job, which gives you some sense of how large the employment opportunity actually is:
But still, this could have all been way better: The data's drawn from the Bureau of Labor statistics, which also projects growth rates for each of the occupations in the study. (All of the jobs in the list have growth rates of at least 10%.)
BTW, we actually highlighted the aggregate growth rates here, in another IGOTD. But we're still waiting for the killer infographic that lets us know both what jobs are hot, plentiful, and fast-growing in a single, awesome IGOTD.
[Via Information About Information]
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- MIT Media Lab Unwraps Its New Digs
The building will now host MIT's most storied hothouse for interactive design innovation. 
Last Friday, MIT opened the doors on it's newest big budget building, a spacious complex for the MIT Media Lab. Designed by Pritzker Prize-winning architect Fumihiko Maki Associates, with project architect Leers Weinzapfel Associates, it's a departure from some of the bold experiments scattered around the campus, by starchitects such as Steven Holl or Frank Gehry. It's a fairly straight-laced building, designed to inspire collaboration.
At six stories and 163,000 square feet, occupants shouldn't be squeezed for space anytime soon. The labs--ranging from the Tangible Media group, which focuses in interaction design; to the City Car project, which is designing on-demand transit systems; to Lifelong Kindergarten, which designs educational technology--each get big, wide-open, two-story studios. The architect dubs these "atelier style" spaces--that is, something as airy as a factory floor, but a bit more human scaled.
But the design's smartest features are quiet. The building is organized across a huge central atrium. But on either side of the atrium, the floors are offset. That simple detail means that denizens can look across the atrium, and see those from other labs, busy at work. The idea is that by making the community always visible, the architecture will be able to engender a cross-pollination of ideas. Here's a picture that hints at the effect, via Dwell:
Meanwhile, the few splashes of color are reserved for the atrium's staircases--and the specific color scheme is borrowed from Piet Mondrian. (It also nods to the colors in IM Pei's original MIT Media Lab building, which is attached to the new one.)
Notice how the stairs are bowed out in the middle--they're actually an infographic of sorts, showing the stress loads borne by each section of the span:
For more pictures and information, check out Dwell and CNET.
[Top two photos by Andy Ryan for MIT; bottom two by Tiffany Chu via Dwell]
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- Tweet-Mapping Arrives, Along with the Twitter's Battle Against Google
Twitter's geotagging powers could transform the lifecasting service into something extremely powerful. And the company's just taken the first steps to making this happen through its own Web page: It's turned on Tweet mapping.
Twitter's geolocation code has been enabled since late 2009, ready for third part developers to build the right hooks into their smartphone app code that grab the user's location from AGPS tech and whizz it off to Twitter HQ. But that's about all that happened for a while, until just recently the company slightly adjusted how it deals with a user's geotagging data--making it comply with a common standard, and enabling a layer of user decision-making as to how much location data is revealed to the World.
But now Twitter's added the system to its Web page, and has turned on a little blue-colored icon next to Tweets in your Tweet stream that come with associated geotagged data. Hover your mouse over the icon, and you'll be rewarded with a pop-up map that reveals where the Tweet originated from, leveraging Google Maps tech from the search giant's own location-based APIs. You'll also get Tweet maps for people who merely assign their Twitter account location to one near you, even if they've disabled per-Tweet location data, and that may make things a little confusing.
The net result is similar to the effect you can currently get via some of Twitter's numerous third-party apps, and even in the augmented reality Twitter360 app, or AR browser Layar--via plug-ins like Tweetaround--giving a very neat "who Tweeted nearby" video-overlay view of the world through the smartphone lens.
The company hasn't implemented any sort of "search nearby" system yet, however. This would really be the secret sauce that could turn Twitter into a powerful hyperlocal news-discovery or PR-promotional vehicle, much the same way that I've already speculated Google could go with its Buzz lifecasting system. And this is where Twitter's geo-tags raise some questions. Because Google's loving the Tweet feed, which is powering its real-time search systems rather nicely at the moment, even while it's launching Buzz as a sort-of-competitor to Twitter. And Twitter could be aiming for hyperlocal news and possibly targeted advertising...which is very much Google's game. It's even using Google's code for the location-based data on the Twitter Web page. Pulling all this together, and what you've got is two companies, each with valuable assets, gently maneuvering to try to steal bits of each other's territory, while simultaneously collaborating to deliver a neat real-time Web search facility to the public. How this plays out, nobody knows. But as Twitter slowly ramps up its location powers as it certainly looks like it will (perhaps next requiring users to opt-out of transmitting location data, rather than opt-in) then the Google/Twitter relationship is only going to get more complex.
[Via VentureBeat]
Follow me on Twitter, occasionally with geotag data bolted in, to hear more news like this.
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- A Cheat Sheet to Help You Conquer Social Media
Marketers who are still a little unsure about charting their path through the choppy waters of Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn could do worse than check out this handy little guide to making social media work for them. The CMO's guide to the social landscape, created for CMO.com by client 97th Floor, takes all the major social media sites in the U.S. and analyzes their capabilities in four sectors: customer communication, brand exposure, driving traffic to your site, and SEOs. (For the full-sized version, click here.)
Overall, it's YouTube and Digg that post the best results, although the former falls down on the traffic question, while the latter fails on customer communication. One thing that the cheat sheet neglects to mention, however, is how deeply you need to go into each Web site when launching a new campaign. It's pretty obvious that a softly-softly approach can get your message across on the social media. But if you over-market your product, it's un-friending all the way.
[CMO.com Via The Common Hoster]
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- It's Banks vs. Families, Who Will Come Out on Top? Q&A With Elizabeth Warren
Elizabeth Warren is Main Street's woman in Washington. A professor at Harvard
Law School, she's researched the travails of the consumer credit market and
the hidden bankruptcy epidemic for over 25 years. Not satisfied with merely publishing academic research, she leaped at an invitation from Senator Harry Reid to take a more public role in reforming the financial system after the credit crisis: She's now the chairwoman of the Congressional Oversight Panel, the group charged with overseeing the bank bailouts.
I caught up with Elizabeth Warren at a table outside the Senate Office
Building cafeteria, a few hours after she finished grilling Citibank CEO
Vikram Pandit at a typically contentious hearing. With new financial reform legislation
imminent--"You're talking to me in the 4th quarter of the basketball
game," she said--Warren spoke frankly to Fast Company about her
hopes, fears, and frustrations.
FC: You said it's the 4th quarter of the basketball game--what's the score?
EW: The economy has been pulled back from the abyss, and Secretary Paulson, Secretary Geithner, both presidential administrations and Congress deserve credit for that. They saved the life of the patient.
That said, the Treasury demonstrated that it was much better at shoveling hundreds of billions of direct grants and guarantees at the largest financial institutions than it was at protecting the real economy. The largest institutions were "too big to fail," but the foreclosure crisis and small business credit slowdown have been "too hard to solve."
FC: I was really struck by your interview last fall with Adam Davidson on NPR's Planet Money. (The shouting match drew hundreds of blog comments.) He seemed to suggest that protecting the real economy, as opposed to bailing out Wall Street, was some kind of marginal issue or a personal
issue of yours. What do you think about that?
EW: I think the worldview that America begins and ends with its largest financial institutions is not only wrong-- it is dangerously wrong. Businesses are not America, and America does not exist to serve big institutions. America is about families. People who get up every day and earn their salary to pay their bills and try to make it one day to the next.
I am a bit stunned that, in the depth of the financial crisis, anyone is saying that the focus should be on the Wall Street banks.
FC: And yet it does seem sometimes that the business and economics news focuses on the fact that big banks are turning a profit again, or the stock market is back above 10,000, to the exclusion of foreclosures and unemployment and bankruptcies affecting Main Street.
EW: There's a larger point here about diversity of views. Are you familiar with The Wisdom of Crowds? The underlying insight is that a crowd must be drawn from different points of view to make good decisions. That's how it is that 1,000 people can guess with such accuracy the number of jellybeans in the glass jar. We were actually talking about this at lunch today: If all the people who are providing the input have the same worldview, then errors are built into the system. And those errors are not small. They are seismic errors.
You want the person who has a unique interest in defending the collapsing system as the person to oversee the bailout? That's astonishing!
FC: So let's leap into your role as an advocate for financial reform. The Senate's version of the financial reform bill already passed in the House and is due in the Senate any day now. Senator Dodd has been signaling potential compromises, like housing the Consumer Financial Protection Agency within the Federal Reserve instead of as an independent agency. Paul Krugman said in his column recently that unlike with health care reform, where progressives ought to grit their teeth and pass it, the time has come to actually stand up and say, this so-called financial reform isn't worth supporting. Understanding that final details aren't out yet, can you imagine a situation in which you'd say the same?
EW: Of course. There are already seven agencies in Washington that own a piece of the consumer financial protection apparatus. This is the worst of all possible worlds: a bloated, ineffective, unaccountable bureaucracy.
We need to merge those bureaucracies into a single, streamlined, accountable regulator with autonomy and teeth. If we fall short of that, we will just be recreating one more bureaucracy so that we can all congratulate ourselves that we did something for the American people when the reality is otherwise. That would be a terrible thing.
FC: What kind of assurances have you gotten from the Obama administration about their commitment to real reform?
EW: President Obama has been clear from the beginning that he supports a strong, independent consumer agency. He has put a lot of energy behind it. He has had events at the White House, has spoken about it in public town meetings, and even made the ultimate commitment--talked about it on Leno.
FC: I understand that at one point you pursued an entrepreneurial path to reform the consumer financial products market.
EW: The short version is that I studied the economics of the middle class and I began to see that credit products were becoming increasingly dangerous. Families didn't know how much they were spending on credit and comparison among the products was practically impossible because of all the incomprehensible fine print. It wasn't the products that were priced the best that survived. Instead, the ones that were most loaded with tricks and traps provided the most revenue.
So I thought at first that my academic research will be enough. I will publish a law review article and surely the world will change--that didn't happen. So I wrote a couple of popular books about it--The Two Income Trap and All Your Worth. But it still didn't change the world.
The PEW Charitable Trust then got in touch with me and asked what ideas I was working on. And I told them: I'd like to build a private, market-based solution. I want to build an Underwriter's Laboratory to certify credit cards.
The whole idea behind the current model is, "I will hold something shiny in front of your eye, 3.9% financing, and the way I'm going to make money is on tricks and traps that I've buried in the fine print: $29 there, $49 there, triple interest rate, double cycle billing, over and over and over ... ."
So the idea was to take an independent group that will say here's a clean, clear industry credit card. It was called the Clean Card. So Pew said, we love this. They took me out to San Francisco to meet with the head of a very fancy bank consulting group. We put together a proposal and many of the executives we met with just loved it.
They loved it at the first meeting and at the second meeting. It was almost as if you could see the CEOs thinking, "I'll have my picture on the cover of Business Week for transforming this market." They were saying, "We want to be part of this! We want to be the first movers, we want to be America's Credit Card." Then we come back for the 3rd meeting after the numbers guys have taken a closer look, and they say, "We can't do this." As one VP put it, if people really understood how much a credit card cost, they wouldn't use it and the bank would lose too much market share.
And one of the issuers took me aside and said, "We get that our business model is unsustainable over the long haul, but no one of us can jump first. We all have to move together. If we all move together, we'll be fine competitively, but if one of us moves and we lose market share, then the ones who issue the dirty cards will control this market." So it was literally on the plane on the way home from the meeting with the issuer that I realized how broken the market is and started thinking about a new agency in Washington.
FC: Ok, so you've concluded that the market is broken. Now you've come to DC and are working in the midst of biggest credit crisis the country's ever seen. What are you going to do if we finish out this crisis and still the market's not fixed?
EW: If America can't come out of the crisis and repair the broken consumer credit market, then this government really is broken. The lobbying over this bill is enormous, and it's all on one side. It's one thing when insurance companies are on one side and doctors on the other. This one is exclusively big Wall Street banks who have a tremendous amount of money to spend on this to protect their revenue stream.
FC: So even though you can call Vikram Pandit on the carpet and get him to answer a few questions, his lobbying staff is hard at work behind the scenes to make sure nothing changes.
EW: The money is all on one side and the votes are all on the other. So, that's what we'll find out. It's banks vs. families. And we'll see who comes out on top. The Daily Show With Jon StewartMon - Thurs 11p / 10c Elizabeth Warrenwww.thedailyshow.com
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Channel: TechCrunch
- Google Cuts Milo At The Knees With Its Blue Dot Specials
Google just launched a new feature on the mobile version of Google Product Search which could take local shopping search startup Milo out at the knees. Whenever you do a Google product search from a mobile phone, blue dots will appear next to items which are in-stock at nearby stores. The image at right is from a search I just did for "HDTVs." The blue dots are subtle, but they certainly distinguish those results. Google has partnerships with Best Buy, Sears, Williams-Sonoma, Pottery Barn, and West Elm to show local inventory, and it is inviting other merchants to apply to participate as well.
Highlighting local inventory in product search results is exactly what Milo does, although it works on the Web as well as mobile. Milo will have to try to keep one step ahead of Google now that its business has been targeted as a feature of Google Product search.  More
- SecondMarket: Facebook And Zynga Dominate Transactions In February
 In January, private company stock marketplace SecondMarket published data on private company stock sales that they helped complete in 2009. And February's report showed the transactions that took place in January, which showed a strong demand for consumer products and services startups. The majority of transactions in January were sales of Facebook stock. SecondMarket just released its February report, which you can download here.
Transactions more tripled in February, from $13 million in sales to $43.8 million in sales last month. A full 48% of the transactions were sales of Facebook stock, compared to 38% in January. And last month, we reported that sales are being completed for as high as $40 per share (or a $17.6 billion valuation). But we learned this week that Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg is in no rush to take the company public. LinkedIn took 18% of the transactions, and sales of both Twitter and Zynga stock were each 15% of the total. LifeLock rounded the group out with 4% of the total.  More
- Barnes & Noble Uses Crunchies Endorsement On In Store Nook Posters. We Want One.
 We were somewhat sad when Barnes & Noble sent their PR firm to accept their award for the Nook for Best Gadget of 2009 at the Crunchies in January. Traditionally only Apple blows off the awards, and we've always be en able to work around that.
But apparently Barnes & Noble are at least aware that they won the award. They are using it to promote the Nook on in-store posters, we learned recently. We sent TechCruncher Laura Boychenko over to the local Barnes & Noble last night with strict instructions to rip one of the posters off the wall and run like hell back to the office with it.
She failed in her task, but did take a few pictures and a video and promised to ask Barnes & Noble for one of the posters for our office. Less dramatic, but just as effective I guess.
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- AOL, Intel, And The New York Times Help betaworks Raise A $20 Million Series B
Betaworks, the New York City-based holding company investing in the realtime Web, just raised a $20 million Series B. The round was led by RRE Ventures and Intel Capital, DFJ Growth, AOL Ventures, The New York Times, Softbank Japan and Softbank NY, Lerer Investments and Founders Collective, also participated, along with investors from the last round, which was $7.5 million
The company both invests and incubates realtime media startups, including Summize (acquired by Twitter for realtime search), bit.ly, TweetDeck, StockTwits, SuperFeedr, Outside.in, OMGPOP, and gdgt.  More
- Consumer Reports Says Apple Has The Best Tech Support, Acer/Gateway/eMachines The Worst
 Consumer Reports has a new report on which computer company has the best tech support. Apple wins! That's what happens when the same company controls the hardware as well as the operating system (and several of the most prominent pieces of software). The highest ranking PC manufacturer is Dell for desktops and Lenovo for laptops.  More
- Evri Acquires Radar Networks In Semantic Search Consolidation
After shopping itself around to all the major search engines, Radar Networks finally found a buyer in another semantic search startup. Today, Evri is announcing that it will be acquiring Radar Networks, along with its core technical team and its main product, Twine. Rumors surfaced yesterday on ReadWriteWeb that Evri was being acquired, but that is not the case. Evri is the acquirer.  More
- Euro Startup Competition Plugg Names Fits.me Its Winner
 Fits.me, a virtual fitting room for internet clothing retailers based on robots (yes really) has won the European startup competition in Brussels, Plugg.
It's actually even cooler than it sounds. By creating robotic shape-shifting manakins and testing how people reacted by seeing clothes on the robot with their dimensions, sales actually went up.
Only 7% of all clothing is sold online today, a $36bn market It's $20bn for computers), because you can't see how the clothes look on a human body. The fits.me trial with partners showed these pictures of adjustable manakins wearing clothes increased sales three times and dramatically reduced returns by 28%.
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- FlyScreen Adds Foursquare To Its Android Lock-screen App
 FlyScreen, the mobile phone lock-screen replacement from Israeli startup Cellogic, has added Foursquare integration to its Android app ahead of this year's South by Southwest festival.
The new Foursquare widget lets users of the location-based social network access its main features, including the ability to quickly find places nearby, "check-in", share their location with friends via Foursquare, Twitter and/or Facebook, as well as access their foursquare friends-list.
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- Perseids, John Hughes, And G.I. Joe Are Trending Topics On Wikipedia
Google has Google Trends, Twitter has trending topics, and now so does Wikipedia. Pete Skomoroch at Data Wrangling built a trending topics page for Wikipedia. The homepage ranks the top-25 Wikipedia articles with the most pageviews over the past 30 days, as well as the fastest rising articles in the past 24 hours.
Some of the most popular Wikipedia articles in the past month include ones on the Perseids meteor shower, Danish physicist Hans Christian Ørsted, director John Hughes, and G.I. Joe: The Rise Of Cobra. These are quite different than the types of search trends you would find on Google trends or realtime trending topics on Twitter.  More
- OpenGL 4.0 Comes Out To Play
 With Microsoft becoming increasingly marginalized in areas like mobile media, DirectX is becoming less of a must-use toolset and more of a gaming-specific one. The other side of the coin is, of course, the increasing relevance of standards like OpenGL, OpenAL, and OpenCL: powerful cross-platform systems for graphics, audio, and parallel processing. You may remember OpenCL from its debut on the Mac in Snow Leopard, and OpenGL ES of course powers the UI on the iPad. OpenAL is still a ways from being brought under the public eye, but it's getting there. In the meantime, OpenGL 4.0 was announced today at GDC, and clearly it has DirectX in its sights.  More
Channel: Mashable!
- Pink Floyd Wins Legal Battle Against Single Track Downloads
A judge has taken Pink Floyd’s side in a court battle between the band and its label, EMI, and digital downloads are at stake. The band says its 11-year-old contract only permits EMI to sell complete albums, not individual tracks, but the label has been offering downloads of individual songs through online services like iTunes. The word “record” was used in the contract, which EMI believes implies physical media. Therefore, the label thinks that it can do whatever it wants as far as digital downloads go. The judge was quoted in Bloomberg saying, “There is nothing in the terms ?album? or ?record? to suggest they apply to the physical product only.” The court seems to support Pink Floyd’s goal to preserve the artistic integrity of its work. This isn’t the first struggle EMI has had with artists over online content. Social media darlings OK Go recently ended their relationship with the label and announced that they’re forming their own label called Paracadute. Fortunately for listeners who want individual tracks, this court development hasn’t prohibited EMI from making Pink Floyd songs available yet. That might happen later on, though. Is the Album Dead? Pink Floyd has always resisted singles, preferring to release complete albums intended for straight-through listening. And they’re not the only band that has complained about the shift in focus to singles that the online era has heralded. But even if you’re sympathetic to the artistic vision, it’s hard to see these sorts of restrictions as shrewd business moves. Single tracks completely dominate digital downloads, and digital downloads make up the extreme majority of music sales now. It’s possible that the age of the album has all but ended. Do you still regularly buy complete albums online or do you stick with singles now? Discuss it in the comments and maybe we can figure out where the music industry is going. Tags: EMI, itunes, music, pink floyd  More
- Multitasking Headed to iPhone 4.0 [RUMOR]
With iPad preorders officially starting tomorrow, attention has shifted to iPhone 4.0 software and what features it might bring to both the iPad and future iPhone models. Apple Insider is now adding fuel to the long-standing rumors that the next big update to Apple’s iPhone OS will feature support for multitasking — that is, the ability for third-party apps to run in the background. As anyone with a jailbroken iPhone knows, the multitasking limitation for third-party applications in the iPhone OS is purely artificial. Whether it is for security purposes, performance or battery life, Apple has chosen not to allow third-party developers (or even third-party Apple created apps) to run concurrently in the background. This means that if you want to listen to Pandora while surfing the web in Mobile Safari, well, too bad. Of all the complaints levied against the iPhone, this is probably the one that impacts consumers the most. It doesn’t help that you can, for instance, use the iPod application while surfing the web or using other apps. Push notifications have mitigated some of the need for many use cases for multitasking — but it’s not a true solution. Multitasking in iPhone 4.0? Even a year ago, the multitasking issue with the iPhone 3.0 OS wasn’t as problematic as it is now, in part because while competing mobile platforms did offer support for running third-party apps in the background, the competition from those platforms wasn’t as strong. A year later, we have Palm’s webOS, the BlackBerry, Microsoft’s upcoming Windows Phone 7 Series, and of course, what many see as the iPhone’s biggest competition: Google’s Android platform. For the iPhone to remain as enticing to developers as it is now (and in turn, as attractive to users), future versions of the software will need to support multitasking by third-party applications in some capacity. AppleInsider says that its sources say Apple has developed a “full-on-solution,” but details about how that solution will be implemented and what rules applications will need to follow to address multitasking was not revealed. Steve Jobs is famous for taking features out of a product if they don’t meet his standards. As a long-time smart phone user who has used devices on almost every major smartphone platform, I can attest to some of the very real problems that multitasking or excessive backgrounding can cause for those devices. They include, but are not limited to: Decreased Battery Life — More apps running at once means more CPU usage, which means battery life can be reduced. Slowdowns, freezes, crashes — As a long-time BlackBerry user before I migrated to the iPhone, I remember the “three finger salute” reboot mechanism far too well. At least once a day (more often if I happened to open up my RSS reader or my e-mail was particularly heavy) I had to reboot my Berry in order to reset the memory cache and allow the device to work at a pace that didn’t resemble molasses. Android devices I’ve used have had this same problem (although not to the extent as my BlackBerry Curve) and homebrew Palm Pre developers have even written a tool that schedules phone reboots to handle the issue. Switching apps can be awkward — This is probably one of the biggest challenges Apple will have to face — beyond just the technical tricks for implementing better resource handling and allocation — the mechanism used to switch between open applications can be cumbersome, depending on the type of application. With it’s one-button design, the iPhone will likely have to employ some sort of gesture for opening or accessing other apps — if indeed it implements multitasking the same way that BlackBerry and Android do. Rumors about multitasking coming to the iPhone in a supported form have been swirling for literally years, so any report on whether or not it will be a reality in iPhone 4.0 is pure speculation. That said, if Apple doesn’t address multitasking with its next big release, it risks falling behind other players moving forward. Tags: apple, iphone, iPhone 4.0, iphone os, multitasking  More
- What Type of People Want iPads? [STATS]
If you’re a Facebooker who’s lusting after the Apple iPad (so much so that you’ve joined a Fan Page), then chances are you’re aged between 18 and 25 and have an interest in popular culture — or so says RapLeaf, a company that analyzes social media stats to draw meaningful conclusions from the likes of Facebook Fan Pages. RapLeaf looked at the top three Facebook Fan Pages (all of which are imaginatively named “The iPad”) to see if iPad fans could be easily grouped into a particular demographic. The numbers are certainly there for such a study — the three pages together boast almost 98,000 members. While gender pretty much averaged out across all the pages, the age range came in at under Facebook’s average with 85% of overall fans 35 or under, and nearly 50% 25 and under. iPad-owner-wannabes are also fairly social, with a third boasting more than 300 friends. Other Fan Pages they have joined include, in many cases (and perhaps unsurprisingly), iTunes, as well as other Pages related to caffeine, sleep, pop culture and humor. What will be truly interesting to see as we edge closer to the April 3 iPad launch is how many of those 98,000 put their money where their Facebook fandom is and go out and buy the device. Tags: apple, facebook, ipad, statistics  More
- Web Entrepreneurship: Does the City You Live in Matter?
This post originally appeared on the American Express OPEN Forum, where Mashable regularly contributes articles about leveraging social media and technology in small business. One of the most powerful aspects of social media and the web is the fact that it isn?t specific to any location. So long as you have an Internet connection, you can be halfway across the world Skyping, tweeting, and communicating with your friends. It has broken down barriers, given people the ability to work remotely, and made it so that your location doesn?t have to determine your destiny. Still, to discount location would be foolish. It?s where we socialize and, for the most part, where we work. We grow to love (or hate) the neighborhoods and cities in which we live. And with the rise of smartphones and GPS, location-based social networks such as Foursquare and Google Buzz have been growing like wildfire. Thus, I?m not surprised that a new debate has been raging in entrepreneurship circles over whether it matters where your startup is based. For web entrepreneurs, the perceived epicenter has always been San Francisco and the Bay Area ? often known as Silicon Valley. With a huge collection of technology companies, venture capitalists, and talented engineers, many advocate moving to the area if you?re serious about building a startup. That mentality has been challenged recently by growing startup hubs around the globe. One of the ones making a lot of headlines is New York City?s tech scene, which has been growing rapidly in recent years and includes startups such as Foursquare and VC firms like Union Square Ventures. Boulder, Colorado is also gaining traction due to the presence of Techstars, an early-stage seed venture firm. Why Location Still Matters While you have a lot of good choices for where to build your company, don?t let anybody fool you into thinking that location doesn?t matter; in fact, it does. Here?s why: ? Different locations have different entrepreneurial support communities. These are vital, because entrepreneurship can quickly become lonely and nerve-wracking without mentorship and support. ? Talent pools around location. You will simply find more talented engineers in Silicon Valley, while you?ll find a larger pool of financial minds in NYC and media moguls in Los Angeles. You can find talent anywhere, but the pool matters. ? In-person meetings are just as important as they were five years ago. Being able to grab a coffee with a potential investor or partner is still going to be more powerful than Skyping or email. With that said, it doesn?t mean that San Francisco or Silicon Valley is the best place to start a web company. Yes, in a lot of cases it can be because of the influx of money and talent, but there are a lot of other things you should consider, including: ? Partnerships: Foursquare, an NYC-based company, has succeeded in striking a lot of great media partnerships, including ones with Bravo and The New York Times. Their location has surely helped: NYC simply has more advertising and media companies than other locations, and Foursquare has seized upon the opportunity it presents. ? Talent: While engineering talent is prevalent in Silicon Valley, you need to consider what your startup is about. For example, Boston has a strong startup community with great scientists and academics that come from MIT and Harvard. ? Happiness: If you live in a place that you simply hate, you are not going to be as productive. If your own needs aren?t fulfilled, how can you expect to fulfill the needs of a startup and its employees? If I have any piece of advice for where to create your startup, it?s this: make sure it?s a place that will make you happy first and foremost, and then go from there. Location matters for your startup, but it doesn?t define success. Hard work, smart execution, and the right team are far more important. Don?t compromise those things in your quest to find your perfect startup city. More business resources from Mashable: - 7 Essential Online HR Resources for Your Small Business - Google Buzz: 5 Opportunities for Small Businesses - 5 Ways to Avoid Sabotaging Your Personal Brand Online - 4 Elements of a Successful Business Web Presence - HOW TO: Implement a Social Media Business Strategy Image courtesy of iStockphoto, Matejay Tags: business, entrepreneurs, entrepreneurship, List, Lists, small business, startup  More
- New Google Maps Mashup Exposes Chatroulette User Locations
You can now see Chatroulette users’ locations, thanks to a new Google Maps mashup that pinpoints where in the world people are signing in to the voyeuristic video-conferencing service. The new Chatroulette Maps website presents markers of users’ IP addresses on a worldwide map, meaning less anonymity than users have previously experienced (which may go some way to encourage folks to keep it in their pants). Capturing screengrabs of the users, Chatroulette Map then adds them to the map using geo IP tools. The accuracy of tracking locations via IP addresses varies with the provider and area. It’s certainly not super precise technology, but in built-up areas with an ISP with an up-to-date database it can be up to 95% accurate, and elsewhere, certainly enough to get an idea of location. Although Chatroulette uses Adobe’s Stratus platform, the actual webcam hook-up between two users is a peer-to-peer link, which means the user’s IP address is revealed by this direct means of connection. Chatroulette Map says there are plans to make the images rateable, as well as filter out any NSFW content, but for now the service just offers a snapshot of Chatroulette users across the globe. Anyone unhappy with being screengrabbed and mapped can get in touch with the site to have their marker and pic removed, provided they e-mail in a pic of themselves as proof. Will this development put you off using Chatroulette? Do you see it as an invasion of your privacy? Let us know in the comments below. [via Laughing Squid] Tags: chat roulette maps, chatroulette  More
- Conan O?Brien Launches TeamCoco.com to Promote 30-City Comedy Tour
We now know how Conan O?Brien plans to leverage the huge swell of support he found online in the wake of being forced out at NBC: a nationwide comedy tour. The comedian announced on his Twitter account this morning the launch of TeamCoco.com, where fans can buy tickets to one of 30 shows, kicking off in Eugene, Oregon, on April 12. The tour, fittingly enough, is called ?The Legally Prohibited From Being Funny on Television Tour,? a reference to the deal he made with NBC that keeps O?Brien off the air until the fall. A comedy tour has been rumored since shortly after Conan stepped down, and we suspected something might be in the works when he finally joined Twitter (and immediately found a huge fan base, and changed one random girl?s life along the way). Now, Conan officially has an outlet to keep the momentum going while he determines his next move on TV. Are you going to go see one of Conan?s shows? Let us know in the comments! Tags: conan o'brien, team coco, trending  More
- The Twilight Saga: ?Eclipse? Trailer Is Out [VIDEO]
OK, Twilight fans, brace yourself because the first trailer for the upcoming third installment of the saga — Eclipse — is now available for your viewing pleasure. The Twilight Saga: Eclipse is based on Stephenie Meyer’s novel Eclipse, and should be airing on June 30, 2010. However, you can have a taste of some action, and (of course) more of the vampire-werewolf-human (but-maybe-not-human-for-long) love triangle you’ve probably grown accustomed to in the first two movies. Reviews: Eclipse Tags: eclipse, twilight, video  More
- Facebook Threatens to Sue Daily Mail Over Sex Predator Claims
According to the Guardian and Global Dashboard, Facebook has threatened to sue Daily Mail over an article that wrongfully claimed Facebook makes it easy for older sex predators to approach and seduce minors. Daily Mail’s article, which can (in edited form) be found here, was written by a former police detective Mark Williams-Thomas, and had originally been titled “I posed as a girl of 14 on Facebook. What followed will sicken you.” It contained the account of the author posing as a minor on Facebook, which, according to him, attracted sexual predators right away. The problem? He wasn’t really using Facebook to conduct the experiment, he used a “different social networking site,” as explained in today’s update to the article, added at the bottom by Daily Mail staff. The full text of the update is as follows: “In an earlier version of this article, we wrongly stated that the criminologist had conducted an experiment into social networking sites by posing as a 14-year-old girl on Facebook with the result that he quickly attracted sexually motivated messages. In fact he had used a different social networking site for this exercise. We are happy to set the record straight.” Needless to say, this caused a strong response from Facebook, which is still referenced throughout the article. According to the Guardian, a UK spokeswoman for Facebook said that the company was considering legal action due to the “brand damage that has been done.” “If you were a Middle England reader and your child was on Facebook, this sort of thing would have a very serious effect on what you thought of us,” she said. Facebook has a point here; besides the obvious erroneous reporting, the article details how someone posing as a 14-year-old girl would get messages from older men (more accurately, users whose Facebook profile indicates they’re over 18 years old), which cannot be done on Facebook. Therefore, Facebook can argue it has measures in place to prevent exactly the kind of behavior the article describes, unlike the unnamed social network the experiment was conducted on. We’ve contacted Facebook’s UK PR representative on this matter but have yet to hear back. Tags: Daily Mail, facebook  More
- Take a Virtual Walk through Hong Kong with Google Street View
If you’ve never been to Hong Kong, and you’ve heard legends about the busy streets of the city, you can now see how it looks for yourself without leaving your comfy chair, as Google has launched its Street View service for Hong Kong. The huge city has been covered extremely well; just zoom out of Street View, pull the little yellow Street View figure on the upper left side of the screen and you’ll see that most of the streets are blue, which means Street View is available there. In addition to Hong Kong, Google Street View is now also available in the city of Macau, south of Guangdong province.
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- Opera Mini 5 Beta Comes to Android
Opera Mini 5 Beta was first introduced about five months ago, but owners of Android-based smartphones had to wait until now to get their hands on Opera’s nifty mobile browser. This version is nearly identical to the Opera Mini 5 Beta for other handsets; the biggest improvements are speed dial, tabbed browsing, password management and better optimization for touchscreen phones. Compared to the old Opera Mini 4.2, it’s a world of difference, so if you’re an Opera Mini user, you should definitely try out, even though it’s a beta. To get Opera Mini 5 Beta, point your mobile browser to m.opera.com/next, you can also search for “Opera Mini” in the Android Market. Reviews: Android Market, Opera Mini Tags: Mobile 2.0, opera mini, web browsers  More
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Channel: Silicon Alley Insider: Startups
- Former AOL Director Is Now A COO With An Awesome Headshot (AOL)
A startup called PeekYou has hired former AOL director of search engine marketing Eric Ludwig to be its president and COO. In side news, Eric now has a really sweet head shot, pictured here.
PeekYou describes itself as a "free people-search engine, whose database contains public records and internet data for over 230 million people, and is growing every day."
On the hire, PeekYou founder Michael Hussey blurbed, "Eric will play an instrumental role in bringing to market new applications for PeekYou and we are thrilled to have him on board."
"Eric’s track record speaks for itself. Our company is gaining a unique and exceptional leader with invaluable experience in operations, direct marketing, and search."
Here's another KAPOW! headshot PeekYou sent us:
Don't miss: Meet The Googlers Running AOL Join the conversation about this story » See Also: More
- Why Did Nick Denton Truncate Gawker?s RSS Feeds?
 From Reuters:
Yesterday, Gawker Media truncated its RSS feeds, and former Gawker editorial honcho Lockhart Steele immediately tweeted that “the only thing that excited me about Gawker’s RSS truncation was picturing @felixsalmon’s head explode when he heard the news”. I’m well known as a vocal defender of full RSS feeds, largely because of a 1,500-word blog entry I wrote on the subject back in October 2007. And so I asked Gawker’s owner, Nick Denton, what he was doing.
Nick pointed me to a comment he left at Lifehacker saying that “this was a commercial decision”, and also this one:
Gawker Media is an ad-supported company. RSS ads have never realized their potential. At the same time we sell plenty of ads on our website. So, yes, it is in our interest for people to click through if enticed by an excerpt.
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- How To Run A Company That Engineers Actually Want To Work For
If you run a tech company, your engineers are the lifeblood of your organization.
So shouldn't you try to make them as happy as possible?
Doing so takes more than just a fridge stocked with soda, beanbag chairs, and a foosball table.
Good programmers thrive in a specific type of corporate culture -- one that values innovation, creative input from all levels, and fun.
Make sure yours are happy!
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- Group Purchasing Startup LivingSocial Raises $25 Million In Series B Round
Social purchasing startup LivingSocial has raised $25 million in series B funding, the company announced today.
The round was led by U.S. Venture Partners, joined by existing investors Grotech Ventures and Steve Case’s Revolution, LLC. LivingSocial has now raised $35 million to date.
LivingSocial is one of dozens of new startups following Groupon in offering daily discounts that encourage consumers to convince their friends to sign up. But unlike most of these companies, LivingSocial got its start before the group buying craze hit, developing Facebook apps.
CEO Tim O'Shaughnessy says this gives his company an edge in the space. 40-45% of consumers who sign up for LivingSocial deals do so through Facebook Connect, which he says is "absolutely huge" when it comes to viral distribution.
LivingSocial also announced that it was extending its service to four new cities, bringing its total to 13. It plans to use the new funds (as well as its growing revenue stream) to expand to "dozens" of cities by the end of the year.
This is a promising industry, and while we aren't convinced it needs as many companies as it has, LivingSocial is a better bet than most going forward.
Take a look at all of LivingSocial's competitors in social purchasing > Join the conversation about this story » See Also: More
- Googlers Won't Create The Next Google (GOOG)
 Google may hire geniuses, but for some reason, the people who quit Google to create startups aren't exactly going on to build genius companies.
In just 12 years, Google (GOOG) has grown from nothing to being the 117th largest company in the U.S., and by far the biggest name on the Internet.
Thanks to a famously difficult hiring process, Google has built up a reputation for having an army of geniuses on staff.
But here's what's weird: even though many talented engineers and business leaders have quit Google (See the "Google Brain Drain."), the list of Googler-founded companies is notably lacking in all-stars.
Exactly one of them -- Twitter -- has garnered mainstream attention. And even Twitter is not in the same league as Google, Facebook, or the other heavy-hitters. After Twitter, things drop off steeply.
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- How To Not Be A Jerk At SXSW
Let's say that your boss is cool enough to pay your way to SXSW this year. Whether it's your first time or fifth, there are 10 things to do that will be sure to alienate you from people at SXSW and those back at home that hate you for being there.
10. Don't post every Foursquare/Gowalla/Hotpotato check-in/update to Facebook and/or Twitter. Normally, it's marginally useful. But no one not at SXSW cares if you're in Conference Room 9ABCD, Ballroom D or Exhibit Hall 1. Use the app to follow people and see where they're at. Don't give your family, friends, and co-workers another reason to digitally silence you. That "which Jonas Brother are you" quiz you just sent all of them on Facebook is reason enough.
9. Don't live-tweet the panels you attend. Just because you made a bad decision to attend that awful panel doesn't mean we all did. And if you're at the best panel ever, letmegooglehyperboleforyou.com.
8. Sure, dress comfortably. But we still don't want to see your knees. And just because you're in Texas, it doesn't mean you need to wear cowboy boots.
7. Don't declare "[insert new social media gizmo here] the next Twitter." You do not get a badge for that, Mayor of Gurustan.
6. This year, SXSWi will be hosting bigger crowds than ever. On the interwebs, no one wants to hear you complain about those long lines at the parties that you're not on the VIP list for.
5. You're not a celebrity. You may be internet-famous, but the people at SXSW Film are famous-famous. When worlds collide, remember which one you are.
4. You're probably not really breaking news from SXSWi, so leave that up to journalists. Assuming they can even get a press pass.
3. Don't mention The Salt Lick if you're referring to the one in the airport.
2. Do not bring up UT basketball while you're down there this year. Trust me.
1. If you take one thing away from this, it's that SXSW would be nothing without the volunteers. Treat them well. Everyone, including you, is down there to promote something. Those kids are down there to learn -- even from you. Respect that. Join the conversation about this story » See Also: More
- Streaming Games Console-Killer OnLive Set To Launch June 17
OnLive, a streaming video game platform, will be released on June 17, the company announced today.
OnLive will allow its subscribers to stream console games on their computers, with all of computing taking place in the cloud. The company will also offer a cheap "micro-console" that connects to your television, allowing you to stream games without a computer.
The product has been hyped as a console-killer. For a $14.95 monthly subscription -- plus the cost of a controller -- gamers will be able to purchase and play many of the same titles that are available on consoles costing hundreds of dollars.
So far, most experts have been extremely skeptical. OnLive claims that a 1.5 Mbps broadband connection will be sufficient to smoothly stream games in standard definition, and a 5 Mbps connection will be good enough for HD games. That is difficult to believe, but the company says it has revolutionary patented compression techniques that makes this possible.
The service will also be at a disadvantage in software. OnLive has an impressive line-up of partnerships, including EA, Take-Two, and Ubisoft, but the offerings will still be slim by comparison to the big three console makers. Notably absent from the list is Activision-Blizzard. And of course the console makers are not about to license their own games to the system trying to make them irrelevant.
If OnLive can offer anything close to what it promises, it might be an attractive option for casual gamers who don't want to shell out for a system, or worry about upgrading their hardware every few years. But the console-makers probably don't need to start losing sleep for another generation or two. Join the conversation about this story » See Also: More
- Facebook To Announce Plans To Take Over The Internet With Facebook Pages
Mark Zuckerberg has long signaled that the future of Facebook will be off Facebook.com. His social network will take a big step toward that future at a developers conference in April.
That's when, according to a WSJ report, Facebook plans to launch a tool set for Web developers who want to make their off-Facebook Web sites look and work more like on-Facebook "pages."
On its site for Facebook developers, Facebook calls this toolset the "Open Graph API," and describes it this way:
The Open Graph API will allow any page on the Web to have all the features of a Facebook Page – users will be able to become a Fan of the page, it will show up on that user’s profile and in search results, and that page will be able to publish stories to the stream of its fans.
Facebook also provides the following "details":
The Open Graph API will allow any page on the Web to have all the features of a Facebook Page. Once implemented, developers can include a number of Facebook Widgets, like the Fan Box, or leverage any API, which enable the transformation of any Web page so it functions similar to a Facebook Page.
For example, AwesomeTees might decide that strategically they would like to locate their brand identity at www.awesometees.com. AwesomeTees will install the Fan Box widget, which will allow any Facebook user to "Become a Fan" of AwesomeTees, thereby establishing an official connection to AwesomeTees. The user will then have AwesomeTees listed in their list of connections on their profile as Pages are represented today. Additionally, any content that AwesomeTees publishes on AwesomeTees.com will show up in the stream on Facebook like it normally would. And, any time the user searches on Facebook, AwesomeTees will show up in the typeaheads and prominently in search results.
At the Wall Street Journal, Jessica Vascellero writes that Facebook's goal here is to "make it even easier for users to share information from the Web on Facebook and to have that information associated with their Facebook identity."
This move to expand Facebook beyond the domain of Facebook.com has been under way since Fall 2007, when Mark came to New York, announced that advertising changes every 100 years, and launched Facebook Beacon. Facebook Beacon transmitted Facebook user activity from third-party sites back to Facebook. The product quickly flopped, mostly because it wasn't opt-in.
Facebook re-branded the technology behind Beacon as an opt-in service called Facebook Connect in fall 2008 and launched it as a tool that allows Facebook users to sign into third-party sites using their Facebook IDs. Facebook Connect has been a huge hit.
In the year since Facebook Connect launched, more and more major brands have begun driving traffic not to their own domains, but to their branded Facebook Pages. These pages are attractive brands because once Facebook users become fans of a page, that page is free to update that friend regularly. It has been the return of email marketing. The Open Graph API, which will take Facebook fan pages out of Facebook without sacrificing these marketing tools is the next logical step.
The other two big reasons Facebook wants to expand beyond Facebook.com and onto third-party sites is that 1) there is hope within Facebook's executive ranks that the company can someday launch an ad network 2) Facebook would love to find itself in a position to offer e-commerce sites Facebook Connect-like "Pay With Facebook" one-click option. Some Facebook executives believe this business could eventually be larger than Facebook ads.
Now, don't miss our explosive exposé on the founding of Facebook:
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- Transitioning From One Job To Another
 Mark Suster just keeps putting out great stuff on his blog. Last night he posted about the tricky issue of transitioning from one job to another. Mark writes the post from the perspective of the entrepreneur/executive hiring someone who is currently working for another company. I love this part:
I operate on the principal that you’re most vulnerable in any deal immediately after you’ve won. I believe the same is true in recruiting. So your goal is to get the employee working in your company as quickly as possible and with the least amount of collateral damage.
That is exactly the right tack to be taking if you are the person on the hiring end of the situation. I highly recommend reading Mark's post because he provides some great advice to the hiring company.
But there are three parties to these situations; the employee, the current employer, and the future employer. I'd like to talk about all three and how each should behave.
First, I think it is important to recognize that most of the time you'll want to hire someone who is currently working for another company. There are times when you can hire someone who is unemployed or is doing consulting work (which is often the same thing as being unemployed). But most of the time, you'll find yourself in the situation of hiring someone who is currently employed by someone else.
Let's start with the employee. If you plan to leave the company you are currently working for and are actively searching for a new position, I think it is best to do your search out in the open with the knowledge of your employer. That allows your current employer to plan for your departure and allows you to do your job search out in the open. Many employees worry that if they disclose their intention to leave, they'll be fired. That does happen and is a reasonable concern. But more often, the employer appreciates the notice and rewards the employee giving notice with an extended transition period. That's the ideal scenario.
But not every person who leaves a company was looking to leave. It's very common in the tech startup world to approach employees who are happy in their current jobs with an opportunity that is simply better. And then they decide to leave and there is a tricky transition situation.
Mark advises the hiring company to push for the employee to leave quickly. But I have found myself on the opposite side of this situation, in a small startup with a key employee leaving who is being pressured to leave quickly. And of course, in that situation the company who is losing the key person wants them to stay for the longest transition possible.
The problem with the long transition for the key employee is that it often takes two to three months to find a replacement for a key employee. And it is generally not reasonable to ask an employee to stick around for a two to three month transition.
One option is the "battlefield promotion" of someone else on the team to assume the job of the person who is leaving. If you can do that promotion permanently, then it is a good option. If you plan to do the promotion temporarily, it can be problematic. Once promoted, many people bristle at going back to their old role and working for someone new.
Losing a key employee in a small company is really one of the most difficult situations you'll have to deal with as an entrepreneur/startup executive. One thing I do not recommend is trying to retain the person who is leaving. If they've shown the willingness or desire to leave, you have to let them go. There is no such thing as indentured servitude in startup land and when someone shows that they are mentally out, they should not stick around except to insure a smooth transition.
So to summarize, if you are the employee, it is best to give as much notice as you can comfortably give to your current employer without putting yourself in a vulnerable position. If you are the hiring company, you want to get the new employee onboard as quickly as possible, but don't put the person you are hiring in an awkward and damaging position. And if you are the company losing the employee, get a reasonable transition time, find some way to manage without the person, and don't try to keep them once they've shown a desire to leave.
For all three parties, if you are struggling with this issue, reach out and get advice. You aren't the first person to go through this situation. It happens all the time and others who have lived through it can help you deal.
Fred Wilson is a partner at Union Square Ventures. He writes the influential A VC  , where this post was originally published.
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- People Ignore Twitter Search Results In Google
New eye-tracking studies reveal people are ignoring the Twitter search results being funneled into Google, the Guardian reports. Users eyes glance all over the page before landing on the streaming Twitter results.
So what's this mean?
- Maybe nothing. It's just an eye-tracking study. We're sure Google has its own metrics to test success.
- This could be a design flaw on Google's part that needs to be worked out.
- But, if this study indicates something greater -- like people aren't trusting Twitter search results -- it could throw a big wrench in Twitter's business plan, which is to copy Google's model with search ads.
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![Array[friend_loop]->user_displayname_short's Profile](./uploads_user/1000/90/0_7404.jpg)
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