Archive for: November 24, 2009

Just in time for the holidays, bargain site (and one of Our Favorite Blogs) Woot.com is language a new user-generated wing. deals.Woot is a social bookmarking version of the site that lets users vote and discuss deals.

Woot describes it thusly, "A place where wooters can share the latest intel about what's cheap and where. A way for savvy, opinionated wooters to turn their rhetorical fire on everybody else's deals for a change. An ever-flowing fountain of ecommerce champagne."

The top of the site is currently dictated by five "Sponsored Deals." The deals aren't chosen by the users (in this case, money talks), but the community can still comment.

RIM has unveiled BlackBerry Media Sync 3.0, a PC application that can sync photos in both directions in addition to music.

The new app lets users pull files and folders down from the PC to the BlackBerry, and optimize photos for the device along the way (allowing for more storage). It also lets users pull photos off the device, and pops up an alert whenever new pictures are detected.

As before, BlackBerry Media Sync also syncs playlists and random music lists, works with iTunes and Windows Media Player, and works with any recent, media-capable BlackBerry smartphone.

BlackBerry Media Sync 3.0 will be available for download beginning at 12:00 PM ET at www.blackberry.com/mediasync.

I always thought the whole identifying songs in a crowded bar feature was pretty cool, but now the folks at Shazam has another trick up their sleeve--fighting AIDS, Tuberculosis, and Malaria in Africa. Shazam today announced that it has become the first mobile app to join the (RED) campaign, joining companies like American Express, Apple, Bugaboo, Converse, Dell, Emporio Armani, Gap, Hallmark, and Starbucks.

The company will contribute 20 percent of the price of its new (Shazam) RED app to the fight against the aforementioned diseases. The app offers all of the same features as the new Shazam Encore. It's available now for $4.99 in the iTunes App Store.

Perform a Google Image search of Michelle Obama, and you'll get back a nasty little racist photoshop of the First Lady. Google pulled the image last week, on the grounds that its associated site violated malware policies. Now the image is back, but this time its accompanied by a special message from Google in the top of the Image Search AdSense.

The message reads, "Sometimes our search results can be offensive. We agree. Read more." Clicking on the message will reveal Google's search results policy, which states, in part,

The beliefs and preferences of those who work at Google, as well as the opinions of the general public, do not determine or impact our search results. Individual citizens and public interest groups do periodically urge us to remove particular links or otherwise adjust search results. Although Google reserves the right to address such requests individually, Google views the integrity of our search results as an extremely important priority.

Google has run the ad before. Entering "Jew" into the Image search box will bring up the message, as well.

A few weeks ago, I previewed Google Maps Navigation as part of the Android 2.0-powered Motorola Droid. The app still needs work--and it's still in beta--but it's the first completely free GPS app with voice prompts.

Now Google has announced that Google Maps Navigation is now available for Android 1.6 devices as well. That means anyone with a T-Mobile G1 or myTouch 3G can download the app (actually an updated version of Google Maps) for free.

As on the Droid, Google Maps Navigation offers voice guidance, automatic reroutes, plus several standout features. Those include 3D satellite views en route, as well as what amounts to the absolute best POI search system I've tested to date--namely, Google Search. It also features voice recognition that works. It can parse complex requests about current events, even if you don't know the appropriate venue. In other words, go download it in Android Market.

No word yet on availability for "forked" Android builds. That means Frankenstein 1.5 devices like the HTC Hero, Samsung Behold II, and Motorola CLIQ are still out of the luck for the time being.

A surge in live eBay listings took down the site's full search functionality Saturday, the auction site said in a statement. Service was restored by 5 P.M. Eastern time on Sunday. EBay said it will be issuing full credits for all items affected by the outage.

"The unanticipated technical issue resulted from a surge in live listings as sellers ramp[ed] up for the holiday season," eBay said in a statement. This "resulted in searches returning either limited or no results throughout the day" on Saturday.

EBay currently has more than 200 million live listings, a 33 percent increase from last year, the company said. The issue was "easily fixed and was implemented across the site's servers throughout Saturday afternoon and evening," eBay said.

EBay first restored core search functionality, keeping secondary search features temporarily offline, Lorrie Norrington, president of eBay Marketplaces, said in a separate statement. This included refining search by certain item specifics, such as color or clothing size, and having Store Inventory Format results included in the main search results. Those searches are now back online.

"We know this is a really busy time for sellers as you are ramping up your businesses for the holiday season, and we regret any potential impact that this technical issue may have had," Norrington said. "Please accept our sincere thanks for your patience."

"Rest assured that we will assess the economic impact of this issue and will be compensating sellers appropriately," she continued. "In the meantime, we will be issuing full fee credits for affected listings."

Eric Schmidt wasn't kidding about ramping up Google's small acquisitions. The search-engine giant announced Monday that it has acquired display ad company Teracent.

"Teracent's technology can pick and choose from literally thousands of creative elements of a display ad in real-time—tweaking images, products, messages or colors," Google said in a blog post. "These elements can be optimized depending on factors like geographic location, language, the content of the website, the time of day or the past performance of different ads."

Google displayed an ad for a Home Hardware store, which - when combined with Teracent technology - can show more detailed information, like specials on exact products, photos of those products, and location information.

"As you know, we've been busy releasing new features and products to help improve display advertising on the web for everyone. We believe that Teracent's technology fits neatly into these efforts," Google said, pointing to things like its DoubleClick Ad Exchange and Google Campaign Insights.

Get the rest of this post at pcmag.com.

The prosecution will not appeal the case of Lori Drew, a mother accused of concocting a MySpace hoax that resulted in the suicide of a 13-year-old girl.

A judge dismissed Drew's case, and the prosecution has decided not to appeal his decision, effectively ending the case, AP reports.

Drew, 50, was accused of creating a fake MySpace profile for a teenage boy and sending flirtatious messages to Megan Meier, an acquaintance of Drew's daughter. When the "boy" dumped Meier, she hanged herself. Drew was convicted of three misdemeanor counts of accessing computers without authorization, but Judge George Wu found that to be too vague and threw out the case.

Are you on medical leave for depression? You better make sure your Facebook profile doesn't show you having too much fun.

A Canadian woman lost the monthly sick-leave benefits she was receiving for depression after her insurance company said that Facebook photos of the woman on a beach and at her birthday party proved that she was no longer suffering from the disease, CBC News reports.

Nathalie Blanchard is an IBM employee in Quebec, but has been on leave for major depression for the past year. Her insurance company, Manulife, gained access to her profile pictures, however, and cut off her benefits in the fall.

Blanchard does not know how Manulife saw her Facebook profile since it is restricted to her friends. She said she attended the events in question at the suggestion of her doctor, and that she informed Manulife about her vacation.

"In the moment I'm happy, but before and after I have the same problems" as before, she told CBC.

Manulife confirmed that it uses social networking sites like Facebook to investigate claims, but said it "would not deny or terminate a valid claim solely based on information published on websites such as Facebook."

Blanchard is fighting to have the benefits reinstated.

LinkedIn formally launched its developer network Monday, and TweetDeck will be among the first to integrate the social networking site into its results. With the launch of the LinkedIn Platform, developers can now access the site's API and incorporate LinkedIn into their business apps and Web sites.

"At LinkedIn, we have always believed that business applications are better when they are built over a platform of professional reputation and relationships. In real life, our most valuable professional assets are the skills and experience we acquire and the trusted relationships we build," Adam Nash, vice president of search and platform products at LinkedIn, wrote in a blog post.

The upcoming version 0.32 of Twitter client TweetDeck will include LinkedIn capabilities, TweetDeck said Monday. Users will be able to add a LinkedIn column to the program and view updates that would normally be visible on the LinkedIn site.

"With the addition of Facebook and MySpace, TweetDeck has gradually gone from being just a great Twitter client to now being a true browser for the real-time web," Richard Barley, community manager for TweetDeck, wrote in a blog post. "With the addition of each new network it has become easier and easier to stay in touch with your social circle."

TweetDeck users can choose what updates they receive - status, Q&A, applications, groups, connections, profile, or recommendations. "And not only will you see updates from your network, but of course you will be able send status updates, add comments to status updates and view LinkedIn profiles within TweetDeck," Barley wrote.

Barley expects version 0.32 to be available "very soon."

To develop for the platform, fill out an application on the developer.linked.com site.

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Roku this morning announced the addition of the Roku Channel Store, compatible with its line of streaming media players, including Roku SD, Roku HD and Roku HD-XR models. The Channel Store lets users stream content to their television including Pandora, Facebook Photos, Revision3, Mediafly, TWiT, blip.tv, Flickr, FrameChannel, Motionbox and MobileTribe.

Ten content partners have been announced thus far, in addition to the existing content partners, Netflix, Amazon Video On-Demand, and MLB.TV. More are partners are coming soon.

Interested parties can also create their own channels for the service by utilizing Roku's software development kit. The Channel Store is available as a free upgrade to all existing Roku customers.

As if underpowered cell phones, expensive data plans, and clogged 3G data networks weren't enough to turn people off from cell phone shopping, you can now add slow mobile sites to the list.

Web research firm Gomez has issued a report comparing mobile site speeds for over a dozen large retailers ahead of the holiday shopping season, as MediaPost reports. Sitting at the top (and probably as expected), Amazon's mobile site loads the quickest at just 2.8 seconds. QVC, Newegg, Overstock, and Best Buy all scored above average as well, with each one loading in 3.4 seconds or less.

Then again, this all depends on your definition of slow. On the other end of the scale, Target, Sears, and Buy.com took between six and seven seconds to load. Four extra seconds sounds like a whole lot of nothing. But an earlier study found that users expect lightweight mobile sites to load as fast or even faster than their desktop counterparts, and that "slow load times" were the chief complaint of mobile Web users.

Note: the Amazon Mobile for iPhone graphic is just for illustration purposes, as the study compared mobile WAP sites, not native smartphone apps.