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With 80 million members, LinkedIn is steadily growing as the go-to professional social network. And as the company reportedly readies for an IPO within the next year, all eyes are on LinkedIn to see if the company can scale. Today, Michael Arrington sat down with LinkedIn ‘s CEO Jeff Weiner, a former longtime employee at Yahoo, about plans for an IPO, future strategy plans, and more.
Weiner was mum about taking the company public, saying that an IPO is just one way that would allow LinkedIn to achieve long term goals. Weiner, who was formerly the Executive Vice President of Yahoo’s Network Division, did elaborate on his beliefs of where the internet is today and what the future potential of his former employer, Yahoo.
He believes that currently, there are three waves of disruption on the internet. The first was the portal, connecting users to other information on the web, which is something that Yahoo was able to play a key role in. The second wave involved search, which was clearly led by Google, whose algorithm was a key disrupter. But there isn’t as much of an element of serendipity in search. Which is where the third wave comes in-social. Weiner says that building networks with the ability to share relevant information and knowledge is a key way to show relevancy.
In the future, there are three things that will be essential in delivering an optimal media experience: 1. the ability to leverage a search operating system; 2. the ability to leverage a social graph. 3. the ability to provide variation and recommendations. Weiner says the the company that takes the lead on these three things will defines the next wave on innovation on the web.
When Arrington asked Weiner what he thought of Yahoo CEO Carl Bart’z performance, Weiner said that it’s difficult to understand the challenges or restraints of a company unless you’ve been in the hot seat. But he added, Yahoo isn’t dead. Yahoo is in unique position, says Weiner, because they have access to all waves— a portal of information, search, and social relevancy. Yahoo is in a position to do for browsing what Google did for search, claims Weiner.
Perhaps that statement will help Yahoo figure out what it is?
Here is my backstage interview with Weiner:
Information provided by CrunchBase
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Last month, we noted that PayPal would soon launch a new version of their iPhone app that would be more check-friendly. That app should be released in the next day or so, PayPal’s Laura Chambers revealed on stage today at our TechCrunch Disrupt conference in San Francisco.
On a panel alongside Keith Rabois from Square and Holger Luedorf from Foursquare, Chambers said that this new app will allow you to take a picture of the front and back of a check with your iPhone camera, and it will be added to your PayPal balance.
Such functionality has been explored by some banks already, and it’s a very useful technology. Chambers notes that the ability to do this actually stemmed from the terrorist attacks of 9/11 nine years ago when much of the infrastructure of the U.S. was either shut down on purpose or was struggling under the weight of demand. The U.S. then started to pass legislation to make things like this possible. Such a system allows you to easily transfer money under a variety of situations, obviously.
Of course, as Rabois noted, Square is trying to go one level beyond that and get rid of checks entirely. That would be even more convenient.
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In terms of blog networks, no one ever seems to talk about Google, but they actually have one of the biggest. The search giant has well over 100 blogs devoted to everything from general company news to niche things that only webmasters will care about. And with over 100 different blogs pumping out a wide variety of content, it can be hard to keep up with all the Google news. That’s why Google has created Google New.
Google New, not to be confused with Google News, their news aggregation property (which turned 8 today, coincidentally), is a landing page that gives you a quick overview of the latest news from all the various Google blogs. The default view is to show snippets from the latest blog posts in reverse chronological order, but you can also tailor the experience to be just about things you actually care about. At the top of the page is a big area that allows Google to showcase something particularly newsworth — in this case, Google Instant.
In their blog post about Google New today, Google notes that this was a 20 percent project that a few Googlers worked on to better showcase what the company is doing as a whole. You can hear more of their perspective in the video below.
Given the rate of new products Google has been pumping out recently, I’m already wondering how long it will be until we need a New Google New.
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I wouldn’t even say they announced it. Apparently Michael Dell just casually mentioned it at Oracle-related conference. Of course, we already knew there would be larger versions of the streak. What I don’t understand is why they released the tiny version first, and not a larger version with wider appeal?
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Google has consistently offered consumers useful ways to interact with election and politics online including “In Quotes,” maps of where to vote, and town hall meetings on YouTube. Today, the search giant is helping you see where the balance of power lies between Republicans and Democrats in the House, Senate and Governor races across the U.S.
As midterm elections draws near (Nov. 2), Google has published an interactive map that tracks blues and reds across the the 500 seats up for grabs in the U.S. Google is mashing up data from various political publications, including Cook, Rothenberg, CQ-Roll Call and RealClearPolitics.
You can filter information by state, type of race (senate, governor, house), and by source. For example, for California, Rothenberg Political Report indicates that the governor election is a toss-up and slight tilt towards the GOP. Google says that data is refreshed daily based on the latest ratings from the publications. You can also embed maps as a gadget, which is powered by Fusion Tables.
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, which enables you to store and manage all your health information in one place on the Web, is getting a much-needed redesign
and feature upgrade today. And Google, which launched Google Health in 2008, has partnered with popular mobile health app CardioTrainer
and personal health and wellness monitoring device Fitbit
to integrate data from these applications into your Health profile.
Via a new dashboard, Google Health will now organize all of your health and wellness (i.e. fitness) information in one place. The new platform will give provide graphs on your progress with weight loss goals, and you’ll be able to create custom trackers for wellness issues like dietary habits, daily sleep, frequency of exercise, pregnancy or even how many cups of coffee you drink a day.
Additionally, you’ll be able to now keep a journal on progress for wellness goals for health conditions. And Google is upgrading content integration for Google Health, allowing users to access content links for each medical condition, medication or lab result users input in their Google Health profile. Past medical history or conditions can be easily removed as well.
And Google is partnering with TechCrunch50 startup Fitbit, which develops a wearable device that captures health and wellness data such as steps taken, calories burned and sleep quality; and CardioTrainer, a mobile app for tracking fitness activity and weight loss, to integrate this data into your Google Health profile.
Google says that in the two weeks since CardioTrainer’s integration went live, the app’s developer WorkSmart Labs says that users uploaded more than 150,000 workouts to Google Health. This data can then be mashed up with medical data that users input to Google Health.
Of course, one the keys to the overall success of Google Health are partnerships with insurance companies and hospitals to make data more available to consumers. As of last Fall, Google Health still needed to sign up hundreds of insurers in the U.S. Today, Google is announcing relationships with the Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital at Stanford, University of Pittsburgh Medical Center (UPMC) and Sharp HealthCare. Last year, Google announced a partnership with CVS to import prescription data into the platform.
Company: Website: google.com/health Launch Date: May 19, 2008 Google Health takes users’ medical records and brings them online. Users make personal profiles and add their medical info such as conditions, medications, allergies, procedures, test results, and immunizations. Additionally users can import… Learn More
Information provided by CrunchBase
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Microsoft To Fix 13 Flaws In Windows, Office, IIS For Tuesday Release
By Stefanie Hoffman, CRN 8:15 PM EST Thu. Sep. 09, 2010Microsoft plans on issuing a "wide load" security update for its upcoming Patch Tuesday release, incorporating nine bulletins that address 13 vulnerabilities.
The upcoming Microsoft security update addresses four flaws Microsoft designated with the highest severity ranking of "critical," while the rest are all ranked with the slightly less severe rating of "important."
The critical patches address security vulnerabilities in Windows XP, Windows 2003 and Vista, Internet Information Services (IIS) and Microsoft Office, while glitches in Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2 are primarily covered by updates deemed "important."
Security experts say that there is a strong possibility that the impending bulletins will address some of the recent DLL hijacking issues actively exploited in Microsoft's products with a revised guidance for Hotfix.
"Currently it is the only at the advisory level and users have to make an active decision to get protection against DLL hijacking in third party applications," said Wolfgang Kandek, Qualys chief technology officer, in a blog post.
Last month was the first in which Microsoft completely cut off support for Windows XP SP2, but the majority of updates of XP SP3 also can still be applied to the discontinued version.
However, that won't always be the case. "Windows XP SP2 users should upgrade to SP3 as quickly as possible," Kandek said.
Remember to get your updates.
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At first glance, the stats from free text messaging startup GOGII and its textPlus application sound like they’re too big by an order of magnitude: 3.7 billion messages sent since June 2009. 8.5 million downloads. 23 million phone numbers in the network. But they’re real, and they’re a big business. Today the company is launching two new features that make the textPlus experience even richer, with support for sending images and a nifty new feature called ‘Face Text’.
The first feature is self-explanatory: you can attach images to your outbound text messages and send them for free. The second feature, called Face Text, is related, but it comes with a twist. Upon activating the feature, textPlus will take a photo using your phone’s front-facing camera whenever you hit the send button, allowing you to quickly attach facial expressions whenever you send a message (think of it as emoticons meeting the photo booth — see the screenshot above). You can turn it off and there’s a countdown timer so the feature should never surprise you, and I suspect that the teenage audience that absolutely loves these apps will eat this up.
GOGII is one of a new breed of startup building on the relatively ancient and ubiquitous technology of text messaging. They compete with Pinger’s TextFree, which we wrote about last week and has similarly massive stats, and both companies have grown by leaps and bounds in the last year (interestingly, both Pinger and GOGII are part of the Kleiner Perkins iFund).
GOGII’s textPlus shares at least one major feature in common with Pinger’s TextFree: it allows you to send unlimited free text messages to your friends. But textPlus has a few differences. For one, it doesn’t give you a new unique phone number like TextFree does — instead you’ll have to message your friend’s username to the GOGII shortcode (users will be able to get their own phone numbers in the near future).
Another key differences lies in the community nature of textPlus, which TextFree doesn’t offer yet. The service effectively brings chat rooms to the mobile phone — fire up the app and you can create or join a chat room about, say, skateboarding, which behaves a lot like the AOL chat rooms of yore (around 500,000 communities have been created so far). But you can also elect to receive push notifications whenever there’s a new message, which turns into a powerful tool when you combine the feature with a private community. GOGII says that many people create private communities for their families or sports teams, which can be powerful for staying in touch with a small group: when a member of these private communities sends a chat message, it gets immediately relayed to everyone else in the community.
Website: textplus.gogii.com Founded: December, 2007 Funding: $13.3M GOGII is Next Generation Texting.
Not new to mobile, the team previously founded and built industry leader JAMDAT Mobile, delivering a world of fun and games to mobile phones around the globe.
Part of the Kleiner Perkins iFund, GOGII is the… Learn More
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Google just made it easier for people with Yahoo accounts to sign up for a Google account. With one click, you can now use your Yahoo credentials to sign up for a Google account such as Gmail, Google Docs, Google Reader, or even AdWords. The one-click sign-up is done using OpenID, which both Google and Yahoo support. It also uses the OAuth authentication method quickly becoming the standard across the Web (it is the same one Twitter uses with third party apps and sites).
The idea is that instead of signing in with your Yahoo ID, and then clicking off to your Yahoo mail to click on a verification link, a button just takes you to a sign-in page on Yahoo, which verifies your account to Google, and then sends you back. It is a much more civilized way to sign into a site using an existing ID. Google first combined OpenID and OAuth back in January, 2009 with Plaxo on a test basis.
It is trying this method out with Yahoo first, and hopes to expand it to other OpenID partners such as Microsoft. The one-click method results in more people completing the sign-up process. If you don’t already have a Google ID, chances are you have a Yahoo or Microsoft one, so targeting users from those two makes sense. (Both Yahoo Mail and Hotmail still have more users than Gmail).
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Google really did just change the game in search today with the introduction of Google Instant. While Google execs at today’s event emphasized how much faster it makes search, Google Instant is really about showing you more search results. And this will have very interesting implications for consumers expectations of what they want from search, search market share, and how sites try to game search through SEO tactics.
Google Instant turns search into a realtime stream of results which flow onto your screen as you type your query. With each letter you type, a whole new set of results flash by. This is important for several reasons. First and foremost, you will now see many more search results than you would have otherwise. Most people never click through to the second page of search results. If it is not in the first ten blue links (or really the first five or six), it might as well not exist for most people. With Google Instant search, instead of people seeing only ten results, they may now see 50 or 100 (depending on how many letters they type and how far they get through each search query).
Google just found a way to jack up the number of search results you see by doing nothing more than type in a word or two like you always do. Most people can scan results visually and can absorb a lot more information if it is streamed to them in this fashion rather than having to manually click through to see more results. If people get used to this, it will put pressure on Bing and other search engines to quickly follow suit. People go to the search engines whether they can find things more quickly. (Google Instant is already turned on for some people and will roll out throughout the day. If you go to Google’s main search page you can see how it works.)
Which brings us to the whole issue of search market share. Currently, market research firms such as comScore count search market share by the number of queries and search results each engine delivers. Search engines like Yahoo and Bing have been juicing these numbers recently by adding search results to other parts of their sites such as slideshows and news. But now how do you count a query when each letter brings up different results. Google dominates search market share as it is currently measured, and now it just changed the game. Counting queries is now completely outdated.
SEO (Search engine optimization) will change as well. Sites will need to optimize for particular letter combinations, not just entire keywords. It will be interesting to see whether results get spammed or if Google will gain the upperhand in this constant cat and mouse game.
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Earlier today, Google launched a new feature that could fundamentally change the way people go about searching the web: Google Instant. The feature, which is rolling out now, shows results for your search queries as soon as you begin typing them — oftentimes you’ll have the information you were looking for before you’re even finished typing your query. You can see our full coverage on the launch here.
Such a major change will impact the way people conduct their searches, and that will lead to repercussions for the search ecosystem. Steve Rubel says that it will make Search Engine Optimization (SEO) — the dark magic that helps websites appear higher in search results — totally irrelevant. Now Matt Cutts, the longtime Googler who is in charge of Google’s webspam team and often speaks publicly about SEO issues, has weighed in on how he thinks things will change. And change, they will.
Here’s one key passage from his blog post:
Q: Will Google Instant change search engine optimization?
A: I think over time it might. The search results will remain the same for a query, but it’s possible that people will learn to search differently over time. For example, I was recently researching a congressperson. With Google Instant, it was more visible to me that this congressperson had proposed an energy plan, so I refined my search to learn more, and quickly found myself reading a post on the congressperson’s blog that had been on page 2 of the search results.
Cutts goes on to further discuss this tendency to continuously refine your search queries — a concept that came up during this morning’s announcement. On ‘old’ Google, most users run a search query then browse through a page or two of results to see if they find what they’re looking for. With Google Instant, it’s more common for them to quickly tweak their query on the fly, or to flip through the suggested results by simply hitting the arrow keys. That change is important — it may make it even less likely that a user will see your site if it’s listed at the bottom of the results page, or a page or two deep.
But Cutts goes on to say that this doesn’t mean SEO is dead:
I’ve said it before, but SEO is in many ways about change. The best SEOs recognize, adapt, and even flourish when changes happen.
Also worth noting: Google Instant will have an impact on advertisers as well. Before now, it was straightforward to measure an ad impression — the user ran a query, and your ad either showed up on the page or it didn’t. But because of the constantly updating nature of Google Instant, ads will now often appear for a fraction of a second. To account for this Google is changing the way it measures impressions (it only counts if the user hits the ‘Enter’ key to complete their query, looks at the page for over three seconds, or they click on a link from the results page). But Google is also preemptively warning advertisers to expect some fluctuations:
With this change, you might notice some fluctuations in AdWords impression volume and traffic for organic keywords. For example, you may find that certain keywords receive significantly more or fewer impressions moving forward.
We’ll have more on these issues, including an interview with Google VP of Search Product and User Experience Marissa Mayer, later this afternoon.
Information provided by CrunchBase
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Filed under: Utilities, Windows
Free app lets you add and remove entries from your Send To menu
by Lee Mathews (RSS feed) Sep 7th 2010 at 11:00AM
The Windows Send To menu can be incredibly useful. I most often use it to zap files to a USB flash drive, but it's also handy for emailing files and quickly burning files to CD (say, when I'm helping the RCMP retrieve video footage from surveillance DVRs).Still, it could be more useful if I was able to remove a few items and add some additional folder locations. Send To Toys is up to the task. Once installed, you can configure entries via the STT's control panel applet. Use it to add additional folder locations, remove unwanted entries (Fax recipient? Gone!), and configure folder and clipboard Send To options.
Send To Toys can also handle a default email recipient (and CC and BCC) and prefill both the subject and message body.
Be sure to pay attention during the install process -- by default, STT adds a number of entries to the Send To menu. You can, of course, always remove them later using the app itself!
Tags: context, menu, productivity, right click, RightClick, send to, SendTo, shell, windows
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This weekend, I’ve been catching up on some reading. One post that was of particular interest to me was David Beach’s article from last week about developing for Android. Beach, who is a product manager at eBay Mobile and a co-founder of 12seconds, basically says that the experience sucks for a number of reasons (all of which Google can fix, but will take quite a bit of work and time). But one quote in particular stuck out to me:
Android has succeeded despite Google. In fact it’s safe to say that Android is successful for one primary reason. The iPhone is only available on AT&T. If the iPhone was on Verizon a year ago. Android would be no where near as popular.
Obviously, Beach isn’t the first person to bring this idea up. But he brings it up in a way that he’s able to back-up his feelings from a developers’ perspective, while at the same time roping in what isn’t ideal from a consumer perspective about Android as well.
This is going to sound like flame bait, and everyone knows that I love the iPhone — but I have to agree with Beach. I’ve used no less than six Android phones for extended periods of time over the past couple of years. I really am trying to like them. But I just can’t.
Now, don’t get me wrong, almost all Android phones are a million times better than the phones we had just a few years ago before the iPhone burst onto the scene. And if the iPhone didn’t exist, there is no question that I would use an Android phone and would probably be very happy with it. But the iPhone does exist. And I simply can’t bring myself to use an Android phone when I know a superior device is out there. That’s my only requirement for me to use a product: it has to be the best.
The only valid argument I can see for the iPhone not being the best is the AT&T requirement. So let’s put that aside for a second.
While I obviously understand that people have different tastes, I can’t see how you can objectively say that the overall experience of using an Android phone isn’t worse than using an iPhone. There are a dozen or more elements that are better about the iPhone. Everything from the big: the App Store versus the Android Market (from the consumer perspective) — to the little: the multi-touch and overall touchscreen responsiveness.
Even the most diehard Android loyalists I know (like Jason and Mike) will readily admit that the iPhone offers a better user experience. So why do they love Android (again, besides the lack of AT&T requirement)? The openness. They hate that you can’t get Google Voice on the iPhone (I hate it too). And in general they hate Apple’s restrictive policies for the App Store (which I don’t like either). But those are problems that most regular consumers don’t think about — or realize exist at all.
Instead, like Beach says, the thing some consumers don’t like about the iPhone is that it’s AT&T only (in the U.S., obviously). Even if you live in an area where AT&T doesn’t absolutely suck, having no choice of carriers is a big restriction. People have work plans, family plans, etc, etc, that they just can’t switch. Or they don’t want to.
If the iPhone was on Verizon (which is a larger network, remember), is there any question that it would be selling at least double the amount of units it is right now in the U.S.? I don’t think so. What if it was available on all the networks? And what would happen to Android sales if that was the case? That is the big question here.
Next year, it’s looking increasingly likely that we’ll get at least a partial answer. If the iPhone is available on Verizon or even just T-Mobile, will the pace of Android sales slow down in the U.S.?
I know a number of people who are Android users simply because of the iPhone/AT&T restriction. If and when the devices comes to Verizon, they will jump ship. The big question is: will millions of others follow? Or, perhaps more importantly, will millions of new users that would have gone with Android now go with iPhone?
I’m seriously curious to know why you like Android over the iPhone if you do. Is it because of the openness ideal? Is it the variety of devices? Is it the variety of carrier choices? Or is it something else?
The Market is a mess, the media situation is arguably worse, and the user experience is still just off when compared to the iPhone. Google is working on improving all of those things, but Apple is rock solid in all of those areas right now. Both sides will keep improving, but Google’s problem is that Apple is ahead and has remained ahead. Can Google surpass them? I’m just not sure I can see how unless Apple regresses — which they’ve shown no signs of doing. What I can see is a Verizon iPhone. And so do plenty of others.
Apple and Google are in the midst of a PR war for who is activating more devices each day. Google is doing 200,000 a day. Apple is doing 230,000 a day. But Apple says Google’s numbers may include upgrades. Google says Apple is wrong. This will go on and on.
It’s great that there is competition in the market right now. But would it be as fierce in the U.S. if it weren’t for the AT&T situation? Would most people just be using an iPhone? Beach states it as a fact, but I don’t think it’s an unreasonable question to consider. And it’s something I’m sure Google is considering as the Verizon iPhone approaches.
[photo: flickr/laihiu]
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Plex is about to get big. The offshoot of the XBMC project just announced that LG will be using its media platform in upcoming Netcast HDTVs and Blu-ray players, in turn, making these devices about the best media streamers imaginable — even better than the upcoming Boxee Box or just-refreshed Apple TV.
After all, Plex already works with Netflix, Hulu, BBC’s iPlayer, and supports playback of just about every media format ever created via the best interface in the business. There’s even an iOS remote viewing app coming soon. Forget about having an extra box sitting on your TV stand just to stream random content, it’s going to be built into your HDTV. Welcome to the future, ladies and gentleman.
What in the world does this mean you ask? It means buy stock in LG right now because the ease of use and possibly the end of that cable/dish bill is on the horizon.
We all know Google Music is coming, it’s just a question of when – and what it’ll look like, of course. According to Reuters
, Google hopes to launch the service as early as December 2010.
Citing unnamed ‘people familiar with the matter’, Reuters says Google’s VP of Engineering Andy Rubin
(which we likened to a Steve Jobs-caliber product fanatic in the past) is spearheading talks with music labels on plans for a digital music download store and cloud-based song locker service, which he hopes will see the light of day before year’s end.
Only thing that could get in the way of a pre-Christmas debut: the company has yet to sign a single licensing deal with the music labels, those same sources told Reuters.
It’ll be interesting to see if Google can get some of those deals signed in time for the launch of Android 3.0
, code-named Gingerbread
, which is expected to come in the fourth quarter of this year. Perhaps writing Santa a letter will help?
We recently broke the news that Google had hired well known music attorney Elizabeth Moody to assist them with negotiations with music labels and other rights holders for their upcoming iTunes rival. Needless to say, such negotiations aren’t exactly a walk in the park.
Each major label has different goals and strategies for digital music, and people in the know we’ve spoken to in the past say it’s nearly impossible to get them to agree to terms that will make a streaming music service viable. In particular, they tend to disagree over how long a free trial period might last, and whether or not a credit card from the user needs to be on file before the trial starts.
That’s not to say the industry isn’t excited
about Google’s imminent entry into the digital music arena. As good as Apple’s iTunes
, which just got a new, social-network enhanced version with the launch of iTunes 10 earlier this week, has been for them, executives at the major music labels have long considered Apple’s immense stronghold in the field an issue.
Surely, they welcome competition from a rival the size and reach of Google, as the iTunes Music Store has cemented itself the king of the hill over the years, accounting for approximately 70 percent of all digital music sales in the United States. Dependence on a single player isn’t exactly the industry’s vision of a bright future.
One label executive, who asked not to be named, told Reuters as much:
“Finally here’s an entity with the reach, resources and wherewithal to take on iTunes as a formidable competitor by tying it into search and Android mobile platform. What you’ll have is a very powerful player in the market that’s good for the music business.”
Another unnamed label executive expressed more caution despite his or her optimism, stating that Google lacks a track record in “selling stuff” (which is true).
It’s also worth questioning if Google’s entry in the digital music space leaves much breathing room for smaller, innovative startups to compete and maintain viable relationships with the music industry.
With Apple, Google and Amazon fighting for every penny, it’ll become even harder for the likes of Spotify
, Rdio
and MOG
than it has already been so far. Which, to be clear, isn’t to say none of them will thrive or attract sizeable audiences – I just wonder if they’ll be left battling for increasingly smaller pieces of the pie rather than grow into giants themselves.
Website: google.com Location: Mountain View, California, United States Founded: September 7, 1998 IPO: August 19, 2004 Google provides search and advertising services, which together aim to organize and monetize the world’s information. In addition to its dominant search engine, it offers a plethora of online tools and platforms including:… Learn More
Companies: Android, Apple, General Magic, WebTV, Danger, Google Andrew Rubin is a technology pioneer, co-founder and former CEO of both Danger Inc. and Android. He is currently VP of Mobile Platforms at Google, where he is reported to be overseeing the development of Android, an open-source operating system for… Learn More
Company: Apple iTunes, Apple’s digital media player application, was introduced in January 2001. The application allows you to organize and play your digital music and podcast files.
iTunes is available as a free download for Mac… Learn More
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Filed under: Security, Social Software, Facebook
Facebook adds remote logout feature
by Jay Hathaway (RSS feed) Sep 3rd 2010 at 9:00AM
If you're constantly forgetting to log out of Facebook when you use other people's computers or phones, Facebook's new remote logout feature is right up your alley. Under Account Settings (specifically, the Account Security section), you can now see a list of places where you're currently logged in, along with some info to help you determine whether each session is legitimate or unauthorized. And, of course, you also have the option to log any of those sessions out.Based on the approximate location (determined via IP address), the time the session started, and the browser and OS, you should be able to tell whether you just forgot to log out at work, or whether someone else has accessed your account. You can also sign up to be alerted via email or text when someone tries to log in from a device that you haven't registered with Facebook.
The service isn't available for everyone yet, but it's rolling out now, and it should reach you soon if you don't already have it.
[via PCMag]
Now that is a feature I can admire.
I can't believe that I now have Google's Priority Inbox on my google apps account.
That was incredibly quick. I am very impressed.This opens up a whole new world to those who are too busy to filter all of the mail that comes into their inbox. Google's Priority Inbox will do this for you as you can see. Now all I am waiting for is Google Voice from my Google app's account.
Joshua Garrett
Thanks to a partnership
with Vlingo
, owners of Android 2.0 or higher-equipped phones can now check in to Foursquare
and update their status on Facebook
and Twitter
simply by speaking into their phones.
To try it out, download the free Vlingo app
to your Android handset.
Using your voice, you can then update your location status on Foursquare by saying “check into Logan Airport”, locate your friends with commands like “where are my friends?” and “who’s nearby?” as well as send shout-outs to your buddies (e.g. “shout at Logan Airport waiting to board a plane to San Francisco”).
That’s not all though. The latest version of the Vlingo app also lets users share the service with their friends with the click of a button and also update their status on Facebook, Twitter and/or Foursquare at the same time by saying “social update” and speaking the message.
Previous Vlingo features remain, too: you can still use the app to send text and email messages, search the web, use Google maps and more.
As for BlackBerry, iPhone and Nokia S60 users – they’ll have to be patient for a while before they can start updating their status and locations with their voice.
Vlingo says it plans to roll out this functionality to other supported platforms in a future release but didn’t mention specific dates.
Do you consider voice-driven applications to be an ideal way to interact with mobile apps on your phone? Why (not)?
Website: vlingo.com Location: Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States Funding: $26.5M Cambridge-based Vlingo is trying to make voice enabling applications easier, by using their own speech-to-text J2ME/Brew application API (Windows/Symbian later this year). Using the API, developers will be able translate a user’s voice to text, and… Learn More
Website: foursquare.com Location: New York, New York, United States Founded: March 11, 2009 Funding: $21.4M Foursquare is a location based social network that incorporates gaming elements.
Users share their location with friends by “checking in” via a smartphone app or by text message. Points are awarded for checking in at various venues. Users can… Learn More
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That is awesome!
AOL CEO Tim Armstrong hinted that this was coming, but this morning Google and AOL announced
a five-year renewal of the search deal between the two companies. Google will continue to power search across AOL’s content network and properties. The partnership will be expanded to include mobile search and YouTube.
Armstrong said in a statement “Today is another important step in the turnaround of AOL…AOL users will be getting a better search and search ads experience from the best search company in the world – Google. After nearly a decade-long partnership in search, we’re looking forward to expanding our global relationship to mobile search and YouTube. All aspects of our partnership will be improved by this deal.”
As part of the agreement Google will power search across AOL’s networks, will provide AOL with ad formats, and will power mobile search. And AOL and YouTube have agreed to bring AOL’s video content to YouTube.
It’s a big win for Google, since Microsoft’s Bing was clearly after the deal as well. But Armstrong said in February that “distribution is almost as important to us as money, we will look for distribution as much as money in the deal.” Google sends massive traffic to AOL sites, which could have made it a more attractive partner than Bing. Of course, Bing isn’t lacking in its own deals-the search engine now counts Yahoo as a partner.
Website: google.com Location: Mountain View, California, United States Founded: September 7, 1998 IPO: August 19, 2004 Google provides search and advertising services, which together aim to organize and monetize the world’s information. In addition to its dominant search engine, it offers a plethora of online tools and platforms including:… Learn More
Website: aol.com Location: New York, New York, United States AOL is a global advertising-supported Web company, with display advertising network in the U.S., a substantial worldwide audience, and a suite of popular Web brands and products.
The company’s strategy focuses on increasing the scale and… Learn More
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Google continues domination
Gmail Priority Inbox puts messages into three groups: important, starred and regular, with the important appearing at the top and the regular at the bottom of the stack. The new feature essentially unlevels the e-mail playing field.
Here are three reasons Google's Gmail Priority Inbox will change the way we look at e-mail.
1. It sorts your Gmail for you. Through a series of filters and algorithms, Google's Priority Inbox in Gmail will push the most important messages to the top of the inbox. The filters predict which messages are the most important based on how often the sender sends e-mail messages and whose e-mails a user opens first and replies to, Google said. And the more users dive in, the better the filters will get, ultimately pushing the most important messages to the top.
2. Users can also set filters. While Google has set up its filters in Gmail Priority Inbox, Google knows it's not perfect. Users can also classify certain messages as important or not important and the system can learn from it. Users can click a plus or a minus button at the top of the inbox to mark a conversation or e-mail string as important or less important and Google will learn from that.
3. Users will have to wade through less junk. Junk e-mail stinks, plain and simple. Google's Gmail Priority Inbox will reduce the amount of junk mail Gmail users have to plow through by putting it way at the bottom. While an occasional junk e-mail purge may be necessary, unwanted or unneeded messages won't clutter up the space that could be better used for something more important.
Filed under: Windows, Microsoft
Microsoft bringing back three-license Windows 7 Family Pack
by Lee Mathews (RSS feed) Sep 1st 2010 at 9:00AM
People were pretty excited when Microsoft officially announced the Windows 7 Family Pack, and with licenses for three machines for $150, there was good reason for that excitement. Last year, the limited run was sold out within about six weeks -- leaving a lot of potential customers in the lurch.Don't fret! Assuming you didn't already go out and buy three licenses for your machines, you're going to get a second shot at the Pack. Yes, Microsoft is bringing back the Windows 7 Family Pack to celebrate the first anniversary of the Windows 7 launch on October 22nd.
Better news: this time, the deal will be available outside the U.S. as well. The lucky countries include Canada, the U.K., France, Germany, and Australia. Microsoft is leaving the door open a bit; other countries may still be added to the list.
As before, it's going to be a limited run, so make sure you grab a Pack as soon as you can.
If you don't have Windows 7 yet now is the time to get it. This is a very good price. Business Remedy will provide the Houston IT Support for you as well. Call us today 832-261-4113 or sign up online at http://BusinessRemedy.net
Whoa, this came out of left-field. Amazon just announced that its Video on demand service will be serving up $.99 ABC and Fox rentals just like Apple
wait, no, these are $.99 per episode — like you actually own the content rather than just having a short window to watch. Plus, it’s not just limited to one platform as Amazon Video on demand is widely available a bunch of products. This could be huge and might take some sales away from the new Apple TV
.
Facebook is in what’s called a recruiting sweet spot right now. Out of control growth in users and revenue and a nearly certain IPO run in the near future. That’s when employee growth expands at the greatest rate for a company as it grows from hundreds to thousands and then tens of thousands of employees. And with low priced private stock as currency, companies in that position can generally get anyone they want.
Yahoo of course does more than its fair share of feeding the beast, but they’re everyone’s favorite recruiting pool right now. But plenty of Googler’s are heading to Facebook, too – LinkedIn is tracking 118 of them to date. For some Googlers, it’s paying off just to go get an offer from Facebook and then tell their employer – a counter offer is almost sure to come, and it may be stratospheric.
One recent Googler, we’ve confirmed, was recently offered a counter offer he couldn’t refuse (except he did). He was offered a 15% raise on his $150,000 mid level developer salary, quadruple the stock benefits and…wait for it…a $500,000 cash bonus to stay for a year. He took the Facebook offer anyway.
Sources close to Google tell us that about 80% of people stay when they’re offered a counter to a Facebook offer. But some still leave. Part of that may be that Facebook is quietly telling people, never in writing, that there’s no reason their stock won’t hit $100 billion in total valuation over the next couple of years. No guarantees, yadda yadda, but hey if you get 1/10 of 1%, that’s $100 million in stock. Now it’s a party.
Google isn’t making these kind of counter offers to everyone, but it’s not a one off, either. It seems to me that every Google engineer at least should be taking a personal day to go collect a Facebook offer. Even if it’s just to get a counter offer from their current employer.
Art: Audrey Fukuman
Website: facebook.com Location: Palo Alto, California, United States Founded: February 1, 2004 Funding: $836M Facebook is the world’s largest social network, with over 500 million users.
Facebook was founded by… Learn More
Website: google.com Location: Mountain View, California, United States Founded: September 7, 1998 IPO: August 19, 2004 Google provides search and advertising services, which together aim to organize and monetize the world’s information. In addition to its dominant search engine, it offers a plethora of online tools and platforms including:… Learn More
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Amazing!!
